Wisdom from Roman Empire
I was reading Letter of a stoic by Seneca and in the latest chapter I was surprised by the advance nature of Seneca's thoughts--truly ahead of his time. He mentioned how people used to treat their slaves in his forefathers time--the master was regarded as a father figure and even was addressed as such--whereas in his time slaves were treated mostly with disgust and inhumanity.
Although we abandoned slavery in most part of the world, violence toward the most vulnerable people still survived to this time. I have seen it in previous generation. To our shame, Seneca argued, almost 2000 years ago, that beating is for animals. So slaves (lets call them vulnerables) should be treated with respect and in friendly manner. It is remarkable that these thoughts survived somehow for so long time, considering humans are known to be violent throughout the history. Seneca was not even aware of any religion of modern times and yet he spoke similar human values.
I wanted to share this because reading historical texts is always amusing for me, for the wisdom they contain, which many of us still lack. Whenever I read these texts, I feel as though I am travelling back in time, having a conversation with an author, who lived several hundreds, if not thousands, years ago. Isn’t it fascinating!!.