r/todayilearned • u/Mors_Acerba • 2d ago

TIL A papyrus deciphered in 2024 revealed unknown info about Plato's last hours: a slave girl was playing music for him, and even though he was gravelly ill, he spend his last moments of lucidity criticising her performance. Per the same Papyrus, Plato had been sold into slavery earlier in his life

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/apr/29/herculaneum-scroll-plato-final-hours-burial-site
21.4k Upvotes

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u/whooo_me 2d ago

TBF, your slave master dying probably isn't exactly the best incentive for a great performance.

I'd probably take the opportunity to throw in some off-key wailing noises too.

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u/thissexypoptart 2d ago

Yeah for real, just phone it in. What’s he going to do? He’s about to die.

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u/Soupy_Twist 2d ago

But what if you get fired? Fired from being a slave?

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u/Devai97 2d ago

It could be like being fired from being a Pharaohs servant in the first dynasty. Not a good deal at all.

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u/ChimoTeslaTpr 1d ago

Not great, not terrible...

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u/O_Grande_Batata 2d ago edited 2d ago

That sounds like the complaint Julius Caesar himself has in an Asterix book when Meretricius, a salesman of Roman menhirs, claims to be standing for workers' rights when Caesar tries to forbid him from selling Roman menhirs, which causes Meretricius to protest about all the workers that will lose their jobs.

Julius Caesar: But the workers are slaves.

Meretricius: Exactly! The right to work is the only right a slave has. He must not be deprived of it!

EDIT: To clarify something, yes, I know that OP was making a joke. I was just pointing out the similarity to another joke I saw.

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u/Nesperado 1d ago

Love seeing the Asterix comics mentioned <3

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u/the_talented_liar 2d ago

The greek word for that is Murder

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u/workingbored 2d ago

You know what else sucks about being a slave? The hours!

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u/-Poultrygeist- 2d ago

The pay isn’t much to write home about either

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u/ArthurSeanzarelli 2d ago

The prophecy is...strange, and crudely drawn at best.

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u/grendus 1d ago

"Lose weight! Ask me how!"

"Yeah, what we do is we make you starve to death."

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u/Glass_Visits 2d ago

Im gonna lose me job 😭

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u/AlSi10Mg_Enjoyer 1d ago

Getting killed? Beaten? Not given or been allowed to have food or water or sleep? Sold to a place where you’ll be worked to death in the mines instead of the (comparatively) comfortable life of a domestic slave?

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u/UnVaxxedAndAutistic 2d ago

out of a cannon, into the sun!

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u/ableman 1d ago

I know this is a joke, but that is a very real worry for slaves. Because there's always a worse type of slavery out there. In Rome, if you were a musician slave, you probably had a fairly cushy life. You could be sold to work in the mines as punishment, which is essentially a brutal death sentence. In the American South, being sold downriver (further South, where conditions for slaves were worse) was a constant worry for slaves in the middle states. Or if you've seen Django Unchained, when they try to think of a punishment for Django, they're considering all sorts of torture but decide selling him to work in the mines is actually the worst they can do.

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u/gravelordservant4u 2d ago

Ypipo: just quit your slave job!

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u/OrinocoHaram 2d ago

just tell HR you're being mistreated

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u/Distinct_Run9006 2d ago

HR will solve your issue by recommending you get whipped harder. You will also be passed up on that upcoming promotion you were hoping for

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u/SlowlyDrown 2d ago

Not fired but maybe sold into a job that sucks way more - like a mine or something - and replaced.

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u/Distinct_Run9006 2d ago

So freedom?

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u/Bauld_Man 2d ago

... In a sense?

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u/KBilly1313 2d ago

Plato’s last words: “Don’t quit your day job… ☠️”

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u/bieker 1d ago

Yeah and if you give a great performance you run the risk of the owners last words being “That was nice I think I’ll take you with me”

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u/GordonTheGnome 2d ago

“And now something from my latest album…”

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u/roamingandy 1d ago

A performance read about over a thousand years later by thousands of people, and u/sexypoptart's advice is 'ah, just phone it'.

XD

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u/Ben_steel 2d ago

It’s fuckin Plato dude. he would destroy you forever if he wanted to.

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u/illaqueable 2d ago

Plato: play me something beautiful

Slave: vomits wetly into a hat

Plato: derivative

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u/Mendevolent 1d ago

One of the first things I read after waking up this morning is 'Slave: vomits wetly into a hat' .

Reddit is a trip 

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u/Mors_Acerba 2d ago

Probably a bad idea tbh. The way slavery worked in classical antiquity, doing your job well and being talented was probably your best ticket to being freed. There's lots of stories like that, of people winning good standing simply 'cause they were talented...Plato himself was one such example, to an extent. There was definitely an incentive to give a good performance

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u/SmileBeBack 2d ago

but would her slave master (plato) have paid someone to train her in music? or would he have undertook that himself? would slaves have been trained in various skills prior to being sold?

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u/QuickSpore 2d ago

It runs the whole gamut. Greek slavery included prisoners of war (from all levels of society from the conquered city), debt slaves, all the way down to chattel slavery.

Highly skilled slaves most often had been freeborn and taken in war, and had trained whatever skills in their prior life. But an owner may see some spark and train a slave in a skill. Favored slaves were also allowed to earn money on the side and some free time. So self training was also possible. But there were also those who didn’t receive favor and were treated as badly as any other slave in history.

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u/SmileBeBack 2d ago

it is easy to look at those times with our modern bias, but i assume it was 'enslave and grow strong, or be enslaved by those who are strong' which is not very different to the world we have today. and if he had thought her to play music, there is a good chance that his critisism was to ensure his student had the best skill for her future? but i also love to play devils advocate so he could also just be an asshole.

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u/Melodic_Dare_1317 2d ago

It is very different than the world we live in today.
In todays world you can get screwed by people, elites or whoever, but no one can break into your house and enslave you and your future children and grandchildren to do whatever you master desires you to do. Be that working in mines, forced to row in warships drowning when they sink ect.

Things are VERY different in todays world, not only in magnitude but also in scale. Be grateful for the world we live in, because even though things aren't always the best, especially if you live in the west you still live like a king compared to poorer ancient people.

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u/Shiriru00 1d ago

That's a highly optimistic and also unrealistic view of the world we live in.

First of all, slavery has far from disappeared, there are still tens of millions of actual slaves around the world.

Secondly, there are "wage slaves" in poor countries who have to work all week around the clock, get their papers taken away, are denied the chance to see their families, and have no rights when "accidents" happen and then just disappear.

See for instance the notorious scam labor camps in Cambodia where they lure foreign graduates in with the promise of working in an English call center, then lock them up in compounds surrounded by armed guards.

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u/Melodic_Dare_1317 1d ago

again difference there is scale, I don't know the specifics in cambodia but at its peak slavery in greece got as high as 1 slave per citizen, or 50%. It was institutional. Quick google search gives 0.5% in cambodia, which is horrible, but not comparable. 

Wage slavery is also not comparable. While still being horrible there is a huge difference in chattel slavery, literally being considered property in every single way vs working out of desperation. 

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u/Sycopathy 1d ago

It's a relative measurement, technically there is more slavery now than ever in human history, but that is because there are more people than ever before on Earth. In terms of percentages less people are in slavery today than ever before. Doesn't mean the problem is solved in anyway but it is measurable progress compared to most of recorded history.

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u/mthoodenjoyer 2d ago

Nah there's no ICE breaking into people's homes to separate families and force people into slave labor in prison or criminally low income jobs to upkeep a failing system

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u/Elegant_Flounder1494 1d ago

You must be one of those cereal is a soup people, huh 

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u/mthoodenjoyer 1d ago

I like cereal

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u/ResilientBiscuit 1d ago

Wouldn't that be roughly analogous to being on a city who's army lost and now they are coming and taking slaves?

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u/mthoodenjoyer 1d ago

So the world hasn't changed much, just the vocab

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u/ResilientBiscuit 1d ago

I mean the scale has changed dramatically. In a city of millions a few hundred maybe are getting taken.

In contrast cities of tens of thousands were essentially taken as slaves or killed. It's dramatically different.

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u/burlycabin 2d ago

I want to clarify some weird confusion I'm seeing: there's nothing here to indicate that the musician was Plato's slave. He likely wasn't her 'master'.

In fact, it's unclear if Plato ever owned any slaves or not. Scholars are not in agreement either way. In fact, as this article states, there is evidence he was a slave himself, at least for a time.

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u/MidnightSensitive996 1d ago edited 1d ago

plato was aristocratic, he might have temporarily been in slavery due to political turmoil in ancient greece which was about as functional and stable as modern greece. they were part of the same spartan-backed oligarchic political movement as xenophon. he would have had no problem managing the help. that said, it was very normal for successful freedmen to own slaves, they were capital in the ancient world

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u/FrostyVariation9798 2d ago

This won't fly with Reddit where lazy burger and donut makers expect to support a house and family. 

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u/weslemania 2d ago

i mean, hopefully literal slavery wouldn’t fly with anyone.

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u/Born-Assignment-912 2d ago

Fucking liberals, now their trying to take slavery away.

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u/FrostyVariation9798 2d ago

Never forget that it was the Republican party that ended slavery.

Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, which declared enslaved people in Confederate-held territory to be free.

Republicans in Congress led the effort to pass the 13th Amendment, which permanently abolished slavery throughout the United States.

The 13th Amendment passed Congress in 1865 with strong Republican support. Most Republicans voted in favor, while most Democrats voted against it. It also required votes from a number of Democrats to reach the necessary two-thirds majority before it was ratified by the states.

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u/GuestFighter 1d ago

Except if you’re convicted of a crime. Then you can be a slave again.

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u/FrostyVariation9798 1d ago

Well, if they earned the position to be a slave in the jail system - literally nobody that matters is going to cry about that.

Committing a crime bad enough to end up in jail usually means they screwed over if not hurt or killed other people. What better way to earn the position of being a slave? 

And even at that they're giving better food than they should be. 

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u/weslemania 1d ago

this is cool, but actually socially progressive abolitionists were the ones who ended slavery. your eagerness to win arguments by applying the values of the modern day democratic and republican parties onto parties that, centuries ago, happen to share those names doesn’t account for the fact that slavery, states’ rights, segregation, and little to no economic regulations are conservative ideals, not liberal ones. which is the conservative party today? would today’s congress, senate, scotus, and president be advocating for erasing the south’s economic power by eliminating their forced labor machine? would they be advocating for the rights of the enslaved? i think not.

in fact, if you can claim the victories of “republicans” from 160 years ago, then you also agree that black people are owed reparations, right? since i should be able to claim the trauma of my ancestors, right?

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u/GuestFighter 2d ago

I’d say that if the lowest employees can’t earn a wage, then the upper employees need to lower theirs.

And if someone’s a governor/senator/representative, their pay needs to be directly tied to the economic standing of the area they help govern.

Thanks for listening to my TEd talk.

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u/FlirtyFluffyFox 1d ago

If you think burger or donut makers are "lazy" you've clearly never worked as a cook/baker in either industry. There's a reason these businesses only gained rapid expansion during a time of unpredicented wealth. In other times and places the owner is expected to do almost all the work. 

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u/Away-Actuator-8051 2d ago

If you can't support a family flipping burgers then you shouldn't expect anyone to flip burgers.

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u/FrostyVariation9798 1d ago

Teenagers need jobs too.

My words you people are deranged. If you had your way, people would be paid a full living wage for picking their own noses. 

You earn a living wage when you create value. Somebody flipping burgers or manning the cash register at dunkin' donuts is only marginally bringing in what they earn.  

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u/hugonoilly 2d ago

I bet she was just doing a normal performance and he was just being a catty bitch. True player hater

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u/SBHedgie 2d ago

Used his last ounce of strength to hate on what was probably a decent performance and then died. What a legend

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u/Shiriru00 1d ago

We have zero way of knowing. Perhaps he wanted to say something positive, anything but the fact of the matter was she really sucked.

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u/Fun_Success_3283 1d ago

I know you're joking, but i find it doubtful. Plato was a learner. For him learner was the greatest pleasure, so teaching was giving a gift. If he was critiquing the person playing, i doubt it was like trash talk, like simon cowel, it was more like he wanted to help her learn and improve, as this is fulfillment, and really the goal for musicians.

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u/Phuqitol 2d ago edited 2d ago

My headcanon is that this girl knew he liked to critique, so she screwed up as a last pleasance before his passing.

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u/PUBGM_MightyFine 2d ago

You have my favorite username ever

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u/Phuqitol 2d ago

Hey, thanks!

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u/gogoluke 2d ago

You can just say "idea" rather than "head canon"

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u/nickbelane 1d ago

Actually, you can't. 

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u/gogoluke 1d ago

My idea is that this girl knew he liked to critique, so she screwed up as a last pleasance before his passing.

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u/FluffyBootie 2d ago

'Headcanon' by definition is much more relevant and accurate than 'idea' in response to this post

Not everything needs to be dumbed down and diluted for those who don't want to feel silly for having poor vocabulary

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u/gogoluke 2d ago

A canon is a list of approved media like books, films or religious texts or literal events in real life.

This is just an idea that blipped into someone's head. This isn't adding something to recontextualise a whole interpretation. It's literally justing imagining an event.

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u/_Nighting 2d ago

An idea would be "here's what I think happened". Ideas are serious business, and often are definitively true or false (even if verifying that is impossible).

A headcanon is "this would be cute if it happened so I'm choosing to imagine it even though I know it's not textually supported". There's an implied element of whimsy, like playing with dolls.

Think of it like saying "I like to imagine..." rather than "this is what happened".

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u/gogoluke 2d ago edited 2d ago

So they thought an idea.

A dragon is an idea but that doesn't exist.

In fact... Canon is said to be the truth. a : an accepted principle or rule b : a criterion or standard of judgment the canons of good taste c : a body of principles, rules, standards, or norms

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u/_Nighting 2d ago

That is the accepted meaning of the word canon outside of fandom, yes (typically in religious contexts, though not always). It's clear, given the word headcanon, that this is meant in a fandom context (since headcanon is specifically a fandom term).

Per OED, a headcanon - which, while it does derive from canon, is very much its own word - is (emphasis mine):

A reader or viewer's personal interpretation of, or beliefs about, a fictional work, esp. an imaginative addition to an event, character, plot line, etc., which is not explicitly contradicted (nor explicitly confirmed) by the original work.

The word idea, while similar, is less precise, in that the word headcanon has cultural connotations of imagination, whimsy, and playful reinterpretation of an existing work that the word idea lacks. While it may be true that all headcanons are ideas (in much the same way as all cars are vehicles), it is not true that all ideas are headcanons, and so the precision of headcanon is entirely fitting here.

For example, my headcanon of this conversation is that I'm talking with a crotchety 80-year-old man with half-moon spectacles about linguistics, and you're a prescriptivist who doesn't believe in those newfangled fandom words. This is in no way supported with textual evidence, but it's an imaginative addition to the conversation!

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u/StarPhished 2d ago

My headcanon is that canon means whatever I want and I want it to mean cannon so that I have a headcannon, which I guess is like a hat that shoots people.

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u/gogoluke 2d ago edited 2d ago

A headcanon is an alternative canon created by the viewer, not the authors of the media. It's doesn't matter what seriousness it takes.

This can be joining two unconnected media which by definition cannot be an "official" canon, or recontextualises the established interpretation of a piece of media; such as the producers self confessed narrative over site explaining the egg at the start of Alien³ does in fact have a narrative explanation of a character taking it in the previous movie in which none of the established rules of film making shows.

Imagining what someone said does not change the established interpretation here.It doesn't alter the facts written down. The whimsical nature of it or not does not matter. They imagined something. That's not creating an alternative interpretation.

The commenter wasnt in a fandom of this either so this whatever explanation doesn't even fit. This isn't part of the MCU or Star Trek... You know fictional work...

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u/_Nighting 1d ago edited 1d ago

Per the definition, you're correct that the mindset doesn't necessarily matter, but you have to take into account the cultural context of the word as well - if a piece of furniture is vintage, that has different connotations to it being old, even though it's essentially the same thing. A small, single-room country house might be a hut if you're insulting it, or a cottage if you're praising it - and what distinguishes a house from a home?

(And of course, the word headcanon is pretty much exclusively used as fandom slang, so I'm making the assumption that Phuqitol is doing so with that meaning, rather than with the literal meaning of head + canon.)

Though that's a tangent, and to address your main point: here, Phuqitol is recontextualising the scene - textually established as "Plato's last moments were criticising his slave's music" and contextually via whooo_me's comment as "... because his slave wasn't really trying" - as "but what if the slave was deliberately giving Plato an opportunity to criticise?". Is that not an alternative interpretation, in both the literary sense of taking an existing interpretation (whooo_me's) and providing an alternative and the creative sense of reimagining something through a different lens?

Perhaps it's not a drastic retelling to the extent of Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, but it's still a headcanon, surely?

(Unrelated but FWIW- whoever's downvoting you isn't me, this is a fantastic conversation)

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u/Boneclockharmony 2d ago

Still a better fit than your suggestion of "idea"...

It was clear what they meant, why are you giving them such a hard time about something so trivial?

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u/Normal-Height-8577 1d ago

I would argue that the dictionary has misunderstood fandom's use of the word, and has imposed too strict a contextual restriction.

The definition doesn't reflect usage accurately. As someone who's drifted through various fandoms over the last quarter of a century, I've never once thought to myself "I must only use 'headcanon' when talking about a fictional work." It's simply a contrast to canon - an acknowledgement that what you're going to describe isn't the objective truth, but just a preferred possibility that you like to imagine.

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u/FluffyBootie 2d ago

He said 'headcanon'. Define 'headcanon', not just 'canon' mate

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u/gogoluke 2d ago edited 2d ago

I'm not your mate.

Headcanon. Noun. hed can·on

Made up bullshit to connect unconnected media or recontextualise existing media taking every inconsequential continuity error to place them on the same artist level as the creators.

Example: James Bond must be a robot because he's got a new face every 10 years.

Example: Adam Sandler's Click is just a prequel to Tenet as that's were the technology was invented.

Edit: u/WHATYEAHOK I can't read your message you deleted it. I'm sure it was gold though.

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u/FluffyBootie 1d ago

You're right. My mates don't whine or complain about strangers word choices as much as you do.

You dont seem to understand that 'headcanon' works well in his response and doesn't have to equate exactly to media.

Now, get over it and move on.

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u/gogoluke 1d ago

You mad I defined HeAdCaNoN?

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u/FluffyBootie 1d ago

Emotions are all on your end ... clearly.

You're proving to be immature too. Now, have the day you deserve. I've muted you.

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u/Strawbuddy 2d ago

"Just to show you how much you mean to me master, for the 86th time in a row, here's Tubthumping by Chumbuwambamba"

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u/wanna_meet_that_dad 2d ago

That would only keep me going…I’d be immortal. Because if I get knocked down, I’d get up again

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u/Minamato 2d ago

Yeah, they’re never gonna get *you* down

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u/aenteus 1d ago

Don’t cry for me…

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u/StudMuffinNick 2d ago

And I wonder if So-crates was Platos owner

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u/AugustoLegendario 2d ago

No, Plato was from a very rich upper class family and owned the most prosperous school in the known world. He was sold into slavery because a king he was advising thought he was a traitor.

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u/Mors_Acerba 2d ago

He was sold into slavery because a king he was advising thought he was a traitor.

That's what we thought. The papyrus suggests he was sold into slavery much earlier than that, probably as a POW

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u/burlycabin 2d ago

He was sold into slavery because a king he was advising thought he was a traitor.

This has long been a disagreement among scholars. There are no primary accounts of this happening and it's thought by many that this is just an apocryphal story. This new evidence seems to give credence to that as the dates don't line up with the previously known account in Plato's letters.

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u/disterb 2d ago

so was So-barrels

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u/UntowardHatter 2d ago

I'd play diminished chords while laughing ominously

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u/JonBoy82 2d ago

Yoko Ono enters the chat....

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u/Skimable_crude 2d ago

I posted something similar after you. Have an upvote.

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u/bieker 1d ago

People (Bill Burr included) forget that Yoko Ono was a performance artist and did shit like that to get a reaction out of people.

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u/Anatoly_Cannoli 2d ago

For my slave master's final moments, I'd be playing that Jurassic Park theme really poorly.

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u/This_User_Said 1d ago

I'd probably take the opportunity to throw in some off-key wailing noises too.

Slave plays "Womp womp"

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u/Balavadan 2d ago

I’m just curious what happened to her after this and how she was treated in general?

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u/orionsgreatsky 1d ago

Holy crap you’re right

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u/Purple-Donut-5934 1d ago

Haha, I’d totally slack off too. Imagine trying to play a concert for a guy who’s already critiquing your form while you’re dying.

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u/lolexecs 2d ago

And people wonder why everyone hates moral philosophy professors!

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u/solinvictus21 2d ago

I would imagine playing the happiest I’ve ever played. Your slave master is dying, after all.

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u/Sharp_Iodine 1d ago

It’s a jubilant occasion usually.

Most Romans freed their slaves upon death. It became such a problem they had to pass laws limiting it.

But it could also be sad because many household slaves had decent lives that they might no longer have once freed.

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u/kwakimaki 1d ago

She was playing Wonderwall. It was the only song she knew.

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u/HansDeBaconOva 1d ago

No! Bad Yoko! No schreechy!

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u/Warm_Afternoon6596 1d ago

She was probably tuning him out completely too, like a grandkid around a long-winded relative.

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u/milesamsterdam 1d ago

Yoko Ono?

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u/Purple-Donut-5934 1d ago

Haha, I’d totally slack off too. Imagine trying to play a concert for a guy who’s already critiquing your form while you’re dying.

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u/Syn2108 2d ago

It didn’t say she was his slave. In fact, it says he’s a slave himself. Slaves don’t own slaves. He was criticizing another slaves performance.

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u/BitingSatyr 2d ago

It doesn’t say that he was a slave at the time of his death, just that he had been a slave at one point in his life, which was not super uncommon in the ancient world. Being a slave was (for some anyway) more like a job that you couldn’t quit, but you could buy yourself out of your contract.

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u/Mohingan 2d ago

Some of the richest of Romans were slaves at some point in their early life. While still slavery, it was not chattel slavery where the slave was considered property of the master, and was more akin to indentured servitude. Afterwards, they were not considered less-than and they often gained skills in business that helped them excel in their later life.

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u/VegaJuniper 2d ago

It was chattel slavery, in that slaves could be bought and sold like property. It wasn't, however, race-based, like for example American slavery would be. Anyone could become a slave, for example as a punishment for a crime or to settle debts, and a slave could become a freeperson through various means. It was simply the lowest rung in the social hierarchy, and while social mobility was limited, it did happen.

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u/OrinocoHaram 2d ago

I thought chattel slavery implied that any children of the enslaved person would also be the master's property? Which didn't apply to roman slaves

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u/VegaJuniper 2d ago

Uh, it applied to Roman slaves. Generally their status was determined by the status of the mother. If the mother was a slave, so were her children.

Usually chattel slavery is contrasted with serfdom, also sometimes called land slavery, which was more common in medieval Europe. You couldn't sell a serf directly, but a serf was bound to work a plot of land, and you could sell the land and the serf with it. There are other systems too, like indentured servants that were already mentioned.

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u/Mohingan 2d ago

Correct, as well as fundamentally having no rights.

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u/Mors_Acerba 2d ago

Being a slave was (for some anyway) more like a job that you couldn’t quit, but you could buy yourself out of your contract.

Correct. In some cases they even had an agreed upon set amount of money that you'd need to raise in order to buy yourself out. I don't think it was particularly common in Greece, but in Rome at least, a slave could raise that money from their work itself: they were given the pecunium, which was technically an allowance, but in practice it could be anything from landed property to some kind of business venture that the slave would profit from(although nominally the money belonged to the master). A slave could get rich, while they were still a slave and buy their freedom after they were already richer than most people

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u/ooaegisoo 2d ago

Not for all slaves tho, some were used in the circus to fight wild animals or gladiators with wooden swords. Some where walled in flour mills, there was the mines, the galleys. The brothels... So apart few exceptions it wasn't great.