Free The Spartacus War by Barry Strauss Page B

run away after their recent defeats and had refused to return to the colours, despite a stern order to do so. As for the rest, as a Roman author reports, ‘the height of their disgrace is that they were shirking their duty’.
    Varinius decided to send a report to the Senate. It was both a way of asking for reinforcements and a way of covering himself if later he was blamed for failure. He gave this sensitive mission to Toranius, who could provide an eyewitness account. Presumably Varinius trusted Toranius either as a loyal friend or as a shrewd subordinate who knew that it would be dangerous to point a finger at his chief. Toranius served as Varinius’s quaestor, a financial official with various civil and military responsibilities. The quaestorship was the lowest rung on the ‘ladder of honours’. There were twenty quaestors, each elected to an annual term, and all granted entrance to the Senate afterwards. They had to be at least 30 years old and they all came from wealthy families.
    While Toranius was away, Varinius did not stand idle. Four thousand troops were willing to follow him to a position near the enemy, if not actually into battle. These troops probably represented the remnant of the various armies of Glaber, Furius and Cossinius, as well as Varinius’s own men. Varinius led his men and pitched camp near the enemy; he had the Romans fortify the camp with a wall, trench and extensive earthworks. Gone was Glaber’s overconfidence.
    Meanwhile, the insurgents had their own problems. By this point, they most likely numbered more than 10,000 people: some women and children but most of them men. They had more men than weapons. But the rebels were nothing if not inventive. Because they had no iron for spearheads, they hardened the wooden tips of their spears in the fire, to make them look like iron - and to ensure that they could open severe wounds. Food was a bigger problem. The fugitives were running out of supplies, and foraging raids were no longer safe with the enemy close by.
    The solution was another clever stratagem. In the second watch of the night - between about 9 p.m. and midnight - they all left camp in silence. Only a trumpeter remained behind. Meanwhile, to trick the enemy, they propped up corpses on stakes in front of the gates. They even put clothes on them and weapons in their hands, to make them look like guards. At the same time, they left campfires burning.
    The trick worked so well that it was only in the light of day that Varinius suspected something. He noticed the silence. Not only was the usual clanging and banging of a busy camp missing, so were the rebels’ special touches: they had been throwing stones at the Romans and taunting them with insults. Taunting the enemy, by the way, was a typical Celtic tactic on the eve of battle. Varinius sent a cavalry unit to a nearby hill to see if they could find the enemy. They were far away, but Varinius wasn’t taking any chances. He withdrew in a defensive formation, in order to allow time to replenish his forces with new recruits. Apparently, he went to the city of Cumae, an old Greek city on the coast about 25 miles north-west of Vesuvius.
    Whether Varinius got his reinforcements is not known. He did manage to boost morale, but only seemingly so: Varinius did not recognize the difference between bluster and self-confidence. Although his men now talked tough, they were still raw and defeated soldiers. After a few days, Varinius decided to throw caution to the winds and to accept his men’s demands for a second chance: he led them against the enemy’s camp, which his scouts had located. They marched quickly. As they approached the rebels, silence replaced the Roman soldiers’ boasting.
    They would have had to march quickly to catch the fugitives, who were constantly on the move. ‘They roved throughout all of Campania,’ as one Roman said. They went on raids in the southern Campanian plain, ranging north, east and south of Vesuvius, over the