Spartacus had been born in Thrace and received training in a Roman army, probably as an auxiliary, before becoming a slave. He was sold, in 73 B.C., into the service of Lentulus Batiates, a man who taught at a ludus for gladiators in Capua, twenty miles from Vesuivus. That same year Spartacus and two Gallic gladiators led a riot at the school. Of about two hundred gladiator slaves less than eighty escaped using kitchen tools as weapons.
Spartacus