In 73 B.C, a man named Spartacus was sold to a gladiatorial school to fight for his life. While imprisoned he rallied many slaves together to incite a revolt. Using a very small group of men numbering up to about 200 men, they managed to escape from the boundaries of Capua using only kitchen utensils. Only a percentage of men made it out alive, but enough remained to fight back. The revolt of Spartacus was a bloody one that resulted in the death of many roman citizens and soldiers. After all the effort that was put into making the revolt a success went to waste at Spartacus’ last battle. The Spartacus revolt was extremely important to the rest of the world because it set pace for many revolts that were set to take place in the future. Spartacus was one of the few brave men to stand up to societal standards and say "no". The revolt came to a bloody end that resulted in the loss of Spartacus’ forces, but they put up a very strong fight against the unimaginable size of the Roman army which "most probably formed a standing force of 3,750,000" men at the Empire's territorial peak." (The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1788) This result of this protest inspired many revolts in the future and also was the basis for the popular movie "Spartacus" starring Kirk Douglas. The most admirable characteristic of the Spartacus revolt was the passion and determination of the men that fought bravely while in the eyes of defeat.
Spartacus was born approximately 109 - 71 BC. Very little was known about him prior to the uprising that he led against the Roman Empire. There are many different descriptions of him, some say that he was a Thracian mercenary and the proceeded to work for the roman army, but was accused of being a robber and a deserter, so he was then sold into slavery and forced to be a gladiator. Others say that he was a Thracian nomad and worked for the Roman Empire was since imprisoned and sold into slavery. The Thracian tribe was located in Maedi along the fringes of the area known as Thrace. At an early age Spartacus was trained as a gladiator at the school of Ludus. He and a few others were planning a plot to overthrow the guards and make an escape with nothing but kitchen tools. The group of men had originally planned to escape due to the poor treatment and awful living conditions of slaves, specifically gladiators. During their plot to overthrow the guards there was a traitor who tried to stop it, but despite the traitors best efforts approximately 70 men managed to escape with nothing but the utensils that they had used and their lives. Once the men had escaped and set up camp they decided to name their leaders; they were Spartacus, Crixus, and Oenomaus. Since these men had been trained to fight and understood the basics of war and military organization the attempted to create a military set up with 3 different leaders of three different groups of men who specialized in different areas of battle. Appian, who is a Roman historian of Greek lineage tells us "at this stage of the revolt, runaway slaves, shepherds, and herdsmen must have joined the band of gladiators" and that Spartacus "(Lendering 2002) divided the spoils in equal shares"(Lendering, 2002). In the early stages of the revolt the roman army was already preoccupied with a revolt in Spain, the Third Mithridatic war. Rome did not think of this revolt as a threat so they dispatched moderately untrained militia to deal with the Spartacus’ men. The militia who were under the order of a man named Caius Cassius planned on starving the men to death since they had set up camp in a mountain. "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" (Lendering, 2002).
To their surprise, the men had managed to descend the steep slopes of the mountain and invade the unfortified roman camp of militia and captured supplies that they so desperately needed. The group of men also defeated a second wave of militia that was sent after them and took their supplies as well. It was through this action that the Spartacus revolt really started to gain momentum. Many other slaves that were forced to be gladiators, along with many shepherds and random citizens with no fighting experience all joined the ranks of Spartacus’ army. At this time the Roman Government was alarmed by the size of Spartacus’ army and dispatched 8 legions, which are groups of about 3000 to 6000 men, under the command of Marcus Crassus to stop this revolt once and for all. The commander used his extremely large size the intimidate Spartacus’ forces farther south until they were trapped at Pompay. Few of Spartacus’ men lost hope and tried to flee but were caught separated and were either seized and held prisoners, or slaughtered on the spot. Many of Spartacus men were slain in battle, the ones that weren’t were held captive. It was said that up to 6000 men were captured and crucified along the road from Capua to Rome. There are many different endings to Spartacus’ story, some say that he died in battle; others say that he escaped and was later turned in to the authorities by a local tribe for a ransom, and was hung publically in the center of Rome.
From what historians can tell, the revolt was indeed a failure. Some historians say that Spartacus’ original goal was just to escape to the north and return to his home. This theory sounds like it makes sense but they do not understand why he would turn south after he had defeated the first roman legion that was sent after him. Another theory that was posed by Roman writes was that Spartacus had intended to actually invade Rome and take over the impenetrable city. This theory also seems to be invalid because many authors wrote that it seems that Spartacus actually had no intention of ending slavery, but that his real goal was to just free himself and his men. All-in-all, the Spartacus revolt started off strong with a very high momentum but was ultimately defeated by the seemingly invincible roman forces.
The consequences that came from the protest were not in the favor of the Roman slaves. The revolt ended in the death of all 120,000 of Spartacus’ troops, but this is not counting the death of the many Roman troops that were killed. Besides the death of many people, there weren’t that many ramifications for the protest. However, the Spartacus protest did serve as inspiration for many slave revolts that were to happen in the future. For instance, a man named Toussaint L'Ouverture was the leader of a slave revolt that led to the independence of Haiti. His enemies gave him the popular name of "The Black Spartacus" due to his fierceness, determination, and bravery. Spartacus was just an overall great inspiration to many great political movements and leaders such as Karl Marx, the German Spartacus League which was a predecessor to the communist party in Germany, and an Austrian Anti-Fascist organization. The Spartacus revolt also has had significant influence on the artistic aspects of society. The film "Spartacus" was filmed in honor of Spartacus’ attempts to free himself and his men from slavery. This movie coined a very famous phrase, "I am Spartacus". In the movie when Spartacus’ army was cornered by the roman legions, the roman general stood on a rock and asked "which one of you is Spartacus". Spartacus in fear of having more of his men killed stood up and yelled "I am Spartacus", but due to his comrade’s bravery many of his men stood up and repeated this phrase, bringing frustration to the roman general. Since he didn’t know which one of them was the real Spartacus, the men were then captured and crucified. This phrase has been used as a term of rallying other people for a common disinterest in society. There have been many books and songs that have been written about or have been based off from the legacy that Spartacus left behind.
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