4 ms·
I agree that the author's style is not the best, but I think that what you describe as a paraphrase was meant more as a polemic. That is why the author quotes t
by Archelaos 4y ago
I agree that the author's style is not the best, but I think that what you describe as a paraphrase was meant more as a polemic. That is why the author quotes the whole textbook passage. I do not think he meant to imply that the textbook was making a specifically false statement, but that by its general approach it illustrates a tendency to portray slavery as not as bad as it actually was. Whether this is broadly the case with such textbooks would, of course, need to be demonstrated in much greater detail. However, the author links a more detailed critique above the quoted textbook passage.
- galaxyLogic 4y agoSlaves didn't have time to write books.
- Archelaos 4y agoTypically true, but we know of a few prominent freedmen from the ancient world that wrote books: Aesop and his translator Phadrus, Epictetus, Phaedo of Elis and Marcus Tullius Tiro, the secretary of Cicero.
- zozbot234 4y agoAIUI, Epictetus also discusses the matter quite directly and is under no illusion about his relative "downtrodden" status, so the contrary remark found in the textbook looks like naïve, groundless speculation. Slaves may have been personally "lively" and had complex stories - Epictetus certainly did - but this is a different matter altogether.