• blarghly@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    2 hours ago

    I have literally no real knowledge of this subject. But - shot in the dark - the people saying “bring this back” are probably once again falling prey to an idealization of history. Similar to how everyone imagines themselves as princes and princesses if they were to live in medieval times, but statistically you would be a peasant living in a shit hut.

    I imagine the modern corrolary would be - you and your bro went to an elite private school together, wearing sport coats to parties and sailing in the yacht club. You had a lot of good times together and bonded over getting drunk and talking to girls. Then the two of you got hired by the same elite New York law firm and became roommates. But while you were willing to work hard and keep your head down when you got bullied by the senior partners, he wasn’t cut out for corporate life and got fired. So you started paying his rent, since his trust fund would only go so far. Now, 10 years later, you make far more money than you could possibly need, and just letting him live for free is worth his company since he’s a pretty good sounding board for dealing with problems at work and with your girlfriend, and he’s a good guest to bring to cocktail parties.

    The part the “bring this back” people miss is that in order to benefit from this arrangement, you need to be known and liked by rich people, which typically requires that you are already rich. And I mean, you can probably live with your parents for free - it just isn’t classy, since you aren’t rich

    • PugJesus@piefed.socialOPMEnglish
      4·
      2 hours ago

      Oh yeah, there’s a strong element of unpleasantness to it. Not only that, but it’s deeply connected to how Roman society itself was structured - around client/patron relationships. Sycophancy opened many doors. It was not exactly a great system.

      I mean, our system isn’t great either. But I would hazard that it is less sycophantic and less oriented towards client/patron relationships, which is, at least, better than the reverse.

      The part the “bring this back” people miss is that in order to benefit from this arrangement, you need to be known and liked by rich people, which typically requires that you are already rich.

      This is a bit of an interesting point - before the Industrial Revolution, the rich often had many contacts amongst the poor, in part because it was impossible to avoid them. Such ‘parasites’ in the Roman era would have overwhelmingly been poor/working class, or artisans/middle class at best.

      After advanced forms of transport were developed, the rich began creating more distance - physical, social, and metaphorical - between themselves and The Poors™.

  • PugJesus@piefed.socialOPMEnglish
    35·
    17 hours ago

    Explanation: The term comes from Greek - ‘One who eats with others’. Romans were an immensely public people, and anyone who was anyone had dinner parties with incredible regularity - one would need a few contacts, so as to always have a few entertaining guests for the important folk you want to impress! If you were a little witty and a little willing to endure some jokes at your expense, you could - if not necessarily make a living of it - at least make a good number of your monthly meals for free at the tables of the upper-class!