The Revolt Of The Gladiators
At the beginning of the first Punic War, or war with Carthage, a new
form of entertainment was introduced into Rome. This was the
gladiatorial show, the fights of armed men in the arena, the first of
which was given in the year 264 B.C., at the funeral of D. Junius
Brutus. These exhibitions were long confined to funeral occasions, money
being frequently left for this purpose in wills, but they gradually
extended to oth
r occasions, and finally became the choice amusement of
the brutal Roman mob. The gladiators were divided into several classes,
in accordance with their particular weapons and modes of fighting, and
great pains were taken to instruct them in the use of their special
arms. But in the period that followed the death of Sulla Rome was to
have a gladiatorial exhibition of a different sort.
In the city of Capua was a school of gladiators, kept by a man named
Lentulus. It was his practice to hire out his trained pupils to nobles
for battles in the arena during public festivals. His school was a large
one, and included in its numbers a Thracian named Spartacus, who had
been taken prisoner while leading his countrymen against the Romans, and
was to be punished for his presumption by making sport for his
conquerors.
But Spartacus had other and nobler aims. He formed a plot of flight to
freedom in which two hundred of his fellows joined, though only
seventy-eight succeeded in making their escape. These men, armed merely
with the knives and spits which they had seized as they fled, made their
way to the neighboring mountains, and sought a refuge in the crater of
Mount Vesuvius. It must be borne in mind that this mountain, in that
year of 73 B.C., was silent and seemingly extinct, though before another
century passed it was to awake to vital activity. It was only biding its
time in slumber.
It was better to die on the open field than in the amphitheatre, argued
Spartacus, and his followers agreed with him. Their position in the
crater was a strong one, and the news of their revolt soon brought them
a multitude of allies,--slaves and outlaws of every kind. These
Spartacus organized and drilled, supplying them with officers from the
gladiators, mostly old soldiers, and placing them under rigid
discipline. It was liberty he wanted, not rapine, and he did his utmost
to restrain his lawless followers from acts of violence.
Pompey, the chief Roman general of that day, was then absent in Spain,
fighting with a remnant of the Marian forces. Two Roman praetors led
their forces against the gladiators, but were driven back with loss, and
the army of Spartacus swelled day by day. The wild herdsmen of Apulia
joined him in large numbers. They were slaves to their lords, whom they
hated bitterly, and here was an opening for freedom and revenge.
It was soon evident that Rome had on its hands the greatest and most
dangerous of its servile wars. Spartacus was brave and prudent, and
possessed the qualities of an able leader. Unfortunately for him, he led
an unmanageable host. In the next year both the consuls took the field
against him. By this time his army had swelled to more than one hundred
thousand men, and with these he pushed his way northward through the
passes of the Apennines. But now insubordination appeared. Crixus, one
of his lieutenants, ambitious of independent command, led off a large
division of the army, chiefly Germans. He was quickly punished for his
temerity, being surprised and slain with the whole of his force.
Spartacus, wise enough to know that he could not long hold out against
the whole power of Rome, kept on northward, hoping to pass the Alps and
find a place of refuge remote from the stronghold of his foes. Both the
consuls attacked him in his march, and both were defeated, while he
retaliated on Rome by forcing his prisoners to fight as gladiators in
memory of the slain Crixus.
Reaching the provinces of the north, his diminished force was repulsed
by Crassus, one of the richest men of Rome, who had taken the field as
praetor. Spartacus would still have fought his way towards the Alps but
for his followers, whose impatient thirst for rapine forced him to march
southward again.
Every Roman force that assailed him on this march was hurled back in
defeat. He even meditated an attack on Rome itself, but relinquished
this plan as too desperate, and instead employed his men in collecting
arms and treasure from the cities of central and southern Italy.
Discipline was almost at an end. The wild horde of slaves and outlaws
were beyond any strict military control. So great and general were their
ravages that in a later day the poet Horace promised his friend a jar of
wine made in the Social War, "if he could find one that had escaped the
ravages of roaming Spartacus."
In the year 71 B.C. the most vigorous efforts were made to put down this
dangerous revolt. Pompey was still in Spain. The only man at home of any
military reputation was the praetor Crassus, who had amassed an enormous
fortune by buying up property at famine prices during the Proscription
of Sulla, and in speculative measures since.
He was given full command, took the field with a large army, restored
discipline to the beaten bands of the consuls by cruel and rigorous
measures, and assailed Spartacus in Calabria, where he was seeking to
rekindle the Servile War, or slave outbreak, in Sicily. He had even
engaged with pirate captains to transport a part of his force to Sicily,
but the freebooters took the money and sailed away without the men.
And now began a struggle for life and death. Spartacus was in the
narrowest part of the foot of Southern Italy. Crassus determined to keep
him there by building strong lines of intrenchment across the neck of
land. Spartacus attacked his works twice in one day, but each time was
repulsed with great slaughter. But he defended himself vigorously.
Pompey was now returning from Spain. Crassus, not caring to be robbed of
the results of his labors, determined to assault Spartacus in his camp.
But before he could do so the daring gladiator attacked his lines again,
forced his way through, and marched for Brundusium, where he hoped to
find ships that would convey him and his men from Italy.
As it happened, a large body of Roman veterans, returning from
Macedonia, had just reached Brundusium, and undertook its defence.
Foiled in his purpose, Spartacus turned upon the pursuing army of
Crassus, like a wolf at bay, and attacked it with the energy of
desperation. The battle that ensued was contested with the fiercest
courage. Spartacus and his men were fighting for their lives, and the
result continued doubtful till the brave gladiator was wounded in the
thigh by a javelin. Falling on his knee, he fought with the courage of a
hero until, overpowered by numbers, he fell dead.
His death decided the conflict. Most of his followers were slain on the
field. A strong body escaped to the mountains, but these were pursued,
and many fell. Five thousand of them made their way to the north of
Italy, where they were met by Pompey, on his return from Spain, and
slaughtered to a man.
Crassus took six thousand prisoners, and these he disposed of in the
cruel Roman way of dealing with revolted slaves, hanging or crucifying
the whole of them along the road between Rome and Capua.
Thus ended far the most important outbreak of Roman gladiators and
slaves. The south of Italy suffered horribly from its ravages, but not
through any act of Spartacus, who throughout showed a moderation equal
to his courage and military ability. Had it not been for the lawless
character of his followers his career might have had a very different
ending, for he had shown himself a commander of rare ability and
unconquerable courage.