BONUS: The Partial Historians Talk Spartacus, With A Rebel Yell

An episode of the Partial Historians podcast about Spartacus, because why not? Pre-order Dr Rad and Dr G's new book, Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire now! Find out more and listen to the Partial Historians here.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Oh hi, hello there, I didn't see you. This is
let's not go with miss Baby, but not really, because
today I am here with a little bit of a
bonus for you all because our good friends, the Partial Historians,
those wonderful Australian women who share all things Ancient Rome. Well,

(00:44):
not only do they have a new book coming out,
the title of which is Your Cheeky Guide to the
Roman Empire. I mean, come on, it sounds amazing. Not
only do they have that new book coming out, but
they have provided me with a little bit of a
bonus episode for you all. So this is an episode

(01:04):
of the Partial Historians talking about Spartacus, because I knew
you'd all want to hear about Spartacus and we love
the Partial Historians. So is it back and enjoy and
you should probably pre order Your Cheeky Guide to the
Roman Empire because I mean it sounds great. Find out

(01:28):
more in the episode's description.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Hello and welcome to a special bonus episode of the
Partial Historians, or perhaps that should just be the Partial Historian,
because it's just me doctor Rad flying solo today. Why
you may ask, Well, it may have a little something
to do with our new book, Doctor G and I

(02:08):
have been busy writing a little book called Your Cheeky
Guide to the Roman Empire, which at the time of
recording is available for pre order and will be due
out late in twenty twenty four. I believe November is
the auspicious month slated for release. And as it turns out,

(02:28):
we actually have a little bit of bonus content that's
going to accompany with this book. That's right, We've got
a whole section that's called with a Rebel Yell that
will be available on the Ulysses Press website for those
people who just can't get enough of ancient Rome. And
we thought it would be a little bit of a

(02:48):
treat for our listeners to hear us actually read out
this bonus material for our book, give you a bit
of an idea about what is in store for today,
and I get to be the lucky one who kicks
things off this time. I'm going to start with well,
to be honest, it's a place where you probably expect
me to start the chapter on Spartacus that we wrote.

(03:11):
So this is with a Rebel Yell, the man, the myth,
the legend, Spartacus. Let's kick this chapter off with a
bold statement Spartacus is the most famous rebel in Rome's history. Nowadays,

(03:35):
part of his fame may be down to the nineteen
sixty movies starring Kirk Douglas, The Man with a jaw
of marble and a chin cleft as deep as the
Grand Canyon. But where does his legend begin and why
did he become so notorious? Ancient Rome was a slave state.
Whilst we will never know for certain how many enslaved

(03:56):
people there were, there were a lot of them, and
they were everywhere. If you could afford it, you owned
a slave. The richy riches of the Roman world might
own hundreds. The state itself owned slaves. This meant that
it was quite common for enslaved people from all over
the known world to be living on alongside free people.
The Romans were aware that this could be risky. What

(04:20):
if your slaves abuse their insider access? What was stopping
them from murdering their owners? This sounds like a horror
movie in the making. The call is coming from inside
the house. This is all to say that the Romans
were always slightly on edge about the possibility of disobedient
or scarier still, rebellious slaves. They were allowed to dish

(04:45):
it out, but slaves were never supposed to retaliate. If
written histories can be believed, slaves have been part of
the fabric of Roman society since the regal period. However,
our records indicate that there were not that many lives
large scale slave rebellions, particularly after the fall of the Republic.
The reasons why are complicated, and if we ever want

(05:06):
to get to Spartacus, we will just have to accept
this and move on. In the late Republic there was
a series of slave uprisings in short succession. The first
two took place in Sicily, but the last originated on
the mainland, and the rebels were very close to Rome
itself at one point. This was the revolt led by Spartacus.

(05:48):
Spartacus is not an easy man to get to know.
This is not just because he liked to play hard
to get or work to cultivate a brooding masculine quality.
He just was not in portant enough to have much
recorded about him until he struck back in seventy three BCE.
Even after he did become significant, neither Spartacus nor his

(06:10):
followers thought to keep a detailed journal of their adventures,
or if they did it disappeared somewhere along the way,
a thoughtless service sight on their part. Footnote all jerks aside,
Slavery in the Roman world was a bit different to
the image of slavery that many may have from the
United States of America. There were no blanket laws about
enslaved people and literacy, probably because it was so impractical.

(06:34):
People could be enslaved for so many reasons and at
different stages of life. A common way to become enslaved
at this point in Rome's history would have been to
be taken prisoner in a war, so educated people were
just as vulnerable as the next in this scenario. In fact,
some enslaved persons were prized because of their high level
of education and were used for administrative persons in households

(06:58):
and even by the state. One of the most infamous
examples of this is Claudius and the various freedmen or
freed slaves he relied on during his rule as emperor.
Back to the narrative, we have to rely entirely on
pro Roman accounts to piece together the activities of the escapees.

(07:18):
Let's return to the origin of the whole shebang. We
know that it all began in a ludus or a
gladiatorial school in Capua. Capua was a prominent city with
its own amphitheater not too distant from Rome. Spartacus was
one of the gladiators and therefore a slave. How did
he wind up as a gladiator. There are indications that

(07:39):
he was originally from Thrace think Bulgaria, and he may
have served in an auxiliary unit for the Roman army
and deserted, perhaps making his living as a brigand until
he was apprehended. He could also have been a prisoner
of war. Thrace had a history of getting punchy with Rome.
Most shockingly, a fragment from m Varro claims that Spartacus

(08:01):
was an innocent man who nonetheless was sentenced to this
cruel fate. Whichever way you look at it, it was
not his choice to be in this ludus. Believe it
or not, some people did volunteer to become gladiators. Gladiators
held an interesting position in Roman society. Their feats in

(08:22):
the arena could win then admiration, but in terms of
the social pyramid, they were right at the bottom, alongside
sex workers. It was kind of a love hate relationship,
like how we all feel about the Kardashians. The Loutus
was owned by a Lanista named Lentulus Battiatis. This man

(08:42):
may have been particularly strict or cruel, and this provoked
a rebellion. But maybe being a gladiator was enough. Sure,
you might win some renown for your skills in the
arena and get decent medical treatment, but you were still
a slave in a spectacularly dangerous job at the end
of the You may not be forced to fight to
the death in this era, but serious injuries and infections

(09:06):
might still finish you off. The historian Appian records the
most interesting and relatable motivation Spartacus convinced the other gladiators
to fight for their freedom rather than the entertainment of others.
Was Spartacus a star of the arena who had managed
to evade death in numerous death defying jewels We don't know.

(09:27):
Blutarch's description implies that Spartacus and his fellow Eskpes were fighters,
not new recruits. But how experienced is anyone's guests to
be chosen as a gladiator. Spartacus was most likely still
a young man. It would not have made good business
sense to train a fifty year old gladiators did not
have easy access to the weapons they would have used

(09:48):
in fights. Spartacus and co. Had to break out of
the lootus using whatever they could grab in the kitchen
before they could secure more traditional weaponry. The rebels initially
numbered anywhere betw between thirty and two hundred, but most
sources agree that around seventy to eighty actually escaped. Yep,
those sources again time to make an important distinction. These

(10:10):
guys may have been rebels, but they were not a rabble.
They knew that they needed to introduce some organization into
this gaper. Three leaders were chosen, one of which was Spartacus,
the others being a gladiators named Onomaeus and Crixus. Here
is where we can finally introduce one of the most
intriguing details about Spartacus. He was married to a woman

(10:33):
from his tribe, and his wife escaped with him. Only
one source, Plutarch includes his detail about Spartacus's wife, but
a lot of adaptations of his story have latched onto
the hint of romance and run with it. And it
is romantic to imagine Spartacus and his wife managing to
stay together when they were sold to Battiatus and her

(10:54):
fighting for freedom by his side, very unusual, though the
Roman women's did not prioritize keeping families together where slavery
was concerned. Plutarch mentions her when relating a prophecy about Spartacus. Conveniently,
she was a prophetess and a follower of Dionysus, so
when a snake gave Spartacus's face a cuddle when he

(11:16):
was napping, she knew it meant he was destined for
great fortune and power. So this cuddle allegedly happened when
the two were up for sale in Rome, so it
must have seemed like wishful thinking at the time, although
people in the ancient world did take omens very seriously.
Unless this is all Plutarch's fantasy and a way to

(11:38):
foreshadow that Spartacus was no ordinary dude, but why erase
her from history? Women have had that happen too often,
so let's run wild with this main ad wife. In
to Spartacus and his followers managed to fend off some
Capuan soldiers who were sent after him. That might not
have been super hard for trained fighters. These guys may

(12:01):
have been more like army reserves. It's what they did
next that is pretty amazing. A force of three thousand men,
led by the praetor Claudius Labor, was dispatched from Rome.
The slaves took refuge on Mount Vesuvius, still over a
century away from the monster explosion that would devastate this area,
and it must have seemed to the Romans that they

(12:21):
were well and truly trapped. There was only one viable
way to descend from their refuge, so all the Romans
had to do was wait the lang on. Just a
dun second, Romans, this is Spartacus we're dealing with. He
may be just a slave to you, but the historian

(12:43):
Sallus praised him for his strength and courage. Even Plutarch,
a pro Roman source, said that Spartacus was quote possessed
not only of great courage and strength, but also in
sagacity and culture superior to his fortune, and more Hellenic
than Thracian. There is no higher compliment from a Greek

(13:05):
like Plutarch than to call someone kind of Greek being
exceedingly clever. The slaves fashioned rope ladders out of the
vines that grew on Vesuvius. They used these to lower
themselves and their weapons down in a location that was
not actually being surveiled by the Romans. This allowed the
rebels to catch the Romans by surprise and capture their army.

(13:27):
We know, we know, sounds like something out of a
bad action movie, right, Yet this story is attested in
multiple sources. We're leaning towards true for this one. The
slave army continued to defeat the Roman forces sent against them. Actually,
defeat does not quite capture it. They humiliated them. One

(13:50):
praetor Casinius was literally caught with his pants and everything
down as he indulged in a spot of bathing. From
the start, the rebels had attracted new followers in their travels.
The official term would be randous slaves, shepherds, even some
free people, but only the poor ones, the disenfranchised. All

(14:11):
of this success can only have made the prospect of
running away to join Spartacus more attractive. If what Appaian
says about Spartacus dividing booty equally amongst his followers is true,
this would only have increased the appeal. Spartacus also had
a certain strategic flare, perhaps combining what he knew of
both Thracian and Roman warfare. He didn't peak with the

(14:33):
vine ladders. Spartacus gets credited with trying to fashion a
proper army. His followers fashioned their own armor, shields, and weapons.
They captured horses and formed cavalry units. During one of
his earlier victories, Spartacus may even have captured some of
the insignia from the defeated Roman magistrate, such as the Fascus.

(14:55):
The Romans would have just collectively rolled over in their
graves if they did didn't prefer cremation. The camp was
guarded by sentries and organized regular patrols. The slaves once
managed to sneak away from their camp after propping dead
bodies up to look like their usual guards creepy. More disturbingly,
for contemporary audiences, Spartacus may have used captured Romans to

(15:19):
stage his own gladiatorial displays to honor his fallen comrades.
We may not love that last part, but we should
not delude ourselves into seeing the two sides here as
the goody versus the baddies. Most of Spartacus's followers would
have led tough lives, if not violent ones. Their pillaging
and plundering involved arson, theft, rape, and murder. Spartacus may

(15:40):
have crucified a prisoner as a warning of what might
fulfall them if they failed, killed people and animals that
were slowing down his movement, and forced others to fight
to the death. Let's just say few people in their
story would have been chosen as the spokesman for fabric SOFTNA.

(16:18):
What was the game plan here? This is where a
slave diary or two would really help us out. The
sources are conflicted about what the rebels were actually trying
to achieve in the long term. Perhaps we should look
no further than freedom, get out, get out of Atalia,
or this nightmarriage boot right. Now, that in itself is

(16:38):
an understandable goal for a bunch of ex slaves and
disaffected poor, But after a series of winds and an
influx of newbies, their plans may have started to change.
With thousands or perhaps tens of thousands of followers, a
unified goal was hard to achieve. Spartacus wanted to escape
from Italy, but we're told that most of the rebels
wanted to just ravage their way around the country. Or

(17:01):
is that classic Roman bias at play? How long could
their luck hold out if they remained The Romans had
not been too concerned at first by this small band
of renegade gladiators. Now their numbers had grown, and it
was not a good look for a collection of slaves
and peasants to be defeating a premiere power like Rome.

(17:21):
Spartacus himself was either an exceptional commander or very intent
on proving his wife right. Bless the Romans through the
consuls and yet more soldiers at the rebels. Whilst the
consul Gellius enjoyed some success against the Gallic Germanic contingent
which had split from Spartacus's crew, Spartacus himself remained undefeated.

(17:42):
It was time to call in the big guns, or
rather the deep pockets, enter Marcus. Like Kineus, Crassus, very ambitious,
very very wealthy, Crasus agreed to take charge of a
situation that had spiraled well out of control, even paying
for six fresh legions himself. It is thanks to Crasus

(18:04):
that we have one of our more detailed accounts of Spartacus.
He shows up in Plutarch's biography of Crassus, perhaps as
a way of showing Crassus up. Plutarch was not a fan.
At first, Crasus did not have much more luck than
those before him. He was so furious with the loss
he decimated part of his army. This literally means that

(18:25):
you kill every tenth man. In case you're wondering, no,
this was not a super common penalty. Crasus just had
that classic dilemma, how best to show my discleasure.

Speaker 1 (18:36):
With my troops.

Speaker 2 (18:38):
The decimation seems to have suitably scared the oatmeal out
of the soldiers, as Crasus's performance started to improve after
this rocky start. Unfortunately, this means that our hero star
was starting to flicker. With Crassus's forces on his tail.
Spartacus struck a deal with the Sletion pirates to transport

(18:59):
his followers to Sicily, which had a recent history of
slave revolts. Presumably Spardacus intended to stir up the old
troubles there. He never got the chance, as the Saltians
betrayed him yuh meaty. The slaves moved on to Reggiem
think the toe of the Boot, where Crassus quickly followed.

(19:19):
He ordered his men to build fortifications to try and
trap the rebels in the shoe. We hate to give
credit to the Romans here, but this was their vine
rope ladder moment. This barricade was wide, tall and long,
and involved a ditch. Although probably nowhere near as long
as Plutarch implies, it was definitely an obstacle and a
gigantic pain in Spardacus's ass Luckily, our slave commander still

(19:44):
had a few tricks up his sleeve. On a stormy,
snowy night, the slaves filled in part of the ditch
with sticks, earth and dead bodies yum and managed to
get across. There are hints of tensions within the slave
camp throughout their rebellion, starting with the supposed disagreements about
their goals. The fragmentary but early account from the historian

(20:06):
Sallust mentioned Spartacus begging his army to stop their violent
assaults on the people in the area, and them taking
exactly zero notice. At this later point in the war,
the division seemed to be manifesting itself physically, with the
rebels camping separately. There may have been practical reasons behind
this decision food supply, water, but it may have been

(20:29):
tied to the ethnicity of the slaves. Slaves and gladiators
would have been from a variety of backgrounds, and the
leaders on Amaeus Crixus, Canacus, and castors may have taken
charge of the people who shared their own culture. Camping apart, however,
exposed the slaves to more danger. Krixus had perished along
with many others when they fought without Spartacus after their

(20:53):
escape from Reggiem. Cresus took advantage of another split to
make an attack that probably would have been successful if
Spartacus hadn't arrived just in the nick of time. Canicus
and Cassas's following were less fortunate when the Romans launched
an assault on their detachments. Even with this loss, Spartacus's
contingent was still capable of dealing the Romans a devastating blow.

(21:16):
Plutarch paints this final victory as a turning point. Confidence
infected the slaves like a disease. They weren't willing to
play it safe and avoid battles. They weren't listening to
their leaders anymore. They were calling the shots. But their
next battle would be their last. There was an epic
final clash in seventy one BCE between the slave army

(21:39):
and Crassus's forces. The rebels did not prevail, and many
were slaughtered. Some of the survivors managed to flee into
the surrounding areas, but six thousand were taken prisoner and
crucified along the road from Capua to Rome. A grizzly
end and a strong warning of our valiant leader. Spartacus's

(22:03):
end is as murky as his beginning. We will never
know for sure what happened to him, but the sources
indicate that he perished during the battle. Plutarch provides the
most cinematic account of his last moments. Spartacus was trying
to fight his way through the malay to reach Crassus,
who was bravely putting his life on the line as well.
Two centurions tried to take him on, but Spartacus killed them,

(22:26):
continuing his quest to find the Roman commander. Gradually Spartacus's
comrades were slain or fled. He stood alone, surrounded by
his enemy. He fought them all to the bitter end,
until finally one of them dealt the fatal blow. Spartacus's
resistance was at an end. Rome obviously had more forces

(23:14):
at their disposal in a conflict like this, making the
slaves the underdogs. When you add in that tantalizing hint
from Viro that Spartacus should never have even been condemned
in the first place. Goose bumps, literal goose bumps. And
there's something many of us love about rooting for the underdogs,
especially when all they seem to want is something that

(23:36):
we now regard as fundamental freedom. If we come back
to the sizeable slave population in Italy, the possibility of
slaves everywhere uniting with Spartacus to fight, well, it sends
our imaginations a little wild, but the fact remains that
they didn't. Some slaves rallied behind Spartacus, but the majority

(23:57):
did not. Romans continued to own slaves and trained gladiators.
The system remained. Little had changed. The only way the
slaves could really have won was to evade recapture or death.
We can still see the genuine concern aroused by this rebellion.
The Romans sent increasingly higher ranking people to deal with Spartacus,

(24:18):
and when crisis had taken over, either he or the Senate,
probably the latter, sent for reinforcements in the form of
Pompy the Great and the Coulus. Even the positive comments
made about the slaves say something. For instance, they're bravery
in battle. The Romans go nuts for a soldier who
only gets wounded in the front. Spartacus is not universally demonized. Indeed,

(24:39):
he's even praised in some accounts. Did the pro Roman
accounts feel the knee to build their enemy into a
suitably impressive foe. We cannot be sure, and we certainly
don't want to take away any of the very real
accomplishments of these enslaved people. The Romans weren't the only
culture to faint at the feet of manly warriors. Nonetheless,
we do need to be wary, as the Greco Romans

(25:02):
were not averse to twisting the occasional detail to suit themselves,
and the rebels would never have been their main priority
in whatever story they were telling. Spartacus was gone, but
not forgotten. How could the Romans forget a man like this?
It challenged their understanding of the social order. That someone
with such a lowly pedigree could triumph against Roman forces,

(25:23):
a slave commanding an army against them, plundering villages, defeating pritles,
consuls and pro consuls, evading capture for years, rampaging through Italy,
even coming close to Rome itself. It shamed them deeply,

(25:44):
and their war against him continued to be referred to
for centuries to come. Does deep psychological trauma count as
a victory? We'd like to think so. From one perspective,
Spartacus's life was brutal and short. However, from another perspective,
his journey was epic. To quote Floris, the man who

(26:07):
from being a Thracian mercenary had become a soldier, and
from a soldier a deserter, then a highwayman, and finally,
thanks to his strength, a gladiator. If you'd like to
learn more about Spartacus, we suggest checking out Appian's account
of the Civil Wars, Plutarch's Life of Crasus, and of

(26:27):
course the wonderful collection of primary documents put together by
Beady Shaw Spartacus and the Slave Wars. Thank you so
much for spending some time with me today. I really
hope that you enjoy that little chapter that sneak preview

(26:50):
of your chihe Guide to the Roman Empire. A reminder
that is just bonus content. So if you want to
hear all the other wonderful stories that doctor G and
I have concocted for you, you will just have to make
sure you pick up a copy of our book. Until
next time, we are yours in ancient Rome,