a few days Laelius again spoke for the company, and he spoke even better than the first time; but the case was adjourned again. The members of the company attended Laelius to his house, a mode of showing respect which was usual at Rome. They thanked him for his pains, and begged that he would continue them. Laelius told the company that he had done his best, but he recommended them to apply to Servius Galba, who was a much more powerful speaker than himself. Galba with some hesitation undertook to follow so distinguished a man. He had a very short time allowed for preparation, but he employed it in examining the case and putting his matter in order. On the day when the cause was to be heard again, the company sent a man to Galba to remind him and keep him punctual, but up to the moment when the consuls had taken their seats, Galba was busy in his room working at his case with some of his slaves who were versed in letters, and to whom he was used to dictate, to more than one at a time. When he was told that the court was sitting, he came out with all the appearance of a man who had just gone through the exertion of pleading a cause, not of one who had been preparing to plead. It was said too that the slaves showed some signs of their master's vehemence in his oratorical preparation, as if he had been so much excited as to deal out blows to them. However, the great expectation of the audience was not disappointed. Galba managed the case so well that continual applause accompanied his speech, and he moved the court so much by exciting the feelings that, with the approbation of all the bystanders, the company and members implicated in the charge were acquitted.

In the year B.C. 136 there was a census. The citizens entered on the registers were 323,000.

The Illyricum or part of the eastern coast of the Hadriatic. was at this time disturbed by the Ardiaei or Vardaei, as they are also named, one of the Dalmatian tribes. There is repeated the usual story of wondrous things at Rome, which frightened the people, and of religious ceremonies which were used to quiet men's minds. In the year B.c. 135 there was a great eruption of Aetna.

The mountain vomited fiery

streams which ran down the sides and destroyed every thing in their way. Such phaenomena were supposed to portend danger to the state, and in this instance the danger did follow the sign, for all Sicily was soon blazing with the flames of a servile war.

The consul Ser. Fulvius Flaccus (B.c. 135) was sent against the Ardiaei, whose position on the coast is marked by the island Pharus nearly opposite to the mouth of the river Naro (Narenta). The Epitome of Livy (56) records the defeat of the Ardiaei by Flaccus. Some modern writers refer to this time the entire subjugation of this people, and their removal from the coast to the interior, a fact which Strabo mentions: but this event may belong to a later date than the time of Flaccus.

CHAPTER IX.

THE SLAVE WAR IN SICILY.

B.C. 142-132.

THE Romans had been in possession of the west part of Sicily since the end of the first Punic war B.C. 241; and this was their first Province. The eastern and smaller part, which formed the kingdom of Syracuse, was added to the Roman possessions after the conquest of Syracuse by Marcellus B.C. 212. In B.C. 210 all Sicily was reduced to a tranquil condition by M. Valerius Laevinus and formed into one Province. After the end of the second Punic war, in which the power of Carthage was broken, Sicily was quiet for sixty years, from B.c. 201 to B.C. 142 according to the reckoning of Diodorus, who therefore supposed that the disturbances in the island existed some time before the Romans sent their armies to stop them.

This fertile island contained a large Greek population which had long been settled in the flourishing towns on the coast. The Greeks of Sicily had always possessed slaves, both native Sicilians and imported captives. During the long struggle for supremacy between Rome and Carthage, the island was wasted and agriculture neglected. When tranquillity was restored by the establishment of the Roman dominion, Sicily was a field in which the Italian capitalists employed their wealth in trade, agriculture and the pasturing of sheep and cattle. Rome and Italy were a market for Sicilian produce, and could consume all the corn and wool that Sicily did not want. As slave labour was the chief agricultural labour used in the island, the return of quiet

I

was followed by a demand for more slaves and they were supplied by importation from all the countries bordering on the Mediterranean. The capitalists Sicilian and Roman made great profits, but the poor free men gained nothing by the prosperity of a few, who were enriched by the labour of slaves.

When the slaves were landed in Sicily, they were kept by the dealers in slave-pens waiting for the purchasers. The wealthy capitalists would buy whole batches at once, brand or mark the slaves like cattle, and send them off to the country to work. The young and robust were employed as shepherds, and the others in agricultural and other labour. Some worked in fetters to prevent them running away. All of them had hard service, and their masters supplied them scantily with food and clothing. They cared little about their slaves. They worked them while they were able to work, and the losses by death were replaced by fresh purchases.

This want of humanity and prudence in the masters soon produced intolerable mischief. The slaves who were employed in looking after sheep and cattle of necessity had more freedom than those who were kept to cultivating the ground. Their masters saw little of them and left them unprovided with food, supposing that they would be able to look after themselves and cost nothing. Many of these greedy slave-owners were Italians, some of whom probably did not reside in Sicily, but entrusted the management of their estates to overseers, and consumed the produce of their wool and the profits from their cattle either at Rome or in some of the Italian towns. These slave shepherds, an active and vigorous set of men, soon found out ways of helping themselves. They began by robbing and murdering even in frequented places travellers who were alone or only in small companies. They next attacked the huts of the poorer people, plundered them of their property, and if resistance was made, murdered them. It became unsafe for travellers to move about by night, nor could people any longer safely live on their lands in the country. The shepherds got possession of huts which the occupants abandoned, and of arms of various

kinds also, and thus they became bolder and more confident. They went about with clubs and spears and the staves which were used by herdsmen, dressed in wolfskins or hogskins, and already began to make a formidable appearance. They had a great number of fierce dogs with them, and abundance of food from the milk and flesh of their beasts. The island was filled with roaming bands of plunderers, just as if the masters had allowed their slaves to do what they liked. Such a state of things must have been very injurious to all the proprietors, and a slave-owner who had any sense would have attempted to keep his slaves in better order, either by severe measures or by a judicious combination of kind treatment and discipline. Diodorus, who is here our authority, says the governors of Sicily did attempt to repress robbery, but they did not venture to punish the robbers on account of the power of their owners, many of whom belonged to the class of the Roman Equites; and out of this class, he says, were taken the Judices, who formed the jury, whenever a provincial governor was tried for maladministration at Rome after the expiration of his office. Such prosecutions were common at Rome, and an honest governor was more exposed to them than a dishonest governor who kept on good terms with these rich Roman capitalists. But though Diodorus may be right as to the difficulty of the governors in dealing with the slaves of the rich Romans, he has made a great mistake in one matter. The Judices at Rome at the time of these disturbances in Sicily were not selected from the order of the Equites. Though all the slave-owners would suffer from the depredations of these robbers, every man would be unwilling that his own slaves should be put to death when they were caught, and would claim them as fugitive labourers; and thus disputes might easily arise between the governors and the owners. The true state of the case is probably this. Slaves were bought cheap and could be made profitable by working them hard; and thus the greediness of gain, the total want of any humane feeling in the masters, the neglect of proper discipline among the slaves, and the careless feeling of security produced by many years of prosperity brought things gradually to such a state,