The Roman Guide To Slave Management

A scholar explores the history of slavery in Ancient Rome using a fictional story as a backdrop. Marcus Sidonius Falx is an average Roman citizen. Born of a relatively well-off noble family, he lives on a palatial estate in Campania, dines with senators and generals, and, like all of his ancestors before him, owns countless slaves. Having spent most of his life managing his servants—many of them prisoners from Rome’s military conquests—he decided to write a kind of owner’s manual for his friends and countrymen. The result, The Roman Guide to Slave Management, is a sly, subversive guide to the realities of servitude in ancient Rome. Cambridge scholar Jerry Toner uses Falx, his fictional but true-to-life creation, to describe where and how to Romans bought slaves, how they could tell an obedient worker from a troublemaker, and even how the ruling class reacted to the inevitable slave revolts. Toner also adds commentary throughout, analyzing the callous words and casual brutality of Falx and his compatriots and putting it all in context for the modern reader. Written with a deep knowledge of ancient culture—and the depths of its cruelty—this is the Roman Empire as you’ve never seen it before. “By turns charming, haughty, and brutal . . . an ingenious device.” —The New Yorker “[Toner’s] history and commentary provides context for the dirty institution upon which modern civilization is built.” —Publishers Weekly

The sly, subversive, first-person, and uncompromising guide to the realities of slavery and servitude in ancient Rome, with a foreword by Mary Beard.

"Marcus Sidonius Falx is just an average Roman citizen. Born of a relatively well-off noble family, he lives on a palatial estate in Campania, dines with senators and generals, and, like all of his ancestors before him, owns countless slaves"--

A lively and comprehensive overview of Roman slavery, ideal for introductory-level students of the ancient Mediterranean world.

Buckland's magisterial work of 1908 surveys in detail the principles of the Roman law regarding slavery.

At last, a clear manual for managing slaves the Roman way. In How to Manage Your Slaves, Marcus Sidonius Falx offers practical advice, showing where and how to buy slaves and how to get the best out of them. He explains how to tell good slaves from bad, offers guidance on the punishment of miscreants, and reveals the secrets of command and authority. He covers the delicate subjects of when you should let your slaves have sex and whether to engage in sex with them yourself - and considers when to set them free. Armed with this guide you will be master in your own home: your household will be a comfort to your family, its running the envy of your neighbours. Slavery was a core institution in the Roman world for all its long existence. As they conquered, the Romans enslaved millions and then bred from this stock to maintain their numbers in times of peace. It almost never occurred to anyone that slavery might be dispensed with and to no one at all that it was morally reprehensible. Up to now ancient slavery may have been difficult to fathom: this Roman's-eye view takes us to the heart of the matter and, based on a wealth of original sources, lets us understand just why slaves meant so much to the Romans.

Greek and Roman Slaveries Slavery was foundational to Greek and Roman societies, affecting nearly all of their economic, social, political, and cultural practices. Greek and Roman Slaveries offers a rich collection of literary, epigraphic, papyrological, and archaeological sources, including many unfamiliar ones. This sourcebook ranges chronologically from the archaic period to late antiquity, covering the whole of the Mediterranean, the Near East, and temperate Europe. Readers will find an interactive and user-friendly engagement with past scholarship and new research agendas that focuses particularly on the agency of ancient slaves, the processes in which slavery was inscribed, the changing history of slavery in antiquity, and the comparative study of ancient slaveries. Perfect for undergraduate and graduate students taking courses on ancient slavery, as well as courses on slavery more generally, this sourcebook’s questions, cross-references, and bibliographies encourage an analytical and interactive approach to the various economic, social, and political processes and contexts in which slavery was employed while acknowledging the agency of enslaved persons.

Rome was the largest city in the ancient world. As the capital of the Roman Empire, it was clearly an exceptional city in terms of size, diversity and complexity. While the Colosseum, imperial palaces and Pantheon are among its most famous features, this volume explores Rome primarily as a city in which many thousands of men and women were born, lived and died. The thirty-one chapters by leading historians, classicists and archaeologists discuss issues ranging from the monuments and the games to the food and water supply, from policing and riots to domestic housing, from death and disease to pagan cults and the impact of Christianity. Richly illustrated, the volume introduces groundbreaking new research against the background of current debates and is designed as a readable survey accessible in particular to undergraduates and non-specialists.