ABSTRACT
About thirty years before our era, Octavian, then about thirty years old, took over that indescribable welter of corruption and misgovernment which was the Roman world. Yet over the whole of this world, even to the farthest corners, were scattered those whom the Romans called servi, and are unfortunately called as ‘slaves’. The change from enslavement without the Empire to enslavement within the Empire, and from enslavement by capture to enslavement by birth, is of the utmost importance, and has far-reaching effects both upon the history of slavery and the history of the Empire. The making of slaves is taking place in the heart of the city and in the home; it ceases to be the triumphal retribution upon foes, and so loses much of its prima facie justification; it becomes commonest not where are strife and bloodshed, but where peace and kindliness flourish most.
