How to manage your slaves by Marcus Sidonius Falx
How to Manage Your Slaves by Marcus Sidonius Falx, with Jerry Toner
Marcus Sidonius Falx is your typical Roman aristocrat, rich, arrogant and with dozens of slaves in his possession. In this essential guide, we are taught the basics of slave-owning, as well as what not to do. Learn how to acquire a decent slave from the market, and watch out for those tell-tale signs that may suggest ill health, or a tendency to run away or attempt suicide. Learn how to grow your slave household with homebreeding. Discover the best ways to incentivise the slave, using the carrot (money, sex, freedom) or the stick (well, the whip). There is advice too on how not to be seen by society as a bad or cruel owner, nor to fall foul of the laws, loose as they are, that protect slaves. Although Falx draws from his own experience as a slave owner, he also references extensively such authorities as Pliny the Younger, Cato the Elder and Columella. Jerry Toner adds learned commentary after each chapter, putting the Ancient Roman Falx’s writing into a modern context. How to Manage Your Slaves is an entertaining read, sometimes funny, often sad, always thought-provoking. It is easy to imagine from these pages the awful lot that was the life of most (though not all) Roman slaves.