For being the most famous gladiator to ever live, there is a surprising dearth of information about the man called Spartacus. Yes, his slave rebellion against the Roman Republic in 73 B.C.E. and the managerial skills with which he conducts it are both documented and recounted multiple times by both Greek and Latin authors, but none of them truly elaborate on how Spartacus fell in with the Romans, nor how and why the man became a gladiator at all. Every author agrees that he was from Thrace and later became a slave and gladiator in Italy. Two important ancient sources label him a mercenary soldier before being captured and sold as a slave to the arena. By examining the historical accounts of the various military campaigns that Rome waged in the twenty years before the rebellion and with careful application of logic to their chronology, I will argue that the missing link between his freedom as a Thracian and enslavement as a gladiator occurred during his service in the army of Lucius Cornelius Sulla in his campaign against Mithridates and that Spartacus arrived in Italy during Sulla’s second march on Rome in 82 B.C.E.
Joshua Will, ’10 Evanston, IL
Sponsor: John Gruber-Miller