Spartacus: The Gladiator Who Fought For Freedom

Who was Spartacus?

Spartacus was a Thracian warrior who was captured by the Roman legion and forced into slavery as a gladiator. The lives of gladiators were, unsurprisingly, filled with extreme hardship. Made to undergo rigorous training and brutal combat for the entertainment of Roman spectators, they lived under the constant threat of death or extreme physical injury. When they weren't in the arena, they were often kept in small cells and punished with beatings. Spartacus suffered through years of this treatment until one day he decided he wasn't going to take it anymore. 

The Daring Escape 

In 73 BC, Spartacus began planning an escape from the gladiatorial school where he was being held. Initially, he recruited around 200 fellow prisoners to join him in the revolt, but word soon leaked to the guards, causing most of them to drop out. Even though their numbers were greatly reduced, the 78 remaining gladiators would rather risk torture and death than spend another moment enslaved. With no weapons, Spartacus and his men broke out of their cells and raided the kitchen, seizing knives and skewers. These may sound like meagre arms for an escape, but remember, these men were supreme fighters forced to train in combat every day of their lives. The gladiators fought past the guards and made it outside, where, as luck would have it, a wagon filled with a variety of gladiator weapons was passing by. Now armed with swords and shields, they made their way up Mount Vesuvius, pillaging towns for supplies and recruiting enslaved people along the way.

Overreaching

In the days and weeks to come, Spartacus began amassing a small army, thanks, in part, to the Roman army’s refusal to take his uprising seriously. They were already engaged in military campaigns in Spain, southeast Europe, and Crete and didn’t really see the growing slave army as a threat. This proved to be a huge mistake.

If you are enslaved, you can think, "If I can escape, I can make it. I can go and join the Spartacus Army.” The possibility of solidarity persuades large numbers of slaves to break out and join him.

Dr Neville Morley, historian and author of The Roman Empire: Roots of Imperialism.

By 72 BC, Spartacus’s forces swelled to include 120,000 men. Spartacus decided to head north to the Alps, where they could escape and finally be free. But, by now, the slave army was drunk on power. Many of them wanted to continue pillaging and amassing riches. So, instead of fleeing back to the homelands from which they’d been captured, they turned around and headed south.

By this point, Marcus Liccinius Crassus had taken control of the Roman forces. Realising that Spartacus was a genuine threat, he led eight Roman legions in pursuit of the slave army, eventually trapping them in the toe of Italy.

The Downfall

Out of options, Spartacus decided to flee to Sicily. To get there, he needed good sailors and even better boats. He turned to a group of pirates who frequented the Strait of Messina, the body of water that sat between Spartacus’s army and the possibility of a new island kingdom. Though they were criminals, these pirates possessed rapid boats and vast navigational knowledge. Spartacus needed to act quickly, so he paid the pirates to take him and his men across the Strait. The pirates, however, did not hold up their end of the bargain. They fled with the money, leaving Spartacus and his men stranded in mainland Italy. They tried to assemble makeshift rafts to make the crossing but to no avail.

A Final Stand

Spartacus’s army was left with no choice but to head north to try and break through Crassus’s lines. Along the way, thousands of his men were slaughtered, and their numbers shrank to just 30,000 rebels. The slave army’s final stand took place in April of 71 BC. According to some sources, Spartacus was nearly able to kill Crassus himself before being cut down by centurions. Though most people believe he died in battle, his body was never found, and the rebel army was decimated. Six thousand were taken captive and crucified. Though Spartacus ultimately lost, his legacy remains more than 2000 years later. He is seen as a figure of hope—a hero of the underdog whose story still inspires us to fight oppression in all its forms.