Gaius Claudius Glaber

Gaius Claudius Glaber was a Roman praetor and legatus in 73 BC. He tried but failed to hem in Spartacus and his fellow slaves on Mt. Vesuvius during the Third Servile War. The rebels were trapped by a narrow passage, the only way leading up. Without the Roman cohorts knowing, Spartacus and his men scaled down the cliff by using vines for ropes. They in turn attacked Glaber's 3,000 men from behind and by surprise routing them.^[1]

In popular culture

John Dall's character Glabrus in the film Spartacus (1960) was loosely based on Glaber.
Ben Cross played Titus Glaber based on Claudius Glaber in the television miniseries adaption, Spartacus (2004), of the Howard Fast novel of the same name.
Glaber was portrayed by Craig Parker in the television series Spartacus: Blood and Sand (2010).

Selected ancient Sources

Sallust, Histories 3.90-93 Maurenbrecher.
Livy, Periochae 95.
Plutarch, Crassus 8-9.
Frontinus, Strategemata 1.5.21.
Appian, Civil Wars 1.116.^[2]
Florus, Epitome 2.8.4
Some of these sources are available in English translation from the Internet Ancient History Sourcebook (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/3slaverevolttexts.htm).

Notes

^ Broughton 109
^ Appian conflates the names of Varinius and Claudius Glaber, writing Varinios Glabros, not Varinius Faber, as in the Ancient Sourcebook translation, cf. Broughton 2.115 n. 1

Bibliography

Broughton, T. Robert S. Magistrates of the Roman Republic, vol. 2. Cleveland: Case Western University Press, 1968, p. 109 &115 n. 1.
Bradley, Keith. Slavery and Rebellion in the Roman World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989, pp. 93–94. ISBN 0253312590

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Name	Glaber, Gaius Claudius
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