Spartacus and the Slave Wars Essay

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Spartacus and the Slave Wars

Slavery is a powerful word. To be a slave and to be owned by a person or household is something I'm very fortunate that I never had to experience. Unfortunately throughout civilization this was exactly how things were. The rich got richer and the poorer, poorer. The rich needed people to work for them so they purchased slaves to do all their daily chores and make their life a luxury. Once you were a slave, you were bound to your owner and had to do everything they asked of you. It was a no questions asked policy. Spartacus was a slave that had something else in mind. He decided he had enough of it and started a revolution to be a free man. Many other slaves in Italy had the same vision and joined …show more content…
When the battered legion returned to Crassus, they received the worst punishment in the Roman military. It was called decimation and it was where they got into groups of ten people and the unlucky tenth solider was killed by his fellow soldiers. Crassus was furious that his commander disobeyed his orders and wanted to show the army that they weren't going to be defeated by the slaves. Meanwhile Spartacus was marching south and trying to flee Italy. He was planning on getting to the southern most tip of Italy and boarding pirate ships to free all of his men. When he arrived to the ocean he found that the ships had already left. His soldiers urged him to march north and keep fighting the Roman army since they had so much success against them. Spartacus agreed and the slaves turned around and headed North the engage in yet another battle. To show his men that he had every intention of fighting with them against the Romans, Spartacus killed his horse as a sign to the men that once they defeated the Romans he would no longer need his horse because he could use the Roman horses. Crassus had built a wall that the slaves could not get around. When the slaves approached the wall they tried to fight and defeat the Romans but they had finally met their match. 12,000 were killed and the Roman army had very few causalities. The Roman army captured 6,000 slaves and crucified them along Appian Way from Capua to Rome. It was sign for other slaves that
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