Spartacus

by Lewis Grassic Gibbon

  He stopped, staring, a troubling, tremendous figure to the eyes of the slaves; and then sat down. Elpinice stood up, her woman’s voice strange and mild in the bass rumblings of the ragged horde.

  ‘The Wolf is Rome. Spartacus will lead us from Italy, but only as a united army. Let us march and meet the next army of the praetor’s.’

  ‘What will that help?’ asked Gershom ben Sanballat, and he voiced the slave-army.

  ‘If we defeat the Masters we can arm ourselves and be strong enough to fight a way through Italy.’

  Hearing this, the slaves were again divided, some favouring the boldness of the woman, others crying that she was mad. In the warmth of the increasing day, a dull stench arose from the squatting circles. Hunger came on the slaves and certain of them drew away, lighting cooking-fires. The hum of argument rose and fell, with occasional wild bursts of laughter from a group of demented slaves who had escaped the mines. The literatus Kleon had stood on the verge of the gathering, listening in a cold amusement. Now he made his way through the circles to the side of Gershom the Jew.

  Hating all Greeks and loathing eunuchs, the haughty Pharisee shivered with a secret repulsion whenever Kleon approached. Yet also, himself dazed in the discovery, he would look on the Greek with an angry, wondering compassion doubtlessly planted in his brain by some wandering Italian devil. Kleon looked in the Jew’s heart, cold and amused, passionless but for the ice of his hate to the Masters, yet sometimes teasing the haughty solemnity of the slave-aristocrat as a wasp a tail-switching leopard. He did so now.

  ‘I thought you found this Spartacus a possible leader? He’s no more than a savage, uxorious at that.’

  The hill-leopard struck back. ‘The last at least is denied you, Greek.’

  Kleon’s pale face barely twitched. Gershom’s swarthy face flushed. He spoke again, angrily at unease, as the other said nothing.

  ‘I have spoken with these Gladiators. This woman is favoured by a God, some devil of these heathen lands. In my country she would be stoned till her shameful body was hidden from the sight of men.’

  ‘A meek and gentle people, your countrymen,’ agreed Kleon. ‘How came the woman to join the revolt?’

  ‘Of that there’s that tale and this, each of these Gladiators being a bigger liar than his neighbour. Some say she was a concubine of that Batiates whom they’ve escaped; others that Spartacus was her lover for years, and they bandited together in Thrace. While this new-come scum maunder as slaves will, being fools.’

  ‘You yourself are a slave, Jew.’

  ‘I am a noble of the Maccabees.’

  ‘Who sold you from Bithynia to the Roman slave-market!’

  ‘Some day I’ll redress that, with a forest of spears against the Bitch in Jerusalem.’

  Kleon squatted on the ground and drew forth the roll of The Republic. ‘Then you’re in need of advice on how to model the perfect state. I’ll read to you now from Plato the divine.’

  ‘No, no.’ The wasp had stung again. ‘He was doubtlessly a very worthy Greek, but I’ve no taste for his counsel. Some other time, when we are out of Italy. Here comes a sentry with two more recruits. Gauls both, by their look. Which is no great accession.’

  For Gershom ben Sanballat had little faith in Northern men.

  [v]

  A German posted on the outlying hills by Gannicus, the sentry came striding through the squatting slaves. With him came two men, small men and dark in the Celtic way, clad in short linen tunics. They were clad in the armour of mirmillones, with images of fish on their iron helmets, and decorated leg-sheaths shielding their knees. Those of the slave-host who had escaped the school of Batiates stared at the newcomers and their shameful armour. For since the rout of Clodius all the Gladiators had flung away their arena weapons and re-armed themselves as legionaries.

  Spartacus sat staring blindly, intently south, seeing nothing of the approach of the sentry. A German and a mines-slave, the latter halted in front of the seated Strategoi and addressed only Gannicus.

  ‘These Gauls say they’ve come from Capua and that they have been Gladiators.’ He sneered. ‘Myself, I believe they’ve been bed-men.’

  Gannicus laughed, surveying the small men without pleasure, for his humour was evil. ‘Where did you steal the arena gear?’ he asked, jeeringly.

  The younger of the two Celts, slight and dark and mild of face, had long lashes drooping like a woman’s over mild eyes. He looked through those lashes at Gannicus and stroked his chin.

  ‘Where Gannicus won his palms – when his adversary stumbled. In the arena. I’ve watched you there at Rome with net and trident, and wished for you as opponent. For I’m a timid man who desires to live long.’

  ‘You Gaulish swine—’

  The little Gladiator held up a mocking hand. ‘Now you’re angry. Yet this sentry tells me you’re a strategos, a word for a captain, I believe. An ill choice, for I see you’re a man of little wisdom.’ His eyes strayed to the silent Spartacus. He suddenly saluted. ‘Thracian, we heard of you and came to join you.’ The banter came into his voice again. ‘And for reward we seem like to be killed and, for all I know, roasted and eaten by a redheaded Teutone.’

  A smile came seldom enough on the thick lips of Spartacus. It came now. Crixus watched it come, and relaxed that watchful tension his banter had barely concealed.

  ‘We were mirmillones, Crixus and Oenomaus.’

  ‘You are welcome. I was a Threce, Spartacus.’

  ‘Now I know we are really free, Oenomaus. All the way in the ditches and thickets that line the road from Capua I’ve sworn it a dream; once I frightened a flock of goats half-way over Campania when I pricked myself with my gladius in order that I might wake.’ He explained to the blank stare of Spartacus. ‘We were at Rome and heard nothing till we were brought back to Capua and the school of Batiates. There they told us the news and how it was now impossible to escape, such precautions were taken. So Oenomaus and I, one misty morning, gained by stealth the rooms of Batiates himself, and forced him at the dagger-point to lead us out by a private gate. Or at least Oenomaus forced him, for I hung back, fearing strong men with beards. Then we hid in a wine-cart that was making out from Capua, and so escaped the city. For the rest, we’ve wandered and hid and fared ill till this morning when we came on three scouts of Furius, the legate of Varinus. Two of those scouts we slew by stealth; the third we put to the question. From him we heard of Clodius’ rout, and that Publius Varinus, the new praetor, has been sent south by the Senate, with a legion and a half, to eat up and excrete all the rebel slaves in Italy. So we tied this third scout to a tree and came away. Then we fell in with this German and prevailed on him not to eat us, though as yet we’re untried men and he a veteran.’

  But Castus was on his feet. ‘Masters? How far away is this legion and a half?’

  ‘Four leagues, I’d say, or less.’

  [vi]

  The clamour of the roused camp around them, Elpinice sat in the tent with the head of the giant Thracian in her arms. He had ceased to groan and claw at his head in that madness that had come in him as he stumbled into the tent from the sunlight. But now a torrent of broken Latin poured from his lips.

  ‘But I can’t understand! Who am I? I can’t remember! Darkness . . . and the forests, and waking. Night killing of men. Why should I kill them? I want only to hunt, to swim in the rivers, and lie in the hunt. I cannot kill them. Why should I kill?’

  She had heard this raving before, though never in such frantic tones; she had soothed him from it before, the strange alien barbarian who, with his sword broken, had broken men with his bared hands and torn at their throats with his teeth; and who, outside the blindness of fighting, shuddered from the thought of killing like the frightened girl she herself had long ceased to be. Who was he, what origins had been his in that wild Thrace where he was captured?

  And sometimes a terror would come on her, bright and dreadful, yet with joy in it also, as the great, glazed eyes turned to her for help, a
nd the great hands held her, in appeal, in the lazy play of a drowsing beast that sheathed its claws and played in the sun, in the urgent hot hours of desire when she quivered alive as never before in the hands that had held her throughout four years. Dim and remote her own beginnings, she yet remembered again and again those faces in stone in the Violet City, and would sometimes shudder and stare at the Thracian. What God had stolen his reason and set there the strength of a lion when roused at last, the cunning and speed of a striking serpent – these, companioned with the dread of a child?

  So she soothed him now, as before, and he sighed, holding the hands that held him. Then he raised his head and smiled, suddenly, as on Crixus.

  ‘Better now. Elpinice, there are forests where I’ll take you and we’ll go alone, only the bears and the deer are there; and caves; and the moon coming at night.’ His face crinkled in sudden anger. ‘After. There are the Masters who would stop us.’

  She helped him with his armour, and armed herself; and as always, he plotted a plan in his mind, and traced it aloud, a hunter’s plan, one who had hunted and waylaid beasts. She whispered beside him, agreeing, amending; till a bucina captured from the Roman rout roared outside the rallying signal of the horde.

  And Elpinice, once mistress of the lanista Batiates, raised up her small head, her young eyes old. And she knew that bucina ended a phase: the revolt was over, it was WAR that began.

  The War Begins

  [i]

  THE Senate had despatched Publius Varinus, with nine thousand men, to retrieve the shameful defeat of the Battle of the Lake and free the land from the threat of another servile war. Varinus, a tall, melancholy man weighted down with debts and the caprices of a young and unvirtuous wife, went forth slowly and reluctantly, and took the southwards road.

  Presently he was in a land that another army seemed to have devastated. Houses stood looted and roofless, with the smoke still curling from the charred beams and starving dogs snuffling amid the ruins; farms were deserted, the storehouses sacked, gates open and herds straying untended. For the slaves, deserting to join the Gladiator revolt, had maimed or mutilated that which they could not carry away. Cattle, slashed and hamstrung, lowed amidst the hills; milldams had been raised and vineyards flooded; the statues of the Gods overturned or defaced with filth. And, seeing these things, the heart of Varinus kindled to a slow anger, and he forgot his debts and the lovers of his wife.

  With him, as his legate, rode Furius, a young man who had lately served in Iberia with Pompeius, and before that had wandered many years in Greek lands, and more eastwards still, through Asia to the Persian kingdom. His slim figure was enclosed in a breastplate of silver, sewn on a leather coat. Ocrea of the same metal were bound on his legs. He wore a Greek helmet with a horsehair crest, and rode carelessly a great stallion from Cisalpine Gaul, white, with a bristling mane and red-rimmed eyes and over-ready hooves, as the legionaries knew.

  Beside him, dropping vindictively, rode Varinus, unadorned and in plain armour. Behind, rank on rank, marched the legionaries, short brown men bearing the Samnite shield and the Spanish sword, adopted by the Republic after Cannae’s rout. On each legionary’s back five stakes were strapped to erect on the palisades of the nightly camps.

  It was bright weather. The great southwards track that left the Appian Way grew thick in dust, so that Furius, cursing, maintained he would rather march with a company of scavengers. He had little respect for Varinus, who was no soldier.

  ‘Scavengers we are,’ said Varinus, looking at him sourly, ‘and on no holiday jaunt. If you cared so much for soldiering you’d have done better to stay in Iberia.’

  But Furius yawned. ‘The Gods – the dear, old smutty Gods! – forbid. I’m no more a goat than a scavenger. Clambering Iberian mountains in pursuit of the unscrubbed savage wearies me. Given flat country, the chasing of runaway slaves should yield twice the sport.’

  ‘It was the slaves who did the chasing at the Battle of the Lake.’

  ‘So Clodius said. For a fat man, how he must have run! He was puffing even when he arrived in Rome, thirty pace miles from the battlefield. If it can be called a field. They say he is still hiding in the baths, afraid to return to his wife, though freely forgiven by the Senate. The man is no more than a slave himself.’s

  But Varinus answered nothing, himself knowing the affliction of a lawless wife. Furius glanced at him contemptuously and then rode on singing, for his was a gay heart. On the road they came on a party of women slaves deserted in the flight of their menfolk to join the Gladiators. One of these women Furius singled out and ordered to be carried along for himself.

  The rest, with a great roar of laughter, were caught and distributed among the marching troops. Varinus rode frowning.

  So in this way they marched south for the space of three days. On the morning of the third they were stayed by the velites falling back. Light-armed Iberians, these soldiers had been scouting in advance. Several had pushed forward many leagues and now brought the news that the Gladiators, reinforced by many slaves from the farms, were still encamped near the Lake where Clodius was routed. Learning of the nature of the ground, Varinus made his plan, and Furius agreed to it, contemptuously and indifferently.

  Taking the half-legion the legate would make a detour and come up behind the slave horde. Yet he was not to attack immediately: rather, rigorously to avoid an open engagement. Meanwhile, the praetor would delay for a day and then advance with his legion and offer battle. The legate’s half-legion could then cut off the fleeing slaves at the hither side of the marsh.

  So they agreed, and Furius rode off gaily at the head of his three thousand, the while Varinus encamped for that night, for now he believed he held the Gladiators in a cleft stick. With Furius went the female slave, a Gaul, whom he had allotted to himself. He carried her across his saddle and sang for her Eastern songs. Small and lithe, she lay rigid and listened, being afraid. But when the legate kissed her, she returned his kisses.

  Seeing these things, the tribune and centurions, grey, scarred men, shook their heads. Things were differently managed in the great campaigns: the women captives, when they’d given their pleasure, had their throats cut or were sold as slaves. For Furius to carry a woman on his saddle shocked and angered the half-legion.

  So Furius guessed, and cared nothing. For he came of a great family and the Senate was friendly to him. Moreover, he believed that he himself could defeat the Gladiators and their allies, and so win credit from Varinus.

  With this thought, he marched throughout the night, spite the grumbling of the heavy-laden legionaries. Once or twice in the night-march he meditated ridding himself of the girl, then relented, for she was desirable. At dawn he halted under the spurs of a mountain, and three of his scouts fell back to report: the Gladiators still held their camp, they were less than a league away.

  Three of the scouts had not returned: but Furius was carelessly unanxious. Summoning his officers, he told them to halt the legionaries and feed them. In an hour they would march on the Gladiators’ camp.

  One centurion, a young, coarse-featured Lucanian, protested against the short time of halt. But as he spoke a curious thing happened. His eyes and mouth opened very widely, as though stricken with a wild surprise. Then he swayed and gurgled blood while the others stared. There was an arrow in his throat.

  The bucinae blew. Furius looked about him, coolly. Nothing. No one. The mountain reared in wild crags above them, deserted, sun-glimmering. Cattle lowed. A lark was singing high in the white heat. The bowman was nowhere to be seen.

  Then, from a distant ledge, the legate saw an unhelmeted head cautiously projected. At the same moment a shower of arrows whistled down on the half-legion. Some stuck quivering in the ground; some rang on iron helmets like hail; each pierced through the eye by chance missiles, the screams of two legionaries came to Furius. But the majority of the legionaries, accustomed to barbarian warfare, unslung the great Samnite shields and held them ready for another volley, and jested
on the death-screams of their fellows.

  Furius called up from the rear two centuries of Iberians. It was his intention to set them storming the mountain spurs and so drive out the archers. But before this could be executed, there came from round the mountain base the noise of a thunderous trampling; it grew to a rhythmic beat that shook the earth. Then a herd of maddened cattle, propelled with shouts and spear-thrusts, and leaping from ledge to ledge of the mountain-base, poured like an avalanche on the halted legion.

  The legionaries stared and howled and beat their shields; too late: in an instant, with curses and laughter, they broke and scattered before the lowing, maddened charge. Like rushing water either side of a rock the herd split before the neighing stallion of Furius, which wheeled and lashed at the beasts with iron hooves. Quieting his mount, the legate suddenly grew tense and shouted unheeded orders.

  For, low-bent, half-concealed in the dust, in and out among the leaping beasts raced companies of half-naked slaves. Howling like wolves they raced, and in a moment, wielding clubs and axes, fell on the legionaries. Two of them sprang on the legate, one a great Thracian, one a starved Bithynian.

  It was too late for Furius to draw his sword: he thrust his dagger into the Thracian and the man rolled under the stallion’s feet which pranced him to a bloody pulp. But the Bithynian, foot on stirrup, clung to the legate’s left side and struck at him again and again with a sliver of sharpened stone. Each blow dented the legate’s armour, and, try how he would, he could not come at the man because of the burden of the Gaulish girl. Then one of the centurions, leaping amidst the cattle, came to the rescue and slew the Bithynian with a blow that tore open the thin brown throat, and drenched the girl in blood.

  Then Furius looked about him.

  The herd had passed in dust and noise, though here and there a hamstrung beast strove to rise from the ground. The legionaries, scattered and taken by surprise, were falling back before the desperate attack of the slaves. Loud above the din rose the wailing ‘Hui! Hui!’ of the Thracians. Then the tribune caused a bucina to blow, and the soldiers, cursing and fighting, fell into rank.