The Spartacus War (20 page)

The two women stumbled upon the sight of Roman soldiers, 6,000 men carrying out the mission of circling around the enemy and taking unobserved a ridge of the same mountain the women were climbing, Mount Camalatrum. Crassus had sent the men under the command of Caius Pomptinus and Quintus Marcius Rufus while he prepared to lead the main attack from another direction. The men under Pomptinus and Rufus had gone to the trouble of camouflaging their helmets, an effort that kept them invisible from any scouts that the rebels might have posted. The Romans were on the verge of achieving complete strategic surprise when the two women discovered them. If they managed to sound the alarm, the Romans’ battle plan would unravel and yet another of Crassus’s traps would snap shut empty.

Unfortunately for Crassus the two women rose to the occasion. They did not panic, which is no surprise, given the ancient evidence. A Roman writer says Celtic women were always ready to help beleaguered husbands by charging into battle, where they would bite and kick the enemy. Archaeological evidence shows elite Celtic women buried with chariots and weapons. So, on that day in 71 BC, hurrying back to camp in order to sound the alarm was easy.

The incident symbolizes how much had gone wrong for the rebels and yet how formidable they remained. Their divided forces paid less attention to security than to religion. That wasn’t entirely negative, as the women’s versatility demonstrates. But if religion encouraged a spirit of resistance, sometimes it grew too stubborn. Let us set the scene and then return to the women’s dis-covery on the ridge.

Earlier, the news that the rebels had divided their forces had probably proved a tonic to Crassus. Any gloom over the prospect of Spartacus’s whole force careening towards Rome had given way to enthusiasm over the possibility of picking the new, smaller armies apart, one at a time. Having followed them from Bruttium, no doubt taking the Via Annia again, Crassus turned first to the easier target. The breakaway group had made camp beside a lake in Lucania.

The lake piqued the ancient sources’ interest because of its unusual property of turning from drinkable to bitter and back again. That sounds like a seaside lake, and it would be reasonable to place it near the coastal Lucanian city of Paestum. The ‘lake’ might in fact have been the marsh that stretched between Paestum and the mouth of the Silarus (modern Sele) River before land reclamation projects dried it up in the 1930s.

Many armies have marched through Paestum. Lucanians conquered it around 400 BC when it was still a Greek colony called Poseidonia. The legions annexed Lucanian Paestum in 273 BC, after the city made the mistake of supporting Rome’s enemy, Pyrrhus. The ancient city’s ruins lie practically within sight of the beaches where the Allies landed in 1943, en route to Salerno, about 35 miles away to the north. The Germans fought at Paestum for nine days before they withdrew. Archaeologists have found tens of thousands of so-called acorn missiles at Paestum, and some suggest that they date to Crassus’s campaign in 71 BC. Acorn missiles are named after the small nuts that they resemble in size and shape. They were made of stone, baked clay or lead. Sling missiles were a weapon of choice against cavalry, and Spartacus deployed horsemen effectively, so it would have made sense for Crassus to have loaded up on them.

Five miles east of Paestum, on the edge of today’s Cilento Hills, above the modern town of Capaccio, there rises craggy Mount Soprano; some identify it with the ancient Mount Camalatrum. The plain at the foot of the mountain is a fertile area, not far from the Via Annia; it would have been a good place to raid for supplies. The Lower Silarus River ran through the plain, about 10 miles away to the north-west. At this time of year the river would have looked silvery, swollen with mountain run-off. A strong sea breeze blows here on the plain. The insurgents might have smelled the scent of freedom in it. Riyos, which many scholars believe was the Gauls’ word for ‘free’, might have echoed around the lake.

Admittedly, there is another candidate for the Lucanian lake: a mountain lake (now dry) near the inland Lucanian city of Volcei

(modern Buccino), some 40 miles north-east of Paestum. This lake’s water was drinkable in spring, thanks to the run-off of melting snow, but turned brackish in summer. But soon afterwards the rebels seem to have been in the vicinity of Capaccio, which tips the scales in favour of locating the Lucanian lake near it.

It was here, beside the lake, that the two Celtic women made their fateful trip up the mountain. The sources imply that they made it down again and they warned their men about the threat. The Romans ‘were in danger’ say the sources. But Crassus saved the day. He arrived from another direction and caught the enemy by surprise. Apparently, in the heat of battle the rebels forgot about the men on the hill. Suddenly, with a loud cry, the Romans hidden on the hill ran down and took them in the rear. The terrified rebels ran for their lives. The cool and professional behaviour of the two Celtic women on the hill failed to pay off in the end. Crassus and his lieutenants would have slaughtered the rebel army, if not for the sudden appearance of help.

Spartacus had arrived. His presence in spite of the split with Castus and Cannicus is not surprising. Neither Paestum nor Volcei is far from the point where the turnoff for Samnium leaves the Via Annia; the breakaway group would have continued on the Via Annia towards Capua and then taken the Appian Way to Rome. Evidently, the Thracian had not given up on his wayward colleagues. Indeed, perhaps he stayed close because he hoped to win them back. His timely appearance made Crassus give up the hunt and saved the breakaway army.

But Crassus attacked a second time. The second battle took place at a spot called Cantenna. Three miles south of Capaccio lies the town of Giungano (modern name), behind which rises Mount Cantenna. Perhaps this is the Cantenna of the ancient source; like Camalatrum, its location is unknown, but all indications put Cantenna in northern Lucania.

When Crassus attacked the second time Spartacus and his men had not yet moved off. But Crassus managed to distract them, thereby leaving the men under Castus and Cannicus on their own. After barely surviving the first attack, they were physically weak and perhaps demoralized as well. The failure to stand and fight had violated every rule of Celtic and Germanic culture; now they paid a price for their safety in shame.

Before attacking, Crassus had laid the groundwork well. He had divided his forces in two marching camps, each with its own trench and earthworks. He placed both camps near the enemy in a gesture of self-confidence and intimidation. Crassus set up his headquarters tent in the larger of the two camps. Then, on a designated night, he pulled all his troops out and posted them in the foothills of the mountain. He left his headquarters tent in the camp, though, in order to fool the enemy.

Next, Crassus split his cavalry into two groups. He sent one unit out under Lucius Quinctius, his legate, with orders to tempt Spartacus with a feigned battle. It is a tribute to Quinctius’s professionalism that he executed this delicate manoeuvre well. Then again, the example of the decimation of Mummius’s troops after they had failed to carry out a similar manoeuvre against Spartacus no doubt focused the minds of Quinctius’s men. In any case, they followed orders well. They neutralized Spartacus’s forces while avoiding losses of their own.

The other group of cavalry had a job that also called for finesse. Arguably, they had the more difficult task. They had to approach the German and Celtic forces under Castus and Cannicus and lure them out to fight, only to simulate retreat. The goal was to lead the enemy into a trap. Crassus and his infantrymen were waiting, perhaps around a bend in the hills. The rebels followed Crassus’s cavalrymen right into the ambush. At this point the Roman cavalry fell back into the wings. Drawn up in battle formation, opposite the rebels, was cold Roman iron.

It was Crassus’s dream and Spartacus’s nightmare: a pitched battle against the Roman army. The rebels’ best hope was to flee to safety. Whether that was still possible, now that the trap had been sprung, is doubtful. Besides, even if they could have fled, the men of Castus and Cannicus were unlikely to have done so. They had the stain of their flight at Camalatrum to wipe out. They stood and fought.

For Celts, battle was a religious act. Beforehand, they vowed to their war god the booty they hoped to take. Their thoughts went to the aftermath of a successful battle, when they could sacrifice captive animals, bury the enemy’s weapons, and cut off the heads of his slaughtered chiefs. If they lost the battle - well, a man’s ultimate offering to the gods was his own body, and a pious Celt would have given it gladly.

The odds did not favour them against Crassus. He probably outnumbered them and his men certainly far outstripped the enemy in weapons and discipline. Castus and Cannicus no doubt displayed good leadership skills but they are unlikely to have matched Spartacus’s tactical gifts. Above all, the Celtic way of war stood in the way of success.

Unlike the Romans, who emphasized coordination and discipline, Celts thought of battle as a series of heroic duels. Celts - and Germans too - grouped themselves in battle around their hero chiefs, fighting along with them to victory or death. This was no way to counteract the military science of the legions. As a Roman veteran, Spartacus knew this, and no doubt he laboured mightily to cure his men of this notion, but Spartacus was gone.

Cantenna proved to be a crushing Roman victory. No figures of their losses survive. The sources disagree about the number of rebel casualties. One tradition cites 30,000 or 35,000 dead, while Plutarch records 12,300. The larger figures can be discarded as implausible; not even the lowest can be taken at face value. It is safest to say that the rebels suffered very large losses. Both traditions agree that Castus and Cannicus died on the battlefield. Plutarch states that this was ‘the most valiant battle of all’ that Crassus fought. The author was referring to the stiff resistance that the Celts and Germans put up. On his account, only two dead men out of 12,300 were found with back wounds. All the rest kept their places in the battle and fought the Romans to the death.

If that is true, it was a very Celtic ending. The Celts idealized a hero’s death on the battlefield and despised the thought of flight. For example, not a single Gaul turned in flight during the Battle of Bibracte (near the modern Autun, France) against the Romans in 58 BC, as Caesar noticed. The Celts considered it better to take one’s own life, in fact, than to surrender. The Celts long honoured the principle of suicide in defeat, from the famous Hellenistic statue of the Dying Gaul and his wife to the suicide of the British queen Boudicca. Castus, Cannicus and many thousands had kept their honour. But the glory of Gaul and Germany lay dead on a field in Lucania.

We hear nothing of prisoners but there probably were some. Others might have escaped and made it back to Spartacus’s army. One wonders if the two Celtic women who went up Mount Camalatrum were there at Cantenna, perhaps at the edge of the battlefield, praying for their men. If so, did they die with them, perhaps by suicide?

Crassus had the right to relish victory. Outside textbooks, no army works like a machine, but even so, Crassus had trained his men to give him their best. Brutal discipline had finally paid off. Machiavelli, who would say that it is better for a prince to be feared than loved, would have approved of Crassus’s methods. Crassus had avenged defeat on the Melìa Ridge. He had achieved more through one night of cunning than he had in weeks spent moving masses of earth.

After the battle, the Romans took in a rich haul of loot from the defeated army, but the greatest treasures had propaganda value. According to Livy, they found five fasces with rods and axes, tokens of a Roman magistrate’s power to beat and behead. The loss of the fasces had shamed the lictors, the magistrate’s attendants who normally carried them; the recovery honoured Crassus’s men. More important, they recovered five Roman eagles and twenty-six battle standards. Each standard was a long pole decorated with various symbols and insignia, and every century, cohort and legion had its own. The legion’s standard was a single silver eagle. Officers called standard-bearers carried the standards in battle, often taking them into the teeth of the enemy. At the Battle of Pydna in 168 BC a standard-bearer hurled his standard into the enemy, and many men died in order to win it back. Every Roman standard had, as it were, blood on it.

Roman standards embodied the unit. The men revered, even worshipped their standards. Losing a standard in battle was a disgrace, while recapturing a standard was a mark of distinction, especially if achieved by force of arms. The Emperor Augustus (29 BC - AD 14) was so proud of getting back Rome’s lost standards from the Parthians (i.e. Iranians) that he had coins issued to commemorate the feat - and he acquired them through negotiation, not battle. By recovering such a collection of Roman honour, Crassus had practically won a second battle.

Spartacus no doubt had Roman battle standards of his own to brandish, taken in past victories, but on this day he probably did not win any new symbols for rallying his troops. He would have to find other ways to put his great communications skills to work. Surely he mourned Castus and Cannicus as he had mourned Crixus. This time, though, he did not have the leisure to hold funeral games or force Roman prisoners to fight as gladiators in their honour. Like Celts and Germans, Thracians too were men of honour. Spartacus was enough of a Roman, though, to think of survival. There was, he knew, no shame to live and fight again another day.

Spartacus convinced his men ‘to retreat towards the Peteline Mountains’. Debate swirls over just where that was. Among the locations proposed are the Cilento Hills south-east of Paestum, the hills around the city of Atena Petilia (the modern Atena Lucana) in the Campus Atinas, and the Picentini Mountains (on the grounds that ‘Peteline’ represents a manuscript error). The simplest explanation is to have ‘Peteline Mountains’ mean the mountains around the city of Petelia, possibly the Sila Mountains, a time-honoured haunt of brigands and bandits. Petelia was a city in Bruttium, probably the modern Strongoli, near Croton and almost 200 miles south-east of Paestum: in other words, to reach Petelia, Spartacus would have had to drag his tired troops all the way back practically to the Melìa Ridge. Yet all indications are that the final events of the war take place within a brief span of time, far too brief for Spartacus’s army to have marched 200 miles and back.