Expert: Maria - 7/18/2005

Question
Hello Maria,
Do you know where I can find a timeline about the slave Spartacus?
Many thanks


Answer
Hello Will,

First of all, we know little or nothing  of Spartacus, since  all we know about him  refers to his leadership in the Gladiatorial War (73-71 BC ).

So, you cannot find a timeline about Spartacus , with the exception of this war years.

Anyway,  here's the timeline I can build:

Ca.98 BC : born in Thrace
Ca.78 BC :soldier in the Roman Army as an auxiliary.
73 BC    :  gladiator in Capua (Italy ) and leader in the Gladiatorial War against Rome
73-71 BC : Gladiatorial War
71 BC    : Killed in battle in Southern Italy.

A Thracian by birth, Spartacus served in the Roman Army, perhaps deserted, led bandit raids, and was caught and sold as a slave.
He was sold, in 73 B.C., into the service of Lentulus Batiates, a man who taught at a "ludus"(school) for gladiators in Capua [Campania, i.e.Southern Italy],  twenty miles from Vesuvius.  
With about 70 fellow gladiators he escaped this gladiatorial training school and took refuge  on Mount Vesuvius, where other runaway slaves joined the  band.
After defeating two Roman forces, he  moved north, devastating Southern Italy.
Spartacus' aim was a general escape from Italy, but his followers preferred plunder, and in 72 B.C. they were back in S Italy where they took the town of Thurii and got through a cordon which Marcus Licinius Crassus stretched across the “toe” of Italy.
So, Spartacus was killed in a battle with Crassus in Lucania (Southern Italy) and Pompey, back from Spain, helped annihilate the survivors. Moreover, because Pompey performed the mopping up operations, he, not Crassus, got credit for suppressing the rebellion.
Of the captured slaves 6,000 were crucified along the Appian Way from Rome to Capua.
After the death of Spartacus, 3,000 Roman prisoners were found unharmed in his camp.

Best regards
Maria