Original subtitles

[music playing]

NARRATOR: After a decade \h\hof barbarian terror,

the empire’s brilliant \h\h\h\hGeneral Marius

grabs the reins of power, \hturning Rome’s volunteer

\hmilitia into the greatest fighting force the world has

ever known.

Now, at the center \hof the republic,

a deadly revolt is brewing.

The bloody death of \ha gladiator slave

is the ultimate spectator sport.

By the first century BC, \hit’s no longer a game,

\h\h\hand the slaves explode in rebellion

against their masters.

\h\hTheir leader history remembers as Spartacus.

Rome’s powerful army and \hphilosophy of conquest

have enriched the republic \hin territory, treasure,

and slaves.

Captured on the battlefield \h\h\hor in conquered towns,

the slaves become a commodity.

\h\h\hSlaves were people, and the Romans knew it,

but they pretended that \hslaves weren’t people,

that they worked tools with limbs, and arms, and voices.

NARRATOR: Between the third and the first centuries BC,

\h\h\hthe Roman Republic expands from central and southern Italy

\hto encompass almost all the Mediterranean.

And so the slave markets \hfill, and eager buyers

pick over the merchandise.

If 30% of the population of the Italian peninsula

was enslaved in the \hfirst century BC,

that would be roughly equivalent with the number of slaves

that there were in the American South

on a per capita basis, where \h\hit’s true that probably

\h35% of the population was enslaved in, say, the 1850s.

\h\hSlaves could be born into slavery.

\h\h\h\hThey could be sold into slavery from foreign countries.

Slaves could be captured in war.

\h\h\h\hSo there was a great variety of both of the ways

\hthat people got to be slaves, and also

\ha great variety in the way that people lived as slaves.

\hNARRATOR: First century Roman landowner Columella

gives buying advice.

\hREADER: "My first warning is not to appoint a farm manager

from the kind of slaves who \hplease with their bodies.

Rather, you must select a man \hwho from childhood has been

\hmade hard by fieldwork and who has been proven by experience."

\h\hNARRATOR: Not all slaves are destined for fieldwork.

\hThe strongest are reserved for sport,

\h\hto train for the arena as gladiators.

\h\hThese gladiators were very much professionals.

\hThey had professional trainers called lanistae, who would prod

them on, just the way a football coach prods

\hon his men and his team to perform at their very best.

\h\hThey’re rented out for people to put into shows,

or they’re sold to the person \hwho’s gonna put on the show.

\h\hThey tend to be regarded in this way

\has being the lowest of the low, people whose bodies are

at the disposal of others.

\h\hGladiators could be either the top professional fighters

\h\hin the most expensive entertainment of the time,

or they could sometimes be condemned criminals forced

to fight.

Like championship boxers today, they would train really hard

in a very dangerous sport, \hand then they would only

fight a couple of times a year.

\hBecause they were, of course, very expensive.

NARRATOR: Most of the gladiators names will be lost to history,

but posterity will record the feats of two of these men, one

\hnamed Crixus, and the other Spartacus, a man born to lead.

Spartacus was a foreigner.

\h\hHe wasn’t a Roman, but he had served in the Roman army.

But then something happened.

\h\h\hWe don’t know whether he deserted.

That’s what some people say.

Or whether he was thrown out.

\hSome stories are that he then became a very successful bandit

on the highways.

But eventually he was \hcaptured and forced

to become a gladiator by \hthe Roman authorities.

Whether against his will we \hcan’t say, but most likely

he hated it.

NARRATOR: Second century \h\hbiographer Plutarch.

\h\h\hREADER: "Spartacus not only possessed great spirit

\h\hand bodily strength, but he was more intelligent and nobler

than his fate."

NARRATOR: Whatever twist of fate brought Spartacus to slavery,

\hit’s clear he will not accept it idly.

\hAnd Crixus will share his destiny.

Few gladiators lived to retire.

Most die a horrible, \h\h\hviolent death,

whether in a small regional \harena or a great coliseum.

\h\h\hSometimes the crowd is asked to choose the weapons,

relishing the violence to come.

\h\hPeople were prepared to witness other human beings

engaged in mortal combat before their very eyes,

and this was tremendously \h\h\h\hexciting for them.

By the late republic, already \h\hpeople are becoming heroes

for becoming gladiators.

And they’re able to attain some measure of status, at least

some measure of popularity \h\h\h\h\hwith the masses,

\h\h\hbecause of their abilities as fighters.

\hNARRATOR: By the luck of the draw,

the gladiators learn who among them will be the first to die.

\h\h\hTo add spice to the fight, gladiators usually

\hare unmatched in terms of weapons and fighting styles.

Whatever style they fight, \h\htheir inadequate armor

can’t protect their lives.

\hThey had trained for months, years,

so they could use their \h\hparticular weapons.

Having to get so close \hthat they could see

the spittle in their \hopponent’s mouth,

or they hoped the fear in his eyes.

And the smell of blood would \h\hhave been overwhelming.

This was an excitement \h\h\h\hto the crowd.

\h\h\h\h\h\hIt was a sign to the gladiators that their very life

was at stake.

\hNARRATOR: It’s like a terrible dance of death

for the pleasure of the crowd.

Yeah, yeah!

NARRATOR: But in 73 BC, at the \hLudus, or gladiator school,

a group of trainees grows tired of taking orders from the Roman

guards.

They decide that if \hdeath awaits them,

\hit will not find them in the arena.

\hAbused and angry, they conspire to put

their lives and their \htraining on the line

to change their fates.

\h\h\hAccording to second century historian Appian,

Spartacus, joined by his fellow gladiator Crixus,

masterminds the plan.

READER: "He persuaded about \h\h\h70 of the enslaved men

\h\hto risk a break for freedom, rather than to allow themselves

to be put on display for the \hentertainment of others."

\hSpartacus became a great gladiator,

but there was a fire burning inside him,

a fire I guess resenting the loss of his freedom,

fire desiring justice.

\hAnd so Spartacus organized his fellow slave gladiators

\h\hto break out and seek their freedom.

\h\h\hNARRATOR: The local militia, unused to combat,

\hare wary of the rebels they hunt.

They’ve seen them in the arena.

They know the kind of \hmen they’re facing.

\h\h\hSecond century biographer Plutarch.

READER: "The gladiators repelled those who were coming out

of the city of Capua, and seized from them many weapons that

were more suitable for warfare.

\hThey happily made the exchange, throwing away

\h\h\h\h\htheir gladiatorial armaments, which they viewed

as dishonorable and barbaric."

NARRATOR: As their leader, \hSpartacus takes his men

from slavery to warfare, leaving Roman corpses in their wake.

\hHaving defeated the local militia,

\hSpartacus leads his slave army from the city of Capua

to Mount Vesuvius, where they \h\hseek refuge and make camp

at the top of the steep ridge.

Spartacus, along with his \h\hco-conspirator Crixus,

have slipped the grasp of Roman authorities.

\hNow they must prepare their men for the inevitable battles

to come.

Spartacus had the personal glow and the strength that

\hwould make people want to follow him,

\heven on this dangerous escape from the gladiator school jail.

Mount Vesuvius was an active volcano.

It was a dangerous place to hide out,

but Spartacus knew that he and his escaped gladiators

could find a position on Mount Vesuvius to organize and plan.

NARRATOR: But a messenger \hcomes to warn Spartacus

\hthat the Romans are setting up camp below to seal them in.

\h\hThe Senate has sent in commander Claudius Glaber

\h\hto corner the rebels and halt the rebellion.

\hHe managed to push Spartacus and his sort of nascent group

of rebels up onto the \h\hmountain into what

seemed like a tight spot.

And therefore Claudius \h\h\h\hGlaber assumed

\hhe wasn’t going to have any trouble crushing them

on Mount Vesuvius.

\hNARRATOR: Plutarch chronicles the plan.

\hREADER: "Claudius ordered his soldiers

to guard the one narrow and \hdifficult access road that

led up the mountain.

All the other parts \h\hof the mountain

were formed of steep precipices and could not be traveled."

NARRATOR: Spartacus and the \h\hescaped slaves’ only way

down is now blocked off.

The siege has begun.

\hIn 73 BC, Spartacus and his comrade Crixus

\h\hrefuse to die in the gladiator ring.

Together, they lead \ha slave rebellion,

but now the outlaws are trapped on southern Italy’s Mount

Vesuvius by Claudius, \h\h\ha Roman officer.

High on the mountain, Spartacus and his men

\hplot their brilliant escape, as chronicled

\h\h\hin the second century by Plutarch.

\hREADER: "The slaves cut off the useful parts of the vines

and wove ladders out of them.

They were strong and long enough,

so that when they were fastened at the top of the cliffs,

\hthey reached down as far as the level

plain at the foot of the mountains.

One of the things that’s very interesting about the early

phase of Spartacus’ \h\h\hrevolt is how

he seems to know the terrain \h\hmuch better than anybody

else does.

Now, in part this can be because herdsmen and other people who

\h\hknow the area around Vesuvius are joining in.

They’re sympathetic.

\h\h\h\hThe slaves who joined Spartacus and his group from

\h\h\h\hthe countryside were probably, in the beginning,

mostly the herdsmen, who were these slaves living

\h\hindependent, who already had weapons and were in top

physical condition, who became \h\hthen the soldiers for this

gladiator-led army.

NARRATOR: Spartacus and his ever-growing legion

are able to rappel down the cliff, landing just

beyond Claudius’ camp.

\h\hDown below, the Romans underestimate the slaves’

resolve.

\h\h\hYou’ve got to realize that the people who were chasing them

looked more like the Keystone \hcops than Caesar’s legions.

\hThese are guys who are not part of the regular military

establishment.

They’re being led \hout by officers

\h\h\h\hwho aren’t very good officers, who probably have

\h\h\h\hvery little knowledge themselves of the countryside,

because it’s the area where \h\hthey send their slaves.

NARRATOR: The Romans vastly \h\houtnumber the renegades,

but the slaves’ bold plot is a testament to their ingenuity,

desperation, and their hatred \h\hof their Roman oppressors.

\h\h\h\h\hAnd to the ultimate disgrace of the Roman army,

\h\hthese thousands of Roman soldiers and their commander

\hare routed by this small band of gladiators, who had attacked

\hthem from behind by climbing down the cliff on their ropes

woven from vines.

\hNARRATOR: With this success, the movement

grows, according to \hhistorian Appian.

\h\h\hREADER: "Many fugitive slaves and even some freemen

\h\h\h\h\hfrom the surrounding countryside came to this place

to join Spartacus.

\hThey began to stage bandit raids on nearby settlements.

\hSince Spartacus divided the profits of his raiding

\h\hinto equal shares, he soon attracted a very large number

of followers."

The one group that Spartacus did not

accept into his rebel band were deserters from the Roman army,

\hwhich may seem odd, and yet it makes perfectly good sense.

\h\hThese people were precisely the ones who had chickened out.

\h\h\h\hNARRATOR: Second century authored Florus.

\h\h\hREADER: "The daily arrival of new recruits

\hformed themselves into a regular army.

They made rough shields out of \hbranches covered with animal

\hhides, and swords and spears by melting down and recasting

their shackles from the slave barracks."

NARRATOR: What they cannot make, Spartacus and his men scavenge

from the dead bodies.

The amazing thing about \hthe Spartacus revolt

\h\his that the slaves who are trained as gladiators

\h\hvery quickly retool themselves as soldiers.

Which doesn’t mean they fight \h\hin precisely the same way

that the Roman army does, \h\hbut Spartacus himself,

\hsome sources say, had been a soldier.

NARRATOR: Throughout 73 BC, \hthe rebels continue south,

gaining in numbers and leaving \h\hRoman soldiers in defeat.

\hThe Senate calls for another magistrate, commander Publius

Varinius, to stop them.

A keen horseman, Varinius brings his best stallion with him,

as well as the traditional \h\hRoman symbol of power,

\hcalled the fasces, a bundle of wooden rods surrounding an axe.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hThis symbolized the magistrate’s power to use force

to enforce order, sticks to beat civilians or soldiers, the axe

for capital punishment.

\h\hThe axe was only put into the fasces

\hwhen the commander is outside of Rome.

\h\hBecause on military campaign, the commander

has martial law power \h\h\hover his troops.

\h\hNARRATOR: But symbols seemed to be of little use

to Varinius against \h\h\ha slave army.

\h\hSpartacus’ troops have already bloodied his own,

killing his co-commander.

Varinius prepares his remaining men for the battle to come.

Spartacus, familiar with Roman strategy,

stays one step ahead, according to the historian Sallust.

READER: "To avoid a surprise \h\hattack while they raided

the countryside, the rebels \h\hpropped up fresh corpses

at the gates of their camp, \h\hso that the Romans would

\h\h\hbe led to believe that guards had been stationed."

NARRATOR: With the \hdecoys in place,

the renegades are free to attack the Romans at will, catching

them completely by surprise.

\h\hSpartacus’ force is really fearsome.

The officer corps, if you will, are these superbly trained,

\h\h\h\h\hreally tough, experienced gladiators.

So they want revenge.

\h\h\hThis army wants freedom, but they also

want to show their Roman masters that they are men, not just

tools.

NARRATOR: Through his \hingenuity, Spartacus

\h\hscores another victory over the arrogant Varinius

and takes prisoners from the Roman army.

Second century historian Appian records Rome’s humiliation.

\hREADER: "The Romans did not yet consider this a real war,

\hbut rather raids and predations of bandits.

\hBut these bandits defeated the Romans.

\hSpartacus even captured Varinius’ own force right

from under him.

This Roman commander was that close to being taken prisoner

by a gladiator.

NARRATOR: The victory is all the sweeter when Spartacus steals

the fasces.

the ultimate symbol \h\hof Roman power.

When Spartacus surprises \h\h\hVarinius in battle

and manages to capture not only his horse out from under him

\h\h\hbut also his fasces, this is a tremendous blow

\hto the credibility of Varinius but also

to the power of the Roman state symbolized in those fasces.

NARRATOR: Spartacus becomes \ha figure of fame and fear,

\hand now commands 70,000 rebels, but tension builds

between the army’s popular slave general and his friend Crixus.

\h\hSo Spartacus was showing the Romans, I’m as good as a Roman.

I, Spartacus, I fought \h\hin the Roman army.

\h\h\h\h\hI have the same understanding of freedom.

I have the same understanding of the value of life and death

for every man, slave or free.

NARRATOR: But Crixus \h\hbecomes consumed

with his desire for revenge.

\hHe shows the captured Roman soldiers no mercy,

writes fifth century historian Herosius.

READER: "They staged \hgladiatorial games

using prisoners they had taken.

Those who had once been the spectacle

were now to be the spectators."

NARRATOR: The slaves grew more \hviolent with their success.

\hCrixus spurs them on while Spartacus pleads for order.

Their unity begins to falter.

\hThen Crixus makes his move, unleashing

\h\hthe slaves’ fury against defenseless Roman civilians.

\h\h\hHistorian Sallust describes what happens.

READER: "The fugitive \h\hslaves immediately

\h\hbegan to rape young girls and married women,

killing those who \htried to resist.

\hSpartacus himself was powerless to stop them,

even though he repeatedly \h\hbegged them to stop."

NARRATOR: Until now, the slaves were unified against Rome.

Now they began to turn \hagainst each other.

It’s the moment the Romans \h\hhave been waiting for.

Southern Italy, 72 BC.

\hThe slave Spartacus and his army of rebels

have managed to defeat and humiliate the Roman troops

dispatched to stop them.

But now, as his comrade Crixus \h\hexerts his own authority,

\h\hthe conflict is coming from within.

At the slaves’ makeshift \h\h\h\hcamp, Spartacus

makes plans to head \h\hacross the Alps,

but Crixus has ideas of his own, writes the historian Sallust.

READER: "Crixus and his people \h\h\hwanted to march directly

against the enemy in order to force an armed confrontation.

Spartacus, on the other hand, \hadvised a different course."

\h\h\h\hNARRATOR: Crixus openly challenges his friend’s ability

to lead.

\h\hOne of the things that’s interesting about Spartacus’

\h\h\h\hrevolt is that he really doesn’t seem to have had a plan.

In the area that he is, he’s got now probably tens of thousands

of supporters, and he’s got \hto move from area to area

around Italy to make sure \hthat everybody can eat.

NARRATOR: Impatient, Crixus \h\habandons the slave camp,

\h\htaking a faction of rebel soldiers with him.

Spartacus is now left to \hlead his people alone.

The two men strike different \h\h\h\hpaths across Italy.

With the slave army now divided, Rome prepares to strike hard.

Consuls Lucius Gellius Publicola and Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus

meet to plan their strategy.

The Romans simultaneously \hthought of the slaves

as contemptuous subhumans, \h\h\hbut also recognized

\hthat these slaves were tremendously successful

in battle against themselves.

So in many ways, this made it their worst nightmare,

that these slaves were defeating them over and over again

on the battlefield.

\hNARRATOR: This untidy rebellion now looks more

\h\hlike an actual war, and it demands a serious battle plan.

\hEvery village Spartacus enters could hold a trap or an ambush.

Or sometimes, according \hto Sallust, a friend.

\h\h\hREADER: "Many slaves in the towns

\h\h\hwere by nature sympathetic allies,

and offered things \hat their masters

had hidden away, or dragged out their masters themselves

from their hiding places."

\hNARRATOR: These nobles are given as prizes to the army,

to further humiliate the republic’s aristocracy.

\h\h\hFrom his fellow slaves, Spartacus also

\hgathers food, weapons, and more soldiers for his cause.

But Rome’s efforts \h\halso increase.

In the Garganus Mountains \h\hof Italy’s east coast,

\h\hCrixus and his faction are hunted down by Roman commander

Gellius’ troops.

The writer Plutarch records it.

READER: "Gellius made a \hsudden surprise attack

\h\hon Crixus’ forces, who, because of their arrogance,

had separated from Spartacus."

NARRATOR: The historian Appian.

READER: "Crixus was in command of 30,000 men.

2/3 perished, including \h\h\h\hCrixus himself."

\h\h\hNARRATOR: The Roman army scores its first major victory

against the rebels, but the mastermind is still

on the loose.

The Romans don’t linger \h\hon the killing field

\hbefore heading out to crush Spartacus.

Orchestrating a pincer movement, Roman commanders Gellius

\h\h\h\hand Lentulus camp on either side of the mountain

pass, waiting for their prey.

But their simple strategy \h\h\hdoesn’t prepare them

for an army of desperate slaves.

\h\h\hOne of the most important things about Spartacus’ revolt

was it broke out at a time when the best Roman armies weren’t

in Italy.

\hThey were in Spain or they were off in Turkey.

The troops who were sent \hout against Spartacus

had all been recently raised.

NARRATOR: The historian Appian.

\hREADER: "Spartacus turned on them one after the other

\hand defeated each Roman army in turn.

\h\hThe Romans were forced to flee from the field of battle

in great confusion and uproar."

The Roman officers \h\hfaced a really

formidable military challenge.

And the Roman officer corps, not being professionally trained,

was simply not up to the challenge.

\h\h\h\hNARRATOR: Once again, Spartacus has claimed victory

over the Roman army.

\h\h\h\hBut this time, victory isn’t enough.

Spartacus demands \hblood vengeance

for the death of Crixus.

He sacrifices 300 \hRoman prisoners.

He begins to develop into this \hmassively anti-establishment

\h\hfigure, celebrating his defeat of Roman magistrates,

executing Roman prisoners, \hdestroying the property

of the rich in the countryside, providing an alternative,

really, to the current regime.

And that’s where he draws his strength.

\hNARRATOR: With this victory, Spartacus’ army has the chance

to escape Italy for freedom.

But instead, the men choose to \hremain in the empire they so

despise.

\h\hIt’s not entirely clear why Spartacus’ forces turned back

from the north of Italy.

\h\hThey had enjoyed success to the point

that they were sort \hof drunk with it,

and they wanted to go on.

And rather than leave, go home, settle back down to whatever

\h\h\hlife it was that they had enjoyed before their captivity,

\h\hthey wanted to continue to fight.

NARRATOR: His forces make their way south to the city of Thuri,

where they set up a base of operations.

In the third year of the slave rebellion,

Rome finds itself helpless.

\hThe Senate calls upon Marcus Licinius Crassus,

\h\ha wealthy nobleman who loves glory almost as much

as he loves money.

He wanted to be at the top of Roman society,

and that required winning \h\h\hmilitary victories.

And so he was eager for the chance to defeat Spartacus,

\hwhich he thought would be easy, because slaves,

after all, couldn’t be \hseriously dangerous.

NARRATOR: But Crassus, learning from the failure of others,

will not underestimate his foe.

A strict disciplinarian, he takes his assignments

\hseriously, for his glory and for the good of Rome.

Spartacus’ growing army \h\hof rebellious slaves

\hhave become well and apparently unbeatable.

\h\h\h\hNow Marcus Licinius Crassus has devoted himself

and his considerable forces \h\h\hto their destruction.

\hBut Crassus finds the Roman force undisciplined, cowardly,

and ready to retreat in battle.

Crassus will not stand for this.

After suffering a humiliating \h\hdefeat against the rebels,

he takes drastic action.

He will teach his troops the meaning of obedience

through the penalty \h\h\hof decimation.

\h\h\hDecimation was a terrifying punishment,

because men were just arbitrarily taken out,

every 10th man.

Maybe you hadn’t run away.

Maybe the rest of the \h\hunit had run away,

and you had stayed to fight.

But if there were no witnesses, you

could be pulled out \h\has the 10th man.

\h\hSo you were in absolute terror standing in the line

\has to whether you’re gonna be the one who’s

gonna be taken out.

And then your death is gonna be horrible, because your friends

are gonna have to beat you to \hdeath with sticks and clubs.

It’s not gonna be a quick, easy, or honorable death.

You’re not going to be stabbed or allowed to commit suicide.

You’re going to be disgraced, \h\h\hand it takes a long time

to be beaten to death.

\hNARRATOR: Through decimation, Crassus

\h\hmakes his troops fear him more than they fear Spartacus,

their enemy.

\h\h\h\hIt was meant to shame the men who were doing the beating,

\h\h\h\has well as the man who’s killed, even though he might not

have been personally a coward.

\h\hNARRATOR: In the name of discipline,

\h\h\has many as 4,000 men meet their agonizing death this way.

But the brutality \hmakes its point.

Crassus scores a victory \h\h\hin his next battle

against the rebel army.

\hUnlike Spartacus’ earlier opponents,

Crassus was a really experienced soldier.

He knew how to train an army.

He knew how to deploy an army.

He had the necessary experience.

\h\h\hAnd now for the first time, Spartacus

\h\his confronted with an actual Roman general, not a politician

\h\h\h\hwho’s leading out an inexperienced group of men.

NARRATOR: Their forces engage.

A highly trained and able Roman army against a band

of desperate, violent rebels.

With Crassus in the \hfray, the balance

has started to tip against Spartacus.

Pursued by Crassus’ \harmy, the renegade

slaves flee to the south, but Spartacus has already

planned his next move.

Pirates control the waters around Italy.

Like Spartacus, they \h\hlive in defiance

of Roman law or any law.

\hThey answer only to gold, and they traffic in slaves.

Spartacus sends messengers \hto negotiate with them.

\hSpartacus tried everything to get his men out of Italy

to safety.

Finally, in desperation, he made a deal with the devil,

with the Cilician pirates.

\hCilicia is a part of what is today Turkey.

And they were famous, \hthese pirates were,

for attacking shipping.

But they were also famous \h\has the biggest slavers

in the Mediterranean.

\hCilician pirates made lots of money

by capturing and selling slaves.

\hSo Spartacus had to know that when

he made a deal with the Cilician pirates

\h\hto bring their ships to Italy and evacuate his men,

\h\hthat there was a real danger that the Cilician pirates would

simply sell his men \hback into slavery.

\h\hHe probably had in mind crossing over into Sicily

and occupying the island, \h\halmost taking it over

\h\h\has a new territory, a new state, where these rebels would

be able to face Rome on their own terms.

\hNARRATOR: The slaves and the pirates strike a deal.

\h\h\h\hThe Cilicians agree to transport 2,000 of the slaves

to Messina in Sicily.

\hSpartacus hopes to expand his rebellion

while eluding Crassus’ troops.

They haven’t a moment to lose \h\has the legions of Crassus

\h\hclose in, prepared to trap and slaughter

the slaves like feral beasts.

\h\hAhead of the Romans, Spartacus and his horde

\h\harrive at the tip of Italy and find no ships.

The pirates have betrayed them, and the Romans are closing in.

\h\h\hNow Spartacus has to try to fight his way out of Italy

\h\h\hagainst an army that’s been restored to discipline

by Crassus, that’s \hthere in force,

and that will finally \h\hbe able to display

the tactics and the discipline \h\hthat made a Roman army so

formidable.

NARRATOR: Crassus \hplays it smart.

He knows the strength of Spartacus’ forces.

He also knows time \his on his side.

He’ll starve the rebels out by walling them in,

writes Plutarch.

\h\h\hREADER: "This great and difficult

\hwork he perfected in a space of time short

beyond all expectation, making a ditch from one

\h\hsea to the other, over the neck of the land and above it,

\h\hbuilt a wonderful high and strong wall."

\h\hCrassus is a fully modern Roman general,

who among other things knew how to use field fortifications.

\h\hAnd that’s what we see him doing with Spartacus.

\h\h\hNARRATOR: The project, 35 miles long, up to 15 feet high,

is immense.

\h\h\hSecond century biographer Plutarch.

READER: "When supplies \h\h\hbegan to run out

and Spartacus wished to move off the peninsula,

he recognized the impediment \h\h\h\hformed by the wall."

NARRATOR: Spartacus \his forced inland,

and yet every attempt to move north is rebuffed by the wall.

After three years \hon the rampage,

the rebel forces have been caged.

But the Senate, which ordered \hCrassus to bring a quick end

to the rebellion, is tired of waiting for results, according

to historian Appian.

READER: "When the Romans learned of Crassus’ siege tactics,

\h\h\h\hthey thought it unworthy that this work

against the gladiators should be prolonged."

\h\hNARRATOR: A messenger arrives at Crassus’ camp,

carrying infuriating \h\hnews from Rome.

The Senate has lost faith in him and turned the task over

to his greatest rival.

The talented general Pompey the Great is returning from Spain

\ha hero, having crushed a bloody uprising there.

He is ordered to bring \hthe slave rebellion

to its overdue conclusion.

\h\h\hPompey was probably one of the best generals

that Rome ever had.

\h\h\hAnd Pompey was, like Crassus, highly ambitious,

and had more of a military \hreputation than Crassus.

\h\h\h\hHe had an enormous knack for the theatrical.

He has a way of projecting his image around the Roman world.

\h\h\hHe has a sense of PR that, quite frankly, other politicians

of his time don’t have.

NARRATOR: Now he’s off to vanquish Spartacus and rob

Crassus of glory.

\hBut not if Crassus can beat him to it.

\hThey are two dogs after the same fox.

71 BC.

\h\h\h\hAbandoned by the pirates in lower Italy,

\hthe survivors of the Spartacus slave revolt

\hfind themselves walled in by General Crassus’ troops.

\h\hAnd now comes the great General Pompey,

\ha new threat to Crassus’ honor and Spartacus’ life.

\h\h\hSpartacus is on the move again, having broken the siege

\hthat Crassus had so carefully set.

Appian chronicles his escape.

READER: "He staged sudden, small scale attacks on his besiegers,

at selected points hitting them suddenly and sharply.

He crucified a Roman prisoner \h\has a visual demonstration

\hto his own men of what would happen to them if they did not

win."

\h\h\hNARRATOR: As the rebels move stealthily

through the countryside, \hSpartacus and his army

find their peril has doubled, as word comes that Pompey is also

in pursuit.

Pompey had already developed \hsomething of a reputation

for being a clean up guy.

\hHe would show up at the end of a lengthy, grueling, hard slog,

so to speak, and walk away with the glory for having brought it

to a close.

NARRATOR: As Pompey \h\h\hdraws closer,

Crassus becomes more frantic to crush the rebellion before he

arrives.

Spartacus, hemmed in against \h\h\hthe coming onslaught,

\h\h\hsends a messenger to Crassus, offering a truce.

\h\h\h\h\hSpartacus remains confident, waiting for word

back from Crassus.

He’s sure the Romans are ready to listen,

though the rebels keep \htheir swords sharp.

Spartacus tries to negotiate \h\hwith the Roman leaders,

because Spartacus sees himself as a free man.

That’s the way he had started life.

\hAnd Spartacus ran his army like a Roman army,

\has if he had the same honor as his opponents, the Romans.

\h\hNARRATOR: But when his messenger returns,

\h\hit’s clear that the Romans don’t see Spartacus that way.

He is a slave and an enemy.

\h\h\h\hWith the negotiations a failure, the day that Spartacus

has dreaded is here.

\hEven if he beats Crassus in battle,

\h\h\h\h\hPompey will be following right behind.

Spartacus can’t withdraw.

He can’t surrender.

\h\h\hSecond century biographer Plutarch.

\hREADER: "Spartacus recognized that his hand was being forced,

\h\h\hand arranged his whole army into battle formation.

When his horse was brought to him, Spartacus drew his sword

and killed the animal."

\h\h\h\hHe proclaimed that should he win the battle,

\hhe wasn’t going to need a whole horse.

\hHe would have thousands of horses at his disposal.

Should he lose the battle, he \halso wouldn’t need a horse.

\hThat is to say, he had dismounted.

He had joined the foot soldiers in his troop,

\hand he had gotten out there to fight it out to the finish.

\hNARRATOR: Crassus and his army meet Spartacus near Brundisium,

down the heel of Italy.

And so the battle begins.

Three years of revolt have led up to this one decisive match

between Crassus and Spartacus, \h\hthe largest confrontation

between two strong armies.

\h\hOne source reports that he was wounded in the leg,

and was so crippled up that he had to get down on his knees,

but he refused to quit fighting.

NARRATOR: According to historian Appian.

READER: "The killing was on such a scale

that it was not possible \h\h\hto count the dead.

The body of Spartacus \h\hwas never found."

\h\h\hSpartacus never took the opportunity

to get away, which he might well have done individually.

So Spartacus was a man who showed

\hthat he had a sense of honor, a sense of honor

\h\h\h\hat least as deep and sincere as that of any Roman

who’d never been a slave.

NARRATOR: Crassus pursues \h\hthe survivors, killing

all he can find, except 6,000, whom he captures and crucifies

along the main road to Rome.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hThey were crucified, spread out

at about 30 to 40 feet each, \hone by one, for 125 miles.

So you can imagine the stench \h\h\hand the disgusting sight

\hthat anyone would have had traveling that road.

If you were a Roman, this stench would have smelled

like dead slaves to you.

\hYou were glad to see these people,

\h\h\h\h\halbeit in their disgusting, decaying form.

If you were a slave, this was a message.

This was what awaited \hyou if you rebelled

against the power of Rome.

NARRATOR: Crassus vanquishes \hthe slave rebellion, those

some of the rebels \hare lucky enough

\h\h\hto dodge the slaughter until Pompey, true to form,

has the last laugh.

\hPompey managed to show up just in time to chase down

the 5,000 or so gladiators \h\hwho managed to escape

this combat, this big battle.

And he captured or killed \h\h\hthe remaining ones.

\h\h\hNARRATOR: Then, according to Plutarch,

\h\hPompey makes sure he receives all the credit.

READER: "Pompey then wrote to the Senate,

that although Crassus had \hdefeated the gladiators

in battle, Pompey had \hextinguished the war

to its very roots."

\h\h\hPompey’s career is very interesting.

\h\hIn fact, Pompey at one point was accused of being a vulture.

\h\hHe was feeding upon other people’s roadkill.

NARRATOR: The Romans rushed to put this ugly slave rebellion

behind them.

When it’s over, Pompey \hreceives a triumph,

the highest Roman honor for his work fighting enemies in Spain.

Crassus receives merely a minor commendation for his efforts

against the common slaves \h\hwho terrorized Italy.

Though the end of Spartacus in 71 BC

\h\h\hmarks the end of the slave rebellions in Rome,

slavery continues to bolster the economy of the awakening

empire.

But the lessons of the revolt \h\haren’t lost on the Romans.

\hSpartacus in the Roman imagination

becomes almost the equivalent \h\h\h\hof an Osama bin Laden.

\h\h\hHe’s a frightening figure who’s out there.

He remains a threat, even \hwhen you can’t see him.

And you’re afraid that there \hwill always be another one

coming up behind him.

\h\hThe Romans realized from this slave revolt

that they had to keep their \h\h\harmy in tip top shape.

This might have been the \htime when Romans first

began to think, maybe we need \ha professional standing army

to keep us safe at home as well as to protect us

against foreign invaders.

NARRATOR: But even \ha mighty empire

can’t defend itself forever.

Long after it withers \h\h\haway, the story

of a single man who stands against it still endures.

\h\h\h\hSpartacus survives in legend down to the present.

He’s been a culture hero for \hpeople who are repressed,

for people who are downtrodden \hright up to the modern age.

NARRATOR: But while \hthe empire reigns,

it belongs to the powerful.