Slave revolts in the Roman Empire

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The slave revolts in the Roman Empire , also known as the slave wars , were a series of revolts at the end of the Roman Republic .

Prehistory

While in the early days of the Roman Empire the need for slaves was mainly covered by debt slavery , this changed significantly after the Second Punic War . The enslaved prisoners of war increased the supply and another consequence of the war also increased the demand: The farmers in particular recorded high losses, so that large landowners bought the vacant goods and used large numbers of slaves for cultivation.

Many unfree people were also employed in the mines . According to Polybios, up to 40,000 men worked in the silver mines in Carthago Nova . There they were exploited unrestrainedly: Varro calls them, for example, instrumenti genus vocale (“speaking tools”) and it is reported that the older Cato had his slaves whipped at the slightest mistake. They mostly had to work in chains and he did not give sick slaves their full food ration. For major offenses, they were tortured or crucified .

Slave group

A slave brings his mistress a blackboard to write on.

All revolts between 120 and 71 BC Were raised by rural slaves. Their bitterness is mainly due to two points: first, their bad treatment and, second, the fact that many of them had previously been free citizens in the Hellenistic states.

The urban slaves, though capable of revolt, were usually not treated so badly, and often they were offered the prospect of release , so they preferred to wait for it. Among the rural slaves, shepherds , who had a relatively large amount of freedom to pursue their profession, or, as in the case of Spartacus , gladiators, revolted particularly often . The communication possibilities of the slaves were limited, so that the unrest could only flare up locally. The first revolts hit Roman society by surprise, and at first the danger they posed was greatly underestimated.

After the king of Pergamon in Asia Minor, Attalus III. († 133 BC), who had bequeathed his kingdom to Rome, there were fights through his successor Aristonikos that possibly had slave liberation as a partial goal.

First slave war

The first slave war took place between 136 and 132 BC. In Sicily . A group of badly treated slaves conquered the city of Enna and appointed their leader, the Syrian Eunus , to be king. They gave him the Seleucid king name Antiochus. After joining another group under the leadership of the Cilician Kleon , the rebels defeated four Roman praetors between 136 and 135 and two consuls between 134 and 133. After more and more slaves had joined them, the number of insurgents grew to supposedly 200,000 men. It was not until 132 BC When the Roman military intervened under the consul Publius Rupilius and conquered the cities of Tauromenium and Enna, the unrest could be put down. According to tradition, 20,000 of the defeated were thrown from rocks or crucified. In other regions as well, such as on Delos , in Attica , Sinuessa , Minturnae and in western Asia Minor , flares broke out around 130 BC. Minor conflicts.

Second slave war

Commemorative issue (year 71 BC) for the suppression of the slave revolt in 100 BC Chr., Albert 1303

104 BC The Roman Senate decided to release the slaves who came from countries allied with Rome. Sicilian slave owners ( domini ) sabotaged the measures, and a short time later the second great slave revolt began in Sicily. It was very similar to the first: This uprising also came from two groups, that of the Athenion and that of Salvius (sometimes also called Tryphon). After the number of their followers had risen to 30,000, the Roman army had to intervene again and could not get them until 101 BC. Stop under the leadership of the consul Manius Aquillius . In 71 BC A grandson of the consul Manius Aquilius had a denarius minted as one of the mint masters of the year , commemorating the suppression of the second slave rebellion. On the reverse of the coin a legionnaire helps out the personified Sicilia. The section of the coin shows the inscription SICIL for Sicily. In 71 BC The Third Slave War ended by a consul from another family. It is therefore obvious that the coinage should also commemorate the 30 years earlier success of the mint master's family at a time characterized by strong competition between senatorial families.

Third slave war (Spartacus uprising)

Initial movements of the Roman armed forces and rebellious slaves after the Capua revolt until the winter of 73 BC. Chr.

The best known and most dangerous slave war for Rome was the revolt of Spartacus in 73 BC. The Thracian Spartacus fled with 78 other gladiators from a gladiator school in Capua . His followers included not only agricultural slaves, but also impoverished and landless free people. With his (liberated) slave army (allegedly up to 200,000 men) he marched north to return them to their homeland Gaul or Thrace . On the way there he defeated three legates of the praetor Publius Varinius on Vesuvius and finally also the latter himself. After the slaves had recorded numerous other military successes - the two consuls of the year, Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Clodianus and Lucius Gellius Publicola , were defeated they later also the proconsul Gaius Cassius Longinus at Mutina and then, for reasons that were still unclear, turned south again to flee by ship via Sicily and later Brundisium .

71 BC BC the praetor Licinius Crassus succeeded with eight legions to encircle Spartacus on the southwestern tip of Italy. Spartacus made his way through the enemy lines, but as a result part of the army that had separated from him was defeated and completely wiped out. Spartacus himself was forced by his followers to the battle in Lucania , in which he was defeated and fell. 60,000 slaves were killed in the battle; the 6,000 survivors were crucified along the Appian Way between Capua and Rome . Pompey, returning from Spain, then destroyed the last remnant of the slave army.

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Polybios 34,9,8.
  2. ↑ Varro, De re rustica 1,17,1.
  3. ↑ Plutarch , Cato maior 21, 2.
  4. ↑ Diodor , 34 / 35,2,1ff.
  5. ↑ Diodor, 34 / 35,2,19ff
  6. ↑ Diodor, 34 / 35,3,1ff.
  7. ^ Hermann Gensicke: Second slave war in Sicily. A contribution to the moral history of Rome in the time of the beginning decline . Meyer, Bernburg 1890 ( digitized version ).
  8. ↑ Plutarch, Crassus , 8.1ff and Appian, civil wars 1.539ff