Crixus

Crixus was a Gallic gladiator and one of the principal leaders of the slave uprising associated with Spartacus from 73 to 71 BC. At some point he separated from Spartacus with a large body of followers, perhaps because of strategic disagreement or the difficulty of supplying the whole rebel force. Roman troops defeated and killed him near Mount Garganus in 72 BC. The sources provide little reliable information about his earlier life or motives.

Crixus appears prominently in Ben Kane’s Spartacus novels and in Howard Fast’s Spartacus, as well as in many screen adaptations of the revolt. Fiction often turns the uncertain split between the leaders into a personal rivalry between disciplined strategy and a desire for revenge or plunder. This is dramatically effective, but the ancient accounts do not explain the division clearly enough to support a confident psychological narrative.