Imagine walking through the countryside and discovering a historical curiosity. It’s something that can happen to you as you expand your home grounds, but it’s also something that can happen to you as you walk through the jungle with a machete in hand, like Catherwood and Stephens, finding the Mayan cities of Yucatán. Something similar happened with the recent discovery of Spartacus’ first battlefield in southern Italy.

Not only were weapons and debris from a battle fought 2,000 years ago found here, but also a piece of wall. But before that, let’s look at the context.

Spartacus. Spartacus is a true story from a movie. Rome was no stranger to rebellion, but in 73 BC, around 200 gladiators from the school of Lentulus Batiatus in Capua were fed up with their situation. They rebelled and around 70 managed to escape the cruelty of the Roman entertainment system. They were not many in number, but they were well trained and gained sympathizers as they moved south to escape the country.

Rome sent in the first group of 3,000. Using strategy and cover at night, Spartacus’ group triumphed, and far from appeasing the Senate, this only angered them further. Time was of the essence, they reportedly went from 70 men to 60,000 in a year, so Rome brought in its elite legions (who fought on the front lines) to put an end to the madness.

rudeThere were vested interests in Rome to overthrow Spartacus and his men, but perhaps the man most eager to do so was Marcus Licinius Crassus. Not only was he an influential politician, he was also wealthy and owned a large number of slaves who worked the southern lands. He was confident that Spartacus would unite them to his cause, so given his desire for him, the Senate gave him military powers and the legions that had previously been defeated by the rebels.

Crassus, who had his influence, gathered an army of some 50,000 men, not only well prepared and trained, but also with experienced generals. Mummius had two legions in charge, tasked with protecting the rebels, but he went too far, attacked them, and… lost. In the face of humiliation, Crassus acted with exemplary punishment for the rest: the decimatio. It was a practice in which one in ten men in a legion was killed to restore discipline, and the message was clear: if Spartacus’ men don’t kill you, your friends will.

Representation of the death of Spartacus

Coincidence. The story didn’t end well for Spartacus. In a new war, the slave hero met his death and was rendered unrecognizable, while those who escaped were captured and systematically crucified. Crassus was later elected consul and didn’t end well either (he was basically beheaded), but given the context, the moment is what matters to us.

Paolo Visonà is an Assistant Professor in the School of Art and Visual Studies at the University of Kentucky, and he was giving a talk in a small town in Calabria on May 11, a region of southern Italy where conflicts had taken place 2,000 years ago. As the presentation ended, two people from an environmental organization told him they had discovered something while walking in the woods: It appeared to be part of a wall.

Wall. Paolo claims that conservationists told him they had no idea what it was, but that it was about 100 meters long and that they took pictures of it, of course. The archaeologist comments: “I immediately saw its potential.” Visonà is certain that it was part of a wall built by Crassus’s troops and, as we said at the beginning of the story, “the detection of Crassus’s defensive system happened by chance.”

“It was easy to relate this to the description of Crassus’ fortifications that we found in the texts of Plutarch and Appian, and using hard science, we proved beyond reasonable doubt that it was most likely real.” A week later, the two men took Paolo there, where they found part of the wall as well as what appeared to be a moat. They scanned the whole thing using lidar and magnetometry (to measure magnetic field strength) and took soil samples.

Gun remains

Gun remainsThe archaeologist believes that the wall was built to hold Spartacus, but he and other rebels attacked right there. Could this have been a battle against Mummio’s troops? What is clear is that a battle was fought, Visonà also notes that “a large number of broken weapon finds have been found, some of which have been positively identified as tools from the 1st century BC. A comparison with remains found on Roman battlefields in Slovenia confirms our conclusion.”

Prize. And the discovery of all this is the result of coincidences, yes, but the fact is that Paolo had been searching for traces of Spartacus in the mountains of Calabria for decades. Specifically, he began doing fieldwork in the area in 1987, and although the area seems relatively small, it is a daunting task for a small group.

“It takes decades to know the inside of this area. The terrain is like the Southwest of the United States, and a lifetime is not enough to know it.” It’s the steep terrain that makes it difficult, but this serendipity has not only been a joy for archaeologists, but also a beacon of light for us to learn more about our history.

Target: OctoberGeorge Crothers, an associate professor in the UK Department of Anthropology and Visonà’s colleague on this study, says: “I hope that now that the site has been identified, further work will be done and steps will be taken to ensure its preservation and interpretation for the public.”

For more news, we will have to wait until October, when it is estimated that the analysis of soil samples containing a large amount of broken weapons, carried out by the Department of Geosciences of the Universita degli Studi dell’Insubria in Como, Italy, will be completed.

Images | University of Kentucky, Hermann Vogel

In Xataka | Tartessian temple at Casas del Turuñuelo reveals a new treasure: an alphabet from 2,500 years ago