Salvius and his army continued raiding the countryside and acquired more soldiers, the number now reaching over 30,000 men. He announced his change of name to King Tryphon (the name of a recent usurper to the Seleucid throne, but possibly his own name, just as Antiochus, although a common name for Seleucid kings, could have been Eunus’ real name, that is, non-slave name) and made contact with Athenion. Diodorus reports that there was the hope that the two leaders would fight each other but, as in the first slave war, they joined forces instead. Diodorus comments: “Fortune, as though intentionally increasing the power of the fugitives, caused their leaders to be of one mind”.36 Athenion became Salvius’ general, although later Salvius/Tryphon was suspicious of him, and Diodorus writes that he ordered Athenion “to be placed in detention”.37
Salvius/Tryphon moved northwards, made his headquarters in Triokala and strengthened its defences. Diodorus describes it as well-placed because it was easy to defend, being on a high rock with fresh water and fertile land around it. Here Salvius/Tryphon built a palace and marketplace and appointed intelligent people to be his advisers. When conducting official business he adopted the trappings of the Roman magistrates, wearing a purple-edged toga and tunic with a broad border, accompanied by lictors with axes.38 The Senate sent out Lucius Licinius Lucullus with more forces and Diodorus is quite specific here, as if he has access to official documents: 14,000 Italians and Romans, 800 Bithynians, Thessalians and Akarnanians, 600 Lucanians, and 600 others, totalling 17,000.39
Salvius/Tryphon released Athenion, who does not appear to have been overly resentful at being detained in that he did not go over to the Romans or betray his own side; however, he did give bad advice. He suggested fighting the Romans, which they did and lost, Athenion being badly wounded. Twenty thousand of the rebels were killed and the rest were understandably demoralized. The Romans besieged Triokala but then withdrew. Diodorus gives two possibilities for this surprising retreat: either Lucullus was lazy or he had been bribed. He comments that this general was later put on trial and punished for this failure. We are told that the praetor who succeeded Lucullus, Gaius Servilius, also accomplished little. For this lack of action he too was tried and exiled. When Salvius/Tryphon died, (we do not know how), Athenion took over and reigned successfully while Servilius did nothing.40
An alternative to the generals being useless is that the Romans were unequal to the task of fighting the slaves. It is entirely plausible that they preferred to blame the commanders than admit the slaves had been too much for them. In 101 BCE the Senate sent out the consul Manius Aquillius (Diodorus calls him Gaius Aquillius),41 who, we are told, because of his personal bravery, crushed them in a brilliantly conducted battle. He fought a hand-to-hand duel with Athenion, the king of the rebels, and beat him in a heroic contest.
Although wounded himself, Aquillius carried on to fight the rest of the slaves, who numbered about 10,000, and eventually defeated them. Again this seems to have come from an official Roman source, since so much is attributed to the personal valour of the general, and there is even the rather unlikely detail of hand-to-hand combat with Athenion. Diodorus goes on to say that even so, about 1,000 slaves survived, led by Satyros, a leader who had not previously been mentioned. Aquillius negotiated a surrender and took the rebels to Rome to fight as gladiators with wild beasts. Diodorus slightly removes himself from his account of the end by using the phrase “some people say”, but nevertheless gives us this version:
Some people say that they brought their lives to a most glorious end (ἐπιφανεστάτην … καταστροφήυ) when they refused to do battle with the wild animals and instead cut each other down in front of the public altars. Satyros himself killed the last man. Then Satyros took his life with his own hand, dying like a hero (ἡρωικω̑ς). Thus, the war of the slaves in Sicily, a war that had lasted nearly four years, reached its tragic finale.42
Again, it is quite remarkable that Diodorus uses the word “tragic” for the outcome. Clearly for the slave-owners it was not at all tragic, but Diodorus once again shows a sympathy, unusual among ancient writers, for the rebels. Not only that but the slave leaders in the accounts acquitted themselves well in the narratives we have remaining. There is nothing to match the critical comments about Eunus.
Florus has a chapter on the slave wars,43 and he remarks that the very first uprising of slaves was in Rome under Herdonius the Sabine, in the fifth century BCE. He goes on to observe that Sicily was more devastated in the slave wars than in the Punic War. There is a cursory description of the first war ending with the detail that Perperna crucified all the surviving slaves. Then: “Scarcely had the island recovered when, in the praetorship of Servilius, the command suddenly passed from the hands of a Syrian into those of a Cilician”.44
Salvius does not appear in Florus’ narrative, but much is made of the kingship of Athenion, who, we are told, murdered his master, put on a purple robe and crowned himself:
He raised an army that was just as large as that of his demented predecessor but he conducted his operations with even greater savagery, on the pretext of avenging him, plundering villages, towns and fortresses, vented his fury with even greater violence upon the slaves than upon their masters, treating them as renegades.45
There is no sympathy in Florus’ words. Athenion plunders property and murders slaves who refuse to join the rebellion. Only Florus makes a direct connection between the first and second slave wars on Sicily and attributes to Athenion vengeance for Eunus. His men commit suicide rather than surrender and although Athenion himself was taken alive, the crowd around him argued over his arrest and tore his body to pieces.46 This seems slightly odd but presumably is meant to convey the anger felt by citizens towards someone who had been so threatening to their safety.
In both the Sicilian wars, the leaders assumed monarchical regalia and this has been interpreted as revealing the type of government the slaves had known when they were free citizens. Salvius also adopted the trappings of Roman power, thus taking up symbols of authority from his new situation as well as his old one; presumably Salvius wished to indicate that he had assumed this power for himself.47
There were also leaders who were not slaves, such as Aristonicus and Titus Vettius Minutius. The latter is portrayed as completely out of control, as enslaved to his own lust, but it is more difficult to gain a picture of Aristonicus. Both, however, are portrayed as actively taking charge, even though they were exploiting the rebellious nature of the slaves. Neither, of course, were chosen as the leaders of their armies; rather, they successfully gathered them and used them for their own ends. But not much detail is given as to how they used their power and here it is simply a question of not having enough material to gain an adequate picture.
Aristonicus, a member of the royal family of Pergamum, in that he was the illegitimate half-brother of the dead king, Attalus III, raised an army when Attalus III left the kingdom to the Roman people in his will. Some of those in that army were slaves. Sallust purports to give the letter Mithridates wrote to the king of the Parthians, Arsaces, which asserts: “Then, having forged an unnatural will, they led his son, Aristonicus in triumph like an enemy, because he had tried to recover his father’s rights”.48
Whether the will was forged or not, the Romans considered that Pergamum was theirs and Aristonicus considered that it was not.49 The evidence records that his army was successful for a while, that various cities came over to his side, that neighbouring kings took up arms against him, and that he defeated the first Roman troops sent out against him. From a source that has been termed anti-Roman, we have further information about Aristonicus.50 In his Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus, Justin records that the previous king, Attalus, seemed to go mad. He murdered friends and family, alleged that his enemies had killed his mother and wife, took no care with his appearance, started to grow poisonous plants and sent them to his friends.51 He began building a tomb for his mother but died of sunstroke before finishing it.
His total decline is perhaps indicated by the sentence that follows: “In his will the Roman people were named as his heirs”. Justin describes what happened next:
After Attalus’ death Aristonicus took possession of Asia, claiming it as his father’s kingdom. He fought many successful battles against the cities which refused to yield to him from fear of the Romans, and now seemed to be established as king when Asia was assigned to the consul Licinius Crassus.52
The first general sent out against him was Publius Licinius Crassus Dives Mucianus, a distant relative of the more famous adversary of Spartacus, and also tainted with the charge of avarice.53 Justin observes of him that he was more interested in Attalus’ treasure than in the conduct of the war and that he paid for his greed with his blood. Marcus Perperna, who had recently been successful against the slaves in Sicily, was then sent out. He took Aristonicus prisoner, loaded Attalus’ treasure on to ships and sent it to Rome, the implication being that Aristonicus had had possession of it until then.54 Finally, the consul Manius Aquillius extinguished the remaining sparks of rebellion. Justin finishes the account: “So it was that Asia, made now the property of the Romans, transmitted to Rome its vices along with its riches”.55
Florus is scathing about Aquillius, who resorted to poisoning the water supply in order to force the rebels to surrender. He also reveals that whole cities were holding out against the Romans, and that the situation was not simply an army of ex-slaves wandering the countryside.
Aquilius finally brought the Asiatic war to a close by the wicked expedient of poisoning the springs in order to procure the surrender of certain cities. This, though it hastened his victory, brought shame upon it, for he had disgraced the Roman arms, which had hitherto been unsullied, by the use offoul drugs in violation of the laws of heaven and the practice of our forefathers.56
Our remaining texts describing this episode are thus at the very least ambiguous about the conduct of the Romans. But the information is scanty. Despite the lack of material on Aristonicus, scholars have speculated about his motives. An example of the way Aristonicus has been treated in recent times is the work of Vladimir Vavrinek, who writes:
Did he [Aristonicus] wish merely to take over the heritage of his forebears and continue ruling with the same means and in the same spirit as they did, or was he a convinced social reformer attempting a radical re-creation of the whole of society with the aim of establishing general justice and equality for all, slaves included?57
How can we ever know? It is unlikely that he wished to establish some form of communistic society and, given that he never had a chance to start, it is not even a very interesting question. However, Vavrinek continues: “Was he a revolutionary leader who, conscious of his purpose, placed himself in command of the revolting slaves, or was the freeing of the slave merely a tactical device which he was forced to employ because he lacked other means of achieving his aims?”58
The second option is surely much more probable, since the first would make him unique in ancient history, whereas the second has many more examples. Vavrinek concludes that the question of whether Aristonicus was a pretender or a slave leader is a false dichotomy because he was both. But whatever thoughts were in Aristonicus’ head, the actions of slaves should not be forgotten. It is unlikely that they were fighting only in order to put another member of the royal family on the throne. One might surmise that they wished to escape their servitude, to win for themselves a better existence, to achieve their own freedom.
We only know about this activity of the slaves from the imperfect preservation of Diodorus’ text. Without it the single sentence in Strabo would be just that: a sentence along with others that mention slaves fighting alongside their masters.59 The evidence for a slave revolt is slight but once again it is Diodorus whose narrative allows us, through his uniquely sympathetic approach, an insight normally lacking in our historians.
Titus Vettius Minutius, as related in the summary of Diodorus by Photius, was a rich young man who fell in love with a slave, tried to buy her but could not afford her. We are told that his father was rich so this lack of money is quite strange, but the picture given is a caracature of a man beside himself because of a woman.60 When the time came to pay for his girl, he instead killed his creditors and formed an army of 400 of his own slaves, which soon grew to 3,500. A quick response from the Romans, together with treachery on the part of one of Vettius’ lieutenants, put an end to this revolt.61
In the version from the Excerpts that is very similar to that of Photius, a detail is added that helps to explain why Diodorus described this episode at such length: he says about Vettius that he could not pay, “but was now a very slave to love, he embarked on an enterprise that passes all comprehension”.62 What is described here, then, is a situation that was extremely dangerous, brought on by a Roman’s inability to control himself; he was a slave to his feelings. And the emphasis in the Excerpts on advice to rulers also explains why we have this explanatory note in this version; it was important for the readers to see how weaknesses on the part of the owners can lead to terrible consequences.
Spartacus
Spartacus is the most famous of all the slave leaders not simply because he is presented in the most favourable light, which he is, but also because there is more information about him than about the others. This relatively generous allocation of space alone marks him out as a special character, and the sympathetic portrayal increases this impression. For that reason alone, it is worth taking a closer look at why our sources were ready to credit him with heroic characteristics. Spartacus’ personal qualities and heroism are often mentioned but any praise is tempered by the overall hopelessness of his task and by the refusal of his followers to accept his wise counsel. A typical modern analysis runs as follows:
The revolt of Spartacus appears tragic, because the odds were too heavy against him. He was relatively humane and able. His achievement in creating, disciplining and arming from scratch forces that could defeat consular armies was little short of a miracle. But he could not always impose his will on them.63
Spartacus has long been regarded as a hero and champion of the oppressed, but one would have thought this is in spite of, rather than because of, the ancient sources. Many would agree with Barry Baldwin that “in general, the ancient accounts are emotionally against the slaves, just as our modern sympathies go out to them for purely emotional reasons”.64 As I have argued briefly elsewhere,65 this positive depiction of Spartacus is not a purely modern invention but is a product of the portrait painted by Plutarch in his Life of Crassus.
Modern scholars have been keen to point out the scanty and unsatisfactory nature of the sources and have argued, quite reasonably, that there is too little evidence for any elaborate theories about this particular individual. J. G. Griffith gives a good example of the response of many, starting his article by commenting that despite the Spartacus legend, “authoritative works in English, the fruits of a long tradition of rigorous historical criticism, say little about him”.66 He concludes, as one might expect, by saying that these works are right to ignore him.67 There are, however, more sources than one might think from Griffith’s introductory remarks, although they are not plentiful. Brent Shaw has recently collected them, as well as those for the previous Sicilian slave wars.68
We have accounts from authors contemporary with the event, whose words one might think would be the most valuable but that are not, due to their extreme brevity on the subject. Cicero, Varro, Diodorus and Sallust all refer to Spartacus but only the words of Cicero and Sallust form more than a sentence. The sentence by Varro is favourable: “Although he was an innocent man, Spartacus was condemned to a gladiatorial school”. We only know this sentence because it is preserved in the work of a much later author, Sosipater Charisius,69 who lived in the late fourth century CE. His main concern was grammar, not history, so what this shows is that the tradition of a positive portrait of Spartacus was circulating at this time. Diodorus, our main source for the Sicilian sla
ve wars, uses Spartacus as an example to illustrate that even barbarians return good for good. He writes: “The barbarian Spartacus, on receiving a certain favour from someone, showed him his gratitude. Indeed, nature is self-schooled, even among barbarians, to repay kindness for kindness to those who give assistance”.70 Diodorus, preserved by the Excerpts, calls him “the barbarian Spartacus” (ὁ Σπάρτακος ὁ βάρβαρος).71 Again, we see here the typically Diodoran theme of good behaviour receiving its just recompense. Cicero refers to Spartacus while attacking Verres, in his prosecution of this former governor of Sicily. Given the amount of vitriol Cicero pours on Verres’ claim to have prevented the war spreading to Sicily, Verres seems to have made much of this in his defence. Although Verres’ character has not survived Cicero’s onslaught, Baldwin concludes his article on the Spartacus revolt: “The fact that Spartacus inspired no support from Sicily in Verres’ time, or from the many free Italians that had fought the Social War, indicates that Spartacus could not hope to achieve any concrete ideal such as the abolition of slavery – if he ever wanted to”.72 It is not impossible that the failure of any support emanating from Sicily was due to the measures taken by Verres but for our purposes now, it is sufficient to observe that Cicero is utterly hostile to the slave leader.
Sallust (86–35 BCE), who would have been a youth during the war, is considered a very important source because of his closeness in time to the events. However, all that remains of his description of Spartacus are the fragments of his Histories and although these have been pieced together to form some sort of narrative the results are frustrating.73 Some possible glimpses of Sallust’s attitude can be had. One is a description ascribed to Spartacus by both editors of the fragments of the Histories, B. Maurenbrecher and Patrick McGushin, which reads “of immense bodily strength and spirit”.74 In a later fragment from the same book, it would seem that Spartacus is being held up as giving good advice, but we can only surmise his name; it is not in the manuscript, although later in the same passage we do see him (named) trying to hold his men back.75
Slave Revolts in Antiquity Page 9