Spartacus

Roman rebellion leader

• Born: Late second century b.c.e.
• Birthplace: Thrace (now in Bulgaria)
• Died: 71 b.c.e.
• Place of death: Lucania (now in Italy)

A gladiator of great courage and capacity for leadership, Spartacus was the main leader of the largest and most violent slave insurrection in the history of Roman civilization.

Early Life

There is little reliable information about the early life of Spartacus (SPAHR-tah-kuhs). He grew up in Thrace, then an independent region in which various ethnic tribes were struggling against the imperialistic ambitions of the Roman Republic. For a short period, Spartacus served as a Roman soldier, but he deserted and apparently joined a group of brigands. Captured by the Romans, he was condemned to a life of slavery, a common fate of criminals, prisoners of war, and any rebels who opposed Roman hegemony. A skillful and experienced fighter, Spartacus was purchased by Lentulus Batiates, the owner of a large school of gladiators in the city of Capua, about 130 miles south of Rome on the Appian Way.

In training to become a gladiator (from the Latin word gladius, which means “sword”), Spartacus was entering a profession in which he would be required to fight to the death in either public arenas or private homes. These violent exhibitions had originated at Roman funerals, because many Romans believed that those who died in combat would serve as armed attendants in the afterlife. By the time of Spartacus, gladiatorial shows had long been a popular form of entertainment, and many of the larger contests would feature approximately three hundred pairs of combatants. Only a small minority of Romans expressed any concerns about the way that crowds of thousands enjoyed the savage combats. Even Cicero, a sensitive moral philosopher, believed that the shows were socially useful as long as only convicted criminals killed one another.

Although a few men voluntarily chose to become gladiators for financial reasons, the vast majority, like Spartacus, were forced into the deadly work as a form of punishment. Not surprisingly, the gladiatorial schools had to maintain constant vigilance to prevent rebellion or escape. Plutarch’s Bioi paralleloi (c. 105-115 c.e.; Parallel Lives, 1579) reports that Batiates’ school in Capua had an especially bad reputation for its cruelty. Before Spartacus, there had been sporadic cases of gladiatorial uprisings in southern Italy, and the island of Sicily had experienced two large slave revolts in 136-132 b.c.e. and 104-100 b.c.e.

Life’s Work

In 73 b.c.e. Spartacus, along with two hundred other gladiators, mostly of Thracian and Celtic background, attempted an escape from Batiates’ school, and seventy-eight, including Spartacus, succeeded. Contrary to several historical novels and a popular film, there is no documentary evidence that Spartacus ever had any idealistic vision of abolishing the institutions of slavery or gladiatorial contests. Rather, it appears that his first goal was to regain freedom for himself and his associates and to return to his home in Thrace. The historical sources also suggest that Spartacus had not entirely given up the ways of the brigand and that he wanted to steal as much wealth as he could from the Romans. Although the Romans considered Spartacus as nothing more than a ruthless criminal, Plutarch later described him as “a man not only of high spirit and valiant, but in understanding, also, and in gentleness superior to his condition.”

At first, the fugitives were armed with only kitchen knives, but they had the good fortune of capturing wagons that transported gladiatorial arms. After leaving Capua, the escapees selected Spartacus as their main leader, and they also chose two Gauls, Crixus and Oenomaus, as lieutenant commanders. In desperation, the group sought refuge on Mount Vesuvius, but Roman officials soon learned of their location. One of the praetors, Clodius Glaber, pursued them with a small contingent of well-armed soldiers, and the soldiers soon blockaded the accessible parts of the mountain. The rebels, however, managed to descend a steep cliff by holding onto wild vines, and they were then able to rout the Romans with a surprise attack from the rear. Shortly thereafter, the rebels also defeated small detachments of soldiers commanded by two other praetors, L. Cossinius and Publius Varinius, and Spartacus captured Varinius’s horse. With each victory, the rebels captured valuable weapons that could be used in future confrontations.

As word of the initial successes of the rebellion spread, the rebels were soon joined by numerous slaves and landless laborers from the latifundia (large estates) located in the countryside of southern Italy. Eventually, the rebellion grew into a large army that included between 70,000 and 120,000 men, many accompanied by their wives and children. Plutarch, who is not always reliable in such details, wrote that Spartacus acquired a wife, but Appian, a more critical Roman historian of the second century c.e., did not provide this information.

The rebels bitterly disagreed about the best course of action. Spartacus reportedly recognized that the Romans would soon muster a large army against them and that their wisest decision would be to march north out of Italy and return to their various homelands. Crixus and several others, however, pointed out the financial advantages of plundering the estates of southern Italy, and the majority of the rebels agreed with this second option. During the winter of 73-72, therefore, there was widespread devastation throughout the south.

The Roman senate, faced with insurgents in Itruria and Spain, was slow to realize the seriousness of the slave rebellion, but it finally commissioned the two Roman consuls of that year, Publius Cornelius Lentulus and L. Gellius Publicola, to pursue Spartacus with four legions (about sixteen thousand soldiers). In late 73, the Roman army managed to defeat Crixus’s forces near Mount Garganus. Following the death of Crixus, Spartacus decided to head north according to his original plan; he got as far as Cisalpine Gaul, where he encountered an army led by the proconsul and governor of the region, Cassius Onginus. After Spartacus defeated Cassius’s troops in the Battle of Mutina, he and his horde could have escaped north by way of the Alps but instead decided to head south, probably because the rebels preferred to continue seeking the spoils of plunder. Spartacus defeated the forces of the two consuls in Picenum, and the rebels then faced little opposition as they pillaged the southwestern provinces of Lucania and Bruttium. Spartacus entered into negotiations with some Cilician pirates for transportation to Sicily, a province known for its large numbers of discontented slaves and landless laborers.

In Rome, the senate relieved the two disgraced consuls of their military command, and it conferred Marcus Licinius Crassus with the special command of proconsular imperium. Crassus, who had served as one of Lucius Cornelius Sulla’s commanders, was an extremely wealthy landowner with unbridled ambition. When one of his legates, Mummius, disobeyed orders, Crassus restored order by reviving the punishment of decimation (the execution of every tenth man). Crassus then led ten well-armed legions into Bruttium. Meanwhile, the pirates failed to keep their promise to provide Spartacus with transportation to Sicily. During the winter of 72-71, Crassus was able to construct a fortified blockade around the bulk of Spartacus’s forces in the toe of Italy between the towns of Scyllaeum and Rhegium.

Spartacus’s forces managed to escape the blockade in their third attempt, and the rebels went on to win two battles against relatively small Roman units in Lucania. In resources and training, however, Spartacus’s rebels were no match for the ten legions that Crassus commanded, and they were decisively defeated when they directly encountered these legions in a battle that was probably near the head of the Silarus River. Spartacus was killed in this battle, and his body was never identified. Crassus pursued the surviving rebels as they fled northward, and he ordered the crucifixion of six thousand rebels along the Appian Way from Capua to Rome. The rotting bodies were left hanging for months as a warning to anyone who might contemplate rebellion. Returning to the city of Rome, Crassus was allowed to wear a crown of laurel and received enthusiastic ovations.

During the six months that Crassus was pursuing Spartacus, the senate had decided (probably without Crassus’s knowledge) that it was necessary to recall Pompey the Great’s large army from Spain. Pompey arrived in northern Italy about the time that Crassus was concluding his successful campaign, and Pompey’s army encountered and annihilated about five thousand fugitives who were trying to escape to their homes. Based on this minor engagement, Pompey sent the senate a message claiming that it was he who had finally put the slave rebellion to an end. The competing claims of Pompey and Crassus intensified the animosity that the two men had for one another.

Significance

Spartacus fought courageously to end the grievous oppression he and his colleagues experienced, but the historical sources do not suggest that the Thracian gladiator wished to end slavery or reform the nature of Roman society. He and his followers did manage, nevertheless, to keep the Roman army at bay for almost two years, a great achievement for that period. Despite claims to the contrary, there is no evidence that Spartacus’s rebellion had any humanitarian influence on the ways that the Romans treated their slaves and gladiators. From the Roman perspective, the rebellion demonstrated the need for harsh punishment as an example to dissidents, and the Romans apparently responded to the rebellion by increasing security over both slaves and gladiators. Although it would be five hundred years before the Western Roman Empire would come to an end, the Romans would never again have to contend with a major slave insurrection.

Spartacus has often served as a mythical symbol of a courageous revolutionary, fighting for social justice and the abolition of slavery. For example, during World War I, socialist militants in Germany took the name “the Spartacist League.” At the time of the American Civil Rights movement, in contrast, there was a tendency to portray Spartacus as an enlightened reformer who opposed violence and oppression. Ironically, the limited nature of the ancient sources describing the persona of Spartacus has added to the protean character of the legend.

Bibliography

Bradley, Keith. Slavery and Rebellion in the Roman World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998. An interesting and scholarly account of the three large slave rebellions during the late Republic, with chapter 5 devoted to Spartacus. The detailed notes provide the most extensive documentation available. The best single account.

Fast, Howard. Spartacus. New York: Dell, 1979. Although much of the material is fictional, this is probably the most readable and interesting of the novels devoted to Spartacus.

Grant, Michael. Gladiators. New York: Delacorte Press, 1995. A concise, fascinating, and scholarly treatment of the Roman gladiators, including a short analysis of the Spartacus insurrection. Highly recommended.

Gruen, Erich. The Last Generation of the Roman Republic. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. A fascinating account of the politics and leaders of the time, with pages 20-22 giving a good summary of Spartacus’s revolt.

Harris, W. V. “Spartacus.” In Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies, edited by Mark Carnes. New York: Henry Holt, 1995. A most interesting analysis of both the historical and fictional aspects of Stanley Kubrick’s popular 1960 film.

Yavetz, Zvi. Slaves and Slavery in Ancient Rome. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1988. In addition to general information about Roman slavery, pages 83-112 contain translations of almost all the ancient sources dealing with Spartacus, including the writings of Cicero, Appian, Plutarch, and Florus.