SPARTACUS
109(?) BC - 71 BC
    By the time of Spartacus, Roman armies had conquered many countries and had enslaved 2,000,000 people (1/3rd of the Roman population !) to work for the army or the citizens of Rome.The estates of the Romans required an abundant supply of cheap labor. This labor force came in the form of slaves. Many of these plantation slaves worked while chained in irons and during the night were kept in underground prisons. One Roman writer recommended that these slaves be treated like cattle and put out to starve when they could no longer work.
         Not all slaves suffered so much. There were house slaves who cooked, spun and wove. Some slaves attained important positions, some were freed and some even bought their own freedom.
        But certain ones led miserable lives.
The ones who worked in the mines or on construction led the most terrible lives. They were fed little and were literally worked to death or abandoned when they were too old.
       Because of this mistreatment, the danger of a slave uprising was great, and in 73 B.C., such an uprising  occurred.
    Spartacus was born in Thrace (modern Bulgaria) about 109 BC. Romans considered his people barbarians ( because they didn't speak Latin !) and conquered them. Spartacus was an excellent soldier but was captured and became a mercenary (paid foreign soldier)for the Romans. He apparently committed a crime, or perhaps deserted the army, became an outlaw, and joined a small group of bandits. He was caught by Roman authorities and sold as a slave to a gladiator training school in the city of Capua.

And there, in 73 BC, he and Crixus and Oenomaus (two Gauls)

along with seventy-four other prisoners and slaves escaped.
and seized control of nearby 4,000 foot high Mount Vesuvius.
 
From there he raided the countryside, including nearby Pompeii. News of the revolt encouraged other slaves to revolt, and they joined Spartacus on Mount Vesuvius -- an army of from fifty to a hundred thousand. Rome was terrified. It sent 3,000 Roman soldiers but they were attacked by Spartacus' men from behind and defeated. Spartacus won a second battle against 6,000 Roman soldiers and captured the "fasces"(bundle of rods surrounding an ax - the symbol of Roman power)
     Spartacus' slave army headed south to the city of Metapontum where they spent the winter with plenty of good food, slowly building a stronger army, teaching them the value of fighting like a gladiator and creating weapons like the "gladius" or short sword.

    By Spring, Spartacus decided to take his people north and make an escape from Italy, 500 miles, to the Alps and back to their homes, but the slaves argued and their army split up. The Gauls and the Germans went with Crixus - 20,000 were killed by the Romans . The Thracians followed Spartacus who completely destroyed two Roman legions (10,000 men). To avenge Crixus, Spartacus had 300 prisoners from these battles fight in pairs to the death.
    Arriving at the Alps, Spartacus' army voted not to travel on into the frontier and freedom but rather to go back into Italy and continue fighting Romans and taking their treasures. Reluctantly, Spartacus agreed, and his army marched southward.
    The city of Rome prepared for an attack by Spartacus. The talented Roman general, Marcus Licinus Crassus (the richest man in Rome !),

created a new army to fight Spartacus, but instead of  attacking the city of Rome (he had no machines to attack the city), Spartacus surprised the Romans and continued traveling towards the toe of the Italian peninsula . Crassus' army followed Spartacus and was badly beaten, many soldiers running away.Crassus punished his soldiers with the use of "decimation"  - 1 out of every 10 soldiers killed by his comrades for the dishonor of failure in battle.

      Spartacus hoped to cross into Sicily to free more slaves and cut off the grain supply for Rome.Spartacus hired Cilician pirates to take him and his army to Sicily, but after he paid them a great sum, they sailed off and left him on his own. The slaves were unable to buy passage or even force ships to carry them.
    Crassus, with Rome's legions, cornered them in Bruttium (on the "foot" of Italy) and built a gigantic wall across the land.

Spartacus was trapped unless he could break through the wall and get back into mainland Italy. In his first attack he lost 6,000 men. He tried to get a peace treaty with Crassus, but the Romans would not listen. To inspire his army to win, Spartacus took a captured Roman soldier and had him crucified within sight of the wall. This would be the punishment for any slaves captured by the Romans, and it was a sign to the Romans that the battle was not over yet ! 
    Spartacus' army broke through the wall and made their way north with Crassus right behind. He could not march to Brundisium (in the heel of Italy) and take ships to the east because another Roman army under Lucullus had landed in Brundisium with his legions from Macedonia and they were moving towards Spartacus. Meanwhile, a Roman army under Pompey

was moving south toward Spartacus.
Spartacus was surrounded.

     In the battle that followed, 35,000 of the slave army were killed. The rest of the slaves scattered, trying to escape. They were captured by Pompey.
Spartacus was killed in the battle but his body was never found, and 6,000 of his followers were crucified along the 130-mile road (the Appian way) between Capua and Rome.( averaging 1 person every 115 feet !)
    Spartacus is remarkable for having come from the bottom of the social order to the top, building an army from nothing and leading it by the force of his personality, not as a dictator, but as a friend to those he liberated from the cruelty of Rome. This was a new kind of leader. His military genius led to 9 victories in battle against the most powerful army in the Mediterranean, travelling over 1000 miles of hostile land.
    Though he became the "boogyman" of the Romans, he was, and still is a symbol of determination and courage,and the powerful need to be free !
   SOME BACKGROUND ON CRASSUS
Crassus had been a  slave trainer.  He had gained a great fortune, much of it by buying land and homes (Roman Villas) cheaply  and reselling them later for a big profit. He became an important  political leader by lending money to young  patricians who wanted to go into politics,  and he had made money by operating a crew of firefighters in Rome that would rush to the scene of a fire and buy the property at a bargain price before agreeing to put the fire out.

After this latest slave uprising the demand for slaves went down because people became afraid of the slaves. Landowners in Italy began replacing slaves with freemen who rented the land and farmed it. The landlords received a third or more of their harvests. Slaves would still be used by the Romans, especially in workshops and as servants in the homes. They would work as firemen, torturers for the police, laborers in the military, accountants, and guards for public buildings, but the number of slaves would never be so high again among the Romans. With fewer wars and fewer slaves, the price of slaves would rise and the purchase of slaves decline.

Crassus won honors by defeating Spartacus, and so too did another general:  Pompey. In the year 70 BC, the Military Assembly elected them as Rome's two consuls. But in 53 B.C.  Crassus goes to conquer Parthia (modern day Iraq) and there loses. The Parthian king has Crassus' head chopped off and used in a Greek play that needed that prop ! Pompey finally got rid of the pirates that were attacking Rome's trading ships, stealing Italy's food supplies from other countries. With the pirates gone, the food supplies increased and the prices went down , making Pompey very popular !
At the same time a young patrician named Julius Caesar , friends with both Crassus and Pompey, became supervisor of the public games. And, with money he borrowed from Crassus, Caesar spent large amounts of his own money to put on public entertainments, including gladiator contests. This made Julius Caesar very popular!