Spartacus
A Thracian, by birth who was successively a shepherd, a soldier, and a chief of banditti. On one of his predatory expeditions he was taken prisoner, and sold to a trainer of gladiators. In 73 he was a member of the company of Lentulus, and was detained in his school at Capua, in readiness for the games at Rome. He persuaded his fellow-prisoners to make an attempt to gain their freedom. About seventy of them broke out of the school of Lentulus, and took refuge in the crater of Vesuvius. Spartacus was chosen leader, and was soon joined by a number of runaway slaves. They were blockaded by C. Cladius Pulcher at the head of three thousand men, but Spartacus attacked the besiegers and put them to flight. His numbers rapidly increased, and for two years (B. C. 73-71) he defeated one Roman army after another, and laid waste Italy from the foot of the Alps to the southernmost corner of the peninsula. After both the consuls of 72 had been defeated by Spartacus, M. Licinus Crassus, the praetor, was appointed to the command of the war, which he terminated by a decisive battle near the river Silarus, in which Spartacus was defeated and slain.
Sparti (The Sown-Men). The name given to the armed men who sprang from the dragon's teeth sown by Cadmus.
Spartianus, Aelius. One of the Scriptores Historiae Augustae, who lived in the time of Diocletian and Constantine, and wrote the biographies of several emperors.