“You’re quite mistaken, though, if you imagine that I’d bar from the table certain slaves on the grounds of their relatively menial or dirty nature of their work – that muleteer, for example, or that cowhand. I propose to value them according to their character, not their jobs. Each man has a character of his own choosing; it is chance or fate that decides his choice of job. Have some of them dine with you because they deserve it, others in order to make them so deserving.
– – –
… only an absolute fool values a man according to his clothes, or according to his social position, which after all is only something that we wear like clothing.”
-Seneca in letter to the boy who would become Emperor Nero
Value them according to their character
