Every noise in the night made him jolt awake, terrified the slaves had broken through to pillage the country. It could not be allowed again. At first he had thought of crushing them against the sea, but what if they fought as they had in the north? With escape barred to them, they would be desperate, and if they overran the Roman lines, Crassus knew he’d be finished, even if he survived the battle. The Senate would call for his execution. He grimaced. How many of them had debts that only his death would erase? He could imagine their pious faces as they discussed his fate in Senate. He understood the pressure a little better since Pompey had left him. There was no one to ask; the decisions were his alone.

He crossed to the map and ran his finger across the narrowest neck of land at the toe of the country.

“We will hold you here until the new legions come,” he said, frowning. Twenty miles of banked earth. Such a line had never been built before, and the people of Rome would tell their children about it when it was done. Crassus, who built a wall across a country. He scrubbed his finger across the point again and again until a darker line showed on the skin.

It would hold them unless Pompey had failed to gather enough galleys to stop the slaves escaping. Then he would be the laughingstock of the country, guarding nothing but fields. Shaking his head to clear it, he sat down again to think.

*                                                      *                                                      *

After the delay for Cato’s execution, Pompey pushed the Greek legions south without rest. They were the veterans of the borders of Greece, with huge numbers of hastati and triarii to bolster the younger men. With the Via Appia under their feet, they passed thirty-five-mile markers in the first day. Pompey knew the pace would slow when they were forced to turn off the road, but even if the slaves had run to the furthest tip of the country, he knew he could bring the Greek legions to them in less than two weeks.