The Roman Guide to Slave Management: A Treatise by Nobleman Marcus Sidonius Falx

by Jerry Toner

  What has happened to old-fashioned self-sufficiency? Why do we need to own great retinues of slaves just to show off how rich we are? Look at the heavens and you will see that the gods are naked; they give everything and keep nothing for themselves. Then look at the earth and see the rapacious individuals who gather round themselves all manner of slaves to boost their public image. Was Pompey’s freedman Demetrius, who felt no shame at being richer than Pompey, also happier? Every day he used to go through the list of slaves he owned as though he were an army commander. He should have considered himself well off if he had just two under-slaves and more spacious sleeping quarters. Diogenes had just one slave who ran away from him, and when he was told where he was, he didn’t think it worthwhile to bring him back. ‘It would be dishonourable,’ he said, ‘if my slave Manes could survive without Diogenes, but Diogenes could not survive without Manes.’ I think that what he meant was this: ‘Now that wretched slave has run away, I’ve got my freedom back!’

  Slaves are nothing but an expense. You have to look after the appetites of all those greedy creatures. You have to buy them clothes. You have to keep a watch on all those thieving hands ever ready to steal things. You have to use people who also detest us. How much happier is the man whose only obligation is to someone whom he can easily deny – himself!

  But how can we fight the riches that fate has sent us? Perhaps we shall just have to accept that it is written in the stars that we Romans are destined to rule the world. We cannot avoid owning slaves. At the very least you should display your ambivalence about owning slaves in the names that you chose for them. Pick a cheerful name or one that means something to you, such as the place where you bought him, or a name imbued with some dry humour to show that you do not take seriously the benefits that fortune has chosen to send your way. For example, I once bought a slave, at no inconsiderable cost, who on his journey to my urban villa fell and broke his arm. I called him Lucky.

  COMMENTARY

  Most of the details regarding the purchase of slaves come from the urban environment where a master was generally buying a small number of slaves. The fact that these slaves lived under the same roof as the master and were used to provide personal services to him and his family means that it was likely that great care was taken over their selection. It was probably different in the country. Particularly in large estates, such detailed examinations may not have been the norm and it probably fell to the estate manager to buy the slaves. Obviously, the size of a master’s household and estates will have dictated the degree of his personal involvement in making slave purchases.

  The availability of slaves will have affected the care that buyers took in their selections. In periods after great Roman military victories, when the supply of new slaves was plentiful, prices can be expected to have fallen and buyers probably relaxed their watchfulness.

  A freeborn Roman citizen could not legally forfeit his or her legal status without consent. But it was a sad fact of social life in the Roman world that many freeborn children were abandoned by their parents who either could not afford to bring them up or simply did not want to. Those who did not die of exposure to the elements or from being eaten by dogs could be picked up by slave dealers and surrogate parents and raised as foundlings. These children effectively became the slaves of their new guardians. Even though it was a common mechanism in theatrical plots for such abandoned children to be rediscovered by their real parents, it is safe to assume that this was a rare occurrence.

  It is actually unclear whether the Romans actively bred their slaves. Slave reproduction happened naturally, given that they were often allowed to form relationships. The master seems to have been expected to give his approval for such partnerships, but the extent of his involvement in pairing slaves off is unknown. If the master was consulted, it is reasonable to assume that he would have wanted to prevent an alliance between two troublesome slaves, but that is a long way from saying that he sought to manage his slave stock by selecting well-built and healthy slaves as partners for each other. Masters also indulged in sexual activity with their slaves, which, if female slaves were involved, also resulted in servile pregnancies. These offspring were legally slaves, even though the master was the father.

  Prices for slaves need to be treated with caution. They are estimates based on a small body of surviving examples. Nominal prices rose during the later empire because of inflation but it is unclear whether prices increased in real terms. It is certainly not possible to see any decline in the total slave population of the later empire, either as a result of possible economic decline or Christianity’s greater influence. Records of the dramatically high prices of slaves such as Mark Antony’s ‘twins’ have survived because of their extreme nature. It is impossible to draw any conclusions about more average prices from this. What can be concluded about prices more generally is that they were both high and varied. It cost about 500 sesterces per year to feed a family of four with a simple grain diet. Obviously, once a greater variety of foodstuffs and other living costs such as rent and clothing are taken into account, that figure will rise much higher. If we take 1,000 sesterces as a reasonable guess, even allowing for the fact that this will have varied significantly from place to place and from year to year, then the prices given by Marcus can obviously be seen to be very high. They are certainly well above the means of the poor or maybe even ‘average’ Roman. A slave would also have represented a substantial investment for an artisan. It shows how the large retinues of slaves maintained by the rich had little to do with economics and lots to do with conspicuous consumption.

  Despite the huge number of slaves kept in Italy, many Roman texts seem to have had moral problems with the use of slaves. It is sometimes very difficult to square this conflict. How did the Romans use so many slaves but think it was morally wrong to do so? We need to recognise the rhetorical element of so many Roman sources, particularly from writers such as Seneca, who provides a number of important texts related to slavery. The decline of Rome from its purity of old was a literary motif. It was how the Romans assuaged their guilt at consuming so much, whether it was in the form of food in feasts or people as slaves.

  Digest 21.1 gives details of the Edict of the Curule Aediles, which governed the sale of slaves and lists the details of defects that had to be revealed. On foundlings, see for example Pliny the Younger Letters 10.65 and 66. Aulus Gellius Attic Nights 20.1 describes how from the fourth century BC Rome did not allow its citizens to sell themselves as slaves to pay back debts. Earlier, it had been possible, but such slaves had to be sold across the Tiber, which was at that time outside Roman territory. On Germans as fanatical dice-players see Tacitus Germania 24. The pirate raid on Mothone is to be found at Pausanias 4.35.6. The description of the capture of a small city is based on the Roman capture of Palermo in 259 BC described in Diodorus Siculus 23.18. Prices are based on the 5 million sesterces raised by Augustus’s 2 per cent sales tax on slaves and by the relative pricing of wheat and slaves in Diocletian’s Edict on Maximum Prices. I have given prices in sesterces at about the time of Augustus. For extreme prices see Pliny the Elder Natural History 7.40; see the same source, 7.12, for Mark Antony’s twins; and 7.39 for the actors, Nero and Paezon. On pitying new slaves who find their altered status difficult see Seneca On Anger 3.29. The proverbs can be found in Publius Syrus nos. 489 and 616. The story of Calvisius Sabinus training his slaves to memorise Homer is in Seneca Letters 27. On childhood tutors see Quintilian Institutes of Oratory 1.1. The account of Pliny the Younger writing to the emperor Trajan about criminals being used as public slaves is in his Letters 10.31 and 32. ‘Lucky’ (Felix) was a common slave name.

  CHAPTER II

  GETTING THE BEST FROM YOUR SLAVES

  SO YOU HAVE BOUGHT your slaves. How now do you manage them in such a way that they will work hard for you? Many a new slave owner has fallen into the trap of thinking that the whip alone is enough. Those of us whose families have possessed slaves for generations know that such treatment w
ill soon wear a slave out. If you try to force your slaves beyond the limits of reasonable service, you will end up making them surly and unmanageable. Slaves like this are a vexation and a curse. Cruelty ends up hurting the master most. It might do for the mines but not on your farm estates, let alone in your household. Instead, you must realise that as a master you have an obligation to treat your slaves properly, and if you do that, then you can expect not only that they will do their jobs diligently but that they will remain fit to do so for many years to come.

  It is incumbent on the higher orders in society to behave justly towards even the lowest kinds of people. There are none who are lower than the slaves. But we should treat them in the same way that we do hired workmen. That is to say, we should insist that they work properly but that we should treat them fairly in return. This is despite the fact that slaves are, of course, no more than tools. A hired workman is a man. But a slave is a tool that is used to work the land or provide some other service. A slave just happens to be a tool that can speak. It is this faculty of speech that ranks him above the cattle and other farm animals. But you as a master and slave owner are at the top of society and it is right that you act in a moral and just manner at all times, even to those who do not deserve it.

  The first step you must take to ensure that your slaves behave well and work hard has already been done: you have bought good slaves. The next step is training them. It is clear to everyone that the way in which you bring up your children is reflected in their individual character. In the same way, it is essential that you educate and train your slaves properly for the roles that you wish to assign to them. This is why it is often best and easiest to buy slaves who are new to servitude. I mentioned that one friend of mine always buys prisoners of war who are still young enough to be trained, in the way that foals are so much more biddable than mangy old nags.

  Training can begin immediately. Some foolishly believe that it is possible to reason with a slave. They think that slaves can be made more likely to obey you simply by explaining to them the advantages of doing so. But in fact slaves need to be trained as you would a wild beast if obedience is to be instilled. Again, this is not a simple matter of the whip. You will get the best results by giving them as much food as they want. Praise them generously, especially those who are clearly ambitious and so are likely to be more motivated by praise. Make sure that you compel them to forget their old gods and start to worship at the household shrine. Once they realise that it is our pantheon of gods that has made us great, they will be far more likely to accept the justness of their low position.

  Once trained, give slaves enough food for them to do their jobs, but not so much as to make them lazy. Those slaves who are performing manual labour should receive more generous rations than those who are performing light domestic duties. Slaves need fuel to work efficiently and cannot be expected to give good service on an empty belly. I always make a point of checking the slaves’ rations personally whenever I visit my estates. This ensures that the cooks are not cheating by keeping some of the supplies aside for their own profit. It also shows the slaves that you are taking an interest in their welfare, which will boost their morale and make them work harder. For there are three things that slaves think about: food, work and punishment. If you give them food to eat but no work to do, it will make them lazy and insolent. If you give them work and punishment without food it quickly weakens them in the same way as violent attacks do. By far the best course is to give them work to do together with sufficient food. You cannot manage people without rewarding them, and food is a slave’s reward. Slaves are just like normal people in that they perform badly if good behaviour brings no benefits and there are no punishments for failure.

  Keep a close eye, therefore, on your slaves’ behaviour and allocate your food accordingly. Privileges should be granted in accordance with how well they have been deserved. Food makes a good bonus for pleasing performance. I like to reward domestic slaves with the leftovers from my dinners when they have served well. In the country, I give slaves free time to have the opportunity to keep their own chickens and pigs and tend their own kitchen gardens, or go foraging in the woods for berries and the like. Or I will give them extra rations of the hard cheese made in Luna in Etruria. I will also give them a little extra wine vinegar, but be very careful here. Drinking wine makes even free men behave insolently, so it should be obvious that extra wine should be given to slaves only rarely and under supervision.

  In all our dealings with the victuals of slaves we must act like a doctor when he issues his prescriptions. Great care must be made to ensure that each slave gets both what is just and what is suitable for his lowly position. Slave food should be functional not luxurious. I recommend a basic diet of rough bread, salt, grapes, olive oil, olive mash and dried fruit. This can be supplemented with small performance bonuses as described above. You will find the following guides useful:

  Rations for slaves:

  30 kg of wheat per month in winter for slaves in chain gangs.

  35 kg of wheat per month in summer to allow for the harder work of sowing, weeding and harvesting crops. Increase rations when slaves begin to work the vines, and reduce them when the figs ripen. Do not cut them back as much as that cheapskate Cato advises in his manual unless you wish to wear your slaves out with hunger.

  20 kg of wheat per month for the overseer, the housekeeper, the foremen, and shepherds, to allow for their lighter load.

  Recipe for slave wine rations:

  Put in a wooden barrel ten parts of crushed grapes and two parts of very pungent vinegar. Add two parts of boiled wine and fifty of sweet water. With a paddle mix all these three times a day for five days. Add one forty-eighth of seawater drawn some time earlier. Place a lid on the barrel and let it ferment for ten days.

  Obviously this is not the finest Falernian! But it should last for about three months and if there is any left after then it will make excellent, very sharp vinegar.

  Olives for slaves:

  Store all the windfall olives you can. Add the small olives from mature olive trees, which will yield very little oil. Issue these olives sparingly to the slaves to make them last as long as possible. When they are used up, give the slaves fish-pickle and vinegar. Give slaves a pint of oil a month. Also give them half a pound of salt each per month.

  During the day, slaves should eat their lunch sitting separately to avoid time-wasting and idle chatting. But in the evenings they should be allowed to eat together. For we would be too hard if we did not permit them some socialising.

  Clothes should also be given out according to how well they are deserved. Those slaves who have worked hard should be rewarded with better quality shoes and tunics, whereas those who have shirked their responsibilities must realise that they face the consequences of their idleness in all aspects of their life. As a standard rule, I give each farm slave a one-metre-long tunic and a coarse blanket every other year. When you issue the tunic or the blanket, make sure that you make them hand in their old ones so that your female slaves can make patchwork from them. A stout pair of wooden shoes should be issued every other year. In all matters of clothing you should think about usefulness rather then appearance. To keep the slave protected against wind, cold and rain, give them long-sleeved leather tunics, extra patchwork clothes, or hooded cloaks. If you do this then there is no weather so bad that some work cannot be done outside.

  Your slaves need adequate shelter to sleep in. House your domestic slaves in small bedrooms or storage rooms, and provide an old mattress for them to lie on and an old cloak to use as a blanket. In the country, you will almost certainly find room among the rafters of some building to use as sleeping quarters for the slaves. If it is large enough, and the risk of fire is low, then you may well find the rafters in the kitchen can provide a cosy area all year round. The worst thing for a farm is to be worked by slaves housed in a kind of underground prison block, for anything that is done by men who have no hope is done badly.

  It is
a sad fact that today, wherever you travel in the empire, you see the land being worked by slaves instead of the yeomen of old who made Rome great. These days, farms are trod by feet in chains, by hands which have been punished, by faces which have been branded. Mother Earth is not so stupid that she doesn’t notice that proud and free peasants have been swapped for insolent and lazy slaves. It is not surprising that we do not get the same profits from farms worked by slaves as we used to get from the labour of Roman citizens. The fundamental problem is that the slave has no incentive to work hard. He gets fed whatever the farm produces. But there are some precautions you can undertake to try to minimise this shortfall and force or bribe the slave into working more productively.

  The first, which I have already mentioned but cannot emphasise enough, is to reward hard work. It is very demoralising for good slaves if they see that they are doing all the hard work, but that the lazy slaves get just as much food as they do. It is also essential that each slave should have a clearly defined long-term goal. If you are so minded, this can be for them to win their freedom. You will find it both fair and beneficial to offer freedom as a long-term bonus for loyalty and hard work. If the slave believes that the goal is attainable then he will work diligently towards it. Allowing your slaves to have children provides them with another incentive to work hard. If they do they will enjoy the fruits and pleasures of an improved family life. But if they displease you, then the children can be sold off to another owner as a punishment. If you organise occasional sacrifices and holidays as a reward for the hardest workers then you will also make it more likely that the work will get done well.