Reading path · 6 stops

Rebels against Empire

Six risings against the greatest powers of their age.

Every empire in this collection was defied by someone who refused its terms. This path follows six of them, enslaved and royal, doomed and triumphant, and asks what their revolts changed, whether they won or lost.

Suits the Chronicler · the Strategist

  1. 1 · Encyclopedia · Person · d. 71 BCESpartacusThe gladiator whose army of the enslaved shook Rome for two years.
  2. 2 · Encyclopedia · Person · c. 82–46 BCEVercingetorixThe chief who united Gaul against Caesar, and paid for it in a Roman triumph.
  3. 3 · Encyclopedia · PersonArminiusThe Roman-trained officer who annihilated three legions and fixed the empire's frontier at the Rhine.
  4. 4 · Encyclopedia · Person · d. 60 or 61BoudicaThe queen whose revolt burned three Roman towns before it broke.
  5. 5 · Encyclopedia · Person · 1738–1781Túpac Amaru IIThe Andean rising of 1780 that shook Spanish Peru to its foundations.
  6. 6 · Encyclopedia · PersonToussaint LouvertureThe general of the enslaved who defeated three empires and made Haiti possible.

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