Latest / Marcus Aurelius: Rome's Philosopher King — Fexingo History
Marcus Aurelius and the Price of a Slave
In this episode, we move away from the legions on the Danube and the plague-ridden camps to explore Marcus Aurelius’s complex relationship with slavery. While often celebrated as a philosopher king, his personal letters reveal a man deeply entangled in the economic realities of Roman slavery. We examine the case of Epictetus, the freedman whose teachings shaped Marcus’s Stoicism, and contrast it with Marcus’s own management of household slaves like Demetrius. Through a letter to Fronto and legal rulings on manumission, we uncover the moral tension between Stoic equality and imperial…
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