Listed 2 sub titles with search on: Biographies for destination: "THRAKI Ancient country BALKANS".
Daryx, (Darux), the chief of a tribe of the Getae. When Crassus was in Thrace, B. C. 29, Roles, another chief of the Getae, was at war with Dapyx, and called in the assistance of Crassus. Dapyx was defeated, and obliged to take refuge in a stronghold, where he was besieged. A Greek, who was in the place, betrayed it to Crassus, and as soon as the Getae perceived the treachery, they killed one another, that they might not fall into the hands of the Romans. Dapyx too ended his life on that day. (Dion Cass. li. 26.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Oct 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Spartacus. Leader of an army of runaway slaves that infested Italy in 73-71 BCE. He was
defeated by the Roman general Crassus.
The Roman economy was based on agriculture and war. For centuries,
a Roman citizen was a peasant and a soldier. During the Second Punic war (218-202;
against the Carthaginian general Hannibal), this started to change. The Romans
had to fight their wars overseas: in Spain, and, after 200, Greece and Macedonia.
Often, the soldiers had to stay abroad for a long time, and it often happened
that on their return, they found that their farms had gone bankrupt. Under these
circumstances, there was only one solution: sell the farm and move from the country
to the city.
The Italian cities were rapidly growing, and the countryside also
changed. Slowly, the small farms were replaced by large plantations (often called
latifundia), where the work was done by slaves, who could not be recruited for
military service. The Greek historian Appian of Alexandria
(c.95-c.165) describes the results:
The rich [...] used persuasion or force to buy or seize property which adjoined
their own, or any other smallholdings belonging to poor men, and came to operate
great ranches instead of single farms. They employed slave hands and shepherds
on these estates to avoid having free men dragged off the land to serve in the
army, and they derived great profit from this form of ownership too, as the slaves
had many children and no liability to military service and their numbers increased
freely. For these reasons the powerful were becoming extremely rich, and the number
of slaves in the country was reaching large proportions, while the Italian people
were suffering from depopulation and a shortage of men, worn down as they were
by poverty and taxes and military service. And if they had any respite from these
tribulations, they had no employment, because the land was owned by the rich who
used slave farm workers instead of free men.
[Appian, Civil wars 1.7; tr. John Carter]
In this way, the countryside became crowded with slaves: usually prisoners
of war, but often simply bought from slave traders, who bought them from pirates.
(A modern estimate: there were two million slaves on an Italian population of
six million.) Strong captives were sometimes forced to fight as gladiators in
the arena. The ancients really loved this bloody spectacle, something we could
expect from the bellicose Romans (although gladiatorial contests were just as
popular in the Greek world).
One of those was Spartacus, the leader of a rebellion of gladiators
and slaves that escalated to a full-scale war in the years 73-70. We have two
main sources: Plutarch of Chaeronea
(46-c.122) describes this war in his Life of Crassus, and one generation later,
Appian told the story in his History of the Civil wars. Both accounts describe
more or less the same events in exactly the same sequence, and it is tempting
to see the same source behind their stories, probably the Histories of Sallust
or (less likely) Livy's History of Rome from its foundation. It seems that Appian
has abridged his account, whereas Plutarch has left out several stories about
Spartacus' cruelty.
In 73, seventy-eight gladiators managed to escape from the fighting
school of Cnaeus Lentulus Batiatus at Capua. According to Plutarch, they were
only armed with choppers and spits, which they had found in a kitchen. However,
they soon discovered a transport of gladiatorial weapons. From now on, they were
heavily armed, and they occupied a mountain.
Appian informs us that this was the Vesuvius, and that the gladiators
elected three leaders: Spartacus, Oenomaus and Crixus. Probably, they represented
ethnic groups: a Thracian, a Greek, and a German. According to Plutarch,
Spartacus was a Thracian from the nomadic tribes and not only had a great spirit
and great physical strength, but was, much more than one would expect from his
condition, most intelligent and cultured, being more like a Greek than a Thracian.
[Plutarch, Life of Crassus 8; tr. Rex Warner]
This last remark is a well-known cliche from ancient literature. Any
non-Greek/Roman who had done something special, was said to be more intelligent
than other barbarians. Other sources say that Spartacus could have so much success
because he had once fought in the Roman auxiliaries.
Already at this stage of the revolt, runaway slaves, shepherds, and
herdsmen must have joined the band of gladiators (our sources mention this at
a later stage). We have to assume this, because otherwise, it is impossible to
explain how the gladiators were able to overcome a militia sent by the Capuan
authorities to deal with the runaways. The only result was that the gladiators
now had real arms. Their numbers quickly swelled, because, as Appian tells us,
Spartacus "divided the spoils in equal shares".
The central government at Rome now had to intervene, and it sent the
propraetor Caius Claudius Glaber with an army of 3,000 hastily conscripted and
untrained soldiers. Perhaps this was an underestimation of the power of the gladiators,
but it is more likely that Rome was unable to send a stronger force. The empire
was involved in two large wars: general Pompey was fighting against Sertorius
in Spain and his colleague Lucullus against king Mithradates of Pontus in the
east. The city itself was restless because, due to these wars, grain had become
scarce.
Although he had a small and untrained army, Claudius came close to
success. He isolated the gladiators on a hill-top which was covered with vines,
and it looked as if they were chanceless. However, the besieged made ladders from
the branches of the vines, descended from the hill during the night, and managed
to get behind the enemy lines. The Romans panicked and fled, and their camp was
looted by the gladiators. They could start to give weapons to the runaway slaves
who had joined them.
"Rome" launched a second expedition against the gladiators,
this time commanded by the praetor Publius Varinius. For reasons that are unknown
to us, he divided his forces, and the divisions were easily defeated by the army
of the gladiators. Varinius himself was humiliated: he lost the very horse that
he rode, his lictors were taken prisoner, and Spartacus paraded their fasces through
his camp.
The Roman author Florus, who published a summary of the great History
of Rome from its foundation of Livy, mentions that the army of gladiators and
slaves "laid waste Nola, Nuceria, Thurii
and Metapontum with terrible
destruction". These towns are all situated in the southern half of Italy.
The shepherds of this region, real cowboys, joined the army of Spartacus. From
now on, he could also employ cavalry.
Next year, the Senate understood that this war was serious. According
to Appian, Spartacus now commanded some 70,000 people, and although we do not
know how he obtained this figure, we can be sure that the wealthy land-owners
in the Senate understood that their slaves could also run away. Therefore, the
senators ordered both consuls, Lucius Gellius Publicola and Cnaeus Cornelius Lentulus
Clodianus, to proceed against the bands of Spartacus. Related articles Plutarch
on Spartacus Appian on Spartacus Florus on Spartacus.
Jona Lendering, ed.
This text is cited July 2003 from the Livius Ancient History Website URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks.
Receive our daily Newsletter with all the latest updates on the Greek Travel industry.
Subscribe now!
