his friendship or his enmity on calculation of interest; so
that within a short interval, he often came forward to speak both for
and against the same men and the same measures. He had also great
influence, both because he was liked and feared, but mainly because he
was feared. Accordingly Sicinius,[26] who was the most violent in his
attacks on the magistrates and popular leaders of the day, in reply to
one who asked, "Why Crassus was the only person whom he did not worry,
and why he let him alone?" said, "That he had hay on his horn:" now,
the Romans were accustomed to tie some hay round the horn of an ox
that butted, as a warning to those who might meet it.

VIII. The insurrection of the gladiators and their devastation of
Italy, which is generally called the war of Spartacus,[27] originated
as follows:--One Lentulus Batiates kept gladiators in Capua, of whom
the majority, who were Gauls and Thracians, had been closely confined,
not for any misbehaviour on their part, but through the villainy of
their purchaser, for the purpose of fighting in the games. 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]