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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Spartacus Biography SPARTACUS. The leader in a great insurrection of Roman slaves in southern Italy (73-71 B.C.). He was a native of Thrace, originally a shepherd, but afterward a robber chief. He was taken prisoner and placed in a gladiatorial school at Capua. Seventy gladiators, including Spartacus, escaped, defeated the Roman soldiers sent to bring them back, and established themselves on Mount Vesuvius, where they received considerable accessions, chiefly runaway slaves. Spartacus was chosen leader, and proclaimed freedom to all slaves. Thousands rushed to his standards. He defeated Claudius Pulcher, Cossinius, legate of P. Varinius Glaber, the prętor, and finally Varinius himself in several engagements. All southern Italy now fell into his hands; the country was devastated, the cities either pillaged or garrisoned. After the defeat and death of his lieutenants, two Celts, Crixus and Oenomaus, who had separated from him (72 B.C.), Spartacus marched northward through Picenum towards the Po, overthrew first one consular army under Cn. Cornelius Lentulus and then another under Gellius Poplicola, and at the head of a large force meditated a march upon Rome. He was forced, however, by his followers to retreat south, and took up his winter headquarters at Thurii. In 71 the proconsul, C. Cassius Longinus, and the proprętor, Cn. Manlius, were defeated; in Picenum, Mummius, a legate of Crassus, was routed; at last, however, Crassus succeeded in forcing Spartacus into the narrow peninsula of Rhegium. Crassus now built lines of circumvallation to force him to surrender; but one stormy winter night Spartacus broke through and resumed the offensive. Near Petelia, Spartacus again defeated his adversaries; but, seeing clearly that he could not hold out much longer, he made a dash for Brundusium, hoping to seize the shipping in the harbors and get safely across the Adriatic to his native shore, but was baffled by the presence of Lucullus (q.v.). There was nothing left for Spartacus but to die gallantly as he had lived. Drawing up his army in battle array, and solemnly slaying his war horse, he began his last fight in a spirit of heroic desperation, and after performing prodigies of valor he fell unrecognized among the heaps of his slain foes. After his death the slave insurrection was at an end. The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XXI (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 367-368. |