The world of Philogelos is full of slaves, in the house, in the
school, on the farm. The student dunce travels with not one, but
several. But the lot of a slave in antiquity was not hopeless, as it
was in the American south. The slave could earn money, save it,
and eventually buy his own freedom, if he wasn’t freed first by his
master’s act of benevolence (usually post-mortem, by testament).
Be nice to Old Master, and you might soon don that freedman’s cap.
Where the humor is not obscure or shocking or strange, but simply
crude and vulgar, we find common ground with Philogelos. Under
our tent, you’re always in danger of tripping over excrement or a
copulation here and there. Of course we’re all human, and sure
enough, we discover enough of ourselves here to make us feel
more or less at home. As the late, great Kurt Vonnegut observed
of the vastly mutated, porpoise-like humans of his future world in
Galapagos, they don’t look like us, or act like us, or use language
like us, but we know they’re human because, as they bask in herds
on that tropical beach, when anyone farts, everyone laughs.
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