Sign up for a full digest of all the best opinions of the week in our Voices Dispatches email
Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter
Archaeologists have uncovered a stone wall in an Italian forest that was used by the Roman army during an epic “clash” against slave revolt leader and gladiatorSpartacus and his men.
The stone wall and earthwork extend over 3km in the Dossone della Melia forest in southcentral Calabria.
Researchers have identified the wall and accompanying ditches as having been part of structures built by Roman general Marcus Licinius Crassus in 71 BC to contain Spartacus and his revolting troops.
They were tipped off by local environmentalists who knew of the wall’s existence but were unsure what it could be.
Archaeologists used advanced radar and laser scanning methods and soil sample analysis to study the site.
They found that a deep ditch once ran parallel to the wall, now moss coated and stretching nearly 1.5km.
The fossa and agger – ditch and mound – defence system is characteristic of Roman construction. Historians have, for example, documented a 330ft broad and 80ft high agger raised by Julius Caesar during the siege of Avericum in what is now France.
At the newly uncovered site in Italy, archaeologists also found several broken iron weapons, including sword handles, large curved blades, javelin points, and a spearhead.
The findings indicate that an epic clash likely took place at the site, according to the Archaeological Institute of America.
Historians have mentioned the battle and the wall built to contain Spartacus in several books, including The Life of Crassus written by Greek philosopher Plutarch.
Spartacus likely attacked the wall to break free of the trap built by Crassus, archaeologists said.
Spartacus and about 70 fellow enslaved gladiators escaped from a school in Capua during the Third Servile War and went on to defeat Roman forces in a series of battles.
“We started studying weapons recovered along the wall and the closest comparisons are with weapons from the late Republican period. We believe we have identified the site of the clash,” archaeologist Andrea Maria Gennaro from Italy’s Ministry of Culture told Live Science.
