Ben Kane

And they sent another praetor by the name of Varinius with several senior officers and a force of, we don't know how many, but certainly potentially some thousands of men.

Okay.

Yes, bigger than Glaber's, yeah.

Not Legion, not under a console still, but stronger in force.

And bad things started to happen to them pretty much straight away.

Like, the sources are so scant.

When you're writing novels, as I do, when you get handed a scene that's so amazing and funny that you couldn't make it up, it's like winning the lottery.

And so what happened to one of Varinius' officers, who was a man called Cassinius, was literally laugh out loud.

He was in command of 2,000 men.

So obviously Varinius' army was not marching together.

And they were marching south to find Spartacus.

And hot day, he found a local villa, which had a swimming pool, as some big Roman villas did.

And he had presumably said to the owner, look, I

I'm very hot and bothered, do you mind?"

And the officer was probably delighted to have some Roman soldiers in the vicinity, protecting his house, of course.

So he was in this swimming pool, having a nice time, and Spartacus' men literally appeared in the grounds of the villa.

Whilst he was in the swimming pool.

And he literally jumped on his horse.

Now, in my book, I had him jump on his horse naked.

It was that bad.