Nevertheless Varinius set out with those who kept their ground against the robber-band; but it was no longer to be found where he sought it.
It had broken up in the deepest silence and had turned to the south towards Picentia (Vicenza near Amain), where Varinius overtook it indeed, but could not prevent it from retiring over the Silarus into the interior of Lucania, the chosen land of shepherds and robbers.
Varinius followed thither, and there at length the despised enemy arrayed themselves for battle.

All the circumstances under which the combat took place were to the disadvantage of the Romans: the soldiers, vehemently as they had demanded battle a little before, fought ill; Varinius was completely vanquished; his horse and the insignia of his official dignity fell with the Roman camp itself into the enemy's hand.
The south-Italian slaves, especially the brave half-savage herdsmen, flocked in crowds to the banner of the deliverers who had so unexpectedly appeared; according to the most moderate estimates the number of armed insurgents rose to 40,000 men.

Campania, just evacuated, was speedily reoccupied, and the Roman corps which was left behind there under Gaius Thoranius, the quaestor of Varinius, was broken and destroyed.

In the whole south and south-west of Italy the open country was in the hands of the victorious bandit- chiefs; even considerable towns, such as Consentia in the Bruttian country, Thurii and Metapontum in Lucania, Nola and Nuceria in Campania, were stormed by them, and suffered all the atrocities which victorious barbarians could inflict on defenceless civilized men, and unshackled slaves on their former masters.

That a conflict like this should be altogether abnormal and more a massacre than a war, was unhappily a matter of course: the masters duly crucified every captured slave; the slaves naturally killed their prisoners also, or with still more sarcastic retaliation even compelled their Roman captives to slaughter each other in gladiatorial sport; as was subsequently done with three hundred of them at the obsequies of a robber-captain who had fallen in combat.
Great Victories of Spartacus In Rome people were with reason apprehensive as to the destructive conflagration which was daily spreading.