How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
It was a catalogue of horrors. Page after page of Negroes in bridles, strapped to walls, advertisements for shackles, reports of hangings of slaves for theft or insubordination. He had, those many months, been collecting offers for children sold cheap, requests for aid in running down families who had fled their masters. For the first time, I saw masks of iron with metal mouth-bits for the slave to suck to enforce absolute silence. I saw razored necklaces, collars of spikes that supported the head. I saw women chained in coffees, bent over on the wharves. (2.13.17)
Sometimes what young Octavian suffers doesn't seem too bad—this is one of those times, and Octavian knows it. These visions of pure, physical torment are what truly set off Octavian's commitment to rebellion.
Quote #8
Empedocles claims that in utero, our backbone is one long solid; and that through the constriction of the womb and the punishments of birth it must be snapped again and again to form our vertebrae; that for the child to have a spine, his back must first be broken. (2.14.49)
Crazy what some of these old philosophers used to think, huh? We'll just point out that all this suffering at birth is another way of saying that suffering, in general, is kind of a birthright of humanity; it's a natural state that allows humans to be what they are. Whether you should believe in that philosophy is something we'll leave up to you…
Quote #9
We believe that the body hath its rights—to move in a reasonable ambit—to raise, to lower its limbs—but across the face of this earth, there are every day those who suffer unforgivable torments, strapped or chained, confined in boxes or in the holds of ships. May the Lord remind me of this always as I walk free upon paths, and may I thus always give thanks unto Him for the strange, small gifts of gesture, of simple tasks done with requisite care and sphere of action. (4.7.6)
Slavery often brings up horrific images of intense suffering, like tar-and-feathering or lynching or dismemberment. But here, Octavian focuses on how the shackled body suffers on a really minute level. It's the little, day-to-day things that make being enslaved just as difficult—things like not being able to life an arm or walk naturally.