Bad masters. Seneca, Epistles 5.47.5-9
Seneca
continues describing Roman slavery, disapproving the haughty attitude
that makes many masters keep distance from their slaves. Ironically,
the distance is often more metaphorical than literal: the bad masters
will share intimate space with servants, but they refuse to
acknowledge the humanity of their servants in that space. If master
and slave are together at table, then they must not be dining as
equals. One is there to serve, the other to be served. This won't do,
for Seneca. The outcome is a game of resentment, in which bad fortune
is weaponized by master and slave alike, with each acting to harm
rather than help the other.
Alia
interim crudelia, inhumana praetereo, quod ne tamquam hominibus
quidem sed tamquam iumentis abutimur. Quod cum ad cenandum
discubuimus, alius sputa deterget, alius reliquias temulentorum
subditus colligit. Alius pretiosas aves scindit; per pectus et clunes
certis ductibus circumferens eruditam manum frusta excutit, infelix,
qui huic uni rei vivit, ut altilia decenter secet, nisi quod miserior
est qui hoc voluptatis causa docet quam qui necessitatis discit.
Alius vini minister in
muliebrem modum ornatus cum aetate luctatur: non potest effugere
pueritiam, retrahitur, iamque militari habitu glaber retritis pilis
aut penitus evulsis tota nocte pervigilat, quam inter ebrietatem
domini ac libidinem dividit et in cubiculo vir, in convivio puer est.
Alius, cui convivarum censura permissa est, perstat infelix et
exspectat quos adulatio et intemperantia aut gulae aut linguae
revocet in crastinum.
Adice
obsonatores quibus dominici palati notitia subtilis est, qui sciunt
cuius illum rei sapor excitet, cuius delectet aspectus, cuius
novitate nauseabundus erigi possit, quid iam ipsa satietate
fastidiat, quid illo die esuriat. Cum his cenare non sustinet et
maiestatis suae deminutionem putat ad eandem mensam cum servo suo
accedere. Di melius! quot ex istis dominos habent! Stare
ante limen Callisti dominum suum vidi et eum qui illi impegerat
titulum, qui inter ridicula
manicipia produxerat, aliis intrantibus excludi. Rettulit illi
gratiam servus ille in primam decuriam coniectus, in qua vocem praeco
experitur: et ipse illum invicem apologavit, et ipse non iudicavit
domo sua dignum. Dominus Callistum vendidit: sed domino quam multa
Callistus!
I
omit any discussion here of acts inhumanly cruel, since giving way to
these makes us abusers even of animals, and not merely of men. But
even so, among the humane, we find that as we take our seats at the
dinner table, a slave is busy clearing half-eaten remains, cleaning
the vomit of drunkards because his bondage demands it. Another slave
carves exotic birds, moving his practiced hand through breasts and
buttocks with clean strokes as he separates choice morsels: unhappy,
since he lives for just this task, his entire life reduced to cutting
off the fatty bits. Unless perhaps the man who teaches him this work
for pleasure's sake is more miserable even than he, who learns it
under duress, of necessity.
Another slave is serving wine,
dressed like a woman as he fights the march of time. He cannot flee
the folly of youth, but is continually dragged back into it. Though
he spends whole nights awake, dressed like a bald soldier, his hair
cut short or pulled out by the roots, he must share the drunkenness as
well as the lust of his lord, and so he becomes a man in bed, a boy
in the banquet hall. Another slave, exposed to the judgment of
party-guests, stands by unhappily all evening, wondering whose
admiration or intemperate desire for food or talk will summon him
again on the morrow.
Finally, add the gofers whose
presence in the lord's palace is scarcely noticeable. They know what
smell excites their master, what aspect pleases, what can keep him on
his feet when he is sick, what food annoys him when it abounds, and
what he will want to eat again and again on the same day. But he will
not endure to dine with them, and thinks his majesty diminished
whenever he approaches a table with one of his own servants. Gods
grant us better masters! But see how many bad ones their regime
holds, how many arrogant pricks. I once saw Callistus (†) standing at the
threshold of his home, and along comes the man who had formerly fixed
a pricetag on him, putting him up for sale with a lot of other
no-account slaves: the old master was kept out even as others went
in. So did the onetime servant
return his master's favor, which hurled him out among the first goods
to exercise the auctioneer's voice. As the master spurned the slave, so the slave judged the
master unworthy to enter his home. The master betrayed his man
Callistus, when he sold him, but see how Callistus paid him back!
---
(†)
Gaius Julius Callistus was a freedman of notorious wealth & power
during the reign of Caligula, the original master whom Seneca saw
him cut in the street, and that of Caligula's successor, Claudius. If our sources are to be
believed, he was involved in plotting Caligula's murder (Pliny, Natural History
36.12.60; Josephus, Antiquities
19; Tacitus, Annals
11.29; Dio,
Roman History 59.29).