“Nulla familia rustica in viris mulieribusque pauciores habet quam quadraginta, praeter duos ascriptitios servos, quibus pater materque familias graves ac maturi praeficiuntur.”
(‘No peasant family has less than forty members, men and women together, without counting two slaves over whom the lord and lady of the clan rule severely but wisely.”… Thomas Morus, in his Utopia, describing the structure of its perfect society… “Ascriptitii servi” are simply the “slaves”, attachés à la glebe, according to the Roman law… Bezdechi’s Romanian translation of Morus’s Utopia rightly renders it by “robi”)…
Wait a minute? Slaves (!!) in Morus’s Utopia?!!…
I wonder whether those who have bought the idea of a perfect society ever bothered to read the small print coming with it…
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