Slave Revolts in Antiquity

by Urbainczyk, Theresa;

  25.

  Diodorus calls him Komanos, whereas Valerius Maximus (Memorable Deeds and Sayings, 9.12.1) mentions Cleon’s brother as being called Komas. He killed himself rather than answer questions. In Photius’ account there are also more details about people’s names than we find in the later summary: Kleon’s brother, the betrayer, Sarapion, and the Roman commander.

  26.

  Diodorus, 34/35.2.21.

  27.

  We learn from Diodorus (34/35.2.14) that the ex-slaves Hermeias and Zeuxis killed Damophilus, but only from the Excerpts (ibid., 34/35.2.39) that it was Hermeias who escorted Damophilus’ daughter to safety.

  28.

  Ibid., 34/35.2.43.

  29.

  Ibid., 36.4.8.

  30.

  Ibid.

  31.

  Ibid., 36.4.3.

  32.

  Ibid., 36.5.2.

  33.

  Ibid., 36.5.3. Farrington’s observation that the slaves wanted to take control of the island (Diodorus Siculus, 24), referred to earlier, is more than mere speculation in this case, as Diodorus reports that Athenion considered that Sicily belonged to him.

  34.

  Bradley, Slavery and Rebellion, 77.

  35.

  Diodorus writes: “on hearing the news of Eunus’ success, and of the victories of the fugitives fighting with him, he [Cleon] rose in revolt” (Diodorus, 34/35.2.43).

  36.

  ἡ δὲ τύχη καθάπερ ἐπίτηδες αὔξουσα τὰς τω̑ν δραπετω̑ν δυνάμεις ὁμονοη̑σαι τοὺς τούτων ἡγημόνας ἐποίήσεν (ibid., 36.7.2).

  37.

  παρέδωκεν εἰς φυλακήν (ibid., 36.7.2).

  38.

  τήβεννάν τε περιπόρφυρον περιεβάλλετο καὶ πλατύσημον ἔδυ χιτω̑να κατὰ τοὺς χρηματισμούς, καὶ ῥαβδούχους ει̑χε μετὰ πελέκεων τοὺς προηγουμένους, καὶ τἄλλα πάντα ὅσα ποιου̑σί τε καὶ ἐπικοσμου̑σι βασιλείαν ἐπετήδευε (ibid., 36.7.4). The description sounds more like that of a Roman official than of a king, since the terms are direct translations of the Roman garments, the toga praetexta and the tunica laticlavia. The use of the toga praetexta was reserved for magistrates and high priests. Livy (History of Rome, 34.7.2) purports to report the speech by Lucius Valerius, tribune of the plebs in 195 BCE, where he put forward a motion to repeal the Lex Oppia. This speech gives precise details as to who wore the toga praetexta. The tunica laticlavia, the tunic with broad purple stripes, was the dress of the senatorial class. Equestrians wore narrow stripes on their tunics. See Shelley Stone, “The Toga: From National to Ceremonial Costume”, in The World of Roman Costume, J. L. Sebesta & L. Bonfante (eds), 13–45 (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994), 13, 15, for details on Roman dress. Salvius dedicated a robe bordered with purple, presumably a toga praetexta, to the Palikoi in gratitude for his victory over the Romans (Diodorus, 36.7.1).

  39.

  Ibid., 36.8.1. As Shaw points out, the figures only add up to 16,000 but 17,000 is in the manuscript (Spartacus and the Slave Wars, 118, n.9). It is interesting to note that Bithynians were part of this force, and that indirectly, according to Diodorus, it was the request to the king of Bithynia for troops that set this war off.

  40.

  Diodorus, 36.9.

  41.

  He was the son of Manius Aquillius, who finished the war against Aristonicus, taking over from Marcus Perperna. The fact that the Senate sent a consul shows the increased anxiety about the conflict.

  42.

  ὁ μὲν οὐ̑ν κατὰ Σικελίαν τω̑ν οἰκετω̑ν πόλεμος, δια μείνας ἔτη σχεδόν που τέτταρα, τραγικὴν ἔσχε τὴν καταστροφήν (Diodorus, 36.10.3). Diodorus (as reported by Photius) uses the word “katastrophe” twice in a very short space, once to describe the fate of the slaves, and the second time to describe the end of the war generally.

  43.

  Florus, Epitome of Roman History, 2.7. He gives Spartacus a separate chapter (ibid., 2.8).

  44.

  “Vixdum respiraverat insula, cum statim Servilio praetore a Syro reditur ad Cilicem” (ibid., 2.7.9). Thus in the picture presented by Florus there was very little time between the two wars.

  45.

  “… non minorem quam ille fanaticus prior conflavit exercitum, acriusque multo, quasi et illum vindicaret, vicos, oppida, castella diripiens, in servos infestius quam in dominos quasi in transfugas, saeviebat” (Florus, Epitome of Roman History, 2.7.10). Florus saw a connection between the two outbreaks and attributed vengeance to Athenion’s actions. See also Cassius Dio, Roman History, fragments of Book 27.93,4 (5.88), for a brief comment about Athenion and the damage he and his men caused.

  46.

  “quippe dum circa adprehendendum eum a multitudine contenditur, inter rixantium manus praeda lacerata est” (Florus, Epitome of Roman History, 2.7.12).

  47.

  Diodorus, 36.7.4. One might argue that these details represent the assumptions of our sources, who expected the slaves to organize themselves in ways recognizable to the Roman state. Jack Goody’s point about people on the edge of society could well be true of the slaves:

  In fact many communities living on the margins of great states, or any centralized polity, deliberately rejected centralized authority (for example, the Robin Hoods of all around the globe) while some, for other reasons altogether, organized themselves in different, “acephalous” ways. The peoples of the margins, of the deserts, of the woods and of the hills would always provide a different model for government than the centralized peoples of the plains. (The Theft of History [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006], 91)

  48.

  “simulatoque impio testamento filium eius Aristonicum, quia patrium regnum petiverat, hostium more per triumphum duxere” (Sallust, Histories, 4.69.8–9).

  49.

  J. C. Dumont, “À propos d’Aristonicus”, Eirene 5 (1966), 189–96, esp. 189, remarks that the inscription recording the Senate’s ratification of the will of Attalus confirms the truth of the will. For the text of this decree see Robert K. Sherk, Roman Documents from the Greek East: Senatus consulta and Epistulae to the Age of Augustus (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1969), no. 11, 59–62.

  50.

  See R. Develin, Justin: Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus, J. C. Yardley (trans.) (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1994), 1–11. Sallust is hardly anti-Roman, but the letter attributed to Mithridates certainly is.

  51.

  Justin, Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus, 36.4.1–4.

  52.

  Ibid., 36.4.4.

  53.

  Ibid., 36.4.5–12. This Crassus was consul in 131 BCE; T. R. S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, 3 vols (New York: American Philological Association, 1951–86), vol. 1, 500, 503. For clarification on this confusing family, see the family tree of the Licinii in Hubert Cancik, Helmut Schneider and Manfred Landfester (eds), Brill’s New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World, 20 vols with index (Brill: Leiden, 2006).

  54.

  Justin, Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus, 36.4.9. Aristonicus also minted his own coins, of which there are some remaining; see J. P. Adams, “Aristonikos and the Cistophoroi”, Historia 29 (1980), 302–14, and E. S. G. Robinson, “Cistophoroi in the name of King Eumenes”, Numismatic Chronicle 14 (6th series) (1954), 1–8.

  55.

  Justin, Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus, 36.4.12.

  56.

  Ibid., 1.35.7, emphasis added.

  57.

  Vladimir Vavrinek, “Aristonicus of Pergamum: Pretender to the Throne or Leader of a Slave Revolt?”, Eirene 13 (1975), 109–29. Vavrinek is only one of many to consider the question o
f Aristonicus’ motives. Dumont, for instance argues that the Pergamene decree referred to earlier shows that Aristonicus had wealthy supporters, and therefore they would not have been anti-slavery. He simply says that Strabo was mistaken about Heliopolis (“À propos d’Aristonicus” 195, n. 33). He concludes that the uprising had no utopian objectives but nevertheless bears witness to the antagonism between slaves and masters (ibid., 196).

  58.

  Vavrinek, “Aristonicus of Pergamum”, 115.

  59.

  See for instance Christopher L. Brown and Philip D. Morgan (eds), Arming Slaves from Classical Times to the Modern Age (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006) on slaves being armed in order to fight for their masters throughout the ages. See also Peter Hunt, Slaves, Warfare and Ideology in the Greek Historians (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

  60.

  Diodorus, 36.2.3.

  61.

  Ibid., 36.1.1–2.

  62.

  τῳ δὲ ἒρωτι δουλεύων, ἐπεχείρησε πράξει παραλογωτάτῃ. (ibid., 36.2a.1, emphasis added to English translation).

  63.

  H. H. Scullard, From the Gracchi to Nero, 5th edn (London: Routledge [1959] 1982), 93. Also: “The brave undertaking of the slaves has about it a touch of the tragedy of any attempt to achieve the impossible” (Vogt, Ancient Slavery and the Ideal of Man, 91).

  64.

  Baldwin, “Two Aspects of the Spartacus Slave Revolt”, 289–90. He allows the possibility that Sallust may not have been entirely hostile to Spartacus, while categorizing all the rest as pro-Roman.

  65.

  Theresa Urbainczyk, Spartacus (London: Duckworth, 2004). What follows is an elaboration of that argument.

  66.

  J. G. Griffith, “Spartacus and the Growth of Historical and Political Legends”, in Spartacus: Symposium rebus Spartaci gestis dedicatum 2050 A., C. M. Danov and A. Fol (eds), 64–70 (Sofia: Academie Bulgare des Sciences, 1981), 64.

  67.

  Ibid., 69–70.

  68.

  Shaw, Spartacus and the Slave Wars. He places the main texts first and then the more minor ones. Giulia Stampacchia, La Tradizione della guerra di Spartaco da Sallustio a Orosio (Pisa: Giardini, 1976) has a very useful collection of sources.

  69.

  Sosipater Charisius, Ars Grammatica 1.133.

  70.

  Diodorus, 38/39.21.

  71.

  Ibid.

  72.

  Baldwin, “Two Aspects of the Spartacus Slave Revolt”, 294.

  73.

  Patrick McGushin, Sallust: The Histories, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992, 1994) has provided a translation and done a thorough investigation into the fragments, rearranging them from the previous order devised by B. Maurenbrecher, C. Sallusti Crispi Historiarum Reliquiae (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1891), and adding a helpful commentary.

  74.

  “ingens ipse virium atque animi” (Sallust, Histories, 3.91 [Maurenbrecher], 3.61 [McGushin]). However, another suggestion is that this refers to Mithridates; see Sallust, Histories, 147 [Maurenbrecher].

  75.

  Sallust, Histories, 3.98 [Maurenbrecher], 3.66 [McGushin].

  76.

  “Crassus obtrectans potius collegae, quam boni aut mali publici gnavos aestimator” (ibid., 4.56 [McGushin, his translation]; 4.51 [Maurenbrecher]).

  77.

  Donald C. Earl, The Political Thought of Sallust (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961), 116, 120.

  78.

  Eutropius, Breviarium, 6.7, cf. Livy, Epitome, XCV–XCVII, as observed by H. W. Bird in Eutropius: Breviarium, H. W. Bird (trans. with intro and comm.) (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1993), 33–4, 102 n.11.

  79.

  Plutarch was born before 40 CE and died after 120 CE, Appian was born around 90 CE and died around 160 CE. For Plutarch’s influence through the ages, see D. A. Russell, Plutarch (London: Duckworth, 1973), 143–63.

  80.

  ἡ γυνὴ δ’ὁμόφυλος οὐ̑σα του̑ Σπαρτάκου, μαντικὴ δὲ καὶ κάταχος τοι̑ς περὶ τὸν Διόνυσον ὀργιασμοι̑ς (Plutarch, Life of Crassus, 8). Pierre Piccinin, “Le Dionysisme dans le bellum Spartacium”, La Parola del Passato 56(4) (2001), 272–96, argues that the cult of Dionysus is important for our understanding of the uprising. The leaders of the Sicilian revolts have religious authority yet this is the only mention of any connection of Spartacus with a divinity. The suppression of the Bacchanalian cults in the early second century in Italy, which would indeed appear to have involved slaves, seems to have taken up much energy on the part of the Roman authorities. Mithridates took the name Dionysus, see Brian C. McGing, The Foreign Policy of Mithridates VI Eupator King of Pontus (Leiden: Brill, 1986), 102. According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary, “Dionysus’ cults and myths are often violent and bizarre, a challenge to the established social order”. The coins of Aristonikos have the head of Dionysus on them, although Robinson, “Cistophoroi in the name of King Eumenes”, 6, attributes this to Eumenes II having a personal interest in this god.

  81.

  Ἔφραζε τὸ σημει̑ον εἰ̑ναι μεγάλής καὶ φοβερα̑ς περὶ αὐτὸν εἰς εὐτυχὲς τέλος ἐσομένης δυνάμεως (Plutarch, Life of Crassus [Loeb], 336); Ἔφραζε τὸ σημει̑ον εἰ̑ναι μεγάλης καὶ φοβερα̑ς περὶ αὐτὸν εἰς ἀτυχὲς τέλος ἐσομένης δυνάμεως (ibid., [Teubner], 136). The Penguin translation by Rex Warner reads “he would have a great and terrible power which would end in misfortune” (Plutarch, The Fall of the Roman Republic: Six Lives [Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972], 122). The Loeb reads “the sign of a great and formidable power which would attend him to a fortunate issue”. The Loeb text has the word “eutyches” whereas Warner (Penguin) is translating “atyches”. Shaw, Spartacus and the Slave Wars, 132 n.2, takes the same reading as Warner, but this is not necessarily correct and reveals the preference of the translator, since in fact the manuscripts – even the most reliable manuscript of Plutarch S, the second oldest, the Codex Seitenstettensis – have “eutyches”. In the second Teubner edition, which Bernadotte Perrin (Loeb), describes as showing more boldness and greater freedom in the admission of conjecture (p. xvii), Sintensis changed his reading to “atyches”, although in his first he had “eutyches”. We are told that “atyches” is merely a marginal reading in one manuscript from the fifteenth century (ibid. [Teubner], 136). I would argue strongly that there is no good reason to accept the reading “atyches”, and certainly “eutyches”, fits Plutarch’s general portrayal of Spartacus more closely. My thanks to the late Professor Neville Birdsall for his help with this matter.

  82.

  εἰ δὲ καὶ τὸ περὶ τοὺς Εἵλωτας ἀναγκάσει τις ἡμα̑ς εἰς τὴν Λυκούργου θέσθαι πολιτείαν, ὠμότατον ἔργον καὶ παρανομώτατον, μακρω̣̑ τινι τὸν Νουμα̑ν ἑλληνικώτερον γεγονέναι νομοθέτην φήσομεν, ὅς γε κἄ τοὺς ὡμολογημένους δούλους ἔγευσε τιμη̑ς ἐλεύθέρας, ἐν τοις Κρονίοις ἑστια̑σθαι μετὰ τω̑ν δεσποτω̑ν ἀναμεμιγμένους ἐθίσας (Plutarch, Comparison of Lycurgus and Numa, 1, emphasis added to English translation).

  83.

  ἠ̑ν δὲ πολύφιλος καὶ διὰ φιλοξενίαν εὐτράπεζος, ἀεὶ μὲὑ Ελλήνων καὶ φιλολόγων περὶ αὐτὴν ὄντων, ἁπάντων δὲ τω̑ν βασιλέων καὶ δεχομένων παρ᾽ αὐτη̑ς δω̑ρα καὶ πεμπόντων (Plutarch, Life of Gaius Gracchus, 19).

  84.

  Compare Plutarch’s gruesome description of the revolting death of Sulla (his flesh disintegrating into a mass of foul-smelling w
orms), a man who had made the streets of Athens run with blood, with that of Appian (Civil Wars, 1.12. 105), where he has a brief fever and dies the same day, Appian commenting that he was fortunate in life and death. S. C. R. Swain, “Hellenic Culture and the Roman Heroes of Plutarch”, Journal of Hellenic Studies 110 (1990), 126–45, discusses Plutarch’s method of using Greek culture to evaluate character.

  85.

  Jähne writes that Plutarch depicts the character of Spartacus favourably in order to build up Crassus by giving him a worthy opponent (Spartacus, 12). There is no evidence that Plutarch wanted to glorify Crassus.

  86.

  Christoph F. Konrad, Plutarch’s Sertorius: A Historical Commentary (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 47, notes that Plutarch describes Sertorius as having a sharp, quick mind and that this is his usual way of praising a good general. This quality is often paired with daring and bravery. Konrad gives several examples, and notes that although he describes Spartacus in this way, he does not do so for Crassus.

  87.

  Plutarch, Life of Crassus, 2.

  88.

  Frances B. Titchener, “Why did Plutarch Write about Nicias?”, Ancient History Bulletin 5(5–6) (1991), 153–8, argues that Plutarch could find very little good to say about Nicias but needed a parallel for Crassus. “I would suggest that the Nikias-Crassus pair was amongst those that were intended to portray examples to be avoided rather than imitated” (A. G. Nikolaidis, “Is Plutarch Fair to Nikias?”, Illinois Classical Studies 13[2] [1988], 319–33, esp. 331).

  89.

  In a long note at the end of the Life of Crassus in their translation of Plutarch, the Langhorne brothers declared: “There have been more execrable characters, but there is not, perhaps, in the history of mankind, one more contemptible than Crassus. His ruling passion was the most sordid lust of wealth and the whole of his conduct, political, popular, and military was subservient to this” (Plutarch’s Lives, J. Langhorne & W. Langhorne (trans.) [London: T. Longman [1770] 1904], 299–300).

  90.

  “Cicero was Plutarch’s kind of man” (C. Pelling, “Plutarch: Roman Heroes and Greek Culture”, in Philosophia Togata: Essays on Philosophy and Roman Society, T. Griffin & J. Barnes [eds], 199–232 [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989], 217).