Why did the rebellion of Spartacus fail?
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Why did the rebellion of Spartacus fail?
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No goal to speak of. They just roamed throughout Italy until they met generals who could beat them.
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All rebellions face an uphill battle against an entrenched and organized power structure with significant resources at their disposal. It’s why so many would-be revolutionaries desperately beg for foreign aid, since all the useful resources in their area are, y’know, being hoovered up by the powers-that-be.
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He didn’t know and therefore couldn’t apply Scientific Socialism. If he knew (like, for example some isekai reincarnation or something), he would succeed.
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>if only he knew-
>Roman legion BTFO’s him
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Because he gently caressing turned around
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Yeah this is kind of universal criticism of Spartacus but as I’ve already stated there were no more friends beyond the borders of the Roman Republic than there were within it. In fact their only sure source of reinforcement, more freed slaves, was within Roman borders. Every other direction was filled with new potential enemies, enemies that were unknown.
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What you could criticize Spartacus for is not having a discernible goal outside of staying alive. Maybe if they had made a manifesto or at least attempted establishing a polity the Romans would have something to work with. Although it’s incredibly unlikely that they would have accepted anything other than complete surrender followed by crucifixions for everyone. Still, at least history would know wtf was happening in their heads, what they wanted.
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Well it was hopeless anyway, since even if they defeated the Romans they were basically rebelling against the established system of the whole ancient world, which was based on slavery
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Pretty much yes except we have no evidence that they actually were doing so. As far as we know they were just pillaging for pillagings sake, the fact that they were freeing slaves was incidental, they were in all likelihood not an emancipation or "abolitionist" movement.
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Well it is true that the idea of Spartacus revolt as an abolitionist movement is Hollywood romanticism. But I do not think it is unlikely that they might initially had lofty (if vague) aspirations of freeing the slaves, but would increasingly have become more and more like the enemy they were fighting as the practical problems of nascent statehood began intruding on their idealism
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His goal was to escape, but he took too long doing so. If he had immediately made for the Alps, then it is unlikely that anyone could have stopped him
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>His goal was to escape, but he took too long doing so.
Yes but more than likely he knew of the last two major slave uprisings that had happened and that both had occurred on Sicily. It’s probably why he tried going there.> If he had immediately made for the Alps, then it is unlikely that anyone could have stopped him
Except for his own army. His men were of largely mixed ancestry from all corners of the known world. The gauls would have either done what they did and turned around to keep on sacking Rome or sold the rest out to their tribes when/if they came in contact with them. Just going over the alps came with exactly 0 assurances other than pissed off tribes wanting to kill you for now contaminating their lands with your bullshit. Going over the alps meant melting away into the countryside with the only guarantee any of them had of not getting enslaved by some barbarian chieftain (their organized combined arms) gone. In this scenario taking Sicily and fortifying the gently caress right out of it actually doesn’t seem so bad.
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It was still their best bet, despite the potential risks you list. Perhaps if they had been able to have the Cilician pirates transport them into the east, they could have gotten away, but that seems even less likely. Carving out their own domain on Sicily was probably the worst possible idea though, as taking the bread basket of the Romans would guarantee that the Romans would send everything they had at them. Even trying to sack and destroy Rome itself was a smarter move in that case
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Well no not really. It’s their best bet with hindsight knowing how they ended up. From their pov their only reinforcements have been slaves, their only resupply from plantations and homes whose slaves have joined them. Going into Gaul, Germania or Dacia comes with no promises of any kind least of all that his army would remain an army.
But you’re also assuming a level of intellect and academic knowledge on their part regarding the Roman state. From their pov Sicily is surrounded by water, it has more than enough food for them all and even more slaves to join their ranks. Whether or not they thought they could bring Rome to the negotiating table is separate from being able to have a little breathing room in the immediate future. Surely if they thought they could sack Rome they would have done so.
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Yes anon, I understand the gap of information available to them. But you are basically answering why they did what they did. Is not arguing with the benefit of hindsight the whole point of these what-if scenarios after all? Plus as far as I know, they did eventually decide to make for the Alps after all, so in that sense it is not THAT far-fetched. If they actually had made it there, we would probably not know for sure what became of them and Roman authors would have given various alternative theories of their various fates
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>the gauls would have turned around to keep sacking rome
>’barbarians were the true civilized people!’
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From a historical perspective:
>Spartacus lost because his forces were outmaneuvered and eventually outfought by several Roman legionsFrom an analytical perspective:
Spartacus’ rebellion seemed to be poorly organized with it being unknown whether or not Spartacus himself actually led the rebellion or was merely one of many leaders among it. No written records survive from the rebels pov that would tell us their motivations, organization or political aims if any existed. All we know is that the horde they assembled ran around Italy sacking and pillaging whatever they could, they then split into several different forces one of which seems to have been under Spartacus’ direct or at least nominal leadership and this force would seek passage to Sicily, fail to attain it, and then be surrounded and destroyed by the Romans.He seems to have failed because his entire campaign was within Roman territory, among Roman forces with no resupply or reinforcement available from anywhere and that shortcoming seems to have caught up to him. Since unlike the Romans who could fail repeatedly he only had to fail once for his whole enterprise to come crashing down.
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> If he had immediately made for the Alps, then it is unlikely that anyone could have stopped him
Except for his own army. His men were of largely mixed ancestry from all corners of the known world. The gauls would have either done what they did and turned around to keep on sacking Rome or sold the rest out to their tribes when/if they came in contact with them. Just going over the alps came with exactly 0 assurances other than pissed off tribes wanting to kill you for now contaminating their lands with your bullshit. Going over the alps meant melting away into the countryside with the only guarantee any of them had of not getting enslaved by some barbarian chieftain (their organized combined arms) gone. In this scenario taking Sicily and fortifying the gently caress right out of it actually doesn’t seem so bad.
Also I’ve read every source we have on Spartacus’ slave rebellion. It’s a point of particular interest to me so AMA. I really like the subject.
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>No written records survive from the rebels pov that would tell us their motivations, organization or political aims if any existed.
Well yes, but it could not really have been any other way:1) It was a rebellion of gladiators and slaves, not scholars.
2) It lasted too shortly for there to be much time to produce anything.
3) If there was any documentation, then destroying it would be the Romans’ number one priority. They would certainly not have made copies of it and try to preserve it.Basically that is also the case in general for any revolt against the Romans. Only the pro-Roman sources survive (or that of the winning Romans in case of a civil war). Even Josephus falls into this category.
>with no resupply or reinforcement available from anywhere
That is not completely true though, they constantly freed slaves and added them to their cause, but these were militarily much less useful than the initial group of rebelling gladiators.
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Why is the third servile war so overrated, LULZ? It was like the least impactful of all the roman civil wars taking place in its own century, neverthless is the third most talked about behind only Caesar’s crossing the Rubicon and Augustus’ win over Antony after Actium.
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Probably due to the prominent part played by two of the future Triumvirs, along with the Romans’ general fear of slave revolts and it being the last of a series.
One may as well ask why the Second Punic War gets more attention when it was really the First that was the decisive one
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Anyway to add to that, the most succesful revolt was arguably the last Social War since the rebels essentially achieved their objectives despite losing the conflict
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because it’s the only one that threatened Rome
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Only in the paranoid mind of Romans
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And they’re the ones that wrote shit down so same difference.
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From what I understand, he started something that snowballed into an uncrontrollable mass of raiders. It’s like Paul Atreides and his helplessness against the Jihad
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He didn’t ally with China, the most powerful country in the world at the time.
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Kek
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