SPARTACUS. The leader in the great in surrection of Roman slaves in Southern Italy which took place B.C. 73. He was a native of Thrace, originally a shepherd, hut afterwards a robber chief. He was taken prisoner and placed in a gladiatorial school at Capua. Seventy gladiators, including Spartacus, escaped and forced their way through the streets of Capua, defeated a detachment of Roman soldiers sent to bring them back, and established themselves on Mount Vesuvius, where they received consid erable accessions, chiefly runaway slaves. Spar tacus was chosen leader, and proclaimed freedom to all slaves. Thousands rushed to his standard, After defeating Claudius Pu!cher, Spartacus routed and slew Cossinius, legate of P. Varinius Glaber, the pra.tor; then he worsted Varinius himself in several engagements, capturing his lictors and the very horse on which he rode. All the southern part of the peninsula now fell into his hands; the country was devastated, the cities either pillaged or garrisoned. After the defeat and death of his lieutenants, who had separated from him. B.C. 72. he marched northward through Picenum toward the Po, overthrew first, one con sular army under Cn. Cornelius Lentulus and then another under Gellius Poplicola. and at the head of a large force meditated a march upon Rome. Servile indecision saved the city. Spar
tacus was forced by his followers to retreat south, and took up his winter headquarters at Thurii. In B.C. 71 the proconsul, C. Cassius Longinus, and the proprwtor, Cn. Manlius, were defeated; in Picenum, Mummius, a legate of Crassus, was utterly routed; at last, however, Crassus succeeded in forcing Spartacus into the narrow peninsula of Rhegium. Crassus now built lines of circumvallation to hem him in and force him to surrender; but one stormy winter night Spartacus broke out of the toils prepared for him, and resumed the offensive. Near Petelia, Spartacus once more defeated his adversaries; but seeing clearly that with such wretched materials as he had he could not hold out much longer, he made a dash for Brundusium, hoping to seize the shipping in the harbors, and get safely across the Adriatic to his native shore, but was baffled by the presence of Lucullus (q.v.). There was nothing left for Spartacus but to die gallantly as he had lived. Drawing up his army in battle array, and solemnly slaying his war-horse, he began his last fight in a spirit of heroic desperation, and after performing prodi gies of valor he fell unrecognized among the heaps of his slain foes. After his death the slave insurrection was at an end.