Civil Wars

At the same time Spartacus, a Thracian by birth, who had once served as a soldier with the Romans, but had since been a prisoner and sold for a gladiator, and was in the gladiatorial training-school at Capua, persuaded about [*](B.C. 73) seventy of his comrades to strike for their own freedom rather than for the amusement of spectators. They overcame the guards and ran away. They armed themselves with clubs and daggers that they took from people on the roads and took refuge on Mount Vesuvius. There many fugitive slaves and even some freemen from the fields joined Spartacus, and he plundered the neighboring country, having for subordinate officers two gladiators named Œnomaus and Crixus. As he divided the plunder impartially he soon had plenty of men. Varinius Glaber was first sent against him and afterward Publius Valerius, not with regular armies, but with forces picked up in haste and at random, for the Romans did not consider this a war as yet, but a raid, something like an outbreak of robbery. When they attacked Spartacus they were beaten. Spartacus even captured the horse of Varinius; so narrowly did a Roman prætor escape being captured by a gladiator. After this still greater numbers flocked to Spartacus till his army numbered 70,000 men. For these he manufactured weapons and collected apparatus. [*](Y.R. 682)

Rome now sent out the consuls with two legions. One of them overcame Crixus with 30,000 men near Mount Garganus, two-thirds of whom perished together with himself. Spartacus endeavored to make his way through the Apennines to the Alps and the Gallic country, but one of the consuls anticipated him and hindered his march while the other hung upon his rear. He turned upon them one after the other and beat them in detail. They retreated in confusion in different directions. Spartacus sacrificed 300 Roman prisoners to the manes of Crixus, and marched on Rome with 120,000 foot, having burned all his useless material, killed all his prisoners, and butchered his pack-animals in order to expedite his movement. Many deserters offered themselves to him, but he would not accept them. The consuls again met him in the country of Picenum. Here was another great battle and then, too, a great defeat for the Romans. Spartacus changed his intention of marching on Rome. He did not consider himself ready as yet for that kind of a fight, as his whole force was not suitably armed, for no city had joined him, but only slaves, deserters, and riff-raff. However, he occupied the [*](B.C. 72) mountains around Thurii and took the city itself. He prohibited the bringing in of gold or silver by merchants, and would not allow his own men to acquire any, but he bought largely of iron and brass and did not interfere with those who dealt in these articles. Supplied with abundant material from this source his men provided themselves with plenty of arms and continued in robbery for the time being. When they next came to an engagement with the Romans they were again victorious, and returned laden with spoils. [*](Y.R. 683)

This war, so formidable to the Romans (although [*](B.C. 71) ridiculous and contemptible in the beginning, considered as the work of gladiators), had now lasted three years. When the election of new prætors came on, fear fell upon all, and nobody offered himself as a candidate until Licinius Crassus, a man distinguished among the Romans for birth and wealth, assumed the prætorship and marched against Spartacus with six new legions. When he arrived at his destination he received also the two legions of the consuls, whom he decimated by lot for their bad conduct in several battles. Some say that Crassus, too, having engaged in battle with his whole army, and having been defeated, decimated the whole army and was not deterred by their numbers, but destroyed about 4000 of them. Whichever way it was, he demonstrated to them that he was more dangerous to them than the enemy. Presently he overcame 10,000 of the Spartacans, who were encamped somewhere in a detached position, and killed two-thirds of them. He then marched boldly against Spartacus himself, vanquished him in a brilliant engagement, and pursued his fleeing forces to the sea, where they tried to pass over to Sicily. He overtook them and enclosed them with a line of circumvallation consisting of ditch, wall, and paling.

Spartacus tried to break through and make an incursion into the Samnite country, but Crassus slew about 6000 of his men in the morning and as many more towards evening. Only three of the Roman army were killed and seven wounded, so great was the improvement in their morale inspired by the recent punishment. Spartacus, who was expecting from somewhere a reënforcement of horse, no longer went into battle with his whole army, but harassed the besiegers by frequent sallies here and there. He fell upon them unexpectedly and continually, threw bundles of fagots into the ditch and set them on fire and made their labor difficult. He crucified a Roman prisoner in the space between the two armies to show his own men what fate awaited them if they did not conquer. When the Romans in the city heard of the siege they thought it would be disgraceful if this war against gladiators should be prolonged. Believing also that the work still to be done against Spartacus was great and severe they ordered up the army of Pompey, which had just arrived from Spain, as a reënforcement.

On account of this vote Crassus tried in every way to come to an engagement with Spartacus so that Pompey might not reap the glory of the war. Spartacus himself, thinking to anticipate Pompey, invited Crassus to come to terms with him. When his proposals were rejected with scorn he resolved to risk a battle, and as his cavalry had arrived he made a dash with his whole army through the lines of the besieging force and pushed on to Brundusium with Crassus in pursuit. When Spartacus learned that Lucullus had just arrived in Brundusium from his victory over Mithridates he despaired of everything and brought his forces, which were even then very numerous, to close quarters with Crassus. The battle was long and bloody, as might have been expected with so many thousands of desperate men. Spartacus was wounded in the thigh with a spear and sank upon his knee, holding his shield in front of him and contending in this way against his assailants until he and the great mass of those with him were surrounded and slain. The remainder of his army was thrown into confusion and butchered in crowds. So great was the slaughter that it was impossible to count them. The Roman loss was about 1000. The body of Spartacus was not found. A large number of his men fled from the battle-field to the mountains and Crassus followed them thither. They divided themselves in four parts, and continued to fight until they all perished except 6000, who were captured and crucified along the whole road from Capua to Rome.

Crassus accomplished his task within six months, whence arose a contention for honors between himself and Pompey. Crassus did not dismiss his army, for Pompey did not dismiss his. Both were candidates for the consulship. Crassus had been prætor as the law of Sulla required. Pompey had been neither prætor nor quæstor, and was only thirty-four years old. He promised the tribunes of the people that much of their former power should be restored. [*](Y.R. 684) When they were chosen consuls they did not even [*](B.C. 70) then dismiss their armies, which were stationed near the city. Each one offered an excuse. Pompey said that he was waiting the return of Metellus for his Spanish triumph. Crassus said that Pompey ought to dismiss his army first. The people, seeing fresh seditions brewing and fearing two armies encamped round about, besought the consuls, while they were occupying the curule chairs in the forum, to be reconciled to each other. At first both of them repelled these solicitations. When certain persons, who seemed to be divinely inspired, predicted many direful consequences if the consuls did not come to an agreement, the people again implored them with lamentation and the greatest dejection, reminding them of the evils produced by the contentions of Marius and Sulla. Crassus yielded first. He came down from his chair, advanced to Pompey, and offered him his hand in the way of reconciliation. Pompey rose and hastened to meet him. They shook hands amid general acclamations and the people did not leave the assembly until the consuls had given orders in writing to disband the armies. Thus was the well-grounded fear of another great dissension happily dispelled. This was about the sixtieth year in the course of the civil convulsions, reckoning from the killing of Tiberius Gracchus.

AFTER the reign of Sulla, and the later operations of [*](B.C.) Sertorius and Perpenna in Spain, other internal commotions of a similar nature took place among the Romans until Gaius Cæsar and Pompey the Great waged war against each other, and Cæsar made an end of Pompey and was himself killed in the senate-chamber because he was accused of exercising royal power. How these things came about and how both Pompey and Cæsar lost their lives, this second book of the Civil Wars will show. Pompey had [*](Y.R. 690) lately cleared the sea of pirates, who were then more numerous [*](B.C. 64) than ever before, and afterward had overthrown Mithridates, king of Pontus, and regulated his kingdom and the other nations that he had subdued in the East. Cæsar was still a young man, but powerful in speech and action, daring in every way, ambitious of everything, and profuse beyond his means in the pursuit of honors. While yet ædile and prætor he had incurred great debts and had made himself wonderfully agreeable to the multitude, who always sing the praises of those who are lavish in expenditures.

At this time Lucius Catiline[*](All the codices say Gaius Catiline. The Latin version of Candidus says Lucius.) was a person of importance, of great celebrity, and high birth, but a madman. It was believed that he had killed his own son because of his own love for Aurelia Orestilla, who was not willing to marry a man who had a son. He had been a friend and zealous partisan of Sulla. He had reduced himself to [*](Y.R. 690) poverty in order to gratify his ambition, but still he was [*](B.C. 64) courted by the powerful, both men and women, and he became a candidate for the consulship as a step leading to absolute power. He confidently expected to be elected; but the suspicion of his ulterior designs defeated him, and Cicero, the most eloquent orator and the rhetorician of the period,[*](Y.R. 691) was chosen instead. Catiline, by way of raillery [*](B.C. 63) and contempt for those who voted for him, called him Novus Homo (a new man) on account of his obscure birth (for so they call those who achieve distinction by their own merits and not by those of their ancestors); and because he was not born in the city he called him Inquilinus (a lodger), by which term they designate those who occupy houses belonging to others. From this time Catiline abstained wholly from politics as not leading quickly and surely to absolute power, but as full of the spirit of contention and malice. He procured much money from many women who hoped that their husbands would get killed in the uprising, and he formed a conspiracy with a number of senators and knights, and collected together a body of plebians, foreign residents, and slaves. His leading fellow-conspirators were Cornelius Lentulus and Cethegus, who were then city praetors. He sent emissaries throughout Italy to those of Sulla's soldiers who had squandered the gains of their former life of plunder and who longed for similar doings. For this purpose he sent Gaius Manlius to Fæsulæ in Etruria and others to Picenum and Apulia, who enlisted soldiers for him secretly.

All these facts, while they were still secret, were communicated to Cicero by Fulvia, a woman of quality. Her lover, Quintus Curius, one of the conspirators with Catiline, who had been expelled from the Senate for debauchery, told his mistress in a vain and boastful way that he would soon be in a position of great power. [*](“He began to promise her seas and mountains,” says Sallust (Cat. 23).) And now a rumor of what was transpiring in Italy was noised about. Accordingly, Cicero stationed guards at intervals throughout the city, and sent many of the nobility to the suspected places to watch what was going on. Catiline, although nobody had ventured to lay hands on him, because the [*](Y.R. 691) facts were not yet publicly known, was nevertheless fearful [*](B.C. 63) lest suspicion should increase with time. Trusting to rapidity of movement he forwarded money to Fæsulæ and directed his fellow-conspirators to kill Cicero and set the city on fire at a number of different places the same night. Then he departed to join Gaius Manlius, intending to collect additional forces and invade the city while burning. So extremely vain was he that he had the rods and axes borne before him as though he were a proconsul, and he proceeded on his journey to Manlius, enlisting soldiers as he went. Lentulus and his fellow-conspirators decided that when they should learn that Catiline had arrived at Fæsulæ, Lentulus and Cethegus should present themselves at Cicero's door early in the morning with concealed daggers, expecting to be admitted because of their rank; enter into conversation with him in the vestibule on some subject, no matter what; draw him away from his own people, and kill him; that Lucius Bestia, the tribune, should at once call an assembly of the people by heralds and accuse Cicero of timidity and of stirring up war and disturbing the city without cause, and that on the night following Bestia's speech the city should be set on fire by others in twelve places and plundered, and the leading citizens killed.