Spartacus and perhaps others had the advantage of knowing the enemy. True, when he had fought for Rome, Spartacus was an auxiliary, and auxiliaries did not receive Roman training. They used their own style of fighting, and they tended to have native commanders. But they benefited from Rome’s impressive logistical and support system. Anyone with his eyes open would have seen just how well organized and disciplined the legions were in battle. Auxiliaries had ample opportunity to learn from the Romans. Nor are they likely to have underestimated the enemy.
Perhaps the most impressive things about Spartacus and his men were their cohesion and leadership. The rebels barely knew each other but they cooperated beautifully. Only the gladiators were in fighting trim, even if some of the runaway country folk were former soldiers, which is likely. As slaves or farmworkers the runaways were tough, and as oppressed people they had incentive to fight, but it takes more than that to win a battle. To take just one example, amateurs used their swords to slash rather than to make the more effective move, the thrust. New soldiers had to learn many such skills (and this happened to be a technique that gladiators could teach well). They also had to fight as a team. Leadership had molded the rebels into a victorious force. The three commanders surely deserve credit; the Thracian woman and her prophecies might also have played a role.
Glaber is
never heard from again, at least not in our sources. Spartacus and the
gladiators, on the contrary, might have now become household names around
Vesuvius. They attracted many new recruits, in particular shepherds and
cowherds from the surrounding area. They were “fast-moving brawlers”
and the rebels armed them with weapons captured from Glaber’s camp.
At a guess, the new recruits
included a number of Celts, who had a reputation as good herdsmen. They
probably also included a large number of women, since Roman experts advised
supplying herdsmen in the bush with women to cook for them and meet their
sexual needs. Spartacus used herdsmen to serve as scouts and light-armed
troops and—who knows?—some of those soldiers might have been
women.
We might imagine that the rebels’ base was now the Romans’ former camp. There they could have lived in tents, a step up from the open air of the mountain. Glaber’s praetorium was now Spartacus’s headquarters, perhaps shared with Crixus. It was probably a busy place.
Basic food and supplies dictated continued raids around Vesuvius. But to keep on winning against the Romans, the rebels would have to forge weapons; they would have to train and drill; they needed to learn how to trust and communicate with each other. That was hard work—plunder and vengeance were easier and more fun. Spartacus and Crixus had to strike a balance between what their men wanted and what they needed.
Meanwhile, the news of Glaber’s defeat arrived in Rome. The Senate appointed another praetor to replace him: Publius Varinius. He recruited troops on the road as he marched south. Around the same time or shortly afterward the Senate chose yet another praetor to advise and assist Varinius, Lucius Cossinius—unfortunately, he is only a name to us. Cossinius too, it seems, was told to raise an army on the march.
It was now autumn 73 b.c. The fugitives first encountered Varinius indirectly, via his legate Lucius Furius, at the head of two thousand men. A legate was a high-ranking officer, a member of the Senate, who was authorized to command in his superior’s absence. A certain Furius had served as praetor in a corruption case in 75 B.C., and they may be the same man. If so, Furius was a better judge than general, because he was attacked by the rebels and they trounced him.
We don’t know where the engagement took place, but most likely it was in Campania, like all the other fighting in this period between the Romans and the rebels. Like Glaber, Furius was probably surprised or ambushed by Spartacus’s men. They had neither the training nor the equipment to face the Romans in regular battles.
The defeat of Furius was a bad omen for Varinius, but there was worse to come. Spartacus’s scouts were closely watching the movements of Varinius’s colleague Cossinius. It was now that the Thracian caught Cossinius bathing in a villa near Pompeii—the incident described earlier. Cossinius’s humiliation, defeat, and death all followed fast. For the third time in a few months, a force of gladiators and fugitives had defeated an army led by a Roman senator.
But that was not all. Spartacus and his men managed to capture—or at least to raid—two more Roman camps: first, the camp of another of Varinius’s subordinates, Gaius Toranius, and then the camp of Varinius himself. Unfortunately, none of the details of these events survive. But the result is clear: a blow to the morale of even the most seasoned soldiers. Varinius’s men were overwhelmed.
Some of them were sick “because of the unhealthiness of the autumn.” Some had run away after their recent defeats and had refused to return to the colors, despite a stern order to do so. As for the rest, as a Roman author reports, “the height of their disgrace is that they were shirking their duty.” next