significant), it was found necessary to send a consul
to put down the first slave revolt in Sicily. It is not known when it
broke out. [Sidenote: Story of Damophilus.] Its proximate cause was
the brutality of Damophilus, of Enna, and his wife Megallis. His
slaves consulted a man named Eunous, a Syrian-Greek, who had long
foretold that he would be a king, and whom his master's guests had
been in the habit of jestingly asking to remember them when he came
to the throne. [Sidenote: The first Sicilian slave war.] Eunous led a
band of 400 against Enna. He could spout fire from his mouth, and his
juggling and prophesying inspired confidence in his followers. All the
men of Enna were slain except the armourers, who were fettered and
compelled to forge arms. Damophilus and Megallis were brought with
every insult into the theatre. He began to beg for his life with some
effect, but Hermeias and another cut him down; and his wife, after
being tortured by the women, was cast over a precipice. But their
daughter had been gentle to the slaves, and they not only did not harm
her, but sent her under an escort, of which this Hermeias was one, to
Catana. Eunous was now made king, and called himself Antiochus. He
made Achaeus his general, was joined by Cleon with 5,000 slaves, and
soon mustered 10,000 men. Four praetors (according to Florus) were
defeated; the number of the rebels rapidly increased to 200,000; and
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