War, Slavery, and Society in the Ancient World

The significance of military campaigns in the Roman slave supply of the Republic has long been debated with regards to its scale and organization. However, until now, most scholars have focused on aggregate numbers and averages of slaves taken captive per year (Scheidel 2011) and on large but rare transit centers for slaves such as Delos. The scholarly consensus has mostly given preference to large events which are better documented.

In the years between Galerius’ crushing defeat of the Persian king Narses in 298 and the resumption of Sasanian hostility toward the Romans by Shapur II in 338, the latter king made diplomatic overtures to Constantine (Lib. Or. 59.67), perhaps around 324 (Barnes 1985: 132, G. Fowden 1994: 148). The emperor’s response is recorded by Eusebius (VC 4.9-13), who claimed to be translating into Greek a letter handwritten in Latin by Constantine himself.

My paper explores how Roman legionary insignia were altered or eliminated by Roman emperors during the Principate as a way of addressing severe military disgraces and defeat. In the first century CE, as Augustus and his successors transformed the army from a conscripted militia to a permanent, professional force under their own authority, the legions were granted their own specific insignia, including numerical designations, emblems, and epithets.

In this paper, I argue that Diodorus Siculus uses theater to frame the Sicilian slave revolts of 135 and 104 BCE, characterizing them as a broken fourth wall. Diodorus tells us that before Spartacus, the Sicilian slave revolts were the biggest in the Roman world, their leaders charismatic slaves who styled themselves after Seleucid royalty. His account presents a rare opportunity to explore how an ancient author approached the paradox of the slave king.

The Pirate Connection: Rome’s Servile Wars and Eastern Campaigns

The battle of Oenoe is a notoriously intractable problem for the history of the Pentecontaetia. Pausanias is our only source. He identifies a painting of the Athenians and Spartans on the verge of combat in the Stoa Poikile as a depiction of a battle in Argive Oenoe (1.15.1). Later, he cites the same battle as the occasion for an Argive statue group at Delphi, but here acknowledges the participation of the Argives as well (10.10.4).