cus fought his way out, but at great cost. Pressed on his march north-
ward by the enemy, Spartacus final y gave battle, probably in the upper
val ey of the Silarus (modern Sele) River, not far from the modern city
of Salerno. The Romans defeated the enemy army and kil ed Spartacus.
Slave Wars of Greece and Rome 199
Contrary to popular legend, Spartacus was not crucified, although
6,000 of his men were. Their bodies hung on crosses lining the road be-
tween the cities of Rome and Capua (near Naples, the cradle of Sparta-
cus’s rebellion). Spartacus’s body, however, was never found. After the
battle of the Silarus, Spartacus’s army ceased to exist as a fighting unit.
It broke up into several groups. The Romans hunted them down spo-
radically, destroying the last of their maroon communities in the hills
of southern Italy only in 60 BC.
Spartacus’s failure marked the end of the great era of ancient slave
revolts. Sporadic uprisings continued, such as the revolt of one Selouros
in Sicily during the lifetime of the writer Strabo (d. after AD 21), a na-
scent slave rebellion in southern Italy in AD 24, and what may have been
a slave revolt under Bulla Felix in Italy in AD 206–7.27 The big uprisings,
however, were over.
Several things caused the change. The Romans engaged in effective
repression. First came the spectacles of punishment following each
failed rebellion. Second, as demonstrated by Verres’s actions in Sicily
while he waited for Spartacus, the Romans finally learned not to take
the threat of rebellion lightly. Another factor was the series of civil
wars from 49 to 30 BC, which provided employment opportunities for
discontented slaves. There was no need to form an army of their own,
for example, when 30,000 fugitive slaves could join the rebel fleet of
Sextus Pompey (son of Pompeius Magnus), who dominated the waters
of Sicily from 43 to 36 BC.28
Perhaps the most important factor was the Pax Romana. The acces-
sion of Augustus as Rome’s first emperor (30 BC–AD 14) brought to an
end the era of Roman expansion. With it came an inevitable decline in
the number of prisoners of war who became slaves. Earlier, in the 60s
BC, Pompey (Pompeius Magnus) had succeeded in driving most of the
pirates from Mediterranean waters, thereby ending another source of
slaves. While the Roman slave trade continued, sources of slaves were no
longer so abundant or so cheap. The upshot was that a higher percent-
age of Roman slaves were house slaves. No longer did a steady source
of ex-soldiers and ex-politicians feed the ranks of potential slave rebels.
More and more slaves probably resigned themselves to their new
homes in Italy and Sicily and looked to manumission, not insurrection,
200 Strauss
as the route to freedom. Greek and Roman slavery always offered man-
umission on far more generous terms than did modern slave societies.
To say so is not to detract from the brutality of ancient slavery, but it
may help explain why men like Spartacus eventually became monsters
to frighten children with rather than real figures of Roman society.
In modern times, Spartacus’s reputation has generally boomed.
Except for Arthur Koestler, the disillusioned ex-communist who saw
Spartacus as a kind of post-revolution Lenin, corrupted by power, most
moderns praise Spartacus. They see him as a liberator or an early social-
ist; the nineteenth century made him into a nationalist like Garibaldi.
If, however, we were to subject Spartacus or Drimacus, Salvius or
Eunus, to the cold light of a military staff-college seminar, a different
picture would emerge. From a military point of view, they demon-
strate the unlikelihood of insurrections defeating regular armies. The
ragtag rebel slaves of Greece and Rome could not match the logistical
advantages and institutional advantages of an established state. They
could march their men in mock legions and defeat frightened local mi-
litia; they could put out feelers for allies overseas. Once the state bore
down on them with all its might, however, they faced ruin.
Nor could slaves attract much voluntary support from local popula-
tions of free people, who could figure out that in the end, most rebels
would end up in chains or hanging from crosses. After their initial
escape, and after making enough raids to get loot and revenge, rebel
slaves were well advised to flee, either to the hills or abroad.
There is a lesson for today. Insurgents can crash onto the scene as
loudly as Spartacus and his rebel gladiators did. They can rally religious
support and terrorize local populations. They can draw other discon-
tented people into their ranks at first. They can even come out of the
hills and try to establish their authority over a city or a province. Once
the state responds in all its armed might, however, the rebels are usu-
ally doomed.
Modern insurgencies will usually face a similar fate. In Iraq, for ex-
ample, once the allied states found the political will and the military
tactics to apply force effectively, they broke the back of the insurgency
(2003–9). Still, success is not completely out of reach for insurgents.
They can change the equation through one of several means, all
Slave Wars of Greece and Rome 201
unlikely but not impossible. For instance, they can buy time and space
to turn themselves from a raiding force into a regular army. Having
an isolated location, far from the center of power, helps this process
greatly. The experience of the Chinese communist Red Army after the
Long March of 1934 is an example. A second possibility is acquiring a
state as an ally. The mujahideen of Afghanistan leveraged support from
such states as China, Iran, Pakistan, and the United States into victory
over the Soviet Red Army in the 1980s.
Today’s insurgents, finally, have one advantage that antiquity’s rebel
slaves did not: they can target domestic opinion in the enemy’s state.
In the Algerian War of Independence (1954–62), for example, the insur-
gents lost the military battle but won the war by wearing out French
public opinion.
The Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) was history’s only successful
slave revolt, and it incorporated these various advantages. The rebels
fought a prolonged struggle, far from metropolitan France. The Brit-
ish fleet provided help via a blockade. The French Revolution gave the
rebels the moral high ground. After years of difficult fighting and dis-
ease, the French gave up.
Successful insurgencies are the exception, however. Ancient slave
rebellions remind us that, when it comes to war, states usually hold all
the cards.
Further Reading
An excellent starting point is Brent D. Shaw, Spartacus and the Slave Wars: A Brief History
with Documents (Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2001). Theresa Urbainczyk, Slave Revolts
in Antiquity (Stocksfield, UK: Acumen Publishing, 2008), offers a very good overview.
For slave rebellions in ancient Greece, see Yvon Garlan, Slavery in Ancient Greece, rev.
ed.
, trans. Janet Lloyd (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988), 176–200; for those in
ancient Rome, see Keith Bradley, Slavery and Rebellion in the Roman World, 140 b.c.–70 b.c.
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989).
Important books on ancient slavery include M. I. Finley, Ancient Slavery and Modern
Ideology (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1998); Joseph Vogt, Ancient Slavery
and the Ideal of Man, trans. Thomas Wiedemann (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1975); Keith Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaves (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1978); Peter Garnsey, Ideas of Slavery from Aristotle to Augustine (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1996); F. H. Thompson, The Archaeology of Greek and Roman Slav-
ery (London: Duckworth, 2003); Thomas Grünewald, Bandits in the Roman Empire: Myth
202 Strauss
and Reality, trans. John Drinkwater (London: Routledge, 2004); Nial McKeown, The In-
vention of Ancient Slavery? (London: Duckworth, 2007); and the col ection of documents
edited by Thomas Wiedemann, Greek and Roman Slavery (London: Routledge, 1981).
Studies of individual subjects include Karl-WilhemWelwei, Unfreie in antiken Kriegs-
dienst, 3 vols. (Wiesbaden, Germany: Steiner, 1974–88); Peter Hunt, Slaves, Warfare, and
Ideology in the Greek Historians (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Paul
Cartledge, The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-Heroes of Ancient Greece, from Utopia to
Crisis to Collapse (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 2003), and his more detailed Sparta
and Lakonia: A Regional History 1300–362 bc, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2002); Nino
Luraghi and Susan E. Alcock, eds., Helots and Their Masters in Laconia and Messenia:
Histories, Ideologies, Structures (Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies and the
Trustees for Harvard University, 2003); Nino Luraghi, The Ancient Messenians: Construc-
tions of Ethnicity and Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); Alexan-
der Fuks, “Slave Wars and Slave Troubles in Chios in the Third Century BC,” Athenaeum
46 (1968): 102–11; Kyung-Hyun Kim, “On the Nature of Aristonicus’s Movement,” in
Forms of Control and Subordination in Antiquity, ed. Toru Yogi and Masaoki Doi, 159–63
(Leiden: Brill, 1986); Jean Christian Dumont, Servus: Rome et l’esclavage sous la république,
Collection de l’École Française de Rome 103 (Rome: École Française de Rome, Palais
Farnèse, 1987); J. A. North, “Religious Toleration in Republican Rome,” Proceedings of
the Cambridge Philological Society 25 (1979): 85–103; P. Green, “The First Sicilian Slave War,” Past and Present 20 (1961): 10–29, with objections by W.G.G. Forrest and T.C.W.
Stinton, “The First Sicilian Slave War,” Past and Present 22 (1962): 87–93; G. P. Verbrug-
ghe, “Sicily 210–70 B.C.: Livy, Cicero and Diodorus,” Transactions and Proceedings of the
American Philological Association 103 (1972): 535–59, and idem, “Slave Rebellion or Sicily in
Revolt?” Kokalos 20 (1974): 46–60; N. A. Mashkin, “Eschatology and Messianism in the
Final Period of the Roman Republic,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 10, no. 2
(1949): 206–28; P. Masiello, “L’ideologica messianica e le Rivolte Servili,” Annali della
Facolta di lettere e filosofia 11 (1966): 179–96; and Barry Strauss, The Spartacus War (New York: Simon & Schuster; London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2009).
notes
1 For these terms, see Yvon Garlan, Slavery in Ancient Greece, rev. ed., trans. Janet
Lloyd (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988), 24, 87.
2 On this subject, see Karl-WilhemWelwei, Unfreie in antiken Kriegsdienst, 3 vols.
(Wies baden, Germany: Steiner, 1974–1988); Garlan, Slavery in Ancient Greece, 163–76; and
Peter Hunt, Slaves, Warfare, and Ideology in the Greek Historians (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1998).
3 Aristotle Politics 1269a36–b6.
4 For an introduction, see Paul Cartledge, The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-
Heroes of Ancient Greece, from Utopia to Crisis to Collapse (Woodstock, NY: Overlook
Press, 2003), and his more detailed Sparta and Lakonia: A Regional History 1300–362 bc, 2nd
ed. (London: Routledge, 2001); Nino Luraghi and Susan E. Alcock, eds., Helots and Their
Masters in Laconia and Messenia: Histories, Ideologies, Structures (Washington, DC: Cen-
ter for Hellenic Studies and the Trustees for Harvard University, 2003); Nino Luraghi,
Slave Wars of Greece and Rome 203
The Ancient Messenians: Constructions of Ethnicity and Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2008).
5 Thucydides 7.27.5.
6 Thucydides Hellenica Oxyrhynchia 17.4.
7 For an overview of the era of slave wars between 140 and 70 BC, see Brent D.
Shaw, Spartacus and the Slave Wars (Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2001), 2–14; for a more
detailed account, see K. R. Bradley, Slavery and Rebellion in the Roman World, 140–70 b.c.
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989).
8 Appian Civil Wars 1.9.36.
9 See J. Vogt, Ancient Slavery and the Ideal of Man, trans. T. Wiedemann (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1975), 40; Bradley, Slavery and Rebellion, 1–15; Peter Garnsey, Ideas of Slavery
from Aristotle to Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 75–86.
10 Constantine, Porphyrogenitus, Excerpt 4, p. 384 (Diodorus Siculus 34.2.38).
11 Appian Civil Wars 1.116.539.
12 Strabo 14.1.138, 34–35.2.26. See Kyung-Hyun Kim, “On the Nature of Aristoni-
cus’s Movement,” in Forms of Control and Subordination in Antiquity, ed. Toru Yogi and
Masaoki Doi, 159–63 (Leiden: Brill, 1986).
13 Diodorus Siculus 2.55–60.
14 See the recent argument by Theresa Urbainczyk, Slave Revolts in Antiquity (Stocks-
field, UK: Acumen Publishing, 2008), 31–34, 75–80.
15 On the messianic aspects of the Roman slave revolts, see N. A. Mashkin, “Escha-
tology and Messianism in the Final Period of the Roman Republic,” Philosophy and Phe-
nomenological Research 10, no. 2 (1949): 206–28, and P. Masiello, “L’ideologica messianica
e le Rivolte Servili,” Annali della Facolta di lettere e filosofia 11 (1966): 179–96.
16 Athenaeus Deipnosophistae 6.266d. The sole ancient source is the gossipy Athe-
naeus, Deipnosophistae 6.265d–66d. For a modern account, see Alexander Fuks, “Slave
Wars and Slave Troubles in Chios in the Third Century BC,” Athenaeum 46 (1968): 102–11.
17 Diodorus Siculus 34.2.46, 36.4.4, with Jean Christian Dumont, Servus: Rome et
l’esclavage sous la république, Collection de l’École Française de Rome 103 (Rome: École
Française de Rome, Palais Farnèse, 1987), 263–64.
18 “Enormous strength and spirit”: Sallust Histories frag. 3.90 (my translation).
19 Wife or girlfriend: Plutarch Life of Crassus 8.4.
20 Plutarch Life of Crassus 8.4.
21 Claudian Gothica 155–56.
22 Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, 5.6.20, trans. Shaw, Spartacus and the Slave Wars, 164.
23 We depend largely on ninth- and tenth-century Byzantine summaries of the ac-
count of Diodorus of Sicily, who in turn relied heavily on the Stoic philosopher Posido-
nius; see Thomas Wiedemann, Greek and Roman Slavery (London: Routledge, 1981),
199–200. For the theory of nationalist rebellion, see G. P. Verbrugghe, “Sicily 210–70
B.C.: Livy, Cicero and Diodorus,”
Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological
Association 103 (1972): 535–59, and idem, “Slave Rebellion or Sicily in Revolt?” Kokalos 20
(1974): 46–60.
24 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Excerpt 4, 384f. (Diodorus Siculus 34.2.48) (Loeb
translation).
25 Photius Bibliotheca 388 (Diodorus Siculus 36.6.1) (Loeb translation).
204 Strauss
26 Appian Civil Wars 1.116.540 (my translation).
27 Revolt of Selouros in Sicily: Strabo Geography 6.2.7; nascent slave rebellion in
southern Italy in AD 24: Tacitus Annals 4.27; possible slave revolt under Bulla Felix in
Italy in AD 206–7: Cassius Dio Histories 77.10.1–7.
28 Augustus Res Gestae 25.
Slave Wars of Greece and Rome 205
9. Julius Caesar and the General as State
Adrian Goldsworthy
In the early hours of January 11, 49 BC, Julius Caesar led the Thir-
teenth Legion across the Rubicon and became a rebel. The river—in
reality little more than a stream, and now impossible to locate—marked
the boundary between his province of Cisalpine Gaul and Italy itself.
North of that line he was legally entitled to command troops. To the
south he was not. Nineteen months later, while surveying the corpses
of his enemies at Pharsalus, Caesar claimed, “They wanted it; even af-
ter all my great deeds I, Caius Caesar, would have been condemned, if
I had not sought support from my army.”1
Caesar was more successful than any other Roman general, fighting
“fifty pitched battles, the only commander to surpass Marcus Marcel-
lus, who fought thirty-nine.”2 Yet there was an ambiguity about his rep-
utation because many of his battles were fought against other Romans.
For more than a year before crossing the Rubicon, Caesar and his op-
ponents in the Senate had engaged in a game of brinkmanship, each in
turn raising the stakes. Probably both sides expected the other to back
down. There was no profound ideology involved. His opponents were
determined to end Caesar’s career, and he was equally resolved to pre-
serve it. The price was a war fought all around the Mediterranean that
cost tens of thousands of lives. However unreasonable his opponents
had been, it was Caesar who crossed the Rubicon and started the civil
war of 49–45 BC. Cicero believed that fighting this war was unnecessary
Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome Page 32
