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Documentary, 8 Days That Made Rome S01E02 - The Spartacus Revolt
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00:00Ancient Rome, one of the greatest superpowers in history, whose far-reaching legacy continues to shape our lives.
00:09For close on a thousand years, the Romans dominated the known world.
00:16Theirs was an extraordinary empire that heralded an age of unprecedented prosperity and stability,
00:23but that also ruled through violence and oppression.
00:27Rome's rise to greatness wasn't inevitable.
00:32Its epic history was often decided by single critical moments.
00:39In this series, I'm exploring eight key days that I believe help to explain Rome's remarkable success.
00:49To understand the full significance of these eight days, I'm travelling across the Roman world.
00:55I am incredibly lucky to get access to this archaeological site.
01:01Examining remarkable finds.
01:03Today, this is the kind of thing that you put on a dog, but this was almost certainly attached to a human.
01:09And investigating the complexities of what it was to be Roman.
01:19This is the day, in the summer of 73 BC, when a band of slaves escaped.
01:25We're free.
01:26And took on the might of Rome.
01:28They were led by one of the most legendary names in history.
01:33What is your name?
01:35My name is Spartacus.
01:48Rome started out in life just as a modest little village on the banks of the River Tiber.
01:53But it would rise to become the master of the ancient world.
02:02From the 6th century BC, Rome fought to establish herself as the dominant power in Italy.
02:08Then, after her great victory over Carthage in 202 BC, at the Battle of Zama,
02:15she became a Mediterranean superpower.
02:17But for millions, Rome's expansion came at a terrible price.
02:24For Rome, the spoils of conquest weren't just territories and treasures, but slaves.
02:31By the 1st century BC, Romans depended on around 1.5 million of them.
02:37So, had you been walking down these streets then,
02:40one in five of the people that you passed would have been unfree.
02:44The massive majority of these women and men were treated with absolute brutality.
02:53The Romans were creating a problem for themselves.
02:57More conquests, more slaves, and more land for them to work.
03:02But the Romans also had a saying,
03:05you have as many enemies as you have slaves.
03:07They knew that slaves were potential insurgents.
03:11And one day, in 73 BC, their worst fear was realised.
03:20Here in Capua, 100 miles south-east of Rome,
03:25a man called Spartacus led a group of highly trained specialist slaves,
03:31gladiators, in a desperate attempt to escape.
03:34This was a do-or-die mission that turned into a mass revolt
03:40and threw the Roman Republic into crisis.
03:44I think this was a crucial day
03:55because it not only destabilised the Roman Republic,
03:58it shows us practically, physically, and psychologically
04:02how Rome wielded power.
04:04I want to explore the events around Spartacus' breakout,
04:15the day that spawned this legend,
04:17because I believe it can tell us a huge amount about Rome,
04:22a civilisation where extraordinary wealth
04:26and abject oppression co-existed.
04:28A republic governed by elected politicians
04:31who were so panicked by Spartacus' revolt
04:35that they offered unprecedented power
04:38to a single, ambitious individual who promised victory.
04:43A dark foreshadowing of Rome's slide into dictatorship.
04:49The origins of that fateful day lie here,
04:55700 miles away in what was once known as Thrace,
04:58in south-eastern Europe.
05:00By 100 BC, it was on the fringe of the Roman Empire,
05:04and according to the Roman historian Appian,
05:06this was Spartacus' homeland.
05:08The Thracian people had a long, proud warrior tradition.
05:16There's actually a possibility that the name Spartacus
05:18is the Latin version of a Thracian word,
05:21sparadacos, famous for his spear.
05:25But according to Appian,
05:27initially Spartacus wasn't actually fighting against the Romans,
05:31but with them, probably as some kind of a mercenary.
05:34Mike Lodes is an expert in ancient warfare.
05:43Why did the Romans need to employ mercenaries?
05:46It was a very clever thing that Rome did.
05:48As it started to expand beyond its borders,
05:51it recruited previously conquered people into its own family.
05:57Specialist troops like slingers, like archers,
06:00and specially heavy cavalry.
06:02Why did they turn to the Thracians often for this?
06:05They were some of the best cavalry in Europe.
06:08There's a story of one Thracian cavalryman
06:10who galloped along and decapitated a Roman with his sword as he rode by.
06:15I mean, these were feared men.
06:17And we think that Spartacus was a mercenary.
06:20Why do you imagine things went so wrong and that he ended up a slave?
06:24Well, we can only speculate.
06:26There could be all manner of reasons.
06:29Maybe he was just a natural rebel and he talked back to officers
06:34and it could have just been as simple as that.
06:37So who knows?
06:38But somewhere along the line, Spartacus fell from grace and he became a slave.
06:43From possibly being a high-ranking Thracian cavalry officer to being a slave.
06:49And that's quite a fall.
06:51Whatever crime Spartacus committed,
06:56his punishment to be sold into slavery
06:58is the start of a journey into a living hell.
07:02Hold!
07:02Stunt.
07:22Stubborn bastard.
07:28This one is trouble.
07:31Stunt.
07:33Stand!
07:37Stand!
07:39Or you shall be responsible for your friend's death.
07:45As well as your own.
07:47What is your name, slave?
08:07Spartacus.
08:10What is your name?
08:11My name is Spartacus.
08:22Do you know what land this is?
08:26What lies at the end of this road?
08:31Rome.
08:33Your destiny.
08:34The Romans brought Spartacus to their imperial heartland.
08:41The man who would one day lead their own slaves against them.
08:53As a slave, Spartacus was right at the bottom of Rome's strict social hierarchy.
09:01But for those at the top, life could be very good indeed.
09:09If you'd been a slave in a wealthy household, my goodness, you'd have been aware of the disparity between rich and poor, between free and unfree.
09:17Some of the wealthiest Romans owned as many as 20 houses, and they would have been decorated with beautiful artworks like this.
09:29This was actually originally a dining room, and it celebrates the fruits of success.
09:33So you have to imagine men and women lying down here, being hand-fed, physically being weighted on, hand and foot, every day of their lives.
09:46What's perhaps most difficult for us to fathom is that all levels of Roman society saw slavery as part of the natural order.
09:59There were chances for freedom, and freed slaves could go on to achieve great things.
10:05But for the massive majority, life was unremittingly grim.
10:10There's one place where we can still get a real sense of daily life for Rome's slaves.
10:24This is Pompeii.
10:26In 79 AD, it was buried under volcanic rock and ash, spewed out by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
10:34The result is an ancient town suspended in time.
10:40Slaves would often have worked and slept in small businesses like this.
10:53This is a laundry, and they'd have spent their day trampling cloth, soaked in urine.
11:01In fact, they did pretty much everything.
11:03They taught children, they combed hair, they cleared up shit, they dug fields.
11:09And at night, they were often put to bed in tiny little cubicles like battery hens, or just slept rough.
11:16The fact that Whipping Boy was a very popular name for slaves suggests just how desperate life was for the massive majority.
11:26Once enslaved, your children were automatically born as slaves.
11:36Because for Romans, being unfree was the destiny of a subgroup of the population, like being born a man or a woman, slaves were shackled by rigid prejudice as well as by their chains.
11:47We know owners sometimes took extreme measures to hang on to their property.
11:55This metal tag would originally have been attached to a collar, and the inscription on it reads,
12:04Hold me fast if I run away, and then return me to my master, the Ventius, on the estate of Callistus.
12:12Now, today, this is the kind of thing that you'd put on a dog, but this was almost certainly attached to a human.
12:21You see images of them time and time again.
12:25Slaves chain-ganged together with iron bands around their neck.
12:31These would have been men and women who in real life would have been covered head to foot with bruises.
12:35It is just hideous to think of the isolation of someone who wore something like this and who tried to escape,
12:43and then the retribution that would have been meted out on them if they were ever caught.
12:57We have numerous accounts of slaves slipping away at night or running off during errands, even committing suicide.
13:05Men and women who just couldn't bear the life that they'd been given.
13:10But there was a particular class of slaves who lived a uniquely nightmarish existence.
13:17These were the most extreme slaves, gladiators.
13:25Most slaves ended up doing back-breaking labour or working in households for wealthy Roman families.
13:31By contrast, gladiators were exotic and dangerous.
13:38Slaves who fought and died for the entertainment at Romans.
13:46A Thracian warrior like Spartacus would have quickly caught the eye of a gladiator master.
13:51Look at him.
13:59These men are from the far reaches of the Empire.
14:03All fine warriors bred to fight to the death.
14:09True.
14:11But at these prices, I cannot afford for them to kill each other.
14:14From the historian Plutarch, we know that Spartacus was bought by Lynchulus Batiatus,
14:29owner of the famous Capua gladiator school in southern Italy.
14:33The start of the journey towards the fateful day of his revolt.
14:38Thanks to the excavations at Pompeii, just 25 miles from Capua,
14:46we can see what a gladiator school, or Ludus, looked like.
14:53A Ludus was a kind of combination of a prison and a school for gladiators.
14:57And the open courtyard, where I'm walking now, is where the men would have trained.
15:03We think there are around 140 or so of them here,
15:06and they would have fought out here during the day,
15:08and then slept two men to a cell in the rooms behind me.
15:12In these places, conditions were phenomenally tough.
15:18These were men with nothing left to lose,
15:22being trained in the art of death as spectacle.
15:27We know the name of another gladiator at the Capua Ludus,
15:43who'd play a key role on the day of the revolt.
15:50A ghoul by the name of Crixus.
15:53A ghoul by the name of Crixus.
15:54A ghoul by the name of Crixus.
15:56A ghoul by the name of Crixus.
15:57You know smart, you can't keep your last beat.
15:58Finally, a fight.
16:21I can practice smashing your head in.
16:28You talk too much.
16:58These two sparring partners, Spartacus and Crixus, would go on to form a crucial alliance,
17:08a bond between gladiators that we now think was quite common.
17:13Rather brilliantly, we know from some inscriptions from gladiator schools like this that some
17:18slaves shared a real sense of solidarity, almost comradeship.
17:23For example, a gladiator's burial might be paid for by his familiar, his troop, or even
17:30by his doctor or trainer.
17:32This is a bit of evidence that reveals a really unexpected detail in one gladiator's life.
17:52It's from Milan, and it's the commemoration of the short life of Urbicus.
17:57Now, Urbicus was a secutor, or chaser, so that's a gladiator who fights with a sword and a shield.
18:04And this inscription is written in Latin, and it's very eroded, but this is how it translates.
18:11To Urbicus, secutor of the first grade, from Florence by birth, who fought 13 times and lived 22 years.
18:21This memorial is set up by his daughter, Olympias, whom he left at the age of five months,
18:29and Lyricchia, his wife, for her well-deserving husband, with whom she lived for seven years.
18:36May those who love him honour his spirit.
18:51We now think a gladiator had about a one in ten chance of dying each time he entered the arena.
19:00Not great odds.
19:02To avoid an early death, Spartacus had to somehow seize back control of his fate.
19:21To avoid an early death, Spartacus had to be taken by his death, Spartacus had to be taken by his death.
19:51Stand, or you shall be responsible for your friends' death.
19:57Stand, or you shall be responsible for your friends' death.
20:21Stand, or you shall be responsible for your friends' death.
20:41Romans, for their own entertainment, were training slaves to become inventive and sophisticated killers.
20:48loyal only to their fellow gladiators.
21:01It was an explosive situation
21:03and Spartacus began planning for a day
21:06when he could turn it to his advantage.
21:12Two more and you will be my equal.
21:18What if my next opponent's you, Crixus?
21:29Then that battle will go down in history.
21:36I will not fight again for the pleasure of Romans.
21:40In here our fate is sealed,
21:43but out there we can make our own.
21:49Silence, slave.
22:02I swear, the next man I kill will be a wrong.
22:0773 BC, the Roman Republic relies on a workforce of more than a million slaves.
22:23But one Thracian gladiator, Spartacus,
22:26who seems to have been radicalised in his prisoner barracks,
22:29now decided to fight back.
22:37Right here, in ancient Capua,
22:39something was about to happen that would send shockwaves
22:42through the whole republic.
22:44A day that not only forged the legend of one man, Spartacus,
22:49but I think dealt a mortal wound to the Roman Republic itself.
23:08I will not share a cell with this Thracian pig.
23:11That's a pig.
23:12No problem.
23:13Take my character around!
23:14Take my character around!
23:15Don't you step that down!
23:16Ah!
23:17Ah!
23:18Ah!
23:19Ah!
23:20Ah!
23:21Ah!
23:22Ah!
23:23Ah!
23:24Ah!
23:25Ah!
23:26Ah!
23:27Ah!
23:28Ah!
23:29Ah!
23:30Ah!
23:31Ah!
23:32Ah!
23:33Ah!
23:34Ah!
23:35Ah!
23:36Ah!
23:37Ah!
23:38Ah!
23:39I've always wanted a reason to kill you, Spartacus.
24:00We kill for you every day.
24:02Yeah, we're till 10.
24:05Let's go.
24:07No, you free the others.
24:10There isn't the time, just the two of us.
24:14Arms are in our favour.
24:16Who will find us?
24:17They will always find us, Spartacus.
24:20We are many.
24:22We can fight back.
24:24Go!
24:25Which way?
24:39Whichever way we want.
24:42We're free.
24:44Come on.
24:46Spartacus and 70 other gladiators broke out of the Capua Ludus.
24:54This band of runaways, roaming through these very hills and woods in southern Italy, would
25:01soon become a rebel army to challenge Rome.
25:13Plutarch tells us that they soon fell on a lightly guarded combo of wagons.
25:18Wait!
25:19Here.
25:20You're a slave.
25:21Yes.
25:22My name is Argamer.
25:23Thracian.
25:24You're gladiators.
25:25You should join us.
25:27You will be killed.
25:28I don't think so.
25:30I just...
25:31No.
25:32No.
25:33No.
25:34You just...
25:35Okay?
25:36No.
25:37No.
25:38No.
25:39No, you're not bodies.
25:40My name is Argamer.
25:41Thracian?
25:42You're gladiators.
25:43You should join us.
25:44No.
25:45No.
25:46No.
25:47You won't be killed.
25:48No.
25:49No.
25:50No.
25:51No.
25:52No.
25:53No.
25:54No.
25:55No.
25:56No.
25:57No.
25:58No.
25:59No.
26:00This morning we were escaped slaves with nothing but kitchen knives.
26:06Now we're armed with Roman steel.
26:09And we've acquired a taste for freedom.
26:13The freedom Rome took away.
26:17Join us. We'll grant you yours.
26:30We're told by Appian that Spartacus quickly made for the highest point in the landscape.
26:40Spartacus and a few hundred of his followers camped out near the summit of Mount Vesuvius.
26:46Pursued and then trapped by Roman forces,
26:50they made a daring escape by turning wild vines into ropes
26:54and lowering themselves down behind the Roman soldiers who they then massacred.
26:59Spartacus and his deeds of daring do were becoming the stuff that legends are made of.
27:18That summer of 73 BC, as word spread of Spartacus' revolt,
27:23more and more slaves left their fields and abandoned their masters to join him.
27:28First a trickle, and then a flood.
27:32Soon there were tens of thousands rampaging through the countryside, spreading terror and panic.
27:38For the Roman Republic, what started as a simple prison breakout had escalated,
27:43with horrifying speed, into something much more serious.
27:47A full-blown slave revolt.
27:50What's more, we know from Appian that even some free men joined with Spartacus.
28:02At this time, around 90% of Italians lived and worked in the countryside,
28:06and many of them, herdsmen and farmers and shepherds, were dirt poor.
28:13Just 15 years before, this whole region had risen up against those that they thought of as the fat cats of the Republic,
28:20demanding their fair share of the spoils of Roman conquests.
28:25This was an army of the disgruntled, the desperate and the dispossessed.
28:29All malcontents with their own grievances against Rome.
28:33And it exposed the Republic to a chilling problem.
28:37The protest and the idea of freedom is contagious.
28:43This was a critically serious challenge for Rome.
28:49And it's incredible when you think about it.
28:52Thousands of men, and probably women and children too, prepared to risk everything for the dream of freedom.
29:00I think this fundamental human desire caught Rome completely off guard.
29:06And there's another reason for Rome's sluggish response.
29:10The toughest, most experienced legions are not there.
29:14Their strongest forces are out in the east, where all the riches of the Roman Empire still are,
29:19and they're out in Spain.
29:21I think they didn't think he would be such a military threat.
29:24But they were much more concerned with his moral threat to undermine the fabric of Roman society.
29:34Spartacus is a very frightening idea if you're a Roman.
29:40A year after Spartacus' breakout, and after months of anarchy in southern Italy, Rome raised four legions,
29:4920,000 soldiers, to take on Spartacus and his 40,000 rebels.
29:55Near Mount Gargano, the Romans intercepted a column commanded by Spartacus' right-hand man, Crixus, as it moved north.
30:04The details of what happened next are pretty sketchy, but it's clear that the battle was an utter disaster for the rebels.
30:14Two-thirds of the slave army were slaughtered, including Crixus himself.
30:20With Rome's legions now converging on Spartacus, it looked certain that, like Crixus, he'd be defeated, and the revolt brought to a bloody end.
30:38But the Romans didn't factor in his ability to exploit their predictable tactics.
30:51A Roman army.
31:06There are thousands.
31:10It's more than we've ever faced.
31:18Have faith, Artemere.
31:25They are Romans.
31:27They fight one way.
31:41We will use their strength and numbers against them.
31:57They won't see us coming.
32:03Nor will many of them live to see us leave.
32:11And we can do this.
32:27You deliver a message for me.
32:29You tell Rome we will never be slaves again.
32:40Spartacus used speed and surprise to inflict a humiliating defeat on the legions.
32:50But Rome would never make peace with him.
32:53His breakout and the rebellion that had snowballed from that one day was a challenge to the Republic's authority that could not be tolerated.
33:06The Senate's response was to award emergency power to one of Rome's richest, most ambitious citizens.
33:13Marcus Licinius Crassus.
33:18When some of his soldiers ran away from a fight with Spartacus' rebels,
33:21his response was pitiless.
33:28Do you know what disturbs me most about this rebel army?
33:30Not that these filthy slaves were impaged through Roman outlet.
33:31But that my own army allow them to do so.
33:35Unchallenged.
33:36Five hundred.
33:37Gutless cowards.
33:38Five hundred.
33:39Gutless cowards.
33:43Deserving of death.
33:44Deserving of death.
33:48The problem is, if I kill them all, I have no army.
33:49They have learned.
33:50To do so.
33:51To do so.
33:52Unchallenged.
33:53Nothing.
33:54Unchallenged.
33:55Nothing.
33:56No.
33:57No.
33:58Love.
33:59No.
34:00100 gutless cows, deserving of death.
34:12The problem is, if I kill them all, I have no army.
34:16And they have learned nothing.
34:19Nothing.
34:27This was the brutal Roman practice of decimation,
34:31an extreme disciplinary measure,
34:34in which one in every ten men, chosen by lot,
34:38were beaten to death by their own comrades.
34:44This way they are all honest.
34:49This is the gruesome origin of our own verb.
34:52To decimate.
34:53To take a tenth.
34:57They're only 50.
35:01Die.
35:12It was a stark signal that with Crassus in charge,
35:15the Republic was no longer going to tolerate failure.
35:20But by giving so much power to one man, was Rome playing with fire?
35:24The day of Spartacus' breakout had led to a string of humiliating defeats for Rome,
35:35and sent the Republic spiralling into crisis.
35:42The Senate, resorting to desperate measures,
35:44had awarded command to Marcus Licinius Crassus,
35:48a man whose ambition was only matched by his vast personal fortune.
36:00Crassus had been awarded sweeping emergency powers by the Senate,
36:03and put at the head of a huge Roman army that this ambitious billionaire had largely paid for by himself.
36:09Now, this was a problem.
36:12The Roman Republic was full of checks and balances,
36:16precisely to prevent powerful individuals turning themselves into dictators.
36:22But that day of Spartacus' breakout had thrown Rome into a panic.
36:28This unorthodox deal with Crassus was a massive gamble.
36:35And no one knew where it was going to end.
36:37The mighty Roman war machine was back on track.
36:52And in southern Italy, Spartacus was cornered once more, this time by Crassus.
36:58After two years of rebellion and battle, Spartacus' army, about 30,000 strong,
37:17squared up to Crassus' 40,000 in a final showdown with Rome.
37:23I would not choose this day for battle.
37:31Nor this place for a battlefield.
37:36This is where fate has led us.
37:44Bring me my horse.
37:47My horse.
37:48Crassus was a formidable adversary.
38:04And Spartacus knew that he and his men could expect no mercy if they were defeated.
38:10If we win today,
38:13I will have many horses to choose from.
38:23If we lose, Crassus wins the day.
38:33If we lose, Crassus wins the day.
38:37I will have no need for a horse.
38:44I will have no need for a horse.
38:46Plutarch tells us that in the heat of the battle, Spartacus risked everything on one mad desperate charge, straight towards Crassus.
39:05Towards Crassus.
39:08Oh!
39:10Ah!
39:12Ah!
39:13Ah!
39:14Ah!
39:15Ah!
39:16Ah!
39:19Ah!
39:20Ah!
39:21Ah!
39:25Ah!
39:26Ah!
39:27Ah!
39:32Ah!
39:33Ah!
39:34in the aftermath of the defeat there was no I am Spartacus moment that was a Hollywood invention
40:02instead there was just typical savage Roman retribution this is the Appian Way and all along
40:13this road from Rome to Capua where it all began Crassus crucified 6,000 of the surviving slave
40:23rebels so that would have been a crucifixion every 30 yards or so for over a hundred miles
40:32the thought of the cruelty and the suffering here is just sickening
40:44Spartacus and his men were dead slavery lived on it was an essential part of the Roman economic
40:53system for a thousand years in which time an estimated 100 million people were seized and sold
41:02as slaves the day of Spartacus his breakout might have inspired countless slaves but it did little
41:10to change the system what I think made the Spartacus revolt such a crucial moment wasn't its impact on
41:21slavery but its impact on Rome herself for two years the Roman Republic had been intimidated by an army of
41:31slaves slaves and outsiders for them a horrifying inversion of the natural order of things Spartacus had
41:40become a bogeyman a demonic name used to frighten Roman children at night Rome's response had been to hand
41:50emergency powers to one ambitious individual a dangerous precedent that came back to haunt them
41:59in time the last traces of Roman people power would be swept away to be replaced by a single man an all-powerful
42:09emperor Spartacus's bid for freedom had set the clock ticking on the death of the Roman Republic itself
42:20next time
42:31he and I had an agreement
42:33the day that Rome was plunged into civil war as Crassus was eclipsed by a new player
42:39Gaius Julius Caesar
42:42once we cross this river there will be nothing but violence
42:46so
42:56you
43:02you
43:04you
43:06you
43:16You
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