Rome doomed her republican government by not preserving the human basis it was founded upon: the yeoman landholder who formed the backbone of both her legions and her middle class. The richest Romans--patrician and knight alike--manipulated the system to effectively wipe out Rome's middle class. The manpower shortage became so severe, that by the time of the multiple consulships of Gaius Marius at the end of the Second Century B.C.E., the Senate had to call upon and equip Rome's poor (the capite censi or "head count") to fill the legions' manpower requirements when an invasion by half-a-million Germans threatened Rome's very survival. These soldiers felt far more loyalty to their generals than they did to Rome, and the Republic's fate was effectively sealed.
Spartacus's Revolt--also called the Third Servile War--arrived at an inopportune moment for Rome. Rome was exhausted from the combined exertions of: fighting the Social War against the non-citizen Italian states fifteen years before; the First Civil War between optimate and populare, whose last act was being played out at that moment in the Spanish provinces; the Third and final Mithradatic War, where Mithradates VI of Pontus--who had invaded Rome's Eastern Provinces during the Social War fifteen years earlier--was battling against Roman Proconsul Lucius Licinius Lucullus for control of Asia Minor; finally, the numerous pirate fleets who controlled the Mediterranean, regularly threatening Rome's grain supply, and any vessel that was not a warship.
A large proportion of Spartacus's army--probably a majority--were not slaves at all, but Samnite freemen native to southern and eastern Italy, who hated the Romans with an unequalled passion after more than two centuries of wars and uprisings. Many of these Samnites were trained soldiers from the Social War, and with no trained Roman legions in Italy proper, you initially had veterans fighting against Rome's raw recruits. Rome's legions were initially badly overmatched in both quality and quantity, led by incompetents trying to put down the rapidly swelling ranks of Spartacus's force.
Spartacus had no grand strategy, no final goal for his force to achieve. He had started with a half-baked idea to join the rebel forces of Quintus Sertorius in Spain, but that plan fell apart when Spartacus discovered Sertorius had been murdered by his lieutenants in Spain. So, the Spartacani (as Spartacus's army came to be called) wandered the Italian Peninsula, beating the commanders sent against them by Rome, embarrassing the Senate again and again in their incompetence.
Rome finally, after more than a year of incompetence and defeats, with great hesitation, chose a capable--if unpopular with the Senate--commander from among its Senators, Marcus Licinius Crassus, one of the richest men in Rome.
Crassus was able to call veterans who had served under him in the First Civil War out of retirement to join him. One and one-half legions of Roman survivors of a battle with the Spartacani were decimated: one in ten ritually executed by their comrades before the rest of Crassus's legions, as an object lesson for running away, and leaving their armor and weapons behind.
With eight legions--nearly 40,000 Romans--Crassus followed Spartacus and his 100,000+ up and down the Italian peninsula through the Fall and Winter of 72-71 B.C.E.. Crassus fought whenever he could achieve an advantage in position or numbers, and once, when he was ambushed by the Spartacani. An attempt by Spartacus to move the Spartacani to Sicily (the location of the First and Second Servile Wars) by ship failed when they were betrayed by the Sicilian pirates.
Finally, in the early Spring of 71 B.C.E. Spartacus was brought to bay. Part of his army, protecting the Spartacani flank, had been annihilated when Crassus swooped down on them after they had captured a Roman supply depot. A few days later, on the Via Popilla, near Brundisium, the two sides collided. The Spartacani lost.
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