and shame makes them hate work. Praise and blame are more suitable for freeborn children than whips and rods.
Rome had borrowed this method of treating slaves from Greece. According to Petronius, the following notice could be seen on the fronts of certain houses: 'Slaves who leave this house without permission will receive one hundred lashes.'
The least impatience of the mistress, or the least fault of the female-slave sufficed to get the latter hung up by the hair and lashed till the blood came. The picture which Juvenal, Sat. vi, has left of these scenes is simply revolting. This practice was so common that, in his Art of Love, Ovid recommends women not to give way to anger in the presence of the lover who is watching them at their toilet. Many of them, indeed, had the rather unhappy habit of choosing this moment for beating and biting their slaves, or sticking hairpins in their breasts. And let us not forget that these pins were seven or eight inches long. Flogging must have seemed very mild alongside such a martyrdom, and we are no longer astonished that the satirical Horace thanks his teacher Orbilius for having
