It was soon evident that Rome had on its hands the greatest and most dangerous of its servile wars. Spartacus was brave and prudent, and possessed the qualities of an able leader. Unfortunately for him, he led an unmanageable host. In the next year both the consuls took the field against him. By this time his army had swelled to more than one hundred thousand men, and with these he pushed his way northward through the passes of the Apennines. But now insubordination appeared. Crixus, one of his lieutenants, ambitious of independent command, led off a large division of the army, chiefly Germans. He was quickly punished for his temerity, being surprised and slain with the whole of his force. Spartacus, wise enough to know that he could not long hold out against the whole power of Rome, kept on northward, hoping to pass the Alps and find a place of refuge remote from the stronghold of his foes. Both the consuls attacked him in his march, and both were defeated, while he retaliated on Rome by forcing his prisoners to fight as gladiators in memory of the slain Crixus. Reaching the provinces of the north, his diminished force was repulsed by Crassus, one of the richest men of Rome, who had taken the field as praetor. Spartacus would still have fought his way towards the Alps but for his followers, whose impatient thirst for rapine forced him to march southward again. Every Roman force that assailed him on this march was hurled back in defeat. He even meditated an attack on Rome itself, but relinquished this plan as too desperate, and instead employed his men in collecting arms and treasure from the cities of central and southern Italy. Discipline was almost at an end. The wild horde of slaves and outlaws were beyond any strict military control. So great and general were their ravages that in a later day the poet Horace promised his friend a jar of wine made in the Social War, "if he could find one that had escaped the ravages of roaming Spartacus." In the year 71 B.C. the most vigorous efforts were made to put down this dangerous revolt. Pompey was still in Spain. The only man at home of any military reputation was the praetor Crassus, who had amassed an enormous fortune by buying up property at famine prices during the Proscription of Sulla, and in speculative measures since. He was given full command, took the field with a large army, restored discipline to the beaten bands of the consuls by cruel and rigorous measures, and assailed Spartacus in Calabria, where he was seeking to rekindle the Servile War, or slave outbreak, in Sicily. He had even engaged with pirate captains to transport a part of his force to Sicily, but the freebooters took the money and sailed away without the men.