It was a criticism of aspects of Roman slavery, without outright opposition to it (Seneca was himself a slaveholder), and had a favorable later reception by Enlightenment philosophers and subsequently the 19th century abolitionist movement.
[3][4] As such, Seneca made objection to behavior seen as particularly degrading such as corporal punishment and sexual exploitation of enslaved people, but not to the overall social system.
As a Roman letter expressing ambivalence about slavery from the 1st century, it has been compared to the early Christian writing in Paul's Epistle to Philemon.
[8] Hegel's master–slave dialectic in The Phenomenology of Spirit of 1807 picked up the philosophical theme, later commented on by Jean-Paul Sartre in the 20th century.
[9][10] Jean-Jacques Rousseau's sequel to the 1762 Emile, or On Education sees the novel's protagonist sold into the Barbary slave trade, and develops Seneca's ideas, while taking them further to show slavery as inherently unjust.