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LEADERS OF SLAVE REVOLTS AS LATRONES
longed to be one. The former threatened to challenge the latter’s claim to
victory. 95 The war against Spartacus and his runaway slaves thus became a
matter of honour for Romans in general 96 and for Crassus in particular.
Under such pressure Crassus took desperate measures to bring his troops to
order. He even resorted to the most savage of military punishments: decimation,
97 a punishment apparently invoked more frequently in the war against
servi and latrones than in any other. Although it was otherwise rarely carried
out, it makes it all the more remarkable that it was applied in yet another
conflict with latrones: we have evidence that the Roman high command
ordered its use in the war against Tacfarinas. 98
As noted, Spartacus warned his men against a pitched battle with Crassus’
legions. In the end, once this could not be avoided, the downfall of the slave
army was sealed. Spartacus would not have been a true latro had he not
fought to the bitter end, taking up his position in the front line while the
majority of those still alive had given up and fled. 99 In this, too, he demonstrated
the superior qualities of the ideal commander. Even Florus, who
otherwise presents a consistently negative picture of the man, could not
fail to respect the way in which Spartacus met his end: ‘Spartacus himself
fell, as became a general, fighting most bravely in the front rank.’ 100
Death in battle was the honourable end of every fighter, but in particular of
every latro. Latrones generally found themselves vying with each other for an
end that was, if not victorious, then at least distinguished, and Spartacus
was the superior of them all. In the hero’s death we can see a further
constant of the Roman perception of the latro which, of course, in reality was
no more than a projection of Roman ideals on the construct of the bandit
figure.
7 Selourus, son of Etna
Selourus, who terrorised eastern Sicily under the Second Triumvirate, is that
rare creature – an authentic robber chief. 101 The preservation of his name
indicates that he created great sensation. After he fell into the hands of the
Roman authorities, they wreaked upon him a (literally) spectacular execution,
the details of which will be considered below. For the moment, suffice
it to say that the extraordinary cruelty with which this was carried out is
understandable only as the result of a traumatic dread of banditry.
This is the justification for dealing with the end of Selourus here, in the
context of leaders of slave revolts. Clearly, Roman officials saw in the bandit
a potential fomenter of slave unrest whose arrest had, in the nick of time,
prevented a new slave war in Sicily. The Roman land-owning class had
learned nothing from the Sicilian insurrections and the war with Spartacus. 102
The danger of a new slave war receded only during the Principate, with the
falling-off in availability of large numbers of prisoners-of-war and a gradual
change in the structure of agriculture which led to more and more land being
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