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Seneca to Lucilius: 47, on slaves and human beings
“They are slaves.”
No, they are human beings.
“They are slaves.”
No, they are housemates.
“They are slaves.”
No, they are lowborn friends.
“They are slaves.”
Fellow slaves, rather, if you keep in mind that fortune has its way with you just as much as with them.
(Letters, XLVII.1)
This is the stunning beginning of Seneca’s 47th letter to his friend Lucilius. It’s an exceedingly uncommon talk for an ancient Roman patrician, especially because the Romans still reeled from the famous revolt by the gladiator-slave Spartacus, which took place just over a century before Seneca’s writing.
Then again, the Stoics were famous for challenging common conceptions, and the founder of the school, Zeno of Citium, had declared slavery an evil in his Republic. Seneca here is not mounting a concerted attack on the institution itself, but rather focusing on what the fact that someone is a slave tells us about them. And his answer is: not much. What you call slaves, he says…
