On Wed, 13 Feb 2002, Shriner-Midland Company wrote:

> who were themselves former slaves.  More recent research seems to suggest
> that in many ways ancient  "slavery" was little different from modern
> "employment" on a self-contained work site with employer-provided room and
> board, with the quality of the employer, working conditions, and the
> sustenance varying widely.  The same is likely to have been true in both
> the North and South both prior to and after the US Civil War.  Nothing is
> ever quite as clear cut and simple as some people try to make it seem.

Just a brief note: in ancient Greece and Rome, you became a slave largely
because your side lost the war and you got captured and sold.  Or, of
course, if you were born to slave parents.  It had nothing to do with
innate inferiority.  It was not all of that unusual to come across slaves
with much better education than their masters, slaves who tutored their
masters' sons.  Certainly in the Roman empire, freedmen could end up being
quite powerful.  (Consider Pallas and Narcissus during the reign of
Claudius, for example.)  However, what was true for some was not true for
the majority, and believe me the life of slaves could be miserable.

Moreover, and I think more importantly, I do not recall ever coming across
any ancient arguments that slaves were slaves because it was their natural
condition to be subservient, because they were less than human, because
their brains were simpler or more primitive, because they were happier
being slaves and taken care of.  I gather one does come across all of
these arguments vis a vis slaves in the U.S.  That makes one heck of a
difference, ultimately, when the very colour of your skin marks you as
being inferior and either a slave or an ex-slave.  Add to that the poor
quality of the education you were likely to have had (assuming you had
been allowed an education in the first place), and you have an entirely
different situation.

The comparison between the two systems of slavery is not as simple and as
uncomplicated as your analysis appears to imply.  The cultures and
circumstances are too vastly different.

>         REAL LIFE IS USUALLY COMPLEX AND COMPLICATED!  PLEASE DON'T
> OVER-SIMPLIFY!!!

Absolutely.  With that part of your argument, I can agree.  There's always
more to things than meets the eye -- alas, more than can often be reliably
recovered from the surviving records.

>                 :-)             Bob Shriner

Mario Rups
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