Lentulus batiatus biography

1st century BC Roman owner of a gladiatorial school

Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Vatia^[1] (also called Lentulus Batiatus by Plutarch)^[2] was the Roman owner of a gladiatorial school in ancient Capua.

It was from this school that, in 73 BC, the Thracian slave Spartacus and about 70 to 78 followers escaped. The breakout led to the slave rebellion known as the Third Servile War (73–71 BC).^[3]

Identity and origins

Shackleton Bailey noted that the name ("Batiatus"), as recorded by the ancient historians, could be a corrupted form of the cognomenVatia and this Cornelius Lentulus Vatia would then have been either a Servilius Vatia by birth adopted into the Cornelii Lentuli or else a Cornelius Lentulus by birth adopted into the Servilii Vatiae.^[1]Ronald Syme also agreed that the name "Batiatus" was surely a corruption of "Vatia".^[4]

It is often assumed following Shackleton Bailey's arguments that