a comparative blessing--such was the terrible lot of the Roman
slave. At last, almost simultaneously at various places in the Roman
dominions, he turned like a beast upon a brutal drover. [Sidenote:
Outbreaks in various quarters.] At Rome, at Minturnae, at Sinuessa,
at Delos, in Macedonia, and in Sicily insurrections or attempts at
insurrections broke out. They were everywhere mercilessly suppressed,
and by wholesale torture and crucifixion the conquerors tried to
clothe death, their last ally, with terror which even a slave dared
not encounter. In the year when Tiberius Gracchus was tribune (and the
coincidence is significant), it was found necessary to send a consul
to put down the first slave revolt in Sicily. It is not known when it
broke out. [Sidenote: Story of Damophilus.] Its proximate cause was
the brutality of Damophilus, of Enna, and his wife Megallis. His
slaves consulted a man named Eunous, a Syrian-Greek, who had long
foretold that he would be a king, and whom his master's guests had
been in the habit of jestingly asking to remember them when he came
to the throne. [Sidenote: The first Sicilian slave war.] Eunous led a
band of 400 against Enna. He could spout fire from his mouth, and his
juggling and prophesying inspired confidence in his followers. All the
men of Enna were slain except the armourers, who were fettered and
compelled to forge arms. Damophilus and Megallis were brought with
every insult into the theatre. He began to beg for his life with some
effect, but Hermeias and another cut him down; and his wife, after
being tortured by the women, was cast over a precipice. But their
daughter had been gentle to the slaves, and they not only did not harm
her, but sent her under an escort, of which this Hermeias was one, to
Catana. Eunous was now made king, and called himself Antiochus. He
made Achaeus his general, was joined by Cleon with 5,000 slaves, and
soon mustered 10,000 men. Four praetors (according to Florus) were
defeated; the number of the rebels rapidly increased to 200,000; and