This was before there was any indication at Rome of who led the revolt. The name of Spartacus was not yet known, nor was it clearly understood how the revolt at the school of Batiatus had come about. The City Cohorts assembled for parade at the break of dawn, but there was some delay in terms of a dispute among the officers for position of the cohorts. The sun was well up in the sky when they began to march. The stirring military music of their drums and fifes sounded through the city, and when they reached the gates there was quite a crowd assembled to see them go.
Gracchus remembered that very well—well indeed. He and two other senators joined the crowd at the gates, and he recalled what a fine sight it was as the cohorts marched out, the band playing, the banners flying, the standards swaying so proudly, the plumed helmets of the soldiers nodding as they marched, and Varinius at the head of the column, wearing a burnished brass breast-plate, riding a fine white horse, and waving to the crowds who cheered him. There’s nothing in the world as stirring as a parade of well-drilled soldiers. Gracchus remembered it well indeed.
V
So the Senate learned the name of Spartacus, and Gracchus could recall the first time he heard the name spoken. Possibly, that was the first time it was spoken aloud at Rome. Unobtrusively, without particular importance or note, it was commented upon by Varinius in the report which he sent by fast post from Capua to the Senate in Rome. The report of Varinius was not a specially inspiring document. It began with the customary, “May it please the noble Senate,” and then it went on to detail the few incidents of the march along the Appian Way and the intelligence which had been gathered at Capua. The main feature of the march was that the three cohorts who wore bronze greaves developed painful sores on the instep. Varinius had decided that they should abandon their greaves and have one of the wagons take the armor back to Rome. The officers of the cohorts concerned felt that this was a reflection upon their regimental honor, that their men were being insulted, and that the whole thing would be solved with a little foot-grease. Varinius gave in to them, and as a result, over a hundred men would have to be left at Capua as unfit for duty. Several hundred others were limping, but it was felt that they would be fit enough to participate in the campaign against the slaves.
(Gracchus winced when he heard the word
campaign
used.)
As to the revolt, Varinius was obviously torn between a desire to report the facts—which made little of it—and the opportunity for self-advancement, which would mean making a good deal of it. He inserted a statement by Batiatus concerning the background of the revolt, and he remarked that “it would seem to be led by one, Spartacus, a Thracian, and another, Crixus, a Gaul.” Both of these were gladiators, but it was impossible to tell from the report how many gladiators were involved. Varinius told in detail of three separate plantations which had been put to the torch. The slaves on these plantations were unquestionably loyal to their masters, but upon the pain of death they were forced to join the slave-rebels. Those who refused were instantly put to death.
(Gracchus nodded. That was the only way it could be put.)
Two plantation owners had attempted to take refuge in Capua, but they were intercepted by the gladiators and slain by them, and their slaves had been forced to join the revolt. In addition to that, numbers of malcontents among the slaves of the area had run off to join the rebels. Varinius added a long list of atrocities alleged to have been committed by the slaves, and he enclosed with his report three separate depositions which had been taken and attested to. These depositions enumerated additional atrocities on the part of the slaves.
He finished by stating that as far as he knew, the slaves had made their headquarters on the wild and rocky slope of Mount Vesuvius, and that he intended to march there immediately and enforce the will of the Senate upon them.
The Senate received and accepted his report. Also, a resolution was offered and passed in the Senate that some eighty escaped slaves now held for the mines be offered as tokens of punishment, “so that all slaves within the
urbs
might read a warning and a lesson in their fate.” The same day, these poor wretches were crucified at the
Circus Maximus,
in an interval during the races. They hung from their crosses while the current favorite,
Aristones,
a magnificent Parthion stallion, lost unexpectedly to
Charos,
a mare from Nubia—bankrupting a considerable section of the sporting blood of Rome.
But no more was heard from Varinius or the City Cohorts for six days. And at the end of the time, a brief report came through. The City Cohorts had been defeated by the slaves. It was a brief report, with no supporting facts, and for twenty-four hours the Senate and the city waited in tense expectation. Everyone talked about the new slave uprising, but no one knew. Nevertheless, fear was all over the city.
VI
The Senate sat in whole session with locked doors, and outside the crowd gathered and grew until the plaza was full and the streets leading into it were blocked, and there was rumor everywhere, because now the Senate knew the story of the City Cohorts.
Only one or two of the chairs were empty. Gracchus, remembering that session, decided that at such moments—moments of crisis and bitter knowledge—the Senate was at its best. The eyes of the old men, who sat so silent in their togas, were full of consequence and without troubled fear, and the faces of the younger men were hard and angry. But all of them were acutely conscious of the dignity of the Roman Senate, and within that context Gracchus could relinquish his cynicism. He knew these men; he knew by what cheap and perverted means they purchased their seats and what a dirty game of politics they played. He knew each and every particular well of filth each and every one of these men kept in his own backyard; and still he felt the thrill and pride of a place among their ranks.
He was not able now to gloat over his own personal victory. His own personal victory was not separable from what they faced, and thereby they chose him as
senator inquaesitor,
and he took their grief and put away his own petty triumph. He stood before them, facing the Roman soldier who had returned, the Roman soldier raised and bred out of the streets and alleys of the city, but now for the first time in his life standing before the august Senate, a thin-faced, dark-eyed man, furtive and frightened, one eye twitching, a tongue that anxiously licked his lips again and again, still in his armor, weaponless, as one comes before the Senate, shaven and at least partially washed, but with a blood-soaked bandage on one arm, and very tired too. Gracchus did what others would not have done. Before he began the formal questioning, he had an attendant bring wine and set it down on a little table next to the soldier. The man was weak and Gracchus did not want him keeling over in a faint. That would not help. The man held in his hands the little ivory rod of the
legate,
the rod that was—they were wont to say—more potent in its power than an invading army, the arm and authority and power of the Senate.
“You may give it to me,” Gracchus began.
The soldier did not understand him at first, and then Gracchus took the rod from his hands and laid it upon the altar, feeling his throat tighten and a pain around his heart. He could have contempt for men, men being what they are, but he had no contempt for that little rod which represented all the dignity and power and glory of his life, and which had been handed to Varinius only days before.
Now he asked the soldier, “Your name first?”
“Aralus Porthus.”
“Porthus?”
“Aralus Porthus,” the soldier repeated.
One of the senators cupped his ear and said, “Louder. Won’t you have it louder? Can’t hear.”
“Speak up,” said Gracchus. “No harm will come to you here. Here you are in the sacred chamber of the Senate, to speak the whole truth in the name of the undying gods. Speak up!”
The soldier nodded.
“Take some wine,” Gracchus said.
The soldier looked from face to face, the rows of stolid, white-robed men, the stone seats in which they sat like graven images, and then he poured a glass of wine with a shaking hand, poured until it overflowed, gulped it, and licked his lips again.
“How old are you?” Gracchus asked.
“Twenty-five years.”
“And where were you born?”
“Here—in the
urbs
.”
“Have you a trade?”
The man shook his head.
“I want you to answer each question. I want you to say yes or no at least. If you can answer in more detail, do so.”
“No—I have no trade except war,” the soldier said.
“What was your regiment?”
“The Third Cohort.”
“And for how long were you a soldier in the Third Cohort?”
“Two years—and two months.”
“Before then?”
“I lived on the dole.”
“Who was your commander in the Third?”
“Silvius Caius Salvarius.”
“And your hundred?”
“Marius Gracchus Alvio.”
“Very well, Aralus Porthus. Now I desire you to tell me and the honored senators assembled here exactly what happened after your cohort and the other five cohorts marched south from Capua. You are to tell it to me directly and clearly. Nothing you say will be held against you, and here in this sacred chamber, you can come to no harm.”
Still, it was not easy for the soldier to talk coherently, and to Gracchus, years later, sitting in the gentle springtime morning on the terrace of the
Villa Salaria,
the memories of the sharp and ominous pictures evoked by the soldier’s words were clearer than the words themselves. It was not a very satisfied or cheerful army that had marched south from Capua under the leadership of Varinius Glabrus. The weather had turned unseasonably hot, and the City Cohorts, unused to constant marching, suffered a good deal. Though they were carrying twenty pounds less per man than the legionary carried on the march, still they bore the weight of helmet and armor, shield, spear and sword. They developed sores where the edges of the hot metal rubbed against their flesh, and they discovered that the soft and beautiful parade boots which showed so proudly as they strutted back and forth across the
Circus Maximus
were less useful on road and field. Afternoon showers drenched them, and as evening came they were bitter and morose.
Gracchus could picture them very well indeed, the long column of soldiers, off the Appian Way now, plodding along a dirt-surfaced cart track, the wet plumes dragging from their brazen helmets, even the voice of complaint gone in their tiredness. It was about then that they caught the four field slaves and killed them—three men and one woman.
“Why did you kill them?” Gracchus interrupted.
“We felt that every slave in that part of the country was against us.”
“If they were against you, why would they come down from the hills to the road to watch the columns march by?”
“I don’t know. It was in the Second Cohort that they did it. They broke ranks and grabbed the woman. The men tried to protect her, so they speared the men. It just took a minute, and the men were dead. When I got there—”
“You mean that your regiment broke ranks as well?” Gracchus demanded.
“Yes, sir. The whole army. We crowded around—those of us who could get close to what was happening. They pulled the clothes off her and had her spread-eagled naked on the ground. Then, one after another, they—”
“You need not go into the details of that,” Gracchus interrupted. “Did your officers interfere?”
“No, sir.”
“You mean they permitted this to go on without interference?”
The soldier stood for a moment without answering.
“I want you to answer the truth. I don’t want you to be afraid to answer the truth.”
“The officers didn’t interfere.”
“How was the woman killed?”
“She died from what they were doing to her,” the soldier responded softly. Then they had to ask him to speak up again. His voice almost faded away entirely.
He told of how they made camp that night. Two cohorts did not even raise their tents. The night was warm and the soldiers bedded down on an open field. He was interrupted here.
“Did your commander make an attempt to establish a fortified camp? Do you know whether he did or not?”
It was the pride of the Roman army that no legion camped anywhere even for one night without building a fortified camp, palisaded or earth-walled, ditched, staked, laid out like a small castle or city.
“I know what the men said.”
“Tell us that.”
“They said that Varinius Glabrus wanted it, but the regimental commanders resisted it. The men said that even if they all agreed, there were no engineers with us, and that the whole thing hadn’t been planned with any sense or meaning. They said—please, the noble—”
“Tell us what they said without fear.”
“Yes, they said there was no sense or meaning in the way the thing was planned. But the officers argued that a handful of slaves didn’t represent any danger. It was already on to nightfall, and as I heard it, the officers’ argument was that if Varinius Glabrus wanted a fortified camp, then why had he marched us until dusk? The men were saying that too. This was the worst march of the whole journey. First on the dusty roads, so choked with dust that we couldn’t breathe, and then in the pouring rain. It was all right for the officers, they said, riding on their horses, but we had to walk. But the argument was that now we had the carts with us carrying our baggage, and while the carts were with us, we should make all the distance we could.”
“Where were you then?”
“Close to the mountain—”