26 Feb To such bondage for the human mind and imagination I prefer even our avowed slavery (YOURCENAR MARGUERITE)
In the form of a letter, the first “Hellenist” Roman emperor Hadrian writes, shortly before his death, to his adopted son Marcus Aurelius, in which he recalls his triumphs and defeats and all his philosophy, in the book “Memoirs of Hadrian” by Marguerite Yourcenar.
All nations who have perished up to this time
have done so for lack of generosity: Sparta would have survived longer had she
given her Helots some interest in that survival; there is always a day when Atla
s ceases to support the weight of the heavens, and his revolt shakes the earth.
I wished to postpone as long as possible, and to avoid, if it can be done, the m
oment when the barbarians from without and the slaves within will fall upon a world which they have been forced to respect from afar, or to serve from below, but the profits of which are not for them. I was determined that even the most wretched, from the slaves who clean the city sewers to the famished barbarians who
hover along the frontiers, should have an interest in seeing Rome endure.
I doubt if all the philosophy in the world can succeed in suppressing slavery
; it will, at most, change the name. I can well imagine forms of servitude worse
than our own, because more insidious, whether they transform men into stupid, complacent machines, who believe themselves free just when they are most subjugated, or whether to the exclusion of leisure and pleasures essential to man they develop a passion for work as violent as the passion for war among barbarous races. To such bondage for the human mind and imagination I prefer even our avowed slavery.
Marguerite Yourcenar
Memoirs of Hadrian
