Speculum Sinceritatis

Product Description

Speculum sinceritatis is a fictional dialogue between the freed slaves Marcus and Publius about the fables of the Roman poet Phaedrus. The slaves could not and were not allowed to tell their masters the truth to their faces, so they invented the fables in which animals speak, and even the trees. They could tell the slave owners the truth about their behavior. The slaves could only criticize their masters in December when the Romans celebrated Saturnalia, as the slave Davus criticized the poet Horace, about whom Horace writes in the 2nd book of his Satires. The masters did not take this criticism seriously. Phaedrus left five fable books to posterity, which he wrote under the influence of the Greek poet Aesop. I am firmly convinced that his fables can also appeal to people today, because they can see in the fables the "mirror of honesty."