Slave Revolts in Antiquity

by Urbainczyk, Theresa;

  8.

  διὸ καὶ τοσου̑το τω̑ν οἰκετω̑ν ἐπεκλυσε πλη̑θος ἅπασαν Σικελίαν, ὥστε τοὺν ἀκούοντας τὴν ὑπερβολὴν μὴ πιστευ̑σαι (Diodorus, 34/35.2.27).

  9.

  I return to the circumstances of the revolt in Chapter 8, in the discussion of the place of the revolts in ancient historiography.

  10.

  Diodorus, 34/35.2.9–10.

  11.

  The role and strategy of the two leaders will be discussed in Chapter 4.

  12.

  καὶ κατ’ ἄλλους πολλοὺς τόπους (Diodorus, 34/35.2.19).

  13.

  Orosius, History against the Pagans, 5.9.4–8.

  14.

  Julius Obsequens, Book of Prodigies, 27, 27b.

  15.

  Livy, 33.36.1. In introducing an earlier revolt he wrote, “Although Gaul was more peaceful than expected that year, slave insurrections broke out in regions close to the city of Rome” (32.26.4).

  16.

  Julius Obsequens, Ab anno urbis conditae DV prodigiorum liber.

  17.

  Slave revolts appear to be rather different from such phenomena as crying statues, but it would seem that in the period Julius Obsequens was writing, there was a perception that certain events were unusual, that is, contrary to the normal order of things, and a sign of a general malaise of society. Augustine, concerned to show the chaos that preceded the birth of Christ, is a good indicator of how the stories of the slave revolts were seen in later times. His chronology is subservient to his argument but the overall impression he gives is that these were very damaging events. After describing how Mithridates massacred all the Romans in Asia, he had a chapter on the internal disasters the Romans had undergone and he lists the social wars, the servile wars and the civil wars. He goes even further than our other historians and tells us:

  For before the allies of Latium rose against Rome all the animals which had been tamed to serve men’s needs – dogs, horses, asses, oxen and all the other cattle which were under men’s domination – suddenly turned wild, forgot the gentleness of domesticity, left their quarters and roamed at large, shunning the approach not only of strangers, but even of their owners; they threatened danger and even death to any who risked closing in on them to round them up. (Augustine, City of God, 3.2)

  After describing the horrors of the period of the Gracchi, and mocking the Romans for erecting a temple of Concord, saying they should rather have built one to Discord, Augustine narrates the period of wars that followed. He finishes Chapter 26 of Book 3 with a variant on the usual accounts of the slave wars:

  The servile war [referring to the one in the 70s BCE] was started by a mere handful of gladiators, less than seventy, in fact, and think of the huge number finally involved and the bitterness and ferocity of their struggle; remember the Roman generals defeated by that multitude, the cities and districts devastated and the manner of the devastation. The adequate description of it has baffled the powers of the historians. And this was not the only Servile War. Before this the bands of slaves had depopulated the province of Macedonia; later they devastated Sicily and the maritime coast. Who could find words to match the gravity of the events – words adequate to express the horrors of their acts of brigandage at the beginning and their wars of piracy later? (Ibid., 3.26)

  Zvi Yavetz, Slaves and Slavery in Ancient Rome (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1988), 41, n.5, wonders if Augustine has muddled Aristonicus’ revolt in 132 BCE in Asia, with that of Andriscus in 149 BCE, in which case it is worth noting that Augustine saw Aristonicus’ revolt as a slave war. On the other hand, it is entirely possible that the slave trouble in Macedonia is a different incident, about which there is little or no evidence remaining. Augustine himself comments that historians have not been up to the task of giving the full details.

  18.

  Appian, Civil Wars, 1.8. For a further discussion of Appian and his view of the period, see Chapter 8. The dangers of slaves being able to talk the same language had been noted much earlier by thinkers such as Plato; see Plato, Laws 6, 777C, quoted by Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, 6.264d–e, and by Aristotle, Politics, 1.5.6.

  19.

  Diodorus, 34/35.2.48.

  20.

  “Fugitivorum bellum in Sicilia exortum, coniuratione servorum in Italia oppressa” (Julius Obsequens, Book of Prodigies, 27).

  21.

  “In Italia multa milia servorum quae coniuraverant aegre comprehensa et supplicio consumpta. In Sicilia fugitivi Romanos exercitus necaverunt. Numantia diruta” (Julius Obsequens, Book of Prodigies, 27, 27b).

  22.

  There had been uprisings in Italy in the first half of the second century. Unfortunately our sources for these are brief, as noted earlier, although see Capozza, Movimenti servili nel mondo romano.

  23.

  Although both Vogt, Ancient Slavery and the Ideal of Man, 93–102, and Yavetz, Slaves and Slavery in Ancient Rome, 45–66, discuss the rebellion of Aristonicus as if it were a slave uprising, Aristonicus’ name does not even appear in the index to Bradley, Slavery and Rebellion. More recently Andreau and Descat, Esclavage en Grèce et à Rome, 236–7, comment on the timing of the rebellion but agree that it should not really be counted as a slave uprising. The event is also not included in Wiedemann’s chapters “Resistance” (Greek and Roman Slavery, 188–97) and “Rebellion” (ibid., 198–223). Wiedemann had explained in his introduction that:

  this war should not be seen so much as slave rebellion than as an instance of slaves being promised their freedom in return for fighting on behalf of someone who saw himself as a legitimate ruler threatened by a foreign power. There is no evidence that Aristonikos envisaged the permanent abolition of slavery as an institution. (Greek and Roman Slavery, 13)

  Diodorus himself, however, viewed this, as well as the later episode of Titus Minutius Vettius (Diodorus, 36.2a), as a slave revolt. Shaw did not even feel the need to justify his exclusion of it from his sourcebook, Spartacus and the Slave Wars. For an entertaining and informative overview of the earlier literature, which accords greater claims to the intentions of Aristonicus, see Thomas W. Africa, “Aristonicus, Blossius and the City of the Sun”, International Review of Social History 6 (1961), 110–24. See also Christian Mileta, “Verschwoerung oder Eruption? Diodor und die byzantinischen Exzerptoren ueber den Ersten Sizilischen Sklavenkrieg”, in Dissertatiunculae criticae, Festschrift fuer Guenther Christian Hansen, C.-F. Collatz et al. (eds), 133–53 (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 1988) for a discussion of the contemporaneity of the uprisings in Sicily and Pergamum.

  24.

  τὸ παραπλήσιον δὲ γέγονε καὶ κατὰ τὴν Α᾽σίαν κατὰ τοὺς αὐτους καιρούς, Ἀριστονίκου μὲν ἀντιποιησαμένου τη̑ς μὴ προσηκούσης βασιλείας, τω̑ν δὲ δούλων διὰ τὰς ἐκ τω̑ν δεσποτω̑υ κακουχίς συναπονοησαμένων ἐκείνω̣ καὶ μεγάλοις ἀτυχήμασι πολλὰς πόλέις περιβαλόντων (Diodorus, 34/35.2.26). The verb συναπονοέομαι is quite unusual and means “to share in folly with”. A more common verb, and one that in this context makes more sense, is συμπονέω, which simply means “to toil with, suffer with”.

  25.

  Summarized in the Excerpts of Constantine, 34/35.2.25–6.

  26.

  Attalus I (ruled 241–197 BCE) was succeeded first by his oldest son Eumenes II (ruled 198–158 BCE), then by his second son Attalus II (ruled 158–138 BCE). The next king was Attalus III (ruled 138–133 BCE), the son of Eumenes II.

  27.

  “cupido profunda imperi et divitiarum” (Sallust, Letter of Mithridates, 5).

  28.

  “Post, habitum custodiae agri captivi, sumptibus et contumeliis ex rege miserrumum servorum effecere, simulatoque impio testame
nto filium eius Aristonicum, quia patrium regnum petiverat, hostium more per triumphum duxere” (Sallust, Histories, 4.69.8–9).

  29.

  Strabo, Geography, 13.4.2.

  30.

  εἰς δὲ τὴν μεσόγαιαν ἀνιὼν ἤθροισε διὰ ταχέων πλη̑θος ἀπόρων τε ἀνθρώπων καὶ δούλων ἐπ᾽ἐλευθερία̣ κατακεκλημένων, οὑςἩλιοπολίτας ἐκάλεσε (ibid., 14.1.38). Albert Forbiger, the German translator of Strabo’s Geographica, suggests that this name was used because most of the slaves came from Heliopolis near Sardis, but there is no evidence to support this (Strabo: Geographica [German translation and notes] [Wiesbaden: Marix, [1855–98] 2005], 921, n.98). There were cities in existence called Heliopolis, but what is curious is that we see Aristonicus naming his followers this way.

  31.

  “Aristonicus of the family of a common musician, upon the reputation of being the son of Eumenes, filled all Asia with tumults and rebellion” (Plutarch, Life of Flamininus, 21.6). Florus, on the other hand, writes that he was of royal blood: “Aristonicus, regii sanguinis ferox iuvenis” (Epitome of Roman History, 1.35).

  32.

  In the summary of Book 58, Livy discusses Tiberius Gracchus, his land reforms and his murder. It ends with a description of how his body and the bodies of others killed at the same time were thrown into the Tiber. The next sentence records that this book contained an account of campaigns in Sicily against the slaves: “Res praeterea in Sicilia vario eventu adversus fugitivos gestas continet”. At the start of the summary of the next book there is a sentence about the Scipio Africanus’ victory over Numantia and then one saying that the consul Publius Rupilius ended the slave war in Sicily: “P. Rupilius consul in Sicilia cum fugitivis debellavit”. The next sentence of the summary mentions the uprising of Aristonicus in Pergamum. It seems then that Livy had also placed these events together because they were contemporaneous, but the connection of the involvement of slaves may also have been a further connection, and a reason for Livy discussing these events together, as had Diodorus.

  33.

  Diodorus, 36.1–2. His interest is not surprising given that he was from Sicily and is often referred to as Diodorus Siculus.

  34.

  πρὸ δὲ τη̑ς κατὰ τὴν Σικελίαν τω̑ν δούλων ἐπαναστάσεως ἐγένοντο κατὰ τὴν Ἰταλίαν πλείους ἀποστάσεις ὀλιγοχρόνιοι καὶ μικραί, καθὰπερ του̑ δαιμονίου προσημαίνοντος τὸ μέγεθος τη̑ς ἐσομένης κατὰ τὴν Σικελίαν ἐπαναστάσεως (Diodorus, 36.2.1, emphasis added in English translation).

  35.

  Diodorus, 36.2.3

  36.

  Diodorus, 36.2.6. Betrayal by their own side recurs in slave revolts, or at least the narrative of them. It should be seen as a result of a weakening of the revolt, that is, if the slaves had not already lost strength the betrayal would not have been decisive. Sarapion, for instance, in the first slave war betrayed slave-held Tauromenium to the Romans (ibid., 34/35.2.21); Titus Vettius Minutius was betrayed by one his own commanders (ibid., 36.1.1–2); the slaves led by Varius were betrayed by an infiltrator sent in by the Romans (ibid., 36.3.1–3). The bandit Bulla was betrayed by his lover (Cassius Dio, Roman History, 77.10.6–7).

  37.

  Bradley, Slavery and Rebellion, 73, emphasis added.

  38.

  Vogt, Ancient Slavery and the Ideal of Man, 88.

  39.

  Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, 6.272f.

  40.

  Slaves in Attica had rebelled at the same time as the first slave war, we hear from Diodorus, as seen earlier. Few scholars pay much attention to the numbers in Athenaeus. All that is important for the discussion here is that Posidonius, if the quotation is not exact, indicated that very many slaves were involved.

  41.

  πολλαὶ δε αὑ̂ται ἐγένοντο, καὶ ἀπώλοντο οἰκετω̑ν ὑπὲρ τὰς ἑκατὸν μυριάδας (ibid.).

  42.

  ἐπὶ πολυν χρόνον (ibid.).

  43.

  Silvia Bussi, Economia e demografia della schiavitù in Asia Minore ellenistico-romana (Milan: LED, 2001), 117, suggests that these enslaved Bithynians were in fact laoi, whose free but tied status the Romans did not understand.

  44.

  Diodorus, 36.3.1–3.

  45.

  Ibid., 36.3.2.

  46.

  ὁ δ’ εἴτε χρήμασι πεισθεὶς εἴτε χάριτι δουλεύσας (ibid., 36.3.3).

  47.

  See ibid., 11.89.1–8, for the power of this shrine. Diodorus comments that it honoured its protection of slaves to show its capacity, in other words, that it was such a holy place that even slaves were protected by it.

  48.

  Later Salvius sacrificed here to thank the gods for his victory after Morgantina (ibid., 36.7.1).

  49.

  Ibid., 36.3.4.

  50.

  The man’s name was Gaius Titinius, and he was also called Gadaios, writes Diodorus (36.3.5).

  51.

  Ibid., 36.3.2.

  52.

  There had been plenty of wars of conquest to provide slaves after the recent campaigns in Gaul, the Balkans, Spain and Sardinia and against Jugurtha.

  53.

  κατέσφαξαν ὀγδοήκοντα ό̇ντες, καὶ ὅτι πλη̑θος ἀγείρουσι (ibid., 36.4).

  54.

  T. Corey Brennan, The Praetorship in the Roman Republic, 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 478, points out that the garrison was probably put there after the first war.

  55.

  Diodorus, 36.4.4.

  56.

  Plutarch, Life of Crassus, 8; Appian, Civil Wars, 1.116. These and other authors and their attitudes to the topic of slave revolts are discussed in Chapters 4, 6 and 8.

  57.

  Suetonius, Life of Augustus, 3.1.

  58.

  Appian, Mithridatic War, 109: 519–20. Barry Baldwin, “Two Aspects of the Spartacus Slave Revolt”, Classical Journal 62 (1967), 289–94, esp. 294, cites the lack of Italian support as the reason why Spartacus’ enterprise was doomed from the start. I have not dealt with the Bacchanalian conspiracies from the early second century BCE as reported by Livy because the evidence is so slight. The authorities thought that slaves were involved and, given the outbreaks in the south of Italy, one might suppose that here again, in a region that had chafed against the domination of the Romans, slaves successfully escaped their lot. That is, slaves took advantage of the division between the local landholders and the Romans to seize the chance to rebel.

  59.

  Augustus, Res Gestae, 25. Augustus alludes here to his defeat of Sextus Pompeius, whom the sources portray as employing slaves in his army; see P. A. Brunt and J. M. Moore, Res Gestae Divi Augusti: The Achievements of the Divine Augustus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967), 66. See also Anton Powell and Kathryn Welch (eds), Sextus Pompeius (London: Duckworth, 2002).

  60.

  Sallust, Bellum Catilinae, 30.7.

  61.

  “Eruptionem facturi fuisse dicebantur” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus, 7.14.1–2). He then goes on to report that women were sent out of Rome.

  62.

  Appian, Civil War, 1.14.

  63.

  Cassius Dio, Roman History, 44.16.1–2.

  64.

  “Clearly this is partly accounted for by the strengthened military and bureaucratic apparatus of the Empire, which was more able than the Republican regime had been, to combat open insubordination” (Elena M. Štaerman, “Der Klassenkampf der Sklaven zur zeit des roemischen Kaeserreiches”, Jahrbuch fuer Wirtschaftsgeschichte 2 [1971], 307–35, esp. 311, my translation). Ste Croix describes the Augustan success as follows:

 
; How, then, did Augustus reconcile the senators to the Principate? I would say that the Roman aristocracy wanted five things above all: (1) Peace, (2) Prosperity, (3) Position, (4) Patronage, and (5) Power; and that it was only the last of these that Augustus was unwilling to allow the senators to pursue to their hearts’ content. (The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World, 363)

  65.

  Tacitus, Annals, 3.43.1–2; 3.46.

  66.

  “eadem aestate mota per Italiam servilis belli semina fors oppressit” (ibid., 4.27.1–2). See E. Groag, A. Stein, L. Petersen, et al. (eds), Prosopographia Imperii Romani Saeculi I, II, III, 2nd edn (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1933), where Curtisius is described as “quondam praetoriae cohortis miles, dux belli servilis” (c.1606). I am grateful to Matthaeus Heil for this reference.

  67.

  Tacitus, Annals, 15.46.

  68.

  Ibid., 15.47.

  69.

  We also have evidence from elsewhere in the Greek world of slaves resisting. For example, slaves deserted in enormous numbers from Athens when the enemy army established themselves very close to the city and fortified Decelea in Attica during the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides states that 20,000 slaves, most of whom were skilled craftsmen, ran away (History of the Peloponnesian War, 7.27).

  70.

  ἥ τε γὰρ Θετταλω̑ν πενεστεία πολλάκις ἐπέθετο τοι̑ς Θετταλοι̑ς, ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ τοι̑ς Λάκωσιν οἱ Εἱλωτες ὥσπερ γὰρ ἐφεδρεύοντες τοι̑ς ἀτυχμασι διατελου̑σιν (Aristotle, Politics, 2.6.1269a36–9).

  71.

  This is reminiscent of the comment in Xenophon, Hiero, 3.4.3.

  72.

  One might term this a maroon community, although the issue of maroon communities will be dealt with in Chapter 3. The term refers to slaves who escape and form communities that can survive independently. As A. W. Gomme, A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, Volume 1: Introduction, and Commentary on Book 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1945), 302–3, remarks, this figure of ten years is one of the most disputed numbers in Thucydides. Gomme reasonably states that Ithome must have been the headquarters of the rebels, and not that they were shut up there for years (ibid., 299). On the revolt, and for a discussion on the debate of how long the rebels held out, see Pavel Oliva, Sparta and her Social Problems (Prague: Academia, 1971), 152–63. See also Simon Hornblower, A Commentary on Thucydides, Vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 157–61. Plato, Laws, 698D, refers to a Messenian revolt at the time of the battle of Marathon earlier in the fifth century BCE, although Herodotus is silent on this. See discussion by George Huxley, Early Sparta (London: Faber, 1962), 87–96.