They had no reason to be content with the present state of
things. It is probable that there were also a good many landless
poor, though the numbers of the free population can hardly have
been as great as they had been in better days. For the Cartha-
ginian plantation-system of agriculture was now extended all over
the island. Money was drained away. The great cities had never
recovered their old prosperity. Some had been destroyed utterly;
others were shrunken, as Syracuse and Agrigentum.

313. It was at Enna, a strong hill-town in the middle of
Sicily, that the first outbreak occurred. Some slaves rose, mas-
sacred wealthy masters, and seized the town. They were mostly
patient orientals from Syria, only roused to vengeance by great
brutality. Eunus their ringleader was a Syrian, skilled in divina-
tion and jugglery. Him they made their king, and he set up a
court of the oriental pattern. The rustic slaves rose in thousands.
Small Roman forces were routed, and the arms captured were
added to those seized or made at Enna. A second rising took
place in the West, and the two chiefs did not fall out, but com-
bined. In a short time a great army was formed, which is said
to have reached a total of 200,000 able-bodied men. The leaders
checked devastation, with a view to supplies. In 134 the consul
C. Fulvius Flaccus seems to have been unable to retrieve the pre-
ceding defeats. The rebels held most of the island. In 133 Piso
(the author of the Calpurnian law) made some progress, and left
to his successor an army in better heart. In 132 P. Rupilius was
able to capture the strongholds of the slave-power. Enna fell,
rebel bands were hunted down. Those taken alive were tortured
or crucified. A commission under Rupilius reorganized the pro-
vince by a fresh charter (lex Rupilia). New slaves took the places
of the old, and things went on as before.

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