s of Italy
robberies were of everyday occurrence, murders were frequent.
A special decree of the people was issued--perhaps at this epoch--
against kidnapping of foreign slaves and of free men; a special
summary action was about this time introduced against violent
deprivation of landed property. These crimes could not
but appear specially dangerous, because, while they were usually
perpetrated by the proletariate, the upper class were to a great
extent also concerned in them as moral originators and partakers
in the gain. The abduction of men and of estates was very frequently
suggested by the overseers of the large estates and carried out
by the gangs of slaves, frequently armed, that were collected there:
and many a man even of high respectability did not disdain what
one of his officious slave-overseers thus acquired for him
as Mephistopheles acquired for Faust the lime trees of Philemon.
The state of things is shown by the aggravated punishment for outrages
on property committed by armed bands, which was introduced
by one of the better Optimates, Marcus Lucullus, as presiding over
the administration of justice in the capital about the year 676,(25)
with the express object of inducing the proprietors of large bands
of slaves to exercise a more strict superintendence over them
and thereby avoid the penalty of seeing them judicially condemned.
Where pillage and murder were thus carried on by order
of the world of quality, it was natural for these masses of slaves
and proletarians to prosecute the same business on their own account;
a spark was sufficient to set fire to so inflammable materials,
and to convert the proletariate into an insurrectionary army.
An occasion was soon found.

Outbreak of the Gladiatorial War in Italy
Spartacus

The gladiatorial games, which now held the first rank
among the popular amusements in Italy, had led to the institution
of numerous establishments, more especially in and around Capua,
designed partly for the custody, partly for the training
of those slaves who were destined to kill or be killed for the amusement
of the sovereign multitude. These were naturally in great part
brave men captured in war, who had not forgotten that they had once
faced the Romans in the field. A number of these desperadoes broke out
of one of the Capuan gladiatorial schools (681), and sought refuge
on Mount Vesuvius. At their head were two Celts, who were designated
by their slave-names Crixus and