A thing we still need to work on when we tell history: We need to further distinguish Roman slavery from American Chattel slavery. Roman slavery is more like a permanent version of "Indentured Servitude" that we learned here in the states, aka how poor white kids could make it in e.g. Revolutionary times. And not much at all like the "Slavery" that looms bigger in our heads, primarily race-driven and -- this is perha…
This seems like a twisted sickened version of American exceptionalism to position American slavery as exceptional worse than all other slavery, to maintain a monopoly on injustice. It would be abhorrent to imply that American slaves were privileged because they had enough stability to become married or have children, in contrast to victims of Siberian gulags or Roman slaves worked to death in mines. Like all of histo…
Clearly I have triggered you.
I mean hey, look -- the history's there and I appreciate the discussions people are having. But what I've said about American Slavery is at least arguably true; and the fragility you're showing is a prime example of exactly why we need to get it right.
You definitely have to be opened minded in order to read this. I can see how this could be offensive or distasteful but from a purely academic point of view it's interesting to see that a master-slave relationship was more than a contractual relationship. Leadership was just as important in that relationship as it is in a manager-employee relationship. And although we have since abolished slavery, we will always need…
Think about the risks! Anything your slave does that damages other people's properties or causes them to lose life or limb is your responsibility. Those poor masters. Seriously, anything that attempts to be 'open minded' about slavery starts off on the wrong premise: that there are useful lessons to be learned there about human interaction. It's a well that is so thoroughly poisoned that it is probably better to stay…
I’m no Toner but I hold a MA in Classics. I also have a management position in finance. Let me give 2 observations of the Ancient Roman world that counters two of Toner’s underlying assumptions. First, as with an leader, Romans needed to act in different ways depending on the circumstance. Caesar would eventually elevate himself above not just his own troops but all people as “Divus Caesar.” However, that came much later towards the end of his life. At the pinnacle of his military career, slutty Caesar was jeered as “every man’s girl and every woman’s boy.” And I suspect his well-known inspiration from Alexander the Great taught him the humility to eat and train alongside his troops to boost morale, as the old King of Macedon had famously done. Therefore, a Roman leader was not always trying distinguish his own behaviors from those of his followers, at least not in a way that demeaned the latter.
The second issue I find troubling is his generalizing of slaves’ lives and their owners’ treatment of them. The relationship of slave vs owner was not only different across locations, but also through time. The nature of slavery at Rome developed from being mostly the capture of regional enemies, to becoming a trans-Mediterranean industry in the Middle Republic (2nd century BC). Slaves could range from a farm hand born into slavery who had to suffer wearing an iron collar like a beast of burden (“The Zoninus Collar and the Archaeology of Slavery by Jennifer Trimble 2016); to a freshly enslaved Greek scholar who lived alongside a leading Roman and had great influence on that family (Polybius in the household of the Scipios); to a more run of the mill urban slave who may have had a constructive relationship with their master (consider Tiro, who by all counts was born into slavery, and became a most valued member of Cicero’s household and was ultimately freed upon his owner’s untimely death). All of these may be exceptional cases, and yet they are vastly different from one another. Most important of all, it’s unclear that any of these slaves’ lives would fit Toner’s paradigm.
Oh, actually, I have a third issue. Nowhere does Toner mention women. This in spite of the fact that women were as often as not put In in charge of managing the household’s affairs. They would also be in charge of various businesses, such as brickyards. Both at home and at work, women would have led slaves; and this means that Toner is blind to the differing managing skills between the two genders. This is something we see today in a world where men and women are thought of in a far more egalitarian way than even the most progressive of periods of Ancient Rome. Meaning, I suspect that if we can observe differences in leadership and management skills between men and women at a time when the two are on par, I would love to consider the differences observed back then when the two genders were considered practically different species.
Overall, this article has some serious omissions on both sides he's arguing (ie regarding the history of Roman slavery and the tactics of a modern manager)