t form of slave-husbandry. Although
in Etruria, where the plantation-system seems to have first emerged
in Italy, and where it existed most extensively at least forty years
afterwards, it is extremely probable that even now -ergastula- were
not wanting; yet Italian agriculture at this epoch was still chiefly
carried on by free persons or at any rate by non-fettered slaves,
while the greater tasks were frequently let out to contractors.
The difference between Italian and Sicilian slavery is very clearly
apparent from the fact, that the slaves of the Mamertine community,
which lived after the Italian fashion, were the only slaves who did
not take part in the Sicilian servile revolt of 619-622.

The abyss of misery and woe, which opens before our eyes in this most
miserable of all proletariates, may be fathomed by those who venture
to gaze into such depths; it is very possible that, compared with the
sufferings of the Roman slaves, the sum of all Negro sufferings is but
a drop. Here we are not so much concerned with the hardships of the
slaves themselves as with the perils which they brought upon the Roman
state, and with the conduct of the government in confronting them.
It is plain that this proletariate was not called into existence by
the government and could not be directly set aside by it; this could
only have been accomplished by remedies which would have been still
worse than the disease. The duty of the government was simply, on
the one hand, to avert the direct danger to property and life, with
which the slave-proletariate threatened the members of the state,
by an earnest system of police for securing order; and on the other
hand, to aim at the restriction of the proletariate, as far as possible,
by the elevation of free labour. Let us see how the Roman aristocracy
executed these two tasks.

Insurrection of the Slaves
The First Sicilian Slave War

The servile conspiracies and servile wars, breaking out everywhere,
illustrate their management as respects police. In Italy the scenes
of disorder, which were among the immediate painful consequences of
the Hannibalic war,(13) seemed now to be renewed; all at once the
Romans were obliged to seize and execute in the capital 150, in
Minturnae 450, in Sinuessa even 4000 slaves (621). Still worse,
as may be conceived, was the state of the provinces. At the great
slave-market at Delos and in the Attic silver-mines about the same
period the revolted slaves had to