wages for unskilled workers still barely exceeded, or failed to meet, subsistence levels
for a family, even if women and children also worked (Walter Scheidel, “Real Wages in
Early Economies: Evidence for Living Standards from 2000 BCE to 1300 CE,” Version 1.0,
March 2008, Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics).
2 The classic study of Ramsay MacMullen, Soldier and Civilian in the Later Roman
Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), is still important. See also
Benjamin Isaac, The Limits of Empire: The Roman Army in the East, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clar-
endon, 1992), chaps. 3 and 6; Richard Alston, Soldier and Society in Roman Egypt: A Social
History (London: Routledge, 1995), chap. 5.
180 Mattern
3 On the difficult topic of Romanization, see Greg Woolf, Becoming Roman: The Ori-
gins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998);
Ramsay MacMullen, Romanization in the Time of Augustus (New Haven, CT: Yale Uni-
versity Press, 2000) (for the figure 200,000, 132); and see Alston, Soldier, chap. 3.
4 On the size of the Roman government, see J. E. Lendon, Empire of Honour: The Art
of Government in the Roman World (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997), 2–4.
5 Keith Hopkins, “Taxes and Trade in the Roman Empire (200 B.C.–A.D. 400),” Jour-
nal of Roman Studies 70 (1980): 101–25; Woolf, Becoming Roman; Clifford Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University
of California Press, 2000).
6 On this last point, see Mattern, Rome, chap. 3.
7 Thomas Pekáry, “Seditio. Unruhen und Revolten im römischen Reich von Augus-
tus bis Commodus,” Ancient Society 18 (1987): 133–50.
8 Brent Shaw, “Bandits in the Roman Empire,” Past and Present 105 (1984): 3–52, dis-
cussed further below.
9 The most influential study of the Jewish revolt is still Martin Goodman, The Rul-
ing Class of Judaea: The Origins of the Jewish Revolt against Rome, a.d. 66–70 (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1987).
10 On revolts, see Mattern, Rome, 100–104 and 191–94 with references. Scholarly
consensus now places the Battle of Teutoburg at Kalkreise in Lower Saxony. On this
much-studied event, see recently Adrian Murdoch, Rome’s Greatest Defeat: Massacre in
the Teutoburg Forest (Gloucestershire, UK: Sutton, 2006).
11 Isaac, Limits, chap. 2; Stephen Dyson, “Native Revolts in the Roman Empire,” His-
toria 20 (1971): 239–74; see also Woolf, Becoming Roman, 30–33. On Roman representa-
tions, see Greg Woolf, “Roman Peace,” in War and Society in the Roman World, ed. J. Rich
and G. Shipley, 171–94 (London: Routledge, 1993).
12 Stephen Dyson, “Native Revolt Patterns in the Roman Empire,” in Aufstieg und
Niedergang der römischen Welt, II.3, 138–75.
13 False Neros: see Pekáry, “Seditio,” under the years 69, 79–81, and 88–89 CE. Trajan’s
edict: Pliny the Younger Letters 10.34, and see 10.117. Christians: Pliny the Younger Let-
ters 10.96.
14 On genocide, see Mattern, Rome, 120–21, 192–94 for references. On Tiberius’s and
Germanicus’s wars of revenge, see ibid., 90, 120, 189.
15 Mutilation: Dio Cassius 53.29 (Spain). Deportation: Dio Cassius 53.29 (Spain). The
Bar-Kokhba revolt: Dio Cassius 69.14.1, and see Mattern, Rome, 193–94, for further refer-
ences. Calgacus’s speech: Tacitus Agricola 30. Polybius on how Romans sacked cities:
10.15–17. Josephus on the invincibility of the Romans: Jewish War, 2.365–87.
16 On the size of the Roman army and the commitment of troops, see Mattern,
Rome, 81–109.
17 See Richard A. Horsley, “The Sicarii: Ancient Jewish ‘Terrorists,’” Journal of Reli-
gion 59 (1979): 435–58, quotation at 440.
18 Horsley, “Sicarii,” 442–44; Josephus, Jewish War, 7.253–55.
19 For what follows, see Shaw, “Bandits,” 3–52. This and other studies of Roman-era
banditry have been deeply influenced by the classic work of Eric J. Hobsbawm, Bandits,
Counterinsurgency 181
first published in 1969 (4th ed., New York: New Press, 2000), and his description of the
“social bandit.”
20 On banditry in Judaea, see Isaac, Limits, 77–89, and idem, “Bandits in Judaea and
Arabia,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 88 (1984): 171–203. Isaac argues subtly from
rabbinic evidence that most Judaean banditry had an ideological or political element of
resistance to Rome. On the caves, see Isaac, Limits, 84–85. Also on banditry in Judaea,
see Brent D. Shaw, “Tyrants, Bandits and Kings: Personal Power in Josephus,” Journal of
Jewish Studies 49 (1993): 176–204. On Isauria, see idem, “Bandit Highlands and Lowland
Peace,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 33, no.2 (1990): 199–233,
and 33, no.3 (1990): 237–70. On banditry in Egypt, including the Boukoloi, see Alston,
Soldier, 81–86.
21 Hunting: e.g., Dio Cassius 75.2.4 (Shaw, “Bandits,” 43), and see next note.
22 See Fronto To Antoninus Pius 8 (discussed in Shaw, “Bandits,” 10–12) for Julius
Sextus, a friend noteworthy for his “military zeal in hunting and suppressing bandits”
whom Fronto will bring with him to his province of Asia; see also Digest 1.18.13 (dis-
cussed in Shaw, “Bandits,” 14) on the duty of a governor to hunt bandits; on hired assas-
sins, see Shaw, “Bandits,” 16–18 with n. 35.
23 Shaw, “Bandits,” 19.
24 Shaw, “Bandits,” 37–38.
25 Suetonius Augustus 32 and Tiberius 37; Shaw, “Bandits,” 33–34.
26 Roads: Isaac, Limits, 102–15; Alston, Soldier, 81–83. Frontier systems: Shaw, “Ban-
dits,” 12 with n. 26, and see Mattern, Rome, 113–14 for further references. Cilician inner
frontier: Shaw, “Bandit Highlands,” 237–38.
27 Shaw, “Bandits,” 12–14 and n. 26 for references to military commands against ban-
dits. Cicero’s campaigns are attested in his letters; for references and discussion, see
Shaw, “Bandits,” 14; idem, “Bandit Highlands,” 223–26. Tacitus Annals 6.41, 12.55; Shaw,
“Bandit Highlands,” 230.
28 On hiring, see Shaw, “Tyrants,” 199–200, for a case attested in Josephus; on recruit-
ment, see Shaw, “Bandits,” 34–35.
29 Tarkontidmotos: Shaw, “Bandit Highlands,” 226 for references. On the term “ritu-
alized friendship,” the basis for much premodern diplomacy, see G. Herman, Ritual-
ized Friendship and the Greek City (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). Shaw,
“Tyrants,” demonstrates how various forms of ritualized friendship mediated relations
among Romans, Herod, bandits, petty dynasts, and other power players in Judaea of
the late first century BCE.
30 On Mauretania, see Brent D. Shaw, “Autonomy and Tribute: Mountain and Plain
in Mauretania Tingitana,” in Désert et montagne au Maghreb: Hommage à Jean Dresch ( Re-
vue de l’occident musulman et de la méditerranée 41–42 [1986]: 66–89); idem, At the Edge of
the Corrupting Sea: The Twenty-Third J. L. Myres Memorial Lecture (University of Oxford,
2006).
31 On the Roman army as occupying force, see Isaac, Limits, chap. 3; Mattern, Rome,
101–4. See also Alston, Soldier, chap. 5; he argues that the army was not very good at
suppressing revolts and was mainly engaged in policing for banditry and other small-
scale threats. Alston also suggests persuasively that the army in Egypt was a strategic
balance to Syria’s large force, intended to deter the revolt of the latter province. To my
182 Mattern
knowledge he is the first scholar to argue that the possibility of revolt in heavily armed
provinces determined the strategic disposition of the army in other provinces, which
seems quite possible.
32 On the army of Judaea, see Isaac, Limits, 105–7; on Mauretania, see Shaw, “Au-
tonomy” and “On the Edge.”
33 On recruitment, for references see Mattern, Rome, 85; also Yann Le Bohec, The
Imperial Roman Army (New York: Hippocrene, and London: Batsford, 1994) (= L’Armée
romaine sous le Haut-Empire [Paris: Picard, 1989]), 68–102; Alston, Soldier, chap. 3, emphasizes that the garrison of Egypt was drawn from throughout the western provinces in
all periods (though recruits from Africa predominated after the first century) and that
Egyptian evidence contradicts the view of the army as a closed caste having little inter-
action with the native population. On the size of the auxiliary army, see P. A. Holder,
Studies in the Auxilia of the Roman Army from Augustus to Trajan, British Archaeological
Reports (Oxford, 1980); A. R. Birley, “The Economic Effects of Roman Frontier Policy,”
in The Roman West in the Third Century, ed. A. King and M. Henic, British Archaeological
Reports (Oxford, 1981), 1:39–43.
34 For what follows, see Jonathan Roth, “Jewish Military Forces in the Roman Ser-
vice,” paper delivered at the annual meeting of the Society for Biblical Literature, San
Antonio, Texas, November 23, 2004 (www.josephus.yorku.ca/Roth%20Jewish%20
Forces.pdf, accessed August 15, 2008).
35 Woolf, Becoming Roman, 240–41.
36 On the Greek East, the foundational study is Erich S. Gruen’s two-volume mas-
terpiece The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Uni-
versity of California Press, 1984). This may be the only scholarly work to date to give
full consideration to the role of indigenous politics and institutions in Roman imperial-
ism. I would argue that mechanisms similar to what Gruen describes operated in later
periods.
37 Shaw, “Tyrants,” 196.
38 For a subtle analysis of what follows and of the workings of personal power and
“ritualized friendship,” see Shaw, “Tyrants.” On the mechanisms by which personal
power worked, Lendon, Empire, is a key contribution.
39 For a concise history of Roman rule over the Jews from Herod’s death, see Mar-
tin Goodman, Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations (New York: Knopf,
2007), 379–423.
40 A good introductory history of Sicily under the republic is R.J.A. Wilson, Sicily
under the Roman Empire: The Archaeology of a Roman Province, 36 b.c.–a.d. 535 (Warminster,
UK: Aris and Phillips, 1990), 17–32. On taxation in Sicily, Cicero Against Verres 2.3.13–15;
also see Christopher Schäfer, “Steuerpacht und Steuerpächter in Sizilien zur Zeit des
Verres,” Münstersche Beiträge zur antiken Handelsgeschichte 11 (1992): 23–38, with full bib-
liography. Cicero normally refers to local tax collectors as decumani (e.g., 2.3.21, 66, 75),
so called because they collected the 10 percent grain tax of Hiero; he also calls them
publicani (e.g., 2.3.77). Cicero refers to one representative of the Italian company that
collected the pasture tax in Sicily, named Carpinatius (2.2.169ff., 2.3.167), but there is no
evidence of a bureaucratic apparatus exported by the Italian corporations beyond this
one individual.
Counterinsurgency 183
41 Claudii Marcelli and Cicero: Cicero Againt Verres 2.2.8, 2.1.16–17, 2.2.122. Socii atque
i amici populi Romani, mei autem necessarii: 2.1.15. Segesta and the Scipiones: 2.4.79–80.
Syracuse and the Marcelli: 2.2.36, 50–51. Messana and Verres: 2.4.17–26.
42 Hospitium between Roman aristocrats and the Sicilian elite: Cicero Against Verres,
2.2.24, 83, 96, 2.3.18, 2.4.25, 49, and many more references throughout. On hospitium,
see also Koenraad Verboven, The Economy of Friends: Economic Aspects of Amicitia and
Patron age in the Late Republic, Collection Latomus 269 (Brussels: Éditions Latomus,
2002), 51, 58. Heius of Messana: Cicero Against Verres 2.4.18–19. Sthenius of Thermae:
Cicero Against Verres 2.2.110; see also 2.2.113, where Sthenius is acquitted by Pompey,
another former guest; Sthenius is Cicero’s own hospes also, 2.2.227.
43 Cicero calls them Venerii; e.g., Against Verres 2.3.61, 62, 65, and many more refer-
ences. On the cult, see Wilson, Sicily, 282–84. While there was no “Roman” army in
Sicily, there was a small Sicilian navy: Cicero Against Verres 1.13, 2.3.186.
44 For aristocrats prosecuting their enemies, see the cases of Sopater (Cicero Against
Verres 2.2.68–75) and Sthenis (2.2.83–118).
45 For cities sending delegations to the senate or to a patron, see, e.g., Cicero Against
Verres 2.2.10–11, 2.2.122.
46 See, e.g., Cicero Against Verres, 2.2.8, 2.3.67.
47 On nomadic tribes and their relations with the Roman Empire, a wide scholarship
exists. See notably Isaac, Limits, 68–77; Brent D. Shaw, “Fear and Loathing: The Nomad
Menace and Roman North Africa,” in L’Afrique romaine: Les Conférences Vanier 1980, ed.
C. M. Wells, 29–50 (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1982); D. Graf, “Rome and the
Saracens: Reassessing the Nomad Menace,” in L’Arabie préislamique et son environment
historique et culturel, ed. T. Fahd, 341–400 (Strasbourg: Université des Sciences Humaines
de Strasbourg, 1989).
48 Note recently Cullen Murphy, Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of
America (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2007); Thomas Madden, Empires of Trust: How
Rome Built—and America Is Building—a New World (New York: Dutton, 2008).
49 In a paper presented at the conference titled “Invasion: The Use and Abuse of
Comparative History,” University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, November 21, 2008.
184 Mattern
8. Slave Wars of Greece and Rome
Barry Strauss
Butchery of civilians, charismatic religious leaders proclaiming
reigns of terror, insurgents running circles around regular soldiers,
legionaries chasing runaway slaves into the hills, rows of crosses lin-
ing the roads with the corpses of captured insurgents, shrines later
springing up to the martyred memory of a chivalrous rebel: some of
the images are familiar, some are not; some were popularized by Hol-
lywood, others seemingly “ripped from the headlines,” as the tabloid
phrase goes. They are real images of ancient slave revolts. Except for a
seventy-year period in the Late Roman Republic, however, from about
140 to 70 BC, slave revolts proved rare events in the ancient world.
That may seem odd, because slavery played a central role in the
economy of Greece and Rome. Millions of men and women around
the ancient Mediterranean lived and died in chains. Most of them made
their peace with the banal truth of enslavement; some found an escape
route in manumission, which was more common in ancient than in
modern slave soci
eties. Others responded to mistreatment and humili-
ation with daily acts of resistance. Slaves misbehaved, manipulated the
master, or fled—or simply accepted their fates and made the necessary
accommodations. Yet rebellion—that is, armed and collective uprisings
in search of freedom—was exceptional.
Spartacus, the rebel gladiator whose revolt upended Italy between 73
and 71 BC, was as unusual as he is famous. Special conditions, as we shall
see, made the Late Roman Republic the golden age of ancient slave
wars. For the rest of antiquity, few slaves were willing to risk what little
they had in a war against the Roman legions or Greek phalanx; fewer
still had the know-how or the opportunity to fight in a rebel army, let
alone to raise one. But masters worried nonetheless, and the relative
scarcity of revolt reflects in inverse proportion the attention that mas-
ters devoted to security. Elite Greek and Roman opinion called for con-
stant vigilance by free people against violence by slaves. A whole range
of precautions by masters became common sense, from not buying
strong-willed individuals as slaves to keeping slaves of the same nation-
ality apart, lest they make common cause.
Still, revolts broke out, even in other periods than the late repub-
lic. Before describing them we need to define terms, because ancient
slavery was not a monolithic institution. The ancient world knew vari-
ous kinds of nonfree labor. The two main ones were chattel slavery
and communal servitude.1 Chattel slavery is the commonsense notion
of slavery, familiar today from such places as the American South, the
Caribbean, or Brazil, in which individuals are imported from abroad
and bought and sold like objects. Communal servitude refers to the col-
lective enslavement of whole groups, either within one community or
across community lines. For the sake of clarity, many scholars refer to
communal slaves as serfs, although the conditions of communal servi-
tude were harsher than medieval serfdom. Serfs, for instance, could not
be killed without cause, but the victims of communal servitude could.
Yet the ancients tended to treat chattel slaves with greater contempt
than those in communal servitude, so the distinction between serf and
Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome Page 29