SPARTACUS TO THE GLADIATORS THE story of Spartacus is an interesting chapter in the history of the struggle for liberty. Great training schools for gladiators were established in Rome, Capua, Ravenna, and other cities. These gladiators were, for the most part, slaves, captives, or condemned criminals. They were forced to fight each other to the death in the arena in order to amuse the Roman populace now frenzied with the blood of conquests and civil strife. Spartacus, a Thracian by birth, was captured during the conquest of Northern Greece, sold as a slave, and sent to the training school at Capua. Here he was trained as a skilful fighter, and for twelve years was hired out to fight at public and at private entertainments. An educated Greek, with all the Greek love of liberty, he naturally resented such cruel and bloody slavery, yet in every combat he fought as became a valiant soldier. After having proven his prowess and skill in many a combat, Spartacus incited the gladiatorial slaves at Capua to insurrection, and finally escaped with seventy comrades to the crater of Mt. Vesuvius. Here he issued a general eman cipation proclamation to all the slaves of Italy. For three years he defied the Roman power. Four Roman armies met disaster at the hands of his band. With a large force, he marched past Rome, entered the Po valley, and planned to cross the Alps, disband his army, and send his warriors as freedmen to their homes. His men refused to leave Italy, and demanded that they be led against Rome. During the campaign against Rome, the slave army met many reverses, was finally defeated, and Spartacus was slain. The following speech is supposed to give the sentiment in the heart of Spartacus who, after twelve years of bloody combats on the arena sands, determined to stir up his fellow captives to strike for liberty. SPARTACUS TO THE GLADIATORS It had been a day of triumph at Capua. Lentulus, returning with victorious eagles, had amused the populace with the sports of the amphitheatre to an extent hitherto unknown even in that luxurious city. The shouts of revelry had died away; the roar of the lion had ceased; the last loiterer had retired from the banquet; and the lights in the palace of the victor were extinguished. The moon, piercing the tissue of fleecy clouds, silvered the dewdrop on the corselet of the Roman sentinel, and tipped the dark waters of Volturnus with wavy, tremulous light. It was a night of holy calm, when the zephyr sways the young spring leaves, and whispers among the hollow reeds its dreamy music. No sound was heard save the last sob of some retiring wave, telling its story to the smooth pebbles of the beach; and then all was still as the breast when the spirit has departed. In the deep recesses of the amphitheatre, a band of gladiators were assembled, their muscles still knotted with the agony of conflict, the foam upon their lips, the scowl of battle yet lingering on their brows, when Spartacus, rising in the midst of that grim assemblage, thus addressed them: "Ye call me chief; and ye do well to call him chief who for twelve long years has met upon the arena every shape of man or beast the broad Empire of Rome could furnish, and who never yet lowered his arm. If there be one among you who can say that ever, in public fight or private brawl, my actions did belie my tongue, let him stand forth and say it. If there be three in all your company dare face me on the bloody sands, let them come on. And yet I was not always thus, a hired butcher, a savage chief of still more savage men! My ancestors came from old Sparta, and settled among the vine-clad rocks and citron groves of Syrasella. My early life ran quiet as the brooks by which I sported; and when, at noon, I gathered the sheep beneath the shade, and played upon the shepherd's flute, there was a friend, the son of a neighbor, to join me in the pastime. We led our flocks to the same pasture, and partook together our rustic meal. One evening, after the sheep were folded, and we were all seated beneath the myrtle which shaded our cottage, my grandsire, an old man, was telling of Marathon and Leuctra; and how, in ancient times, a little band of Spartans, in a defile of the mountains, had withstood a whole army. I did not then know what war was; but my cheeks burned, I know not why, and I clasped the knees of that venerable man, until my mother, parting the hair from off my forehead, kissed my throbbing temples, and bade me go to rest, and think no more of those old tales and savage wars. That very night, the Romans landed on our coast. I saw the breast that had nourished me trampled by the hoof of the warhorse; the bleeding body of my father flung amidst the blazing rafters of our dwelling! To-day I killed a man in the arena; and when I broke his helmet-clasps, behold! he was my friend. He knew me, smiled faintly, gasped and died;-the same sweet smile upon his lips that I had marked, when, in adventurous boyhood, we scaled the lofty cliff to pluck the first ripe grapes, and bear them home in childish triumph! I told the prætor that the dead man had been my friend, generous and brave; and I begged that I might bear away the body to burn it on a funeral pile and mourn over its ashes. Ay! upon my knees, amid the dust and blood of the arena, I begged that poor boon, while all the assembled maids and matrons, and the holy virgins they call Vestals, and the rabble, shouted in derision, deeming it rare sport, forsooth, to see Rome's fiercest gladiator turn pale and tremble at sight of that piece of bleeding clay! And the prætor drew back as if I were pollution, and sternly said, 'Let the carrion rot; there are no noble men but Romans!' And so, fellow gladiators, must you, and so must I, die like dogs. O Rome, Rome! thou hast been a tender nurse to me. Ay, thou hast given to that poor, gentle, timid shepherd lad, who never knew a harsher tone than a flute-note, muscles of iron and a heart of flint; taught him to drive the sword through plaited mail and links of brass, and warm it in the marrow of his foe; to gaze into the glaring eyeballs of the fierce Numidian lion even as a boy upon a laughing girl! And he shall pay thee back, until thy yellow Tiber is red as flowing wine, and in its deepest ooze thy life-blood lies curdled! Ye stand here now like giants, as ye are! The strength of brass is in your tightened sinews; but to-morrow some Roman Adonis, breathing sweet perfume from his curly locks, shall with his lily fingers pat your red brawn, and bet his sesterces upon your blood. Hark, hear ye yon lion roaring in his den? 'Tis three days since he tasted flesh; but to-morrow he will break his fast upon yours, and a dainty meal for him ye will be. If ye are beasts, then stand here like fat oxen, waiting for the butcher's knife! If ye are men-follow me! Strike down yon guard, gain the mountain passes, |