An intact slave's room found in Pompeii's ruins

Re:An intact slave's room found in Pompeii's ruins by JoeAltmaier on Saturday November 06, 2021 @01:36PM (#29132146)

I've always found the idea that 'slavery isn't so bad' to be easy for armchair anthropologists to think. I'm reminded of the Pompei skeleton of a boy found in a stable behind the skeleton of a mule, with a mule hoofprint in his skull. "Hey you slaveboy! The volcano is making the mule upset! Go in there and calm him down!" The slave didn't end up any better off than the mule, both abandoned to die/already dead when the citizens fled.

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Re:An intact slave's room found in Pompeii's ruins by inglor_cz on Saturday November 06, 2021 @02:17PM (#29132502)

People even today underestimate the badness of living in the lowest income quintile of almost any society. It is not just about cashflow, but about (lack of) respect and dignity.

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Re:An intact slave's room found in Pompeii's ruins by woah on Saturday November 06, 2021 @06:19PM (#29134355)

That's ridiculous. The standard of living has increased astronomically over the past few hundred years in the developed world. People in the lower quintile can afford refrigeration, cheap food, unlimited free entertainment, heating and air conditioning, laundry, plumbing, etc etc.

This is not to take away from the stress and precarity of their situation, but materially, almost everyone in the US is better off than almost everyone in ancient rome.

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Re:An intact slave's room found in Pompeii's ruins by tovej on Saturday November 06, 2021 @07:01PM (#29134660)

I don't think they were comparing today's standard of living in the US to that in Rome, just saying that people misrepresent poverty, and that poverty is crushing for a human being.

I do think the fact that you decided to counter and declare that the US meets the incredibly low bar of "better living conditions than ancient Rome" is an interesting point to reflect on, and probably relates to the previous poster's point.

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Re:An intact slave's room found in Pompeii's ruins by ReptileMan on Saturday November 06, 2021 @06:49PM (#29134585)

To rule in hell or to serve in heaven.

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Re:An intact slave's room found in Pompeii's ruins by pleb_nz on Saturday November 06, 2021 @04:22PM (#29133504)

So nothing's changed? :-/

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Re:An intact slave's room found in Pompeii's ruins by nverno on Saturday November 06, 2021 @06:18PM (#29134348)

It amazes me, when reading stuff from ancient Rome (currently I'm reading Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, which was basically his diary), how similar a lot of society, day-to-day worries and the like, are to ours today. However, I think the normal person's worldview nowadays is much more similar to that of the most elite in those societies than the plebians, mostly because general education has improved so drastically.

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Re:An intact slave's room found in Pompeii's ruins by GhettoComputers on Saturday November 06, 2021 @11:57PM (#29136442)

I agree, when you study the classics like Greek philosophy, you se the same problems we have today, because socially we have not evolved even though materially there has been significant advances.

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Re:An intact slave's room found in Pompeii's ruins by hutzlibu on Saturday November 06, 2021 @05:43PM (#29134066)

For the starving, exploited third world workers in the state of illegal immigrants with no rights - probably not so much.

Or for the fate of one of the real slaves.

What is different today, is that slavery is mostly viewed as a bad thing. That is a accomplishment, but it doesn't mean we got rid of the misery.

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Re:An intact slave's room found in Pompeii's ruins by megablast on Saturday November 06, 2021 @09:39PM (#29135645)

Horses kill people today who aren’t slaves. In fact, kill more people than sharks.

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Re:An intact slave's room found in Pompeii's ruins by JoeAltmaier on Sunday November 07, 2021 @12:11AM (#29136490)

...and then people leave their dead bodies on the floor in the mule pen, while packing their valuables and taking the last boat? Not sure what horses have to do with lack of respect for slaves.

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