Ah they and welcome to Emperor's of Rome, a Roman history podcast from Latrobe University.

I'm your host Matt Smith and with me today is Dr.

Rheannan Evans, a senior lecturer in classics and ancient history at Latrobe

University. This is episode C. V. I. The Third Servile War.

When Spartacus escaped the Gladiator Training School,

he may not have realized what he had started.

What began as a simple bid for freedom, soon became a cause for slaves around Italy

and he attracted thousands of followers. The Romans were forced to pay serious

attention to this enemy from within, despite the fact that there was little glory to be found fighting an army of slaves.

Here's Rianna Evans. So when Spartacus escaped from the Gladiator school with the 70 others,

they have to go somewhere and the place that they go from the accounts we have is up Mount Vesuvius. And it's not entirely clear why they go

there but I guess it's high land. It's a place that they might be able to defend if they need to.

And they're also, it seems, certainly this is what happens, gathering other people to them.

So other fugitive slaves and apparently even some free farm laborers join them at this point.

They start to gather more forces.

They still got very basic weapons.

In a way, it sort of reminds me of the story of the birth of Rome,

where Romulus sets up what he calls an asylum

and various vagabonds join in.

This weird parallel in the accounts of Spartacus here

and the foundation of Rome itself,

which is a bit of a paradox because of course these people are going to fight against

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