When Jason traveled to a distant land in search of the Golden Fleece, he received help from the princess Medea and used a ball of thread to solve the labyrinth.
Yet in Sicily under Ancient Roman rule, not everyone could even afford clothes, especially the slaves. This was due to the low productivity of the slave system.
As slave owners, they were supposed to provide slaves with food, drink, and clothing, all of which naturally counted as estate expenses. But the slave owners of Sicily had "found another way." According to Diodorus's records, there was an estate owner in Enna, Sicily, named Damophilus. He and his wife Galida were cruel beyond shame. Not only did they refuse to provide their slaves with the bare minimum of food and clothing, they even drove them out to rob passing travelers, demanding half of whatever they stole.
Yet the couple had a kind-hearted daughter. She often sheltered the slaves and protected them from her parents' punishments. Then one day, several naked slaves who had truly failed to steal anything went to Damophilus and demanded clothing. Damophilus replied, "Do merchants travel through Sicily naked? Do they not provide ready supplies for those lacking clothes?"
He then tied the slaves to pillars and gave them a savage beating. The slaves could no longer suppress their hatred, and they rose in revolt.
It was the busy summer farming season. The fields were filled with waves of golden wheat. A Syrian slave named Eunus led twenty of the cleverest slaves, hid among the wheat, and made their way to a neighboring pasture. The herding slaves there had long been unable to endure Damophilus either. Soon, all four hundred slaves on Damophilus's rural estate joined the uprising.
There had been scattered revolts before this, especially among Carthaginian slaves.