In the textbook "Reading Classical Latin: A Reasonable Approach", one of the English definitions given for the Latin noun servus is ‘servant’ (Hall 2015, 368). Recent research argues that translations such as this sanitize the violence and involuntary nature of enslavement and promote a false “happy slave” narrative (Dugan 2019; Foreman 2019). An accurate definition would not be ‘servant’ but rather ‘enslaved person.’ In this workshop, I will ask the audience to consider such textbook language choices and discuss why it matters.
