Defeat of The Consular Armies (72 BC)
In the spring of 72 BC, the escaped slaves left their winter encampments and began to move northwards towards Cisalpine Gaul.
The Senate, alarmed by the size of the revolt and the defeat of the praetorian armies of Glaber and Varinius, dispatched a pair of consular legions under the command of Lucius Gellius Publicola and Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Clodianus. Initially, the consular armies were successful. Gellius engaged a group of about 30,000 slaves, under the command of Crixus, near Mount Garganus and killed two-thirds of the rebels, including Crixus himself.
At this point in the history, there is a divergence in the classical sources as to the course of events which cannot be reconciled until the entry of Marcus Licinius Crassus into the war. The two most comprehensive (extant) histories of the war by Appian and Plutarch detail very different events. However, neither account directly contradicts the other, but simply reports different events, ignoring some events in the other account, and reporting events that are unique to that account.
Read more about this topic: Third Servile War
Famous quotes containing the words defeat and/or armies:
“When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are about to enter and occupy...and you defeat them, then you must utterly destroy them. Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy. Do not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for that would turn away your children from following me, to serve other gods.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Deuteronomy 7:1-4.
“Would not some lightning flash of vision sear people’s consciousness into life again? What was the good of stopping the war if armies continued?”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)