The log of attempts to defeat Spartacus and his men follows:
The praetor Publius Varinus sent his lieutenant Furius against the rebels with 2,000 men and they are defeated.
Cossinius was sent to give advice and counsel to Varinius but he and his men are intercepted while in camp and killed.
Spartacus decides to march his men to the Alps and allow them to go their separate ways – Gauls to the west to their homeland and Thracians to the east. But there arose a disagreement on this because Crixus, the Gaul, did not want to return to his homeland and was content to stay in the Italian peninsula and play the brigand. In the fall of 73 B.C. the rebels returned to the south.