The Spartacus War

This fairly short work effectively covers what we know about the course of the most famous slave uprising in history and the man who inspired and led it with a fair degree of success for two years until the Roman state's eventual triumph. In fact we know relatively few specifics about the detailed course of events and the individual battles involved, and very little indeed about Spartacus himself. In popular conception, Hollywood has of course filled in many of the gaps through the wonderful, though romanticised, classic film version starring Kirk Douglas (Spartacus actually fell in the final battle and his body was never recovered, although it is quite true that 6,000 survivors of that battle were crucified along the road from Capua, show more where the revolt started, to Rome). Strauss fills in some of the gaps through intelligent speculation and extrapolation from details of other Roman military engagements, analysis of the various Roman literary sources (none of which were contemporary), archaeology and even the topography of southern Italy. He doesn't fill space unnecessarily by writing extensively in general about the history of Rome, or of gladiators, as some authors might to make a book longer (the main text is 190 pages).

In the introduction he briefly covers the symbolism of Spartacus's later reputation (he and Julius Caesar are probably the two most famous names from ancient Rome to the general public). He has been hailed as a freedom fighter both by the political left, albeit sometimes in a rather romanticised way, as his aim was freedom and a peaceful life outside Italy for his followers, not the abolition of slavery as an institution; but also by the political right in the form of Ronald Reagan. His ultimate failure was probably inevitable, as despite the success of his guerilla tactics against complacent Roman generals, especially in the early stages of the revolt, his only plausible aim was escape from Italy and he faced the inexorable iron might of the Roman military machine. Nevertheless, we should not underestimate his significance. Even the little we do know shows he was an inspiring leader, and his earlier background in the Roman auxiliary forces gave him an understanding of Roman military tactics his fellow rebels lacked. In the author's words, "What began as a prison breakout by seventy-four men armed only with cleavers and skewers had turned into a revolt by thousands. And it wasn’t over: a year later the force would number roughly 60,000 rebel troops. With an estimated 1-1.5 million slaves in Italy, the rebels amounted to around 4 per cent of the slave population". He was clearly a force to be reckoned with and the Roman state only beat him when it sent one of its top people, Marcus Licinius Crassus, against him. Even then, it was only when the slave army split due to ethnic and other tensions that Crassus really began to succeed. The revolt represents one of the most dramatic series of events in Roman history, even in the extremely eventful first century BC filled with the doings of Caesar, Pompey, Cicero, Octavian, Mark Antony and others. show less

Triggered by the fun but horribly inaccurate TV series Spartacus Blood and Sand, I picked up Barry Strauss' The Spartacus War which just came out in paperback. The short text really helps in correcting many errors and provide some context. Unfortunately, Spartacus' fame vastly surpasses the factual basis about him. Strauss develops two strategies to counter this. The first, applied almost comically, is to repeat some facts over and over again to the point that one could easily develop a drinking game. The second strategy is to work with hypotheses and conjectures, which is fine and scientific. Strauss, however, has a knack to first elaborate about the lack of facts and then throw caution to the wind and ride his unfounded hypothesis to show more death. These two strategies noticeably diminish the pleasure of reading. Overall, it is a good introduction to a famous man, told from the slaveholder's perspective.

Strauss has the odd habit of pushing his Republican talking points. There is simply no need to insert such political stuff into historical accounts. As an example, he writes on page 191: "We find crucifixions disgusting, but Romans probably tolerated them as a grim necessity. Nowadays many people reject the death penalty as cruel and unusual or criticize a tough interrogation technique like waterboarding as torture, while others accept them." Most critics of the death penalty object not to the cruelty (which is mostly a question of the executioneer's skill) but to the (frequent) miscarriage of justice. Unfortunately, the death penalty is applied mostly in states and countries where a fair trial and (color-)blind justice does not exist. Strauss' supposedly neutral presentation is heavily biased. The same holds true regarding waterboarding which is not an interogation but a torture technique (unless one applies the tortured syllogism: The US doesn't torture, The US waterboards, ergo waterboarding is not torture). Is there something in the water that turns classicists into rightwing nuts? show less

Take a history professor who really both has a ton of integrity and really knows his stuff and you end up with a somewhat frustrating book. Here's the problem: There is so little actual verified knowledge about Spartacus that anybody attempting to write his story is forced into one of two paths: "Make it up" or be "honest about all the conjecture and options".

Ultimately if the author had written a fictional story based upon the most likely scenarios, this would have been quite enjoyable. Instead the author spends a lot of time caveating everything and going off on tangents about stuff that we do know for sure and as such the enjoyment was reduced.

All ancient history -- or modern history, for that matter -- involves a great deal of speculation, but Strauss goes far beyond my limits of tolerance for speculation in this one. It's not his fault, I'm sure, as he stresses that historians have very little with which to work regarding Spartacus. My question then, is: why write the book? If you don't have enough material for a book-length treatment, the answer is not to write a book. Relegate Spartacus to a chapter in a book that deals with the period in which he played a role. Far too many "perhaps," "maybe" and "it's possible that" in this book. It gets to the point where Strauss can barely get a sentence in without qualifying it with one of those hedges. It gets distracting, annoying, show more and disheartening after a while.

But Spartacus is trendy these days, so I get why he wrote the book, and why the publishers gladly published it. show less

Inexplicably disappointing. In a previous review of author Barry Strauss’Salamis I noted the problem with reconstructing military actions from ancient sources; there just aren’t that many. Nobody on Spartacus’ side left anything in writing and most of the Roman accounts were written much later. Thus the Servile War lasted for two years, involved a Long March the length of Italy and back, included perhaps a dozen major battles, and next to nothing is known. There are only vague notions of where some of the battles were fought; in one case scholars put the possible locations 50 miles apart, and in another nothing is known except Spartacus was the victor in a large battle somewhere in Italy. There are no surviving representations of show more Spartacus (maybe; Strauss notes a wall painting – almost a graffito – in Pompeii that identifies a sketchily drawn horseman as “Spartak”). There’s a bust usually believed to be Marcus Licinius Crassus but even that’s uncertain.

In Salamis Strauss got around the lack of historical documentation with a variety of techniques – capsule biographies of the participants, discussions of the mechanics of oared naval warfare, etc. He does more or less the same thing in The Spartacus War but it doesn’t seem to work quite as well. It seems like none of the digressions are carried far enough to be insightful rather than distracting. Thus there’s a brief account of gladiatorial combat, a brief account of Roman slave economics, a brief account of legionary tactics, and so on; not enough detail to be interesting to a serious history student but enough to put off a lay reader. At the same time Strauss assumes familiarity with Roman history to the extent that the reader is expected to know about the Punic and Social wars.

There are maps of the Roman Empire, Italy, and Campania, which would be of much greater benefit if they included notations showing the tracks of Spartacus’ army and the locations – even if approximate – of the known battles. There are no footnotes; endnotes are by page number with no indications in the text. The references – presented as a list of suggested reading and organized by topic – are excellent and extensive. The writing style and overall presentation kept giving me the impression that this is a “young adult” book, and that might be a pretty good niche for it – but it isn’t marketed that way. Still, this might be a good gift for a middle school or high school student interested in Classical history, especially if they were inclined to do further digging on their own. show less

Who is Spartacus? How much do we really know and what is mere speculation?

Barry Strauss does a great job weaving personal accounts, questionable historical documentation, hearsay and theories into a riveting read. He introduces the reader to the life of Spartacus, as it may have been- how he ended up a gladiator and how the revolt played out. Unfortunately, when researching an event that happened over 2,000 years ago, historians do not always have a lot to go on and what documentation survives is taken with a grain of salt. Strauss does a commendable job pointing out what we know and what we think transpired.

The Spartacus War does a great job re-telling the tale that has grown into a legend, a story enjoyed by all walks of life. I show more would recommend it to anyone interested in the revolt spawned by Spartacus. As a history buff it kept me interested throughout! show less

Interesting read, a lot of it is speculation due to the lack of the primary sources that have come down to use about the war as well as differing accounts from the one we do have. So motives of Spartacus and such do have to be taken with a grain of salt but Strauss does present very plausible reasons for what Spartacus did. I would recommend it as a primer for someone interested in the war but doesn't want to tackle the primary documents but again with the caveat that motives are speculative.