As a form of light relief I'm going to start talking about ancient Rome from time to time. I read a lot of rubbish about Rome and at times wonder why no-one questions the conventional wisdom. Hence my current rant about Spartacus.
No doubt you've all seen the movie. If you haven't there is a good chance you've seen the TV series. Spartacus is generally depicted as a noble freedom fighter, a man of principle fighting injustice, inequality and all things terrible imposed by the dastardly Romans. Right, lose that idea as no such thing is true.
Spartacus was possibly a Thracian gladiator who likely had some military training as a Roman auxiliary or some such. How he came to be a gladiator is unknown, he may have volunteered as this was not uncommon, or he'd fallen foul of the law. By the time of the Third Servile War he was a Murmillo, a heavyweight gladiator with face covering helmet, shield and gladius.
That's about all that can be said of him with any certainty. He does not appear to have been political. So who was Spartacus and what was he about? I maintain that it is pretty obvious he was a criminal. He did not like his surroundings and left, overthrowing the guards at the gladiator school and along with his fellow conspirators, seizing useful weapons along the way.
Instead of leaving and turning left to return to Thrace, and travelling by night and using the moon and stars to navigate with, he turned right and headed farther down the peninsula. Somehow we are expected to believe that Spartacus is some tactical genius, then why this fundamental mistake? He was bound to get trapped. Right?
He was bound to get trapped and he knew it. This, after all, was about loot and getting away, not about freedom. After a suitable period plundering the landscape and going up against a half-hearted Roman response, things came to a head. Rome had tired of these antics and decided to put a stop to Spartacus once and for all.
This is where it gets interesting and forms the key part of my argument. He duped his stupid followers and slipped away, leaving them in the lurch. That's the truth behind the story of the fleet of pirate vessels that were supposed to save them. Spartacus is meant to have paid them but they betrayed him by failing to turn up. Okay, think about that, how the hell are a ragtag band of 70,000 going to fit into a few pirate vessels?
I've got a better idea. How about there was only ever one pirate vessel, that Spartacus spun his followers a line then promptly did a runner on that one waiting vessel. The force that he had once commanded promptly collapsed and 6,000 of their number were crucified. The body of Spartacus was never found. Work it out people, why is this so obvious but never pointed out?
That leads me to examine the historical context. At the time the Romans needed a bogeyman, a nice scary story to tell people. This reminded everyone of the importance of Rome. Then in the modern era the Soviet Union used Spartacus as a propaganda tool with ballets like Spartacus and the fine music by Khachaturian (The Onedin Line TV series theme). Hollywood jumped onto the bandwagon and it all just gained a life of its own, devoid of any truth.
Spartacus was a criminal who gained a bit of loot and got away scot free. Maybe he died later when Pompey cleaned the seas of pirates.
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