Principles of management 181 



questioning 1 new slaves as to the work they used to do under their 

 former owner. Slaves should be neither timid nor high-spirited. 

 Their overseers 2 should be men able to read and write, in fact with a 

 touch of education, honest fellows, somewhat older than the mere 

 labourers just mentioned. For these are more willing to obey their 

 elders. Above all things the one indispensable quality in overseers is 

 practical knowledge of farming. For the overseer is not only to give 

 orders, but to take part in carrying them out ; so that the slave may 

 do as he sees the overseer do, and note the reasonableness of his own 

 subordination to one his superior in knowledge. On the other hand 

 the overseer should not be allowed to enforce obedience by the lash 

 rather than by reprimand, of course supposing that the same effect* 

 is produced. Again, you should not buy too many slaves of the same 

 race, for nothing breeds trouble in the household 4 more than this. 

 For the overseers there should be rewards to make them keen in 

 their work : care should be taken to allow them a private store 5 and 

 slave concubines to bear them children, a tie which steadies them and 

 binds them more closely to the estate. It is these family ties that 

 distinguish th^^lave-gangs from Epirus and give them a high 

 market-value, ^ou should grant favours to overseers to gain their 

 goodwill, and also to the most efficient of the common hands ; with 

 these it is also well to talk over the work that is to be undertaken, for 

 it makes them think that their owner takes some account of them 

 and does not utterly despise themAThey can be given more interest 

 in their work by more generou^treatment in the way of food or 

 clothing, or by a holiday or by leave to keep a beast or so of their 

 own at grass on the estate, or other privileges : thus any who have 

 been overtasked or punished may find some comfort 6 and recover their 

 ready goodwill towards their owner.' 



This passage well illustrates the advance in scientific treatment of 

 the subject since the time of Cato. The analysis and classification 

 may not be very profound, but it tends to orderly method, not to 

 oracles. The influence of Greek writings is to be traced, for instance 

 in the rules for the choice and treatment of slaves. The writings of 

 Aristotle and his school had been studied in Rome since the great 

 collection had been brought by Sulla from the East. How far Varro 

 actually borrows from Aristotle or Plato or Xenophon is not always 

 easy to say. The advice to avoid getting too many slaves of one race 



1 The text here is damaged. I give the apparent meaning. 



2 qui praesint) a very general expression. 



3 That is, obedience. 



4 offensiones domesticas. Varro may have in mind the Syrians in the Sicilian slave-wars 

 and the Thracians and Gauls under Spartacus. 



5 peculium. Here also the text is doubtful. 



