the whole island except a few towns was at their mercy. In 134 the
consul Flaccus went to Sicily; but with what result is not known.
In 133 the consul L. Calpurnius Piso captured Messana, killed 8,000
slaves, and crucified all his prisoners. In 132 P. Rupilius captured
the two strongholds of the slaves, Tauromenium and Enna (Taormina and
Castragiovanni). Both towns stood on the top ledges of precipices, and
were hardly accessible. Each was blockaded and each was eventually
surrendered by a traitor. But at Tauromenium the defenders held out,
it is said, till all food was gone, and they had eaten the children,
and the women, and some of the men. Cleon's brother Comanus was taken
here; all the prisoners were first tortured, and then thrown down the
rocks. At Enna Cleon made a gallant sally, and died of his wounds.
Eunous fled and was pulled out of a pit with his cook, his baker, his
bathman, and his fool. He is said to have died in prison of the same
disease as Sulla and Herod. Rupilius crucified over 20,000 slaves, and
so quenched with blood the last fires of rebellion.

Besides the dangers threatening society from the discontent of the
poor, the aggressions of the rich, the multiplication and ferocious
treatment of slaves, and the social rivalries of the capital, the
condition of Italy and the general deterioration of public morality
imperatively demanded reform. It has been already said that we do
not know for certain how the plebs arose. But we know how it wrested
political equality from the patres, and, speaking roughly, we may date
the fusion of the two orders under he common title 'nobiles,' from
the Licinian laws. [Sidenote: The 'nobiles' at Rome.] It had been a
gradual change, peaceably brought about, and the larger number having
absorbed the smaller, the term 'nobiles,' which specifically meant
those who had themselves filled a curule office, or whose fathers had
done so, comprehended in common usage the old nobility and the new.