746 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
This is so if we consider only the de jure position of the slave. Let us consider what was the de facto position of the slave in the Roman Empire and in the United States. I take the following extracts from Mr. Barrow [1] :
“Hitherto, it is the repulsive side of household slavery that has been sketched. There is also another aspect. The literature reveals the vast household as normal. It is, of course, the exception. Large slave staffs undoubtedly existed, and they are generally to be found in Rome. In Italy and the Provinces there was less need of display ; many of the staff of the Villa were engaged in productive work connected with land and its produce. The old-fashioned relationship between foreman and slave remained there; the slave was often a fellow worker. The kindliness of Pliny towards his staff is well-known. It is in no spirit of self-righteousness and in no wish to appear in a favour able light in the eyes of the future generations which he hoped would read his. letters that he tells of his distress at the illness and death of his slaves. The household (of Pliny) is the salves’ republic. Pliny’s account of his treatment of his slaves is sometimes regarded as so much in advance of general or even occasional practice as to be valueless as evidence. There is no reason for this attitude.
From reasons both of display and genuine literary interest, the rich families attached to their households, slaves trained in literature and art. Calvisices Sabinus is said by Seneca to have had eleven slaves taught to recite Homer, Hesioid, and nine lyric poets by heart. ‘Book cases would be cheaper’, said a rude friend. ‘No, what the household knows the master knows ‘was the answer. But, apart from such abuses, educated slaves must have been a necessity in the absence of printing;. . . . . The busy lawyer, the dilettante poet, the philosopher and educated gentlemen of literary tastes had need of copyists and readers and secretaries. Such men were naturally linquistic also; a librarius who dies at the age of twenty boasts that he was ‘ literatus Graecis at Latinis ’ . Amanuensis were common enough ; librarians are to be found in public and private
1 Slavery in the Roman Empire, pp. 47-49