His aura has not been matched by anyone, not even the great Maximus Decimus Meridio, now in fashion for the umpteenth time thanks to the premiere of ‘Gladiator II’. Spartacus, the Thracian gladiator who orchestrated a slave revolution and shook the pillars of republican Rome, has gone down in history as an indomitable hero who did not bend the knee before the legions. And boy is it true. Although it is also true that his army had a dark end: the corpses of 6,000 of his men ended up crucified on the road that went from Rome to Capua. Two hundred kilometers that, for weeks, were littered with inert bodies as a warning to their enemies.
It is difficult to summarize the story of Spartacus. It is suspected that our protagonist was from a noble family and was born in the 2nd century BC there in Thrace, in present-day Bulgaria. Classical sources speak of his time in the Roman army and say that, years later, he fell from grace and ended up as a gladiator in the ‘ludus’ of Lentulus Batiatus. There, fed up with the Lanista’s mistreatment, he escaped with about seventy companions. What is striking is that his escape encouraged many other slaves to do the same and, in the end, in the year 73 BC, our protagonist had already mobilized a colossal army of some 100,000 free men.
Led by Spartacus and his main generals – the most famous of which was the Celtic Chrysus – that crowd of slaves headed north with a single objective in mind: crossing into Cisalpine Gaul. However, internal divisions generated such chaos that the gladiator was forced to abandon his plans and head south. Why is still a great enigma. The Roman Republic, for its part, responded to that mobilization with General Marcus Licinius Crassus, one of the richest men in the Eternal City. The Third Servile War.
mysterious death
Although divided, Spartacus’s army was not beaten. Crassus was clear about this, but he also saw war as a lever to obtain prestige within the Republic. So when he was informed that Pompey and Marcus Terence Varro Lucullus had left with their legions from Thrace and Hispania to support him, he rushed after his enemy in haste. The fear of sharing the glory, according to the historian Plutarch in ‘Parallel Lives’: “There was already news that Pompey was approaching, and not a few spread the word in the elections that that victory was reserved for him, since the same would be arrive than to fight a battle and put an end to that war.
Crassus intercepted Spartacus’ army in 71 BC, in the Silaro river valley, near Strongoli (southern Italy). And, as a provocation, he located his camp within sight of the slaves. “He was quick to fight and to position himself next to the enemies,” he explains. Plutarch. Shortly after – as if it were not daring enough – the general ordered his workers to dig a ditch to establish their defenses behind it. That generated a maelstrom in which the “slaves attacked him to fight with the workers.” They painted coarse, the battle was chewed up and the gladiator understood that he could not do more than organize his men for combat.
Plutarch says that, “in such a precise situation, he put his entire army in order.” Although first he unsheathed his sword and ended the life of his nag in front of his men. «If I win, I will have many beautiful horses from the enemies; But if I am defeated, I will not need it,” said the Thracian. According to the chronicles, there were 60,000 slaves against a dozen legions; although modern historiography lowers the numbers of Spartacus’s army to 30,000 combatants. You go to know. What is clear, according to the chronicler Appian in his ‘Roman History’, is that the result was “a long and bloody battle, as could be expected.”
It’s unclear what the hell happened to the great Spartacus. Plutarch maintains in his texts that the gladiator rushed against Crass “through many weapons and wounds.” He did not manage to reach him, but “he took the lives of two centurions he found in his path.” Unfortunately for him, he was stopped short and, after a long fight, those who accompanied him withdrew. “He remained motionless and, surrounded by many, defended himself until they cut him to pieces.” It was a sad way to die for the man who had kept the Roman Republic in check for months.
Appian offers a similar view of a battle that he claims occupied thousands of desperate men. “Spartacus was wounded in the thigh by a spear and, bending his knee on the ground and covering himself with his shield, he defended himself from his attackers until he and a large mass of his supporters were surrounded and perished,” he explains. The problem that fueled the legend, and incidentally the mystery, is that his remains were never found among the crowd. “The Romans lost a thousand men, and the body of Spartacus was not found,” confirms the classical author. What happened is still unknown.
cruel punishment
With the death of Spartacus, his men finished disbanding and began a massive flight. But as fortune would have it, that debacle was a severe setback for the Roman general. «Crassus fulfilled all the duties of a good general and did not stop putting his person at risk. And yet, this victory still served to increase the glories of Pompey, because those who fled from him fell into his hands and he destroyed them,” explained Plutarch. The newcomer soon wrote to the Senate to explain that yes, his colleague had “defeated the fugitives,” but he had “uprooted the war.” Next to nothing.
The chronicler Plutarch explains little more about the end of the Third Servile War; only that “Pompey was declared a magnificent triumph” for his victory against Sertorius in Hispania. And that Crassus, in return, did not even “dared to ask for it, much less even the least solemn one, which they call ovation.” In the end, destroying an army of slaves did not seem like enough glory to obtain merits and political benefits. In the public eye, both maintained a good relationship during the subsequent consulate. However, the reality was that their relationship was terrible and that they fought on a political level during the following years.
It was Appian who recorded what happened in the following weeks. In his words, after the disbandment of Spartacus’s army – “which fled and fell en masse, to the point of being impossible to count the number of dead” – a large number of his men still remained in the mountains. Crassus headed against them. “These divided into four parts and continued fighting until all but six thousand perished,” adds the chronicler. And these were the ones who ended their days “captured and crucified along the entire road that goes from Capua to Rome.”
The corpses were lined up along this route that covered two hundred kilometers, from Brundisium to Rome. And, since he did not give the order to take them down from the cross, weeks later they continued to rot in the sun.
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