The Spartacus War Page 14
It was a good day for Rome and it had just begun. The rebels would attack again in the evening and once again they would fail. Afterwards the Romans claimed an immense body count, saying that 12,000 dead insurgents cost Rome only 3 dead and 7 wounded. Ancient battles often produced lopsided casualty rates but this sounds like propaganda. Uncertainty is frustrating to the historian but it is best to be clear: both these figures and the very details of the engagement are speculative. Indeed, our knowledge of the events in this chapter is unusually tentative, and for several reasons. The sources contradict each other even more than usual. Perhaps that is not surprising in the case of events that took place in the dead of winter, deep in the mountains of a remote corner of Italy.
Besides, for Romans, the domestic political stakes were almost as high as the military ones. Crassus had gambled everything on a defensive line in the mountains. The massive fortifications symbolized the man who had made his fortune in real estate. He would defeat Spartacus by out-building him. Some said that Crassus gave his men the construction job just to keep them busy during winter, the off-season for warfare. That sounds like false modesty. Crassus cared too much about his command to fill it with make-work projects. He knew that the campaign in Bruttium would make or break him.
Crassus wanted to defeat Spartacus, but if he couldn’t, he had to control the way the story was told to the Roman public. To do so, he needed influential friends, and surely he obtained them. A man who could buy armies could afford the rewards that would cement friendships. We might suspect the hand of his publicists, for example, in the assertion in the sources that the Romans had got their courage back thanks only to Crassus’s policy of decimation. The campaign in Bruttium proved to be intensely controversial. We will never know precisely what happened there, but we can pick our way cautiously through the evidence.
In spite of exaggerated casualty figures, a Roman victory that day is a reasonable assumption. The Romans had earned success. Crassus and his men had spent weeks if not a month or two preparing a killing field. The Romans could have ended the rebellion that very day if they hadn’t faced a general of the Thracian’s skill. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
For Spartacus the story began on the day he marched his men from the Strait of Messina towards the Aspromonte Mountains. He had to feed his army, which meant going inland on raids and in pursuit of new supporters. This was herding country, known for its cows, sheep and swine. It was terrain for hunting hare and boar. As the rebels travelled north-eastwards from the strait over the highland Plains of Aspromonte they probably got some of what they wanted by charming slave herdsmen - and the rest they took. Wherever they went, the rebels ravaged the countryside.
Archaeology may provide evidence of the damage they did. About 25 miles north of Cape Caenys, in an olive grove near the Tyrrhenian Sea, a treasure recently turned up. There, buried and protected by two large slabs of stone, lay a clay lamp and a group of silver objects: pitchers, cups, a ladle, a teaspoon and a medallion with a bust of Medusa. A graffito may refer to the name of a wealthy Roman landowning family. The objects date to the period c. 100-75 BC and it is tempting to associate them with Spartacus. They were buried in an isolated spot in ancient times, far from the centre of the nearest town. Perhaps a landowner buried them to keep them from the rebels or a rebel might have buried them himself after looting them.
Having turned away from the coastal highway, Spartacus headed for another road located in the centre of Bruttium, about equidistant from the Tyrrhenian and Ionian coasts. Migrants over the centuries had travelled down this road from the Serre Mountains (modern name) to the north, and with good reason. The road takes advantage of a remarkable landscape, a ridge high up on the crest of the Aspromonte Mountains. From a distance, it looks like a tabletop in the clouds. As a traveller comes onto the plateau, it is as if they have stepped onto an isthmus. Today called the Dossone della Melìa, that is, the Melìa Ridge, it lies between 3,000 and 4,000 feet above sea level. The ancient highway ran along the ridge on a north-south axis. In the eighteenth century it was called the Via Grande or ‘Great Way’; the modern road follows its path. Adding to the ridge’s strategic importance, roads branched from it eastwards and westwards, via high, mountain passes (c. 3,000 feet high), to the Ionian and Tyrrhenian seas.
The city of Locris sat at the eastern end of the lateral road, on the Ionian Sea. A former Greek colony, Locris had long been firmly in the Roman orbit. At the western end of the lateral road the Plain of Metauros (modern Gióia Tauro) stretched along the Tyrrhenian Sea. Exceptionally rich, the plain was known for its olives and grapevines. Crassus’s fortifications cut it off from Spartacus and his raiders.
Whoever controlled the Melìa Ridge controlled the crossroads of southernmost Italy. No wonder that Crassus chose to make his stand here. The sources say that the nature of the terrain suggested to Crassus the plan to block off the peninsula. The Locrians might well have provided detailed intelligence about the lie of the land. The heart of Crassus’s fortifications stood on the Melìa Ridge near the modern highway 111, which runs on an east-west line about 50 miles north-east of Regium (by modern roads). Here the Italian peninsula is only about 35 miles wide from sea to sea. Plutarch writes that Crassus built his wall across the peninsula for a length of 300 stades, i.e. about 35 modern miles. That is an exaggeration; in fact, the main section of the Romans’ defensive works covered only half a mile. But Plutarch is right in implying that Crassus effectively blocked off the entire 35-mile width of the peninsula.
As Spartacus proceeded northwards, his scouts warned him of trouble ahead. The Thracian is said to have responded with scorn, no doubt sceptical that the Romans could stop him in what amounted to his natural habitat, the mountains. Many scholars seem to feel about the same. They doubt that the Romans made their stand here. Great engineers though they were, not even the Romans could have found it easy to build a 35-mile-long walled trench - through the mountains, no less. Besides, if Crassus had cut off Spartacus about 50 miles north-east of Regium, he would have left the rebels in control of a large territory to the south, about 1,000 square miles in size, roughly equivalent to the American state of Rhode Island or the English county of Hampshire. One might well ask, left to rule such a kingdom, why would Spartacus need to leave?
Some historians turn Crassus’s plan into a modest project: no 35-mile-long set of fortifications, no willingness to give up 1,000 square miles to the enemy. In their view, Crassus went toe to toe with Spartacus from the outset by marching ever southwards, practically up to Spartacus’s camp on the strait. The Romans fortified the ravines in the steep hills above the coast to cut the rebels off, no more than a mile or two away. The result was a short line of fortifications, no more than a mile or so long. While his men were negotiating with pirates and building rafts, Spartacus could see the Romans nearby, practically breathing down his neck.
But Spartacus is unlikely to have sat back and let Crassus corner him. In order to build his trap, Crassus would have had to work far from his enemy’s eyes, not under his nose. So, while Spartacus camped on the coast, Crassus’s men were dozens of miles away and 3,000 feet higher up in the hills.
Yes, an instant 35-mile-long defensive system strains credulity but only if we fail to take into account the lie of the land. In fact, most of the 35-mile width of the peninsula is impassable, so it required little fortification. East of the Melìa Ridge the land dips down towards the Ionian Sea via a series of rocky glens, while west of the ridge there lie vast and impenetrable gorges. The only places that could be easily travelled were the two coastal strips and the Melìa Ridge, the latter only about half a mile wide. Since the Romans occupied the coasts and since Spartacus took readily to the mountains, Crassus could reasonably expect to block him on the ridge.
The 1,000 square miles behind Spartacus were no gift. The territory in question is poor, mountainous and largely infertile, unlike Sicily and its abundance. Nor was it harvest season. The rebels would have found it difficul
t to live off this land for long. It is not surprising to read in the ancient sources that Spartacus’s men were beginning to run out of food, nor that one reason that Crassus decided to build the fortifications was precisely to deprive the enemy of supplies.
Archaeological evidence tends to support this scenario, although it doesn’t prove it. On the Melìa Ridge there are a series of old trenches and walls, and in the hills nearby are the ruins of three lead-smelting furnaces whose internal walls are sprinkled with lead oxide. Without scientific archaeological excavation, these sites cannot be securely dated. But they do fit the description in the sources of a system of trenches - while also casting well-founded doubt on Plutarch’s claim that the Romans cut a trench from sea to sea. In addition, the ruins have been surveyed by a local historian in southern Italy, an amateur who, as often happens, knows the terrain better than the professionals. The opening paragraphs of this chapter follow his plausible if still unproven reconstruction.
The origin of place names is notoriously difficult to pin down, but, even so, several places in and around the Melìa Ridge have evocative names. A section of the ridge is known as the Plains of Marco, leading down into Marco’s Ridge (Marcus Licinius Crassus?); to the west there is a town of Scrofario (Crassus’s lieutenant, Scrofa?); to the east are the hamlets of Case Romano and Contrada Romano (‘Roman Houses’, ‘Roman Neighbourhood’) and a place called Torre lo schiavo (‘The Slave’s Tower’).
Perhaps the most intriguing place name is the heart of the Melìa Ridge, today covered by a huge forest of ferns with scattered groups of beech trees: Tonnara, that is, ‘Tuna Trap’. The slopes to the west of Tonnara are called Chiusa or Chiusa Grande (‘En closure’ or ‘Great Enclosure’). Tonnara refers to the traditional Mediterranean method of catching tuna by blocking their migration route with complex systems of fixed nets, which ancient fishermen regularly practised off the coasts of southern Italy and Sicily. Tonnara would make an appropriate name for the place where the insurgents were trapped on their trek northwards.
Spartacus had failed to break out and he had taken casualties, but he had no reason to despair. Far from being trapped, he might have reasoned that he now held Crassus locked in an encounter that could destroy either one. Help, he knew, was on the way. His cavalry had not reached him yet; no doubt they were still scouring the countryside for food and supporters. Once they arrived, the horses might provide the punch to allow him to break through. Meanwhile, if Spartacus could not survive indefinitely on the Melìa Ridge, neither could Crassus.
Spartacus’s main problem was logistical: he needed to feed his army. He would find little food on the ridge. In the summer it was good grazing ground for cattle and the humidity made it rich in mushrooms. It was winter, however, so the army depended on raids down in the valleys.
Crassus’s main problem was political. Rome wanted him to crush the enemy, but Crassus preferred strangulation instead, and that took time. Spartacus increased Roman frustration by prolonging the struggle. He distracted, exasperated and delayed the enemy. As the sources say, Spartacus ‘annoyed the men in the defensive works in many ways from place to place; he constantly fell upon them unawares and threw bundles of wood into the trenches that he had set on fire, which gave the Romans nasty and difficult work’ as they hustled to put out the fires.
It was effective psychological warfare while Spartacus waited for his cavalry, but the struggle in the mountains took a toll on his own men. It was the crowning misery of months of trouble since November, when Crassus had come onto the scene. Back in the summer, when they had defeated two consuls and the governor of Cisalpine Gaul, the insurgents could never have guessed that it would come to this. Even a few weeks earlier, although things were difficult, at least they faced the possibility of escaping to Sicily. Now they were fighting for their lives in the chilly clouds of Italy’s forgotten mountains. Conditions were miserable, food was in short supply, and it would be surprising if some men weren’t deserting. The Thracian decided to shock them out of their funk.
‘He crucified a Roman prisoner in the space between the two armies,’ the sources report, ‘thereby showing to his own men the sight of what they could expect if they did not win the victory. ’ There was nothing subtle about this gesture, but it was no exaggeration. The Romans did not plan to issue pardons. They regularly crucified runaway slaves. Besides, it was an age of massacres, from Sulla’s proscription of the wealthy and his execution of thousands of prisoners of war to Mithridates’ massacre of tens of thousands of Italian traders and tax collectors in Anatolia.
Apparently Spartacus made his point. His men showed no further signs of weakness, at least none that the Romans could see. If we believe one source, the Romans blinked next, but not on the Melìa Ridge. If anything, the sight of a Roman prisoner on the cross might have stiffened their will. Rather, it was back in Rome, in the Forum, where the Roman people let their frustration spill over. Disappointed by the developing stalemate, they voted to recall Pompey from Spain where he was re-establishing order after the defeat of Sertorius.
Pompey had won the war against Sertorius in late 73 and early 72 BC. He never managed to defeat Sertorius in the field, but Pompey inflicted enough damage to cause a mutiny. Rivals emerged among the rebels and made contacts with the Romans, who encouraged their plans to assassinate the leader. Betrayed by his allies, Sertorius was murdered at a banquet in his own tent. It was the summer or autumn of 73 BC. The chief turncoat, Marcus Perperna, tried to continue the war against Rome, but some time in winter or spring 72 BC Pompey defeated him and had him executed. The rebellion in Spain was over.
The recall of Pompey was a popular act, voted in the Roman assembly. The Senate was no doubt less enthusiastic, because it meant that Pompey could march into Italy with his army intact, instead of dissolving it at the border, as commanders usually were required to do. Memories of Sulla gave a sinister tinge to Pompey’s advance. Spartacus must have worried the senators more.
No one, however, could have hated the recall of Pompey more than Crassus. He had wanted the war against Spartacus to build his own career, not Pompey’s. Now, he would have to share the credit for victory. Plutarch’s claim that Crassus himself wrote to the Senate and asked that Pompey be recalled sounds preposterous, therefore, but it might just be true. Maybe Crassus’s agents in Rome had sniffed the change in the political winds. Maybe they recognized the inevitability of the people’s vote, and perhaps they advised Crassus to write to the Senate and thereby to seem to be the master of events.
Crassus’s letter is supposed to have asked for the recall of another general besides Pompey, Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus. Marcus, governor of Macedonia in 72 BC, had just led a successful campaign against the Bessi, a tough Thracian people once described as ‘worse than snow’. Marcus Lucullus is not to be confused with his brother Lucius Licinius Lucullus, who was busy at the time commanding Roman troops against Mithridates in Anatolia but is better known today for his love of gastronomy - hence the adjective Lucullan. By asking for two generals to help him, Crassus downgraded Pompey’s importance.
A Machiavellian plan, but Spartacus’s next move was even more Machiavellian. Apparently he got wind that Pompey was coming. It is not difficult to imagine Roman soldiers, lining the walls, hurling taunts at the enemy: Pompey was coming and they had better watch out. Pompey had a reputation: his nickname, earned in the Sullan era, was ‘the teenage butcher’. His name might indeed have frightened some of the rebels, but Spartacus saw through it.
If Spartacus understood Pompey as a threat, he also recognized an opportunity. Pompey gave Crassus and Spartacus a common enemy. They both wanted to keep him out of the war, which would explain Spartacus’s next move: he offered Crassus a peace treaty. In particular, he offered something very Roman, which was to ask Rome to accept him into its fides. Fides is an important Latin word with a rich set of meanings. It means ‘faith’ or ‘trust’ and, in this case, ‘protection’. By accepting someone into its fides, Rome accepted a se
t of mutual obligations. We might call it an alliance but the Romans would not have done so, since there was no legal contract between the two parties. Instead, moral ties bound them. The Romans considered the object of their fides to be a client, not an ally; they considered themselves to be his patron.
The ties of fides could prove binding indeed. The Second Punic War (218-201 BC), for instance, the worst war in Rome’s history, began because Hannibal attacked the Spanish city of Saguntum, which had no alliance with Rome, merely a relationship of fides. However seriously Rome took a fides relationship, the man who negotiated it, usually a general, regarded it with even more importance. He became the personal patron of Rome’s client, with whom he enjoyed especially intense ties. If Crassus had accepted Spartacus’s offer, he would have become the Thracian’s patron.
Doing so would have been repugnant. Rome regarded a request for fides as a formal act of surrender, but even so, it conferred a ‘most beautiful dignity’ on the client. By accepting the Thracian into his fides, Crassus would have conceded not only Spartacus’s dignity but also Spartacus’s right to settle his men somewhere in safety. That would never do. To grant such honour to runaway slaves and gladiators was out of the question. Rome wanted Spartacus’s head, not his handshake. Crassus disdainfully ignored the offer.
Yet, what magnificent gall on Spartacus’s part the proposal was! Far from conceding defeat, he asserted his right to respect. If nothing else this tactic might have been a morale booster for his men. If he was stuck in Crassus’s trap, Spartacus did not show it. In fact, he was about to demonstrate his ability to escape, because his cavalry had finally arrived. At a guess, it was now February.
Spartacus waited for a storm. He chose a night of snow and wind. An old hand like him would have guessed that in these conditions the Roman garrison would be ‘below strength and at that time off its guard’, as one ancient source says. The sources disagree as to just how he made the attack. One writer says that he used the cavalry to spearhead the charge through the ill-maintained defences. Another says that he filled in a small part of the trenches with earth, wood and branches for his army to cross. A third writer agrees that Spartacus filled in part of the trenches but with the corpses of prisoners whom he had executed and the carcasses of cattle. On another occasion, in AD 26, a Thracian army attacked a Roman camp by filling in its trenches with bushes, fences and dead bodies, so we can imagine Spartacus using a variety of objects.