The Spartacus War (29 page)

On Celtic religion, see J.-L. Brunaux, The Celtic Gauls: Gods, Rites and Sanctuaries (London: Seaby, 1988); M.J. Green, The World of the Druids (London: Thames & Hudson, 1997); N.K. Chadwick, The Druids (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1997).

On the use of Dionysus as a political symbol in the Hellenistic world, see Walter Burkert, ‘Bacchic Teletai in the Hellenistic Age’, in Thomas H. Carpenter and Christopher A. Faraone, eds., Masks of Dionysus (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), 259-75, esp. 259-70.

On heroization and divine honours for great men in the Late Roman Republic, see Stefan Weinstock, Divius Julius (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 287-97; Itta Gradel, Emperor Worship and Roman Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002), 27-53. On the widespread belief that successful Roman Republican generals were supernaturally inspired, see J.P.V.D. Balsdon, ‘Sulla Felix’, Journal of Roman Studies 41.1-2 (1951):1-10.

Basic introductions to the Italian geographical context of Spartacus’s revolt include T.W. Potter, Roman Italy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990); R. Ross Holloway, The Archaeology of Ancient Sicily (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), and guidebooks in the Blue Guide series such as P. Blanchard, Southern Italy (London: A&C Black Publishers, 2004). H.V. Morton, A Traveller in Southern Italy (London, Methuen & Co, 1969), is impressionistic but stimulating.

R.J. Buck published a series of studies on the ancient roads of Lucania between 1971 and 1981: R.J. Buck, ‘The Via Herculia’, Papers of the British School at Rome 39 (1971): 66-87; R.J. Buck, ‘The Ancient Roads of Eastern Lucania’, Papers of the British School at Rome 42 (1974): 46-67; R.J. Buck, ‘The Ancient Roads of Southeastern Lucania’, Papers of the British School at Rome 43 (1975): 98-117; R.J. Buck, ‘The Ancient Roads of Northwestern Lucania and the Battle of Numistro’, Parola del Passato 36 (1981):317-47.

The following regional and local studies are helpful. On the archaeology and history of Campania, see M. Frederiksen, Campania (Hertford: Stephen Austin, 1984). On Capua, see S. De Caro and Valeria Sampaolo, Guide of Ancient Capua (Santa Maria Capua Vetere: Soprintendenza Archeologica delle province di Napoli e Caserta, 2000). On ancient Lucania, see E. Isayev, Inside Ancient Lucania: Dialogues in History and Archaeology (London: Institute of Classical Studies, University of London, 2007). There is a brief but illuminating discussion of the Roman Republican era at Metapontum in J.C. Carter, Discovering the Greek Countryside at Metaponto (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2006); Antonio De Siena, Metaponto, Archeologia di una Colonia Greca (Soprintendenza Archeologica della Basilicata, Taranto: Scorpione Editrice, 2001); Franco Liguori, Sybaris Tra Storia e Leggenda (Castrovillari: Bakos, 2004).

Laura Battastini argues that Spartacus’s battle with Lentulus took place in the northern Tuscan Apennines near the village of Lentula: Lentula La dinastia dei Lentuli Corneli, la guerra di Spartaco e la storia di antichi villaggi dell’Appennino Tosco Emili ano, 2nd edn (Restignano Italy: Editografica, 2000). R. Luongo opens a window into the journey of Spartacus’s army in the region of the Picentini Mountains: R. Luongo, ‘L’esercito di Spartaco nella regione dei Monti Picentini’, Rassegna Storica Salernita 42, n.s. 21.2 (2004): 21-32. E. Greco’s study of Spartacus on the Strait of Messina is illuminating if unconvincing: E. Greco, Spartaco sullo stretto ovvero Le origini di Villa San Giovanni e Fiumara di muro (Rome: Gangemi Editore, 1999).

Domenico Raso offers a plausible theory of Crassus’s military works in the Aspromonte Mountains in Domenico Raso, ‘TIN-NARIA: Antiche opere militari sullo Zomaro’, Calabria sonosciuta 37 (January-March 1987): 79-102, and Domenico Raso, Zomaro: La montagna dei sette popoli, tra i misteri della montagna calabrese (Reggio di Calabria: Laruffa, 2001).

On Roman roads, see Raymond Chevallier, Roman Roads, trans. N.H. Field (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1976); Ray Laurence, The Roads of Roman Italy: Mobility and Cultural Change (London and New York: Routledge, 1999); Romolo Agosto Staccioli, The Roads of the Romans (Rome: ‘L’Erma’ di Bretschneider, 2003); Ivana della Portella, Giuseppina Pisani Sartorio, Francesca Ventre, The Appian Way from its Foundation to the Middle Ages, trans. from the Italian (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2004) and A.R. Amarotta, ‘La Capua-Reggio (e il locus Popilli) nei pressi di Salerno’, Atti della Accademia Pontaniana XXXIII (1984): 289-308.

A brief but valuable introduction to the archaeological evidence for Spartacus’s revolt is found in A. Russi, ‘La romanizzazione: il quadro storico’, in Dinu Adamesteanu, ed., Storia della Basilicata, vol. 1: L’Antichita‘ (Rome: Editori Laterza, 1999), 531-7, and in the same volume, A. Small, ‘L’occupazione del territorio in eta‘ romana’, 577. For the coin hoard buried at Siris, see A. Siciliano, ‘Ripostiglio di monete repubblicane da Policoro’, Annali dell’ Istituto Italiano di Numismatica XXI-XXII (1974-5): 103-54. For the treasure buried at Palmi, in an olive grove 25 miles north of Cape Caenys, see P.G. Guzzo, ‘Argenteria di Palmi in ripostiglio’, Atti e memorie della Societa‘ Magna Grecia 18-20 (1977-9): 193- 209.

On tattooing in Greece and Rome, see C.P. Jones, ‘Stigma: Tattooing and Branding in Graeco-Roman Antiquity’, Journal of Roman Studies 77 (1987): 139-55. On tattooing in Thrace, see A. Mayor, ‘People Illustrated’, Archaeology 52.2 (March/April 1999): 54-7.

The best introduction to crucifixion and the Romans is M. Hengel, Crucifixion in the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of the Cross (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977). For a concise overview, see Haim Cohn and Shimon Gibson, ‘Crucifixion’, Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd edn, vol. 5, Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik, eds. (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007): 309-10, or J.J. Rousseau and Rami Arav, ‘Crucifixion’, Jesus and his World: An Archaeological and Cultural Dictionary (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1995): 74-8. On the evidence of material culture, see J. Zias, ‘Crucifixion in Antiquity, the Anthropological Evidence’,
www.joezias.com/CrucifixionAntiquity.html,
and J. Zias and E. Sekeles, ‘The Crucified Man from Giv’at ha-Mivtar: A Reappraisal’, Israel Exploration Journal 35 (1985): 22-7. On medical questions regarding crucifixion, see M.W. Maslen and Piers D. Mitchell, ‘Medical Theories on the Cause of Death in Crucifixion’, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 99 (2006): 185-8.

For a stimulating if speculative theory about the enduring, Celtic way of war, see G. McWhiney, Attack and Die. Civil War Military Tactics and the Southern Heritage (University of Tusca loosa: University of Alabama Press, 1981).

Notes

In citing ancient authors, I follow the abbreviations of the standard reference work, The Oxford Classical Dictionary 3rd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). I cite the titles of ancient works, however, in English translation. References to the fragments of Sallust’s Histories come from the following edition unless otherwise stated: B. Maurenbrecher, C. Sallusti Crispi Historiarum Reliquae. Vol. II: Fragmenta (Leipzig: Teubner, 1893).

Ronald Reagan: in the so-called ‘Westminster Speech’ before the British Parliament in London, 8 June 1982,
http://www.heritage. org/Research/Europe/WM106.cfm.

murmillo: Florus, Epitome 2.8.12.

‘of enormous strength and spirit’: Sallust, Histories frg. 3.90.

‘sharp iron’: ferra acuta; see Marcus Junkelmann, ‘Familia Gladiatoria: The Heroes of the Amphitheatre’, in Gladiators and Caesars: The Power of Spectacle in Ancient Rome, Eckart Koehne and Cornelia Ewigleben, eds., English version ed. R. Jackson (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 66.

Capua: the ruins of ancient Capua are located in today’s city of Santa Maria Capua Vetere. The modern city called Capua was, in fact, ancient Casilinum.

slave sale carved on a Capuan tombstone: the stele of Publilius Satyr, published by Theodor Mommsen et al., Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, 17 vols. (Berlin: 1863-1986), vol. X.8222. For a photo, see
http://www.culturacampania.rai.it/site/engb/Cultural_Heritage/Museums/Scheda/Main_works/works/
capua_ museo_campano_stele_di_publilius_satyr_.html? UrlScheda=capua_museo_provinciale_campano.

served in an allied unit: Florus, Epitome 2.8.7.

Second Book of Maccabees: 12.35.

became what the Romans called a latro: Florus, Epitome 2.8.8.

Varro: Sosipater Charisius 1.133 (ed. Keil).

‘like wild beasts’: Livy, History of Rome 42.59.

‘are absolutely mad about war’: Strabo, Geography 4.4.2. trans. Philip Freeman, War, Women, and Druids. Eyewitness Reports and Early Accounts of the Ancient Celts (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002), 12-13.

the going rate for a Gallic slave: Diodorus Siculus 5.26.3-4.

40 million amphorae of wine: A. Tchernia, ‘Italian Wine in Gaul at the End of the Republic’, in Peter Garnsey, Keith Hopkins and C.R. Whitaker, eds., Trade in the Ancient Economy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983) 92, 97-8.

many Thracians supported Mithridates in his revolt against Rome: Cassius Dio frg. 101.

‘Peace is displeasing to [their] nation’: Tacitus, Germania 14.

‘Tell your masters to feed their slaves!’ Dio Cassius 77.10.2.

such as these from Pompeii: all these examples come from the earlier ludus in Pompeii and appear in Luciana Jacobelli, Gladiators at Pompeii (Los Angeles: John Paul Getty Museum, 2004), 48-9, 65-6.

‘erect and invincible’: Seneca, Letters 37.2.

‘to run a risk for freedom’: Appian, Civil Wars 1.116.539.

‘more thoughtful and more dignified’: Plutarch, Crassus 8.3. For the translation of the Greek word
prâotês
as ‘dignified’, see Hubert Martin, Jr, ‘The Concept of Prâotês in Plutarch’s
Lives’,
Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 3 (1960): 65-73.

an elite few men of prudence: Sallust, Histories frg. 98A.

a few ‘nobles’ among the insurgents: Sallust, Histories frg. 98A.

‘our sole source’: Plutarch, Crassus 8.4.

scene on a tombstone of a slave dealer: the Kapreilios Relief shows two women and two children accompanying a file of eight slaves marching in a chain gang, chained by the neck and preceded by a guard. See J. Kolendo, ‘Comment Spartacus devint-il esclave?’, in Chr. M. Danov and Al. Fol, eds.,
SPARTACUS Symposium Rebus Spartaci Gestis Dedicatum 2050
A.: Blagoevgrad, 20-24.IX.1977 (Sofia, Bulgaria: Editions de L’ Académie Bulgare des Sciences, 1981), 75, and M.I. Finley, ‘Marcus Aulus Timotheus, Slave Trader’, in
Aspects of Antiquity,
Discoveries and Controversies, 2nd edn (New York: Penguin, 1977), 154-66.

nomadic people: Plutarch, Crassus 8.3.

modern experts: personal communications, Professor Harry Greene, Cornell University, and Professor Luca Luiselli, University of Rome.

‘great and fearful power’: Plutarch, Crassus 8.4.

‘lucky end’: Plutarch, Crassus 8.4, mss. a, b, c.

‘unlucky end’: Plutarch, Crassus 8.4, mss. d, e, f.

‘something sacred and prophetic’: Tacitus, Germania 8.

‘a woman to make your heart tremble’: Phyllis Mack, Visionary Women: Ecstatic Prophecy in Seventeenth-Century England (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 17.

Columella: On Agriculture 1.8.6.

Martha: Plutarch, Life of Marius 17.1-3.

snake made Spartacus a Thracian hero: Demosthenes 18.259-60; Alexander Fol and Ivan Mazarov, Thrace and the Thracians (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1997), 28-9.

two slave revolts in Sicily: Diodorus Siculus 34.2.46, 36.4.4, with Jean Christian Dumont, Servus. Rome et l’Esclavage sous la
République,
Collection de l’École Française de Rome 103 (Rome: Ecole Française de Rome, Palais Farnèse, 1987), 263-4.

‘new Dionysus’: E. Candiloro, ‘Politica e cultura in Atene da Pidna alia guerra mitridatica’, Studi classici et orientali 14 (1965): 153-4 and n.71.

‘raged through every part of Italy’: Claudian, Gothica 155-6.

One historian: Emilio Gabba, Appiani, Bellorum Civilium Liber
Primus
(Firenze: La Nuova Italia Editrice, 1958), 317. cf. 211-12.

kill a man through his chest:
Archiv für Kriminologie
211, 5-6 (May-June 2003): 174-80.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?
db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus &list_ uids=12872687.

sica: in one of his poems (Carmina 9.253), the late Roman man of letters, Sidonius Apollinaris (c. AD 430-489) describes Spartacus as wielding a sica in battle against Rome’s consuls.

‘Not satisfied with having made their escape’: Florus, Epitome 2.8.3.

‘dishonourable and barbaric’: Plutarch, Crassus 9.1.

‘many runaway slaves and certain free men’: Appian, Civil Wars 1.116.540.

10,000 fugitives: Florus, Epitome 2.8.3.

harvesting grapes and cutting hay: Varro, Agriculture 1.17.2.

steal your firewood: Cato, On Agriculture 144.3.

money has no smell: Suetonius, Vespasian 23.

Most of Rome’s so-called allies: Appian, Mithridatic Wars 109.519-520.

‘If roving Spartacus’: Horace, Odes 3.14.14-20. Trans.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Hor
.+Carm.+3.14.

terror servilis: Livy, History of Rome 3.16.3.

‘If they come against us in force’; Sallust, Histories frg. 3.93.

‘a tumultus of slaves’: Caesar, The Gallic War 1.40.6.

strictly for the Saturnalia: Plutarch, Sulla 18.5.

‘had a humble and unworthy name’: Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 5.6.20, trans. Brent D. Shaw, Spartacus and the Slave Wars (Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s, 2001), 164.

nation of horsemen: Homer, Iliad 14.227.

Thucydides: Peloponnesian War 2.96.2.

‘were used to weaving branches’: Sallust, Histories frg. 3.102.