Spartacus and the Slave Wars

Spartacus and the Slave Wars

Slavery is a powerful word. To be a slave and to be owned by a person or household is something I'm very fortunate that I never had to experience. Unfortunately throughout civilization this was exactly how things were. The rich got richer and the poorer, poorer. The rich needed people to work for them so they purchased slaves to do all their daily chores and make their life a luxury. Once you were a slave, you were bound to your owner and had to do everything they asked of you. It was a no questions asked policy. Spartacus was a slave that had something else in mind. He decided he had enough of it and started a revolution to be a free man. Many other slaves in Italy had the same vision and joined him on his mission.

Spartacus was born in Thrace (1) and became a very skilled solider there. He was eventually captured by the Romans and sold as a slave. The Romans had a thriving slave economy because of all their conquests of other armies and territories. Most slaves worked on the latifundia as either field workers or herdsmen. Some slaves were purchased as gladiators to entertain the Romans. Slaves were stripped bare and put up for sale. By seeing the slaves naked, people could judge by their body type what they would be good for. Spartacus had the ideal body structure for a gladiator and was purchased by Lentulus Batiates to be just that. Lentulus Batiates was a teacher at a ludus, which was a school for gladiators. (2) He was already a great warrior and was a natural and being a gladiator.

The ludus was in Capua and was about twenty miles from Mt. Vesuvius. Soon after Spartacus became a gladiator, he started a revolt at the school and tried to break out. He and about 200 other gladiators grabbed a bunch of kitchen tools and escaped the ludus. When they got out into the streets the found a wagon of gladiator weapons and stole them. When the met up with city guards and officials, they used their weapons to defeat them and after killing the guard the stole the better military weapons and fled out of the city towards Mt. Vesuvius. Out of the 200 that started the riot, 64 escaped the city. (2) Many other rural slaves joined them on their way to the mountain.

In order to end this uprising of slaves, praetors sent out a small army to kill Spartacus and his followers. Praetors are an elected magistrate of the ancient Roman Republic. They rank just under the consul but have about the same duties or functions. There was only a steep narrow path to the top of Mt. Vesuvius and the Roman army figured they had Spartacus trapped. Spartacus had different ideas though. He and the rest of the slaves tied vines together to make ropes and headed down a steep face of the mountain and put a surprise attack on the Roman camp. They approached them from the rear defeating them by total surprise.

Spartacus's army then headed to the Alps and picked up many slaves on the way. Spartacus's army was growing and he kept his men happy by sharing the wealth of his victories. Soon the slaves began raiding small towns and the Roman government decided to go to any extreme it could to take down Spartacus and his slave followers. Marcus Licinius Crassus was elected praetor and formed a huge army that he was going to command and put an end to the slave rebellion. Crassus sent two of his legions south to force the slaves towards the north where Crassus would be waiting to strike when Spartacus arrived. The legions were told not to engage in battle with the slaves but having minds of their own they decided to try and defeat Spartacus and his powerful army. When they engaged in battle, Spartacus was again victorious.

When the battered legion returned to Crassus, they received the worst punishment in the Roman military. It was called decimation and it was where they got into groups of ten people and the unlucky tenth solider was killed by his fellow soldiers. Crassus was furious that his commander disobeyed his orders and wanted to show the army that they weren't going to