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Authors: Jerry Toner
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disaster.
Make sure you understand how to do everything on the estate and if there are gaps in your knowledge fill them. You will then understand what the slaves themselves are thinking.
Remember the slaves themselves will work more willingly for someone who understands their problems.
Keep healthy and sleep well.
Before going to bed make sure that the farm is secure, the animals are fed, and everyone is sleeping where they should be.
Be first to get out of bed and last to go to bed.
The head of the female slaves is also an important position you should give great care to filling. Normally she will become the manager’s wife. If she does her work well she will help to ensure that the estate produces a profitable income for you. Above all, she will make the farm as self-sufficient as possible by providing many domestic services, from weaving to mending to nursing the sick.
When the weather is bad and the women are unable to work outside, the manageress should occupy them with knitting and sewing. She should use some of the female slaves to do the job of spinning and weaving, with others having prepared it by carding. Making the slaves’ clothes at home on the estate keeps your costs down.
When the weather is good, the manageress should always go around the estate and check that all the slaves have left the buildings and are not shirking in the barns. If she finds a malingerer she must interrogate him as to why he is not working. She must learn to tell whether it is the result of sickness or laziness, for slaves who are the latter will always claim the former. If she believes he is sick then she should take him to the sickbay. Even if she believes he is pretending to be ill, if she thinks he is doing this out of fatigue she can also use her discretion to let him have a day’s rest in the sickbay. It is in the longrun better to give a tired slave a rest rather than force him to work so hard that he really does become ill. It is, though, important to make sure that this discretion is not abused.
The manageress should never be sitting still. Her job is to rush about checking on everyone and making sure that the farm is operating smoothly and efficiently. She must go to the loom and teach the workers there new skills. Or she should learn a new skill from any slave who happens to know more than she does. She should check on the kitchens to see that the slaves’ rations are being made properly. She must make sure that the kitchens, the cowsheds and, not least, the pigpens are properly cleaned. She should do the rounds of the sickbay, and even if there aren’t any patients there she should have it cleaned so that it is fit to receive any slave that does fall sick.
If you do not pay great attention to the appointment of your manager and his wife you can quickly find yourself in a nightmare situation. I have heard some horror stories in my time: of a manager who sold part of the estate without his master’s knowledge and then pretended to him that the extra money was in fact increased income from his efficient management of the estate. Or another who cut down most of the trees on the estate, sold them for 20,000 sesterces, added 10,000 to the accounts to boost the profit and pocketed the rest for himself. Bad managers will constantly sell off bits and pieces from your estate to boost the appearance of their performance. To begin with, you, the master, may be unaware of what is going on and may be delighted at how much more money you’re getting from the estate. You will rewardthe manager with extra rations, fine clothes and time off. But later, when you realise that half of the farm has been sold off, all the things which the estate needs to generate its income, you will punish the manager very severely. But by then it will be too late and it will take you much time and money to put things right.
You must make sure you visit your estates regularly. Nothing is more likely to prevent your managers
Make sure you understand how to do everything on the estate and if there are gaps in your knowledge fill them. You will then understand what the slaves themselves are thinking.
Remember the slaves themselves will work more willingly for someone who understands their problems.
Keep healthy and sleep well.
Before going to bed make sure that the farm is secure, the animals are fed, and everyone is sleeping where they should be.
Be first to get out of bed and last to go to bed.
The head of the female slaves is also an important position you should give great care to filling. Normally she will become the manager’s wife. If she does her work well she will help to ensure that the estate produces a profitable income for you. Above all, she will make the farm as self-sufficient as possible by providing many domestic services, from weaving to mending to nursing the sick.
When the weather is bad and the women are unable to work outside, the manageress should occupy them with knitting and sewing. She should use some of the female slaves to do the job of spinning and weaving, with others having prepared it by carding. Making the slaves’ clothes at home on the estate keeps your costs down.
When the weather is good, the manageress should always go around the estate and check that all the slaves have left the buildings and are not shirking in the barns. If she finds a malingerer she must interrogate him as to why he is not working. She must learn to tell whether it is the result of sickness or laziness, for slaves who are the latter will always claim the former. If she believes he is sick then she should take him to the sickbay. Even if she believes he is pretending to be ill, if she thinks he is doing this out of fatigue she can also use her discretion to let him have a day’s rest in the sickbay. It is in the longrun better to give a tired slave a rest rather than force him to work so hard that he really does become ill. It is, though, important to make sure that this discretion is not abused.
The manageress should never be sitting still. Her job is to rush about checking on everyone and making sure that the farm is operating smoothly and efficiently. She must go to the loom and teach the workers there new skills. Or she should learn a new skill from any slave who happens to know more than she does. She should check on the kitchens to see that the slaves’ rations are being made properly. She must make sure that the kitchens, the cowsheds and, not least, the pigpens are properly cleaned. She should do the rounds of the sickbay, and even if there aren’t any patients there she should have it cleaned so that it is fit to receive any slave that does fall sick.
If you do not pay great attention to the appointment of your manager and his wife you can quickly find yourself in a nightmare situation. I have heard some horror stories in my time: of a manager who sold part of the estate without his master’s knowledge and then pretended to him that the extra money was in fact increased income from his efficient management of the estate. Or another who cut down most of the trees on the estate, sold them for 20,000 sesterces, added 10,000 to the accounts to boost the profit and pocketed the rest for himself. Bad managers will constantly sell off bits and pieces from your estate to boost the appearance of their performance. To begin with, you, the master, may be unaware of what is going on and may be delighted at how much more money you’re getting from the estate. You will rewardthe manager with extra rations, fine clothes and time off. But later, when you realise that half of the farm has been sold off, all the things which the estate needs to generate its income, you will punish the manager very severely. But by then it will be too late and it will take you much time and money to put things right.
You must make sure you visit your estates regularly. Nothing is more likely to prevent your managers
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