The Spartacus War (27 page)

The indispensable reference book for classics and ancient history is The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). Excellent maps of the ancient world can be found in Richard J.A. Talbert, ed., The Barrington Atlas of the Ancient Greco-Roman World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).

The best place to begin is with Brent D. Shaw’s excellent edited collection and translation of the main documents of the revolt, Spartacus and the Slave Wars, a Brief History with Documents (Boston, Mass: Bedford/St Martins, 2001). The book also includes the main documents on the two Sicilian slave revolts as well as other Roman slave uprisings; it has a fine introductory essay too. Theresa Urbainczyk’s Spartacus (London: Bristol Classical Press, 2004) offers a concise and prudent overview. M.J. Trow’s Spartacus: The Myth and the Man (Stroud, UK: Sutton Publishing, 2006) is a highly readable work by a non-scholar. Keith Bradley’s Slavery and Rebellion in the Roman World, 140 B.C. - 70 B.C. (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1989) has an outstanding chapter on Spartacus. F.A. Ridley, Spartacus, the Leader of the Roman Slaves (Ashford, England: F. Maitland, 1963), is a concise and often accurate little book by a socialist activist and writer. Several important books on Spartacus have appeared in European languages; two of the best are J.-P. Brisson, Spartacus (Paris: Le club français du livre, 1959) and A. Guarino, Spartaco (Napoli: Liguori, 1979). Guarino sees Spartacus as more bandit than hero; the argument does not convince but it is highly stimulating. The standard scholarly encyclopedia article is (in German) F. Muenzer, ‘Spartacus’, in August Pauly, Georg Wis sowa et al.,
Paulys Real-encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft,
83 vols. (Stuttgart: 1893-1978), Vol. III A: cols. 1527-36 and Suppl. Vol. V: col. 993. There is a great deal of value, especially on topography, in the works of Luigi Pareti, particularly his Storia di Roma e del Mondo Romano III: Dai prodromi della III Guerra Macedonica al ‘primo triumvirato’ (170-59 av. Cr.) (Turin: Unione Tipografico-Editrice Torinese, 1953), 687-708, and Luigi Pareti, with Angelo Russi, Storia della regione lucano-bruzzia nell’ anti chita‘ (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1997), 459-69.

A 1977 scholarly symposium held in Bulgaria contains many important essays, most in English: Chr. M. Danov and Al. Fol, eds., SPARTACUS
Symposium Rebus Spartaci Gestis Dedicatum 2050 A.: Blagoevgrad,
20-24.1X.1977 (Sofia, Bulgaria: Editions de l’Académie Bulgare des Sciences, 1981). Also in 1977 the Japanese Spartacus scholar Masaoki Doi published in English a valuable bibliography of scholarship on Spartacus, but copies are not easy to find: Bibliography of Spartacus’ Uprising, 1726-1976 (Tokyo: [s.n.], 1977).

The ancient evidence for Spartacus is notoriously inadequate. All the Greek and Latin sources are collected in one place, in the original languages, in Giulia Stampacchia, La Tradizione della Guerra di Spartaco di Sallusto a Orosio (Pisa: Giardini, 1976), which also offers (in Italian) a careful and measured study of the narrative of the revolt as seen through the various sources. The most important ancient work about Spartacus was probably the Histories of Gaius Sallustius Crispus, better known as Sallust (86- 35 BC). A failed politician who commanded a legion for Julius Caesar, Sallust was a teenager at the time of the Spartacus War. He wrote extensively about Spartacus in his Histories, and, to judge from what remains of this work, he wrote trenchantly, but only bits and pieces have survived. The basic Latin edition is B. Maurenbrecher,
C. Sallusti Crispi Historiarum Reliquae. Vol. II:
Fragmenta (Leipzig: Teubner, 1893). For an excellent translation and historical commentary of the surviving fragments of Sallust’s Histories, see Patrick McGushin, Sallust, The Histories. Translated with Introduction and Commentary, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992-4).

The great Roman historian Titus Livius, or Livy (59 BC - AD 12) also wrote about Spartacus, but that section of his work survives only in a sketchy summary probably written centuries later.

The two most complete histories of Spartacus’s revolt to survive from antiquity are by Plutarch (c. AD 40s-120s) and Appian (c. AD 90s-160s). They are useful but problematic. Both writers were Greek, and both moved in government circles in the heyday of the Roman Peace. Both wrote about Rome’s past, drawing their information from earlier writings that no longer survive, and each preserved important details. But Appian condensed his sources imperfectly, and Plutarch cared less about history than biography. His account of Spartacus, for example, is just a section of his biography of Spartacus’s conqueror, Marcus Licinius Crassus. Plutarch has a maddening habit of sacrificing narrative for a good moral. And Plutarch is our best single source about Spartacus! Still, Plutarch was careful and worldly, and a cautious reader can get a lot from him. There is an important historical commentary in Italian in M.G. Bertinelli Angeli et al., Le Vite di Nicia e di Crasso (Verona: Fondazione Lorenzo Vallo: A. Mondadori, 1993). An excellent historical commentary on Appian can be found in Emilio Gabba, Appiani. Bellorum Civilium Liber Primus (Firenze: La Nuova Italia Editrice, 1958).

Other Romans and Greek writers provide important details about Spartacus, all drawn, more or less accurately, from earlier histories. The most important of them are Velleius Paterculus (c.20 BC - AD 30s?), Frontinus (c. AD 30-104), Florus (c. AD 100- 150) and Orosius (c. AD 380s-420s). An important study of Florus on Spartacus is H.T. Wallinga, ‘Bellum Spartacium: Florus’ Text and Spartacus’s Objective’, Athenaeum 80 (1992): 25-43. Cicero lived through Spartacus’s revolt as a grown man and referred to it in several of his speeches, most notably in his orations against Verres, especially Oration 6 (also known as II,5). An English translation of the speech by Michael Grant is conveniently found in Cicero, On Government (Hardmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1994), 13-105. For an overview, see M. Doi, ‘Spartacus’ Uprising in Cicero’s Works’, Index 17(1989): 191-203.

Two brilliant but speculative and ultimately unconvincing studies argue that Spartacus’s revolt was primarily nationalist and anti-Roman rather than a slave revolt: W.Z. Rubinsohn, ‘Was the Bellum Spartacium a Servile Insurrection?’, Rivista di Filologia 99 (1971): 290-99, and Pierre Piccinin, ‘Les Italiens dans le “Bellum Spartacium” ’, Historia 53.2 (2004): 173-99. See also Piccinin, ‘À propos de deux passages des œuvres de Salluste et Plutarque’, Historia 51.3 (2002): 383-4 and Piccinin, ‘Le dionysisme dans le Bellum Spartacium’, Parola del Passato 56.319 (2001): 272-96.

The following are important studies of specific topics in the history of Spartacus’s revolt: R. Kamienik, ‘Die Zahlenangaben ueber des Spartakus-Aufstand und ihre Glaubwuerdigkeit’, Alter tum 16 (1970): 96-105, on the number of rebels at various points in the revolt; K. Ziegler, ‘Die Herkunft des Spartacus’, Hermes 83 (1955): 248-50, on the possibility that Spartacus was a Maedus; M. Doi, ‘Spartacus’ Uprising and Ancient Thracia, II’, Dritter Internationaler Thrakologischer Kongress vol. 2 (Sofia: Staatlicher Verlag Swjat, 1984): 203-7, and M. Doi, ‘The Origins of Spartacus and the Anti-Roman Struggle in Thracia’, Index 20 ( 1992): 31-40, on the influence of Spartacus’s Thracian background; G. Stampacchia, ‘La rivolta di Spartaco come rivolta contadina’, Index 9 (1980): 99-111, on the rural character of Spartacus’s supporters; C. Pellegrino, Ghosts of Vesuvius: A New Look at the Last Days of Pompeii, How Towers Fall, and Other Strange Connections (New York: W. Morrow, 2004), 147-66, on Spartacus’s sojourn on Mount Vesuvius; E. Maróti, ‘De suppliciis. Zur Frage der sizili anischen Zusammenhange des Spartacus-Aufstandes’,
Acta Antiquae Hungariae
9 (1961): 41-70, on Spartacus’s planned crossing to Sicily; Maria Capozza, ‘Spartaco e il sacrificio del cavallo (Plut. Crass. 11, 8-9)’, Critica Storica 2 (1963): 251-93, on Spartacus’s sacrifice of a horse during his last battle. Allen Mason Ward, Marcus Crassus and the Late Roman Republic (Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press, 1977), esp. 83-98, ‘Chapter IV: The War with Spartacus’, offers a fundamental study of the crucial last six months of the war.

The titles of the following all make the subjects clear: R. Kamienik, ‘Gladiatorial Games during the Funeral of Crixus. Contribution to the Revolt of Spartacus’, Eos 64 (1976): 83-90; M. Doi, ‘Why did Spartacus Stay in Italy?’, Antiquitas. Acta Universitatis Wratislaviensis 598 (1983): 15-18; M. Doi, ‘On the Negotiations between the Roman State and the Spartacus Army’,
KLIO
66 (1984): 170-74; M. Doi, ‘Female Slaves in the Spartacus Army’, in Marie-Madeleine Mactoux and Evelyne Geny, eds.,
Mélanges Pierre Lévêque, II: Anthropologie et Societe,
Annales littéraires de I’Universite de Besançon, 377; Centre de recherches d’histoire ancienne, 82 (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1989): 161-72; R.M. Sheldon, ‘The Spartacus Rebellion: A Roman Intelligence Failure?’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 6.1 (1993): 69-84. Also valuable are B. Baldwin, ‘Two Aspects of Spartacus’s Slave Revolt’, Classical Journal 62 (1966-7): 288-94, and J. Scarborough, ‘Reflections on Spartacus’, Ancient World 1 no.2 (1978): 75-81.

Study of the Spartaks fresco begins with the publication by Italian archaeologist Amadeo Maiuri, Monumenti della pittura antica scoperti in Italia; Sezione terza: La pittura ellenistica romana; fasc. 2. Le pitture delle case di ‘M. Fabius Amandio’, del ‘Sacerdos
amandus’ e di
‘P.
Cornelius Teges’ (reg, I, ins. 7)
(Rome: La Libreria dello Stato, 1938). Jerzy Kolendo makes the case for scepticism in ‘Uno spartaco sconosciuto nella Pompei osca. Le pitture della casa di Amando’, Index 9 (1980): 33-40 and ‘Spartacus sur une peinture osque de Pompei: chef de la grande insurrection servile ou un gladiateur inconnu originaire de la Thrace?’, Antiquitas. Acta Universitatis Wratislaviensis 10 (1983): 49-53. Fabrizio Pesando weighs possible changes in the architecture of the building where the fresco was found in ‘Gladiatori a Pompei’, in Adriano La Regina, ed., Sangue e Arena (Milan: Electa, 2001), 175-98. A sensible overview of the debate in English can be found in van A. Hoof, ‘Reading the Spartaks Fresco Without Red Eyes’, in S.T.A.M. Mols and Eric Moormann, eds., Omni pede stare. Saggi architectonici e circumvesuviani in memoriam Jos de Waele (Naples: Electa Napoli and Ministeri per i Beni e le Attivite‘ Culturali, 2005), 251-6.

Brent D. Shaw offers an excellent overview of Spartacus in western culture before Marx in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with a look forward to the present in ‘Spartacus Before Marx: Liberty and Servitude’, Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics Version 2.2, November 2005,
http://www.princeton. edu/~pswpc/pdfs/shaw/110516.pdf.
On Marxist scholarship on Spartacus in the Soviet Union, see W.Z. Rubinsohn, Spartacus’ Uprising and Soviet Historical Writing (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 1987).

Three twentieth-century novels about Spartacus are available in English: Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Spartacus (New York: Pegasus Books, 2006), originally published in 1933; Arthur Koestler, The Gladiators, trans. Edith Simon (New York: Macmillan, 1939), a work by a disillusioned ex-Communist that sees in Spartacus’s revolt the excesses of revolution; and Howard Fast’s famous 1951 Spartacus, republished in 1996 by North Castle Books (Armonk: New York) with a brief introductory essay by Fast about his experiences as an American Communist in the McCarthy era.

Stanley Kubrick’s 1960 film is available in DVD, in several versions; the Criterion Collection version is the best. A 2004 remake, Spartacus - the Complete TV Miniseries, is also available on DVD. A fascinating and enjoyable collection of essays about Kubrick’s film is M.M. Winkler, Spartacus: Film and History (Malden, Mass. and Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007).

Khachaturian’s ballet Spartacus, with choreography by Yuri Grigorovich and performed by the Bolshoi Ballet, is also available on DVD. The 1990 Arthaus DVD version, one of two starring Irek Mukhamedov as Spartacus, is probably the best. Recordings of the music alone are available.

Among documentaries on Spartacus, there is The Real Spartacus, a 2001 production by Britain’s Channel 4; Decisive Battles - Spartacus, from the History Channel in 1994, available on DVD; Spartacus, Gladiator War, from the National Geographic in 2006.

A good introductory textbook to Roman history is M.T. Boat-wright, Daniel J. Gargola and Richard Talbert, The Romans (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004). Michael Crawford, The Roman Republic, 2nd edn (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993), offers a brief and incisive scholarly analysis. A lively and accessible overview is P. Matyszak, Chronicle of the Roman Republic (London: Thames & Hudson, 2003). A classic and more detailed alternative is T.R. Holmes, The Roman Republic and the Founder of the Empire, 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923). There are excellent introductory essays in Nathan Rosenstein and Robert Morstein-Marx, A Companion to the Roman Republic (Malden, Mass, and Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006).

Tom Holland offers a vivid account of the final decades of the Roman Republic in Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic (New York: Anchor, 2005). A scholarly introduction is Mary Beard and Michael Crawford, Rome in the Late Republic: Problems and Interpretations, 2nd edn (London: Duckworth, 1999). The indispensable scholarly analysis of Roman politics in those years is E.S. Gruen, The Last Generation of the Roman Republic (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974).

An essential reference book for Roman officials is T.R.S. Broughton, with the collabouration of Marcia Patterson, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, 2 vols. (New York: The American Philological Association, 1951-2). See also T.C. Bren-nan, The Praetorship in the Roman Republic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

On the economy of Late Republican Italy, see Neville Morley, Metropolis and Hinterland: The City of Rome and the Italian Economy, 200 BC - AD 200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Nathan Rosenstein, Rome at War: Farms, Families and Death in the Middle Republic (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004).