Spartacus

Men Who Defied Rome

• The Gauls' tribal king Vercingetorix -- who was defeated by Caesar,
• Mithridates -- the king of Pontus, in Asia,
• Hannibal -- the Punic War general of the Carthaginians in northern Africa, who roundly defeated the Romans at Cannae, and
• Spartacus the gladiator

were leaders who stood up to Rome, defiantly and with initial success, and who therefore won for themselves prominent places in the annals of Roman history of the Republican period.

Roman Generals Otherwise Engaged

In 74 B.C., Nicomedes IV King of Bithynia, in Asia, died, bequeathing his country to Rome. To take control of the inheritance, the two Roman consuls, Lucius Licinius Lucullus and M. Aurelius Cotta went to Asia. Mithridates, who had been a thorn in Rome's side for more than thirty years, was apprehensive about the growing Roman presence. He attacked Bithynia where Cotta was stationed, but the other consul, Lucullus, cut off Mithridates' supplies and achieved a major victory without battle. While Lucullus was maintaining Roman power in the East, there was only one competent military leader left in Rome, Crassus. There would have been two, but Pompey was in Spain.

The Slaves Revolt

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 Mt. Vesuvius in Campania. 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.

In the streets they found wagons of gladiatorial weapons and confiscated them. When soldiers tried to stop the band of escaped slaves, the band used their accustomed gladiatorial weapons, easily defeating the soldiers. Then they took the better, military weapons of the beaten soldiers, and set out on their way south to Mt. Vesuvius. Along their route, they picked up rural slaves.

The Praetors Fail

Little realizing how well Spartacus had organized his band of slaves, the praetors made an inadequate attempt to end the revolt. Clodius besieged the Spartacans on a mountain, which had only one narrow path to the top. The rest of the mountain was steep and slippery.

As it turned out, the slippery surface didn't matter to Spartacus. Ample vines on the mountaintop provided suitable material for ropes, which they used to climb down and surprise the Romans. Instead of the Romans putting an end to the slave revolt, the slaves took the Roman camp.

Then the slaves headed towards the Alps, picking up a total of 70,000 slaves along the way. Spartacus intended for his men to disband and head to their pre-slave homes after a quick march to the Alps. He had shown remarkable skill in creating a force capable of defeating Roman legions, but he didn't have what he needed to be a great leader of his men. Many of his men preferred to pillage the countryside. Now the Senate in Rome had to take the slave revolt seriously.

Continues with Crassus ...

[Mosaic of gladiators courtesy of Irene Hahn]

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