← Table of contents
Plutarch's Lives, Volume 3 (of 4)

Note 36 — LIFE OF CRASSUS.

George Long translation

This lake, which Plutarch spells Leukanis, is placed by Kaltwasser in the vicinity of Paestum or Poseidonia, but on what grounds I do not know. Strabo indeed (p. 251) states that the river makes marshes there, but that will not enable us to identify them. Cramer (Ancient Italy, ii. 366) places here the Stagnum Lucanum, where Plutarch "mentions that Crassus defeated a considerable body of rebels under the command of Spartacus (Plut. Vit. Crass.)": but nothing is given to prove the assertion. He adds, "In this district we must also place the Mons Calamatius and Mons Cathena of which Frontinus speaks in reference to the same event (Stratagem, ii. 4); they are the mountains of Capaccio." This is founded on Cluverius, but Cluverius concludes that the Calamatius of Frontinus (ii. 4, 7), or Calamarcus as the MSS. seem to have it, is the same as the Cathena of Frontinus (ii. 5, 34); for in fact Frontinus tells the same story twice, as he sometimes does. It is a mistake to say that Frontinus is speaking "of the same event," that is, the defeat of the gladiators on the lake. He is speaking of another event, which is described farther on in this chapter, when Crassus attacks Cannicius and Crixus, and "sent," as Frontinus says (ii. 4, 7), " twelve cohorts round behind a mountain."

Explore with AITake your curiosity a little further.

Reading settings