Cleon (died 132 BC) was an enslaved

Cilicia Cilicia (); el, Κιλικία, ''Kilikía''; Middle Persian: ''klkyʾy'' (''Klikiyā''); Parthian language, Parthian: ''kylkyʾ'' (''Kilikiyā''); tr, Kilikya). is a geographical region in southern Anatolia in Turkey, extending inland from th ...

n who became a general in the slave rebellion led by

Eunus Eunus (died 132 BC) was a Roman slave from Apamea in Syria who became the leader of the slave uprising in the First Servile War (135 BC–132 BC) in the Roman province of Sicily. Eunus rose to prominence in the movement through his reputation ...

during the

First Servile War The First Servile War of 135–132 BC was a slave rebellion against the Roman Republic, which took place in Sicily. The revolt started in 135 when Eunus, a slave from Syria who claimed to be a prophet, captured the city of Enna in the middle ...

. He was killed in 132 BC in Sicily. Cleon was taken captive from Cilicia (modern-day Turkey) and enslaved by Romans in Sicily. He met the slave Eunus and became his general when Eunus began his rebellion in 135 BC. In his early success, Eunus declared himself as Antiochus. The large uprising of slaves, estimated by

Titus Livius Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional founding in ...

and

Orosius Paulus Orosius (; born 375/385 – 420 AD), less often Paul Orosius in English, was a Western Roman Empire, Roman priest, historian and theology, theologian, and a student of Augustine of Hippo. It is possible that he was born in ''Bracara Au ...

to number 70,000, was defeated by Roman forces in 132 BC.''The

Periochae The work called ( en, From the Founding of the City), sometimes referred to as (''Books from the Founding of the City''), is a monumental history of ancient Rome, written in Latin between 27 and 9 BC by Livy, a Roman historian. The wo ...

'' and ''Orosius,'' quoted by

Brent D. Shaw Brent Donald Shaw (born May 27, 1947) is a Canadian historian and the current Andrew Fleming West Professor of Classics at Princeton University. His principal contributions center on the regional history of the Roman world with special emphasis o ...

, ''Spartacus and the Slave Wars'', pp. 95 and 97.

References

132 BC deaths Rebel slaves in ancient Rome Year of birth unknown {{AncientRome-bio-stub