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.