Spartacus: Rome’s Greatest Slave

In the hot summer of 73 BCE, a group of gladiators escaped from a gladiator school in Kapawa. About 200 of them were planning a peaceful escape, but when their plot was exposed, they used kitchen tools to fight their way out, seizing gladiatorial armor and weapons on their way. They escaped to the countryside, becoming fugitives. These gladiators succeeded in defeating a small group of militia from Kapawa sent to recapture them. They took weapons and armor from this victory, further equipping their growing army. The slaves plundered the region surrounding Kapawa, recruited hundreds of slaves into their group, and retired to a defensive position on Mount Vesuvius. By the end of the winter, a group of fugitive slaves had wreaked havoc on the Roman countryside, and were entrenched in a defensive position overlooking Kapawa. This was dangerous. Rising to prominence within this group of slaves was a specific gladiator. He was a bit older and more experienced with fighting as well as leadership. He quickly became one of the leaders of this rising revolt. His name was Spartacus. Rewind. Who was Spartacus, and how did he come to be the leader of this revolt? Spartacus was likely born somewhere in modern Bulgaria around the year 110 BCE. During this period, the region that would become Bulgaria was called Thrace, and was inhabited by a variety of independent tribes. Spartacus was born to one of these tribes in a chaotic, disunited region. The ancient sources tell us that he served as a Roman soldier for some years, but deserted for some reason and was enslaved as a punishment. Because he was a strong and athletic man, he was chosen from the ranks of other slaves to become a gladiator, and train in a gladiatorial school. Spartacus had already served and trained for some years by the time he and his comrades began planning their escape from the gladiatorial school in the summer of 73. Rome had previously experienced two major slave revolts, both on the island of Sicily. They had both been put down with devastating force and violence. Rome was a society based on slave labor, and like all slave societies, the Romans feared the potential threat of their slaves. They would surely put everything they had into putting down this new revolt as well. In the fall, the Romans sent another army to deal with Spartacus's growing army. Escaped slaves were flocking to his banner, and things were looking more urgent. However, the Romans still did not take the revolt as seriously as they should have. Although the army was led by a praetor, a high Roman official, it was composed of about 3,000 hastily assembled local militia. The Roman praetor assembled his army at the foot of Vesuvius, blocking the only path down the volcano. His assumption was that the slaves had no choice but to starve and eventually surrender. However, he underestimated the slaves' ingenuity. Spartacus's men used vines and rope to rappel down the sheer cliff faces on the opposite side of the volcano. They then snuck behind the Roman army at night, ambushed the Romans, and annihilated them. A second praetorian army, equally unprepared for the slaves, was sent to deal with the revolt. However, by this point, the slave army was too large and well-equipped. The Romans were defeated in a simple pitch battle, the commander of the Roman army was killed, and Roman equipment was taken by the slaves. The Romans spent the winter of 7372 BCE preparing for their next encounters. Reportedly, their ranks swelled to tens of thousands. Spartacus instituted an ingenious training scheme. The original gladiators and others with fighting experience would teach small groups the basics of fighting, and then those trainees would go do the same with their own small groups. Combined with group exercises, this training scheme allowed the entire slave army to become comfortable with handling weapons and fighting within a single winter. Their journey to assemble a larger army also took them from their starting point at Capua to the very south of Italy. As soon as spring came in the year 72, the slaves abandoned their camps and began making their way north. As they did this, they split into two groups. One was led by Spartacus, and the other was led by a different slave general, Crixus. Unfortunately for Crixus' army, it was confronted by a Roman army, led by a consul, Lucius Gellius. This was a full legion trained for war and pitch battle. Crixus' 30,000 slaves were brutally defeated. Two-thirds of the slaves died, including Crixus, and the other third were brutally crucified as an example to the slaves still in revolt. Spartacus was not willing to simply give up, however. He faced down the other consul, Lentulus' legion, and soundly defeated it in a battle. He also turned around on his march north, fought Gellius' legion, and defeated it as well. Spartacus ordered the crucifixion of some Roman soldiers in response to the Roman treatment of captured slaves. At this point, the Romans were fearful that the slaves, now perhaps over 100,000 strong, would come to the city of Rome itself and wreak havoc. But Spartacus had no interest in this. He pushed his followers north as fast as they could march. Even burning supplies speed up the journey. By the end of 72, the slaves were in northern Italy. Spartacus faced one final Roman army, the two legions of Cisalpine Gaul. They too were defeated and scattered by the now overwhelming slave force. At this point, Spartacus had a choice. He was standing at the Roman border, and beyond him lay freedom. Most of his slaves had come from across the frontier, and this was their chance to escape Roman authority forever. Maybe they could even make it home. But Spartacus decided against it for reasons we don't know or understand. Instead, he ordered the army to turn around and continue looting the Italian peninsula. By the winter of 72, they were once again entrenched in central Italy. As 71 began, Rome truly recognized the threat of this slave army. They sent Marcus Licinius Crassus, a praetor and an experienced military commander, in command of an army of 30 to 50,000 legionaries. He engaged Spartacus' army several times throughout the year 71, enjoying a great deal of success and killing thousands of slaves. Spartacus was forced to Eventually, he found himself on the coast of Italy. Spartacus' new plan was to sail to Sicily, where the first two Servile Wars had broken out, and incite more rebellions. However, the pirates he had paid to sail him over just took his money and ran, leaving him with no choice but to turn and face Crassus' pursuing army. Crassus was eager to end the war for political reasons. His rival, Pompey, was returning from Spain after having put down another rebellion, and he was approaching with his legions. Crassus feared that he would take his glory, so he forced an engagement with the slave army. At the Solaris River, Spartacus and his army fought their last stand. After months of flight, failure, and loss of coherence, they were not in good shape. But they fought to the end, and they fought well. When push came to shove, the trained Roman legions were superior, and they mauled the slave army. Spartacus reportedly died on the battlefield, though his body was never found. In the aftermath of the battle, Pompey defeated a straggling group of escaped slaves, and he came to claim equal glory alongside Crassus for the victory, despite the fact that Crassus had won the major battle. Crassus himself took 6,000 living prisoners and crucified them along a major highway, allowing them to die painfully and rot on the side of the road. All people passing by for the next months would see this, and know that rebellion against Rome could bring only death and terror. This is the conventional narrative, but as usual, there are some problems. Our two main sources on Spartacus and his war, Appian and Plutarch, give us conflicting accounts of the events. Both of them write about battles and maneuvers that the other makes no mention of. This is suspicious, and it gives lie to their overall tellings of the war and its nature. Secondly, the revolt may not have been merely a slave revolt. The Roman Republic didn't give its subjects a fair chance in life, really, and slaves were far from the only group in the late Republic who were disenfranchised and ready to pursue their goals with violence. Many citizens of the Italian cities still had grudges against Roman authority from the Social War a decade and a half before. Thousands of military veterans were living in poverty, still waiting on their promised pensions and grants from the state. Poor farmers, shepherds, and herdsmen were seeing their lands gobbled up by greedy Roman landlords who owned massive plantations. While slaves and farmers and Italian citizens rarely had common interests, this revolt seems to have been one of the cases where they might have been. Appian even tells us that freemen from the fields joined Spartacus. If we accept this, Spartacus' war was not a mere slave revolt, but instead a broader revolutionary movement and civil war led primarily by the lower classes of Rome. The accounts we do have from ancient sources may be partially or entirely propaganda, judging from the inconsistencies in event telling. Spartacus was a modest man. He never presented himself as a king, or even a general, really. His dress remained plain and simple even as his stature became grand. And he was no coward. He died as a true general and warrior should, fighting a hopeless last stand on the front lines. The fact that his body was never found shows that he never tried to make himself any greater than his common soldiers. He was just like all of them. He wanted to be free.