Lives of the Lower Class

2271 Words5 Pages

The lives of the lower class people as depicted by Apuleius are different in a multitude of ways. There is a "lower class" status as many people are correctly labeled throughout the story, but there are many different types of lower class citizens. There are slaves, freed ex-slaves, farmers, and just really poor people who are forced to fight for survival. All of these types of people can be correctly identified as "lower class." Some lower class people are treated much more relentlessly by masters, the law, and everyone else in general. By no means does the lower class have a vague and colloquial lifestyle, and Apuleius continuously proves this theory throughout the story. The lives of the lower class during antiquity were a lot more physically demanding and problematic compared to the rest of society. Farmers often had a lot of "down time" and slaves were not often over-worked, but they easily exceeded the rest of society in work accomplished throughout a day. A lower class citizen fought for everything they received and they were rarely acknowledged for their accomplishments. A prime example of working to stay alive comes in the case of the priests that bought Lucius. Wretchedly beating each other with whips and such, one of the priests being whipped "scourged himself with lashes from this heavily knotted weapon, withstanding the pain of the blows in remarkable fashion by gritting his teeth. You could see the ground getting soaked with the filthy blood of the catamites as a result of the incisions of the swords and the blows of the whips" (Apuleius 157). Beating the life out of yourself for some "coppers" (Apuleius 157), a "cask of wine, milk, cheeses, and a quantity of spelt and fine flour" (... ... middle of paper ... ...are a few circumstances that may prove different such as how the priests may have it better off than possibly Photis, but it is hard to compare and decided who actually leads the better life. For the most part though, the poor free man struggles through life more than a slave did during Roman antiquity. The lives of the lower class people are different everywhere you look. Many have it easy, many have it tough. One thing can be concluded, the life of a lower class person can be defined as a life of work. Whether a person is a slave, a farmer, or a free poor individual, they are going to live a hard life in which they are forced to earn everything they get. The lives' of the lower class as depicted by Apuleius were lifestyles full of hardship, drudgery, drawbacks, and embarrassment. Apuleius, The Golden Ass, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Copyright 1994.

Open Document