A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

6. P.LiciniusNerva, in B. C. 103, was propraetor in Sicily at the time when the second Servile War broke out. The senate had made a decree that no free person of those nations which had alliance and friendship with Rome should be enslaved, and it was alleged that the Publicani had seized and sold many as slaves, probably because they did not pay the taxes. Nerva published an edict that all persons in Sicily who were entitled to the benefit of the decree should come to Syracuse to make out their case. Above eight hundred persons thus recovered their freedom, but those who held persons in slavery, fearing that the matter would go further, prevailed on Nerva not to allow any further claims of freedom to be made, to which he assented, and a rising of the slaves was the consequence. This war lasted four years, and was ended by the proconsul Aquillius. The history of this rising is told circumstantially by Diodorus (xxxvi.; Excerpts by Photius, Phot. Bibl. 244). The praetor by treachery gained some advantage over the slaves, and the Roman troops after this success retired to their quarters. But the disturbance soon broke out, and it assumed the form of a regular war under Athenion. L. Licinius Lucullus, the father of Lucullus, the vanquisher of Mithridates,

was sent in B. C. 102 to succeed Nerva in the government of Sicily.