Petronius Arbiter, in the Supper of Trimalchio, the third chapter of his book Satyricon, mocks the nature of slaves. He was a high official of Rome, or the "Judge of Taste" at the court of Nero (129). Regardless of what responsibilities he had, he was an aristocrat. The history of Rome was written from an aristocratic perspective because they were the ones who had the money, ambition, and free time to document history. Petronius believed that slaves belonged to a lower class and that a slave who has been freed, i.e. a freedman, is still a slave at heart, therefore worthless. Even with all the money in the world he could not develop the taste of the upper class. In both ancient and modern times, money cannot buy a good personality or social sophistication. While the free-born Roman boy went to school to learn rhetoric, mathematics, etc., the slave boy worked from an early age. Whether they worked physically, mathematically, or sexually, they still worked, which is a key difference between them and the freeborn (although the poor freeborn worked, they were often replaced by slaves because slaves were free labor). Sarah Ruden, the translator of this edition of Satyricon, comments that freedmen were like immigrants in America today. Only the particularly ambitious achieved freedom. This process has a modern equivalent where only the most ambitious immigrants tend to reach American soil. This process of “self-selection” weeds out the lazy (155). Slaves who had won their freedom had worked very hard from an early age and therefore had the experience necessary to succeed and amass fortunes. However, what the freedmen could not have learned from such an experience is the behavior and manners of a respectful Roman aristocrat. Personality is naturally instilled by living among others in your social class. It is not possible to fully learn a foreign culture unless you are adopted at an early age by a family from that culture. Although slaves lived with families, they performed completely different functions ergo they had completely different experiences and education. Unfortunately for the freedmen who managed to make it and become wealthy, they were still socially inferior to the freeborn. Petronius shows that the dinner guest, Trimalchio, is a rough freedman. He has no respectable virtues. He is cruel to his slaves despite the fact that he was... middle of paper... lying in the funeral procession was too loud and sounded like a fire alarm. They take advantage of the confusion and flee (60). At Trimalchio's dinner the theme was drunk and disorderly rather than relaxed and fun, the nature of traditional Roman dinners (166). It is through this story that Petronius tells us about the aristocracy's views on slaves and uneducated freedmen. Comparisons can be made with its modern equivalent of “new money”. Exempli gratia, when the latest rap artist from a ghetto makes an album and then gets rich, there is no moral improvement. Money can't buy character change. It cannot change behavior, improve social skills or sharpen personality. Lacking a warm childhood education to establish good manners, as well as protection from sexual predators, slaves never came close to matching the behavior, values, virtues, morals, and decency of the "Good Roman Citizen." In this ancient equivalent of a Snoop Dogg song line, "You can take the boy [out of] the 'hood, but you can't take the 'hood out [of] the 'Homeboy,'" no matter how much money and freedom they've earned slaves, after all, are still slaves.