This series of events was unique in Rome's history, for slave uprisings on such a dramatic scale had never been known beforehand and similar episodes were never to recur despite the long endurance of slavery in the Roman world. Moreover, the events were also exceptional in the history of slavery on a longer view, for it was not until the rebellion led by Toussaint L'Ouverture in the French colony of St. Domingue at the turn of the nineteenth century that slaves anywhere again rose against their masters in comparable degree. (Bradley Prologue).

             A greater understanding of the institution of Roman slavery is essential to a greater understanding of how and why these revolts took place and what toll they had on the empire itself as well as on those who fought. The Greek writers Diodorus Siculus, Plutarch, and Appian provide the principal records of the slave wars. Though it is clear that all three authors wrote long after the wars took place and where likely drawn from previous records of events, as was the standard practice of the time. Therefore it must be said that these depictions of the wars cannot always be trusted to be exact accounts of occurrences but renderings from one author and time to another. (Bradley 22) The sources that recollect the slave revolts, written in the future of the events were clearly dependant on the author's and other like thinkers for their interpretation, as the philosophical mind of stoicism was particularly dominant at the time and was marked by an emphasis on servile conditions. (Bradley 22) Yet, what was the actual condition of slavery in the Roman world, how did they live and what where the rules that governed their lives and actions? Where their lives more or less difficult that others and what respects where they given as individual members of a household or labor force and most importantly where did they come from and where did they end up? The answer is not as simple as expected but in general most Roman slaves where peoples who had been at the loosing end of political warfare and many where relocated to the more controlled locations in Rome to serve as agricultural laborers and also in some cased domestic and household servants.