2 of 3

You've already noted that Spartacus was no abolitionist, yet in the public imagination he remains a heroic revolutionary. How do you interpret him and his movement?

He did liberate slaves, even though I'm skeptical that was his ultimate goal. And it is hard not to be inspired by that. His name survives in part because the Romans never forgot him. He lived on as a figure of terror in Roman literature for centuries. His revolt occurred in the 1st century BC, but hundreds of years later even Saint Augustine was still talking about Spartacus and what he did. So this was a revolt with a very long afterlife.

But there are two things that are really striking about this story. First, we don't have any testimony from Spartacus or his side. All the evidence we have is left to us by the Romans. Oddly enough, Roman writers praised Spartacus. They had very kind things to say about him. One contemporary source, Varro, notes that Spartacus was forced to be a gladiator even though he was innocent. Sallust tells us that Spartacus was intelligent, noble, prudent, and wise—and that he even attempted to prevent his men from committing an atrocity against civilians. Sallust also tells us that Spartacus was a patriot mindful of the needs of his homeland. It was pretty unusual for the Romans to use such laudatory terms about an enemy, particularly a slave and a barbarian. The same Sallust says that most of the men who followed Spartacus were human scum, barbarians. To what extent this suited Sallust's own ideological purposes, or to what extent this was the real Spartacus, is unclear. Nonetheless, there is a very strong ancient tradition that Spartacus was a hero.

It's not surprising that someone like Voltaire could say that Spartacus was a great hero, or someone like Marx could assert that he was the greatest hero of the ancient world. Spartacus figured in European liberalism in the 18th century, European nationalism in the 19th century, and then socialism and communism in the 20th century. He was used by Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Rosa Luxemburg, and the so called Spartacists in Germany in 1919. An American communist, Howard Fast, wrote the best-selling novel Spartacus in 1951. The Hollywood movie is less radical than the novel; nonetheless, it lauds Spartacus from the Left. And Spartacus was a great popular figure in the Soviet Union and in the Soviet-dominated lands. Aram Khachaturian wrote a ballet about Spartacus in the 1950s that won the Lenin prize. There were Spartacus sports clubs founded all over Europe, particularly in Eastern Europe. Even though communism is by and large gone, these sports clubs still remain.

next page... |  2 of 3

share this page