For two glorious years, the leader of the rebel gladiators led his army of slaves to victories against the Roman legions, threatening the prestige and status of the Roman Empire itself!
The life of Spartacus can be seen in the light of righteous revenge against the Romans for their love of the inhumane and bloody sport of dueling in the arenas of ancient Rome.
Spartacus was not born into slavery: he was a free man from Thrace, probably a deserter from the Roman army, who was captured, sold as a slave, and thrown into the arenas of death.
And when he broke out in 73 BC with 70-80 other gladiators, he soon gathered other slaves around him and within a year his force grew to 120,000 men, who scored a series of decisive victories against the powerful Roman war machine.
The slave revolution, trapped in the middle of the Roman Empire (Southern Italy), could not succeed, with the name of Spartacus surviving through the centuries as a timeless symbol of the man who does not bow his head to any yoke, no matter how frightening.
Early Years
Almost all of our knowledge of the deeds of Spartacus is limited to the two years of the revolution that led to one of the greatest uprisings in the Roman Empire years. What preceded the slave revolt is not known, and there is no historical consensus since the sources (mainly Plutarch and Appian) do not agree with the biographical data of Spartacus, while they often contradict each other. However, the story of his life seems to follow the following course.
Spartacus was born around 109 BC in Thrace, one of Rome's early enemies. Historical sources suggest that Spartacus was of aristocratic descent and must have served in an auxiliary position in the Roman army, most likely as a volunteer mercenary. It is possible that he was involved in a serious offense or even fell from the ranks of the army (it has also been suggested that he was taken as a prisoner of war by the Romans with the Thracian dynasty of the Spartacids), crimes which under Roman law both slavery.
The slave trade flourished in the provinces of the empire, with the new "acquisitions" being sold abundantly to the highest bidder.
The School of the Gladiators
Lentulus Batiatus maintained a famous school of gladiators in Capua, Campania, and purchased the mighty slave Spartacus, along with other enslaved Thracians and Gauls, who made up the bulk of the gladiators.
The trained gladiators formed teams (familia gladiatorium) under the absolute control of a commander (lanista), who was also responsible for recruitment, training, and the duels themselves. Gladiatorial schools also functioned as barracks (and in some cases prisons), with war-ready and well-trained gladiators kept under the watchful eye of Roman law.
Beginning of the gladiator revolution
The regime in the gladiatorial schools was very strict. Nevertheless, Spartacus manages to conspire with 70-80 other gladiators and escape from the facilities after a small battle with the school guards: Knives obtained from the kitchen of the Familia Batiatus school.
Soon the rebellious gladiators had weapons in hand and escaped into the crater of Vesuvius, which was inactive at the time (73 BC). From the slopes of Mount Vesuvius (near Naples) the rebel gladiators would launch attacks on parts of the Roman army, looting whatever they could find. News soon spread throughout the empire and slaves from all over Italy gathered to join the guerrilla army.
Spartacus became the undisputed leader of the movement, with a number of other gladiators holding leadership positions, including Crixus, Oenomaus, Castos, and others. Slaves, the oppressed, the persecuted, and the destitute found new hope in Spartacus' rebellion and joined the movement en masse, even bringing their wives and children with them, with the gladiators training the men in battle and launching raids on Roman settlements. and military supplies. Within weeks, a small but hard-hitting army surrounded Spartacus, with the Romans underestimating the scale and intensity of the revolt and leading the situation to chaos as the main body of the Roman army operated outside of Italy.
The first victorious battles of Spartacus
Despite its inertia, the Senate sent a relatively reluctant force of 3,000 men against Spartacus, at Commander Gaius Claudius Glaber. The bulk of the Roman legions were engaged on fronts outside Italy: Pompey was in Spain and Lucullus had been campaigning in Pontus.
Despite the fact that Glavros' legions surrounded the rebels on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius, men of Spartacus exaggerated themselves and in a unique display of bravery and military tactics, surprised and disbanded almost the entire Roman force, with Glavros falling to the ground. The humiliating defeat of the Romans, however, could not go unanswered: A larger and better trained force was sent after them, with the praetor Publius Varinius at its head.
The renewed attempt to put down the slave revolt, however, was to meet the same fate: the legions were crushed, the Roman camp sacked, and Varinos narrowly escaped death. Spartacus' army was now well equipped with Roman weapons and was a force to be reckoned with in the heart of the Roman Empire: by the spring of 72 BC Spartacus ruled the whole of Campania, with his war-ready army now having cavalry forces, and the colony of Mount Vesuvius now numbered around 70,000 souls.
Generalization of the Revolution and division of the revolutionary army
Spartacus knew well that he could not feel safe as long as he remained in the Empire: his army could not stand toe-to-toe with the disciplined Roman legions, and at the same time the number of men dependent on him had increased dramatically. So he decided to leave Roman territory and lead his troops north. The other leaders of the movement did not agree with Spartacus and set out to overthrow the Roman Empire from within: Crixus was cut off from the main body of the guerrillas and led a significant force of 30,000 men to raid and pillage throughout the Apu, having no intention of leaving Italy.
The revolutionary army is therefore split the moment Rome decides to respond vociferously: It sends a considerable force against the rebelling slaves, with their commanders Gellius (Lucius Gellius Publicola) and Lentulus (Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Clodianus). Gellios marches on Krixos, whom he crushes, destroying more than 2/3 of his forces, including the leader himself. While the two armies are separated, the Romans pursue Spartacus and most of the rebels in the Apennines who had sought refuge on their way to northern Italy.
Spartacus' troops disbanded the two Roman armies one by one, killing as many Romans as they could to avenge the destruction of Crixus. Contrary to every prediction, the march of Spartacus continued in triumph: After subduing the legions of Mantios, he clears the regular army of 10,000 men of Login (Gaius Cassius Longinus) at Modena. The free rebels had now reached the Po River, a breath away from the borders of Roman territory!
Spartacus, however, did not cross the Alps and lead his followers to freedom, but made a turn and returned to Italy towards Sicily. Countless theories have been advanced about the change of course in Spartacus' plans, but no one knows for sure what caused the slaves to remain on Italian soil. However, a group of 5,000 insurgents seems to have fled Italy and made their way to their homelands (Balkans, Galatia, Germany, and elsewhere). Spartacus, remaining loyal to his troops, decides to lead them to Sicily, perhaps in an attempt to free a large number of slaves on the Italian island.
Crassus and the bloody end of the revolt
The Senate was now convinced that Spartacus was a real threat to the Empire, now that he was a breath away from the relatively fortified Rome! So it hastily recruited the famous general Crassus (Marcus Licinius Crassus), giving him six legions and expanded military powers to put down the revolution, at the same time recalling Pompey and Lucullus back to Rome and aborting their respective campaigns.
Spartacus resolutely leads his troops to Sicily, having in the meantime secured the consent of the pirates to take them to the island. Crassus follows him on foot, looking for the right opportunity to counterattack. Two divisions of his army, however, disobeying his orders not yet to engage in combat with the gladiators, were defeated by Spartacus, who seemed relentless.
The differing aspirations of the former slaves, however, caused the army to split again, with 12,000 men remaining in the area engaging in looting and violence, an easy target for Crassus, who attacked at the right time and destroyed them.
In another skirmish between Crassus' troops and Spartacus' army, the Roman legions are defeated and retreat to their camp in disgrace. Crassus imposes severe disciplinary sanctions on his army for cowardice, making his soldiers even more afraid of him than they were of Spartacus.
The Thracian leader, however, sees his impending defeat as the forces of Pompey and Lucullus approach and tries to come to terms with Crassus. The Roman general rejects any attempt at reconciliation, and the slaves take exactly the same course: drunk on their unimaginable successes, they force Spartacus to lead them into the final battle with the Romans with the threat of arms.
Meanwhile, the pirates, whose ships would pass Spartacus' troops in Sicily, betray the leader of the rebellion, who has no choice but to fight. The battle takes place in the spring of 71 BC in southern Italy, in Lucania, where the 35,000 rebels face openly organized Roman legions. The slaves were defeated, Spartacus was killed in battle. The 6,000 slaves who were eventually captured were crucified along the Appian Way (from Brindisi to Rome!) and "decorated" it for many years to set an example.
The historian Appian records that the injured Spartacus desperately sought the battlefield to find Crassus and kill him, but his own death prevented this. The remaining parts of the revolutionary army were "cleared" a little further north by Pompey's troops. It was the end of the slave revolt, but they accomplished much more against the Romans than even organized states.
