Just Finished Reading: The Spartacus War by Barry Strauss



Yes, its rebel time again. This book tells the now famous story – made popular by the 1960 Kirk Douglas epic – of the 73 BC slave revolt in the heart of the Roman Empire. For more than two years thousands of slaves who followed Spartacus the ex-gladiator ravaged the Italian peninsula until they were inevitably brought finally to battle.


This was a thin book in more ways than one. Only 189 pages long it still managed to pack in too much speculation for my liking. It appears that we actually know very little about the man Spartacus and the revolt he led. Even his origins are shrouded in mystery. It is suspected that he was from Thrace and probably served in the Roman Auxiliary units. It’s known that he was a gladiator for a short time until his escape. What isn’t known is what caused his apparent fall from grace. The date of his escape – along with a handful of fellow gladiators – is known but details of where he went and what his followers achieved is unclear. A number of battles were fought and each time the Romans were soundly beaten. Exact details of what happened during those encounters is largely unknown – including the actually locations of the battlefields. It is known that the crisis was discussed in the Senate but little remains of what was actually said. It is known that the slave army attempted to escape to Sicily but no one is quite sure why the pirate fleet double crossed them. It is also known that finally, after several years of fruitless and frustrating attempts to quell the rebellion, the Roman general Crassus finally did so by defeating the slave army. What actually happened to Spartacus himself is unknown. In order to stitch the narrative of this mythic rebel together the author was forced – all too easily I thought – to speculate on much of what actually happened, sometimes it seemed with precious little to go on. It was frustrating to see someone trying to build something with so little substance or foundation to support it. Part of the problem, possibly, is that on many levels this is indeed a great story waiting to be told. Unfortunately there appears precious little actual evidence to even determine who Spartacus actually was. Although he still has great mythic power – even after more than two thousand years – the brilliance of the myth surrounding him all but obliterates the real historical man. This is a great failing of this frankly disappointing book, all the more disappointing because it appears to be a subject and a person crying out for suitable biography. Unfortunately this isn’t it.