‘did not yet consider this a war’: Appian, Civil Wars 1.116.541.
‘confused roar’: Tacitus, Germania 3.2.
immense mass grave: at Ribemont-sur-Ancre; Jean-Louis Brunaux and Bernard Lambot,
Guerre et Armament chez les gaulois 450- 52 av. J.-C.
(Paris: Editions Errance, 1987), 84.
‘fast-moving brawlers’. Plutarch,
Crassus
9.4.
‘because of the unhealthiness of the autumn’: Sallust, Histories frg. 3.96A.
‘the height of their disgrace’: Sallust, Histories frg. 3.96.
‘They roved throughout all of Campania’: Florus, Epitome 2.5.
no longer willing to obey him: Plutarch, Crassus 9.8.
‘a few farseeing people, men of liberal minds and nobility’: Sallust, Histories frg. 3.98A.
‘Some of them stupidly’; Sallust, Histories frg. 3.98A.
Chapter Four
‘happened upon the farmers of Abella’: Sallust, Histories frg. 3.97.
populated by slave shepherds: Juvenal, Satires 8.180; Horace, Epistles 2.2.177sqq., Epodes 1.27sq.
‘and having hastily found a suitable guide’: Sallust, Histories frg. 3.98B.
reputation for sacrificing prisoners: Diodorus Siculus 5.32.5.
Reports of gruesome practices: Strabo, Geography 7.2.3.
‘unbeknownst to the farmers’: Sallust, Histories frg. 3.98B.
In a hill town north of the valley even today: Ricigliano, see
http://ricigliano.asmenet.it/
and Piera Carlomagno, ed., La Provincia di Salerno, Guida Turistica (Sarno, Italy: Edizioni dell’Ippogrifo, 2004), 362-3.
Some Late Republican tombstones: Vittorio Bracco, ‘I materiali epigrafici’, in Bruno d’Agostino, ed, Storia del Vallo di Diano, vol. 1, Eta‘ Antica (Salerno: Pietro Laveglia Editore, 1981), 256.
‘Nothing was too holy’: Sallust,
Histories
frg. 3.98C.
‘very wide field’: Sallust, Histories frg. 3.98D.
‘winding, narrow, and cramped’. R.J. Buck, ‘The Ancient Roads of Southeastern Lucania’, Papers of the British School at Rome 43 (1975): 113.
Oliveto Citra, Roccaspiede and Genzano di Lucania: all the places mentioned lie within the borders of ancient Lucania; today, some are in Basilicata and others in Campania.
‘They were very knowledgeable about the area’: Sallust, Histories frg. 3.102.
‘Of all the men in the region of Lucania’: Sallust, Histories frg. 3.99.
‘they were used to weaving rustic baskets’: Sallust, Histories frg. 3.102.
They stretched hides: Sallust, Histories frg. 3.103.
‘great and frightening’: Plutarch, Crassus 9.7.
‘After this,’ says one source: Appian, Civil Wars, 1.116.542.
‘In a short time they collected’: Orosius, Histories 5.24.2.
‘terrible slaughter’: Florus, Epitome 2.8.5.
In Metapontum’s countryside: by studying pollen and seeds, archaeologists can describe Metapontum’s agricultural history in unusual detail. See Joseph Coleman Carter, Discovering the Greek Countryside at Metaponto (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006), 242-3, 246-7.
one scholar takes this as a sign of haste: Aldo Siciliano, ‘Herakleia, Acropoli - Tesoretti’, in Lucilla De Lachenal, Da Leukania a Lucania: la Lucania centro-orientale fra Pirro e i Giulio-Claudii: Venosa, Castello Pirro del Balzo 8 novembre 1992-31 marzo 1993 ([Rome]: Istituto poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, Libreria dello Stato, 1993), 143.
‘their natural disposition’: Livy, History of Rome 29.6, cf. 28.12.
‘slaves, deserters and the rabble’: Appian, Civil Wars 1.117.547.
‘They attained a certain level of skill’: Caesar, Gallic War 1.40.5.
‘from a small and contemptible start’: Augustine, City of God 4.5.
one Roman writer: Florus, Epitome 2.8.1-2.
Chapter Five
no longer merely ashamed but afraid: Plutarch, Crassus 9.8.
a police action but a war: Plutarch, Crassus 9.8; Florus, Epitome 1.34.3, 2.8.1-2, 12.
Spartacus fought at least one if not several pitched battles: e.g. ‘acie victi sunt’, ‘they were defeated in a formal battle’, Livy, Periochae 96.
‘arrogance and presumption’: Plutarch, Crassus 9.9. I assume that the ‘German force’ mentioned here is Crixus’s army; see M.G. Bertinelli Angeli, et al., Le Vite di Nicia e di Crasso (Verona, Fondazione Lorenzo Vallo: A. Mondadori, 1993), comm. ad loc.
he began the campaign season with 30,000 men: Orousius, Histories 5.24.2.
‘a vigourous man,’: Cicero, Verres 2.4.42.
Arrius compared to a boxer: Cicero, Brutus 242-3.
banging javelins on shields and shouting war cries: Ross H. Cowan, ‘The Clashing of Weapons and Silent Advances in Roman Battles’, Historia 56.1 (2007): 114-17.
‘threatening rumble’: Horace, cited without ref. by J. Peddie, The Roman War Machine (Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 1996), 23.
‘fought extremely fiercely’: Orosius, Histories 5.24.4.
two-thirds of Crixus’s men died: Appian, Civil Wars 1.117.543.
with a sudden rush: Plutarch, Crassus 9.9.
defeated Lentulus’s legates and captured all the army’s baggage: Plutarch, Crassus 9.9.
abandoned the field in great confusion: Appian, Civil Wars 1.116, 544.
‘thoroughly destroyed’: Florus, Epitome 2.8.10.
‘more polluted, deformed’: Cicero, On the Reponse of Soothsayers 25.
slaves spectators and Romans gladiators: Cicero, On the Reponse of Soothsayers 26.
purged himself of all his prior infamy: Florus, Epitome 2.8.9; cf. Orosius, Histories 5.24.3.
‘As Spartacus was pressing forward towards the Alps’: Appian, Civil Wars 1.117.544.
‘victory disease’: Timothy M. Karcher, ‘The Victory Disease’, Military Review (July/August 2003), pp. 9-17;
http://www.army
. milprof_writing/volumes/volume 1/september_2003/9_03_5. html.
‘elated by his victories’: Florus, Epitome 2.8.11.
‘Terror,’ says one ancient writer: Orosius, Histories 5.24.5.
‘many deserters’: Appian, Civil Wars 1.117.545.
60,000: Eutropius 6.7.2.
other figures: 90,000, Velleius Paterculus 2.30.6; over 100,000, Orosius, Histories 19; 120,000, Appian, Civil Wars 1.117.545.
‘And at the same time Lentulus’: Sallust, Histories 3.106, as translated, with my emendations, by Patrick McGushin, Sallust, The Histories Translated with Introduction and Commentary, vol. II (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 39.
‘he changed his mind about going to Rome’: Appian, Civil Wars 1.117.547.
crowns for just digging ditches: Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 6.24-6.
malicious remark: Aurelius Victor, On Illustrious Men 66.3.
sewer of Romulus: Cicero, Letters to Atticus 2.1.8.
Chapter Six
‘Everyone who had a soldier’s heart’: Sallust, Histories frg. 4.21 with commentary ad loc.
location, isolation and eradication: Mao Tse-Tung, On Guerrilla Warfare, translated from the Chinese and with an introduction by Samuel B. Griffith II (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1961), 30.
By November or thereabouts: Rome followed the lunar calendar until 46 BC, and it regularly fell out of synchronization with the solar calendar. ‘November’, therefore, is a rough estimate.
According to one source, an angry Senate: Plutarch, Crassus 10.1.
According to one source, these were the legions: Appian, Civil Wars 1.118.549.
‘Many of his men fell’: Plutarch, Crassus 10.3.
‘tremblers’: Plutarch, Crassus 10.4.
As one ancient source says, he had made himself more fearful: Appian, Civil Wars 1.118.551.
Spartan mercenary general: Xenophon, Anabasis 2.6.10.
One of our sources implies: Plutarch, Crassus 10.5-6.
different source and a more plausible account: Appian, Civil Wars 1.118.551.
‘with contempt’: Appian, Civil Wars 1.118.551.
‘defeated him and pursued him’: Appian, Civil Wars 1.118.551.
‘Finally . . . Licinius Crassus’: Florus, Epitome 2.8.12.
Chapter Seven
Heracleo: according to Cicero (Verrines 6.97); Orosius (6.3) calls him Pyrganio.
‘great Italian war’: Cicero, Verrines 6.2.5.
‘war of the Italian fugitives’: Cicero, Verrines 6.6.14.
the Senate extended Verres’s governorship to three years: Thomas Stangl, ed., Cicero Orationum Scholiastae (Vienna: Tempsky, [1912]), Scho. Cic. Gron. II 324.
‘Gaius Verres strengthened the shores’: Sallust, Histories frg. 4.32.
‘Once the Cilicians had made an agreement’: Plutarch, Crassus 10.7.
‘The narrowness of the passage’: Thucydides, Peloponnesian War 4.24.5, trans. Robert Strassler, ed., The Landmark Thucydides, a Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998), 236.
Sicels: Thucydides, Peloponnesian War 6.2.4.
‘When they placed large, wide-mouthed jars’: Sallust, Histories frg. 4.26.
Cape Caenys offered a narrower crossing: some scholars place the crossing further north, at Scilla, but that town lies outside the strait, where Plutarch, Crassus 10.3-4 insists on putting Spartacus.
‘They tried to launch rafts’: Florus, Epitome 2.8.13.
‘The entangled rafts were hindering’: Sallust, Histories frg. 4.27, trans. Patrick McGushin, Sallust, The Histories, vol. 2 Oxford: Clarendon Press, (1994), 43.
‘that bravest of men’: Cicero, Verrines 6.5.
Chapter Eight
the Romans claimed an immense body count: Appian, Civil Wars, 1.119.552.
the Romans had got their courage back: Appian, Civil Wars 1.119.552.
nature of the terrain: Plutarch, Crassus 10.7.
300 stades: Plutarch, Crassus 10.8.
a system of trenches, walls and sharpened poles: Appian, Civil Wars 1.118.551.
the Romans cut a trench from sea to sea: Plutarch, Crassus 10.8.
‘annoyed the men’: Appian, Civil Wars 1.119.553.
‘He crucified a Roman prisoner’: Appian, Civil Wars 1.119.553.
the Roman people let their frustration spill over: Appian, Civil Wars 1.119.554.
Crassus himself wrote to the Senate: Plutarch, Crassus 11.3.
‘worse than snow’: Paulinus of Nola, Poems 17.206.
Marcus Lucullus: technically Marcus Varro is correct, since Marcus had been adopted as an adult by one Terentius Varro, but for simplicity’s sake I use his birth name.
‘the teenage butcher’: Valerius Maximus 6.2.8.
accept him into its fides: Tacitus, Annals 3.73; cf. Appian, Civil Wars 1.120.556.
‘most beautiful dignity’: Tacitus, Annals 3.73.
‘below strength’: Sallust, Histories frg. 4.36.
AD 26: Tacitus, Annals 4.51.
Samnium: Appian, Civil Wars 1.119.552.
‘they began to disagree’: Sallust, Histories frg. 4.37, trans. Patrick McGushin, Sallust, The Histories, vol. 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 44.
Chapter Nine
‘the whole of the Gallic people’: Caesar, Gallic War, cited without reference in Jean-Louis Brunaux, The Celtic Gauls: Gods, Rites and Sanctuaries, trans. Daphne Nash (London: Seaby, 1988), 102.
‘The magic of women’: Gallic inscription, cited in Philip Freeman, The Philosopher and the Druids: A Journey Among the Ancient Celts (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 125.
‘fulfilling their monthly things’: Sallust, Histories frg. 4.40.
‘sacrificing on behalf of the enemies’: Plutarch, Crassus 11.5.
bite and kick the enemy: Ammianus Marcellinus, Histories 15.12.
Riyos: or, more accurately, *riyos, personal communication, Professor Michael Weiss, Department of Linguistics, Cornell University.
‘were in danger’: Plutarch, Crassus 11.5.
30,000: Orosius, Histories 5.24.6.
35,000: Livy, Periochae 97; Frontinus, Stratagems 2.5.34.
12,300: Plutarch, Crassus 11.5.
‘the most valiant battle of all’: Plutarch, Crassus 11.5.
Battle of Bibracte: Caesar, Gallic War 1.26.
‘to retreat towards the Peteline Mountains’: Plutarch, Crassus 11.6.
near the headwaters of the Silarus River: Orosius, Histories 5.24.6.
Spartacus now began to lead his army: Appian, Civil Wars 1.120.557.
The second account takes off: Plutarch, Crassus 11.6.
‘Success destroyed Spartacus’: Plutarch, Crassus 11.6.
Chapter Ten
‘they indiscriminately mix’: Orosius, Histories 5.24.3.
One Roman matron: Orosius, Histories 5.24.3.
ancient biographical tradition: Suetonius, Life of Horace.
in Cicero’s opinion: On Duties 1.42.
‘he gave up on all [his other plans]’: Appian, Civil Wars 1.120.557.
his men forced him to fight the Romans: Plutarch, Crassus 11.8.
he made the choice on his own: Appian, Civil Wars 1.120.557.
‘still of great size’: Appian, Civil Wars 1.120.557.
3,000 Roman citizens: Orosius, Histories 5.24.7.
A group of Sicilian slaves: Florus, Epitome 2.7.9-12; Diodorus Siculus 36.10.3.
moving too quickly: Sallust, Histories frg. 4.39; Plutarch, Comparison of Nicas and Crassus (Crassus 36(3).2); cf. Patrick McGushin, Sallust, The Histories, vol. 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 155-6.
‘He [Crassus] was digging a trench’: Plutarch, Crassus 11.8.
‘you defeat the enemy with a pickaxe’: Frontinus, Stratagems 4.7.2.