A History of Rome, Vol 1 by A H.J. Greenidge

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An abundant supply and quick returns imply reasonable prices; and the
cheapness of the labour supplied by the slave-trade, whether as a
consequence of war or piracy, was at once a necessary condition of the
vitality of the plantation system and a cause of the recklessness and
neglect with which the easily replaced instruments might be used. Cato,
a shrewd man of business, never cared to pay more than fifteen hundred
denarii for his slaves.[241] This must have been the price of the best
type of labourer, of a man probably who was gifted with intelligence as
well as strength. Ordinary unskilled labour must have fetched a far
smaller sum; for the prices which are furnished by the comic poetry of
the day--prices which are as a rule conditioned by the value of personal
services or qualities of a particular kind, by the attractions of sex
and the competition for favours--do not on the average far exceed the
limit fixed by Cato.[242] For common work newly imported slaves were
actually preferred, and purchasers were shy of the _veterator_ who had
seen long service.[243] Employment in the fashionable circles of the
town doubtless enhanced the value of a slave, when he was known to have
been in possession of some peculiar gift, whether it were for cookery,
medicine or literature; but the labours of the country could easily be
drilled into the newest importation, and prices diminished instead of
rising with the advancing age and experience of the rustic slave.[244]

The cheapened labour which was now spread over Italy presented as many
varieties of moral as of physical type, and these came to be well known
to the prospective owner, not because he aimed at being a moral
influence, but because he objected to being worried by the vagaries of
an eccentric type. Sardinians were always for sale, not because they
were specially abundant, but because they showed an indocility that
rendered them a sorry possession.[245] The passive Oriental, the
Spaniard fierce and proud, required different methods of management and
inspired different precautions; yet experience soon proved that the
hellenised sons of the East had a better capacity for organising revolt
than their fellow-sufferers from the North and West, and much of the
harshness of Roman slavery was prompted by the panic which is the
nemesis of the man who deals in human lives. But more of it was due to
the indifference which springs from familiarity, and from the cold
practical spirit in which the Roman always tended to play with the pawns
of his business game, even when they were freemen and fellow-citizens. A
man like Cato, who had sense and honesty enough to look after his own
business, elaborated a machine-like system for governing his household,
the aim of which was the maximum of profit with the minimum amount of
humanity which is consistent with the attainment of such an end. The
element of humanity is, however, accidental. There is no conscious
appeal to such a feeling. The slaves seem to be looked on rather as
automata who perform certain mental and physical processes analogous to
those of men. Cato's servants were never to enter another house except
at his bidding or at that of his wife, and were to express utter
ignorance of his domestic history to all inquirers; their life was to
alternate between working and sleeping, and the heavy sleeper was valued
as presumably a peaceful character; little bickerings between the
servants were to be encouraged, for unanimity was a matter for suspicion
and fear; the death sentence pronounced on any one of them by the law
was carried out in the presence of the assembled household, so as to
strike a wholesome terror into the rest. If they wished to propagate
their kind, they must pay for the privilege, and a fixed sum was
demanded from the slave who desired to find a mate amongst his
fellow-servants.[246] The rations were fixed and only raised at the
people's festivals of the Saturnalia and Compitalia;[247] a sick slave
was supposed to need less than his usual share[248]--perhaps an
excellent hygienic maxim, but one scarcely adopted on purely hygienic
grounds. Such a life was an emphatic protest against the indulgence of
the city, the free and careless intercourse which often reversed the
position of master and slave and formed part of the stock-in-trade of
the comedian. Yet, even when the bond between the man of fashion and his
artful Servants had merely a life of pleasure and of mischief as its
end, we Are at least lifted by such relations into a human sphere, and
it is exceedingly questionable whether the warped humanity of the city
did mark so low a level as the brutalised life of the estate over which
Cato's fostering genius was spread. If we develop Cato's methods but a
little, if we admit a little more rigour and a little less
discrimination, we get the dismal barrack-like system of the great
plantations--a barrack, or perhaps a prison, nominally ruled by a
governor who might live a hundred miles away, really under the control
of an anxious and terrified slave, who divided his fears between his
master who wanted money and his servants who wanted freedom. The
_villicus_ had been once the mere intendant of the estate on which his
master lived; he was now sole manager of a vast domain for his absent
lord,[249] sole keeper of the great _ergastulum_ which enclosed at
nightfall the instruments of labour and disgorged them at daybreak over
the fields. The gloomy building in which they were herded for rest and
sleep showed but its roof and a small portion of its walls above the
earth; most of it lay beneath the ground, and the narrow windows were so
high that they could not be reached by the hands of the inmates.[250]
There was no inspection by the government, scarcely any by the
owners.[251] There was no one to tell the secrets of these dens, and if
the unwary traveller were trapped and hidden behind their walls, all
traces of him might be for ever lost.[252] When the slaves were turned
out into the fields, the safety of their drivers was secured by the
chains which bound their limbs, but which were so adjusted as not to
interfere with the movements necessary to their work.[253] Some whose
spirit had been broken might be left unbound, but for the majority bonds
were the only security against escape or vengeance.[254]

There was, however, one type of desperate character who was permitted to
roam at large. This was the guardian of the flocks, who wandered
unrestrained over the mountains during the summer months and along the
prairies in the winter season. These herdsmen formed small bands. It was
reckoned that there should be one for every eighty or hundred sheep and
two for every troop of fifty horses.[255] It was sometimes found
convenient that they should be accompanied by their women who prepared
their meals--women of robust types like the Illyrian dames to whom
child-birth was a mere incident in the daily toils.[256] Such a life of
freedom had its attractions for the slave, but it had its drawbacks too.
The landowner who preferred pasturage to tillage, saved his capital, not
only by the small number of hands which the work demanded, but also by
the niggardly outlay which he expended on these errant serfs. It was not
needful to provide them with the necessaries of life when they could
take them for themselves. When Damophilus of Enna was entreated by his
slaves to give them something better than the rags they wore, his answer
was: "Do travellers then travel naked through the land? Have they
nothing for the man who wants a coat?" [257] Brigandage, in fact, was an
established item In the economic creed of the day.

The desolation of Italy was becoming dangerous, and the master of the
lonely villa barred himself in at nights as though an enemy were at his
gates. On one occasion Scipio Africanus was disturbed in his retreat at
Liternum by a troop of bandits. He placed his armed servants on the roof
and made every preparation for repelling the assault. But the visitors
proved to be pacific. They were the very _elite_ of the fraternity of
brigands and had merely come to do honour to the great man. They sent
back their troops, threw down their arms, laid presents before his door
and departed in joyous mood.[258] The immunity of such bands proved that
a slave revolt might at any moment imperil every life and every dwelling
in some unprotected canton. It was indeed the epoch of peace, when Roman
and Phoenician armies no longer held the field in Italy, that first
suggested the hope of liberation to the slave. Hannibal would have
imperilled his character of a protector of Italian towns had he
encouraged a slave revolt, even if the Phoenician had not shrunk from a
precedent so fatal to his native land. But one of the unexpected results
of the Second Punic War was to kindle a rising in the very heart of
Latium, and it was the African slave, not the African freeman, that
stirred the last relics of the war in Italy. At Setia were guarded the
noble Carthaginians who were a pledge of the fidelity of their state.
These hostages, the sons of merchant princes, were allowed to retain the
dignity of their splendid homes, and a vast retinue of slaves from
Africa attended on their wants. The number of these was swelled by
captive members of the same nationalities whom the people of Setia had
acquired in the recent war.[259] A spirit of camaraderie sprung up
amongst men who understood one another's language and had acquired the
spurious nationality that comes from servitude in the same land. Their
numbers were obvious, the paucity of the native Setians was equally
clear, and no military force was close at hand. They planned to increase
their following by spreading disaffection amongst the servile
populations of the neighbouring country towns, and emissaries were sent
to Norba in the North and Circei in the South. Their project was to wait
for the rapidly approaching games of the Setian folk and to rush on the
unarmed populace as they were gazing at the show; when Setia had been
taken, they meant to seize on Norba and Circei. But there was treason in
their ranks. The urban praetor was roused before dawn by two slaves who
poured the whole tale of the impending massacre into his ear. After a
hasty consultation of the senate he rushed to the threatened district,
gathering recruits as he swept with his legates through the country
side, binding them with the military oath, bidding them arm and follow
him with all speed. A hasty force of about two thousand men was soon
gathered; none knew his destination till he reached the gates of Setia.
The heads of the conspiracy were seized, and such of their followers as
learnt the fact fled incontinently from the town. From this point onward
it was only a matter of hunting down the refugees by patrols sent round
the country districts. Southern Latium was freed from its terror; but it
was soon found that the evil had spread almost to the gates of Rome. A
rumour had spread that Praeneste was to be seized by its slaves, and it
was sufficient to stimulate a praetor to execute nearly five hundred of
the supposed delinquents.[260]

Two years later a rising, which almost became a war, shook the great
plantation lands of Etruria.[261] Its suppression required a legion and
a pitched battle. The leaders were crucified; others of the slaves who
had escaped the carnage were restored to their masters. But these
disturbances, that may have seemed mere sporadic relics of the havoc and
exhaustion left by the Hannibalic war, were only quelled for the moment.
It was soon found that the seeds of insecurity were deeply planted in
the settlement that was called a peace. During the year 185 the
shepherds of Apulia were found to have formed a great society of
plunder, and robbery with violence was of constant occurrence on the
grazing lands and public roads. The praetor who was in command at
Tarentum opened a commission which condemned seven thousand men. Many
were executed, although a large number of the criminals escaped to other
regions.[262]

These movements in Italy were but the symptoms of a spirit that was
spreading over the Mediterranean lands. The rising of the serfs only
just preceded the great awakening of the masses of the freemen.[263]
Both classes were ground down by capital; both would make an effort to
shake the burden from their shoulders; and, as regards the methods of
assertion, it is a matter of little moment whether they took the form of
a national rising against a government or a protectorate, a sanguinary
struggle in the Forum against the dominance of a class, or an attack by
chattels, not yet brutalised by serfdom but full of the traditions and
spirit of freemen, against the cruelty and indifference of their owners.
In one sense the servile movements were more universal, and perhaps
better organised, than those of the men to whom, free birth gave a
nominal superiority. A sympathy for each other's sufferings pervaded the
units of the class who were scattered in distant lands. Sometimes it was
a sympathy based on a sense of nationality, and the Syrian and Cilician
in Asia would feel joy and hope stirring in his heart at the doings of
his brethren who had been deported to the far West. The series of
organised revolts in the Roman provinces and protectorate which commence
shortly after the fall of Carthage and close for the moment with the war
of resistance to the Romans in Asia, forms a single connected chain.
Dangerous risings had to be repressed at the Italian coast towns of
Minturnae and Sinuessa; at the former place four hundred and fifty
slaves were crucified, at the latter four thousand were crushed by a
military force; the mines of Athens, the slave market of Delos,
witnessed similar outbreaks,[264] and we shall find a like wave of
discontent spreading over the serf populations of the countries of the
Mediterranean just before the second great outbreak in Sicily which
darkens the close of the second century. The evil fate which made this
island the theatre of the two greatest of the servile wars is explicable
on many grounds. The opportunity offered by the sense of superiority in
numbers was far ampler here than in any area of Italy of equal size. For
Sicily was a wheat-growing country, and the cultivated plains demanded a
mass of labour which was not needed in more mountainous or less fertile
lands, where pasturage yielded a surer return than the tilling of the
soil. The pasture lands of Sicily were indeed large, but they had not
yet dwarfed the agriculture of the island. The labour of the fields was
in the hands of a vast horde of Asiatics, large numbers of whom may
conceivably have been shipped from Carthage across the narrow sea, when
that great centre of the plantation system had been laid low and the
fair estates of the Punic nobles had been seized and broken up by their
conquerors.[265] In the history of the great Sicilian outbreaks Syrians
and Cilicians meet us at every turn. These Asiatic slaves had different
nationalities and they or their fathers had been citizens of widely
separated towns. But there were bonds other than a common suffering
which produced a keen sense of national union and a consequent feeling
of ideal patriotism in the hearts of all. They were the products of the
common Hellenism of the East; they or their fathers could make a claim
to have been subjects of the great Seleucid monarchy; many, perhaps most
of them, could assert freedom by right of birth and acknowledged slavery
only as a consequence of the accidents of war or piracy. The mysticism
of the Oriental, the political ideal of the Hellene, were interwoven in
their moral nature--a nature perhaps twisted by the brutalism of slavery
to superstition in the one direction, to licence in the other, but none
the less capable of great conceptions and valiant deeds. The moment for
both would come when the prophet had appeared, and the prophet would
surely show himself when the cup of suffering had overflowed.[266]

The masters who worked this human mechanism were driving it at a pace
which must have seemed dangerous to any human being less greedy, vain
and confident than themselves. The wealth of these potentates was
colossal, but it was equalled by their social rivalry and consequent
need of money. A contest in elegance was being fought between the
Siceliot and the Italian.[267] The latter was the glass of fashion, and
the former attempted to rival, first his habits of domestic life and, as
a consequence, the economic methods which rendered these habits
possible. Here too, as in Italy, whole gangs of slaves were purchased
like cattle or sheep; some were weighed down with fetters, others ground
into subordination by the cruel severity of their tasks. All without
exception were branded, and men who had been free citizens in their
native towns, felt the touch of the burning iron and carried the stigma
of slavery to their graves.[268] Food was doled out in miserable
quantities,[269] for the shattered instrument could so easily be
replaced. On the fields one could see little but abject helplessness, a
misery that weakened while it tortured the soul. But in some parts of
Sicily bodily want was combined with a wild daring that was fostered by
the reckless owners, whose greed had overcome all sense of their own
security or that of their fellow-citizens. The treatment of pastoral
slaves which had been adopted by the Roman graziers was imitated
faithfully by the Italians and Siceliots of the island. These slaves
were turned loose with their flocks to find their food and clothing
where and how they could. The youngest and stoutest were chosen for this
hard, wild life: and their physical vigour was still further increased
by their exposure to every kind of weather, by their seldom finding or
needing the shelter of a roof, and by the milk and meat which formed
their staple food. A band of these men presented a terrifying aspect,
suggesting a scattered invasion of some warlike barbarian tribe. Their
bodies were clad in the skins of wolves and boars; slung at their sides
or poised in their hands were clubs, lances and long shepherds' staves.
Each squadron was followed by a pack of large and powerful hounds.
Strength, leisure, need, all suggested brigandage as an integral part of
their profession. At first they murdered the wayfarer who went alone or
with but one companion. Then their courage rose and they concerted
nightly attacks on the villas of the weaker residents. These villas they
stormed and plundered, slaying any one who attempted to bar their way.
As their impunity increased, Sicily became impracticable to travellers
by night, and residence in the country districts became a tempting of
providence. There was violence, brigandage or murder on every hand. The
governors of Sicily occasionally interposed, but they were almost
powerless to check the mischief. The influence of the slave-owners was
such that it was dangerous to inflict an adequate punishment.[270]

The proceedings of these militant shepherds must have opened the eyes of
the mass of the slaves to the possibilities of the position. Secret
meetings began to be held at which the word "revolt" was breathed. An
occasion, a leader, a divine sanction were for the moment lacking. The
first requisite would follow the other two, and these were soon found
combined in the person of Eunus. This man was a Syrian by birth, a
native of Apamea, and he served Antigenes of Enna. He was more than a
believer in the power of the gods to seize on men and make them the
channel of their will; he was a living witness to it in his own person.
At first he saw shadows of superhuman form and heard their voices in his
dreams. Then there were moments when he would be seized with a trance;
he was wrapt in contemplation of some divine being. Then the words of
prophecy would come; they were not his utterance but the bidding of the
great Syrian goddess. Sometimes the words were preceded by a strange
manifestation of supernatural power; smoke, sparks or flame would issue
from his open mouth.[271] The clairvoyance may have been a genuine
mental experience, the thaumaturgy the type of fiction which the best of
_media_ may be tempted to employ; but both won belief from his fellows,
eager for any light in the darkness, and a laughing acceptance from his
master, glad of a novelty that might amuse his leisure. As a matter of
fact, Eunus's predictions sometimes came true. People forgot (as people
will) the instances of their falsification, but applauded them heartily
when they were fulfilled. Eunus was a good enough _medium_ to figure at
a fashionable _seance_. His latest profession was the promise of a
kingdom to himself; it was the Syrian goddess who had held out the
golden prospect. The promise he declared boldly to his master, knowing
perhaps the spirit in which the message would be received. Antigenes was
delighted with his prophet king. He showed him at his own table, and
took him to the banquets given by his friends. There Eunus would be
questioned about his kingdom, and each of the guests would bespeak his
patronage and clemency. His answers as to his future conduct were given
without reserve. He promised a policy of mercy, and the quaint
earnestness of the imposture would dissolve the company in laughter.
Portions of food were handed him from the board, and the donors would
ask that he should remember their kindness when he came into his
kingdom. These were requests which Eunus did not forget.

With such an influence in its centre, Enna seemed destined to be the
spring of the revolt. But there was another reason which rendered it a
likely theatre for a deed of daring. The broad plateau on which the town
was set was thronged with shepherds in the winter season,[272] and some
of the great graziers of Enna owned herds of these bold and lawless men.
Conspicuous amongst these graziers for his wealth, his luxury and his
cruelty was one Damophilus, the man who had formulated the theory that
the shepherd slave should keep himself by robbing others. Damophilus was
a Siceliot, but none of the Roman magnates of the island could have
shown a grander state than that which he maintained. His finely bred
horses, his four-wheeled carriages, his bodyguard of slaves, his
beautiful boys, his crowd of parasites, were known all over the broad
acres and huge pasture lands which he controlled. His town house and
villas displayed chased silverwork, rich carpets of purple dye and a
table of royal elegance. He surpassed Roman luxury in the lavishness of
his expense, Roman pride in his sense of complete independence of
circumstance, and Roman niggardliness and cruelty in his treatment of
his slaves. Satiety had begotten a chronic callousness and even savagery
that showed itself, not merely in the now familiar use of the
_ergastulum_ and the brand, but in arbitrary and cruel punishments which
were part of the programme of almost every day. His wife Megallis,
hardened by the same influences, was the torment of her maidens and of
such domestics as were more immediately under her control. The servants
of this household had one conviction in common--that nothing worse than
their present evils could possibly be their lot.

This is the conviction that inspires acts of frenzy; but the madness of
these slaves was of the orderly, systematic and therefore dangerous
type. They would not act without a divine sanction to their whispered
plans. Some of them approached Eunus and asked him if their enterprise
was permitted by the gods. The prophet first produced the usual
manifestations which attested his inspiration and then replied that the
gods assented, if the plan were taken in hand forthwith. Enna was the
destined place; it was the natural stronghold of the whole island; it
was foredoomed to be the capital of the new race that would rule over
Sicily.[273] Heartened by the belief that Heaven was aiding their
efforts, the leaders then set to work. They secretly released such of
Damophilus's household as were in bonds; they gathered others together,
and soon a band to the number of about four hundred were mustered in a
field in the neighbourhood of Enna. There in the early hours of the
night they offered a sacrifice and swore their solemn compact. They had
gathered everything which could serve as a weapon, and when midnight was
approaching they were ready for the first attempt. They marched swiftly
to the sleeping town and broke its stillness with their cries of
exhortation. Eunus was at their head, fire streaming from his mouth
against the darkness of the night. The streets and houses were
immediately the scene of a pitiless massacre. The maddened slaves did
not even spare the children at the breast; they dragged them from their
mothers' arms and dashed them upon the ground. The women were the
victims of unspeakable insult and outrage.[274] Every slave had his own
wrongs to avenge, for the original assailants had now been joined by a
large number of the domestics of the town. Each of these wreaked his own
peculiar vengeance and then turned to take his share in the
general massacre.