Free The Roman Guide to Slave Management by Jerry Toner Page B

This meant that they saw slaves as being intrinsically worth something as human beings and so should be treated with some respect. This extended to an obligation to treat them decently and fairly in the same way that hired labourers should be. It is impossible to know the extent to which such ideas penetrated society more widely. It would be nice to think that most Roman masters believed that they had an obligation to all their dependants, including their slaves, even if this was motivated by self-interest and the desire to preserve their assets.
    The training of slaves was influenced heavily by the tasks which they were intended to perform. Field workers needed little and could be put straight to work. The surviving Roman agricultural manuals make it clear that it was important to select ambitious slaves to serve as overseers, since it was these individuals who would keep the estate running smoothly on a day-to-day basis. Within larger urban households domestic slaves would probably be trained up by other more senior slaves, rather than by the master himself. It is impossible to tell how many slaves had to be ‘broken’. One of the reasons that some Romans favoured home-bred slaves was that they had grown up accustomed to slavery. The fact that Seneca urges owners to show pity towards new slaves when theyare forced to carry out degrading tasks suggests that most masters did not. Seneca is probably best seen as arguing against common practice, as otherwise his text would have had little interest to his Roman readership.
    Slave rations are listed in the agricultural manuals and are unsurprisingly plain. Clothing is similarly rough and basic. Slaves may have been able to supplement their rations by means of foraging, keeping their own animals and maintaining their own kitchen gardens. Those who worked in chain gangs probably had little opportunity to do any of these things. Slaves in a more senior position were probably allowed greater indulgence to soften their existence.
    One of the reasons why many Roman texts are ambivalent about the economic benefits of using slaves to farm estates was that they required so much supervision to keep them working. It was assumed that slaves would be trying hard to work as little as possible, whereas the free tenant had a vested interest in making the land productive. The use of slaves also contrasted with the Roman ideal of the honest yeoman, on whom the success of the republic had been built. It seemed wrong that the land was now being farmed by imported slave labour and could hardly, therefore, be seen as progress. Often the purpose of owning huge estates seems to have been little more than ostentatious display, and the use of a large servile workforce was part of this ostentation. Most owners of large estates probably had their land farmed by a variety of slave and free labour.
    The treatment of old and sick slaves also probably varied considerably. The emperor Claudius issued anedict in an attempt to stop people from dumping them on the Tiber island. This may have represented simply a vain attempt to prevent a social nuisance impacting on the centre of Rome rather than any attempt to improve the slaves’ lot. Seneca advocated greater leniency and decency in the treatment of slaves than most Romans but even Seneca, the source for the story of the old doorkeeper, had no recollection of his old childhood playmate. It is hard to see that most Romans would have spent much money on an old asset once it had stopped giving a reasonable return in the form of continued service unless there was some personal reason for doing so, such as supporting an old nursemaid.
    At the other end of the age spectrum, child slaves are assumed in one legal text to be working by the age of five. This is not surprising since there was no need for them to be educated and they would have been able to carry out some small tasks around the farm or household.
    The farm manager was clearly the most important individual