fuperannuated flaves. He gives it as a (landing precept to a m after vifiting his farm, to fell his old oxen, old waggons, old tools, old and djieafed fervants, and every thing elfe become ufelefs. * Vendat boves ve- tulos, plauftrum vetus, feramenta vetera, fervum fenem, fervum morbofum, & fi quid aliud fuperfit vendat.' Cato de re ruftica. c. 2. The American flaves cannot enumerate this among the injuries and in- fults they receive. It was the common pradlice to expofe in the ifland iEfculapius, in the Tyber, difeafed flaves, whofe cure was like to become tedious*. The em- peror Claudius, by an edift, gave freedom to fuch of them as Ihould recover, and firft declared that if any perfon chofe to kill rather than expofe them, it fliould be deemed homicide. The expofing them is a crime of which no inftance has exiited * Suet. Claud. 25.
with US; and were it to be followed by death, it would be punifhed capitally. We are told of a certain Vedius Pollio, who, in the prefence of Auguftus, would fiave given a flave as food to his filh, for having broken a glafs. With the Romans, the regular method of taking the evidence of their flaves was under torture. Here it has been thought better never to