First Slave Rebellion Essay

Slave revolts always emerge as a result of mistreatment, freedom deprivation, lack of equality etc. Based on the reading of the surviving summaries of Diodorus I believe the main reason that leads to the outbreak of the first slave rebellion in Sicily during the 130s was the maltreatment of the masters toward their slaves. As the article mentions “slaves were reduced to the level of wild beasts” (pg.82). They were not seen as regular human beings but as animals that didn’t need to be taken care of. Moreover, many had to turn into bandits and as a result, every place in Sicily was filled with delinquency. One example of such abuses was Megallis and her husband who mistreated their slaves, competing among themselves to see who was the bloodiest. As expected, these

Every time a rebellion is plotted, the rebels have to face difficulties. In the case of the Sicilian slave wars, they had to face the uncertainty of whether it was a good time to rebel or not and if they were going to be victorious or not. To get clarity about this they always managed to find someone who could foreshadow the future. Additionally, they had to gather together to synchronize themselves on what to do and how to do it. In order to have a successful rebellion, a high level of coordination and intelligence is require because one thing is to say we are going to rebel and the other is actually doing it effectively. Once they were able to start the rebellion, they had to mobilize enough people to fight without being outnumbered. It is important to keep in mind that once the rebellions occurred, many Romans and masters of the slaves began to plan how to cease the rebellions as well. Therefore, being able to get enough rebels to fight together was essential to sustain the uprising for a longer period of time. Their ability to surpass the Roma soldiers in numbers was an important contributor to how long the revolts