Spartacus, Hoby, etc etc

According to Plutarch Spartacus was a Thracian of Nomadic stock. Some modern writers have tried to emend 'ἀνὴρ Θρᾷξ τοῦ Νομαδικοῦ γένους' to 'Θρᾷξ τοῦ Μαιδικοῦ γένους'
http://tinyurl.com/2ukv6yg
making him Maedic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maedi
but considering that the name Sparadokos etc occurs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartacus#Origins
as a royal name not only in Thrace, but also in in the Cimmerian Bosporus and in Pontus, perhaps one should trust Plutarch here.

This would fit well with the proposal in
Pierre Piccinin,
Les Italiens dans le "Bellum Spartacium"
Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte,
Vol. 53, No. 2 (2004), pp. 173-199
that Spartacus' objective was not another slave uprising, but the opening of a third front (after that of Sertorius
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sertorius
in Spain and that of Mithridates himself in the east) in Mithridates' war against Rome; if so, that would explain Spartacus' otherwise mysterious decision not to break out of Northern Italy towards Thrace with the Thracian (ex)slaves, but to retreat to a seemingly hopeless position in Southern Italy in 72 BCE:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartacus#Third_Servile_War
he was hoping for reinforcements from Mithridates or from Sertorius, who had already sent an army to Mithridates
http://tinyurl.com/2wjmmn2 8.5
and also why, after Sertorius was murdered, he went back north in early 71 BCE.

The skyphoi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyphos
from Hoby
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/11445
http://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobyfundet
have been proposed produced by Roman workshops in Capua, as far as I can tell because they are similar to the skyphoi of the find in Boscoreale
http://tinyurl.com/3366btw
As mentioned, an attempt has been made by Küthmann to place all these finds in the 1st cent. BCE
http://tinyurl.com/2u8kgvf
on p. 51 he mentions that one of the skyphoi from the find in Boscoreale has three owner inscriptions which should make it considerably older than the traditional one derived from the villa's destruction in Vesuvius' eruption in 79CE.

The other link of the Hoby skyphoi to Augustan times is the owner inscription 'Silius' on one them, traditionally associated with
C. Silius P. f. P. n (no. 5 here:)
http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/3156.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaius_Silius
together with some tall story about the (North) German Chief from Hoby, Lolland having served with the legatus of Upper Germany and having received his employer's personal silverware (with the old owner mark on it?) with the purpose of buying the Romans an ally on Lolland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolland
Ahem.

More likely, this is stolen property. As such, its presumptive ex-owner matches better Titus Silius (no. 2 above), since he was taken prisoner by the Veneti;
http://www.forumromanum.org/literature/caesar/gallic_e3.html , 7
(and we never hear what became of him)
now if the name of that people is testimony to its presence in Brittany, Vendsyssel and the Vandal/Wend Venetic areas south of the Baltic,
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/57554
the Hoby find could represent part of the loot of Titus Silius' train (and the interred in Hoby be Titus Silius himself in captivity?) as carried by fleeing Veneti to safer harbours in the Baltic (Hoby at the time would have been on the sea, in a bay (*ho-) now reclaimed, ie. Rødby Fjord).

On the other hand, the supplicant (Priamos) on one of the Hoby skyphoi wears a Phrygian cap. That would make Publius Silius (no. 4) a more likely candidate as the original owner, but he could have been a relative (brother?) of Titus Silius, who might have received the skyphoi from him while serving in the last Mithridatic war. If so, Küthmann would have been right in assigning all those well-known skyphoi to the 1st century BCE.

I don't BTW buy the theory presented here
http://tinyurl.com/346ktaz
that those skyphoi with the common theme of Roman clemency were meant for export, more likely they were for Roman entertainment of foreign emissaries: submit, and we'll be nice to you. Or else.


Now the intersting thing about Capua, which I have seen proposed as the workshops of origin also of Northern Black Sea Shore Roman artifacts is that that is where the slaves under Spartacus started their revolt and where they acquired first a lot of kitchen utensils and then weapons.

Proposal:
A good deal of the Roman utensils and weapons found in Germanic graves are loot from around Capua carried by rebels (slaves, former Italic Socii etc) by ship to Mithridates and later taken by troops remaining loyal to him after the final debacle in 63 BCE to the Przeworsk culture, whence to the supposed Germanic Lubiesewo princely graves.


Torsten