The Roman Guide to Slave Management (8 page)

Herdsmen must be expected to spend the whole day with their flocks. They should also spend the whole night with them. The herdsmen should all report to a Head Herdsman, who should be older and more experienced than the others in order to command respect. But he must not be so old that he cannot cope with hard work. Not many old men can put up with the hardships of the cattle trail, when they have to travel along steep and rugged mountainsides, especially if they are herding goats.

Select men who have powerful physiques, are quick and agile, who are well coordinated, and are able to defend the flock from wild beasts or rustlers. They need
to be strong enough to lift up loads on to the backs of the pack animals, are good at sprinting and at hitting things with their slingshots. I find some races are useless as herdsmen. Bastulans and Turdulans are both no good, but Gauls are particularly good at it, especially with beasts of burden. As discussed, in terms of the number of herdsmen you employ, I would have one for every 80 to 100 sheep, and two for every 50 mares.

The Head Herdsman must make sure that all the supplies the flock and the herdsmen need are available to them, above all the men’s food and the animals’ veterinary supplies. The Head Herdsman should also be able to write so that he can keep records for you to inspect. This will also enable him to write down the directions for treating the illnesses that commonly attack animals and humans, so that he can help the sick when they are away in the grazing pastures and far from the aid of any physician.

Cato thought that slaves should either be working or that they should be asleep. He was actually quite happy to have slaves who slept a lot because he thought that they were easier to control than those who had a lot of energy. He also believed that those slaves who liked to sleep were more likely to be respectful towards their master. He never allowed domestic slaves to leave the confines of his own household unless explicitly sent on an errand by him or his wife. Even then they were not allowed to converse with others in case this encouraged them to idle. He thought that sexual appetite was what made slaves most difficult to control and so he used to charge them a fixed price to get together with the
female slaves. But he would not allow them any kind of permanent relationship. In my view this is no way to run a household. Humanity, even when it comes in the form of a miserable slave, still demands some basic justice.

Some see sick and old slaves as unproductive and useless. Cato advises us that they should be thrown away like rubbish. His attitude was that slaves should be bought cheap, worked hard and then left to die. He would simply not feed them once they were no longer useful. I, and most slave owners I know, consider his advice to be too cruel and heartless. Frankly, he was more worried about his sick fish than he was about his ill slaves and it is in any case now illegal to dump them. Personally, I think that an owner who treats his slaves like mules and then gets rid of them when they get old is wrong because he sees no bond between an owner and his slaves.

We owners have responsibilities towards our dependants. It will not always be in our financial interest to keep on a sick slave. But we can at least give them a chance to recover and lighten their load while they do so. And we can find some gentle jobs for the old slaves to perform, which enables them to contribute to the household. It is, after all, quite rare that slaves live into old age given the demands that are placed upon them. I use them as doorkeepers, or as bag-carriers for my sons when they go to school.

As an aside, let me tell you of an embarrassing incident I had with an old doorkeeper when visiting an old friend’s villa. I went up to the entrance where a decrepit slave was keeping watch. ‘Where on earth did you get hold of him?’ I asked my friend. ‘What possessed you to
steal a corpse from a graveyard to guard the door?’ But my friend said to me, ‘Don’t you recognise him, Marcus? It’s Felicio. We used to play together when we were children during the Saturnalia. He was the son of my father’s manager, Philositus, and we were all playmates.’ I had no idea what he was talking about. ‘You’re completely mad!’ I told my friend. ‘How could this toothless old crone have been a contemporary of ours?’ My friend’s look said it all! It is true that we have all been wearied by the passing years, but the life of a slave had certainly taken its toll on Felicio. But then I’m surprised my friend remembered him at all. He was, after all, only a slave boy.

While I am on the subject of age, I should say that when it comes to very young slaves I am all in favour of getting them working as soon as possible, certainly by the age of five. There is always something useful they can do, whether it is tending the small animals, doing some weeding in the garden, acting as cup-bearer at dinner, or, for the girls, doing simple weaving or helping in the kitchen. Carrying out these tasks gets them used to work early and trains them to understand their role in life.

On your country estate, the most important slave is the manager. Choose him carefully. If he is competent, then you will be free to devote your life to the dignified leisure that accords with your social station. If you select the wrong person, then productivity will fall, discipline will fail and you will find yourself constantly going back and forth from Rome, where your political and social responsibilities are based, to your estate to try to sort out the mess. I personally select and train my managers to ensure they are loyal agents for my interests.
I pick out two or three slaves in their early twenties who have impressed me with their attitude and promote them steadily. I rotate them thoroughly so that they gain experience of all the different aspects of the work that has to be done on the farm. If they let me down or fail to shine then I demote them as a punishment back to their previous position. I always praise those who do well and make sure that they are never seen to have benefited from flattering me. In fact if they try to tell me how wonderful I am I punish them so that they realise that this kind of nonsense is not to their advantage and that they would do better to work hard and deliver results.

The single most important piece of advice I can give you is not to appoint a manager from the kind of slaves who are good-looking and particularly not from the kind who waste their time hanging about in the city. The lazy slave who loves the taverns and brothels of urban life never stops dreaming about these things. Which is bad enough in your domestic slaves but when such a type is put in a position of authority over your estate this can cause speedy and irreparable damage to the fabric of your property.

You must choose a man who has been toughened up by farm work from his infancy, one who has been tested by experience. If you do not own a slave of this type, put in charge a slave who has worked steadily in the labour gangs. Make sure he is not a young man but in his thirties. If he is too young it will reduce his ability to order the other slaves to do things, especially the older slaves who will be reluctant to take their orders from a youth. But he shouldn’t be too old either, as you don’t want him to be
unable to keep up with the heavy workload. He should have wide experience of the work on the farm or, if not, he must be something of a perfectionist so that you know he will learn what he needs to know properly. And he will need to know everything because in his position he cannot give orders to those who are teaching him how to do something. It probably doesn’t matter much if he is illiterate so long as he has a good memory. In fact this can bring advantages in that if he cannot read or write then he will be far less able to falsify the accounts.

He should be skilled in animal husbandry, but he should also be in possession, as far as this is possible with a servile character, of a sense of empathy that means he can exercise authority without being either soft or cruel. He should always humour some of the better slaves, at the same time as being able to put up with the worse slaves, so that they will fear his sternness rather than detest his brutality. The best way for him to do this is by being thorough in his own job, which will make it far less likely that his subordinates will do the wrong thing because they will have been well directed. He will also act as an example for them to follow. There is no better way to supervise even the most wretched slaves than by making sure they work hard: make sure the overseer knows that you want him to watch them at all times. And get him to check on their work to see that everything has been done properly. Otherwise you may find that the foreman misses things and will give up on the difficult slaves, when in fact these are the very ones he should be watching most closely.

Incentivise your managers and overseers with bonuses to make them work harder and be more conscientious.
Allow them to keep their own money and possessions and let them cohabit with a woman of their choice, so long of course as the partnership is acceptable to you. Having a wife and children will calm them down and give them an even bigger stake in making your household prosper. You will win over your managers and foremen by treating them with a certain degree of respect. If they return the trust you have put in them by performing well, then it is also good to consult them about what needs to be done and by whom. If you do that, they will feel that you are treating them as almost an equal rather than looking down on them as a slave. They can also be motivated by being rewarded with more generous rations of food and clothing and the usual perks one uses to encourage slaves to work harder.

I teach my new managers the following things, which I think helps them to become more honest. (These are mostly well-known sayings and old-fashioned advice but they are all the more excellent for that.) I tell them not to use slaves to do anything except the master’s business. Otherwise, you often find that new managers take advantage of their power by getting their slaves to run around doing errands for them, when the slaves should be working for the benefit of the estate. Managers should not eat unless it is with their underlings and they should eat the same food as them. Nothing is so likely to antagonise a weary slave as seeing his foreman tuck in to some tasty luxury when he himself is being fed plain fare. It also means that the manager will make sure the common bread is made properly, and that the meals are nutritious and wholesome.

I also teach new managers not to let anyone leave the estate unless I have personally authorised it. And if I am away, they should not authorise anyone unless there is a pressing need. I tell them not to carry out their own business on the side, as this will only distract them from doing your work. They must not invest your money in cattle or goods for trading purposes. Buying and selling purely for profit will just divert their attention from what really matters. What they must concentrate on is making sure your accounts are in good order. Otherwise you will end up owning a whole load of poor-quality goods that they have been unable to sell.

Make sure your manager does not let soothsayers and magicians on to the estate. These people always get the slaves overexcited and wound up by spreading their false stories and superstitions and selling them ridiculous spells and potions. The manager himself should go to town only when he has to buy things that are necessary for him to carry out his duties. A trip to the weekly market should be more than sufficient. You don’t want a manager who likes to travel, but one who goes somewhere only when he will learn something by doing so. And even then only if the place is near enough that he can get back to the estate on the same day. Tell him not to allow new footpaths to be cut across the farm since it will only encourage outsiders to trespass on your land. Nor should he have guests round to stay unless it is one of your family or close friends.

Above all, teach your new manager that he should not think that he knows what he does not know, and that he must be passionate about learning what he is ignorant of.
Acquiring skills will make his work better. It will also cut out those needless mistakes that cause so much damage. Agriculture is not a difficult business. It requires your slaves to do the right thing repeatedly. If they learn this one guiding principle at the outset, they will not mess things up by causing harm through their ignorance. For one of the problems with farming is that it can take a long time and a lot of money to rectify mistakes.

Here is a checklist of the manager’s duties to help you make sure he is doing what you need him to: