Ben Kane: Spartacus: Rebellion

There would be undoubted advantages to marching on Rome after the completion of the six thousand crucifixions, when the spectacle was complete. Crassus could not think of a better way to impress the populations of Latium and Samnium. Everywhere he went, crowds would come to see him. The sight would cement his reputation. People would speak of the gruesome display for years to come: it would be the greatest number of crucifixions that the world had ever seen and would show the Republic that he was the man to lead it into the future. The consulship for next year beckoned.

‘Ready for the next one, sir?’ asked Caepio.

‘Indeed. Get the bastards in the air as fast as you can.’ Crassus waved a languid hand. ‘The parties that have gone ahead are to start as well.’

‘Very good, sir.’ Caepio barked an order, and a messenger rode off to the north.

Crassus watched contentedly as the soldiers, a group of slaves in their midst, marched forty paces on. He had the feeling that Caepio disapproved of the number of crucifixions — the old sod probably thought it was a waste of men who could be used in the mines, or as labourers for a Roman army in the field — but he didn’t care.

He knew best.

As he always had.

It had taken the trio six days to reach Capua, better time than Carbo had expected. Carrying Maron had proved to be exhausting for Ariadne, and their initial progress had been much slower than he’d wanted. His purchase of a mule from a farm on the second day had been a godsend. The beast had been able to carry not just the baby, but their gear and, underneath it, their swords. Previously, they had been risking everything by wearing the weapons under their cloaks. The remaining miles to Capua had been covered at a good pace, and they had been ignored by the groups of legionaries and military wagons travelling the road. They had stayed in wayside inns. Ariadne and Maron had slept in Carbo’s room, letting anyone who noticed assume that she was his bed companion. In fact, he had lain by the door each night, a naked blade beside him.

It was the first time that Carbo had been this close to Capua since he’d fled the ludus with Spartacus, and it felt most odd. The last thing he wanted was to be recognised. Yet it would have looked strange to circumvent the city rather than go through it, so he had let Navio take the lead. He had followed, his gaze directed at the rutted surface of the road. Ariadne had taken up the rear with the mule.

In the event, they had crossed from Capua’s southern gate to its northern without any difficulty. Now they were shuffling along with everyone else, in the queue to get out of the city. Carbo had had plenty of time to imagine what he would see when he emerged on to the Via Appia. The moment was at hand, and he felt sick. How many of the wretches would still be alive? How many would he recognise? Was it possible that they would find Spartacus?

Before long, they had passed under the large archway that led out of Capua. The practice of banning construction close to the walls had long since been discarded. Here was prime commercial territory, through which a captive audience — the passers-by — daily walked or rode in their hundreds. As well as restaurants and watering holes, there were businesses of every type: carpenters and wheelwrights, fullers and potters. Butchers, bakers and vendors of wine and sweetmeats. Scribes, whoremasters and slave dealers. Carbo could have pointed out the position of each even if he’d been blindfolded. This was where he’d grown up. And so it was that he knew when the buildings would end.

When the crosses would begin.

They had already discussed what to do once the ordeal began. Walking slowly would not be difficult, or regarded as strange. The road would be busy, and everyone would be gawping at the crucified men. Studying the victims would not considered unusual either, as long as they didn’t go too close, or linger unnecessarily. If any of the trio saw someone that they knew, they were to look away in case the unfortunate recognised them and called out. Nothing was to be said until they were safely beyond the man in question. Extra care was to be taken if there were soldiers about. All three knew now that they would travel to the gates of Rome itself just to be sure that Spartacus wasn’t one of the six thousand soldiers captured by Crassus.

Although Carbo had steeled himself for the sight of the first cross, he still couldn’t stop a little gasp from escaping his lips when it appeared. Navio stiffened, but he quickly shuffled on. Carbo was grateful not to recognise the brown-haired, stocky man who hung naked before him, his bloody feet nailed just a handsbreadth from the ground. Mercifully, the victim was already dead, but his face was twisted in a final rictus of suffering. The first flies of the season swarmed around him, attracted by the ripe odour. A group of people clustered around the cross, holding their noses and making crude jokes. A small boy poked at the corpse’s penis with a stick and giggled.

‘They scourged him,’ said Navio in a conversational tone.

For the first time, Carbo noticed the red lines that extended around from the man’s back. The streaks of shit that had run down the wooden post from the man’s arse. He longed to drive the onlookers away, cuff the boy around the head, cut the poor bastard down and give him a decent burial, but of course he did nothing. He glanced at Ariadne, whose lips were moving in anguished, silent prayer. Her eyes flashed to his. ‘Ignore me. I shall be all right,’ she whispered.

Carbo gave her a tight nod. Thankfully, Maron was asleep.

The second body was forty paces down the Via Appia, on the opposite side. Carbo didn’t know this victim either. The third man, another stranger, was on the same side as the first. In a savage indication of what was to come, his cross was also two score paces from the second. The moment that Carbo realised, his eyes moved to the front. The crucified men ran as far as the eye could see, every forty steps, on alternate sides of the road. His mind struggled to take in the horror. The grisly exhibition would continue the entire way to Rome.

The trio walked on, mesmerised by the bodies and the smell, and the revolting magnitude of Crassus’ display. The crosses marched on, uncaring of the landscape. They were present on the straight stretches, the bends, on the slopes of the hills, even in the villages. They lined the road when it was bordered by vineyards and fields, where gangs of slaves worked under the close supervision of their vilici. They ran under the aqueduct that bridged the Via Appia, carrying water from the Apennines to Capua. Their presence had already become the norm. Farmers drove their carts along, scarcely looking at the bodies. Merchants were more interested in ensuring that their mules kept up a steady pace. The slaves who were on their way to market or repairing the road kept their gaze averted. Only the children on their way to their lessons or running errands seemed uniformly fascinated.

The horror deepened for the trio when they came upon the first living man, a once strapping figure who was being guarded by a pair of bored-looking legionaries. Carbo offered up a prayer of thanks. He didn’t know the luckless creature — they had recognised none of the victims so far — but he clearly didn’t have long for this world. They dared not approach, passing by with the most casual of glances.

Things grew even worse when Carbo noticed a body with a sword cut on his left arm. It would have prevented the man from holding himself up at all, and granted him a quick death. ‘Could that be from the battle?’

‘Maybe.’ Navio sounded as tormented as Carbo felt. ‘But he’s the first wounded one I’ve seen.’

Carbo told himself that this meant Spartacus could not be on a cross. The injured would have died on the battlefield. He hoped that Ariadne thought the same.