Sklaverei über alles

PETRONIUS — J.P. SULLIVAN — THE SATYRICON — 1965–1986

Despite what the translator says in his notes that we are supposed to take many episodes and details with a grain of salt, we are in Rome and the Roman Empire under Emperor Nero, and I may consider that the grain of salt is maybe only a way to smoothen the horror of some descriptions or allusions. This is quite clearly a depiction of this time in Rome and some elements are just coming out as clearly as they are horrifying. When a country, an empire, what’s more, is falling that low in its daily life, the end is close, and yet the Roman Empire was not even near the beginning of its end and it was going to go on for at least two more centuries. For such an entity to continue when overwhelmed with such decay, they have to use pretty strong physical and mental terror to impose the status quo. The Roman Empire was based on war, conquest, terror, colonization, and the turning of any act of violence into a both entertaining and frightening show for the public, respectively entertaining for the elite and frightening for the simple audience.

But, and this is clear in this text, society is based on slavery. Slaves are everywhere and many of those we would consider as servants, and who are called from time-to-time servants, are in fact slaves. Slaves have no rights at all. You can be born a slave. You can become a slave to compensate for your debts. You can become a slave for any small mistake you may have done in your serving free people. You can of course become a slave when you are captured as a prisoner in some war. All industry, a great part of agriculture, many trades, and a vast section of work in urbanized areas are performed by slaves. Most people working on ships, hence sailors, are slaves. And for slaves, in this Roman Empire, there are only two punishments possible: whipping for menial or small mistakes and crucifixion for stealing or simply displeasing the master of this particular slave who has the power to decide such a punishment performed then by … and the question is to know by whom, though always under the surveillance of the army. Note by the way that most soldiers were slaves and in their case…