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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, are human beings like you, housemates, lowborn friends.
Moreover, he adds at the end of his list, they are fellow slaves as soon as we understand that slavery is not just a physical condition imposed upon others, it is — more fundamentally — a mental state that we impose on ourselves. He then elaborates, first on actual physical slavery:
“Reflect, if you will: that man whom you call your slave was born of the same seeds as you — enjoys the same sky — breathes, lives, dies, just as you do. It is possible that you will see him a free man, and equally possible that he will see you enslaved. … The fortunes of those you despise may come upon you at any time.” (Letters XLVII.10)
