The King of Sicily

When they arrested the King, he was hiding in a cave with only his barber, his jester, and the man who rubbed him in the bath.

Sicily was the first overseas province acquired by Rome after the Carthaginian wars ended in 241 BC.?

The island was the gem of the Mediterranean; its fertile land produced an endless bounty of harvest.

When the Romans took control, they began importing slaves by the hundreds of thousands to farm the land.

Despite the wealth created by the islands’ harvest, the slaves of Sicily endured some of the harshest conditions in the Roman Empire.?

They were mercilessly beaten and often starved to the brink of death.

But the inhabiting Romans lived well. Luxurious banquets and parties were the norm, and visitors would be treated to feasts and games of entertainment.?

One slave, Eunus, of Syrian descent, gained a reputation for his entertaining party tricks. He was a fire-breather and sleight-of-hand magician and wrote satirical songs to entertain his Roman masters.?

He went as far as to write humorous poetry about how one day he would rise up and take control of the island. His masters found him amusing and harmless.

But if the Romans saw Eunus as an entertainer, to the slaves, he became much more.

Eunus claimed that his talents were gifts from the gods, with whom he spoke regularly. He had a divine connection.

So when a group of slaves banded together and plotted an attack against their masters, it was the “Prophet Eunus” who they asked for council.?

Eunus assured them that under his command, the gods favoured their quest. An army of slaves was raised, and an attack on the city of Enna ensued.?

Overwhelmed by the sheer number of slave rebels, the city fell.

Eunus, fulfilling his vision, abandoned his humour and rounded up all of the Roman citizens. He separated the skilled blacksmiths and put everyone else to death.

He donned an emerald-encrusted diadem and proclaimed himself King Antiochus of Sicily.

Word of the Enna uprising spread through the island and inspired similar revolts. Within the year, nearly 200,000 slaves had joined the fight, and the island of Sicily was overthrown.

Any surviving Romans fled back to mainland Italy.?

King Antiochus became known as the Prophet King, who, through divine intervention, had united an army of slaves and overthrown the greatest military power in the world.

A legend, in every sense.

However, the slaves of the island had fought for their freedom and were not interested in returning to hard labour. With the Roman occupiers dead, no one was left to tend the land.?

Three years after the revolution, the bountiful island had fallen into disrepair.?

For many, this meant a return to living in the squalor familiar to the Roman occupation, only now, with more banditry and unchecked violence. Anarchy reigned.

The King lived well, but for most, it was a fight to survive.?

So when the Roman commander Rupilius was sent to take back the island in 132, he found that all that was needed was a promise of food and leniency, and the slave armies began filing back into Roman control.?

As the rebellion fell apart, King Antiochus fled into the hills with what was left of his followers and hid in a cave until he was found and arrested.

He died in a cell, being consumed by lice, three years after he became king.

I enjoy stories like this because they put the timeless nature of the human journey in perspective.

If I reflect on the recent years of our lives - from 2020 to today, I consider how many monumental events have occurred - and how much the world has changed.

And how important I tend to think it all is.?

That my kids will know, and my grandkids will know, about the significance of this decade.

But no doubt, the rebel soldiers of King Antiochus felt the same way. The world, as it had always been, had changed. God had intervened, and through a living prophet, the global superpower had been overthrown.

The world had changed forever. They knew their story would be remembered and told.?

But how many have heard this story?

How familiar is King Antiochus and his rise to power?

As monumental as he was, he is one of an infinite number who defined their generation and changed the world forever.

Every generation, in every region on earth, “has changed the world forever.”

350 years after the death of the King of Sicily, the most powerful man the world had ever known, Emperor Marcus Aurelius, opened his journal and wrote,

“But look at how soon we are all forgotten. The abyss of endless time that swallows us all. The emptiness of those applauding hands. The people who praise us - how capricious they are, how arbitrary. And the tiny region in which it all takes place.”

And we fall like rain. How liberating that should be.

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