Two hundred
of these resolved to make their escape; but their design being
betrayed, those who had notice of the discovery, and succeeded in
getting away, to the number of seventy-eight, took knives and spits
out of a cook's shop, and sallied out. Meeting on the way with some
waggons that were conveying gladiators' arms to another city, they
plundered the waggons, and armed themselves. Seizing on a strong
position, they chose three leaders, of whom the first was Spartacus, a
Thracian of nomadic race, a man not only of great courage and
strength, but, in judgment and mildness of character, superior to his
condition, and more like a Greek than one would expect from his
nation. They say that when Spartacus was first taken to Rome to be
sold, a snake was seen folded over his face while he was sleeping, and
a woman, of the same tribe with Spartacus, who was skilled in
divination, and possessed by the mysterious rites of Dionysus,
declared that this was a sign of a great and formidable power which
would attend him to a happy termination. This woman was at that time
cohabiting with Spartacus, and she made her escape with him.
IX. The gladiators began by repelling those who came against them from
Capua and getting a stock of military weapons, for which they gladly
exchanged their gladiators' arms, which they threw away as a badge of
dishonour, and as barbaric. Clodius[28] the praetor was next sent
against them from Rome, with three thousand men, and he blockaded them
on a mountain which had only one ascent, and that was difficult and
narrow, and Clodius had possession of it; on all other sides there
were steep smooth-faced precipices.
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