1 Slaves are men, humble friends, fellow slaves
I have been pleased to hear from people from Syracuse that you treat your servants familiarly: this behavior befits your wisdom and your education.
"They are slaves." No, they are men. "They are slaves". No, they live in the same house as you. "They are slaves". No, humble friends.
"They are slaves." No, fellow slaves, if you think that fate has equal power over us and them.

2 The pride of a rich glutton
Therefore I laugh at those who consider it dishonorable to dine in the company of their slave; and for what reason, then, if not because it is a custom dictated by the greatest pride that around the master, while he is eating, there is a crowd of servants standing? He eats beyond the capacity of his stomach and with great greed fills his swollen belly now unaccustomed to his functions: he is more tired to vomit food than to swallow it.

3 Unhappy slaves of a proud man
But those unhappy slaves are not even allowed to move their lips to speak: every whisper is repressed with a stick and not even random noises, coughing, sneezing, sobbing escape the beating: interrupting the silence with a word is paid dearly price; they must stand fast and silent all night.

4 There are slaves who gossip about the master and devoted slaves
Thus it happens that these people, who cannot speak in the presence of their master, speak ill of him. On the other hand, those servants who could speak not only in the presence of the master, but also with the master himself, those who did not have their mouths sewn up, were ready to offer their heads for him and to avert upon themselves a danger that threatened him; they talked at banquets, but kept silent under torture.

5 Slaves are made enemies by certain masters
Furthermore, that proverb, fruit of the same arrogance, is often repeated: "As many enemies, how many slaves": they are not enemies, we make them so ourselves. For the moment I leave out cruel and inhuman mistreatment: we abuse them as if they were not men, but beasts. When we sit down at the tsts.able, one cleanses the spit, another, standing under the triclinium, collects the leftovers of the drunken guests.

6 A more unfortunate master than the slave
One cuts expensive birds; moving his expert hand with confident strokes across the chest and thighs, he detaches small pieces of them; poor fellow: he lives only to chop poultry as is appropriate; but he is more unfortunate who teaches all this for his own pleasure than he who learns out of necessity.

7 Slave to the lust of a depraved
Another, a wine clerk, dressed as a woman, struggles with age: he cannot leave childhood, he is held there and, although he is now skilled in age of military service, hairless, with his hair shaved or rooted, he watches over all night, dividing it between the drunkenness and the lust of the master, and acts as a man in the bedroom and as a servant during dinner.

8 The stupidly superb master
Another who has the task of judging the guests, stands up, unfortunate, and looks at which people will have to be called the next day because they have been able to flatter and have been intemperate in eating or in speeches. Then there are those who take care of the provisions: they know exactly the tastes of the master and they know what food treats him to taste, what he likes the look of, what unusual dish can relieve him of nausea, which repulses him when he is full, what he wants to eat that day.
The master, however, cannot bear to eat together with them and considers it a decrease in his dignity to sit at the same table with one of his servants. But good god! how many masters does he have among them.

9 Callistus who was a slave humiliates his former master
I saw his former master standing in front of Callistus' door and as the others entered, he was left outside, who had put a sale sign on him and presented him among the discarded slaves. So that servant who had been placed in the first ten in which the auctioneer tests the voice, returned the pair: he in turn rejected him and did not judge him worthy of his house. The master sold Callistus: but how Callistus repaid his master!

10 Consider that the world is made up of stairs, who goes down and who    climbs them
Consider that this one, whom you call your slave, was born of the same seed, enjoys the same sky, breathes, lives, dies like you! You can see him free, as he can see you a slave. With the defeat of Varus, fate socially degraded many men of noble origin, who through military service aspired to the rank of senators: someone made him a shepherd, some other guardian of a house. And now he also despises the man who is in a state where, just as you despise him, you too can.

11 behave with your inferior as you would like your superior to do    with you.
I do not want to get into such a challenging subject and discuss the treatment of slaves: towards them we are excessively proud, cruel and insolent. This is the gist of my teachings: behave with your inferior as you would like your superior to act with you. Whenever it occurs to you how much power you have over your slave, think that your master has just as much power over you.

12 Still on the world it is made up of stairs, there are those who    descend them and those who climb them
"But I," you retort, "have no master." For now it's fine with you; maybe, but you will have it. Don't you know at what age Hecuba became a slave, and Croesus, and the mother of Darius, and Plato, and Diogenes?

13 Because you have to be kind to your servant
Be gracious to your servant and also affable; talk to him, ask him for advice, eat with him.
At this point the whole host of refined people will shout at me: "There is nothing more humiliating, nothing more shameful." But I could catch them kissing the hand of other people's servants.

14 Do as your ancestors did: treat servants as family
And do you not even realize how our ancestors wanted to eliminate any reason for hatred towards the masters and outrage towards the slaves?
They called the master father of the family and the slaves servants, a name that has remained in mimes; they established a holiday, not because the masters ate with the servants only on that, but at least on that; they allowed them to occupy positions of responsibility in the family, to administer justice, and they considered the house a small state.

15 Because the job is assigned to chance, dignity to behavior
"So what? Shall I invite all the slaves to my table?" No more than all free men. You are wrong if you think that I will reject someone because he carries out a job that is too humble, for example that muleteer or that crook. I will not judge them by their trade, but by their conduct; everyone is responsible for their conduct, the
profession, on the other hand, is assigned by chance. Some sit at table with you, because they are worthy, others because they become so; if there is some servile trait in them deriving from intercourse with humble people, familiarity with nobler men will eliminate it.

16 Search your friends even in your home
You must not, dear Lucilius, look for friends only in the forum or in the senate: if you pay attention, you will also find them at home. Often a good material remains useless without a skilled craftsman: try to experience it. If one does not examine it when buying a horse, but looks at the saddle and the bridle, it is stupid; so it is even more stupid who judges a man by his clothing and social condition, which fits us like a suit.

17 Make sure you are respected, not feared
"He is a slave." But maybe he is free at heart. "He is a slave." And will this harm him? Show me who is not: there are those who are a slave to lust, some of greed, some of ambition, all are slaves of hope, all of fear. I will show you a former consul servant of an old woman, a rich gentleman servant of a handmaid, noble young slaves of pantomime: no slavery is more shameful than voluntary one. Therefore such fussy eaters must not distract you from being cordial to your servants without feeling superbly superior: rather than fear you, they respect you.

18 If one is respected, one is also loved:
Someone will now say that I incite the slaves to revolt and that I want to overthrow the authority of the masters, because I said "respect the master more than fear him". "Exactly so?" they will ask. "Do they respect him like the customers, like the people who pay the homage visit?" Whoever says this forgets that the reverence that is enough for a god is no small thing for masters. If someone is respected, he is also loved: love cannot mix with fear.

19 Because the beasts are punished with the whip, not men
In my opinion, therefore you do very well not to want your servants to fear you and to correct them only with words: the beasts are punished with the whip.
Not everything that strikes us harms us; but the habit of pleasure leads to anger: everything that is not as we wish provokes our anger.

20 Let's not say that we have been outraged in order to be able to    outrage.
We behave like sovereigns: they too, forgetting their own strengths and the weakness of others, go into a rage and rage, as if they had been offended, while the exceptionality of their fate puts them completely safe from the danger of such an eventuality. They know it well, but, complaining, they look for an opportunity to do harm; they say they were outraged in order to outrage.

21 Righteousness pleases itself and is steadfast
I don't want to hold you back any longer; you don't need exhortations. Righteousness has this advantage, among others: it pleases itself and is steadfast. Wickedness is fickle and changes often, and not for the better, but in a different direction.

Take care of you (in latin : Vale!)