Spartacus sacks rome

He never marched on Rome, at least not to my knowledge. So this is a little moot. We don't know exactly why he didn't cross the Alps, but his march south was a beeline for Sicily (not Thrace)

I think Spartacus himself was surprise at his own success, and honesty didn't know what to do long term. (Which cost him.)
 
While we're at it: Why Sicily anyway? It's in the center of the Roman Empire, they'd be caught like in a hole... Thrace only became Roman in 44AD. (Of course, from Sicily you can go to Thrace.)
 
I think Spartacus himself was surprise at his own success, and honesty didn't know what to do long term. (Which cost him.)

I mean, can you blame him? He won several battles against the most powerful state in the ancient world with no supply lines, very little equipment, almost no training, and zero long-term strategy. I'd be surprised too. But moving on, it's not his fault for failing to consider the long term, because what could he possibly have done in the long term to begin with? By this point, Rome's dominance in the Mediterranean was already more-or-less a done deal (given the recent defeat of Pontus), and there were no serious threats to their power over Europe, so there's nothing he could do to appeal to Rome's enemies or achieve any sort of concrete gains. His best bet was crossing the alps and getting the heck out of dodge. He didn't, and we can assume he had a reason for this, but we simply don't know it.

While we're at it: Why Sicily anyway? It's in the center of the Roman Empire, they'd be caught like in a hole... Thrace only became Roman in 44AD. (Of course, from Sicily you can go to Thrace.)

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The answer is in the map. There's only two directions you can go partner. He couldn't go North (for whatever reason), so that leaves Sicily. Plus there had been two major slave revolts in Sicily in 135 and 104 BCE, so there's a possibility he may have wanted to either try and capture the island or, as you suggested, use the island's mercantile prowess to escape to somewhere else (Egypt, Thrace, Illyria, etc). Also, at this time, piracy was still a problem in the Mediterranean, and thus the Roman navy wasn't totally unchallenged, and they may have been able to hold the island for some time with a sufficiently large force. Furthermore, Spartacus was a poorly educated slave, so it's unlikely that he had the extensive knowledge of the gaps in Rome's sphere of influence that we have today, so suggesting "Spartacus should have gone to Thrace" is all well and good, but we have history and hindsight on our side, whereas Spartacus was likely illiterate.
 
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The end goal was always escaping. First Gaul, and when that failed, to Sicily. (Which also failed.)

My understanding is that he got up north, had no organized force against him, and turned around rather than escaped. Yes, not logical but perhaps emotionally satisfying?
 
My understanding is that he got up north, had no organized force against him, and turned around rather than escaped. Yes, not logical but perhaps emotionally satisfying?

It's also possible he didn't have the knowledge or equipment to make the crossing. It is a mountain range after all, not exactly a walk in the park for a lifelong gladiator with little wilderness experience
 
It's also possible he didn't have the knowledge or equipment to make the crossing. It is a mountain range after all, not exactly a walk in the park for a lifelong gladiator with little wilderness experience

He managed to train a competent army starting from a few Gladiators and lived off loot/the land for a year. Considering they pulled that off, this explaination seems too easy. This, and what Yamamoto called "Victory Fever" seems somewhat more likely.
 
You can't tell me that all the slaves in his inner circle were illiterate.

I mean, this is a point in history where literacy was not exactly widespread. Rome itself was a high point for literacy in European history (until the 19th century), but even so we can't reasonably assume more than 50% literacy among adults (most of which wouldn't have been slaves). We can't know for sure, but it's very unlikely that any of his fellow rebels were literate. Why would a slave owner teach his gladiators to read? Furthermore, if you buy a slave who can read and write, why waste him as a gladiator? Almost certainly, literate slaves were highly prized as tutors, scribes, and the like by the upper classes, so any slave auctioneer could make far more money selling literate slaves to patricians rather than keeping them as gladiators.
 
One single literate guy would have sufficed.

Well then I guess my next question is what would they do with a map? They could have a GPS for all the good it would do them. There's still only two ways out of Italy, regardless of how many maps they have. North or South. They couldn't go North, so they tried to go South and got betrayed by some pirates.

Furthermore, I'm still not convinced that any of these slaves were literate. Not only is there a huge incentive for slave auctioneers to sell literate slaves to patricians, there's also a huge incentive for literate slaves to advertise their literacy as a mark of value. Imagine you're a Gaul, and you can read and write Latin, and then you're captured as a slave. You can either keep your literacy a secret, whereafter you'd likely either be sent to do manual labor in mines or be sold as a gladiator (both of which had high mortality rates). Or you can tell the auctioneer you're literate, and likely be sold at a high price to live as a tutor or house servant in Rome (whereafter you'll likely be freed after your master dies). The math does itself.

Huge incentive for auctioneers to sell literate slaves to patricians + huge incentive for literate slaves to *want* to be sold to patricians = zero literate gladiators
 
We can't know for sure, but it's very unlikely that any of his fellow rebels were literate.

You're kidding? No, your not.

Teachers and Tutors were slaves.
Most scribes were slaves.
Many slaves had not been slaves all their life.

The idea that they didn't have hundreds of literate slaves is ludicrous.

Yes, tutors were unlikely to join a revolt willingly but the others are just as likely as any other slave.

Yes, the original slaves were gladiators. But they then recruited across all southern Italy and were organized enough to turn farm hands into soldiers. This suggests organization and organization suggests literacy.
 
You're kidding? No, your not.

Teachers and Tutors were slaves.
Most scribes were slaves.
Many slaves had not been slaves all their life.

The idea that they didn't have hundreds of literate slaves is ludicrous.

Yes, tutors were unlikely to join a revolt willingly but the others are just as likely as any other slave.

Yes, the original slaves were gladiators. But they then recruited across all southern Italy and were organized enough to turn farm hands into soldiers. This suggests organization and organization suggests literacy.

I feel like I made it pretty clear in the above post that I know there were numerous literate slaves. I also made clear that these likely did not constitute the bulk of Spartacus' forces for the above reasons. Regardless, this is all minutia and is tangential to the real issue. Even if every single rebellious slave had been literate, what meaningful impact would that have had on the effectiveness of the rebellion? They were still trapped in Italy with Crassus' legions bearing down on them, and all the reading and writing in the world wouldn't fix that. Any literacy on the part of the rebels is a moot point
 
I feel like I made it pretty clear in the above post that I know there were numerous literate slaves. I also made clear that these likely did not constitute the bulk of Spartacus' forces for the above reasons. Regardless, this is all minutia and is tangential to the real issue. Even if every single rebellious slave had been literate, what meaningful impact would that have had on the effectiveness of the rebellion? They were still trapped in Italy with Crassus' legions bearing down on them, and all the reading and writing in the world wouldn't fix that. Any literacy on the part of the rebels is a moot point

This. Honestly, why are we even still debating this? Even if there were someone who could read and write, by any implausible chance, so what? Spartacus’ uprising always was a lost cause anyway.
 
Wait, he went north to Cisalpine Gaul and then turned south again. So doesn't he want booty? If Rome and the Eutruscan cities surrounding it had no walls, I think he'd love to sack Rome.

Booty slows you, Spartacus and his “army” needed to be fast above everything else, lest they be trapped by the Roman armies on their heels.
 
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