Note 757 — EPISTLE TO PHILEMON.
Reading edition
It must not however be forgotten that, even before Christianity became the predominant religion, a more humane spirit had entered into Roman legislation. The important enactment of Hadrian has been already mentioned, p. 387, note 746. Even earlier the lex Petronia (of which the date is uncertain) had prohibited masters from making their slaves fight with wild beasts in mere caprice and without an order from a judge (Dig. xlviii. 8. 11); and Claudius (A.D. 47), finding that the practice of turning out sick slaves into the streets to die was on the increase, ordered that those who survived this treatment should have their freedom (Dion Cass. lx. 29, Suet. Claud. 25). For these and similar enactments of the heathen emperors see Wallon III. p. 60 sq., Röm. Alterth. V. I. 197, Rein Privatrecht d. Römer p. 560 sq. The character of this exceptional legislation is the strongest impeachment of the general cruelty of the law; while at the same time subsequent notices show how very far from effective it was even within its own narrow limits. See for instance the passage in Galen, v. p. 17 (ed. Kühn) λακτίζουσι καὶ τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς ἐξορύττουσι καὶ γραφέιῳ κεντοῦσιν κ.τ.λ. (comp. ib. p. 584), or Seneca de Ira iii. 3. 6 ‘eculei et fidiculæ et ergastula et cruces et circundati defossis corporibus ignes et cadavera quoque trahens uncus, varia vinculorum genera, varia pœnarum, lacerationes membrorum, inscriptiones frontis et bestiarum immanium caveæ.’
On the causes of these ameliorations in the law see Röm. Alterth. V. 1. p. 199.