We know quite a lot about ancient slavery, what it meant to be a slave, roughly how large the slave population of Greece and Rome was and how it evolved, how one could come into slavery and out of it.
We can’t possibly know what it was like to be a slave, unless one has been a slave.
We talk a lot about ancient slavery, but one thing almost never gets it into the mainstream chat. What about the slaves who made it as authors, and whose books have survived?
It might come as a surprise to many that the semi-leegendary author of fables Aesop, now of cosmetic brand fame, was (believed to be) a Phrygian or Thracian slave from Samos.
Number two: Terence (his full name Publius Terentius Afer), who gave us some of the funniest (actually the funniest, for lack of transmission competition) Roman comedies, was brought to Rome as a slave from North Africa (his cognomen Afer signals this), was owned by the senator Terentius Lucanus, who educated him and freed him.
Finally, number three: Publilius Syrus, the author of one of the most enduring collections of aphorisms and proverbs, collected in his work the Sententiae, was a Syrian slave brought to Rome in the 1st century BC, freed for his wit and skill in composing mimes.
There may have been dozens more, whom history has sadly forgotten, but whose works must have crowded the ancient literary market. We just don’t talk about them.
I find it remarkable that no text authored by an ex-slave actually recounts life under slavery. Some people just don’t want to dwell on the past, when opportunity knocks at their door.