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When spring came again in 71 BCE, both Crassus and Spartacus were on the move.
Spartacus’ goal at this point in time is uncertain, although he may well have been trying to march on Rome; his men left Thurii and headed northward, their ranks swollen with numbers, steel weapons gleaming in the hands of each rebel soldier. Three long years of war had beaten Spartacus’ army from a rag-tag bunch of escaped slaves into a real military force, good enough to beat even Rome’s best. Now, he moved them toward Lucania, where they had fought that glorious victory against Varinius in the very first year of the war. Perhaps the soil upon which so much Roman blood had been spilled would prove to be a good battleground once more.
Crassus’ goal, on the other hand, is abundantly clear. He wanted to stop Spartacus, and he wanted to do it as quickly and gloriously as possible. As his practice of decimation had proven, Crassus wouldn’t let mere ethics or moral issues stand in his way. He wanted victory, he wanted it fast, and he wanted it at all costs.
When Spartacus’ army began to move, Crassus moved just as quickly. He arrayed six of his eight legions along the borders of Picenum, near Picentia, and remained in command of them. The other two legions were entrusted to Crassus’ legate, a man named Mummius. Some sources say that these were the very same legions that had once been commanded by the two consuls, the legions that had let Rome down once before. And they were about to do it again.
Spartacus and his men continued to journey north, possibly to Rome or maybe back to the Alps. Perhaps Spartacus had finally managed to convince his wayward army that going home was better than any amount of glory. Or maybe he, too, now believed that Rome was theirs for the taking. Either way, they moved north, just as Crassus had anticipated. Soon, it began to appear to Spartacus that they had no choice except to keep going north. He was likely unaware of Crassus’ position at Picentia, but he did know that there was a Roman army following him and that they were very close behind.
Mummius and both his legions had taken a long, circular route around Spartacus’ forces. They were now shadowing Spartacus from the south, trying to pressure him into moving more and more northward and straight into the open arms of Crassus and the bulk of the Roman army. Crassus hoped that the sight of two legions—around 10,000 men—would be enough to spook Spartacus into moving faster north. He did give Mummius strict orders, however, not to engage Spartacus under any circumstances. Those same legions had suffered a humiliating defeat under greater commanders than just a legate, as two consuls together hadn’t been able to make them beat Spartacus. “Not even a skirmish,” Crassus had ordered Mummius sharply.
Unfortunately for Crassus, Spartacus’ men knew full well that they’d already fought and beaten two Roman legions, and Mummius’ men didn’t exactly strike fear into their hearts. If Spartacus’ men were aware that Mummius was following them, they appear to have ignored him, waiting for him to make his move.
It seems that Mummius suffered from the same disease as Crassus did: he wanted glory, and he wanted it all to himself. Unlike Crassus, though, Mummius wasn’t a cool, calculated military commander who had been hardened by years of tribulation. He thought he knew best, and he also thought he could be the one to beat Spartacus at last. When the opportunity presented itself, Mummius was ready for it. It’s uncertain what exactly the circumstances were surrounding the next battle of the Third Servile War; perhaps Spartacus’ troops had let their guard down, perhaps they were encamped somewhere indefensible one night, or perhaps Mummius just decided that he could achieve what two consuls hadn’t.
Either way, Mummius disobeyed Crassus. He attacked the rebels with his two legions, perhaps hoping for an element of surprise. Surprised though Spartacus might have been, he responded with a violence and a capability that Mummius hadn’t been expecting. When the Romans charged, a wall of shining shields coming toward the rebels, the rebels did not flee. Instead, they attacked in a foaming wave of rage, led by the fearsome Spartacus. Their battle cry echoed from one hill to the other, and when they struck, they struck like a thunderbolt. The Roman line could have held, perhaps, if the legionaries had done their duty. But they remembered too well the rout of the previous year when friends and comrades had fallen and died all around them. And when the tidal wave of rebels struck against the standing rocks of the Romans, the line crumbled, not because of casualties but simply because of fear. This means the Roman legionaries did the unthinkable: they fled, throwing down their arms as they went. Even Mummius wheeled his horse around, abandoned his troops, and whipped the beast into the best gallop it could muster, carrying him as swiftly as possible away from the battle.
The fight with Mummius was less a battle than it was a total disgrace. Perhaps somewhat bemused to have so easily beaten yet another set of Roman legions, Spartacus and his men brushed him off as a distraction and kept on moving north while Mummius’ legions fled in terror. Perhaps unwisely, they headed back to the main army, where Crassus was surprised to see them. He was even more surprised to see the state that the men were in. When the legionaries had left his army to shadow Spartacus, they had been well-armed. They each had carried a massive wooden shield, a dagger, a meter-long sword called a spatha, and a spear. Now, they returned bedraggled and empty-handed, their weapons left behind. Yet there were not many dead or wounded.
Crassus knew from just looking at them that they had seen battle and that they had fled from it. When Mummius arrived and confirmed what Crassus already suspected, he was utterly incensed. Mummius had directly disobeyed Crassus’ orders, and the result was a massive drop in morale and the loss of many expensive weapons. Crassus had furnished the army with those weapons out of his own pocket—and what was more, the show of cowardice angered him. Dropping one’s weapons in flight was considered to be the height of disgrace all over the ancient world. Crassus wanted this war to glorify him, to make him wonderful, a second Pompey, Crassus Magnus perhaps. Instead, his men had run from the battlefield, and they’d made a fool out of him.
Crassus did not take well to being made a fool of, and he responded with bitter retaliation. Mummius was harshly punished—it is not specified what exactly was done to him, but Crassus may well have punished him physically—and, according to some accounts, this was when the decimation of the two legions took place. Whatever else Crassus did to punish the cowardly legions, he established himself once more in the minds of his army as being far more terrifying than Spartacus. After that, no more legionaries ran away from battle.
The damage, however, was done. Spartacus knew that there were Romans in the area, and he tried to act with more caution. What happened next is a little hazy in the historical accounts. According to Plutarch, he somehow discovered Crassus’ army at Picentia without actually engaging them, perhaps by the use of scouts, and then turned back toward Bruttium, knowing that he couldn’t beat Crassus. It seems unlikely, however, given that the last time two Roman legions had tried to trap Spartacus between them, he’d simply punched through them and continued on his way.
Appian’s account gives a more likely explanation for Spartacus’ return toward Bruttium. Spartacus, having encountered the Romans, became cautious. He started to doubt their plan of marching on Rome (if that was the plan at all), advocating instead to move straight back to the Alps and cross over them as they should have done the previous fall. Once again, a group of men refused to listen to him. About 10,000 rebels split off from the main army, following an unnamed leader. It was the last time Spartacus would see them alive.
This new little rebel faction moved closer to Crassus’ army, encamping themselves somewhere near him. They did not last long. Crassus discovered them and struck, heavily and savagely, his men driven on with the knowledge that dying in battle was a better alternative to being bludgeoned to death by their own comrades. Several thousand rebels perished, and 900 were taken prisoner. The rest were scattered, their hopes of glory torn apart and thrown to the winds. Some made it back to Spartacus to warn him, but it was already too late. Crassus was coming.
Crassus’ troops were now more ready than ever to fight the rebels. They’d had their first taste of victory since the death of Crixus, and they were hungry for more, ready to prove to the Roman Republic that they were still worthy of the title of being the greatest army in the world. None of Spartacus’ wily tricks were going to work this time; pitched battle, the type that he had been trying to avoid ever since escaping from Capua, was inevitable. Spartacus would have to fight the Roman legions in the open for the first time, and he knew it could be disastrous.
If he had known just how disastrous it would be, Spartacus might never have even tried to stand against Crassus. The Romans he’d dealt with before had been cowards—Batiatus with his red-hot iron, Varinius abandoning his horse to flee, even Publicola and Clodianus with their inability to get their legions to defeat him. But Crassus was driven by a loathing that devoured any form of fear, and his men fought with the same kind of crazy desperation that Spartacus had known in the gladiatorial arena. When he fought them, he saw something familiar in their eyes—terror. And this time, it wasn’t Spartacus that they were afraid of. They fought the way he’d fought other gladiators and wild animals—not because they wanted to fight him but because their own version of Batiatus was waiting for them if they failed to fight well. For the Roman legions, life had been reduced to one brutal fact: fight or die.
The motivator of fear proved to be just as powerful for the legionaries as it had been for the gladiators. Spartacus’ rebels were unprepared for the full force of legionaries fighting their hearts out. When they clashed, which probably took place a few weeks after the battle with Mummius, the battle was a disaster, and for the first time, Spartacus himself was forced to retreat. Seeing that the battle was about to turn from mere defeat into annihilation, he took what was left of his men and fled, leaving 6,000 rebels dead on the field.
Spartacus and his men limped back toward Bruttium, shaken by their awful defeat and by the new zest for battle they’d seen in the Romans. For the first time since their revolt, the Romans had fought with a fire that could match that of the slaves. It was the beginning of the end for Spartacus, and he knew it. The fearless faith that his men had had in him was shaken now by defeat, and to make matters worse, Spartacus didn’t know how to inspire them anymore. He had been promising them that they could go home. Now, though, their lust for victory had dragged them back into Italy when they had stood on the very threshold of freedom.
Spartacus’ terrible suspicions were coming true. He wasn’t going to be able to save them; they should have crossed the Alps when they had reached them in the first place. Now, they were all the way across the country from the Alps, with nowhere to flee except the ocean. Flee they did, however, heading deeper and deeper into the “toe” of Italy, having nowhere else to go. Crassus was hounding them now, engaging them in countless little skirmishes, each one more costly than the last. The rebels began to perish, the army fragmenting, and Spartacus was finally losing control over his massive force. It seemed as though the end was near, as if there was nothing more that Spartacus could do.
But just as Spartacus didn’t give up back in the dark cells of Capua, he didn’t give up now. Like he had done on the peak of Mount Vesuvius, Spartacus came up with a plan—and this one would be the most unorthodox of them all.
