Starcad's loathing for a smith recalls the mockery with which the Homeric gods treat Hephaistos.
Slavery .-- As noble birth is manifest by fine eyes and personal beauty, courage and endurance, and delicate behaviour, so the slave nature is manifested by cowardice, treachery, unbridled lust, bad manners, falsehood, and low physical traits.

Slaves had, of course, no right either of honour, or life, or limb.

Captive ladies are sent to a brothel; captive kings cruelly put to death.

Born slaves were naturally still less considered, they were flogged; it was disgraceful to kill them with honourable steel; to accept a slight service from a slave-woman was beneath old Starcad's dignity.

A man who loved another man's slave-woman, and did base service to her master to obtain her as his consort, was looked down on.