Wealthy but diehard Italian nationalists, still bitter over defeat in the Social War, were not about to join a slave-led army but perhaps they turned a blind eye rather than playing an active role in resisting him. And then, there were opportunists. Every society has people who say that money has no smell, as a Roman wit later put it. They saw no shame in doing business with runaway slaves and ex-gladiators if it could make them rich. The merchants who later traded with Spartacus’s army might fit this category and also one Publius Gavius, a southern Italian who, although a Roman citizen, was convicted of spying for Spartacus in Sicily.
One possible index of Italian attitudes comes from the Mithridatic Wars. In 64 BC, during the last stage of his struggle against Rome, Mithridates tried to incite an invasion of Italy by Celtic peoples of the Balkans. Not only did he promise assistance; he assured Celtic leaders that they would find willing partners on the Italian peninsula. Most of Rome’s so-called allies in Italy, he told them, had really supported Spartacus, in spite of his degraded social status. But big talk is a politician’s stock-in-trade, so Mithridates’ claim deserves little credence. The Celts declined his invitation to invade Italy, in any case.
One group was conspicuously absent from the list of Spartacus’s recruits: city-dwellers, whether slave or free. This seems odd because cities like Pompeii and Nola were nearby. True, city walls made it hard for urban slaves to leave, but that isn’t the whole story. Urban slaves were a privileged group who generally enjoyed an easier life than rural slaves; some of them had a reputation for being soft and lazy. Urban slaves were isolated from their rural counterparts, and perhaps even frightened of the rough, tough country folk. We might wonder how many of them would have survived in the Italian outback. In short, they may not have wanted to join Spartacus. If so, it was a sign of things to come. Spartacus’s revolt would remain overwhelmingly a revolt of the countryside.
But that was not yet clear on Vesuvius, where the rebels’ numbers were growing and their character was changing. They were becoming an army. Their weapons were makeshift, their uniforms were homespun, and their experience was often minimal. But they trained, drilled and practised fighting together. No ancient source tells us this, but without such groundwork they could never have displayed the military virtues that they did in the coming months.
We might wonder if they trained as much as needed, since temptation loomed. The ex-gladiators, former farm workers, runaway slaves, Thracians, Celts, Italians and miscellaneous others now devoted themselves to an alluring pursuit: crime. With runaway farm slaves and workers as their guides, they raided the rich villas of Vesuvius. They found food and drink, both solid fare and delicacies such as ostrich eggs and vintage wine. There were more luxury goods than one man could carry: silver and gold, ivory and amber, glazed terracottas and coloured glass, earrings and bracelets, medallions and plates, silver table legs shaped like lion’s paws and cameos of kings.
Writing fifty years later, the poet Horace marks a special occasion by telling his slave boy to bring the oldest vintage of wine. And then he adds, with a wink, ‘If roving Spartacus has spared a single jar.’
Whatever the fugitives took they shared equally: Spartacus insisted on that. Whether justice or prudence motivated him is unclear. But more followers climbed the mountain.
What a change! Good old Vesuvius had given Campania every reason to love it. Consider a fresco at Pompeii: it shows Mount Vesuvius, green and fertile, and beside it Bacchus, the god of wine, covered with grapes. A large snake is depicted below. Then came Spartacus. The rebels from Capua had appropriated the gladiator, the vine and Vesuvius: the very symbols of Roman rule in Campania.
What was Rome going to do
One possible index of Italian attitudes comes from the Mithridatic Wars. In 64 BC, during the last stage of his struggle against Rome, Mithridates tried to incite an invasion of Italy by Celtic peoples of the Balkans. Not only did he promise assistance; he assured Celtic leaders that they would find willing partners on the Italian peninsula. Most of Rome’s so-called allies in Italy, he told them, had really supported Spartacus, in spite of his degraded social status. But big talk is a politician’s stock-in-trade, so Mithridates’ claim deserves little credence. The Celts declined his invitation to invade Italy, in any case.
One group was conspicuously absent from the list of Spartacus’s recruits: city-dwellers, whether slave or free. This seems odd because cities like Pompeii and Nola were nearby. True, city walls made it hard for urban slaves to leave, but that isn’t the whole story. Urban slaves were a privileged group who generally enjoyed an easier life than rural slaves; some of them had a reputation for being soft and lazy. Urban slaves were isolated from their rural counterparts, and perhaps even frightened of the rough, tough country folk. We might wonder how many of them would have survived in the Italian outback. In short, they may not have wanted to join Spartacus. If so, it was a sign of things to come. Spartacus’s revolt would remain overwhelmingly a revolt of the countryside.
But that was not yet clear on Vesuvius, where the rebels’ numbers were growing and their character was changing. They were becoming an army. Their weapons were makeshift, their uniforms were homespun, and their experience was often minimal. But they trained, drilled and practised fighting together. No ancient source tells us this, but without such groundwork they could never have displayed the military virtues that they did in the coming months.
We might wonder if they trained as much as needed, since temptation loomed. The ex-gladiators, former farm workers, runaway slaves, Thracians, Celts, Italians and miscellaneous others now devoted themselves to an alluring pursuit: crime. With runaway farm slaves and workers as their guides, they raided the rich villas of Vesuvius. They found food and drink, both solid fare and delicacies such as ostrich eggs and vintage wine. There were more luxury goods than one man could carry: silver and gold, ivory and amber, glazed terracottas and coloured glass, earrings and bracelets, medallions and plates, silver table legs shaped like lion’s paws and cameos of kings.
Writing fifty years later, the poet Horace marks a special occasion by telling his slave boy to bring the oldest vintage of wine. And then he adds, with a wink, ‘If roving Spartacus has spared a single jar.’
Whatever the fugitives took they shared equally: Spartacus insisted on that. Whether justice or prudence motivated him is unclear. But more followers climbed the mountain.
What a change! Good old Vesuvius had given Campania every reason to love it. Consider a fresco at Pompeii: it shows Mount Vesuvius, green and fertile, and beside it Bacchus, the god of wine, covered with grapes. A large snake is depicted below. Then came Spartacus. The rebels from Capua had appropriated the gladiator, the vine and Vesuvius: the very symbols of Roman rule in Campania.
What was Rome going to do
Similar Books
