ed to comply with it. Nevertheless
Varinius set out with those who kept their ground against
the robber-band; but it was no longer to be found where he sought it.
It had broken up in the deepest silence and had turned to the south
towards Picentia (Vicenza near Amain), where Varinius overtook it
indeed, but could not prevent it from retiring over the Silarus
into the interior of Lucania, the chosen land of shepherds and robbers.
Varinius followed thither, and there at length the despised enemy
arrayed themselves for battle. All the circumstances
under which the combat took place were to the disadvantage
of the Romans: the soldiers, vehemently as they had demanded
battle a little before, fought ill; Varinius was completely
vanquished; his horse and the insignia of his official
dignity fell with the Roman camp itself into the enemy's hand.
The south-Italian slaves, especially the brave half-savage herdsmen,
flocked in crowds to the banner of the deliverers who had
so unexpectedly appeared; according to the most moderate estimates
the number of armed insurgents rose to 40,000 men. Campania,
just evacuated, was speedily reoccupied, and the Roman corps which was
left behind there under Gaius Thoranius, the quaestor of Varinius,
was broken and destroyed. In the whole south and south-west
of Italy the open country was in the hands of the victorious bandit-
chiefs; even considerable towns, such as Consentia in the Bruttian
country, Thurii and Metapontum in Lucania, Nola and Nuceria
in Campania, were stormed by them, and suffered all the atrocities
which victorious barbarians could inflict on defenceless civilized
men, and unshackled slaves on their former masters. That a conflict
like this should be altogether abnormal and more a massacre
than a war, was unhappily a matter of course: the masters
duly crucified every captured slave; the slaves naturally killed
their prisoners also, or with still more sarcastic retaliation
even compelled their Roman captives to slaughter each other
in gladiatorial sport; as was subsequently done with three hundred
of them at the obsequies of a robber-captain who had fallen in combat.

Great Victories of Spartacus

In Rome people were with reason apprehensive as to the destructive
conflagration which was daily spreading. It was resolved next year
(682) to send both consuls against the formidable leaders
of the gang. The praetor Quintus Arrius, a lieutenant of the consul
Lucius Gellius,