Reduellātiō Magnus Servōrum
The decade after the defeat at Mount Bēlos would prove to be a trying one for the Roman Republic. The moderates in the
Senātus were gradually losing influence, and a faction of hardliner, often pro-war, and increasingly austere conservatives slowly made began to replace them. The first priority of foreign policy for this rising faction was ensuring the continued hegemony of the Rēs Pūblica in Hellā́s and preventing the renaissance of the Kingdom of Makedōnía. Where the moderates were more concerned with matters of domestic policy and the seemingly endless conflicts in Hispānia, such was the influence of the new conservatives that, within half a decade, they were able to make these positions standard in the
Senātus and increasingly so among men of the senatorial class at large. To accomplish these goals, they moved to cripple the kingdom by denying it direct access to its minerals by carving out its highland territories and declaring them independent states. Thus, the Kingdom of Lynkāstís, which had ceased to exist under Phílippos II, the father of Aléxandros ho Mégas, was re-established under a certain King Kállas, whose seat would be the city of Hērákleia Lynkāstís, which would be a stop along a major road that the Rōmānī were planning to build from Byzántion to Epídamnos in Illyria, where goods from the Orient would then be ferried to Brundisium. A second kingdom, established to the northeast, would be Paionía, under a certain Kotúdotos[1], which would act as a buffer between Makedōnía, Thrā́ikē, and the more barbarian north, with its seat at the old capital of Bulā́zōra[2]. Finally, the kingdom of Sapaía, a kingdom for the Sapai, who had in the past been loyal allies of Rōma, would rule from the city of Amphípolis under a certain king Mukáporis. Though Roman soldiers were not supposed to be garrisoned in the Kingdom of Lynkāstís, a client state of the Seleukídai, the Rōmānī paid little heed to this, as they did to other clauses of the Treaty of Dáphnē, which cost them the respect of the common people of Hellā́s.
The Roman refusal to pay their indemnity to the Seleukídai and fully withdraw from Hellā́s did its due in souring relations between them and a number of the Hellenic cities and leagues. Certainly, the rhetoric that floated about the country often painted the Rōmānī in an almost humorous light, as if children who refused to accept that they had lost some game. Others purported that the Rōmānī were like adolescent boys come into their father’s fortune, spending it on the gifts that won them the infatuation of other men’s wives, and in some cities the people ‘charitably’ passed around baskets to gather funds for the indemnity, which were usually filled with useless trinkets and then dumped at the garrisons. In some places, mobs would gather outside Roman forts to bring their ‘gifts’ and have a good laugh at the soldiers. In the city of Oloossṓn[3] in Perraibía[4] however, an incident of particular interest (though it didn’t seem much at the time) took place, in which a certain fuller by the name of Kēphisódotos gave actual money to a ‘Roman’ officer who had protested the jokes of the crowd by specifying that he was not in fact Roman, but Etruscan[5], and that he had no more desire to guard his wretched outpost than the people had to host him. Kēphisódotos had stepped forward from the crowd and taken the officer around the shoulder and chastised his fellow countrymen, declaring that it was in poor character to mock people in such unfortunate circumstances.
“Take this, that you may take it home to your wife and children, whatever that you might have. Truly, fortune does not only manifest in the form of money, and there are few things more unfortunate than being forced into the employ of a master who cares not for your well-being. My employer surely is a good one, so, perhaps you need this more than I do.”
Following this incident and likely many others like it, as the Koinòn tōn Akhaiōn and Athênai were in conflict over the border town of Orōpós, the Athēnaîoi sent embassies to Rōma, while the Akhaioí only did so begrudgingly, at the insistence of Polýbios and his party (with the exception of his brother, Thearídas, who agreed that deference to the Rōmānī was no longer necessary).
There was also widespread discussion in Hellā́s of the fate of the enslaved Molossoi and Makedṓnes, who had been demanded by the Seleukídai twice now, and never produced. Some people believed that the Seleukídai should invade Hellā́s and throw the Rōmānī out entirely, forcing them to capitulate to the demands of the treaties that they had signed, while others thought that the Seleukídai were a paper tiger, and that their defeats of the Roman Republic were either due to luck or the poor command of inexperienced, less-intelligent men than the likes of Aemilius Paullus Mācedonicus. Others still believed that the Roman Republic was the paper tiger, having not enforced a number of its demands in the past, having recently lost decisively against the Seleukídai, and having sat idly by and watched while their allies, the Pergamenes, lost all of their possessions beyond the immediate vicinity of their city. The vast majority of Héllēnes however, understood the situation for what it was – there were two great powers in the Mesógeios, and time would tell which one would outlive the other, as the world wasn’t big enough for both of them.
Where the Republic’s original interests in Hellā́s and Illyria had mostly been renegaded to the maintenance of the security of trade, there was now a vengeful streak in the
Senātus and the assemblies, one that painted the Seleukídai in almost as villainous a light as Qart-Ḥadašt, and which was ever more out of touch with the interests of the people. The Republic’s wars had been expensive, not only financially and in terms of loss of life, but also structurally, as it seemed that the Roman/Italian farmer was becoming as endangered as the elephant of Mesopotamía[6]. Veterans of her wars would return home to find their farms bankrupt or in such disrepair that they had no other choice but to sell and take their families to the cities where they might find work, which itself was more and more difficult with the growing population of slaves. This was especially problematic after the defeats in Āfrica and Syría, in which veterans had come home disgraced, their lands in disrepair or bankrupt, and without the spoils that they otherwise might have sold to support their families in or near a city where they might search for work. It was a good thing that the
Senātus had not ratified all of the clauses of the Treaty of Dáphnē in their minds, as the increase in taxes to pay the indemnity would rob them of what little money they had earned from their soldiers’ pensions. The problem was particularly pronounced in Etrūria and Sicilia. Sicilia had been won in the
Duella Pūnica[7], and those indigenous peoples who had sided with the Pūnicī[8] had had their lands confiscated by the Roman state, which then sold them to large landowners, while the indigenous peoples either could work for a pittance, join the army, or try their hands at finding work in the cities while gangs of slaves, primarily from Hispānia and Hellā́s worked said confiscated lands. This process of displacement had been ongoing for a century now, and with the rumors circulating of the Seleukidian demands for the freedom of the Molossian slaves now working many of the large estates, it was about to boil over.
Yet another ethnic element contributed to the simmering unrest in Sicilia. The island was the Republic’s first overseas territory, and was represented by a diverse admixture of peoples, including Héllēnes, Pūnicī (who called themselves
Kǝná’anim), Élumoi, Sikeloi, and Sikanoi. Following the conquest of the island by the Republic, the new government had chosen to leave the previous system of taxation of farmers in place, which involved a tithe on every farmer that had to be delivered by late summer. The Rōmānī had of course doubled the tithe from 5% to 10%[9]. Likewise, the collectors of this tax, known in Latin as
decumānī, had been of indigenous or foreign stock under the rule of Qart-Ḥadašt[10], but the
Lēx Hierōnica, which had codified this system into Roman law, said that these
decumānī had to be of Sicilian origin. However, a great number of indigenous people had had their lands and possessions confiscated by the state when they sided with Qart-Ḥadašt, thereby impoverishing them, and further were subject to the payment of taxes… except for the Élumoi. No, the Élumoi enjoyed a very privileged status in the new order of things due to the fact that they had sided with the Rōmānī against Qart-Ḥadašt, but also due to their dubious claims of descent from a certain prince of Troías, Élumos, which allegedly made them cousins of the Rōmānī, who claimed descent from Aineías. The Élumoi had not been impoverished by the same land confiscations, and they were also exempt from taxation, which meant that the majority of the
decumānī imposing the taxes on what poor indigenous Sicilian farmers were left were Élumoi, whom the other two indigenous peoples resented not only for their Hellenization, but for their position over them[10].
Certainly, the Sikeloi and Sikanoi could be said to have been Hellenized in the sense that they had adopted Hellenic dress and language, and even some of their personal names, though their sense of identity and their ancestral tales had not been lost. According to these tales, they and the Élumoi all shared a common origin, the history of which had been preserved in the tales of the former two, that told of them having been led there by the god Tarkuástros[11] from a place they called
Lapídeia, which was a country in the north “where the mountains met the sea”[12]. In these tales, Élumos was one of three ancestral brothers who founded the three principal tribes of the island after a schism among the original tribe, which was itself descended from the god of earthly and heavenly fires – Adranós. While a great many of the tales had been interwoven with Hellenic ones, the ancestry of the people was something that many of them held to be sacred, and the Élumoi had not only professed being unrelated to their fellows, but now held undue sway over them through their avarice.
Despite the fact that the moderates in the
Senātus were actively pushing to look within their own borders rather than out, particularly at the issue of land ownership and the retiring veterans, the tensions would come to a head in the early months of the year 160 (154), when a group of Molossian slaves mutinied against their master on a large plantation outside of the city of Henna. There was no particular leader of the mutiny at first. The slaves who had begun the rebellion were young,
koûroi[13] by Hellenic standards, and unfit to lead. Although the precise reasons behind this initial mutiny are lost to history, a number of stories of later writers would dramatize these events by attributing them to a romance between a certain boy named Lynkídas and the daughter of his Italian master. It is known that Lynkídas was the adopted son of the man who came to lead the revolt as the ‘King of Sicilia’, Kunískos, who had fought the Rōmānī in Ápeiros, but not whether or not this Lynkídas is the same one that is alleged to have ignited the revolt, nor whether the tales of his romance with the daughter of his master have any merit whatsoever.
What is known however, is that the revolt spread quickly in the Sicilian countryside, although it does not appear to have ever been restricted to Molossoi or Makedṓnes who had been enslaved there. By now, many of the slaves in both groups had married and had children with other slaves, and so a strictly Molossian/Makedonian rebellion would have been impractical. Instead, not only does the rebellion seem to have included non-Molossian/Makedonian slaves from the start, but also came to include indigenous peoples of the island who had been disenfranchised after the Roman conquest, lending to it a certain appeal among the lower classes that made it all the more dangerous, and that helped it spread. In fact, within the year, the rebels, which included both slaves and the slaveless classes, had taken control of not only the Hellenic cities of Taoroménion[14] and Katánē[15], but the entire countryside surrounding Mount Aḯtnē[16]. The initial organization of the rebellion had declared Kunískos as a king in the old Molossian sense, for which he had taken the name Newoptólemos[17], and sought to organize a state as a monarchy in the Hellenic fashion. Ancient writers speak of Newoptólemos as a charismatic and politically savvy figure, and sometimes suggest that he may have been affiliated with the Molossian nobility, although this may be the mere conjecture of those who sought to explain his political acumen.
As this rebellion grew to include the more dispossessed lower classes of the island, particularly those indigenous peoples that had been bullied and oppressed by the Roman state, its structure changed to be more democratic. Newoptólemos is recorded as having proposed the idea of a Hellenic democracy, and stepped aside to share power with a certain Markáitos[18], a man of Sikanian origins, as
stratāgoí, elected by a
bōlā́[19], however the rebels seemed to prefer a more authoritarian form of government. Therefore, a compromise was struck, with the title of
stratāgós being changed to
árkhōn, to be elected by the
bōlā́ from among its ranks for a lifelong term, while the members of the
bōlā́ itself would be composed of 10 men elected by the
ekklēsíā, or general assembly of each city.
It is also recorded that upon taking control of the two cities, that Newoptólemos immediately went about trying to establish relationships with various states, in particular with the Lord of Asíā, but also having sent embassies to the Republic’s old enemy, Qart-Ḥadašt, to speak before the
Zeqenim there. It is thought that the rebellion did not adopt exodus as an option until much later, beginning with the idea of establishing some kind of a client state in Sicilia to some greater power, be it Qart-Ḥadašt or the Seleukídai. Whatever the ulterior motives at first, the rebellion came at a very bad time for the Republic of course, as it coincided with two wars in Hispānia that were already proving to be difficult [20]. More focused on achieving a foreign victory, the matter of the revolt in Sicilia was not given the attention that it deserved by Rōma’s career politicians, and it was not until the disastrous defeat of a Roman garrison at Syrákousai and the capture of that city that they truly began to be concerned. The rebels issued a proclamation to the free peoples of Ītalia, calling those who had been disenfranchised by the Roman Republic to take up arms and join them in their fight for “freedom and just government”. The proclamation was very specific in its outline of a new republic, one in which there would be no slaves, and all the peoples of Ītalia and Sicilia would be equally represented as citizens of a single republic.
This proclamation came before the return of the rebel embassies, which returned at the end of the year 161 (153) with news of support from the governments visited. Both Qart-Ḥadašt and the Seleukídai were supportive, although the nature of the support differed between the two states. However tempting it might have been to make an attempt on the territorial integrity of the Roman Republic on its own soil, the Lord of Asíā did not want to tempt the possibility of a war in Hellā́s, which he was not sure he could win decisively. He therefore specified that he would be willing to ferry the rebels across the Mesógeios to Ioudaía, where they would be settled as
klēroúkhoi, or citizens of autonomous communities that owed military allegiance to the monarchy. Furthermore, according to the contemporary historians in Asíā, Kléōn of Lárisa and Olympiódōros of Seleúkeia, the embassy was sent back to Sicilia with a gift of 200 talents of silver, which was intended to placate the Rōmānī long enough to allow the Seleukídai to ferry the rebels off of the island. There is however, no record of this silver having made it to Sicilia, and it is not mentioned by other contemporary writers. Though it would become a popular item of speculation among historians and writers of later generations, modern historians believe that the silver was used for mints, first for the so-called Sicilian League, but also for the purchase of equipment. The
Zeqenim of Qart-Ḥadašt on the other hand, which had received financial and logistical support from the Seleukídai in the years following the Treaty of Léptis, welcomed the renewed opportunity to crush their old enemy, and offered naval support, and suggested that the rebellion continue to acquire the dispossessed classes of Ītalia.
Both contemporary and modern historians are known for calling the proclamation to the peoples of Ītalia, the so-called
Fātum Nevoptolemī, premature. The Lord of Asíā could more than justify some sort of support of the rebels in so much as it included removing them from their current location, as he could argue that doing so was in line with the treaty that had been signed by a Roman
cōnsul. He could not however, make the argument that such fundamental reforms to the Roman Republic were within the scope of said treaty…
Slavery was of course an institution that was universal throughout the states of the Mesógeios at the time, however slave ownership was not universal among individuals. The dispossessed
sociī of Ītalia, the allies that made up more than a third of the army that did not enjoy the rights of citizens or even the
iūs Latiī, or Latin Rights, were not slave owners. While there were indeed wealthy Italian families, some of whom owned large estates and thirsted for the opportunity to try their hands at politics in Rōma, the majority of the
sociī not only did not own slaves, but a significant portion of them in the countryside found themselves in direct competition with slave labor, which was something that Newoptólemos catered to when dealing with the indigenous peoples of Sicilia and nearby Bruttium[21].
The proposal of course, was not popular with the landed classes, and certainly not so among those cities that still retained a primarily Hellenic population in the region the Rōmānī called Magna Graecia, nor was it entirely that popular among the Rasna (Etruscī) in the north, but it resonated very deeply with a number of peoples in Southern Ītalia, in particular the Safinos[22], who had been subjugated by the Rōmānī more than a century earlier, and had demonstrated their desire for independence on more than one occasion by siding with the Republic’s enemies[23]. By now of course, the Safinos were not as interested in separation from the Republic as they were in finding their place in it, and the fact that the majority of them were not slave owners themselves made the prospect of siding with slaves in revolt less appalling, and yet, there place within the Republic did not seem so bad yet as to take up arms against it.
The capture of two cities combined with the proclamation told the government that the local magistrates were no longer capable of containing the problem, which became even clearer when another slave revolt broke out in Campānia. The revolt in Campānia however cannot be considered to be an extension of the one in Sicilia, as these slaves were known to kidnap free people of the Republic and sell them as slaves to one another, and it does not seem to have made any particular effort to include the dispossessed classes of Ītalia. Truly, Trýphōn, a former Molossian slave and participant in the rebellion in Sicilia would later write that it was the fault of the slaves in Campānia, who “submitted themselves entirely to their debased lust for vengeance” that the two revolts could not cooperate and were ultimately unable to acquire the Republic’s Italian allies among their ranks. Thus, in the spring of 161 (152), the
cōnsul Gnaeus Cornelius Dolāduella was sent to Campānia to dispatch the rebels there, while a young Pūblius Cornelius Scīpiō Aemiliānus Āfricānus, who had been prematurely elected to the office of
preator following his use of his family name to raise a private army to combat the revolt, was sent to Bruttium. Cornelius Dolāduella was given a single legion together with a number of levied Italian
alae, principally of Etruscan and Faliscan origins, while Scīpiō had levied two legions of his own and a number of Italian
alae, the constituents of whom he he had promised colonies in Sicilia for their efforts.
Cornelius Dolāduella initially met success in his campaign, as the rebels in the north of Campānia were indeed extremely disorganized. They burned the bridges of the Liris River[23], certainly, which meant that the Rōmānī had to march through the Safinite highlands to meet them again at the River Calor[24] near Maloeis[25], where the rebels were defeated. He was again successful at Plistika[26] and Kaudiom[27], but he suffered a defeat near Suéssoula[28], where the rebels had apparently been trained by escaped gladiators under the command of Blungomatus, a former gladiator of Celtiberian origin. The defeat was not a decisive one, but rather more of a setback, though it rendered the Rōmānī temporarily incapable of relieving the siege of Neápolis, which itself fell within the month to slaves from within the city. This put the rebels in Campānia in control of three important cities – Suéssoula, Neápolis, and Kúmē[29] – two of which happened to be ports, though the Rōmānī made sure to block the harbors with contingents of their newly rebuilt fleet that had been ported in Ostia. Unfortunately, the rebels had enough food between the three cities to withstand a lengthy siege.
In Bruttium, Scīpiō Aemiliānus was met with nothing but success as he marched through the countryside. Though idealistic, the rebels here were no match for a trained Roman legion, although in his writings he recorded that the re-subjugation of the Brutiī and their subsequent enslavement was something that affected the morale of his Italian troops, and even his own to a degree. However, a good deal of the Bruttiī and the rebel slaves were able to escape to the port city of Rhḗgion[30], which had been heavily fortified by them. Like they had at Neápolis and Kúmē, the Rōmānī blocked the Straight of Messā́nā with some 100 ships, preventing the crossing of the rebels into Sicilia. Sicilia itself had been almost entirely lost by this time to the rebels, excluding the western corner of the island, where the cities of Lilybaíon[31], Segesta, and Drépanon[32] were under siege, while the important port city of Pánormos[33] had already fallen.
The nature of the rebellion in Campānia was easier for the Rōmānī to handle politically than the one in Sicilia, as the intiators and leaders of the latter were Molossoi who had allied with the indigenous peoples of the island to throw off their Roman yokes. While the hardliner, militarist aristocrats of the
Senātus might not have been entirely that concerned with enslaving the Molossoi a second time, despite repeated treaties with the Seleukídai that they be freed, Scīpiō Aemiliānus was not such a fool. After all, Qart-Ḥadašt was just across the water, and now was quite the inconvenient ally of the Lord of Asíā, who had been giving the city logistical and financial support, aiding it in reforming and expanding its standing army and rebuilding a fleet that would be able to check Roman authority in the Mesógeios. The Rōmānī might have been able to win a war against Qart-Ḥadašt alone, and even Hellā́s, but the Seleukídai were in effective control of Aígyptos and Kyrēnaïkḗ, as their king had taken Kleopátra II as his wife following the defeat of the Rōmānī at Mount Bēlos, and a new generation of youths in those countries had already been levied and trained to protect his interests there. The Rōmānī did indeed have allies across the sea in the Inumiden, but as far as Scīpiō Aemiliānus was concerned, the old King Masensen was naught but a clever opportunist whose loyalties could come into question if the Rōmānī were to suffer another defeat. So, he decided to meet with Newoptólemos, the so-called
Árkhōn tês Sikelíās, on a boat in the Straight of Messā́nā to discuss terms.
In this meeting, Newóptolemos is said to have declared the loyalty of the rebel government to the Lord of Asíā, Dēmḗtrios I Nikátōr Sōtḗr, and claimed the island of Sicilia in his name. He also further stated that the Rōmānī had now twice refused to pay their debts, and that if they did not do so, as well as cede the island to the control of his government, which was under the suzerainty of the Seleukídai, that a “grand reckoning” of the Rōmānī awaited. A bold political move to be sure, one that had been decided upon without the consent of Dēmḗtrios himself, albeit the only portion of his demands that had fallen outside of the Treaty of Dáphnē was the part where Newoptólemos had claimed Sicilia for his alleged suzerain. Aemiliānus in contrast, stated that he was willing to come to a compromise on the release of the Molossian and Makedonian slaves on the island, but only they, and not any others. Newoptólemos countered with the claim that he was a representative of the “displaced and down-trodden” peoples of Sicilia, both enslaved and free, and that he could not accept such a proposal. Aemiliānus then proposed that Newoptólemos and his government might enter into a permanent alliance with Rōma, along the lines of the one that the city of Syrákousai[34] had with the Republic before it had betrayed it after the Battle of Cannae. According to this proposal, the lands of the Roman/Italian/Latin notables who had bought up vast tracts of land in Sicilia would be returned, and the slaves who had formerly worked them would receive wages for their work while the Sicilian government continued the 10% tithe on harvests, which the Rōmānī would split with them, taking 4% off of the top. Aemiliānus then reminded Newoptólemos that he was a long way from the Seleukídai, and that there were too many points of landing on the island for him to reject the terms. Newoptólemos is then recorded as having said,
“One cannot land with no ships.” His response had confused Aemiliānus, who had the upper hand as far as he could tell, and therefore signaled to his men that negotiations had concluded and got off the boat.
By that night, as Aemiliānus and his officers were enjoying dinner, in the camp outside Rhḗgion, the entire Roman fleet in the strait was set on fire, and Aemiliānus in his own writings stated that this was accomplished by “setting the very sea ablaze”. How this was accomplished is lost to history, although modern scholars lean toward the notion that the rebels had used some kind of petroleum-based mixture to do so. As the Roman ships had ended up primarily on the Sicilian side of the strait due to the flow of the currents, this meant that the ships in the harbor of Rhḗgion, of which there were some hundred or more, would be free to transport the rebels to the other side once the fire had subsided. This gave Newoptólemos more than 25,000 reinforcements of escaped slaves and rebel Bruttiī, which would swell his army to a total of 268,000, at least 70,000 of which had been blooded, and had experience fighting professional Roman armies.
Losing Sicilia was not an option for the Republic. The importance of its agricultural productivity could not be overestimated to civic order within the capital, as it was a vital source of grain for overseas armies as well as the
plēbs urbāna, as well as being a large and profitable area of real estate speculation. Furthermore, whosoever controlled Sicilia could not only project themselves into the Mesógeios but was merely a pontoon bridge away from an invasion of Ītalia itself. The Rōmānī were therefore willing to make certain compromises to maintain their control of it, including negotiating a new treaty with the tribes of Ibēria, and withdrawing some troops from Illyria and Hellā́s. The Roman
Senātus agreed to abandon the terms imposed by Tiberius Semprōnius Gracchus Māior, which meant that the natives would be allowed to found new cities and fortify existing ones, and also that they would be relieved of the 5% requisition of the grain harvest and the requirement of providing auxiliary troops. They also agreed to withdraw Roman garrisons to the right bank of the Salon[35] River. In Lūsītānia, the Rōmānī agreed to withdraw behind the Flūmen Anas[36], and also paid the Lūsītānī a sum of 50 talents of silver for agreeing to the treaty. Sextus Jūlius Caesar, who had been sent to Ibēria to handle the situation, was then called back to Ītalia at the head of an army of 15,000, with 5,000 professional Roman legionaries, 3,000 native
auxilia (drawn mostly from the Kečečken[37], Iltirkečken[38], and Aučečken[39]), 2,000 levies of Italian origin from the veteran colonies in Hispānia, another 4,000 levies of Latin origin from the same colonies, and 2,000 Inumiden
auxilia. Quintus Fulvius Nōbilior returned from Hellā́s at the head of an army of 35,000, with 18,000 legionaries, 10,000 Italian
alae, and 7,000 Illyrian
auxilia. A further 16,000
auxilia of Ligurian origin were levied in the north, with the promise of peace and a payment of a total of 500 talents of silver to the tribes there. Another two legions were then levied from the Roman colonies around Ītalia, for a total of 77,000 troops. The Rōmānī then spent the next year gathering and training the new armies for the invasion, which would begin in the opening months of summer in 162 (151). However, the rebels had done the same, and also spent the year acquiring better equipment.
Now, Newoptólemos had anticipated that the Rōmānī would bring forces from Hellā́s, and that they might attempt to land on the southeastern corner of the island, which was considerably less rugged and therefore had many more locations suitable for landing a large army. He had spent much of the year establishing a string of fortifications and forts in the region, stationing his best and most experienced troops there, including a number of veterans of the
Tertium Duellum Macedōnicum, who had been instrumental in his previous defeats of Roman troops in Sicilia. In his mind, this was the most important portion of the island to hold, as it would be the port of exodus of the people off the island should the need arise. He did not however expect that the Rōmānī would land in the northwest, on the north side of the Montēs Nebrodes[40], neither of which had been garrisoned to any great extent. This army was headed by Fulvius Nōbilior, and included the Illyrian
auxilia and Italian
alae, who would prove instrumental in defeating the Molossoi and Sikeloi in the mountains over the course of the summer, albeit at a cost that Nōbilior had not previously anticipated. Indeed, by the time he had won control of the mountain passes, his army had been reduced from 40,000 to 33,000. This meant that he could not move into the lowlands until his colleague, Scīpiō Aemiliānus, who had been reelected as
cōnsul, had been successful in relieving the sieges of the western cities and taking the central highlands… a truly daunting task, to be sure.
Aemiliānus was aided by the Inumiden, whose king, Masensen, sent his own son, Prince Mikiwsen[43], to command an army of some 20,000 troops. However, while Aemiliānus was successful in relieving the sieges of Lilybaíon, Drépanon, and Segesta, which gave him an extra 30,000 troops at his disposal (with Roman legionaries from Lilybaíon and Drépanon and Elymian volunteers from Segesta), he was not able to claim the central highlands, suffering a major setback at the Battle of the Hypsas River[44], where Markáitos and the rebels were successful in causing a stampede of the elephants that the Inumiden had ferried over, which was not only successful in devastating their troops, but killing their prince. This left the rebels in control of the bulk of the island for much of the winter, but Aemiliānus would indeed prove that he could fill the shoes of his family the following year in the closing months of the winter of 163 (150) when he and the Inumiden general Sufaks were successful in outmaneuvering Markáitos at the Battle of Mount Leberēs[45] and breaking the rebels’ center. This allowed the Rōmānī to gain the high ground, while the rebels regrouped at Herákleia Minṓa[46], but the central highlands were still not under their control. The rebels had garrisoned and added to the fortifications of the Castra Nicia[47], from whence an army under two Sikanian generals, Mosgogónos[48] and Ā́trox[49], was dispatched to deal with them, which was initially successful in doing so, but ended up being defeated near Óros-tôn-Hierā́kōn[50] and forced back to the fortress briefly, before the previously defeated reinforcements at Herákleia Minṓa under Markáitos arrived to break the siege.
By now, it was becoming abundantly clear that the Rōmānī could not reclaim the island on their own without pulling more troops from Hellā́s or drawing more levies, and it seemed that few were willing to volunteer in light of the constant setbacks that the military had faced in recent years. The
Senātus therefore, sent an expedition to Hellā́s to demand the aid of the Republic’s allies there, with special emphasis being placed in Ápeiros and Akhāḯā, both of whom made a series of excuses as to why they were unable to provide aid. Rhódos, having been snubbed by the Lord of Asíā, who was not impressed with their envoys following the Siege of Mount Bēlos, was the only Roman ally in the whole of Hellā́s who responded to these demands, promising 25,000 men from the island of Krḗtē. They were however stopped by a Seleukidian fleet that had blocked the harbor of the city itself while the Roman ambassadors were present.
The fleet was under the command of a certain Diódotos of Skythópolis, who reminded the Roman ambassadors that duly elected representatives of the Roman Republic had signed two treaties with two separate Seleukidian kings to release the Molossian slaves and pay indemnities, and that in 13 years, the government had not made an attempt to meet either of these terms. He specified that if the Rōmānī failed to meet these terms, that war would be upon them… in Sicilia… which would be claimed by the Lord of Asíā for his loyal agents there. Interestingly enough, ancient writers seem to agree that the Molossian
árkhōn, Newoptólemos, and Dēmḗtrios were not in communication, and that the two came to the same conclusion independently. Diódotos further specified that the ships of the Rhodian fleet, the bulk of which were in port and therefore unable to be mobilized, were now the property of the Lord of Asíā, and that Rhódos must enter into a permanent alliance with the Seleukídai, thereby changing its allegiances completely. In short, the Rōmānī would not be getting those reinforcements from Krḗtē…
The Rōmānī considered this an act of war, but not one that they could do much about. Neither the Koinòn tōn Akhaiōn nor the Koinòn tōn Āpeirōtân had responded to their demands for support in Sicilia, and they had already withdrawn a significant number of troops from the region. A formal conference to discuss the matter was arranged by the ambassadors to take place at Kórinthos, in the territory of the allied Koinòn tōn Akhaiōn, between representatives of the Seleukídai and the two incumbent Roman
cōnsulēs. During the deliberations on the matter in the
Senātus, Mārcus Porcius Catō Māior delivered his last speech to the
Senātus, in which he shamed the landowning classes of Rōma for their decadence and philhellenism, and especially for their cowardice in dealing with the matter of a slave revolt, saying that the Rōmānī had defeated the Molossoi before and won against even greater odds in his lifetime, and finally finishing with his notorious comment that Qart-Ḥadašt must be destroyed, but also saying that the Héllēnes must be “reminded of their place, lest Rōma be undone”. Indeed, a powerful speech from perhaps the city’s most tenured politician, but it fell on deaf ears at the time that it was given, as the other senators were not as confident in the supremacy of the Republic as Catō. Therefore, the Rōmānī would send their
cōnsulēs, Lūcius Calpurnius Pīsō Caesōninus and Sextus Jūlius Caesar, while the Lord of Asíā would be represented by Stēsíkhoros of Kýrrhos, the incumbent
epistolográphos[51], and Brýsōn of Ephesos, the
epí tôn pragmátōn[52]. This conference, which was mediated by a host of Akhaian representatives, most especially Polýbios and Phýlakos, who had both been captives in Ītalia previously, but were widely recognized as being of neutral disposition.
The Roman
cōnsulēs made the Seleukidian officials aware of the proposals that had been offered to Newoptólemos by Scīpiō Aemiliānus, including the promise of freedom for the Molossian slaves, who would have been allowed to have been received by the Seleukídai wherever they would like to take them, and that the offer was still standing. However, it was the position of the Lord of Asíā that solely freeing the Molossian slaves in Sicilia would be impractical, as it had been nearly 20 years since their enslavement, and that intermarriage was sure to have happened. Thus, the Molossian slaves would have to be freed, together with their families, for which the Lord of Asíā was willing to pay the slave owners for the value of property lost, so long as the
Senātus agreed to pay the indemnity of the Treaty of Dáphnē. They warned that if these terms were not met, that Sicilia would be invaded, and set up as a neutral buffer-state along the lines of Makedōnía between the Roman Republic and the Seleukídai, on whom the two governments would have to agree to ratify the elections of Sicilian
árkhontes.
Seeing as a number of the slave owners in question were not of Roman but Italian/Latin origins, the proposal of the Seleukídai seemed reasonable enough to the two
cōnsulēs. After all, Newoptólemos had issued a proclamation to the peoples of Ītalia, and the Rōmānī feared that if the war in Sicilia were to result in the total loss of sovereignty over the island, that the Republic’s Italian allies might reconsider their alliances. However, the terms did not solve the matter of the indigenous peoples of the island who had risen in the rebellion which Newoptólemos and his government represented. Surely, Newoptólemos would not accept the terms if these people were not represented in them, a fact of which the
cōnsulēs made the Seleukidian representatives aware. Subsequently, Stēsíkhoros and Brýsōn, who represented a government always willing to accept new Hellenic migrants, offered to take the entire rebel population to Ioudaía, a most troublesome province that was in need of just such a solution.
Notes
1. In this timeline, I am positing that the Paeonian dialects are part of a sister-branch of Indo-European to Greek together with the Ancient Macedonian language, based on the available evidence, which is indeed scanty. The personal name
Kotúdotos therefore can be translated as “given by Kótus”, which indicates that the Paeonian pantheon shares some deities in common with the Thracian one.
2. The name of the Paeonian capital can be translated as “shining/white spring”, in reference to the snow that the area receives regularly during the spring. This in turn would indicate an o-grade of PIE
*bhel- “bright, shining, light”, which demonstrates that Paeonian shares Cowgill’s Law in common with Hellenic. The second element is from
*yeh1- “year”, which reveals that Paeonian has also undergone a similar process of palatalization as the Greek dialects. Although, just as in Ancient Greek, this palatalization had different results in the different dialects of Paeonian, with Central Paeonian/Almopian
Bulā́dōra, Eastern Paeonian
Bulā́dzōra.
3. Modern Elassona, in Thessaly.
4. Perrhaebia, a region of northern Thessaly.
5. I do apologize for the break in local color here, but I don’t really like the use of “Rasnan/Rasnaian” as adjectives to describe Etruscans here. We know that their endonym was
Rasna, which in the genitive would have come out as
Rasnal.
6. Elephants were likely still extant, though seriously endangered in Mesopotamia and the Levant at this time.
7. The Punic Wars. Note that the sound shift of
/dw/ to
/b/ as not yet taken place in Latin, which would yield the more familiar form
Bella.
8. I cannot say that the Rōmānī hiked the grain tithe on the Sicilians for certain, although it does seem like something they would do in light of their treatment of those of them that sided with Carthage.
9. This also is conjecture on my part. According to the Lex Hieronica, the
decumani had to be Sicilian in origin, and given that the other Sicilian peoples had not been allies of the Republic when it conquered the island, it seems likely to me that the Elymians would have been the primary staff.
10. This is not conjecture on my part, but completely historical. The Elymians did indeed claim descent from a certain Prince Elymos of Troy, and the Rōmānī claimed descent from Aeneas, which, put together with the fact that they had allied with the Rōmānī during their invasion of Sicily gave them a privileged, tax-exempt status.
11. This is indeed a little bit of conjecture on my part, yet again. Scholars and linguists disagree on the origins of the Sicani and Siculi, although theories regarding an affinity to the Ligurians are growing in popularity. The name
Tarkuástros is taken from Adolfo Zavaroni’s essay
La lingua degli antichi Liguri. Iscrizioni e figure sacre su due rocce di Campocatino (Alpi Apuane), which is available here (
http://www.academia.edu/24851735/La...acre_su_due_rocce_di_Campocatino_Alpi_Apuane_) for anyone who is interested. He links the name to PIE
*terkw- “to turn” and
*h2stḗr “star”, which would mean something like “star-turner”, in the sense that the sky is like a wheel. Such a hypothetical deity might be very useful for navigators, and so ITTL, he is the deity that guided an ancient population from the Northwestern Italian coast to Sicily.
12. Roughly corresponding to the highlands around modern Genoa.
13. An Ancient Greek term for teenagers, probably below the age of 17 or 18.
14. Modern Taormina, Sicily.
15. Modern Catania, Sicily.
16. Mount Etna, Sicily.
17. The /w/ here is present because it had not yet been dropped in the Northwest Doric dialect that would have been spoken by the Epirotes at the time.
18. This is a constructed name of mine containing the name of a hypothetical Siculo-Ligurian water/maritime deity whom I have named
Markos. This name is from PIE
mark-/*merk- “wet” and is therefore a cognate with Proto-Germanic
*marhin “a kind of soup”. The second element of the name can be traced to PIE
*h2éy- “to give, to take”, and is therefore a cognate to Ancient Greek
aîtos “share”.
19. Here we are also using the Doric pronunciation of the words, as the progenitors of the office in this context are speakers of the Northwest Doric dialect.
20. These are the Second Celtiberian War and the Lusitanian War.
21. The contemporary name of modern Calabria, which original actually referred to modern Puglia… go figure.
22. Contemporary native endonym of Samnium.
23. A number of the Samnites sided with Hannibal Barca during his invasion of Italy.
24. River Calore, in Italy.
25. Contemporary native name of Benevento, Italy.
26. Plistica, an old city southwest of Benevento.
27. Montesarchio, in the Province of Benevento, Italy.
28. Suessula, an ancient city between the modern towns of Capua and Nola.
29. Contemporary Greek name of Cumae, now modern Cuma, a village near Bacoli in the Province of Naples, Italy.
30. Reggio Calabria, in the
comune of Calabria, Italy.
31. Contemporary Greek name of Lilybaeum, now modern Marsala, in the Province of Trapani, Sicily.
32. Contemporary Greek name of Drepanum, now modern Drepana, in the Province of Trapani, Sicily.
33. Contemporary Greek name of Panormus, modern Palermo, Sicily.
34. Contemporary Greek name of Syracusae, modern Syracuse, in the Province of Syracuse, Sicily.
35. Contemporary native pronunciation of the Jalón River, one of the tributaries of the Ebro in the Province of Aragón, Spain.
36. Contemporary Roman name of the Guadiana River, modern Spain and Portugal. The name can be translated as “river of ducks”.
37. Possible contemporary native pronunciation of the tribal name
Cessetānī. It is hypothesized by some historical linguists that the letter /s/ as written in the Iberian language may represent some kind of an affricate, perhaps alveolar or post-alveolar. ITTL, we will be going with the pronunciation as a post-alveolar affricate.
38. Possible contemporary native pronunciation of the tribal name
Ilergetes.
39. Possible contemporary native pronunciation of the tribal name
Austeānī.
40. Contemporary name of the Nebrodi Mountains, but also the modern Peloritani Mountains, in Northeastern Sicily.
41. Contemporary Greek name of Milazzo, Sicily.
42. Contemporary Greek name of Tindari, Sicily.
43. Contemporary native pronunciation of Micipsa, the son of Masinissa.
44. Contemporary Greek name of the Belice River, in Western Sicily.
45. A hypothetical contemporary indigenous name of the Monte Delle Rose, in the Monti Sicani in Southwestern Sicily.
46. An Ancient Greek city situated at the mouth of the the Platani river, in Southwestern Sicily.
47. Contemporary Roman name of the fort at modern Caltanissetta, in the Province of Caltanissetta, Sicily.
48. A hypothetical Sicanian name meaning “child of gulls”. From PIE
*mesg- “to plunge, dip, sink” and
*genh1- “to beget”.
49. A hypothetical Sicanian name meaning “dust/dark eye”. From PIE
*ātr- “to burn?” (possible cognates in Latin
āter “dark” and Old Armenian
ayrem “to burn”) and
*h3ókws “eye, face”.
50. A hypothetical contemporary name of the Serra del Falcone, near Serradifalco, in the Province of Caltanissetta, Sicily.
51. An office roughly equivalent to the modern Secretary of State.
52. An office roughly equivalent to the office of Grand Vizier.