Osprey Campaign №206. Fields Nic. Spartacus and the slave war 73-71 BC. A gladiator rebels against Rome

Illustrated by Steve Noon. — UK, Oxford: Osprey Publishing Limited, 2009. — 98 p. — ISBN: 978-1-84603-353-7.
Italy in 73 BC saw a slave-society's worst nightmare - a slave insurrection. Gladiators, led by the Thracian Spartacus, broke out of a gladiatorial training school and formed an army, made up of runaway slaves and others with little to lose. With some 70,000 men, Spartacus rampaged throughout Campania, assaulting the prosperous cities of Cumae, Nola, and Nuceria, and defeating two consular armies. Spartacus now posed a grave threat to Rome, and M. Licinius Crassus was given the job of destroying him. In a major battle near the source of the river Silarus, Spartacus was defeated and slain, and his army was crushed. As a warning to others, Crassus crucified 6,000 prisoners along the road from Capua - where the revolt had begun - to the very gates of Rome.