Books2Movies Club discussion
This topic is about
Spartacus
Books2Movies Projects
>
EPICS 01.2 - Spartacus -- Part Two and Three
date
newest »
newest »
Mod
Just on part 2 now. All the writing on the Romans attitude toward slaves is both interesting and disturbing. Forgive me if I can't remember the names of all the people in the story. I thought it was pretty interesting how in the bath, the Roman noble was fondling the slave girl and the younger man didn't want to watch. He wanted to get out then. He even suggested that the Roman noble might ask her and the noble didn't know why. Why ask an animal what they want? So weird.The discussion at the table about slaves was interesting too. They went back and forth talking about their opinions of the treatment of slaves. I found it very interesting when one person said it was cheaper to have slaves pull their plows than horses. The reason for that was because it took about 5 slaves to take care of a horse and then the horse would be ruined by the slaves. Yet the slaves would be able to take a lot more than the horse and they would not get ruined so fast. Such a strange economical analysis!
I like the description of a Roman household. I can imagine it through the writing.
Mod
Interesting thoughts, Joanne, thanks for sharing!
I found all that quite disturbing. I remember that it was said Spartacus was a third-generation slave. That means entire families could have been slaves. How they still managed to find the purpose for their living in such horrible circumstances? Unless there was somewhere a hope they'll someday somehow gain freedom? From that one example you mentioned, forgot that one, a noble abusing a slave girl, how did they keep their spirits up at all when they were abused so much..
However, wasn't there also a slave that was an accountant? Maybe it was all in the herd mentality - they all thought it was simply the way of life, ones faring better the others worse, so slaves just kept doing what they knew and hoped for the best (master and all).
I did some research about the psychology of dehumanization. Unfortunately, most of us could not say we are completely without it. We would be insane if we could not have at least SOME of it. There is an article I read. Here is the link:https://www.salon.com/2014/03/02/the_...
What I got out of it is that dehumanization to some degree means distancing. We distance ourselves from the other. So doctors have to distance themselves from their patients because if they did not, they could not concentrate when at the operating table. They would feel overly sad when they lose patients and they wouldn't be able to continue in their professions.
Lab techs who experiment on animals could not do it without distancing themselves. Nowadays, they TRY not to cause pain to the animals. In the medical industry, some drugs MUST be experimented on animals before they can be tried on humans. They can't think about if the animal they are working with feels pain or else they could not continue the experiment.
Another article I read said that the thinking is something like the way we think of the food chain. There is God, the amoeba and everything is on a different level. So the Patrician sees themselves on one level, the slave on another.
I kind of blazed through the entire rest of the book, so I don't remember where one section started and stopped, but yes, the depictions of the treatment of slaves is appalling... but unfortunately, probably very accurate. If anything, it was probably worse than is even depicted here. No wonder they revolted!
PART THREE: Being the tale of the first journey to Capua, made by Marius Bracus and Caius Crassus, some four years before the evening at the Villa Salaria, and the fighting of two pairs of gladiators.