Book 1
14.116
At the same time Spartacus, a Thracian by birth, who had once served as a soldier with the Romans, but had since been a prisoner and sold for a gladiator, and was in the gladiatorial training-school at Capua, persuaded about B.C. 73 seventy of his comrades to strike for their own freedom rather than for the amusement of spectators. They overcame the guards and ran away. They armed themselves with clubs and daggers that they took from people on the roads and took refuge on Mount Vesuvius. There many fugitive slaves and even some freemen from the fields joined Spartacus, and he plundered the neighboring country, having for subordinate officers two gladiators named Œnomaus and Crixus. As he divided the plunder impartially he soon had plenty of men. Varinius Glaber was first sent against him and afterward Publius Valerius, not with regular armies, but with forces picked up in haste and at random, for the Romans did not consider this a war as yet, but a raid, something like an outbreak of robbery. When they attacked Spartacus they were beaten. Spartacus even captured the horse of Varinius; so narrowly did a Roman praetor escape being captured by a gladiator. After this still greater numbers flocked to Spartacus till his army numbered 70,000 men. For these he manufactured weapons and collected apparatus. Y.R. 682
