The revolt of Spartacus
A gladiator leads seventy thousand slaves against Rome for two years.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 2 years
- Known to
- ± 1 year
- Era
- Classical, Holocene
Spartacus escapes a gladiatorial school at Capua in 73 BCE with about seventy others and builds an army that eventually numbers tens of thousands, defeating several Roman forces before being destroyed by Crassus in 71 BCE. Six thousand survivors are crucified along the Appian Way. It is the third and largest of the Roman servile wars, and it exposes how completely the Republic's economy had come to rest on slave labour.