In the show, his wife is separated from him and eventually returned on the brink of death. In actuality, his wife actually spent time with him at the house and even escaped with him and the other slaves. Regardless of his true death, the story of Spartacus ends after the Third Servile War.
Here, Marcus Crassus made his final stance against Spartacus, and with vastly superior numbers. The show plays out a lot of similar battle strategies used by the Romans and depicts the results rather accurately.
Likewise, most major battles that take place in the show actually took place in real life. The move against Spartacus on Mount Vesuvius unfolded in a very similar manner to real life. The shows attention to detail really helped build the narrative a believable fashion, making the show all the more appealing.
Doing so serves as a great callback to the original film while also showing how Spartacus evolved as an ideal. However, both versions of the famous quote are entirely fictitious.
There is no evidence of any quote or of any great defense of his people by Spartacus in any manner. Jack is an avid reader and writer with a plethora of works in all genres. He enjoys writing screenplays and comics in his free time and considers himself to be incredibly nerdy. Richland Anderson Published Jul 04, Share Share Tweet Email 0. Related Topics Lists spartacus.
Richland Anderson 64 Articles Published Jack is an avid reader and writer with a plethora of works in all genres. In reality, his forces had sneaked off and were able to orchestrate an ambush.. Spartacus was eventually defeated by a much larger, 8-legion army under the leadership of Crassus. However, in his final battle, Spartacus killed his horse so that he can be on the same level as his soldiers. He then set out to find Crassus, to fight him one on one, but was eventually surrounded and killed by Roman soldiers.
Spartacus is written into history as a significant enemy who posed a very real treat to Rome. Whether he realistically threatened Rome is debatable, but he certainly won a number of sensational victories and was thus written into the history books. He returned to the popular consciousness of Europe during the slave rebellion in Haiti. His story had clear ties and relevance to the anti-slavery movement.
He continues to embody class struggle in a very clear and resonant way. TV A new online only channel for history lovers.
Sign Me Up. Documentary exploring the rise of the great Carthaginian general, Hannibal Barca. Dan finds out what's going on with recent excavations at Vindolanda, one of the largest Roman forts near Hadrian's Wall. In three separate engagements, Spartacus first defeated Lentulus, who had attempted to surround the slaves, and then both Gellius and the praetor Arrius, who had recently slain Crixus and his Gauls.
To appease the ghost of Crixus, Romans were sacrificed or forced to fight each other as gladiators. Surprisingly, Spartacus chose to lead his slaves back into Italy.
Perhaps a contingent of his gladiators preferred looting the peninsula as Crixus had, and Spartacus may have feared that a further division of his force could be disastrous if Roman legions pursued them and forced them into battle. He may have even entertained the idea of raiding Rome, the source of enslavement of so many peoples.
For whatever reasons, the Thracian led his mob southward. Rome was beside itself with anxiety. The gladiator army was estimated at between 75, and , With the losses of the various legions, the city was short of available troops and able commanders.
The most experienced generals, such as Quintus Metellus and Gnaeus Pompey, were stationed with their battle-hardened legions in rebellious Spain, while Lucius Lucullus kept an eye on troublesome Asia Minor.
For the moment, only poorly trained local levies remained to defend Rome. The Roman senate finally gave supreme military command to the praetor Marcus Crassus, the only man who offered to take the post. A multimillionaire, Crassus had built his fortune through astute real estate deals. More important, he had gained valuable experience while serving under the command of the great Roman general Sulla, who died in 78 bc. Crassus inherited the remnants of the legions of Publius Varinius that had fled the battlefield in their earlier disastrous engagement with the gladiators, in addition to several newly raised legions.
Crassus ordered his lieutenant Mummius to lead two of the new legions in a circle behind the slave rabble, but, as Plutarch notes, not to join battle nor even skirmish with them. Unfortunately for Crassus, Mummius unwisely attacked the gladiators from the rear, obviously thinking that he would have the advantage of surprise.
In the ensuing melee, many of the legionaries were slain, and hundreds of others broke rank and fled. Crassus was livid with anger. Lots were drawn in each group, with one unlucky soldier chosen for execution. The entire army was forced to witness the deaths of their comrades as warning to any others who considered disobedience. With discipline re-established, the new general proceeded to retrain and rearm his troops. Each soldier became proficient in the use of the short-bladed gladius , ideal for either thrusting or slashing.
In addition, the Roman levies were drilled in the use of the pilum , an iron-headed spear whose metal neck, extending to a wooden shaft, would snap downward after hitting an object to prevent its being thrown back by an enemy.
The legions were also divided into regiments, called cohorts, of men each and were instructed how to maneuver on the field of battle. A complete legion stood ready for action with roughly 5, men. With eight new legions under his command, Crassus pursued Spartacus the length of Italy, getting the best of him in a running battle in the Lucania region in the south.
Stung, the gladiator army limped through Bruttium on the toe of the Italian peninsula, finally reaching the coastal city of Rhegium across the Strait of Messina from Sicily. Spartacus managed to contact Sicilian pirates, paying them handsomely from gold and treasure looted from countless estates to ferry thousands of his men to Sicily, where he hoped to rekindle the slave rebellion that had erupted there barely a generation earlier.
The pirates, however, deceived the rebels. They accepted the payment but failed to take their fleet to the approved rendezvous. For the moment, the gladiator army was literally left high and dry on the Bruttium peninsula. Crassus, in the meantime, realized he had the slaves trapped. Rather than face the cornered gladiators in a pitched battle, he ordered his legions to construct a wall completely across the peninsula to hem in the enemy and starve them into submission.
The legionaries excavated a ditch 15 feet deep and wide across the mile distance, then fashioned a wood and stone wall along one edge of the ditch. Spartacus, for a time, ignored the Roman wall. He desperately searched for some other means to transport his army but could not devise one. With winter setting in and supplies running low, he determined his only recourse was to smash through the barricade across the peninsula. The Thracian waited for a snowy night and a wintery storm, noted Plutarch, when he filled up a small portion of the ditch with earth and timber and the boughs of trees, and battered his way through.
With the freed gladiators once more tramping toward Lucania, Rome panicked. The senate authorized the return of Pompey from Spain and Lucullus from his recent wars with Mithridates to bolster the legions of Crassus. Fearing the glory of subduing the gladiators would be won by those political rivals, Crassus redoubled his efforts.
Fortunately for the Romans, the gladiators were once again weakened by internal squabbling. Two more Gauls, Ganicus and Cestus, broke away from the main army to plunder area villages and estates. Encamped at the Lucanian Lake, this splinter band was surprised by Crassus and his legions. With no retreat possible, the gladiators fought with the desperate fury of cornered men. More than 12, rebels fell in the battle before Spartacus arrived to rescue the survivors.
Pursued by the Romans, Spartacus led his army to the mountains of Petelia. Suddenly Spartacus wheeled his force about and fell on the Romans. In the furious battle that followed, Scrophas was wounded, and his legionaries barely managed to drag him to safety.
The defeat became a rout, as Romans streamed away by the score. News reached the slaves that Pompey and Lucullus had been dispatched with their legions and were at that moment marching to put an end to the insurrection.
Spartacus advised his followers to continue their retreat through the Petelian heights, but many of his officers advocated heading south to Apulia to reach the seaport of Brundisium on the heel of the Italian peninsula. There, it was hoped, they could capture merchant ships in a desperate escape attempt. With the legions of his political rivals rapidly approaching, Crassus was determined to bring Spartacus to a decisive battle. His legions hounded the gladiators as they fled southward.
Stragglers were rapidly picked off and executed. When word reached him that Lucullus had landed at Brundisium and was marching inland, Crassus knew he had the Thracian at his mercy.
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