De Virtutibus

"And if," the lawgiver proceeds to say, "one who has been a slave of another for three generations, from fear of the threats of his master, or from a consciousness of having committed some offence, or, if he has committed no offence at all but has a savage and inhuman master, flees for refuge to some one else, in the hope to obtain assistance from him, do not reject him; for it is not consistent with holiness to abandon a suppliant, and even a slave is a suppliant, inasmuch as he has taken refuge on thy hearth, where it is fitting that he should find an asylum, especially if without any guile he has come to offer honest service. And if he cannot obtain this protection, at all events let him be sold to some one else; for it is uncertain what may be the effect of his change of masters, and an uncertain evil is easier to bear than a confessed one."

These, then, are the ordinances which he appoints to be observed concerning one’s own relations, and strangers, and friends, and enemies, and slaves, and free men, and in short respecting the whole of the human race. And moreover, he extends his principles of humanity and compassion even to

for in the case of domestic animals, with reference to flocks of sheep, and of goats, and herds of oxen, he commands the people to abstain from using of those animals which are just born, or from taking them either for food or under pretence of sacrificing them. [*]( Exodus xxiii. 19.) For he looked upon it as a proof of a cruel disposition to plot against such creatures the moment they are born, so as to cause an immediate separation between the offspring and the mother, for the sake of the pleasures of the belly, or rather on account of some absurd and preposterous unpleasantness which the soul fancies.