Latest / The Morning Stoic: The Untold Lives Behind Stoicism / Ep. 10: They Are Slaves, Nay, Rather They Are Men

Transcript

Ep. 10: They Are Slaves, Nay, Rather They Are Men · The Morning Stoic: The Untold Lives Behind Stoicism

• 0:00
  Picture a dining room in Rome, late in the evening.
• 0:04
  The couches are full.
• 0:06
  The lamps are burning low.
• 0:09
  Along the walls stand a ring of young men and boys, and none of them is allowed to
• 0:13
  make a sound.
• 0:15
  I imagine the quiet in that room is the strangest thing about it.
• 0:19
  It isn't the quiet of people at peace.
• 0:22
  It's the quiet of people who are afraid of a sneeze.
• 0:25
  Good morning.
• 0:25
  This is The Morning Stoic, and I'm Julian Vale.
• 0:30
  Last time, we sat with Seneca at his desk in the years after he left Nero's court,
• 0:35
  somewhere between AD 62 and 65, writing to his friend Lucilius about what a crowd at
• 0:41
  the arena does to a person.
• 0:44
  Today the same correspondence turns inward, from the public amphitheater to the
• 0:48
  private dining room.
• 0:50
  It's Letter 47, and it begins with good news.
• 0:55
  Lucilius, we should say, was no idle man.
• 0:59
  He served as an imperial procurator in Sicily, a working official far from Rome.
• 1:05
  And some travelers have come through and told Seneca something about his friend's
• 1:09
  household.
• 1:11
  Seneca writes that he is glad to learn that Lucilius lives on friendly terms with
• 1:16
  his slaves.
• 1:18
  Then comes the passage this whole episode turns on.
• 1:21
  I'm reading from Richard Mott Gummere's translation, on Wikisource.
• 1:26
  "They are slaves," people declare.
• 1:30
  Nay, rather they are men.
• 1:34
  "Slaves!"
• 1:35
  No, comrades.
• 1:38
  "Slaves!"
• 1:39
  No, they are unpretentious friends.
• 1:43
  "Slaves!"
• 1:45
  No, they are our fellow slaves, if one reflects that Fortune has equal rights
• 1:52
  over slaves and free men alike.
• 1:55
  Hold on to that last turn, because it's the hinge of the letter.
• 2:00
  Fortune has equal rights over slaves and free men alike.
• 2:05
  Seneca isn't only being kind.
• 2:07
  He's reminding a master that the ground under his own feet is not as solid as he
• 2:11
  thinks.
• 2:13
  Then he takes Lucilius into the room I just described, and he does not look away.
• 2:19
  Seneca writes that the wealthy host is surrounded by a mob of standing slaves.
• 2:25
  The master eats more than he can hold, until his stomach is stretched past its work.
• 2:31
  Meanwhile, Seneca says, the slaves may not move their lips,
• 2:35
  even to speak.
• 2:37
  A cough, a sneeze, a hiccup, and the rod or the lash is waiting.
• 2:43
  All night long, he writes, they stand about, hungry and dumb.
• 2:48
  He goes on, and the details get harder.
• 2:51
  One slave mops up what the drunken guests have thrown up.
• 2:55
  Another crouches under the table to gather the leftovers.
• 2:58
  Another carves the expensive game birds, with a skilled hand and exact strokes,
• 3:04
  and Seneca pities a man who lives only to cut capons correctly.
• 3:09
  The wine server is dressed like a woman and kept beardless,
• 3:14
  his hair smoothed away or plucked out by the roots, so that he stays a boy as long
• 3:19
  as his master wants one, and he's kept awake all night to serve the master's
• 3:24
  drinking and his appetite.
• 3:26
  Seneca puts it in a single line: in the chamber he must be a man,
• 3:31
  at the feast a boy.
• 3:34
  I won't linger on that.
• 3:35
  I only want you to know that Seneca names it, and calls it cruel.