http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/slavery_05.shtml
Whats interesting about this is that Rome had laws that made slavery overt and outright..here it seems that it is covert or clandestine and always denied and deniable.
The only thing bad about this piece is that the Brit who must've written it lets on to being typically Brit by stating that :
"The great orator Cicero can be heard grumbling in his correspondence about a slave named Dionysius, who was well-educated enough to have supervised Cicero's personal library and who must have been relatively well-treated. He ran away anyway. Cicero used all his considerable influence to find the man, but to no avail: Dionysius slipped away across the Adriatic and is last heard of well out of Cicero's reach - somewhere in the Balkans."
OK then....we dont KNOW that he was treated well, that is just an assumption...most of all its so arrogant and blind to not realize that a person who is more educated and who is held captive would be MORE apt to be unhappy due to the fact he might have been talented or very intelligent-thus his ability to manage a library.
This very attitude is one that is still prevalent and it stings, ever so subtley, of a western culture that disregards human beings living in bondage or slavery as harmful to humanity...as long as conditions are good?? Give it the f*ck up.
I mean really listen to how arrogant that is..the tone of that statement- of those words. I can hear myself making a high whiny voice mocking this. "But he raaan away anywaayy!" I mean just whine it when you say it.
Other than that revealing morsel however, the piece is good especially to illustrate how a number of targets have to live daily. And also that psychological warfare is ancient as concept and practice.
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Even a slave had more rights than we have: they knew:
ReplyDeleteWho their owner was
What their duties were
When they might expect to be free
They also had the solace of their own thoughts and didn't have teams of thugs stalking them like animals as they wandered the city on errands for their owners and/or on their days off. Their minds were not read nor did they have remote voices nor remote physical torture. If they were punished they saw the lash coming.
I feel the status of the ti and also the status of the "citizen" of the future is lower than that of a slave. Who wants to live in a society as part of a giant machine and have your God given mind part of a hive mind?
The worst "crime" we commit is our desire to be independant and to have our own thoughts and opinions. It does not mean we don't wish the company of others, we merely know we are individuals, like no other, created to be unique and not meant to be controlled by anyone.
well put..as usual thank you for your comment. R-
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