What finally pushed Spartacus over the edge? It’s a question that’s simultaneously easy and difficult to answer. Easy because, having been enslaved as a gladiator, forced to battle wild animals and other humans to the death for sport, it’s only natural that one would eventually be pushed by desperation to pursue an unlikely escape. Challenging, though, because we have precious little evidence. And the reality is that we have to examine this question at two different moments in time–not just the launch of his famous rebellion, but also his lesser known first breakaway.
Historians argue about Spartacus’s background. Was he a peasant from Thrace, in present-day Bulgaria, or a child from right here in the Campanian countryside? And was he pushed to join the Roman military because of the economic consequences of conquest? If so, the story goes, perhaps he was pushed by Roman discipline, or even racial prejudice, to finally desert the army–thus setting in motion the eventual capture and enslavement. His efficient leadership of the rebellion is held up as key evidence of the fact that this was a man who benefited from military training, but we just don’t know for sure.
It’s much simpler to answer why I snapped. It had been an easy morning, strolling first through olive groves and then long stretches of chestnut trees, the bulk of their harvest–green, spiky balls–having recently fallen to the ground. One older man was foraging, but it seemed like most of them would simply go to rot. These were my final kilometers on the Via Francigena Sud, just twelve clicks to reach Teano and close the gap, as that’s the town where I left off in the spring, before veering north onto the Cammino di San Benedetto. The final ascent into the hill town had me zigzagging through the weekly clothing market. I capped off my time on the VFS with a celebratory coffee and then pushed on. I didn’t have time to waste, with 50 kilometers to cover, and plans for the evening.
My route had me following a circuitous approach south from Teano, along what the gps software suggested was a branch of the Via Micaelica. Around a half-hour in, I realized I had missed a turn onto a footpath. Annoying, but not terrible. But then, after I backtracked, I discovered why I had missed the turn–it simply didn’t exist. This necessitated even more backtracking, and after 40 minutes I was back to where I had started in Teano, on the last day I could afford it.
One audible curse later, I was charging down the road. Stanley Kubrick won’t be making a movie out of it, but before long I was immersed in corn fields. Mercifully, the remainder of the route worked well enough, but I spent the remainder of the day–which soon transitioned into huge apple orchards–playing catch-up.
I had felt the urgency to churn kilometers because of the distance, but the larger factor weighing on me was the importance of reaching my destination, Santa Maria Capua Vetere, in time to visit the Amphitheater of Capua, the second largest of its kind in Ancient Rome, behind only the Colosseum, and the heart of Spartacus’s story. Following his capture around 75BC, Spartacus was sold to Lentulus Batiatus, who ran a gladiator school in Capua. Spartacus endured these conditions for two years before he snapped, rallying a group of his fellow gladiators to rebel. Walking through the subterranean passages beneath the impressive, hulking remains of the Roman arena, it was surprisingly easy to imagine the bleak dread that must have infected every one of those men, hearing the roar of the sixty thousand spectators overhead, seeing the bodies of their fallen colleagues tossed underneath, hearing the shrieks and howls of the wild animals awaiting their opportunity.
All things considered, the rebellion did remarkably well. Spartacus and his 70 men first fled towards Mount Vesuvius, following a trajectory similar to what I’ll be following over the next couple days. In the months that followed, they veered towards the southeast, first towards Brindisi (was Spartacus hoping to make his way back towards Thrace?) and then to Matera–almost following my spring walk in reverse. While they enjoyed some military successes, including an improvised first conflict using little more than farming implements, the Romans finally mounted a serious response. Two years after their initial escape, in 71 BC, Spartacus and his men were routed near Petelia in Calabria.
Nobody can argue with the dramatic nature of the climactic scene in Kubrick’s representation of Spartacus’s story, in which the captured soldiers are all asked to single out their leader, resulting in one after another declaring that “I am Spartacus!” If the drama is undeniable, though, the truth of it can certainly be called into question. Almost certainly, Spartacus was killed in battle, having put forth a heroic effort before finally falling in the field. The outcome was much worse for his men, many of whom were crucified along the Via Appia, on the section of the road I’ve just walked between Rome and Capua. A small number evaded capture for a time, but over the next decade it seems like even they were rounded up and met a similarly grisly end.
By contrast, I completed my walk on time. Perhaps this was not the best parallel to draw.
It’s a little deflating to read the actual history of Spartacus. Historical legend is delightful; it embeds just enough of the verifiable facts within a comforting, uplifting narrative that it’s difficult to relinquish, even in the face of conflicting evidence. Who wouldn’t want to see a story of solidarity, of holding together in the face of oppression, of defying an authoritarian ruler right now? After seeing how the rebellion collapsed, it’s easy to view it as a disaster, a waste of all those lives. Better, it seems, to patiently endure, no matter how bleak the circumstances, than to careen headfirst into a blender.
Hard as they were, though, would Spartacus and his fellow enslaved men give back those two years of freedom? And in those final moments, even as they were tortured on the cross, struggling to breathe, did they really have any regrets? Or were they, perhaps, more content to die on their own terms, having fought for themselves and each other right down to the bitter end?
