Researchers believe the Roman army built the wall to contain a rebellious gladiator in 71 BC. Archaeologists have discovered a stone wall in an Italian forest that the Roman army used during a confrontation with the legendary gladiator Spartacus, who led a slave revolt against Rome more than 2,000 years ago.
The moss-covered wall is in the Dossone della Melia forest in Calabria, a region located in the "toe" of the Italian boot, the Archaeological Institute of America said in a statement. The team led by Paolo Wison, an archaeologist at the University of Kentucky, found that the thin stone embankment is more than 2.7 kilometers long and once ran alongside a deep military ditch.
"The wall is a kind of barrier because of its topographical location and other factors such as the lack of a gate," Andrea Maria Gennaro, head of the archaeological department of the Italian Ministry of Culture, told Jennifer Nalewicki of Live Science. "It divides the whole large flat area into two parts." Researchers studied the site with GPR, lidar, magnetometry and took soil samples for analysis.
Based on the findings, scientists believe that the Roman army built fencing structures typical of Roman military engineering to contain Spartacus and his army in 71 BC.
"When we realized what it was, it was very exciting for us," according to Gennaro to CNN's Jack Guy. "It's not every day you get to experience history firsthand."
Spartacus was born in Thrace (a region in the southeastern Balkans), served in the Roman army, and may have eventually deserted. He was then captured and sold
into slavery and eventually ended up in a gladiatorial school owned by his new master in Capua, southeast of Rome. Here he and other men were trained to act as gladiators: enslaved men and criminals who fought wild animals and each other to the death for the entertainment of spectators.
Photo: smithsonianmag.com
In 73 BC, Spartacus organized a jailbreak of the gladiator school, escaped with more than 70 members of his group, and began the Third Servile War (also known as the Gladiatorial War or Spartacus' War). In the first clashes, the fighters, who were eventually joined by thousands of others, successfully fought off the Roman army.
Researchers believe Roman commander Marcus Licinius Crassus built the wall in an attempt to trap the rebels. Spartacus could have confronted the Romans at the wall, attacked them and broken through at a point that "appears to have been actually breached," Wisona tells CNN.
Nearby, the team also found broken iron sword handles, curved blades, spear points and a spearhead. The treasure trove of ancient weapons suggests that a battle took place at the site. "We started to study the weapons found along the wall, and the closest comparisons are with weapons from the late Republican period," Gennaro says in an interview for Live Science. "We believe we have identified the location of the impact."
Gennaro adds that the wall is mentioned in historical sources, such as the Greek philosopher
Plutarch's "Life of Crassus."
The rebellion was eventually crushed in Lucania, about 56 kilometers southeast of Naples. Here Crassus' forces finally finished Spartacus off in 71 B.C. According to National Geographic, his life's journey has remained in history as "an inspiration to those who seek to rebel against oppressive rule".