musement of
the brutal Roman mob. The gladiators were divided into several classes,
in accordance with their particular weapons and modes of fighting, and
great pains were taken to instruct them in the use of their special
arms. But in the period that followed the death of Sulla Rome was to
have a gladiatorial exhibition of a different sort.

In the city of Capua was a school of gladiators, kept by a man named
Lentulus. It was his practice to hire out his trained pupils to nobles
for battles in the arena during public festivals. His school was a large
one, and included in its numbers a Thracian named Spartacus, who had
been taken prisoner while leading his countrymen against the Romans, and
was to be punished for his presumption by making sport for his
conquerors.

But Spartacus had other and nobler aims. He formed a plot of flight to
freedom in which two hundred of his fellows joined, though only
seventy-eight succeeded in making their escape. These men, armed merely
with the knives and spits which they had seized as they fled, made their
way to the neighboring mountains, and sought a refuge in the crater of
Mount Vesuvius. It must be borne in mind that this mountain, in that
year of 73 B.C., was silent and seemingly extinct, though before another
century passed it was to awake to vital activity. It was only biding its
time in slumber.

It was better to die on the open field than in the amphitheatre, argued
Spartacus, and his followers agreed with him. Their position in the
crater was a strong one, and the news of their revolt soon brought them
a multitude of allies,--slaves and outlaws of every kind. These
Spartacus organized and drilled, supplying them with officers from the
gladiators, mostly old soldiers, and placing them under rigid
discipline. It was liberty he wanted, not rapine, and he did his utmost
to restrain his lawless followers from acts of violence.

Pompey, the chief Roman general of that day, was then absent in Spain,
fighting with a remnant of the Marian forces. Two Roman praetors led
their forces against the gladiators, but were driven back with loss, and
the army of Spartacus swelled day by day. The wild herdsmen of Apulia
joined him in large numbers. They were slaves to their lords, whom they
hated bitterly, and here was an opening for freedom and revenge.

It was soon evident that Rome had on its hands the greatest and most
dangerous of its servile wars. Spartacus was brave and prudent, and