Scariest generals of antiquity

01

Spartacus

A slave who nearly broke Rome crucified 6,000 captured soldiers along 132 miles of the Appian Way — one body per telephone-pole interval. His own body was never found.

02

Decebalus

The last Dacian king slit his own throat on horseback as Roman cavalry reached him — the moment was carved in stone on Trajan's Column, his severed head then paraded to Rome.

03

Mithridates VI Eupator

On a single morning in 88 BC, Mithridates' agents killed 80,000 Romans across Asia Minor — a pre-arranged signal to local populations who had been hiding the order for weeks.

04

Tissaphernes

The Persian satrap Tissaphernes invited the Greek generals of the Ten Thousand to a peace feast in 401 BC, then seized and beheaded each one — leaving 10,000 soldiers leaderless in the Persian heartland.

05

Hamilcar Barca

Hamilcar Barca made his nine-year-old son Hannibal swear eternal war on Rome over a sacrificial animal's bleeding entrails — then spent the rest of his life building Spain into a weapon for that oath.

06

Brennus (leader of the Senones)

After sacking Rome in 390 BC — the only time the city fell for eight centuries — Brennus tossed his sword onto the ransom scales and sneered 'Vae victis': woe to the conquered.

07

Cassander

Cassander starved Alexander's mother Olympias to death in a sealed tomb, then had her son and Alexander's own son executed — methodically erasing the bloodline. He reportedly never met Alexander's eyes willingly.

08

Pyrrhus of Epirus

The greatest tactical mind of his era — a man who beat Rome repeatedly — was killed by a clay roof tile hurled by an anonymous old woman from a balcony in Argos. He was 46.

09

Agathocles of Syracuse

Besieged in Syracuse, Agathocles loaded 14,000 men onto ships and invaded Carthage directly — turning his own siege inside out. He reputedly drank from enemy skulls and rose from a potter's wheel to a throne.

10

Bagradas River, Battle of the

In 255 BC, a Roman army in North Africa was routed by a single serpent — its hide, sent to Rome, measured 120 Roman feet. The army burned it out with ballistae and catapults.