Apulia was
particularly fruitful of insurgents. In that country the vices of
Roman slavery were displayed in all their naked hideousness, and the
Apulian shepherds and herdsmen had a reputation for lawlessness
that has never been surpassed. Yet this was the consequence, not the
cause, of their bondage. It is related that some of them having
asked their master for clothing, he exclaimed, "What! are there no
travellers with clothes on?" "The atrocious hint," says Liddell,
"was soon taken; the shepherd slaves of Lower Italy became banditti,
and to travel through Apulia without an armed retinue was a perilous
adventure. From assailing travellers, the marauders began to plunder
the smaller country-houses; and all but the rich were obliged
to desert the country, and flock into the towns. So early as the
year 185 B.C., seven thousand slaves in Apulia were condemned for
brigandage by a Praetor sent specially to restore order in that land
of pasturage. When they were not employed upon the hills, they were
shut up in large, prison-like buildings, (_ergastula_) where they
talked over their wrongs, and formed schemes of vengeance." [3] The
century and more between this date and the appearance of Spartacus
had not improved the condition of the Apulian slaves. He found them
ripe for revolt, and was soon joined by thousands of their number,
men whose modes of life rendered them the very best possible
material for soldiers, provided they could be induced to submit to
the restraints of discipline.
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