Fiji said:
ISO putting his best (the gladiators and Gauls) on the right, where they'd face the weakest part of the legion opposing him, he puts them on the left, directly opposite of the best Romans.
In their best fight ever, the gladiators smash the Roman elite and mop up the rest.
Spartacus has enough left to face the second army coming his way (there were three).
Could Spartacus have beaten the final two armies?
WI he did?
Did Rome have anything left to fight him with?
Would even more slaves have flocked to him?
Is there any way to get an empire WITHOUT slaves?
Yes, Rome had plenty of fight left in it. Spartacus had up to then faced mostly second-rate troops. Muchas his tactical genius impresses me, he had hardly seen the last of Rome. Pompey had barely started the fight, and in spite of what Caesarian propaganda likes to make of him, Pompey was good. Neither was there any chance of a compromise while his army remains in Italy, and so close to the Social Wars, precious little chance of allies (though I would not exclude the possibility that the Romans would let him go and say good riddance if he chose to take his troops out of the Empire, say into the Gallia Comata, and do a Samo). If Spartacus beats the attacking armies, he will next face Pompey's legions, and then those recalled from Spain, and more from the East... without support, he is effectively dead, and I can see no power willing to support him (it's part of the Spartacus tragedy that he rose too late. If something like this had happened during the Mithridatic Wars, the Social Wars, or the Sullan coup, it might have done lasting damage to Rome).
More slaves would probably have joined him, if only because his troops were on the move again and not doing so meant being plundered and raped and the left behind, rather than getting to do some plundering and raping and then leaving. However, I don't think manpower was ever his problem. He needs to get hardware, a regular supply system and winter quarters, and Rome had ways of denying him that ad infinitum.
Yes, at this stage you could have had an empire without slaves, but there is no way this would happen either way. The heyday of chattel slavery is just drawing to a close and while hundreds of thousands of slaves are, well, slaving away on the latifundia of Italy, the economic model of a tenant farm or a laborer-based business exists and would have worked. Large-scale slavery was a matter more of opportunity (they could) and social convention (they understood how) than necessity (there were plenty of other sources of dirt cheap, dependent labor if they had been needed, and the Hellenistic world demonstrated amply how it could be done)
However, Spartacus diod not actually oppose slavery on fundamental grounds. he believed that he did not want to be a slave and neither did his followers, and by the lights of the time nobody who could fight for himself should be a slave. AFAIR it was only the Cynics and some Stoics who opposed slavery on philosophical grounds, and they were not very effective revolutionaries. So a victorious Spartacus (in the sense that he manages to elude capture and demonstrate the Romans can be beaten) means a serious blow to Rome's prestige and economy, but no abolition. History would no doubt butterfly widely, though (we are approaching some of the most crucial times in European history).
