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VI. Discontent and Rebellion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2016

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Extract

For most of the nineteenth century and up until recently, the slave rebellion has been one of the most important components of the educated public’s image of life in the Greek and Roman world. Since the 1960’s, academic scholars have come to see that there is little historical evidence to justify the traditional picture of slave societies as ‘police states’ constantly at the brink of violent rebellion, and that the frequency and scale of uprisings had been greatly overemphasized.

One reason for this overemphasis was the romantic nationalism that spread first with, and then in opposition to, the French Revolution; and its characteristic symbol has been the figure of Spartacus. The ancient accounts of the Spartacus war assisted the process, since alongside the expected hostile attitude towards him (to be found in Cicero and the Livian tradition), another group of sources treats him much more respectfully as Horace’s ‘Spartacus acer’. Spartacus was thus sufficiently noble to qualify as a subject for eighteenth-century French tragedy. The plot of Bernard-Joseph Saurin’s drama Spartacus of 1760 revolves around Crassus’ daughter falling in love with him. Then – partly in reaction against Saurin’s frivolous treatment – Spartacus was chosen by the dramatists Lessing (1727–81) and Grillparzer (1791-1872) to symbolize resistance against tyranny. Freemasons saw him as an Enlightenment hero in the struggle against ‘Roman’ Catholicism; and early nineteenth-century nationalism made Spartacus the liberator, not so much of slaves as a social class, as of the national groups enslaved by Rome.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Surveys in the Classics , Volume 19: Slavery , 1987 , pp. 47 - 51
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

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References

Notes

1. Cf. especially Elkins, S., Slavery (Chicago, 1959)Google Scholar. Slave revolts were considerably more common in Latin America and the Caribbean, where a greater proportion of slaves were recent arrivals from Africa.

2. Horace, Ep. 16.5 and C.4. 14.19; Stampacchia, G., ‘Spartacus Acer’, Klio 63 (1981), 331-46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Levi, M. A., ‘La Tradizione sul Bellum Servile di Spartaco’, Actes du colloque 1971 (Paris, 1972), 171-4Google Scholar.

3. There are dozens of works, academic and popular, on Spartacus, but comparatively few in English. Cf.Baldwin, B., ‘Two Aspects of the Spartacus Slave Revolt’, CJ 62 (1966), 289-94Google Scholar; Guarino, A., Spartaco. Analysi di un mito (Naples, 1979 Google Scholar) = Spartakus (German transi., Munich, 1980); Günther, R., Der Aufstand des Spartakus (Berlin East, 1979, and Cologne, 1980)Google Scholar.

4. Vogt, J., ‘The Structure of Ancient Slave Wars’ and ‘Pergamum and Aristonicus’, Ancient Slavery, chs. 3 & 4Google Scholar.

5. K. R. Bradley, Slaves and Masters, pp. 26-33.

6. Mostly in Russian; but cf.Diesner, H. J., ‘Das römische Imperium und der Freiheitskampf der Unterdrückten im Westen des römischen Reiches’, in Humanismus und Menschenbild im Orient und in der Antike (Wiss. Beiträge, Halle, 1977), pp. 69–77 Google Scholar. E. A. Thompson, ‘Peasant Revolts’ (ch. I, n. 9 above) is a Marxist classic.

7. Bradley, K. R., ‘Slaves and the Conspiracy of Catiline’, CPh 73 (1978), 329-36Google Scholar; Rubmsohn, Z., ‘Was the Bellum Spartacium a Servile Insurrection?’, Riv. Fil. 99 (1971), 290–299 Google Scholar; Hoben, W., Terminologische Studien zu den Sklavenerhebungen der römischen Republik (Wiesbaden, 1978)Google Scholar.

8. Vogt, J., ‘Zum Experiment des Drimakos: Sklavenhaltung und Räuberstand’, Saeculum 24 (1973), 213-19CrossRefGoogle Scholar = Sklaverei und Humanität. Ergänzungsheft (Wiesbaden, 1983), pp. 28 ff.; Fuks, A., ‘Slave War and Slave Troubles in Chios in the Third Century B.C.’, Athenaeum 46 (1968), 102 ffGoogle Scholar.

9. Seneca, Ep. 47.5; but he goes on to say, ‘we do not acquire them as enemies: we make them our enemies’. On Tac, Ann. 14.42.5, Kajanto, I., ‘Tacitus on the Slaves’, Arctos 6 (1970), 43–60 Google Scholar; Bellen, H., ‘Antike Staatsräson’, Gymnasium 89 (1982), 449-67Google Scholar.

10. Plut., Lyk. 28, quoting Aristotle.

11. Bellen, H., Studien zur Sklavenflucht im römischen Kaiserreich (Wiesbaden, 1971)Google Scholar.

12. Fitzgibbon, J. C., ‘Ergastula’, Classical News and Views (Ottawa), 20 (1976), 55-9Google Scholar.

13. Thuc. 7.27 (= GARS 211); Arist., Oik. 2.2.34 (= GARS 217); Augustus, Res Gestae 4.25 (= GARS 61). Cf.Hadas, M., ‘Vestal Virgins and Runaway Slaves’, CW 24 (1931), 108.Google Scholar

14. Lewis, I. M., Ecstatic Religion (Harmondsworth, 1971)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15. A comprehensive study of slaves’ participation in ancient religious cults was compiled by Bömer, F., Untersuchungen über die Religion der Sklaven in Griechenland und Rom, I-IV (Wiesbaden, 1957-63)Google Scholar.

On Christianity and slavery, see ch. II, n. 12 above.

I wish to thank Professor Keith Hopkins for his comments on an early draft of this survey and Dr E. Herrmann of the Mainz Academy for providing me with material not available in Bristol.