Spartacus

Spartacus was a Thracian gladiator who escaped from a school at Capua in 73 BC and became the leading figure in a massive revolt of enslaved people and rural workers. His army defeated successive Roman forces and moved across Italy for two years. The rebels’ aims remain uncertain, and ancient accounts disagree over strategy and internal division. Crassus finally defeated the revolt in 71 BC, and Spartacus was probably killed in the last battle.

Howard Fast’s Spartacus and Ben Kane’s Spartacus novels are major fictional treatments, while later screen adaptations created an enduring image of collective rebellion. Fiction often presents a coherent programme of liberation for all enslaved people, but the sources do not preserve Spartacus’s own words or clear political objectives. His symbolic power therefore extends far beyond the recoverable biography.

In Simon Scarrow’s Gladiator: Son of Spartacus, the rebels hope to revive the cause of Spartacus, while Marcus has personal reasons to understand their anger and protect their leader. In Steven Saylor’s Arms of Nemesis, Crassus assumes they have fled to join Spartacus and invokes the law that permits the execution of the entire household if the killer is not identified. Other novels featuring Spartacus include Colleen McCullough’s Fortune’s Favourites, Conn Iggulden’s The Death of Kings, Simon Scarrow’s Gladiator: Fight for Freedom, Steven Saylor’s A Gladiator Dies Only Once, and Simon Scarrow’s Gladiator: Vengeance.