Note 572 — BOOK VIII.

'Praesto sunt pueri ac puellae, diverso sexu atque aetate conspicuo, quos non facit captivitas esse sub pretio sed libertas: hos merito parentes vendunt, quoniam de ipsa famulatione proficiunt. Dubium quippe non est servos posse meliorari qui de labore agrorum ad urbana servitia transferuntur.' With almost any writer but Cassiodorus this would prove that in the Sixth Century free Italians were selling their children into actual slavery. But I doubt whether he really means more than that the children of the country people were for hire as domestic servants in the cities. If so, the scene is not unlike our own 'statute fairs' or 'hirings' in the north of England. It appears from § 94 of the Edictum Theodorici that parents could sell their children, but that the latter did not lose their status ingenuus. Must they then claim it on coming of age? 'Parentes qui cogente necessitate filios suos alimentorum gratia vendiderint ingenuitati eorum non praejudicant. Homo enim liber pretio nullo aestimatur.' Cf. also § 95: 'Operas enim tantum parentes filiorum quos in potestate habuerint, locare possunt.'