he number of causes in
dependence was daily on the increase. The terrified planters hastened
to Syracuse, to compel the Roman governor to suspend such unparalleled
administration of justice; Nerva was weak enough to let himself be
terrified, and in harsh language informed the non-free persons
requesting trial that they should forgo their troublesome demand for
right and justice and should instantly return to those who called
themselves their masters. Those who were thus dismissed, instead of
doing as he bade them, formed a conspiracy and went to the mountains.

The governor was not prepared for military measures, and even the
wretched militia of the island was not immediately at hand; so that he
concluded an alliance with one of the best known captains of banditti
in the island, and induced him by the promise of personal pardon to
betray the revolted slaves into the hands of the Romans. He thus
gained the mastery over this band. But another band of runaway
slaves succeeded in defeating a division of the garrison of Enna
(Castrogiovanni); and this first success procured for the insurgents--
what they especially needed--arms and a conflux of associates.
The armour of their fallen or fugitive opponents furnished the first
basis of their military organization, and the number of the insurgents
soon swelled to many thousands. These Syrians in a foreign land
already, like their predecessors, seemed to themselves not unworthy
to be governed by kings, as were their countrymen at home; and--
parodying the trumpery king of their native land down to the very
name--they placed the slave Salvius at their head as king Tryphon.
In the district between Enna and Leontini (Lentini) where these bands
had their head-quarters, the open country was wholly in the hands of
the insurgents and Morgantia and other walled towns were already
besieged by them, when the Roman governor with his hastily-collected
Sicilian and Italian troops fell upon the slave-army in front
of Morgantia. He occupied the undefended camp; but the slaves,
although surprised, made a stand. In the combat that ensued the
levy of the island not only gave way at the first onset, but, as the
slaves allowed every one who threw down his arms to escape unhindered,
the militia almost without exception embraced the good opportunity
of taking their departure, and the Roman army completely dispersed.
Had the slaves in Morgantia been willing to make common cause with
their comra