Traditional intellectuals trace their origins to slavery and freedmen in the Roman Empire.

Evidence

The formation of traditional intellectuals is the most interesting problem historically. It is undoubtedly connected with slavery in the classical world and with the position of freed men of Greek or Oriental origin in the social organisation of the Roman Empire . — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 299

Categorization

• XREF: Grounds Gramsci’s category of ‘traditional intellectuals’ causally in classical slavery — connects to later Islamophobia readings on how intellectual elites inherit structural positions across regimes.
• DEFINE: Begins defining ‘traditional intellectuals’ by their historical origin rather than abstractly.