The Roman Guide to Slave Management (14 page)

I once saw the master of a certain slave leave him standing outside in the rain while his guests were invited inside to dine. The master later put him up for sale among a group of particularly worthless slaves – the kind who were sold in the first lot of the day when the auctioneer is just warming up. And what became of this supposedly worthless slave? Why, he became a notoriously powerful freedman, who rose to a position of great influence under the emperor. He ended up with thirty large onyx columns in his dining room. And he made sure he paid his old master back for the contempt with which he had treated him.

You must think carefully about the fact that the man whom you call your slave was born in the same way as you, breathes like you, and dies like you. You must see through his servile exterior and recognise the free man within, in the same way that he can see your inner slave. Fate is always bringing men down and making even those of the highest birth grovel in the dirt. Do you really think you should disrespect a slave whose status is one to which you yourself might one day be reduced, if chance wishes it so?

I don’t want to give you a lecture about how to treat your slaves. What I really want to say to you is this. Treat your slaves as you would wish to be treated by your own superior. Whenever you think about how much power you have over your slaves, remember how much power your master has over you. And if you object that you don’t have a master then remember what chance can do and how there may well come a day when you do have one.

So forgive your slaves when they make mistakes, have conversations with them, be courteous to them, share a meal with them. At this point all those who go in for luxurious living will scream at me: what a disgusting and undignified way to behave! But can’t you see that this was how our great ancestors wanted us to behave towards our slaves? They called them ‘members of the household’ and the master ‘head of the household’ because they were all part of the same family unit. They gave masters a position of respect and the power to administer justice within the household. They thought the household was a miniature version of the state.

So, you will ask, you want me to invite all my slaves to dinner every night, do you? Not more than you invite your children, I say. You shouldn’t just ignore people who work for you because they carry out low-status jobs. You can’t judge a mule-herder just because he has a miserable job. It’s his moral character that really counts. Jobs are assigned by chance, but everyone has their own moral character, which is something they themselves can develop. You must invite some people to have dinner with you because they deserve it, and others so that they are encouraged to deserve it in the future. If there is something slavish in your slaves’ characters, then mixing in the company of free men such as yourself will drive it out of them.

You see, you shouldn’t draw your friends only from among those of a similar class. If you look carefully, you’ll find friends in your own home too. Good wood often warps if no craftsman uses it. But if you try it you will find that you have lots of good wood to use. Just like
when you are buying a horse, you don’t examine just the saddle, you look at the horse underneath. So you are a fool if you judge a man by his clothes or social status. The man who you see as a slave might well be free in his heart.

In fact, we are all slaves in our hearts. Some are slaves to sex, others to money, some to fame, others to status. All of us are slaves to hope and fear. Let me give you some examples of slavish behaviour among the so-called nobility. I know a man of consular rank who acts like the slave of an old woman because he is desperate to inherit her fortune. Then there is the wealthy old man who lusts after some young slave girl and thinks he can win over her affections by charm rather than force. I can think of many sons of the best families who have become infatuated with actors and actresses on the stage; and there is no kind of slavery more dishonourable than that which is entered into voluntarily. So you shouldn’t let these kinds of people stop you from fraternising with your slaves and treating them pleasantly and not as their arrogant superior. Let your slaves respect rather than fear you.

I dare say that some people will accuse me of inciting slaves to revolt and overthrow their masters. They will say that slaves, as befits those of low status, must treat us, their masters, with respect and deference. But these people want to be treated better than a god. If you are respected you are also loved, and love cannot be mixed up with fear. So you must realise that you don’t want your slaves to fear you, and that when you punish them you should try to do so with words. Beatings should really be reserved for punishing beasts. We have so much
luxury that we get mad at every little thing that doesn’t please us completely. We are acting like tyrants, for they have fits of anger that are completely inappropriate for their position of power. But that power means that no one will remonstrate with them. And in reality the things that displease us are so minor that they cannot harm us. So what if we don’t get exactly the right delicacy served up in exactly the right way? By throwing great tantrums we actually just do ourselves more harm. Anyway, I don’t want to preach to you. Managing slaves is difficult and often annoying but you should try to keep these ideals in the back of your mind even if in reality you fall short of them. Otherwise you will find that you soon slip into bad habits and you will start treating your slaves as if you are a despot and they are dumb animals.

You must remember that if slaves are not naturally slavish then you are not naturally masterful. Status is not enough: you have to prove it by your actions. Your slaves also, of course, have to show that they are not slavish, by behaving nobly and as a free man would be expected to. If slaves continually sink into bad behaviour then they cannot be surprised if people think they have a natural disposition to vice, as well as an inbuilt moral inferiority which makes them incapable of aspiring to any of the higher things in life.

I want to prove to you that slaves are capable of behaving in the best possible manner. They are not all cheeky or cunning, but can be both loyal and noble. Instead, because their souls remain free, they are able to behave with the utmost virtue. There are many people who question whether a slave is able to do his master a
good turn. In fact, slaves often go well beyond what is required of them in order to help their masters. There are many examples of slaves who have fought to protect their masters without any regard for their own safety, and even when pierced through with multiple wounds have kept on fighting until the last drop of blood has left their veins, and by doing so have bought their masters enough time to escape. Then there are those slaves who have refused to betray their master’s secrets even when threatened and tortured to the point of death.

In many ways, examples of slaves behaving in a most virtuous way like this are all the more remarkable for their rarity. Such acts are to be praised even more than comparable ones by free men, because they have been done by those who have to labour under the constraints of necessity. But despite the unpleasant authority that their masters have over them, the love of these slaves for their masters has overcome any resentment they may feel at serving as a slave.

And in fact these noble slaves are not so rare. When the town of Grumentum was being besieged and had become completely desperate, two runaway slaves crossed over and gave assistance to the enemy. Later, when the victorious army was running amok throughout the captured city, these two ran on ahead by a route that was well known to them to the house in which they had served as slaves, and they helped their mistress escape. When any of the invaders asked who she was, the slaves said she was their mistress and they were taking her away to execute her because she had treated them so cruelly. But in fact they brought her outside the city walls and
hid her very carefully until the enemy’s soldiers had had their fill of slaughter and pillaging. Then they set their mistress free again. She in return freed them both immediately; she certainly didn’t feel degraded by having her life saved by people over whom she had the power of life and death. Indeed, she became famous and her generosity became an example for all Romans.

Or there is the story of a high-ranking official called Paulus, who was lying on his couch having dinner, wearing a ring on which was inlaid a large gem engraved with a portrait of the emperor Tiberius. He stood up and relieved himself in the chamber pot. A notorious informer called Maro noticed this, and saw a golden opportunity to have Paulus indicted for polluting the emperor’s image, thereby gaining himself a large reward. But Paulus’s slave also saw what his master had done. Immediately the slave took the ring from his drunken master’s finger and put it on his own. So when Maro appealed to the other diners as witnesses that the emperor’s image had been violated, the slave simply showed them that the ring was on his own hand.

When the divine Augustus was emperor, dinner parties had not yet become so dangerous but they could cause problems. A senator called Rufus was so drunk that he claimed out loud during a dinner that the emperor would not return safely from a journey he was about to undertake, because all the bulls that were going to be sacrificed to ensure his safe return would actually be hoping for the opposite. The following morning, the slave who had been standing at the bottom of Rufus’s couch during the dinner told him what he had said during the
meal while he was drunk. The slave urged him to go and confess it to Augustus before someone else informed the emperor. Rufus agreed and went to see Augustus. He swore that he hadn’t realised what he was saying the previous evening and prayed that any misfortune would land on his own head and not the emperor’s. He begged Caesar to forgive him. When the emperor said that he would do so, Rufus replied that no one would believe it unless the emperor gave him a present. He then asked for a very generous amount of money. And Augustus gave it to him, saying that he wouldn’t ever be able to afford to get really angry with Rufus. Of course, the emperor acted extremely generously here in forgiving the foolish Rufus, but it was the slave who really saved his master. It goes without saying that he was freed at once by Rufus.

I could go on and on listing the many good qualities that have been found to lie in the heart of a slave. There was the case of Urbinus. He had been sentenced to death and was hiding on his estate at Reate. When his hiding place was betrayed, one of his slaves put on his ring and clothes and, pretending to be his master, lay down in his master’s bedroom. The soldiers sent to get Urbinus broke in to the house, found the slave, who calmly offered them his neck. He received the executioner’s blow as resolutely as Urbinus ever could have. After Urbinus had been pardoned, he had a tomb made for his slave with an inscription describing his great act of virtue.

Or take the case of the goodwill a slave showed his master despite having himself been recently punished by him. The master, Antius Restio, was outlawed and fled into the night on his own. His slaves started to plunder
his property, all except one who had been chained up and branded on the forehead. The other slaves released him but, instead of joining in the pillaging, he followed after his fugitive master. He found him and Restio naturally feared that he was out to avenge his cruel punishment. But the slave assured him that he understood that his degrading punishment had been the fault of fortune not his master. He then hid Restio and fetched him supplies. Soon after, when he realised that soldiers were approaching, he strangled an old man who happened to be nearby, built a funeral pyre and threw the corpse on to it. He set it on fire and told anyone who came by that it was Restio who had died, which he deserved to have done for having branded him. Everyone believed the story, the soldiers went away, and Restio was saved.

Similarly, when Caepio’s plot to murder Augustus had been uncovered and he had been condemned to death, one of his slaves carried him down to the Tiber in a chest and managed to take him to his estate in the country during the night. Later he took him on board a boat, was shipwrecked with him, and hid his master in Naples. Even when the pair was arrested, the slave refused to give any information that might incriminate his master. Or there was the time when the city of Padua was being pressured by Asinius Pollio to supply him with arms and money and many owners went into hiding as a result. Pollio offered rewards and freedom to any slaves who betrayed their masters, but not a single one did so.

Mark Antony was once accused of a sexual offence and the prosecutors demanded that a certain slave of his, I can’t remember his name, be tortured for evidence
since he had been carrying the lantern when the crime was committed. The interrogation could only happen if his master agreed and Mark Anthony was unwilling, perhaps fearing what the slave might say under duress. But despite realising that it would mean his own torture, the slave urged his master to hand him over, promising that he would not say anything incriminating. Despite being severely tortured, he revealed nothing.

Some slaves have even preferred death to being separated from their masters. For example, when Gaius Vettius was arrested by his own troops so they could hand him over to Pompey, his slave killed him and then committed suicide so as not to survive his master. What nobility of character! And when Gaius Gracchus was killed, his loyal slave Euporus, who had been an inseparable companion, killed himself over Gracchus’s dead body by ripping open his stomach with his own hand.

It is not only male slaves who can display these fine characteristics. There is one particularly memorable action performed by slave women, and you’ll find it difficult to find a better example of a deed benefiting the state that was performed by any noblewoman.