Appendix II
As well as the two wars described in the main body of this work, towards the end of the period in question there were several other campaigns that occurred that merely added to the Roman military burden and increased the level of the crisis. These two other campaigns were the Second Servile War in Sicily and a campaign against the pirates of the eastern Mediterranean.
The Second Servile War (104–101 BC)
In 104 BC, Rome was at one of the lowest ebbs it had been at for over a century. Although the war in Africa had been won, the catastrophic defeat at Arausio in 105 had left Italy vulnerable to the northern tribes and many considered it defenceless. It is perhaps no coincidence then, that this year saw a number of outbreaks of slave revolts in Italy and the outbreak of a Second Servile War, once again in Sicily. Diodorus provides detail of a number of smaller isolated slave revolts in Italy during 104 BC, as well as one more serious. This one was actually led by a Roman landowner, T. Minucius or Ti. Vettius,472 who armed his slaves, apparently proclaimed himself king and rose up in revolt. He created an army of slaves and established a fortified position around Capua as a base for his revolt. The situation so worried the Senate that they dispatched one of the praetors, L. Licinius Lucullus with a force of 4,000 infantry and 400 cavalry to defeat him. Upon Lucullus’ arrival in the region, Minucius/Vettius took a position on top of a hill with a force of 3,500 and was able to beat Lucullus off. In the end, Lucullus only succeeded by arranging for one of Minucius/Vettius’ subordinates to betray him on promise of a pardon. The rebellion petered out and Minucius/Vettius and the majority of his followers committed suicide. This bizarre episode perhaps reflects the weakness of the Roman position on the home-front following the defeat at Arausio and the (thought to be) impending Cimbric invasion.
If such weakness in Italy could produce a slave revolt then Sicily was far more susceptible to one, given its recent history and the First Servile War of 135–132 BC (see Chapter 1). The perceived weakness of Rome thanks to the atmosphere created by Arausio was not the only factor that helped create an atmosphere for slave revolts in Sicily. As mentioned earlier (Chapter 7), when C. Marius was recruiting fresh forces from the Roman allies, the issue of foreign slaves was raised. This resulted in a Senatorial decree being issued that banned the enslavement of citizens of allied states. Both Diodorus and Dio inform us that this decree was enforced with some vigour by P. Licinius Nerva, the governor of Sicily, which resulted in at least 800 slaves being freed. It also created a general atmosphere of expectation and hope amongst the slave population in general. However, this in turn created a backlash from the slave-owning landowners, who forced Licinius to end the process of freedom.
Naturally enough, this led to discontent and then rebellion across Sicily. An initial armed revolt soon began, led by a man named Varius and was able to take up a fortified position and hold off the governor’s forces. Once again, this fortified slave position was only taken through the treachery of a subordinate commander having been promised a pardon. Although this initial revolt had been crushed, others soon rose up near the city of Heracleia, which grew to a force of over 2,000 men. The governor dispatched one of his officers, M. Titinius, to deal with them, but Titinius soon found himself outnumbered and outmanoeuvred and was defeated and routed. This both acted as a call to arms to other disaffected slaves of the region as well as providing them with a large amount of weaponry. The slave army soon numbered more than 6,000. As occurred in the first war, command of this slave army soon fell to a mystic, a man named Salvius, who was proclaimed as king.
We are told that Salvius’ army quickly grew to more than 20,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry. Against them was the governor and his force of 10,000 allied troops. Battle took place at the city of Murgantia, during which the Roman forces were routed and control of the island’s interior fell to Salvius. To make matters worse, at the city of Lilybaeum another rebellion broke out, led by a man named Athenion, who also declared himself king of Sicily, again after claiming some mystical abilities, and raised an army of over 10,000 slaves. Thus by the end of 104, to add to Rome’s existing problems in the north, they had effectively lost control of Sicily to a number of slave armies.
With military control of the island, Salvius set about establishing his rule, taking the royal name Tryphon (imitating a usurper king of Syria). He established a royal capital at a place named Triocala, complete with palace, and secured control over the slave army of Athenion, having him imprisoned. To oppose him, the Romans replaced Licinius Nerva as governor with L. Licinius Lucullus, who had successfully defeated the slave rebellion the previous year at Capua. With him came an army of 17,000 men: 14,000 Romans and Italians along with allied contingents from Bithynia and Thessaly, all of which were vital forces needed for the expected conflict with the northern tribes. To face the Romans, Tryphon (Salvius) freed Athenion and faced them in battle at his ‘capital’. On this occasion, even though outnumbered, Lucullus was able to rout the slave army, killing more than 20,000 if we are to believe Diodorus. Both Tryphon and Athenion survived and fled back to the rebel capital. Lucullus followed this victory up with a siege of the city but was repulsed.473
For this failure, Lucullus was prosecuted in Rome and exiled. His replacement, and possibly prosecutor, was a man named Servilius who served as Governor in Sicily in 102 BC. Lucullus, in retaliation, disbanded his army and burnt his camp to ensure that Servilius was unable to profit by his actions. As a result, Sicily once more was dominated by the slave army, with Servilius ineffective. In the meantime, we are informed that Tryphon had died (through we are not told whether this was natural causes or murder) and was succeeded by Athenion.
By 101 BC, the situation was so serious that Marius’ consular colleague of the year, M. Aquilius, was dispatched to Sicily to end the war. This move was made easier by the defeat of the Teutones and Ambrones at Aquae Sextiae the previous year. We are not told the size of the force he took with him to Sicily, but he was immediately effective. Florus tells us that he was able to cut off the rebel army and starve them, before forcing them to give battle. Both Florus and Diodorus record that Aquillius comprehensively won the battle that followed, destroying the slave army and effectively crushing the rebellion. Diodorus even records that Aquillius managed to kill the slave king Athenion in battle, though Florus stated that he was murdered whilst a captive.474
The survivors fled to various strong points, which Aquilius then reduced one at a time, until he had re-established control of the island. As a postscript, Diodorus relates a story of the final group of survivors surrendering to Aquillius only to be taken to Rome to die fighting wild animals in the circus, but committed suicide rather than die entertaining the Romans. Whether this happened or not we will never know but it certainly made for a dramatic end to Diodorus’ evidence and gave the last of the rebel slaves a final dignity.475
Thus, we can see that as the early Roman military defeats in Gaul led to rebellions in both Gaul and Spain, the defeat at Arausio inspired a number of slaves to rebel against Rome, believing that the time was right and that Rome was weak and might not survive. This was exacerbated by the Senate’s decree on foreign slaves, a price extricated by Rome’s eastern allies in return for military help. The war that followed lasted for four years and tied up vital Roman military resources and effectively saw Rome lose control of Sicily and its grain supplies, at a time when they most needed them. Thus we see that for Rome in this crucial period of 104–101 BC, the crisis only deepened.
The Pirate War (102–100 BC)
Throughout this period, it can be seen that Rome, not a natural naval power (at least in this period), suffered to a great degree from Mediterranean piracy. As we have already seen, in the 120s BC, Rome invaded and annexed the Balearic Islands in the western Mediterranean, removing the pirates’ main bases and apparently ending the threat. The eastern Mediterranean, however, was another matter, being less under Roman control. Here it has often been said that Rome herself was indirectly responsible for the rise of piracy in the eastern Mediterranean. The great Hellenistic powers had been humbled and had limitations on where their navies could roam. The lesser powers such as Rhodes and Cyprus had, too, been cowed by Rome, via diplomatic rather than direct military means and saw a decline in power also. This meant that there were fewer navies patrolling the region policing it from pirates. Furthermore, with the removal of Seleukid power from Asia Minor following the defeat of Antiochus III in 189 BC, the region of Cilicia, with its mountainous and coastal terrain, became a haven for pirates outside of any state’s control.
We have no clear evidence for what caused Rome to act, but in 102 BC, with the northern tribes pressing on Gaul, rebellions in Spain and a massive slave revolt in Sicily, the Senate commissioned one of the praetors, M. Antonius, to deal with the pirate menace in the eastern Mediterranean. We have no clear narrative for the events of this war, merely a handful of scattered references in the sources. Our best sources of information come from several inscriptions, which record the transportation of a fleet across the Isthmus of Corinth, and a wintering in Athens during 102/101 BC. We also possess several versions of an anti-piracy decree that had been erected on stone markers across the eastern Mediterranean, notably Delphi and Knidos.476
Preceding Pompey’s more famous pirate command by thirty-plus years, Antonius also apparently campaigned in the Cilicia region to rid it of pirate strongholds. He returned to Rome in 100 BC and celebrated a triumph for his activities, also being elected consul for 99 BC, possibly due to his Marian connections (see Chapter 7). Despite the triumph for his endeavours, it is unlikely that Antonius achieved anything more than a temporary lull in pirate activity given the grave threat it posed by the 70s BC. It was not until the more famous command of Pompey in 68/67 that this issue was resolved. Nevertheless, given the grave threats that Rome faced elsewhere in this period, it is interesting to note that they were beginning to take this growing threat seriously and act in military terms rather than regarding it as a local issue. Once again, we can detect the emergence of a more strategic view of the Mediterranean emerging in Roman thinking.