Captivating History - Spartacus: A Captivating Guide to the Thracian Gladiator Who Led the Slave Rebellion Called the Third Servile War against the Roman Republic

Spartacus

A Captivating Guide to the Thracian Gladiator Who Led the Slave Rebellion Called the Third Servile War against the Roman Republic

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Death is the only freedom a slave knows. Thats why hes not afraid of it. Thats why well win.

From the 1960 Stanley Kubrick film, Spartacus

Introduction

A lmost 2,100 years ago, a gladiator walked out of the arena. And he never walked back into it.

Spartacus, a Thracian whose early life is hidden in the mists of history, is one of the most infamous figures of antiquity. Perhaps the most famous gladiator of all, parts of Spartacus story inspired elements of the award-winning film Gladiator (2000). Yet even though his story is familiar to millions, he remains a strangely mysterious figure, one whose innermost heart was never revealed to the world. All of the existing records about Spartacus and the war that he started and lost were written by Roman historians. None of the slaves account of these events has survived the onslaught of the years; thus, many of Spartacus actions, and all of his motives, are matters of speculation. Even Plutarch, a contemporary, could only guess at what this hero of the oppressed truly wanted or how he really felt. Diving into this great mans psyche and puzzling together his thoughts and feelings is a fascinating subject. And his story makes for gripping reading.

Born a free manpossibly even a princehe had become a mercenary for the Romans. Then hed been a deserter, a bandit, and an insurgent. When they caught him, he became a prisoner. And then they sold him as a slave.

At the so-called school (really more of a prison) at Capua, Spartacus became a gladiator. All his life, he had known how to fight for food, resources, and survival. Now, the Romans forced him to fight for their entertainment. It was either fight his fellow slaves or die at their blades, and fight or die became the single rule by which Spartacus life was lived. Shackled at night in a dark and lonely cell and participating by day in a blood sport that could kill him at any second, always at the whim of his master, Spartacus had become one of the most miserable slaves in history.

He lived a slave, but he would die a hero.

With kitchen knives and sheer guts and determination, Spartacus and a handful of his friends would fight their way out of the school at Capua and go in search of a better life. And so, their journey began, a journey that has captivated the imaginations of millions, from Marxist revolutionaries to novelists and filmmakers. Now, allow Spartacus story to capture yours.

This story has all the hallmarks of a tale more exciting than history, a tale that comes to life with the excitement of fiction and yet the poignant reality of true events. There are battles and consuls, Romans and Thracians, slaves and the free. There are pirates and gladiators, as well as a jealous praetor seeking to prove himself in the eyes of the public, pitted against a courageous freedom fighter whose only goal is to get back to his homeland. Treachery, greed, power, freedom, ingenuity, and imagination fill this tale, which takes place all the way from the feet of Vesuvius to the mighty rampart of the Alps to the shores of the Strait of Messina.

This is the story of Spartacus. And this book will bring it to you as youve never heard it before.

Chapter 1 Thrace and Its Enemies

T he story of Thrace begins long before history, in the mysterious darkness of a time when writing had not yet been invented. That era is long lost to us, but that is not to say that it was uneventful. People were people then just as they are now, and as now, they were busy: making war, obtaining nourishment, falling in love, searching for a place to call home. And around eight thousand years ago, somewhere around 6000 BCE, a group of Indo-European tribes stumbled upon a land that their people would call home for the next six millennia. Bound by mountains to the east, a great river to the north, and seas on the south and east, this land was one of wild and abundant beauty. Its cascading rivers had carved for themselves great harsh valleys, the landscape plunging down into the roaring expanse of the river. The mountains ran down into great plateaus as wide and wild as the mighty sky, and the seas were glittering blue, warm to the touch, awash with natural resources. With damp, cool winters and hot, dry summers, this land appeared perfect to the tribes who found themselves wandering into its untamed wilderness.

The land was a part of modern-day Bulgaria, Turkey, and Greece, known to history as Thrace, and the peoples who first came to live there were known as the proto-Thracians. They were a group of agricultural tribes who tilled the fertile earth and raised animals on the rich grazing lands, and soon, this little handful of people grew up into a vast nation. Thrace was not their own name for their country. In fact, what the Thracians called themselves has been lost to the mists of time; the name was bestowed upon them by the Greeks.

But for thousands of years, the Greeks stayed in Greece, and the Thracians of Thrace were free to explore and tend to their crops and animals in the rich abundance of their beautiful surroundings. Most of what we know about Thracian culture comes from archaeological findings; the first written record of Thrace is a vague reference in Homers Iliad , and it was only in 450 BCE that Herodotus would thoroughly document these people. It would appear, however, that despite their simple lives in small rural villages, the Thracians had a rich and fascinating culture. They loved poetry and music, although none of it survived to this day. They were also polygamists and believed in the afterlife, having elaborate burial sites and rituals.