221: Spartacus with Barry Strauss

00:01:41:03 – 00:02:09:00
Dan LeFebvre
If you were to take a step back and look at the classic 1960 movie Spartacus from an overall perspective and give it a letter grade for historical accuracy, what would it get?

00:02:09:16 – 00:02:10:25
Barry Strauss
Probably a B-minus.

00:02:11:16 – 00:02:13:25
Dan LeFebvre
That’s pretty good for a ’60s movie, I would imagine.

00:02:14:20 – 00:02:15:12
Barry Strauss
Yeah, it’s pretty good.

00:02:15:23 – 00:02:37:11
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. Now, at the very beginning of the movie, we find out that Spartacus came from the Greek province of three, which was conquered by the Romans. And it was sold into slavery before the age of 13. Worked in the minds of Libya. We’re kind of getting a backstory set up. Then we see a man named Lentils, potatoes, purchase a bunch of slaves.

00:02:37:11 – 00:02:42:19
Dan LeFebvre
Spartacus being one of them. He takes them back to his gladiator school in a state in Capua.

00:02:42:26 – 00:02:43:07
Barry Strauss
Yes.

00:02:43:12 – 00:02:49:13
Dan LeFebvre
How did the movie do? Setting up Spartacus, making this transition from slavery to becoming a gladiator?

00:02:49:21 – 00:03:11:18
Barry Strauss
Pretty quickly. So the movie is based on a novel from the 1950s by Howard Fast, and it’s a really, really interesting novel. Howard Fischer was called Before the House un-American Activities Committee, and he refused to name names. And so he did a small prison term, I guess no prison term, small prison. I think for a matter of months.

00:03:11:27 – 00:03:27:10
Barry Strauss
And he decided to write a book about Spartacus when he got out. And it did. And it’s really a very good novel. Whether he shares politics or not is quite a good novel, and that’s what the movie is based on. And the novel got a lot of things right, but it got some things wrong. And it’s a novel.

00:03:27:10 – 00:03:59:11
Barry Strauss
It’s not history. So he has authors license to Spartacus does indeed come from Thrace traces roughly modern Bulgaria, though it’s part of Greece, part of Turkey, and maybe part of Romania as well. And his people weren’t Greek. They were three nation and they were a rough and tough people, a warrior people, great hunters. Well, lots of gold. And Spartacus was not sold into slavery at the age of 13.

00:03:59:11 – 00:04:24:08
Barry Strauss
He can go work in the mines. He actually was a soldier and his tribe was allied with the Romans. They actually he was an ally of the Romans and he fought for the Romans. And he went as someone who fought for the Romans. He really had some allies in Greece, but most of the raiders were still independent, free.

00:04:24:19 – 00:04:50:05
Barry Strauss
And as someone in that position, he ate the sources. Give us two stories as to what might have happened. Either he deserts the Romans and he decides to fight against them on behalf the rest of the race that’s still independent or he is. While fighting for the Romans and an allied unit he’s captured by the enemy. He’s hoping that the Romans will ransom him and bring you back to freedom.

00:04:50:12 – 00:05:11:12
Barry Strauss
But instead, what they do is they actually bind him as a slave and send him off to Italy as a slave. Tremendously unjust. And I in either case, whether he was a deserter opposed to Roman imperialism or he was an ally who was abused by the Romans and not ransom to free him, he ends up a slave in Italy and he’s really bitter about what’s happened.

00:05:11:21 – 00:05:18:28
Dan LeFebvre
It was that something unique to his situation or was that something that the Romans often did, that they would buy them as slaves even though they weren’t?

00:05:18:28 – 00:05:29:10
Barry Strauss
Oh, well, many people in antiquity, especially in this period, they’re free and they end up in slavery. They’re either kidnaped or the prisoners of war. One way or another. They end up as slaves.

00:05:30:07 – 00:05:34:09
Dan LeFebvre
So not not necessarily unique. Like they had a grudge against Spartacus?

00:05:34:10 – 00:05:39:25
Barry Strauss
No, not at all. No. I think on the contrary, they didn’t treat him as a person. And I think that’s part of.

00:05:42:08 – 00:05:58:04
Dan LeFebvre
Now at the beginning of the movie. They do they don’t really mention a specific date, I should say. But in the opening monologue, it talks about, I’ll quote here, you know, in the last century, before the birth of the New faith called Christianity, I could see how it might be trying to set up, you know, before the birth of Christ.

00:05:58:04 – 00:06:17:13
Dan LeFebvre
But it also mentions Christianity. And the religion wasn’t necessarily born as crisis. So, you know, some suggest, you know, starting centuries later at the Council of Nicaea. Right. So is the left kind of confused with the way the movie opens with very vague mention of this sort of timeline? What time period was Spartacus alive in?

00:06:17:21 – 00:06:42:10
Barry Strauss
So Spartacus Spartacus Revolt lasts from 73 to 71 BCE or BCE, And so it is the last century before comedy or that’s when Spartacus lives. And we figure, figure that Spartacus just maybe about 30 at the time. So if you imagine him being born around the year 100 or so, 100 B.C., it’s about right.

00:06:42:24 – 00:06:57:12
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Okay. In the movie, there is a that I mentioned earlier, there’s that gladiator school. Yeah. We see another former slave named Marcellus. He’s training Spartacus. Now, were there really gladiator schools like that with former slave turned gladiators that are leading the training?

00:06:57:12 – 00:07:37:07
Barry Strauss
Absolutely, yes. There were gladiator schools and the center of gladiator schools was a city called Capua, located about 125 miles south of Rome. It’s inland from from Naples. And it had been a great city in Italy. It was allied, an enemy of Rome, conquered by Rome, allied with Rome, then rebelled against Rome. And one of the ways the Romans were punished, the people of Capua, after their rebellion, was they made them host these gladiator schools, which is not really something you wanted to have in your city because you didn’t want to have these schools that are full of tough young thugs who might break out and cause trouble.

00:07:37:23 – 00:07:41:03
Dan LeFebvre
Was that a common thing that they did break out? Often?

00:07:41:08 – 00:08:00:16
Barry Strauss
It’s a common thing that they could get. No, it’s not a common thing that they break out often, but it’s a common thing that they could get up to no good. I mean, they’re violent men and these gladiator barracks tend to have security around them, narrow entrances, high walls. It’s not really something you want in your neighborhood.

00:08:02:04 – 00:08:26:07
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. That that that makes sense is another concept that we see in the movie. While they’re at the gladiator school. They bring the women in. As movie puts, it’s for companionship for the men. I got the sense I saw this, you know, 1960s movie. We’re trying to soften up what the women are really used for. That’s how we get introduced to a woman named Virginia who gets paired with Spartacus.

00:08:26:07 – 00:08:38:20
Dan LeFebvre
And almost immediately the to establish what seems to be actual feelings for each other. Right. And not to get too far of the storyline she does end up later becoming Spartacus wife. Yes. Was Spartacus really married to Virginia?

00:08:39:14 – 00:09:01:06
Barry Strauss
Spartacus had a woman and in fact his wife, whether legal or by common law. But it was not beringia. So in the book, there’s this woman named Veronica and she comes from Britannia. No doubt that’s a way of appealing to an English speaking audience. Britannia had been co-opted by Rome yet, so that’s not very likely. Oh, she came from this race is woman came from three.

00:09:01:06 – 00:09:31:06
Barry Strauss
She was a Thracian just as she was, and probably she was his wife before she was with him in Rome when he was first sold into slavery at Fascinating Woman. She was a priestess of Dionysus who was the national of at Race and Dionysus, although he’s the god of wine, he’s also the God of liberation. And he is kind of a patron of rebels against Rome in Italy and around the Mediterranean.

00:09:31:13 – 00:09:55:18
Barry Strauss
Really interesting figure. And she was kind of the propagandist of Spartacus miserable. She said that when Spartacus was in Rome while he was sleeping, a snake wrapped itself around his head and she had a vision. This the sign, the snake meant that Spartacus would do great things, and he would either end up the very fortunate or very unfortunate fate.

00:09:55:26 – 00:10:19:21
Barry Strauss
Unfortunately, our manuscripts disagree. Some say it was fortunate, some say it was unfortunate. I worked with a herpetology as the college monitor mythologist who assured me there are no snakes in Italy then or now that would wrap themselves around sleeping man’s head. So this was meant to be a mirror and the snake was the symbol of Dionysus. So it’s another way to show that Spartacus had the gods on his side.

00:10:19:28 – 00:10:35:07
Barry Strauss
So not only does he have a woman and yes, the Romans did send women to gladiatorial barracks. They were for companionship. And as you say, that’s a 1960s euphemism. But he had a woman who was associated with him in the rebellion.

00:10:35:20 – 00:10:41:27
Dan LeFebvre
And it sounds like she went and she was with him before he was sold. That’s right. She was like she would have come at him.

00:10:42:03 – 00:10:49:17
Barry Strauss
Either she came with him from grace or she too, had been enslaved in a brace. And they met in Rome. It’s unclear. Unclear.

00:10:50:00 – 00:10:53:11
Dan LeFebvre
But it wasn’t like this was the first time at that. No gladiator school.

00:10:53:11 – 00:10:56:07
Barry Strauss
They didn’t know they were together before the gladiators.

00:10:56:23 – 00:11:08:21
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Yeah. I don’t remember the exact lines of dialog in the movie, but there was something that they mentioned. It was like, Oh, I’ve never been with a woman and that concept. So. Okay, it sounds like that was a little fudging there.

00:11:08:21 – 00:11:11:15
Barry Strauss
Yeah. Yeah.

00:11:11:15 – 00:11:34:21
Dan LeFebvre
According to the movie, the uprising itself starts because Crassus buys Virginia, right? And that means that she’s leaving the gladiator school. She’s going to Rome, and then Spartacus finds out and he attacks and kills the trainer. We talked about Marcellus, and then from there, the uprising grows and grows to where the slaves take over the entire states. And it’s pretty clear that it’s not going to stop there.

00:11:34:21 – 00:11:41:12
Dan LeFebvre
You know, you see them riding along the hillsides there. How well did the movie do showing how the uprising actually started?

00:11:41:19 – 00:11:44:13
Barry Strauss
I mean, not good in Israel.

00:11:44:24 – 00:11:46:08
Dan LeFebvre
Do I have that response?

00:11:47:19 – 00:12:13:05
Barry Strauss
So there is a. Crassus They were a big part of the story, but there’s no evidence that he was ever in this gladiatorial school. He wasn’t going to buy Spartacus. This woman. Why the revolt begins. We don’t really know, except that gladiators had good reason to revolt. We’ve excavated some gladiator cemeteries. The scientists have examined their their skeletons, and they tell us they had died of terrible wounds.

00:12:13:05 – 00:12:34:24
Barry Strauss
And many of them died very young. A gladiator doesn’t have a great lifespan ahead of him. And it’s understandable why some gladiators would just want to get out of there if they could. I think that many of the gladiators like Spartacus were were soldiers, and they knew how to fight. Spartacus is not just some guy picks up the sword.

00:12:35:03 – 00:13:01:20
Barry Strauss
He’s he’s a veteran of the Roman army and an allied unit. Well, precisely what he did, we don’t know. But the operations were famous as horsemen and as irregular, irregular warriors, Special ops commandos. You might think of them as or as guerrilla troops, along with brains. There were also Germans and Gauls in this barracks. There might have been other people as well, from other parts of the Roman Empire.

00:13:01:28 – 00:13:11:22
Barry Strauss
There might have been people from Africa, might be African was there might have been others from Asia, there might have been others from from different parts of Europe. We don’t really know.

00:13:12:14 – 00:13:23:14
Dan LeFebvre
With Spartacus having some military background there, it was that one of the reasons why he was kind of the leader, like people would look up to him if he was the one that had some sort of military background, maybe others didn’t.

00:13:24:02 – 00:13:44:11
Barry Strauss
Well, there are others with military backgrounds as well. And there were. That’s three leaders of revolt. But Spartacus is sort of number one. I think it’s because he was military. We have to speculate. Surely the fact that he has military background probably an officer has something to do with why he’s chosen. But I imagine this is somebody who has leadership skills, that he’s charismatic.

00:13:44:21 – 00:14:04:10
Barry Strauss
After all, he has a woman saying that the God, the God denies this is behind him. There’s been a miracle associated with him. I’m sure he’s a good speaker. We know for what happens in the revolt that he’s somebody of principle and vision, and he’s also is actually quite a good military commander. So I can think of all sorts of reasons why you chose him.

00:14:04:22 – 00:14:11:01
Barry Strauss
He was also a heavyweight gladiator, which means that he’s one big imposing guy and surely that’s part of it as well.

00:14:11:10 – 00:14:30:00
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, it makes sense. If we go back to the movie, the guy that I mentioned, Crassus, there’s there seems to be something going on between Crassus and Gracchus in the movie about these two senators in Rome, and they just seem bent on taking each other down. Can you give a little more historical context around these two Roman soldiers?

00:14:30:00 – 00:14:54:04
Barry Strauss
Sure. So Gracchus, there is there is. There’s an Iraqi brothers, but they’ve been dead for more than 50 years at this point. No, 50 years. There’s there’s no real gracchus around in this. There is a Crassus. Crassus is one of the leading senators, and he’s one of the most ambitious men in Rome. He is said to be the wealthiest man in Rome, and the old guard in the Senate distrusts him.

00:14:54:21 – 00:15:15:28
Barry Strauss
He really wants to have a great military command, make a name for himself, which is how the game was played in Rome in this period. But the Senate very much doesn’t want him to do that. They’re they’re opposed to him. So there is a Crassus. But and he is at odds with many in the Senate, but not with Gracchus.

00:15:15:28 – 00:15:23:13
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. So maybe maybe that was kind of a a composite character kind of show. Sure. The Senate process is sure. Sure.

00:15:23:17 – 00:15:28:24
Barry Strauss
But there’s no evidence that Crassus has anything to do with the Spartacus revolt in later on that.

00:15:28:24 – 00:15:36:17
Dan LeFebvre
Oh, okay. So okay. Yeah. Because yeah, in the movie we see like, yeah, he, he watches Spartacus fight. And so later on he recognizes, Oh.

00:15:36:21 – 00:15:47:15
Barry Strauss
No, nothing, nothing. Zero eight. Wow. Is it plausible that he could have done that? Yeah, sure he could have. Well, we have we have no reason to think that he did that.

00:15:48:09 – 00:16:09:04
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Okay. The plan that we see in the movie that Spartacus is trying to do is not really it’s an uprising, but he’s not really wanting to fight the Romans. He just wants to try to escape Italy. He wants to go to the seaport of realism, they say. And then from there he pays some solution. Pirates like 50 million to Turkey’s, which I’m not sure.

00:16:09:04 – 00:16:16:24
Dan LeFebvre
I mean, trying to equate that with money today might be difficult, but that’s for some 500 ships to take them all out of Italy, Right. To their homes.

00:16:16:25 – 00:16:17:05
Barry Strauss
Right.

00:16:17:06 – 00:16:18:02
Dan LeFebvre
Was that the plan?

00:16:19:01 – 00:16:44:16
Barry Strauss
Ultimately, it’s his plan, but it does look like in the beginning he does want to get revenge and he’s gathering a large number of slaves and maybe even some for free to his banner, to his cause. And they are looting Roman estates, wealthy farms and estates in the area around Naples, on the very fertile soil around Mount Vesuvius to begin with.

00:16:44:16 – 00:17:06:20
Barry Strauss
And then they head further south. They want to loot Roman territory. They want to get revenge on. ROMANS Ultimately, Spartacus, his plan is to lead Italy, but he has a hard time convincing his fellow rebels to do that because, well, it’s like what Willie Sutton said about why he robs banks, because that’s where the money was. Italy was this very wealthy place and a place to get revenge.

00:17:06:20 – 00:17:26:28
Barry Strauss
And they’re doing quite well, so they don’t want to leave. So many things surprised me when I when I researched this book. But one of the things that stands out is that early in the revolt, Spartacus and the rebels were cornered on Mount Vesuvius. This is a century or so before the eruption of the severe so desertion mountain.

00:17:27:17 – 00:17:54:17
Barry Strauss
And there’s only one road going down the mountains. The Romans have sent a a body of several thousand soldiers under a commander who closed off the route. And they think the rebels are finished. They underestimate the rebels make weapons, they make weaker shields from the vegetation there. They make years, they sharpen the end and they to harden them and fire.

00:17:54:22 – 00:18:13:26
Barry Strauss
And the amazing thing they do is they take their wild vines growing at the soonest that we’ve ropes out of them, and they were held down the mountainside rather than taking the road down. We don’t know what time of day this sap. I like to believe it was at dusk or in the predawn hours because they catch the Romans unaware.

00:18:14:17 – 00:18:38:12
Barry Strauss
The Romans are either literally or figuratively and figuratively sleeping. When Spartacus and his army come down the mat. And by the way, many of these weapons are made by women. We know there were women with them on the mountainside. So Spartacus and company come down the mountain and they slaughter this garrison of Roman troops. It really shocked the Romans as to what they can do.

00:18:38:12 – 00:18:53:02
Barry Strauss
I think it’s just a brilliant piece of irregular warfare and the fact that these rebel slaves and gladiators could do this, especially early on in their campaign, but they don’t have much experience. So it’s really what were the Romans? I would have been kind of afraid.

00:18:53:16 – 00:19:00:18
Dan LeFebvre
It seemed like that. Yeah, that would be a big Oh, wow. Okay. We’re underestimating these people quite a bit.

00:19:00:18 – 00:19:23:25
Barry Strauss
That’s right. Absolutely. And it would have been considering the movie came out in 1960. Well, I guess it was before Castro had succeeded in Cuba. But, you know, Hollywood should have been thinking about irregular warfare and rebellions and what what it could do, because this was the beginning of an era in which there being many of these rebellions around the world and, of course, culminating in Vietnam.

00:19:24:27 – 00:19:27:14
Barry Strauss
So interesting that the sequels.

00:19:27:27 – 00:19:49:01
Dan LeFebvre
That make sense. And something else, I was watching the movie today that kind of stood out to me was they mentioned I, I talked about earlier that Spartacus was sold into slavery at age 13. I think Virginia mentioned something similar. So and now they want to go home. But they didn’t really it’s like they didn’t really have much of a home to go back to because their whole life was what they knew.

00:19:49:01 – 00:19:50:02
Dan LeFebvre
There.

00:19:50:02 – 00:19:57:00
Barry Strauss
Yeah, except that’s not really true of Spartacus. Really have to go back to. He was enslaved as an adult.

00:19:57:05 – 00:20:18:19
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, except for that part, The movie explains the Roman strategy to try to defeat Spartacus. His army is they have. We don’t really see him, but they have Pompey and his legions at rigging. Well, while Roman fleet with of course, his army will land at the Newseum and Crassus is paid off the solution feet.

00:20:18:19 – 00:20:34:03
Dan LeFebvre
So they’re. They don’t have their ships anymore. They’re just kind of selling out to the highest bidder. And so in the movie, Spartacus feels like he has no choice but to go fight. Crassus His army in Rome. Was that really the strategy that the Romans had for defeating Spartacus, this uprising?

00:20:34:03 – 00:21:01:24
Barry Strauss
Not really that so the uprising last for three years. And when it begins, the Romans are in bad shape. They send most of their armies to put down rebellions east and west and Spain. And then what is nowadays? Turkey and also dealing with pirates in the east and around Cyprus, in Crete. And they don’t have great armies in Italy, they don’t have veterans, and there’s no police force to speak to.

00:21:02:04 – 00:21:31:17
Barry Strauss
So they have to put together a scratch army to fight Spartacus. And Spartacus wipes the floor, you know, he puts them right. Let and center. And Spartacus and his rebels are able to march south from central Italy all the way to the southern part of the Italian boot, where they winter, they take over a city. They winter. It’s an area that’s very fertile, agriculturally rather than luxurious and has lots and lots of Roman states and they’re happily looting them.

00:21:31:17 – 00:22:02:17
Barry Strauss
They build an army, they capture wild horses, they have a cavalry. They start raiding the men like Roman Legionaries. They’ve captured standards of programing allegiance, that is to say, banners and symbols of the legions, which they can rally behind, you know, their trophies to show how great they’ve done. And they also they’ve captured a lot of metal. They use it, melt down, they make weapons, they buy supplies from merchants who are happy to sell it to them.

00:22:03:02 – 00:22:27:12
Barry Strauss
So they’re building quite an army and the Romans are unable to defeat it with the forces that they have, which is why the Senate finally says to Crassus, okay, we will let you put together an army, because Crassus has the money and the political connections to convince better it’s to come out of retirement and to form an army that can finally defeat Spartacus.

00:22:27:12 – 00:22:29:15
Barry Strauss
It’s Spartacus is doing all too well.

00:22:29:29 – 00:22:51:07
Dan LeFebvre
What about in the movie? There was a concept of the the Roman Legion, and that was kind of the impression I got was, I think, when the uprising first started and they were the gladiator school, there were some soldiers there. But as he’s as he was escaping his own estates, you know, he’s like, I’m, you know, I’m going to get the Roman Legion to come and help.

00:22:51:14 – 00:23:06:00
Dan LeFebvre
You know, I don’t trust these guys basic I don’t trust my own guards. And so I got the impression that the Roman garrison, I guess I should say, I believe it was that was kind of the ones that were called on to deal with this. Was were they a part of it then?

00:23:06:18 – 00:23:30:13
Barry Strauss
Yeah. I mean, the Roman Roman soldiers in Italy, But it’s not the A-Team. The A-Team is a pawn. These are they’re not very good. They’re not experienced. They’re not the people that you want to put up against these rebel slaves. And of course, in the beginning, the Romans, like the masters in all slave societies, they looked down on their slaves and they say slaves are not capable of being soldiers.

00:23:30:25 – 00:24:01:14
Barry Strauss
The Romans paid dearly for their arrogance because led by 70 odd gladiators and many of these slaves were soldiers. They had been soldiers when they were enslaved, the P.O.W.s. Many of the slaves are shepherds. And it’s an odd thing about Roman slavery that they allowed shepherds to carry arms. The reason is that shepherds are out there in the mount for half of the year and there are bandits and there are wild animals and they have to protect themselves.

00:24:01:25 – 00:24:20:10
Barry Strauss
So the shepherds who are tough and hardy and armed are pretty good material to make soldiers. Spartacus is clearly and his, you know, his lieutenants, they’re really very good at forming an army. This army does wins a number of victories over the world up and down the Italian peninsula.

00:24:21:16 – 00:24:30:14
Dan LeFebvre
And you mentioned they did actually train them some, like the gladiators led training almost. We saw that in the movie, too. Like, yeah, they set up their own gladiator school almost.

00:24:30:20 – 00:24:50:24
Barry Strauss
Yeah. No, they’re not training them as gladiators are training the soldiers. Right. And they fight conventional battles against the Romans and they win. You know, on the one hand, this seems incredible. On the other hand, remember that a lot of these guys had been so they had some military training. There are nothing that will have that that they can work the others into being soldiers.

00:24:50:24 – 00:25:04:28
Barry Strauss
And they have to winters when there’s not much fighting going on, when they can do it only takes a couple of months to turn raw recruits into decent, just not veteran soldiers. And so they do this.

00:25:05:11 – 00:25:20:12
Dan LeFebvre
And there is a big battle at the end of the movie where we see the army slaves from Spartacus fighting against the Romans. Yes. And they seem to hold their own for a while. But ultimately, in the end, the Romans do win. How well did the movie do showing the defeat of Spartacus Army?

00:25:20:29 – 00:25:54:03
Barry Strauss
Well, to be honest, I don’t remember entirely that scene in the movie. What I do remember and everybody does is the famous Spartacus scene. But, you know, the movie does a good job. Movie is right in saying there is a climactic battle. There is a climactic battle. It is a Hollywood touch that really just isn’t historically accurate. I don’t recall that the movie gets this right or not, but in the Real Battle Spartacus, the strategy was, first of all, to make what political scientists call a credible commitment to show to his men that he was all men.

00:25:54:03 – 00:26:15:19
Barry Strauss
And he does that by slaughtering his horse. He sacrifices his horse before the battle, you know, cuts the horses to the right. It’s gruesome, but it says I had no escape. It’s all or nothing. And then knowing that he is outmanned by the Romans, because by now the Romans have the A-Team. You know, they do have recalled their legions and Crassus is not the new army.

00:26:16:04 – 00:26:35:29
Barry Strauss
They’re really capable of this. Any Spartacus. Spartacus. His plan is to cut off the head of the enemy army. He and a small group of men are aiming for cracks and the command center of this army. And they get close to crests. They actually, when it starts to do pretty well, but they never actually make it to him.

00:26:36:13 – 00:27:13:00
Barry Strauss
And here the movie is completely wrong. Spartacus dies in the battle of Oh, he’s killed in the battle and his body is never found. Furthermore, there are really three separate a number of different groups of rebels after the battle. Many of them are taken prisoner, which you talk about. What happens to them in a moment. Some of them run away to the mountains back in the south of Italy, where they had spent the two winters before, and they survive for another ten years in those mountains, living in the community of freeing runaway slaves before the Romans send legions down there, wipe them out.

00:27:13:00 – 00:27:36:13
Barry Strauss
A third group heads north, trying to escape through North Italy and ultimately over the Alps, but they are captured by Pompey. Rome’s greatest general in this period, who is on his way back to Italy from Spain. And Pompey slaughters several thousand of these surviving slaves and he sends a letter to the Senate saying, I defeated Spartacus, I put down a rebellion.

00:27:36:24 – 00:27:57:06
Dan LeFebvre
But some in the movie I don’t remember the exact line of dialog, but they do imply that when they capture them, they’re basically turning them back into slaves. That’s kind of what the impression was at first. Of course, we find out what happens later, but so. But they did. What did they do with the prisoners then? Did they turn them back into slaves?

00:27:58:02 – 00:28:24:06
Barry Strauss
Probably some of them. But the most famous and infamous thing that they do is they crucify 6000 along the road between Capua and Rome. It’s probably the Appian Way there. To Rome. To Rome. Let’s say it’s the Appian Way. And this is tremendously expensive to do. This is a slave society, and every slave is worth money. Every slave you kill, you’ve taken away someone’s money.

00:28:24:17 – 00:28:43:10
Barry Strauss
And the other thing that costs money, believe it or not, it actually costs money to set up 6000 crosses because you got you got to cut the wood. Only a man like Crassus who has the money to pay for this and perhaps to compensate the owners who lost their slaves could do something like this. Why does he do this?

00:28:43:23 – 00:29:06:15
Barry Strauss
For two reasons. One, he wants to advance his own agenda, is not allowed to celebrate a triumph in Rome, which every victorious war general wants to it. Why not? Because, according to Roman custom, you cannot celebrate a triumph over slaves. Because slaves are subdued. They’re not there. They’re not equal to Romans. It’s very, very big if you think about it.

00:29:06:27 – 00:29:34:27
Barry Strauss
The second reason that so by doing this, by having this spectacular display is advertising himself. Jerome In the end, it’s horrible to think about it, but in a way, it’s a show like a gladiatorial show. The other reason that he does it is more public spirited, if you will. He wants to advertise to everyone in Italy, don’t do this again, don’t have any more slave rebellions, because if you do, this is how you will end up.

00:29:36:00 – 00:29:38:03
Barry Strauss
So that’s those are the two reasons why he does it.

00:29:39:08 – 00:29:51:25
Dan LeFebvre
Do we know if that was something that he was kind of planning throughout to for his point? Or when you mentioned with Pompey taking over or taking some of the credit for it, was he trying to pull some of that credit back to himself?

00:29:51:27 – 00:30:03:22
Barry Strauss
That’s a really good question. We don’t know when he came up with this plan, but it’s a reasonable thought to say that Crassus is trying to respond to Pompey by getting some of the credit for himself.

00:30:04:24 – 00:30:21:03
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Well, then I guess in the next part in the movie, I’m going to assume this is pretty much made up because we at the end we do see Spartacus, who he said had already died, but he’s fighting Antoninus right there being force like, okay, you fight each other. And then the one that wins will be crucified with the other slaves.

00:30:21:27 – 00:30:22:25
Barry Strauss
Yeah, that’s all made.

00:30:23:23 – 00:30:35:20
Dan LeFebvre
All made up body Yeah. And then, of course, you know, the very last scene you see Virginia with their baby son. Yeah. Yeah. And he’ll remember Spartacus. That’s. That just sounds like a very Hollywood ending. Be in the.

00:30:35:20 – 00:30:43:24
Barry Strauss
Book, as I recall. But but yeah. Or Hollywood ending. It’s not reality. Spartacus died in the battle against Crassus, and as they said, his body was never found.

00:30:44:15 – 00:30:51:02
Dan LeFebvre
How old did the movie do? Kind of overall transporting us back to the sights and sounds that we might have seen during Spartacus his time?

00:30:51:13 – 00:31:11:16
Barry Strauss
Well, it did some good things, I think. You know, first of all, Rome was a slave society, you know, one of the most brutal and what shall I say, large scale slave societies in history. And the movie does a good job showing that. And Gladiator editorial games were very brutal. One does a good job of showing that as well.

00:31:11:24 – 00:31:34:07
Barry Strauss
The gladiators did not take their fate lying down. They were unhappy about it. You remember this one scene where Woody strode the black Gladiator in the movie? I forget his name, the movie he tries to kill the Romans who are watching his performance and he gets killed in Turin. But I think that degree of anger is absolutely right.

00:31:34:14 – 00:31:56:21
Barry Strauss
Spartacus led the most famous and most dangerous slave revolt against Rome. But it wasn’t the only slave revolt against Rome. There were two other really big selling robes against Rome in the 50 years or so before Spartacus, and there were some smaller ones as well. So I think the movie does a good job of that and some of the arrogance and brutality just crap.

00:31:56:24 – 00:32:00:12
Barry Strauss
The arrogance of the Roman elite comes out as well.

00:32:00:22 – 00:32:19:24
Dan LeFebvre
I mean, the impression I get from what you’re saying there is that because Rome was the big power and then they don’t see the slaves as as being equals, then it doesn’t really matter what size army it is, There’s no way that they could do that. And so some of that arrogance just, I’m sure, fed into the losses that they had.

00:32:19:24 – 00:32:41:27
Barry Strauss
Right. And this is also sort of the golden age of the Roman slave trade. So later on in the Roman Empire, there’s still trapped, there’s still slavery submerged centuries before as it fades away to reflect, be replaced with a kind of serfdom. But in in later years, most of the slaves are household slaves or bought with in Italy.

00:32:42:06 – 00:33:04:17
Barry Strauss
In this period, Rome is conquering peoples all around the Mediterranean and in northern Europe, and they are kidnaping and deporting hundreds of thousands of people who end up in slavery in Italy. And many of them had been free and many of them were educated, they were sophisticated people, they had a lot of resources. They weren’t going to take this lying down.

00:33:05:03 – 00:33:13:20
Barry Strauss
So slaves are relatively cheap in this period because the Romans are getting them everywhere. But they’re also dangerous because they had they knew what it was like to be free.

00:33:14:09 – 00:33:41:01
Dan LeFebvre
I want to ask about something that is kind of an underlying tone that we see in the movie. We mentioned I mentioned earlier Gracchus. Obviously, we we talked about him already, but there’s this balance of power that seems to shift and it really is highlighted, I think kind of towards the end when we see a young Julius Caesar switching allegiances from Gracchus to Crassus, where we see the it seems like the uprising is is kind of used to alter who was in power in Rome.

00:33:41:01 – 00:33:49:00
Dan LeFebvre
And at the end Crassus ends up on top. Was that used as a tool to kind of shift to where Crassus had even more power coming out of it?

00:33:49:17 – 00:34:14:29
Barry Strauss
Yes, I think that Crassus did gain political power and recognition from his role, and by done Spartacus. This was a feather in his cap. But he must have been furious by the fact that Pompey manages to grab some of the credit. Ultimately, you know, the real currency of the realm coin of the realm was victory over following some free people.

00:34:14:29 – 00:34:36:29
Barry Strauss
The Romans can say that they defeated and Pompey had that he would gain even more of it after this revolt. Crassus doesn’t. And so he gained some credit from Spartacus putting down Spartacus, but he’s not in a league with Pompey is celebrating triumphs. And so this is a nice stepping stone for Crassus, but it’s not going to be enough.

00:34:36:29 – 00:34:54:04
Barry Strauss
And in fact, he ends his life trying to defeat the Persian Empire called the Parthian Empire. It’s a battle that takes place in what is today, Turkey near the Syrian border. And Crassus is his army is crushed and he’s killed. So he fails. That’s really what his name.

00:34:55:24 – 00:35:02:06
Dan LeFebvre
Was, Caesar involved in in any of that at all, or was he just kind of thrown in there as a because we recognized his name?

00:35:02:18 – 00:35:28:19
Barry Strauss
No, it’s really interesting. And we knew that Caesar held a sort of a low level officer position at the time of the revolt. And we also knew that in Caesar’s Gallic War, Caesar was giving a speech to the troops and at one point the troops are afraid of fighting Germans. And Caesar says, Don’t be afraid of them. We defeated people like that in a slave revolt in Italy or frankly, Spartacus.

00:35:28:23 – 00:35:40:09
Barry Strauss
All that might mean that Caesar was part of the team that put down the revolt, but we were really not sure. We’re not sure of that. But it’s a reasonable it’s a reasonable guess.

00:35:41:03 – 00:35:58:07
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Okay. Well, thank you so much for coming on to chat about Spartacus. For listeners who want to learn more in the show notes for this episode, I’ll make sure to put a link to your fantastic book called The Spartacus War. You also have your own podcast, first newsletter. I’ll make sure to add those links to the show notes for this episode as well so people can sign up for email updates.

00:35:58:17 – 00:36:11:22
Dan LeFebvre
And then of course, there’s your latest book called The War that made the Roman Empire, Antony Cleopatra and a TV and a Actium. Before I let you go, can you share a little bit about your new book and your website where people can find all your work?

00:36:12:29 – 00:36:46:28
Barry Strauss
Sure. Well, my new book is once again, There’s a Hollywood angle, Antony and Cleopatra. There is the infamous 1962, I think it is Hollywood Epic and Bond, Cleopatra. And watch Elizabeth Taylor play Cleopatra and Richard Burton played Mark Antony. There’s also Shakespeare’s play, of course, Antony and Cleopatra. And there’s the real historical reality. It is one of the greatest challenges that Rome ever faced was in Cleopatra, the Queen of Egypt.

00:36:47:09 – 00:37:15:21
Barry Strauss
Once again, it’s not fiction. It is a real life story and a real life with her. And she wasn’t just a sexpot. She was a strategic, talented, cunning ruler in a league with, you know, Catherine the Great or Elizabeth, the first of England or the late Queen Elizabeth as well. She was a great female ruler. And with her alliance with Mark Anthony, she forced the Roman Empire to fight for its future.

00:37:15:21 – 00:37:42:09
Barry Strauss
And in the Actium war, which took place mostly in on the West to Greece and culminating the great naval battle at Actium, it was Antony and Cleopatra versus the forces of Caucasian as to who would control the Roman Empire or whether the Empire would phase eastward as it did face West. If the battle had gone the other way, we might be speaking a language based on Greek than a language based on Latin.

00:37:42:09 – 00:38:04:03
Barry Strauss
So there’s a lot at stake. And the book is a detective story, a historical detective story, piecing together what really happened. As in the case of Spartacus, the sources are terrible and they’re very biased. We have to read between the lines. Use archeology. We got more archeology for this than the Spartacus. But I had a blast doing it, and I.

00:38:04:13 – 00:38:29:20
Barry Strauss
I think readers enjoy it as well. My website is barrystrauss.com and I post all my latest things there. I blog once every two weeks. I update my blog, I do many podcasts. I have my own podcast series, I write op ads, all sorts of things. So and you can read all about my books. I have a variety of books on the ancient world.

00:38:29:20 – 00:38:32:04
Barry Strauss
There is all available of barrystrauss.com.

00:38:32:24 – 00:38:34:25
Dan LeFebvre
Fantastic. Thank you again so much for your time, Barry.

00:38:34:25 – 00:38:47:06
Barry Strauss
Thanks, Dan.