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On the Spartacus Road: a spectacular journey through Ancient Italy (2010)

by Peter Stothard

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1164236,003 (3.41)11
In this inspiring and original book, former editor of The Times, Sir Peter Stothard, re-traces the journey taken by Spartacus and his army of rebels. In the final century of the first Roman Republic an army of slaves brought a peculiar terror to the people of Italy. Its leaders were gladiators. Its purpose was incomprehensible. Its success was unprecedented. The Spartacus Road is the route along which this rebel army outfought the Roman legions between 73 and 71 BC, bringing both fears and hopes that have never wholly left the modern mind. It is a road that stretches through 2,000 miles of Italian countryside and out into 2,000 years of world history. In this inspiring and original memoir, the former editor of The Times, Peter Stothard, takes us on an extraordinary journey. The result is a book like none other - at once a journalist's notebook, a classicist's celebration, a survivor's record of a near fatal cancer and the history of a unique and brutal war. As he travels along the Spartacus road - through the ruins of Capua to Vesuvius and the lost Greek cities of the Italian south - Stothard's prose illuminates conflicting memories of times ancient and modern, the simultaneously foreign and familiar, one of the greatest stories of all ages. Sweepingly erudite and strikingly personal, On the Spartacus Road is non-fiction writing of the highest order.… (more)
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Showing 4 of 4
Interesting prose with erudite elocution, personal battle with cancer, and a travelogue about Spartacus.
  gmicksmith | Jun 22, 2018 |
The author retraces Spartacus's route round Italy as far as it is known, with musings about his brush with cancer and the people he meets on the way as well as the ancient authors who mention Spartacus, however glancingly.

This just didn't gel for me. If it hadn't been a bookclub choice I doubt if I'd finished it. ( )
  Robertgreaves | Oct 8, 2016 |
Running low on (paper) reading material, I selected this from the English-language section of a bookstore in Rome. Stothard is or was a journalist who presumably wrote for a living, but you'd never know from this. Uncertain in its structure, needlessly roundabout in its syntax, rambling in narrative, this book annoyed me so much I read Economist and Outside magazines instead of this book on a plane and left it, 2/3 unread, in an airport.
  ljhliesl | May 21, 2013 |
Another book that I really wanted to love. And yet, I couldn't quite come to grips with it. Peter Stothard, editor of the TLS and renowned classicist attempts to trace the steps of the famous Thracian gladiator about whom very little is really known. And so he wanders around the backroads bringing to life now obscure towns and regions. But for me I couldn't quite grasp the thread of the narrative, couldn't quite bring the ancient world to life. So I came away a little disappointed. But I would still recommend it ( )
  Opinionated | Mar 3, 2013 |
Showing 4 of 4
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In this inspiring and original book, former editor of The Times, Sir Peter Stothard, re-traces the journey taken by Spartacus and his army of rebels. In the final century of the first Roman Republic an army of slaves brought a peculiar terror to the people of Italy. Its leaders were gladiators. Its purpose was incomprehensible. Its success was unprecedented. The Spartacus Road is the route along which this rebel army outfought the Roman legions between 73 and 71 BC, bringing both fears and hopes that have never wholly left the modern mind. It is a road that stretches through 2,000 miles of Italian countryside and out into 2,000 years of world history. In this inspiring and original memoir, the former editor of The Times, Peter Stothard, takes us on an extraordinary journey. The result is a book like none other - at once a journalist's notebook, a classicist's celebration, a survivor's record of a near fatal cancer and the history of a unique and brutal war. As he travels along the Spartacus road - through the ruins of Capua to Vesuvius and the lost Greek cities of the Italian south - Stothard's prose illuminates conflicting memories of times ancient and modern, the simultaneously foreign and familiar, one of the greatest stories of all ages. Sweepingly erudite and strikingly personal, On the Spartacus Road is non-fiction writing of the highest order.

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In this inspiring and original book, former editor of The Times, Sir Peter Stothard, re-traces the journey taken by Spartacus and his army of rebels.

In the final century of the first Roman Republic an army of slaves brought a peculiar terror to the people of Italy. Its leaders were gladiators. Its purpose was incomprehensible. Its success was unprecedented.

The Spartacus Road is the route along which this rebel army outfought the Roman legions between 73 and 71 BC, bringing both fears and hopes that have never wholly left the modern mind. It is a road that stretches through 2,000 miles of Italian countryside and out into 2,000 years of world history.

In this inspiring and original memoir, the former editor of The Times, Peter Stothard, takes us on an extraordinary journey. The result is a book like none other – at once a journalist’s notebook, a classicist’s celebration, a survivor’s record of a near fatal cancer and the history of a unique and brutal war.

As he travels along the Spartacus road – through the ruins of Capua to Vesuvius and the lost Greek cities of the Italian south – Stothard’s prose illuminates conflicting memories of times ancient and modern, the simultaneously foreign and familiar, one of the greatest stories of all ages. Sweepingly erudite and strikingly personal, On the Spartacus Road is non-fiction writing of the highest order. [ https://www.amazon.co.uk/Spartacus-Roa... ]
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