Spartacus saw now that it was time for him and his comrades to assume a higher character than had hitherto belonged to them. Instead of a leader of outlaws, he aspired to be the liberator of the servile population of Italy. He issued a proclamation, in which, while calling upon his followers to remember the multitudes who groaned in chains, he urged the slaves to rise, pointing out how strong they were and how weak were their oppressors, maintaining that the strength of the masters lay in the blind and disgraceful submission of the slaves, at the same time declaring that the land belonged of right to the bravest,—a sentiment as natural and proper when uttered by a man in his situation as it is base when proceeding from a modern buccaneer, who has taken up arms, not to obtain his own freedom, but to enslave others. The whole address is contemptuous towards the Romans, though somewhat too rhetorical for a man in the situation of Spartacus. It is the composition of Sallust, but we may believe that it expresses the sentiments of Spartacus, as Sallust was not only his contemporary, but was too good an artist to disregard keeping in what he wrote.
Italy was at this time full of slaves, many of whom must have been men of quite as much intelligence as the Romans, having been made captives in war. The free population of the Peninsula had almost entirely disappeared. Two generations before, Tiberius Gracchus had pointed to the miserable condition of Italy, and to the fact that the increase of the slave population had caused the Italian yeomanry to become almost extinct. In the years that had passed since his murder the work of extinction had gone on at an accelerated rate, the Social War and the Wars of Sulla and Marius having aided slavery to do its perfect work. In this way had perished that splendid rural population from which the Roman legionary infantry had been conscribed, and which had enabled the aristocratical republic to baffle the valor of Samnium, the skill of Pyrrhus, and the genius of Hannibal. Even so early as in the first of the Eastern wars of the Romans, immediately after the second defeat of Carthage, there were indications that the supply of Roman soldiers was giving out. An anecdote of the younger Scipio shows what must have been the character of a large part of the Roman population more than sixty years before the War of Spartacus. When he declared that Tiberius Gracchus had rightly been put to death, and an angry shout at the brutal speech came from the people, he turned to them and exclaimed, "Peace, ye stepsons of Italy! Remember who it was that brought you in chains to Rome!"
The country being full of slaves and the children of slaves, Spartacus had little difficulty in obtaining recruits. Apulia was particularly fruitful of insurgents. In that country the vices of Roman slavery were displayed in all their naked hideousness, and the Apulian shepherds and herdsmen had a reputation for lawlessness that has never been surpassed. Yet this was the consequence, not the cause, of their bondage. It is related that some of them having asked their master for clothing, he exclaimed, "What! are there no travellers with clothes on?" "The atrocious hint," says Liddell, "was soon taken; the shepherd slaves of Lower Italy became banditti, and to travel through Apulia without an armed retinue was a perilous adventure. From assailing travellers, the marauders began to plunder the smaller country-houses; and all but the rich were obliged to desert the country, and flock into the towns. So early as the year 185 B.C., seven thousand slaves in Apulia were condemned for brigandage by a Praetor sent specially to restore order in that land of pasturage. When they were not employed upon the hills, they were shut up in large, prison-like buildings, (ergastula) where they talked over their wrongs, and formed schemes of vengeance." [3] The century and more between this date and the appearance of Spartacus had not improved the condition of the Apulian slaves. He found them ripe for revolt, and was soon joined by thousands of their number, men whose modes of life rendered them the very best possible material for soldiers, provided they could be induced to submit to the restraints of discipline. They were strong, hardy, athletic, and active, and full of hatred of their masters. It shows the superiority of the Thracian that he could prevail upon them to act in a regular manner. He formed them into an army, the chief officers being the men who had escaped from Capua in his company. This army had some discipline, which was the more easily acquired because many of the men were originally soldiers, captives of the Roman sword. But the hatred of all in it to the Romans, and their knowledge that they had to choose between victory and the crudest forms of death known to the crudest of conquerors, made them the most reliable military force then to be found in the world.
[Footnote 3: Liddell, History of Rome, Vol. II, p. 144]
With such an army, thus composed, thus animated, and thus led, Spartacus commenced that war to which he has given his name. Bursting upon Lower Italy, the most horrible atrocities were perpetrated, the rich landholders being subjected to every species of indignity and cruelty, in accordance with that law of retaliation which was accepted and recognized by all the ancient world, and which the modern has not entirely abrogated. Towns were captured and destroyed, [4] and the slaves everywhere liberated to swell the conquering force. Spartacus is said to have sought to moderate the fury of his followers, and we can believe that he did so without supposing that he was much above his age in humane sentiment. He saw that excesses were likely to demoralize his army, and so render it unfit to meet the legions which it must sooner or later encounter.
[Footnote 4: These ravages seem to have made a great impression on the Romans, and were by them long remembered. Forty years later Horace alludes to them, in that Ode which he wrote on the return of Augustus from Spain (Carm. III. xiv. 19). He calls to his young slave to fetch him a jar of wine that had seen the Marsiaii War, "If there could be found one that had escaped the vagabond Spartacus." The manner in which he, the son of a libertinus, speaks of Spartacus, is not only amusing as an instance of foolish pride, but is curious as illustrating a change in Roman ideas that was working out more important results than could have followed from all the acts of the first two Caesars, though, perhaps it was in some sense connected with, if not dependent upon, their legislation.]
Much as Spartacus had done, and signal as had been his successes, it was not yet the opinion at Rome that he was a formidable foe. The government despatched Publius Varinius Glaber to act against him, at the head of ten thousand men. This seems a small force, yet it was not much smaller than the army with which, three or four years later, Lucullus overthrew the whole military power of the Armenian monarchy; and it was half as large as that with which Caesar changed the fate of the world at Pharsalia. The Romans probably thought it strong enough to subdue all the slaves in Italy, and Varinius sufficiently skilful to defeat their leaders and send them to Rome in chains. But they were to have a rough awakening from their dreams of invincibility, though some early successes of Varinius for a time apparently justified their confidence.
The army of Spartacus numbered forty thousand men, but it was poorly armed, and its discipline was very imperfect. It still lacked, to use a modern term, "the baptism of fire,"—never yet having been matched in the open field against a regular force. Its arms were chiefly agricultural implements, and wooden pikes that had been made by hardening the points of stakes with fire. Spartacus resolved upon retreating into Lucania; but the Gauls in his army, headed by his lieutenant Crixus, pronounced this decision cowardly, separated themselves from the main body, attacked the Romans, and were utterly routed. The retreat to Lucania was then made in perfect safety, and even with glory, apart from the skill with which it was conducted. Watching his opportunity, and showing that he understood the military principle of cutting up an enemy in detail, Spartacus fell upon a Roman detachment, two thousand strong, and destroyed it. Shortly after this, the Roman general succeeded, as he thought, in getting him into a trap. The servile encampment was upon a piece of ground hemmed in on one side by mountains, on the other by impassable waters, and the Romans were about to close up the only outlets with some of those grand works to which they owed so many of their conquests, when, one night, Spartacus silently retreated, leaving his camp in such a state as completely deceived the enemy, who did not discover what had happened until the next morning, when the gladiators were beyond their reach.
This masterly retreat was followed up by a brilliant surprise of a division of the Roman army under the command of Cossinius. The night was just getting in, and the soldiers were resting from their day's march and from the labors of forming the encampment, when the Thracian fell upon them. Thus suddenly attacked, they fled, without making any show of resistance,—abandoning everything to the assailants. Cossinius himself, who was bathing, had time only to escape with his life. The Romans rallied, a battle ensued, and they were routed, Cossinius being among the slain. This action took place not far from the Aufidus, which had witnessed the slaughter of Cannae.
Spartacus now considered his army fairly "blooded." It had routed a Roman detachment, and defeated a small army. Two Roman camps had fallen into its hands, under circumstances that gave indications of superior generalship, and several towns had been stormed. Though still deficient in arms, he resolved to attack Varinius. Sallust represents him as addressing his army before the battle, and telling them that they were about to enter, not upon a single action, but upon a long war,—that from success, then, would follow a series of victories,—and that therein lay their only salvation from a death at once excruciating and infamous. They must, he said, live upon victory after victory,—an expression that showed he had a clear comprehension of the nature of his situation. In the battle that followed, Varinius was beaten, unhorsed, and compelled to fly for his life. All his personal goods fell into the hands of Spartacus. His lictors, with the fasces, shared the same fate. Spartacus assumed the dress of the Roman, and all the ensigns of authority. He has been censured for this; but a little reflection ought to convince every one that he did not act from vanity, but from a profound appreciation of the state of things in Italy. The slaves, of which his army was composed, were accustomed to see the emblems of authority with which he was now clothed and surrounded in the possession of their masters alone; and when they beheld them on and about their chief, they were not only reminded of the governing power, but also of the overthrow of those who had therefore monopolized it. Spartacus was a statesman; and knew how to operate on the minds of the rude masses who followed him and obeyed his orders.