Imagine walking through the countryside and discovering a historical curiosity. It is something that can happen to you while you are expanding the plot of your house, but also when you are walking through the jungle, machete in hand like Catherwood and Stephens, and end up finding the Mayan cities of Yucatan. Well, something similar has happened with the recent discovery of the first battlefield of Spartacus in southern Italy.
Not only are there weapons and remains of a battle fought 2,000 years ago, but a fragment of a wall has also been found. But before that, let’s look at the context.
Spartacus. That of Spartacus is a movie story, literally. Rome was no stranger to revolts, but in 73 BC, some 200 gladiators from the school of Lentulus Batiatus in Capua were fed up with their conditionThey revolted and about 70 of them managed to escape the tyranny of the Roman entertainment system. They were not too many, but they were well trained and, in addition, as they advanced towards the south looking to flee the country, they gained sympathizers.
Rome sent an initial force of 3,000 men. Using strategy and the cover of night, Spartacus’s group achieved victory, and far from appeasing the Senate, this infuriated them even more. Time was of the essence, as it is said that within a year they had gone from 70 men to 60,000, so Rome brought in its elite legions (which were fighting on the front) to put an end to the madness.
CrassThere were interests in Rome to defeat Spartacus and his men, but perhaps the one who most wanted to do so was Marcus Licinius CrassusHe was not only an influential politician, but also a wealthy one, with a multitude of slaves cultivating his lands in the south. He was sure that Spartacus would unite them to his cause, so, seeing how eager he was, the Senate granted him military powers and the troops of legions that had previously been defeated by the rebels.
Using his influence, Crassus assembled an army of some 50,000 soldiers who were not only well trained and prepared, but also had seasoned generals. Mummius had two legions under his command and the task of keeping an eye on the rebels, but he overstepped his bounds, attacked them and… lost. Crassus responded to the humiliation by making an exemplary punishment for the rest: applying the decimatiusIt was a practice that consisted of killing one in every ten men in the legion to restore discipline and the message was clear: if Spartacus’ men don’t kill you, your comrades will.
Representation of the death of Spartacus
The chance. The story did not end well for Spartacus. In another battle, the hero of the slaves was killed and left unrecognizable, while those who fled were systematically captured and crucified. Later, Crassus was elected consul and his head did not end well either (basically, he was beheaded), but given the context, what matters to us is the present.
Paolo Visonà is an adjunct professor at the School of Art and Visual Studies at the University of Kentucky, and on May 11 he was giving a talk in a small town in Calabria. This is the area in southern Italy where the fighting took place 2,000 years earlier. And when the presentation was over, two people from an environmental organization told him that they had discovered something while walking through the forest: it seemed to be part of a wall.
The wallPaolo says that the environmentalists told him that they had no idea what it was, but that it was about 100 meters long and, of course, they took photos of it. The archaeologist comment: “I immediately realised its potential.” Visonà is certain that it is part of a wall built by Crassus’ troops and, as we mentioned at the beginning of this story, “the identification of Crassus’ defensive system occurred by chance.”
“It was easy to relate it to the description of Crassus’ fortification that we find in the texts of Plutarch and Appian And, by using exact science, we have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that it is very likely to be the real thing.” A week later, those two people took Paolo to the site, where in addition to part of the wall, they found what appeared to be a ditch. They scanned all using LIDAR, magnetometry (to measure the intensity of the magnetic field) and they took soil samples.
Remains of weapons
Remains of weapons. The archaeologist believes that the wall was built to contain Spartacus, but he and the rest of the rebels attacked right there. Could this be the battle against Mummius’ troops? What is clear is that a battle took place, as Visonà also comments that there have been “multiple finds of broken weapons, some of which have already been conclusively identified as tools from the 1st century BC. A comparison with remains found on Roman battlefields in Slovenia corroborates our conclusion.”
Prize. And the discovery of all this was a coincidence, yes, but the truth is that Paolo has been searching for traces of Spartacus in the mountains of Calabria for decades. Specifically, he began doing field work in the area in 1987 and, although it may seem that the area is relatively small, for a small group it is a titanic task.
“It takes decades to get to know the interior of that region. The terrain is like that of the American Southwest and a lifetime is not enough to get to know it.” The rugged terrain is what makes things difficult, but this stroke of luck has not only been a joy for the archaeologist, but also a ray of light to learn more about our history.
Target: OctoberGeorge Crothers is an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at the UK and a colleague of Visonà on this study. He says: “Now that the site has been identified, I hope that further studies will be carried out and steps taken to ensure its preservation and interpretation for the public.”
For further news, we will have to wait until October, when the analysis of the soil samples in which a concentration of broken weapons was found is expected to be completed and is being carried out by the Department of Earth Sciences at the Universita degli Studi dell’Insubria in Como, Italy.
Images | University of Kentucky, Hermann Vogel
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