The Historians' History of the World 05 [The Roman Republic]

The wretched city now felt the vengeance of men brutalised by oppression. Clad in skins, armed with stakes burned at the end, with reaping hooks, spits, or whatever arms rage supplied, they broke into the houses, and massacred all persons of free condition, from the old man and matron to the infant at the breast. Crowds of slaves joined them; every man’s foes were those of his own household. Damophilus was dragged to the theatre and slain. Megallis was given over to the female slaves, who first tortured her, and then cast her down the crag on which the city stands.

Eunus thus saw the wildest of his dreams fulfilled. He assumed the diadem, took the royal name of Antiochus, and called his followers Syrians. The ergastula were broken open, and numbers of slaves sallied out to join him. Soon he was at the head of ten thousand men. He showed no little discretion in the choice of officers. Achæus, a Greek, was made general of the army, and he exerted himself to preserve order and moderate excesses.

A few days after the massacre at Enna, Cleon, a Cilician slave, raised a similar insurrection near Agrigentum. He also was soon at the head of several thousand men.

The Romans in Sicily, who had looked on in blank dismay, now formed hopes that the two leaders might quarrel—hopes soon disappointed by the tidings that Cleon had acknowledged the sovereign authority of King Antiochus. There was no Roman magistrate present in Sicily when the insurrection broke out. The prætor of the last year had returned to Italy; and his successor now arrived, ignorant of all that was passing. He contrived to collect eight thousand men in the island, and took the field against the slaves, who by this time numbered twenty thousand. He was utterly defeated, and the insurrection spread over the whole island.

Æsculapius

The consternation at Rome was great. No one could tell where the evil would stop. Movements broke out in various parts of the empire; but the magistrates were on the alert, and all attempts were crushed forcibly. At Rome itself 150 slaves, detected in organising an outbreak, were put to death without mercy.

The insurrection seemed to the senate so serious that they despatched the consul, C. Fulvius Flaccus, colleague of Scipio in the year 134 B.C., to crush it. But Flaccus obtained no advantage over the insurgents. In the next year L. Calpurnius Piso succeeded in wresting Messana from the enemy, and advanced to Enna, a place strongly defended by nature, which he was unable to take. His successor, P. Rupilius, a friend of Scipio, began his campaign with the siege of Tauromenium. The slaves offered a desperate resistance. Reduced to straits for want of food, they devoured the children, the women, and at length began to prey upon each other. Even then the place was only taken by treachery. All the slaves taken alive were put to the torture and thrown down a precipice. The consul now advanced to Enna, the last stronghold of Eunus. The fate of the insurgents was inevitable. Cleon of Agrigentum chose a soldier’s death, and, sallying forth with all who breathed the same spirit as himself, he died fighting valiantly. Of the end of Achæus we are not informed. Eunus, with a bodyguard of six hundred men, fled to the neighbouring hills; but, despairing of escape, the greater part of the wretched men slew one another. The mock king himself was taken in a cave, with his cook, baker, bathing-man, and jester. He showed a pusillanimity far unlike the desperate courage of the rest, and died eaten by vermin in a dungeon at Morgantium.c

To show how horrible the thought of fighting slaves was to the Roman mind, it may be well to quote Florus upon this first war, the quelling of which he credits to Perperna.a

THE WAR AGAINST THE SLAVES

[133 B.C.]

Though, in the preceding war, we fought with our allies (which was bad enough), yet we contended with free men, and men of good birth; but who can with patience hear of a war against slaves on the part of a people at the head of all nations! The first war with slaves occurred in the infancy of Rome, in the heart of the city, when Herdonius Sabinus was their leader, and when, while the state was distracted with the seditions of the tribunes, the Capitol was besieged and wrested by the consul from the servile multitude. But this was an insurrection rather than a war. At a subsequent period, when the forces of the empire were engaged in different parts of the world, who would believe that Sicily was much more cruelly devastated by a war with slaves than in that with the Carthaginians? This country, fruitful in corn, and, in a manner, a suburban province, was covered with large estates of many Roman citizens; and the numerous slave houses and fettered tillers of the ground supplied force enough for a war. A certain Syrian, by name Eunus (the greatness of our defeats from him makes us remember it), counterfeiting a fanatical inspiration, and tossing his hair in honour of the Syrian goddess, excited the slaves by command of heaven as it were, to claim their liberty and take up arms. And that he might prove this to be done by supernatural direction, he concealed a nut in his mouth, which he had filled with brimstone and fire, and, breathing gently, sent forth flame together with his words. This prodigy at first attracted two thousand of such as came in his way; but in a short time, by breaking open the slave houses, he collected a force of above sixty thousand; and, being adorned with ensigns of royalty, that nothing might be wanting to his audacity, he laid waste, with lamentable desolation, fortresses, towns, and villages. The camps even of prætors (the utmost disgrace of war) were taken by him; nor will I shrink from giving their names; they were the camps of Manilius, Lentulus, Piso, and Hypsæus. Thus those, who ought to have been dragged home by slave-takers, pursued prætorian generals routed in battle. At last vengeance was taken on them by our general, Perperna; for having conquered them, and at last besieged them in Enna, and reduced them with famine as with a pestilence, he threw the remainder of the marauders into chains, and then crucified them. But over such enemies he was content with an ovation, that he might not sully the dignity of a triumph with the name of slaves.e