08-02-2012, 11:35 PM
I'm currently reading Barry Strauss' "The Spartacus War" and enjoying it very much. One question that arose in my mind while I was reading though concerned the nature of the forces that the praetors Glaber and Varinius led against Spartacus. Strauss states that neither of them was given a new army upon their appointment and that they were expected to recurit men as they marched. Unfortunately he doesn't go into a whole lot more detail than that, which leaves me wondering exactly how this process worked, and how it differed from the typical practice of providing magistrates with fresh forces. My best guess would be that they stopped at any of the significant towns and cities along the route of march and exercised their Imperium to levy those men with an obligation to serve but who happened to have not been called up for any other unit that was active at the time, specifically those fighting Sertorius and Mithridates. No doubt there were veterans of previous conflicts involved as well. It almost sounds like there was some sort of militia system present though, but I can't say I've ever read anything before about such a system. Do the primary sources go into any more detail, or do we simply not know that much?
