Free The Roman Guide to Slave Management by Jerry Toner

behaving in such a wanton fashion. For there can be no doubt that slaves are corrupted by their master’s distance. And once corrupted, their greed and shamelessness only multiplies, until you might as well employ pirates to run your farms. In fact, if your estates are remote and it is difficult for you to visit except very occasionally, you would do well to consider having the land farmed by free tenants who will pay you a rent, rather than slaves, who, left to their own devices and safe in the knowledge that you are far away, will watch the estate gently crumble around them. They will let out the cattle for hire, feed the animals poorly, plough the land badly and pretend they have sown lots of seed when in fact they have sold off half of it for their own benefit. And when the meagre harvest does come in it will be further diminished by their constant theft and miscounting of the number of bushels that have been stored. You normally find that the manager and the general slaves are all in cahoots since they all stand to benefit from the arrangement. You, the master, will be the loser.
    I often arrive unannounced to make sure I am seeing the estate as it really is and not as it has been brushed up for my visit. Then, once I have arrived, I summon themanager and ask for an immediate tour of inspection. I inspect every part of the estate and meet with slaves in all areas. I try to judge whether my absence has resulted in a relaxation of discipline and attention to detail. I look at the vines to see if they have been well tended, whether the trees look like they have had produce stolen from them. I have the animal stock counted along with the slaves and the farm equipment to see if it tallies with the manager’s inventory. And if you do this year after year you can be assured that you will maintain a well-disciplined and ordered estate that will keep you in comfort into your old age. And however old you are, if you visit regularly you will make sure that the slaves do not take advantage of you and treat you with contempt rather than the respect you deserve.
    In fact these visits can be something of an eye-opener about your own mortality. I recently visited an estate of mine and complained to the manager about a dilapidated old barn. The manager insisted it was not because he had been at fault but simply that the wood was old and the building falling down. I remember having this barn built when I was a young man! Then I complained to him about the gnarled old plane trees, and how poorly they were being kept. Again he replied that the problem was just that the trees were too old – but I remember planting them!
    Visits can also reveal some nasty surprises. Once I visited an estate I used to own in southern Italy. On my tour of inspection, while walking through the fields of flowers, a woman who had been tied up with thick ropes and was holding a pitchfork threw herself at myfeet. Her hair had been cut off, she was filthy and her tunic was ragged. ‘Have pity on me, master,’ she begged. ‘I was born free but was captured by pirates and sold to your manager as a slave.’ I believed her because she spoke elegantly and her facial features had a nobility that spoke of high birth, not servility.
    She explained that my manager had tried to force her to share his bed. She begged me to free her and said that she would pay me back the 2,000 she had cost from her family back home across the seas from where the pirates had kidnapped her. She tore off her tunic and showed the terrible scars from where the manager had beaten her. I was very moved by this story.
    ‘Do not worry, madam,’ I said, ‘you are free to return home and I do not need you to reimburse me. It is a disgrace for such high-born beauty and grace to be held in such conditions.’ Instead, I summoned the manager, a shameless slave called Sosthenes, and said to him: ‘You dreadful man – have you ever seen me treat even the most useless and worthless slaves in this