Slave Revolts in Antiquity

by Urbainczyk, Theresa;

  Maroon communities were clearly a form of open rebellion and it is very probable that there were communities of ex-slaves in antiquity, such as we see in later societies, that were not recorded by texts extant today. Setting up such a community could have been the only aim for the slaves or they could be seen as one stage in a rebellion. When rebels could achieve no more they might remain as maroon communities, preserving their limited victory but not being strong enough to win further ones. It is interesting here to note the terms used for maroon communities in Brazil. The older word used was mocambo, which is a Mbundu word meaning “hideout”, but a term that came to be used more frequently from the end of the seventeenth century was quilombo, which is another Mbundu word, meaning “war-camp”.27 In the slave wars in Sicily and Italy, the insurgents had enough followers to fight on, as did the slaves in St Domingue. It does not seem that one must choose between establishing maroon communities and entering into war; rather, these independent communities were a step towards war. As the authorities recognized, their establishment was an open act of defiance and one that needed to be crushed as soon as possible to restore the power of the masters.

  It seems to stretch the term beyond its use, however, to refer to the slaves of the great slave wars as maroon communities when there was no truce with the authorities but the slaves continued fighting and recruiting. We have no evidence that the slaves had wanted only to live in such communities, and perhaps more significantly this is not what they achieved. One may speculate that some of them may have wanted it but one could also suggest that some of them may have wanted to set up slave-free democracy. Building on either speculation is not very fruitful.

  As far as we can tell from the evidence, the slaves in Sicily and Italy rose up and fought. They did not try to hide in mountainous hideouts for extended periods of time or seek to reach an accommodation with their former owners. They acquired more and more followers and became increasingly successful as the Romans sent out army after army to fight them.

  We have evidence from the ancient world that slaves did take direct action to escape their lives of slavery and live in freedom by running away or taking up arms, or both. At some point they came to the conclusion that a life on the run was preferable to slavery. And there were places where such groups or individuals might find refuge, either whole gatherings of ex-slaves, or independent states, such as that described by Cicero, when governor of Cilicia, in a letter from 51–50 BCE: “The town is on a very high and well-defended site and is inhabited by people who have never given obedience even to kings, which is shown by the fact that they regularly receive runaway slaves”.28 Another possible example is the city of slaves referred to in an inscription from Colophon from the second century BCE, which seems to be referring to a settlement of Aristonicus’ followers.29 The expression δούλων πόλις (doulōn polis, city of slaves) could be a term of abuse, but nevertheless describes a community, at least part of which seems to have consisted of slaves.30

  As always with ancient history, surviving evidence is crucial and one can thus imagine that just as there is not a vast quantity of information generally about slaves, the Greeks and Romans would not have celebrated rebellious slaves in their literary works. For the histories of maroon communities in the Americas, oral history, which naturally does not survive from antiquity in the same manner, is vital. There are oral traditions recording the Saramaka maroon wars for which there are also contemporary Dutch accounts. The accounts differ as much as it is possible to differ in that both sides claim victory for the same battle.31 We know of the particular community in Cilicia because Cicero wrote a letter about it, but such places would not reach histories generally.

  There was a history written about the slave wars by Caecilius of Kale Akte,32 but it is perhaps not surprising that we no longer possess his text, just as we do not have the full version of Diodorus’ account of the Sicilian slave wars. Generally, such events were not recorded or, even if they were, often not preserved, because the fight against the slaves was seen as shameful. Florus’ remarks are typical: “Although we fought with allies – in itself an impious act – yet we fought with men who enjoyed liberty and were of free birth but who could tolerate with equanimity wars waged by a sovereign people against slaves?”33 We know about Drimakos only because Nymphodorus’ account was preserved by Athenaeus, and this was so, one would think, because it is an intriguing story, an exception, an example of a paradox. Athenaeus narrates it in order to show the divine vengeance for buying slaves. He had started the section saying that the Chians were the first Greeks to buy slaves for money (unlike the Spartans and Thessalians who enslaved the native populations, quoting Theopompus). And he adds: “In my opinion God punished the people of Chios for this – for in later times they were engaged in a long war because of their slaves”.34 After giving Nymphodorus’ account of Drimakos and his rebellion, Athenaeus adds that their punishment did not end here since later the citizens of Chios were enslaved and given to their own slaves to be resettled in Colchis: “In this way God truly showed how angry he was with them because they were the first people to use human chattels that had been bought, while most people carried out any necessary services by doing the work themselves”.35

  Athenaeus, like Diodorus, does not have a particularly good reputation with historians except as a source for lost works. A volume dedicated to him starts with the words “Few modern scholars admire Athenaeus”.36 However, he, like Diodorus, would seem to have a certain sympathy with slaves, which is not very common in the ancient authors left to us.37 In the passage just quoted, Athenaeus conveys to the reader that buying slaves for money is wrong. He contrasts the Chians with those who enslaved native populations, which is not, however, held up as being preferable. He quotes Theopompus’ Hellenica, Book 7, where the latter writes that the conditions of the helot race are in every respect inhumane and horrible. From the overall tenor of his quotations he is warning of the dangers of slavery and especially of having too many slaves.

  Helots are a vivid illustration of the danger masters faced every day. In our sources the helots of Sparta are presented as always ready to rebel. The case of the helots on Mount Ithome would also seem to be an example of a very successful maroon community.38 It was so successful in fact that the Spartans were forced to allow them to leave and become free. However long it lasted, the helots were able to feed and supply themselves for several years and the presence was so damaging to the Spartans that they were forced to concede defeat in the end. The Spartans seem to have felt that this collection of independent helots could have triggered a full-scale rebellion. The Spartans contained them successfully, in that this extension did not happen, but were forced to allow them to leave the Peloponnese and live freely in Naupactus. The helot position, then, was extremely strong.

  Maintenance of the armies in the great slave wars

  In Sicily the slave revolts were more widespread and there was no possibility for the authorities to contain the rebels in one area. One might argue that because the slaves were not able to reach an accommodation with the slave-owners, they were forced to continue fighting in order to get provisions. Reaching such an accommodation, however, did not necessarily prolong the ability of slaves to hold out. On Chios, after the death of Drimakos, the agreement broke down but the slaves were not recaptured. Nymphodorus relates that the rebels continued to live freely without the calming presence of Drimakos. In fact, for the slave-owners on Chios the position was worse than before because the slaves plundered with no restraint. In Sicily, however, we read not of an attempted agreement, but instead of a steady escalation of numbers joining the slave army. It is possible that the original rebels could not control the development of the army and its rapid increase but at no point do we hear that they were unable to provide for the huge numbers that came to them.

  The numbers involved in the first war were reported as being enormous from the beginning. Diodorus tells us that in the first attack 400 slaves rampaged through Enna, and thei
r success attracted a large number of slaves from the city. In three days arms were supplied for 6,000 men and the other followers improvised with the tools of herdsmen and farmers, arming themselves with weapons such as axes and sickles, and cooking spits.39 They moved around the countryside around Enna collecting more slaves. After their defeat of the first Roman army sent out against them, they attracted vast numbers of followers, so that the rebel slaves numbered more than 10,000.

  In another part of the island, more slaves took the opportunity to rise up. Diodorus reports that there were 5,000 involved,40 whereas Livy recorded a remarkable 70,000.41 Orosius gives the same figure of 70,000 as the total number of slaves involved in the war.42 It is impossible now to know how many slaves were involved. Most commentators today would assume Diodorus’ figure is closer to the truth, but if the numbers were already into the thousands, this must have seemed quite terrifying to the authorities.43 The combined forces of slaves would have been even more alarming, and they seem to have had larger aims than merely surviving in an independent community. The slaves seized several cities in Sicily and presumably their food supplies along with them, and looked as if they were about to seize total control of the island, defeating several Roman troops led by praetors and two consular armies. Diodorus (as recorded by Photius) describes the growth in size of the slave army as happening extremely rapidly:

  Soon after, engaging in battle with a general arrived from Rome, Lucius Hypsaeus, who had 8,000 Sicilian troops, the rebels were victorious, since they now numbered 20,000. Before long their band reached a total of 200,000, and in numerous battles with the Romans they acquitted themselves well, and failed but seldom.44

  The slaves in Sicily were thus quick to respond to the opportunity. Slaves also rebelled outside Sicily but these uprisings were put down. Those in Sicily, however, continued to be successful and the rebels appear to have provided for themselves arms and food and all necessary supplies, without any obvious difficulties.

  Diodorus reports that they captured city after city. The two major cities captured seem to have been Enna and Tauromenium, although we also know that they took Acragas and Mamertium.45 When discussing how the slaves took Acragas, Diodorus gives us a striking detail of how they had staged a play outside the city walls so that the inhabitants could also watch. The play depicted the slaves’ own recent past, that is, gaining their freedom and taking vengeance on their masters. Presumably the intention was to strike panic into the hearts of the masters and send hope to their slaves.46 This is an unexpected insight into the energy and imagination of the slaves during a time of war. Diodorus comments that the slaves abused their masters for their hybris, for which they were now being punished.47 The slaves, supported, we are told, by free people, took over these cities.

  Diodorus narrates how even Sicilian citizens, that is the poor free people of Sicily, turned against the slave-owners. They were overjoyed by the misfortunes of the wealthy because for a long time they had resented their wealth and arrogance. He comments that the free were more destructive than the slaves.48 This is in direct contradiction to Orosius’ views of the attitudes of slaves and free. He comments generally that the slaves destroy the country whereas the free try to benefit it: “Inasmuch as it is a rare kind of uprising, an insurrection of slaves is a more dangerous type of rebellion: masses of free citizens are prompted by their aims to increase the strength of their homeland, whereas a mob of slaves is incited to destroy it”.49

  Benjamin Farrington has suggested that the restraint of the slaves with regard to property indicates that they were intending to take over the island.50 Whatever the intention, Diodorus explicitly writes that the free were more destructive than the slaves. One might view this as part of the punishment inflicted on the wealthy and arrogant landowners, without having to attribute blame to the slaves.

  The slaves succeeded in holding the cities and their positions of strength against Roman troops sent out against them, apparently with little trouble. Bradley comments on the three major wars generally:

  Thus it cannot be assumed that slaves set out to make war, in any formal manner, against established powers; it can only be said that slaves were prepared to use military tactics to protect and sustain themselves in flight, to make continuous flight and the freedom it represented feasible. Almost paradoxically, however, flight could not bring permanent freedom when so many fugitives were involved. The numerical dimensions of the slave uprisings were therefore the rebellions’ fatal flaw.51

  None of the slaves involved, according to him, wanted war; rather, all of them wanted merely to be free. One might think that the slaves’ main hope of success was to continue to attract large numbers of followers and yet Bradley argues that this was their main mistake; if they had remained very few they could individually have escaped. Flight normally implies a direction and whereas the army led by Spartacus certainly did move with an apparent purpose, it is more difficult to say where the Sicilian slaves thought they were going. They do not seem to have attempted to leave the island.

  Gerald Verbrugghe’s different approach is to say that this was not a slave war and that in fact we should see the events as the province of Sicily in revolt against the imperial power.52 This may seem an attractive idea but it also necessitates the dismissal of much of the narrative of Diodorus. Verbrugghe criticizes Diodorus’ description of Sicily as being dependent on animal husbandry because it is at variance with the testimonies of Livy and Cicero, who say that cereal production was most important.53 This is a careless reading of Diodorus, since his concern was not (unsurprisingly) to give an economic analysis of Sicily but to explain why the slaves were able to revolt, and he wanted to show that they were able to revolt because of the relatively free situation of those slaves involved in herding animals.

  Diodorus also, according to Verbrugghe, wrongly describes Roman knights and Italians controlling most of this husbandry.54 It is more than probable that Romans and Italians did own land in Sicily and the fact that Diodorus was from Sicily might easily lead him to the impression that there were too many of them. This in turn could quickly be transferred into most of the big landowners being Romans and Italians. This is not to say that Diodorus did not make errors. For instance, he attributes the lack of action on the part of the governor of Sicily as being due to the fact that the Roman equites served as jurors in the courts that tried governors for maladministration,55 whereas equestrian control of the courts was not put in place until the Gracchan legislation of 122 BCE. It is worth noting that it would have been true in the second war but not this one. Another mistake he makes, states Verbrugghe, is in giving figures that are far too large for the numbers of slaves in the revolt since Sicily could not possibly have contained this many slaves.56 The more usual reaction to surprisingly large numbers in our ancient texts is to challenge them and assume they are exaggerations. However, Verbrugghe boldly assumes that the figures are correct and then, because he thinks there were not so many slaves in Sicily, assumes there must have been a substantial proportion of free inhabitants with them. It is indeed the case that Diodorus writes explicitly that free people did join the rebels, but Verbrugghe’s imaginative theory is to make them the bulk of the forces. He also argues that Diodorus is wrong because there was no mass enslavement of Syrians. In fact, Diodorus nowhere writes that most of the slaves were Syrian. He gives us the information that Eunus was from Apamea but says nothing about most of the slaves.

  Verbrugghe thus accepts certain details of Diodorus, such as the facts that the leaders did set themselves up as kings and that there were large numbers involved in the rebellion, but cannot accept others, such as the major role played by the slaves. If one challenges so much of Diodorus then one has to justify the parts one accepts since, if he were so abysmally ignorant of the history of his own birthplace, it makes little sense to accept any of his narrative. And if we reject all of it, or even most of it, then we are left with very little at all.

  The slave community seems to have adopted some fo
rm of monarchical rule and even to have minted their own coins, showing the veiled head of Demeter with a stalk of wheat, so important for Sicily.57 Here, then, we see signs that the slaves were organized, had definite ideas about how their campaign should proceed and seem to have had long-term plans. Issuing coins is not the action of people hoping either to escape attention or to run off elsewhere. The slaves at least appear to have seen their hope in attracting as many of the slaves of Sicily to their side as possible. There was safety in numbers.

  Without Diodorus, our knowledge of the first slave war in Sicily would be very scanty since the accounts in other sources are very brief. The part of Livy that deals with this period is only extant in summary form.58 The epitomator of Livy makes mention of the war in the summary for Book 56:

  A slave revolt arose in Sicily, and when the praetors could not suppress it, command was assigned to consul Gaius Fulvius. The instigator of this revolt was Eunus, a slave of Syrian nationality; he assembled a force of rural slaves, opened the workhouses and raised his numbers to those of a regular army. Another slave, Cleon, also assembled as many as seventy thousand slaves, and when the forces had joined, they frequently [saepe] took the field against the Roman army.59

  Book 56 covered 136–134 BCE and the account is very condensed; nevertheless, it takes up a third of the summary so the original narrative would probably have been quite substantial. Livy also gives us the names of Eunus, and that he was Syrian, and Cleon, to whose army he attributes 70,000 people.