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.

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.

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.