The Second Servile War was an unsuccessful slave uprising against the Roman Republic on the island of Sicily. The war lasted from 104 BC until 100 BC. Background The Consul Gaius Marius was recruiting soldiers for the war against the Cimbri and Teutones in the North. He requested support from King Nicomedes III of Bithynia near the Roman province of Asia, and was refused, on the grounds that every able-bodied man in Bithynia had been enslaved by Roman tax-gatherers for being unable to pay their dues. The Senate replied by issuing orders that no slaves were to be taken from among allies of Rome, and that all such slaves should be immediately freed. The propraetor Publius Licinius Nerva, in obedience to the edict, at once freed around 800 slaves in his province of Sicily; aside from awakening discontent among slaves from other nationalities who were not freed, this had the effect of alienating the rich Sicilian plantation owners who saw their human chattel unceremoniously being taken out of their hands. Alarmed, Nerva revoked the sentence of manumission (the freeing of the slaves), which provoked the slave population into revolt. Salvius Tryphon Nerva failed to react decisively; by false promises he was able to return one body of the rebels to slavery, while neglecting to address a more serious outbreak near Heraclea. Eventually, Nerva dispatched a detachment of 600 soldiers to take care of the rebels near Heraclea but they were beaten and slaughtered; the slaves now gained confidence, having won a large supply of armaments and a strong leader, a former slave called Salvius. Taking the previous slave-leader Eunus for his example, who had proclaimed himself an Antiochus of the Seleucid line, he assumed the name Tryphon, from Diodotus Tryphon, a Seleucid ruler. After his victory, Salvius besieged the city of Morgantia. Nerva now marched against him with Sicily's militia but he was also defeated. The slaves then managed to take the city. After Morgantia, Salvius' slave army swelled to 2,000 horsemen and 20,000 foot. Meanwhile, another revolt had broken out in western Sicily; there Athenion, a Cilician slave with a career analogous to Cleon's, rose in revolt. He marched his slave army to join with Salvius upon hearing of the Morgantia victory. Lucullus In 103 BC the Senate sent the praetor Lucius Licinius Lucullus, who had just put down a revolt in Campania (the Vettian Revolt), to quell the