Definition of Servile Wars

The human being systematically dreams of freedom, and that means that the condition of slavery has been, also systematically, fought by those who have had to suffer it.

And among those who have fought for the freedom of those from whom it had been taken, the protagonists of the servile wars in ancient Rome stand out in their own light.

The calls Servile Wars They were three great slave revolts that the Roman Republic had to face.

In both republican and imperial times, the Roman economic machinery was greased with the sweat of slave labor; the continuous military campaigns contributed to the state and, therefore, to its citizens (although distributed unequal), wealth, and a continual flow of forced laborers, prisoners of war, and civilians from tribes and cities conquered.

The influx of slaves was so great that at certain times, almost even the less wealthy Romans could afford one, and those who did not have one were almost frowned upon.

The living and working conditions of these slaves varied greatly depending on who their master was.

It was not the same to go to work in a state-contracted mine than to go to the family service of a wealthy nobleman.

While those who had the "luck" (without it is that it can be called that) to achieve this last destination, he could expect a good treatment and a decent life within what was possible, and I respect towards his person (to the point that many domestic slaves ended up being freed by their masters, becoming what was called freedmen), who was destined for a green card faced a short life expectancy suffering from grim working conditions.

Obviously, the revolts were carried out by the slaves to whom fate had given the worst positions.

The First Servile War began in 135 BC. C, and it was a conflict restricted to the island of Sicily.

This, for the Romans, was not a minor problem, since at that time, the island was one of the main granaries of a republic in expansion, which meant not only feeding an oversized city like Rome, but feeding towns and cities throughout a vast territory.

It was precisely the slaves who cultivated the fields who started the revolt, tired of degrading treatment with excessive workload, and a feeding insufficient while his masters accumulated wealth.

The instigator of the revolt was Eunoo, a slave who claimed to possess prophetic gifts. To get an idea of ​​the number of slaves on the island of Sicily, we will say that Eunoo was able to summon 200,000 souls, including men, women and children.

The rebels practiced a guerrilla war, with small skirmishes that favored their tactics and inferior capacity in pitched battles in the open field.

According to historians, it seems that Eunoo did not have sufficient military knowledge, and that the architect of the victory of the revolts was his lieutenant Cleon.

Rome put an end to the rebellion landing, in 132 BC. C. an army of 70,000 troops. Cleon died fighting and Eunoo was captured.

Sicily repeated as the scene for the Second Servile War, which began in 104 BC. C. and it spread over the next four years.

The leader, a slave named Salvio, adopted the battle name of Trypho, managing to raise 20,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry, a force considerable equivalent in strength, approximately, to a Roman legion.

However, and following the usual pattern in the wars of antiquity, the initial victories of the The rebels caused this number of combatants to increase, and in some moments it reached 60,000 troops.

The Romans, for their part, made an effort to end the conflict up to 50,000 soldiers.

In pitched battle, the rebels were defeated, and the remains of this troop took refuge in the city of Triocala, which they had captured, in which they were besieged by the Romans, who dedicated themselves to their "hunt and capture" until they defeated them. completely.

Not for the film dedicated to its leader, Spartacus, the Third Servile War is currently the best known.

Change of scenery for the only one of the three conflicts that really put Rome in check. And the reason is that your leadership it was in the hands of gladiators, brave professional fighters who knew how to channel and train a large contingent of escaped slaves who joined them.

The avowed goal of the rebellion: to leave Italy, to be free. Something that Rome could not tolerate, on pain of setting a bad example for other slaves.

The rebellion originated in 73 BC. C, when about 70 gladiator slaves managed to escape from captivity.

In the days that followed, they defeated the small contingent of legionaries sent to capture them, and appropriated their weapons, attacking some villages and freeing the slaves that were in their path, which, in turn, fueled the revolt itself.

They established camp on Mount Vesuvius, an easily defensible position against external attacks.

Rome did not initially regard the revolt as dangerous - it did not even give it such a qualification, seeing it more as a riot or a wave of assaults and robberies - so he sent militia forces recruited in haste to stop the slaves escaped.

They made a big mistake, since these forces were destroyed, twice, by the soldiers of Spartacus, who reused the equipment and weapons of the troops. defeated, and that they were gradually increasing their number, nourishing themselves both from freed slaves, as well as locals who had nothing to lose by joining them, and if much to to win.

The winter of 73 a. C, the rebels spent it training the new recruits and arming his army, so that when the spring from 72 a. C, they had a fighting force capable of facing you face to face with the Roman legions.

Rome commanded two consular legions, which initially gained some victory by finding the rebels divided, but were eventually defeated.

The passage to the north was clear for Spartacus and his followers, which meant that in 71 BC. C. the situation was considered urgent by the Roman Senate.

This decided to grant the command of his troops to Marco Licinius Crassus, who in the future would be one of the first three triumvirs and an immensely wealthy man.

Crassus received six legions under his command, an immense force, well-trained and well-oiled for combat. The Roman general imposed a discipline iron among his troops, in such a way that it is said that they feared their commander more than the enemy.

The first measure taken by Crassus was to cut off the rebels on their way north, placing two legions in his rear. The confrontations that followed were, for the most part, favorable to the Romans.

Being unable to follow their route north to cross the Alps and thus be free, the slaves of Spartacus headed south to the Italian peninsula.

It seems that their objective was to embark towards Sicily, and with that idea in mind they made an agreement with Cilician pirates, although what they did not know is that they were going towards a mousetrap; Pursued by the Romans, the pirates betrayed them, and they ended up surrounded and deprived of supplies at the toe of the Italian boot that lies right in front of Sicily.

With reinforcements from Pompey the Great and Lucullus, Crassus set out for the final battle.

This, as we all know, favored Roman weapons. The survivors (some 5,000 or 6,000) were crucified along the Appian Way on their way from Capua to Rome, to serve as an example to those who dared to challenge the Roman Republic.

The character of Spartacus and his achievements have been a source of inspiration throughout history.

And I don't mean only artistic (the famous Stanley Kubrick movie), but also politics. An example of this is the German Spartacist League, a revolutionary Marxist party founded by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht.

Photo: Fotolia - Archivist

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