Draft:Bryson Arabus

Bryson Arabus, often referred in scholarship simply as as Bryson, was an author in the ancient Mediterranean, likely in Rome in the 1st century CE. Swain, the authority on Bryson, provides a useful introduction to him: ‘Bryson Arabus is a pseudonym and he’s remained anonymous. It’s quite clear that he was well connected though; one of the famous moralists of the time, Musonius Rufus, who wrote at the end of the first century AD, used him heavily. It’s a fair bet that Bryson was probably working in Rome. He would have known people. If we knew who he actually was, we’d probably already know the name.’

Works
Bryson's main surviving work is his Management of the Estate, which is the earliest, and possibly only, discussion of the fiscal economy in the classical ancient Mediterranean. Most of the text is in Arabic, except for some Greek

It comes in four sections: firstly, a theory of economic production, which Swain notes is ‘extremely unusual in ancient thought’ in discussing the origins, reasons, and functions of money; secondly, he discusses wise investment and the correct use of slaves, that is, treating them well in order to increase their efficiency at work; and in the third and fourth chapters he discusses the wife and the son, which Swain summarises thus:"‘In regards to the women of ancient Rome, Bryson was concerned that his readers should find a wife of equal standing, who could understand money and capital. The estates were big concerns; we’re talking multiple locations of many hundreds of acres each, serious businesses. For children, Bryson advises that a child is supervised 24 hours a day, which is a bit scary, but you can do that because you’ve got slaves to do it for you.’"