The revolt and raid occurring in Campania—which…
73 BCE
The revolt and raid occurring in Campania—which is a vacation region of the rich and influential in Rome, and the location of many estates—quickly comes to the attention of Roman authorities.
They initially view the revolt as more a major crime wave than an armed rebellion.
Later this year, however, Rome dispatches a military force under praetorian authority to put down the rebellion.
A Roman praetor, Gaius Claudius Glaber, gathers a force of three thousand men, not as legions, but as a militia "picked up in haste and at random, for the Romans did not consider this a war yet, but a raid, something like an attack of robbery." (Appian, Civil Wars, 1:116.)
Glaber's forces besiege the slaves on Mount Vesuvius, blocking the only known way down the mountain.
With the slaves thus contained, Glaber is content to wait until starvation forces the slaves to surrender.
While the slaves lack military training, Spartacus' forces displays ingenuity in their use of available local materials, and in their use of clever, unorthodox tactics when facing the disciplined Roman armies.
In response to Glaber's siege, Spartacus' men make ropes and ladders from vines and trees growing on the slopes of Vesuvius and used them to rappel down the cliffs on the side of the mountain opposite Glaber's forces.
They move around the base of Vesuvius, outflank the army, and annihilated Glaber's men.
A second expedition, under the praetor Publius Varinius, is now dispatched against Spartacus.
For some reason, Varinius seems to have split his forces under the command of his subordinates Furius and Cossinius.
Plutarch mentions that Furius commanded some two thousand men, but neither the strength of the remaining forces, nor whether the expedition was composed of militia or legions, appears to be known.
These forces are also defeated by the army of escaped slaves: Cossinius is killed, Varinius is nearly captured, and the equipment of the armies is seized by the slaves.
With these successes, more and more slaves flocked to the Spartacan forces, as do "many of the herdsmen and shepherds of the region", swelling their ranks to some seventy thousand. (Plutarch, Crassus, 9:3; Appian, Civil War, 1:116)
Spartacus and Crixus by the end of 73 BCE are in command of a large group of armed men with a proven ability to withstand Roman armies.
What they intend to do with this force is somewhat difficult for modern readers to determine.
Since the Third Servile War is ultimately an unsuccessful rebellion, no firsthand account of the slaves' motives and goals exists, and historians writing about the war propose contradictory theories.