{"id":45313,"date":"2018-11-16T12:29:21","date_gmt":"2018-11-16T11:29:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/ciekawostka\/even-slave-in-army\/"},"modified":"2018-11-16T12:30:35","modified_gmt":"2018-11-16T11:30:35","slug":"even-slave-in-army","status":"publish","type":"ciekawostki","link":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/curiosities\/even-slave-in-army\/","title":{"rendered":"Even slave in army"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After the tragic <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/battles\/battle-of-cannae\/\">defeat of the Romans at Cannae<\/a> in 216 BCE <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/roman-geography\/roman-cities\/rome-eternal-city\/\">Rome<\/a> was so deprived of recruits that there were even enlisted slaves to the <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/roman-army\/\">army<\/a>. They were called <em>voluntarii<\/em> or <em>volones<\/em>.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>In a situation when Rome was beginning to be short of free-born men capable of fighting, the Romans had no other choice. <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/curiosities\/apparently-donuts-were-already-loved-by-ancient-romans\/\">Apparently<\/a>, 8.000 young slaves formed a separate unit. They received weapons (from public expenses), and in exchange for service they were promised freedom.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/roman-constitution\/roman-republic\/roman-offices\/roman-consul\/\">Consul<\/a> in 215 BCE &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/biographies\/tiberius\/\">Tiberius<\/a> Gracchus (grandfather of the famous Gracchi brothers) &#8211; took command of the army of slaves. Gracchus apparently showed great gentleness for slaves who tried to use the situation to escape. After one of the victorious <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/battles-of-ancient-rome\/\">battles<\/a>, he liberated some of the slaves in his <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/roman-army\/units-of-roman-army\/roman-legion\/\">legion<\/a>, who nevertheless remained with him. Thanks to his attitude, he earned the respect of soldiers.<\/p>\n<p>In 214 BEC Gracchus became a <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/roman-constitution\/roman-republic\/roman-offices\/proconsul\/\">proconsul<\/a> and still commanded a legion of slaves and a regular army. During this time, he fought in central and southern Italy with Hannibal&#8217;s troops.<\/p>\n<p>Finally in 213 BCE he became consul again and in 212 BCE died in Lucania during a bath. The commander was to die by deception, but <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/article\/hannibal-barcas-great-enemy-of-romans\/\">Hannibal<\/a> arranged for him a proper <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/roman-society\/roman-funeral\/\">funeral<\/a> and returned his ashes to Rome. However, we do not know further fate of slaves in the Roman army.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":36393,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"kategorie_ciekawostek":[77],"class_list":["post-45313","ciekawostki","type-ciekawostki","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","kategorie_ciekawostek-unknown-facts"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ciekawostki\/45313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ciekawostki"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/ciekawostki"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ciekawostki\/45313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"kategorie_ciekawostek","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kategorie_ciekawostek?post=45313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}