Note 300 — Chapter IV · AGRICULTURAL TRIBES.

Such was the course of evolution in ancient Rome. In the old times the slaves were not allowed to fight. “For entering the military service or taking on him any state office, a slave was punished with death”300. But later on a change took place. Speaking of the last days of the republic, Ingram remarks: “In the subsequent civil conflicts the aid of slaves was sought by both parties, even by Marius himself, and afterwards by Catiline, though he finally rejected their services. Clodius and Milo employed bands of gladiators in their city riots, and this action on the part of the latter was approved by Cicero. In the First Civil War they were to be found in both camps, and the murderers of Caesar, those soi-disant vindicators of liberty, were escorted to the Capitol by gladiators. Antony, Octavius, and Sextus Pompeius employed them in the Second Civil War”301. But the slaves soon began to take arms against those who had taught them to fight. “It is recorded by Augustus on the Monumentum Ancyranum that he gave back to their masters for punishment about 30,000 slaves who had absconded and borne arms against the state. Under Tiberius, at the death of Caligula, and in the reign of Nero, there were threatening movements of the slaves. Nor did the danger of servile insurrection disappear in the later stages of the Empire. The armies of the invading Goths were swelled by their countrymen who had been captured or bought by Romans. The slaves of Gaul almost en masse took part in the revolt of the Bagaudae, and forty thousand slaves joined Alaric at the siege of Rome”302.