Read The Spartacus War Online

Authors: Barry Strauss

The Spartacus War (31 page)

scorpion bolt pierced a cavalry commander’s body: Caesar, African War 29.
‘At Orchomenus!’: Plutarch, Sulla 21.2.
‘Seeing the necessity’: Plutarch, Crassus 11.8.
‘that if he won he would have many horses’: Plutarch, Crassus 11.9.
The Moesian commander stood: Florus, Epitome 2.26.13-16.
singing and dancing: there was a revolt in the southern Thracian mountains in AD 26. When besieged, the braver spirits ‘after the manner of their country were disporting themselves with songs and dances in front of the rampart’ (Tacitus, Annals 4.47, trans.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Tac
.+Ann. +4.47). See R.F. Hoddinott, The Thracians (London: Thames & Hudson, 1981), 130.
‘He pushed towards Crassus’: Plutarch, Crassus 11.9.
‘exposed his body to danger’: Plutarch, Crassus 11.10.
‘fought fortissime’: Florus, Epitome 2.8.14.
‘he killed two centurions’: Plutarch, Crassus 11.9.
‘In the end’: Plutarch, Crassus 11.10.
‘Spartacus was wounded in the thigh’: Appian, Civil Wars 1.120.557.
‘he did not die quickly’: Sallust, Histories frg. 4.41.
‘he died almost an imperator’: Florus, Epitome 2.8.14.
‘The battle was long and strongly contested’: Appian, Civil Wars 1.120.557.
‘As befit an army led by a gladiator’: Florus, Epitome 2.8.14.
no opponent was more dangerous: Seneca, Controversies 9.6, cited in Alison Futrell, The Roman Games (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 144.
‘They were cut down en masse’: Appian, Civil War 1.120.558.
‘They met with a death’: Florus, Epitome 2.8.14, trans. Brent D. Shaw, Spartacus and the Slave Wars (Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s, 2001), 155.
60,000 rebel dead: Livy, Periochae 97; Orosius, Histories 5.24.7. The casualty figure of 12,300 in Plutarch, Pompey 21.2 probably refers to the Battle of Cantenna.
‘a slaughter of them came about that cannot be counted’: Appian, Civil War 1.120.558.
Chapter Eleven
Flaccus: Theodor Mommsen, ed., Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, vol. X, Inscriptiones Bruttiorum, Lucaniae, Campaniae, Sicilae, Sardiniae latinae (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1883) Part 2, 8070.3 = A. Degrassi and I. Krummrey, eds., Inscriptiones
Latinae antiquissimae ad
C.
Caesaris mortem
vol. I, 2nd edition (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1986) Part 2, Fasc. 4,961.
they went into the mountains: Appian, Civil War 1.120.559.
‘terrible’: ‘terrible cross’ of the slaves in Plautus (Martin Hengel, Crucifixion in the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of the Cross (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), 7, n.13.
‘infamous’: ‘the infamous stake’, Latin Anthology 415.23-4.
‘utterly vile’: Origen, Commentary on Matthew, on 27.22ff. For the translation, see Hengel, Crucifixion, x [sic].
‘servile’: Cicero, For Cluentius 66; First Philippic 2.
less revenge than deterrence: Pseudo-Quintilian: Minor Declamations 274.13, cited in Hengel, Crucifixion, 50.
the devastation of the countryside: e.g. Velleius Paterculus 2.30.5; Plutarch, Crassus 8.1; Ampelius 45.3; Otto Keller, Pseudacronis scholia in Horatium vetustiora, vol. I (Leipzig: Teubner, 1902), 274, 3.14.19.
fear, anger and indignation: Livy, History of Rome 3.16.3, 21.41.10.
Recte omnia velim sint nobis:
M. Pagano and J. Rougetet, ‘La casa del liberto P. Confuleius Sabbio a Capu a e isuoi mosaici’,
Mélanges de L’École Française de Rome
98(1987):753-65.
‘the whole road to Rome from Capua’: Appian,
Civil War
1.20.559.
Roman jurists recommended crucifying notorious brigands: Digest 48.19.28.15, cited in Hengel, Crucifixion, 48.
Roman authorities also favoured: Pseudo-Quintilian: Minor Declamations 274.13, cited in Hengel, Crucifixion, 50.
the crucifixion of women: Apuleius, Golden Ass 4.31; Josephus, Antiquities 18.3.4.
the Romans even crucified dogs: Pliny, Natural History 29.14.57.
the crucified could linger: Haim Cohn and Shimon Gibson, ‘Crucifixion’, in Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik, eds., Encyclopedia Judaica, 2nd edn. Vol. 5 (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007), 309-10.
cases of crucified men who laughed: Hengel, Crucifixion, 48.
‘Crassus had defeated’: Plutarch, Crassus 11.11.
‘the troubles at Tempsa’: Cicero, Verrines 6.39, 41.
‘the remnants of the Italian war of the fugitive slaves’: Cicero, Verrines 6.39.
‘small band’: Cicero, Verrines 6.40.
‘the bald adulterer’: Suetonius, Deified Julius 51.
Marcus Lucullus’s triumph probably took place first: on the dates and other details of the four triumphs, see A. Degrassi, Inscriptiones Italiae XIII.1 (Rome: La Libreria dello Stato, 1947), 565.
5,000 thrushes: Varro, Agricultural Topics 3.2.15-16, repeated by Columella, On Agriculture 8.10.6. See discussion by M. Beard, The Roman Triumph (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007), 49 and 346, n.12.
roughly equivalent to the annual pay of about 100 legionaries: see R. Alston, ‘Roman Military Pay from Caesar to Diocletian’, Journal of Roman Studies 84 (1994): 113-23.
Conclusion
‘He put an end to them’: Suetonius, Deified Augustus 3.1.
thought to cure malarial fevers: Pliny, Natural History 28.41, 28.46. See also Laura D. Lane, ‘Malaria and Magic in the Roman World’, in David Soren and Noelle Soren, eds., A Roman Villa and a Late Roman Infant Cemetery: Excavation at Poggio Gramignano, Lugnano in Teverina (Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 1999), 640.
‘life force’: Itta Gradel, Emperor Worship and Roman Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002), 37.
URSUS TUBICEN: Hans-Günther Simon, ‘Zwei ausseregewohn liche reliefverzierte Gefässe aus Langenhain, Wetteraukreis’, Germania 53 (1975): 126-37, esp. 134.
bitter and protracted tension at Pompeii: Cicero, For Sulla 60-62.
He called for a mirror: the details come from Suetonius, Deified Augustus 98.5-100.1.
Acknowledgements
Chapters of this manuscript were read by and greatly improved through the comments of Kimberly Bowes, Judith Dupré, Mark Levine, Adrienne Mayor, Marcia Mogelonsky, Jan Parker, Matthew Sears and Chaya Rivka Zwolinski. Many Cornell colleagues and students, past and present, offered advice and answered specific questions. I would like to thank in particular Annetta Alexandridis, Edward Baptist, Flaminia Cervesi, Nora Dimitrova, Michael Fontaine, Kathryn Gleason, Harry Greene, Martin Loicano, Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis, Kathryn McDonnell, Mich elle Moyd, Jon Parmenter, Eric Rebillard, Sidney Tarrow, Robert Travers, Rachel Weil and Michael Weiss. I would also like to thank Josh Bernstein, Anna Kirkwood, Kim McKnight, Josiah Ober, Priya Ramasabban, Philip Sabin and Rob Tempio.
I am deeply grateful to my two academic homes at Cornell University, the Department of History and the Department of Classics. The superb collection and the supportive staff of Cornell’s John M. Olin Library helped make this book possible. I benefited from the comments received when I read portions of my manuscript at Cornell’s Ancient Mediterranean Colloquium, Cornell’s Peace Studies Seminar, and at the Duke-UNC Graduate Colloquium.
I was lucky enough to make several research trips to Italy. Among those who helped me there are Carmine Cozzolino, Marcella DeFeo, Umberto Del Vecchio, Maria Laura Frullini, Donato Punello and Marcello Tagliente. Jim Zurer provided expert travel advice.
As in the past, Suzanne Lang provided invaluable secretarial and logistical assistance. Barbara Donnell, Michael Strauss and Sylvie Strauss helped with typing.
I am greatly indebted to my editor at Simon & Schuster, Bob Bender, whose sage advice improved the manuscript thoroughly. I would also like to thank his assistant, Johanna Li. I am greatly indebted as well to my editors at Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Alan Samson and Keith Lowe, for their perceptive and productive reading of the manuscript. My literary agent and friend, Howard Morhaim, first suggested that I write about Spartacus.
My family is the true sine qua non of this book. I thank Sylvie and Michael for their support and patience and Marcia for more than I can say.
George Wood, my former student and friend, fell in Iraq in 2003. George was planning a career as a Roman historian. It is impossible for me to write about Rome without remembering him.
Josiah Ober and Adrienne Mayor have always been there, as friends and colleagues, for thirty years. Dedicating this book to them is but small recompense.
Index
Abella (Avella)
Achaicus, Lucius Mummius
Aciris (Agri) River valley
Aetna (Etna), Mount
Agri Picentini
Agri (Aciris) River valley
Alburni Mountains
Alexander Jannaeus, king of Judaea
Alexander the Great
Allia, Battle of the (390 BC)
Alps
Amarantus
Anatolia
Antonius
Antony, Mark aunt of
Apennine Mountains
battle in
community of maroons (runaways)
Apollo
Apollonia (San Fratello)
Apollonius
Appian Way
Apulia (Puglia)
Aquilius, Manius
Arausio, Battle of (105 BC)
aristeia (story of warrior’s heroic deeds)
Arminius, Hermann
armour
Arrius, Quintus
Asia Minor
Asicius, Lucius
Aspromonte, Plains of
Aspromonte Mountains see also Melìa Ridge
Crassus’s fortifications in
Roman army meets rebels in (71 BC)
Atena Lucana (Atena Petilia), hills around
Aufidus (Ofanto) River
Augustus, Emperor (Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus)
Auriolus
Avella (Abella)
Bacchae, The
Bacchantessee also Dionysus, worshippers of
Bacchussee also Dionysus
bailiffs, plantation (vilici)
Balkans
bandits
Basilicata see Lucania
Batiatus, Lentulus (see Vatia)
battle, prayer before
battle, wine consumed before
battle tactics
Beneventum (Benevento)
Bessi tribe
Bible, Second Book of Maccabees
Bibracte, Battle of (58 BC)
Boudicca
Brindisi (Brundisium)
Bruttium (Calabria)
road in centre of
Buccino (Volcei)
Bulgaria
Caepio, Quintus Servilius
Caesar, Julius adopts Octavian (Augustus) celebration of triumph civil war with Pompey and Gallic people’s religion and Gaul and gladiators’ revolt kidnapped by pirates marches on Rome murder of qualities
Caggiano
Calabria see Bruttium
Callinicus, skirmish at (171 BC)
Camalatrum, Mount
Campania
Campania Felix
Campanian plain
Campus Atinas (ValloDiano)
Cannae, Battle of (216 BC)
Cannicus (Gannicus)
Cantenna, Battle of (71 BC)
Cantenna, Mount
Capaccio
Cape Caenys (Punta Pezzo)
Cape Pelorus (Peloro)
Caposele
Capua
amphitheatre
city market
crucifixion of slaves after revolt
as gladiatorial games center
gladiators in, after the war
gladiators’ revolt
highways from
Novius’s house
police force
Sabbio’s townhouse
slave revolt (104 BC)
slaves in
Thracian lady in
Vatia, house of see Vatia, Cnaeus Cornelius Lentulus
Capuans
Carrhae, Battle of (53 BC)
Case Romano
Cassius
Cassius Longinus, Gaius
Castelcivita‘
Castus
Catiline
Cato ‘the Censor’ (Marcus Porcius Cato)
Cato the Elder
Cato the Younger (Marcus Porcius Cato)
Catona (Statio ad Statuam)
Caudine Forks, Battle of the (321 BC)
Celadus
celebration, Saturnalia
Celtic armies before battle
Celtic refugees
Celtic women
Celts
Balkan
in battle
battle as religious act
at feasts
as gladiators
height of
horse sacred to
ideal of hero’s death on battlefield
migrating
rebel army breakaway contingent
reputation as herdsmen
rituals
sacrifice prisoners of war
as slaves
and suicide in defeat
warlike nature
as warriors
centurions
Charybdis and Scylla, myth of
Chiusa Grande
Cicero, Marcus Tullius
and Verres
Cilento Hills
Cilicia
Cilicians
Cimbri tribe, women of
Cisalpine Gaul
clairvoyants
Clanis (Clanio) River
Claudian
Cleopatra
Colliano
Colline Gate, Battle of the (82 BC)
Columella
Compsa (Conza)
Consentia (Cosenza)
consuls
Contrada Romano
Contursi Terme hot springs
Conza (Compsa)
Copia see Thurii
Corbulo
Coscile River see Sybaris River
Cosenza (Consentia)
Cossinius, Lucius
country estates, managers of
country estates, slaves on
Crassus, Marcus Licinius
Aspromonte Mountains, clash with rebels in

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