Spartacus was a Thracian soldier who commanded the insurgents in the third Servile War of Rome. Originally a shepherd, he was taken prisoner by the Romans and trained in the gladiators' school at Capua, from whence in 73 BC he escaped with seventy others to the crater of Vesuvius. Having scattered a blockading force, he gathered an army of runaway gladiators and slaves, estimated at around 100,000 men, and devastated Italy from one end to the other until in 71 BC he was defeated and killed by Marcus Crassus. Research Spartacus
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