Second Servile War | |||||||||
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Part of the Servile Wars | |||||||||
Plaque in Caltabellotta marking the 2,100th anniversary of the revolt. (2001) | |||||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||||
Roman Republic | Slaves of Sicily | ||||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
Publius Licinius Nerva Lucius Licinius Lucullus Gaius Servilius Manius Aquilius | Salvius Athenion † |
The Second Servile War was an unsuccessful slave uprising against the Roman Republic on the island of Sicily. The war lasted from 104 BC until 100 BC. It was one of three Servile Wars, spaced approximately 30 years apart.
The consul Gaius Marius was recruiting soldiers for the war against the Cimbri and Teutones in the North. He requested support from King Nicomedes III of Bithynia near the Roman province of Asia; but Nicomedes refused, on the grounds that every able-bodied man in Bithynia had been enslaved by Roman tax-gatherers for being unable to pay their dues. The Senate replied by issuing orders that no slaves were to be taken from among allies of Rome, and that all such slaves should be immediately freed. [1]
The propraetor Publius Licinius Nerva, in obedience to the edict, at once freed (that is, manumitted) around 800 slaves in his province of Sicily. Aside from awakening discontent among slaves from other nationalities who were not freed, this had the effect of alienating the Sicilian plantation owners who saw their human chattels unceremoniously being taken out of their hands. Alarmed, Nerva revoked the manumission, which provoked the slave population into revolt. [1]
Nerva failed to react decisively; by false promises he was able to return one body of the rebels to slavery, while neglecting to address a more serious outbreak near Heraclea. Eventually, Nerva dispatched a detachment of 600 soldiers to take care of the rebels near Heraclea but they were beaten and slaughtered; the slaves now gained confidence, having won a large supply of armaments and a strong leader, a former slave called Salvius. Taking the previous slave-leader Eunus for his example, who had proclaimed himself an Antiochus of the Seleucid line, he assumed the name Tryphon, from Diodotus Tryphon, a Seleucid ruler. [1]
After his victory, Salvius besieged the city of Morgantina. Nerva now marched against him with Sicily's militia but he was also defeated. The slaves then managed to take the city. After Morgantina, Salvius' slave army swelled to 2,000 horsemen and 20,000 foot. Meanwhile, another revolt had broken out in western Sicily; there Athenion, a Cilician slave with a career analogous to Cleon's, rose in revolt. He marched his slave army to join with Salvius upon hearing about the victory at Morgantina. [1]
In 103 BC the Senate sent the praetor Lucius Licinius Lucullus, who had just put down a revolt in Campania (the Vettian Revolt), to quell the rebellion. Lucullus, at the head of a 17,000 strong Roman and allied army, landed in western Sicily and marched on the rebel stronghold of Triocala. [2]
When Salvius Tryphon, the Slave King, heard of Lucullus‘ arrival he wanted to hold out against the Romans inside Triocala. His general Athenion, however, persuaded him not to hide but instead face the Romans in open battle. Marching to meet Lucullus, the rebels encamped at Scirthaea, twelve miles distant from the Roman camp and, the next day, the two sides lined up for battle. According to Diodorus, Tryphon's host numbered around 40,000. [2]
After much skirmishing, the main battle began as the two armies closed the gap and came together. At first it seemed as if the rebels would drive the Romans back, with Athenion and his cavalry inflicting heavy losses upon Lucullus‘ flanks. However, just as it seemed that the slaves might be victorious, Athenion was wounded and fell from his horse. He was forced to feign death in order to save himself. The rebels, believing their general to be dead, lost heart and fled. Salvius Tryphon, seeing his army routed, turned and joined them in flight back to Triocala. Later that night, under cover of darkness, the wounded Athenion escaped the battlefield. With thousands of slaves cut down in the rout, Diodorus estimates that, as night fell, around 20,000 rebels lay dead, half of Tryphon's army. [2]
After the battle, Lucullus slowly but surely worked his way to Triocala, restoring Roman Rule while he marched. At Triocala the rebels had dug in; Lucullus started a siege while waiting for his command to be extended, but when he heard that he had been replaced he spitefully ended the siege, burned his siegeworks, camp and provisions, retreated and disbanded his army. [3] Lucullus did this to render the task harder for his successor, Gaius Servilius the Augur; Lucullus intended, by ensuring the failure of his successor, to prove his own innocence from any alleged incompetence. [4]
In 102 BC Athenion, who had succeeded as slave-king after Salvius' death (he had passed after the earlier battle) was able to take Gaius Servilius's camp by surprise; Servilius' army was routed and dispersed, undoing all of Lucullus' previous success. [5]
Finally, in 101 BC, the Roman consul Manius Aquillius was given the command against the insurgents in Sicily. The Senior Consul, Gaius Marius, donated several cohorts from his army in Gaul to Aquillius. With these and the troops he recruited, equipped and trained en route he succeeded in defeating Athenion's slave army upon arrival. He supposedly killed Athenion by his own hand. The revolt was quelled, and 1,000 slaves who surrendered were sent to fight against beasts in the arena back at Rome for the amusement of the populace. To spite the Romans, they refused to fight and killed each other quietly with their swords, until the last flung himself on his own blade. [5] It was the second of a series of three slave revolts in the Roman Republic fueled by the same abuses in Sicily and Southern Italy.
Year 100 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Marius and Flaccus and the First Year of Tianhan. The denomination 100 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
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Salvius Tryphon was an aulos player who was proclaimed king by the rebelling slaves of ancient Sicily during the Second Servile War against Rome.
The Third Servile War, also called the Gladiator War and the War of Spartacus by Plutarch, was the last in a series of slave rebellions against the Roman Republic known as the Servile Wars. This third rebellion was the only one that directly threatened the Roman heartland of Italy. It was particularly alarming to Rome because its military seemed powerless to suppress it.
The Servile Wars were a series of three slave revolts in the late Roman Republic:
The gens Licinia was a celebrated plebeian family at ancient Rome, which appears from the earliest days of the Republic until imperial times, and which eventually obtained the imperial dignity. The first of the gens to obtain the consulship was Gaius Licinius Calvus Stolo, who, as tribune of the plebs from 376 to 367 BC, prevented the election of any of the annual magistrates, until the patricians acquiesced to the passage of the lex Licinia Sextia, or Licinian Rogations. This law, named for Licinius and his colleague, Lucius Sextius, opened the consulship for the first time to the plebeians. Licinius himself was subsequently elected consul in 364 and 361 BC, and from this time, the Licinii became one of the most illustrious gentes in the Republic.
Publius Mucius Scaevola was a prominent Roman politician and jurist who was consul in 133 BC. In his earlier political career he served as tribune of the plebs in 141 BC and praetor in 136 BC. He also held the position of pontifex maximus for sixteen years after his consulship. He died around 115 BC.
Manius Aquillius was a Roman politician and general during the late Roman Republic. He was a member of the ancient Roman gens Aquillia, probably a son of Manius Aquillius, consul in 129 BC. Aquillius served as Consul of Rome with Gaius Marius in 101 BC. Before his consulship, during the Cimbrian War, he had served as a legate under Marius in Gaul. He played a pivotal role during the Battle of Aquae Sextiae where he surprised the Teutones by attacking them from behind. As consul he crushed a slave revolt in Sicily by defeating Athenion of Cilicia in single combat, a victory that was commemorated by Aquillius's family by coinage issued decades later. At the start of the First Mithridatic War he was defeated and captured by Mithridates VI of Pontus who had him executed by pouring molten gold down his throat.
Eunus was a Roman slave from Apamea in Syria who became the leader and king of the slave uprising during the First Servile War (135 BC–132 BC) in the Roman province of Sicily. According to the historian Florus, his name is remembered due to the severe defeats he inflicted on the Romans.
Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus, younger brother of the more famous Lucius Licinius Lucullus, was a supporter of Lucius Cornelius Sulla and consul of ancient Rome in 73 BC. As proconsul of Macedonia in 72 BC, he defeated the Bessi in Thrace and advanced to the Danube and the west coast of the Black Sea. In addition, he was marginally involved in the Third Servile War.
Lucius Licinius Lucullus was a politician and a general of the Roman Republic. He was the eldest son of Lucius Licinius Lucullus, the consul of 151 BC. He, however, did not achieve the political success of his father and failed to hold the consulship, reaching only the position of praetor in 104 BC. During his praetorship he first successfully put down the Vettian Revolt, a minor slave revolt in Campania, before being sent to take command in Sicily during the Second Servile War. He was later relieved of his command and prosecuted for embezzlement upon his recall to Rome. Being convicted, he was banished from the city and lived the remainder of his life in exile. He is the father of the more famous Lucius Licinius Lucullus, who defeated Mithridates and Tigranes in the Third Mithridatic War.
Publius Licinius Nerva was a Roman politician during the Late Roman Republic. As a propraetor he was assigned as Governor of Sicily in 104 BC at the outbreak of the Second Servile War.
The gens Titinia was a minor plebeian family at ancient Rome. Members of this gens are mentioned as early as the time of the decemvirs, but only a few held any magistracies, and none of them ever attained the consulship.
Athenion was a man of ancient Cilicia who was a major figure in the Second Servile War in Sicily, and had a career similar to that of the Cilician Cleon.