A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

434 The Revolution
Sertorius.
Appian,
Civil Wars,
i. io8.
Of the SuUan troubles there remained the war with Sertorius,
which had been going on for eight years, and which
was no easy war for Rome, as it was waged not merely
against Spaniards but against the Romans and Sertorius.
He had been chosen governor of Spain while he was cooperating
with Carbo against Sulla, and after taking the city
of Suessa under an armistice, he fled and assumed his
governorship.
With an army from Italy itself and another
raised from the Celtiberians, he drove from Spain the
former governors, who to favor Sulla refused to surrender
the government to him. He fought nobly, too, against
Metellus, whom Sulla had sent to oppose him.
After acquiring
a reputation for bravery, he enrolled a council of
three hundred members from the friends who were with
him, and called it the Roman senate in derision of the
real one.
After the death of Sulla, and later of Lepidus (a democratic
leader), Sertorius obtained another Italian army
which Perpenna, the lieutenant of Lepidus, brought him.
It was now supposed that he intended to march against
76 B.C.
Italy itself, and he would have done so, had not the senate
become alarmed and sent another army and general into
Spain in addition to the former forces.
This general was
72 B.C.
Pompey, who was still
a young man, but renowned for
his exploits under Sulla. (Sertorius was himself unconquerable;
but when at length he was assassinated,
Perpenna,
his faithless heutenant, easily fell a prey to
Pompey.)
The Servile
War
(or Gladiatorial
War),
73-71 B.C.
Plutarch,
Pompey, 21.
After staying long enough to end the chief disturbances,
and to quiet and settle the most dangerous troubles,
Pompey led his army back to Italy, where he chanced to
arrive at the time the Servile War was at its height.
Spartacus, by birth a Thracian, who had once served