What we can learn from the Servile Wars
The slave revolts or First and Second Servile Wars in Sicily during the 130s BC and again in 104 BC were widespread and brutal. Sicily had become a vital agricultural colony for the Roman Republic following the Punic Wars.
As such, many Romans and Italians owned property there and used slaves for labor. The slaves were treated very poorly, resulting in rebellions in the 130s and 104 BC (the First and Second Servile Wars). Both revolts followed a very similar model in the general circumstances that led to rebellion, difficulties (or lack thereof) faced by the slaves, Roman reaction, and eventual failure of the uprising.
In Sicily during the 130s, wealthy plantation owners treated their slaves with great brutality. They failed to provide necessities such as food or clothing. This resulted in banditry as escaped slaves roamed the countryside stealing livestock in an attempt to survive.
These bandits were ravaging the countryside and spared no free person, eventually culminating in an all-out rebellion after Eunus incited it following the taunting by Damophilos and his wife. The uprising in the 130s was caused by maltreatment of the slave population, which simmered under the surface until the divine blessing of self-appointed ruler Eunus.
The revolt of 104 BC started from Roman policy about captured Bithynian men and subsequent Roman policy mismanagement on measures protecting freemen from becoming slaves and freeing Bithnyans.
As Sicilian slaves watched this happen, their expectations of freedom boiled to a head when Licinius Nerva began awarding freedom and suddenly stopped doing so. By suddenly pandering to the elites on the island, Nerva had incited a riot.
In both rebellions, the instigator (or primary leader) thought of himself as divine. Each uprising lasted for a long time, mainly due to slow Roman action. In the case of both rebellions, the rebels’ freedom of movement about the countryside allowed them to recruit more to their cause and eventually brought poor freemen into the fold. One key factor in getting the First Servile War was religion. Eunus claimed to be sent by the gods to lead a slave revolt.
The enslaved people faced very few difficulties once the rebellion began due to the leadership of Eunus and Cleon in the First Servile War and Titinius and Athenion in the Second Servile War. The only real initial problem was banding together, but this was many years in the making.
The rebels’ aims appear simple: to control their destiny, be free people, and kill their masters. The slaves took enormous risks by revolting. However, their owners took a very relaxed, pompous attitude that seems to have made things easier for the rebels.
The rebels do not appear to have learned any lessons from the first revolt. In both rebellions, the insurgents and equites took very similar actions. In both wars, the rebels gathered men and arms, sieged cities, and killed free people.
Likewise, the equites on the island were ambivalent about the needs of their slaves before the rebellion. They ran in fear following the respective uprisings. It was only after the Romans decided to commit a real army to the problem that the revolts were put down.
In the beginning, the Romans and Sicilians did not take the revolts seriously. On the other hand, the free population of Sicily was shocked and afraid for their lives. Some tried to resist and fight back, while others attempted to hide and wait it out.
One of the most shocking actions was the rebels’ treatment of the free women, which even Diodorus wouldn’t wholly define. From the beginning of Eunus’ revolt, in Enna, the rebels were slaughtering free people, even nursing children: “they plucked them violently from their mother’s breasts and dashed them against the ground.”
Both slave revolts were doomed to fail eventually. As is noted, once the Romans put effort into quelling the rebellion, it was over fairly quickly. Also, besieging a city is difficult enough when a trained army has the requisite siege engines; a slave army with no such equipment would have an even harder time.
While the rebels managed to secure supplies and weapons , it was not enough to resist the Roman Army. After Rupilius took back Tauromenium, he proceeded to systematically take back Sicily by way of fighting a counterinsurgency more akin to modern times — flooding the area with small elements.
In the Second Servile War, it took the Romans using deception to finally defeat the large slave army that had formed. But, the Roman relentlessness when dealing with a problem eventually put down another ill-fated rebellion.
The Sicilian Slave Revolts of the 130s and 104 BC are strikingly similar. Seemingly, only their origins differ, but even then, both stem from a lack of respect for the enslaved people as humans.
Although this is obvious by their status as slaves, even slaves ought to be treated with respect for life’s essential functions and necessities. At any rate, as both slave revolts progressed, they exhibited incredibly similar qualities in leaders, size, goals, and tactics.
