November 20, 2024 • 52 mins
Spartacus was a real dude. He led a slave revolt, and was pretty successful to boot. I'm Spartacus. You're Spartacus. We are all Spartacus.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of Iheartradios
How Stuff Works.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
Charles w Chuck Bryan over there. It's just the two
of us. So that's okay because you're here, dear listener,
insert your first name after that, and.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
This is Stuff you should That's right, Stanley Kubrick edition
sort of.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
I went to go watch that last night. Oh yeah,
and then I was like, wait, I think that's really long.
So I looked up the run time. I was like,
I'm not watching this, so I've yet to see it.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Yeah, watch Paths of Glory instead.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
What was that? Is that the one about Barry Lindon?
Speaker 3 (00:48):
No, that was Barry Lindon. That's great too, But if
you're gunning for early Kubrick, I would say Killer's Kiss
if you want to go super early. And then of Glory,
which is the other one he did with Kirk Douglas,
the World War One trench warfare film.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
That's great, okay.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
And Barry Lindon, which is just a masterpiece, wasn't that,
Ryan O'Neill, Yeah, boy, it's good.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yeah, he's one of my favorite movies of all time
Paper Moon.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
That's right, and one of my favorite movies. The main
event what was that? It was a rom com he
did as he played a boxer opposite barbar Streisand.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Was she a boxer?
Speaker 3 (01:28):
No?
Speaker 4 (01:28):
Okay, it was.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
It was not great. I mean it was fine. It
was one of the seventies rom coms, gotcha, but not
one of my favorite movies by any stretch.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Speaking of rom comms, but minus the rom part and
just the calm heavy on the colm. Have you seen
Eliza this Lessingers sketch show on Netflix?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
No, it is very good. How do I know that name?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
She's she's gotten pretty big as a stand up in
the last couple of years. She If you haven't discovered
her yet, you're welcome. She's really great.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
I'm looking her up now, which is something I don't
normally do. I don't think I recognize her.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Okay, Well, she's got some stand up specials that are
definitely worth watching. And then she just debuted a season
of a sketch comedy show that's pretty good, definitely worth seeing.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
I have to check that out.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Ryan O'Neill's not in it yet, but like I said,
it's just one season.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
We want to shout out Live Science. By the way,
we used house stuff Works article on Spartacus in this
great Live Science article on Spartacus, the real Spartacus, not
Kirk Douglas.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
I also read an article from a guy named Kenneth
Spartacus Kenneth p check cz Eh like check the Czech Republic.
I guess, okay, maybe that's where his family's from. Who knows,
but he wrote an article back in the nineties about
Spartacus that was very exhaustive, that was helpful. And then
(02:55):
there's also a historian named Barry Strauss who I read
some like interviews articles from him too. He's a bit
of a specialist on Spartacus, so shout out to those
cats as well.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Yeah, so the story is Spartacus. If you've watched this
the Kubrick film, it is not. I mean, there are
bits of truth in there, but it's definitely not some
real truthful biopic of his life. Good movie, But we're
going to give you the real story of Spartacus's life,
which is that of a and the leader of an
(03:28):
uprising of slaves who said, Rome, We're not going to
take it anymore.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
No, we ain't going to take it that's right, we're
not going to take it.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
It was the original title.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
I think we met that guy. We well, actually we
passed that guy backstage once remembers, right.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
What show was that?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Whatever show?
Speaker 3 (03:52):
I think it was Jeff Brops, wouldn't it?
Speaker 4 (03:54):
No?
Speaker 2 (03:54):
No, No, it was the whatever show with?
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Oh was it with? Was that Martha Stewart's daughter?
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yeah, but she has a first name, Alexis, Alexis and Jennifer, right.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Jennifer and Alexis. Wow. Yes, Remember we were on TV
every now and then.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Yeah, we would be on that. We were on Jeff Propes.
Do you remember the Jeff Probe show. He was interviewing
us and he zoned out so hard. I almost said like, Jeff,
are you okay while we were talking.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Yeah, and we used to occasionally we'd be on CNN.
They would have us on to do like talking head stuff. Yes,
and then yes, uh, everyone just sort of stopped caring
about us. We got really well, we got really popular podcasting. Yeah,
and they just all said, huh, well, whatever, we don't
need those guys.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Yeah that's okay, though.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
No, I don't want to be on CNN or any
news network.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Well, yeah, we were on the solid Ed O'Brien show.
We were interviewed by Christine Romans. She's like super legit journalist.
It was pretty neat, so is Jeff props right. The
tribe has spoken, yep, and they who else? Isn't that
what he said? The tribe is spoken? Yeah? And then
he'd set that candle. He'd kick you in the seat
(05:06):
of your pants on the way out.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
And you would think, God, because what a relief to
be kicked off that garbage show.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Man. It was good the first season or two.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
I think.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
I think I did watch the first couple of seasons,
but you know, I'm not gonna yuck someone's yell. There's
probably still Survivor shows going on.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Oh oh no, there are they. I think the most recent
season they brought together like past champions or past people
who got kicked off one of the two and said
who's going to win this time?
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Yeah? I don't do. The only one I do like
that is Top Chef, which has still maintained its integrity
after all these years and never became dumb. And then
for a little while I did that. Discovery had a
show I cannot remember the name of it where it
was like a post apocalyptic scenario where they would put
people in this area and like accasionally they would send
(06:01):
in these mad Max type people to mess with them
and take their stuff, and they had to build things
and defend themselves. God, what was that called? It was
really awful.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Were the people naked, because I can tell you the
name of the show if they were naked.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
I have watched more than one episode of Naked and
Afraid I haven't.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Did they just like like blur out their their the
parts of their bathing suit covers.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
No, they're completely naked and it's just shows dong out
the whole.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Time, like the Voyage or Golden Record.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Is blurred out. And the kind of the first thing
that the ladies do is fashion some sort of eve
like covering on her on her bits. And the men
either do that or they're just like, hey, whatever, he's
the guy at the gym that has a towel like
over his shoulder but not around his waist.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Oh yeah, that guy, that guy wearing tennis shoes with
no socks.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Yes, AKA men who were proud of their Jeni dong out.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
So I'm guessing Spartacus is probably dong out.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Oh sure he was.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Where are we back to Spartacus. Now you think, yeah, okay,
so Spartacus was this guy who everyone knows the name of,
and you may even know that he was a gladiator.
Maybe you know that he led a slavery volt. But
this guy was really nuanced, really detailed, and actually, even
after a couple thousand years of history analysis, you know,
(07:33):
falling in and out of favor of different cultures that
come and go, he stands the test of time pretty well,
even after being draped in you know, a lot of
people's hang ups and like, you know, held up as
a prime example of the ideals of whatever group are
revering him. Like, even after you strip all that stuff
(07:54):
away and look at the historical figure, he was still
a pretty pretty interesting and kind an upstanding guy as
far as leaders of slaver volts go.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
That's right, and that's a good way to put it.
He was a Thracian, which means he is from Thrace.
We don't know a ton about his early life because
they just didn't bother recording the history of nobody slaves
in ancient Rome. Why would they. It took him to
do remarkable things for historians to take notice. With their
(08:28):
quill and paper and the Romans at the time. This
was an area the Thrace was in southeast Europe where
they were always trying to subjugate this area of Europe
and first century BC, and it was just it was
just not a good scene if you weren't sort of
upper echelon Roman at the time.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
No, and Thrace was. I get the impression that it
was not really one to live under Roman yoke. But
I think I also have the impression that they were
they were in league with the Romans, but it was
kind of like one of those you know, we can
either we can either be an ally of yours or
you can conquer us kind of thing, And so I
(09:13):
think there was a bit of a tense truce and
there was a U I don't I don't think any
contemporary text about Spartakiss is still around today. Most of
the earliest stuff we know about him comes from at
the earliest the first century CE, and he was living
in the last century or the first century BCE, so
(09:36):
people were writing about him one hundred and two hundred
years later. But one of the early one of those
old texts says that he wasn't born a slave and
that he actually was a Thracian soldier who was an
ally who worked in the auxiliary or fought in the
auxiliary for Rome. So he was a soldier under Roman
(09:57):
command at some point, and they think that that he
was drummed out of the army for some reason unjustly,
this ancient author says, and that that kind of led
on this path to him becoming a bandit and a criminal.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Yeah, he was like the guy in the new Star
Wars movies, which one, which one, the guy that was
a stormtrooper and then said, you know what, I'm not
a stormtrooper anymore. I want to kill stormtroopers.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Okay, I haven't I've seen the The Last Jedi one.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Yeah, that's one.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Okay, So but that was a that was like a
side story, right, that wasn't one of the actual canon.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
No, So the Last Jedi was they made three main
ones a part of the cannon and then of Star
Wars fans, you have words for all these things. Rogue
one was the one that was outside, and then the
Han solo movie was outside and not outside canon, just
not part of the whatever that those movies.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
So Rogue one is the one I'm thinking of that
was really good.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Yeah, I enjoyed that one quite a bit.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
The other ones, I don't think I've been able to
make it through a single one yet.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Oh yeah, yeah, I like them, but they're Star Wars movies.
I don't expect greatness. I just think they're kind of fun.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Yeah, I mean I love the first three.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Yeah, sure, but not.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
The first three sequentially. You know the first three that
were released.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Ever you liked one through three sequentially or not sequinchally?
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Yeah, good god, I'm talking about a pan of menace. Yeah,
is the best of the bunch.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
All right. So he's like the stormtrooper guy in these
new movies that is no longer a stormtrooper and wants
to kill stormtroopers. He gets captured at one point, and
he gets sold into slavery in Rome. And then there
was this man that I love. This article says a
man referred to at times as Vaca. Right, I guess
(11:49):
that's his name, or maybe he just had a bunch
of names. But the upshot is this guy had a
gladiator school in Capua, about one hundred and twenty miles
southeast of Rome, and that's where Spartacus was sent to
train to be a gladiator.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Yes, in Hawaii, right, and I.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Feel like we should take a break and get our
Star Wars back straight and come back.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
Oh goodness, okay, all right, we'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
So when we left off, Chuck Boba Fett had left
the Army. You know, I'm not even gonna do that
to us.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Have you watched Mandalorian?
Speaker 2 (12:51):
No, huh, it's good, the one with Amy Sedaris.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Uh? Yeah, she is the Mandalorian.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
She's in it though she gets to like hang out
with baby Yoda.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
I think, no, it's she isn't it. And it's a
you know, I love seeing her in anything, but it
does take me out of the moment just a bit.
But it's a fun show. It's kind of like the
A Team. You'd like it?
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Oh well yeah, I probably would like it.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Then it's like a week to Adventure of the Week
type of thing.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Okay, cool, Yeah I might. I might actually check that out.
I've been looking for something new. I started Ozark and
I'm like, man, this is really dark.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Yeah, where are you now?
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Fifth episode? I think of season one?
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Oh okay, she did burn through season one or anything.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
No, I've been taking it slow.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
I don't like that.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Yeah, I mean, you've been taken in small doses here
or there.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Yeah, I think I'm through like the first four of
the latest season.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
And by the way, correction, I think I said it
was like Heartwell, it is like Alatuna.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Oh, Okay, that makes way more sense because I was thinking,
is that Alatuna?
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Yeah, Alatuna's you know where Alatuona is? Hardwell's youphord Damn is, Yeah,
Alatoon or Heartwell's up near South Carolina. It's not the
same lake.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Yeah, because I have friends, We have friends who have
a place on Heartwell. And I was like, I don't
recognize it. But then I thought I probably wouldn't recognize
this about any lake, so I just kind of went
with Heartwell it's fine or yeah, you know that from
what I learned, there was no such thing as a
natural lake in the state of Georgia.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
It's right. They're all and most of them are from
the Georgia Power Company.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
It's so creepy to me sometimes too, when you're swimming
in a lake, if you start thinking about what's beneath
your feet, it makes you want to get back on
the boat.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Sometimes you mean like a former town.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Yeah town or the woods or something. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Car oh, well, oh man, why do we get so
off track?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Okay, so we're talking about Sparta because who has he
left or was drummed out of the army, became a
bandit is captured and when he's captured, he's taken to
that gladiator school that you talked about by a man
sometimes called this sometimes referred to as Vadia. And the
(15:07):
thing about gladiators is thanks to movies like Gladiator or
I don't know, other movies about gladiators, Airplane, the original Airplane, right,
we have this conception of gladiators is kind of like
this awesome thing. But if you were living in Rome
around the turn of the last two millennia ago, you
(15:31):
did not think of gladiators very highly. There were some
that rose to incredible prominence, like the rock stars, sports
heroes all mixed together of today. A gladiator could rise
to that level, but it was incredibly rare. For the
most part, they were criminals, prisoners of war, slaves, and
(15:52):
they were considered the lowliest of the low where the
owner their owner in this case Vadia, who owned Sparta
kiss I basically said the only way for me to
make money off of you is to make you fight
for these gladiator battles and either bet on you or
(16:13):
license you or something like that, and that was it.
But you were like as far as the even the
cast of slaves went, you were at the bottom. If
you were a gladiator.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Yeah, and you know gladiators, if you've seen the movies,
it's almost always depicted as a fight to the death.
That's not necessarily the case. You could kind of tap
out or if they drew blood, sometimes that would be
the end. But if they drew blood that might also
be the end of view pre antibiotics. Either way, you
might end up dead, but it wasn't necessarily always a
(16:44):
fight to the death. And like you said, sometimes they
would if you were a great gladiator and a great warrior.
They didn't know what your face looked like, but you
had this cool mask that you were identified by, kind
of like wrestling or something like that, right, or I
guess the Lucha Libre are the ones who always have
the mask. Yeah, but I can't believe we did an
episode on that. It's so funny.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
It was a good one too.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
But you could be if you went a lot and
you had a cool helmet, you could be a pretty
big deal, to the point where you might have slaves
taking care of you, and you might lead a bit
of the better life, but you're still owned by someone else.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yeah, you were a slave, you were a prisoner of war,
you were a criminal. But when you were taken to
gladiator school, it wasn't like you were just kept there
and then you were thrown into the ring to fight.
Like you were trained. You were put on a diet,
you were you were basically put through boot camp and
(17:42):
you were introduced to the specifics of certain types of
gladiatorial combat. And apparently there were a handful of different types,
and one type of gladiator only fought one or two
other types of gladiators. And the type that Spartacus was
was a murmillo, which meant that he fought with a helmet,
a very long, tall shield, kind of like the Roman
(18:05):
centurions used, and then a short sword called the gladius,
and that's what he would have fought with. But there
were other kinds of gladiators too. I ran across a
super cool one, the Readyarius, and they would have a
trident and a net and a dagger, So, you know,
(18:27):
like those gladiators that fought with a net. I think
it might have been in Mad Max or something like that. Yeah,
that's based on an actual type of gladiator that used
to fight back in the day, and again here in
the twenty first century. We can sit there and think like, wow,
this is really interesting stuff, but you have to stop
for a second and think these people were being forced
(18:48):
against their will into fights to the death, sometimes in
front of spectators, for the sheer bloodlust of the crowds.
That was it, And you can't really forget that because
it really puts you in the mind of somebody like Spartacus,
who has been captured as prisoner, potentially unjustly according to
(19:11):
an ancient text, and being forced into this life of
fighting sometimes to the death for the joy of the
wealthy crowds who came out to see everybody.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
That's right, And that's why Spartacus looked around one day
and said, guys, we're here at Gladiators University, right, And
I know that sounds super cool, but I see where
the end is for all of us, and that is
dying for the entertainment value of rich romans. And what
do you say we get a group of us together,
(19:46):
like maybe seventy of us, we get the heck out
of here and let's do it, guys, And they all said,
that's a great idea. I don't want to go die
in a ring. So they got together. In seventy three BCE,
they hijacked a caravan that just happened to have a
bunch of gladiator weapons and armor, and they said, hey,
you know what we are, We're a little army troop.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
All of a sudden, think about the luck that that took.
Like they broke out. They overpowered their guards with meat
cleavers that they stole from the kitchen and broke out.
And as they were breaking out, they ran across a
supply truck of gladiator armor and weapons.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
I think that's a feeling that was targeted. That was
not the case.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
No, it happened to be coming in as they were leaving,
and they were like, oh, we'll take this or else.
They encountered it on the road headed to the gladiator school.
The timing was really fortunate.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
Well, at any rate, they got all this gear and
all of a sudden they were kitted up, and I
think one of the people he was with his wife.
This lady sounds very interesting. Like we said, we don't
know a lot about the actual historical record. We don't
know her actual name, but Plutarch was a writer who
(20:57):
wrote that Spartacus's wife was a prophetess who was possessed
by ecstatic frenzies that were part of the worship of
the god Dionysus. Yeah, which you know, you know what
that means. She liked a party.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
She did that was the party cult for sure, and
she apparently was one of the priestesses of this cult
in Thrace. She was Thracian as well.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Ecstatic frenzies.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Yeah, I'll thought that was cool. But she her name
apparently is just totally lost. No one has any idea
what her name is or what became of her. They
assumed that she probably died alongside with Spartacus, but she,
being a prophetess a priestess, apparently foretold his rise to
(21:45):
power even while he was a slave in the gladiator camp.
Like she lived with him there. I guess while he
was sleeping one night or day or whatever, a snake
coiled itself around his head and she was like, well,
that doesn't happen every day, And I'm pretty sure that
dian Issus has something to do with this, So my
husband's going to be pretty important at some point. But
(22:07):
he's also going to have a very unfortunate end too,
that the snake fore tells. And it turns out she
was right.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
That's right. And then she said, so I'm going to
go have an orgy with all these people.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
And drink some wine with some goat goat fellas.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
So these these dudes, this little kind of for lack
of a better term, battalion, all of a sudden they
start to train for combat. They're near Mount Vesuvius, which
don't be afraid of the volcano. Everyone. This is about
one hundred years before that happened.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Isn't that creepy though? To think, like this historic thing
took place and they were chomping all over Vesuvius to
have they had no idea what was coming, just like
a century from then. I like, don't know, I think
it's amazing.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
But Mount Vesuvius at this time, what we're saying is
it was lovely and it was lush and there was
you could farm there. It was very fertile, was covered
with vines, and they were down there training and eventually
Rome takes a little bit of notice. Although they weren't
seriously worried yet, they were hiding out and they were
(23:12):
training and one of his co leaders, this guy Crixis,
who kind of factors in as one of his big
co heads of state, I guess, and Ana mouse onomaus.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
No, the first time there was like an extra syllable
in there. Oh really, yeah, but the way you said
it the second time sounds better.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
Well, we'll just stick to that, okay. They would go
around and raid for supplies. They would recruit slaves eventually,
and we'll see later. They got so popular that they
could even get non slaves to join up in the rebellion.
And Rome was not super worry that they kind of
heard about what was going on, but they were busy.
(23:54):
They were fighting in Spain, they were fighting Crete, they
were fighting in Southeast Europe, and this little ragtime group
of former slaves wasn't that big of a deal.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
No, So the fact that they were fighting elsewhere like
Spain and Crete, that meant that their greatest military leaders
and those military leaders armies were away. They weren't in Italy,
and like you said at the time, they weren't taking
Spartacus in his runaway slave band seriously at all. But
they did, you know, take enough notice that they sent
(24:25):
a prader there, and a prader is like a very
high up elected official right under council, which is I
think the highest elected official in ancient Rome. So they
were really super high up. And actually they might have
been laterals to the councils. I'm not sure, but it
was a very important person, but I get the impression
that he was a very kind of low on the
(24:49):
scale of important people, because they sent him with a
few Roman soldiers and said, hey, when you get to Vesuvius,
just recruit some locals to go fight this this band
of runaway slaves and be back by dinner time.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
Police.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Yeah, it was, you know, love the national Guard not
knocking them, but it kind of reminded me of, you know,
sort of sending in the national Guard to take care
of something rather than the marine storming the beach.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
It's basically the story of John Rambo in First Blood.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
I trust me, I thought of that more than Blood rip.
Brian Dennehey, by the way, when like last.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Week, what, how did I not hear that?
Speaker 3 (25:34):
I think it's just sort of been under the radar
with everything going on.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Was it from coronavirus?
Speaker 3 (25:38):
No? Just I think he was like in his early
eighties and just just passed away.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Well, Rip, for sure, he was good.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
But I definitely, I definitely thought of Rambo a lot
while I was reading this. The difference is was that
Spartacus had a team to aid in his uprising. In
Rambo was of course a one man.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Army, an a team if you will.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
But at any rate, they didn't send the best of
the best because they were all busy Glaber's little army.
They said, you know what, we're not even going to
attack Spartacus. We'll just block off the route up to Vesuvius.
We're gonna pitch our tents, we're gonna hang out and
get drunk, and he's going to starve to death, and
that's kind of going to be the end of it.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
So we think, Yeah, you said, Glaber, Glaber is that praterer.
His name is Claudius Glaber. He sounds like an inept
kind of person that you would send to take care of.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
I'll send Glaber exactly.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
His name is just too close to Glavin.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
I think so.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
So Glaber said, he yeah, it's exactly what you said.
He posted a couple of guys on the road to Vesuvius,
the only road in or out up the mountain and
then the rest of the group is at camp, and
so Spartacus and his band are. They know that they
can't get down this road, but they're also not about
to starve at the hands of a guy named Glaber.
(27:00):
So they actually fashion rope and rope ladder out of
the vines that are growing up on Vesuvius, and they
climb down the mountain to a different spot and they
come up behind the guys who are guarding the road,
kill them, sneak into the Roman camp, kill all of
them while they're bathing and sleeping, and have done two things.
(27:22):
They just wiped out the soldiers of a prater, a
very high elected official, and they just captured a Roman
camp with all of its supplies, all of its weapons,
all of its armory. And these were really two really
big first strikes, if you'll allow that, and.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
I will so no, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
And it was a really big deal because you know,
word gets around and for the first time, slaves in
Italy were thinking, Wow, there's actually some place we could go.
It's not it's not like in America where there were
slaves in the south mainly and they could escape to
the north. It was just like that all over Italy.
(28:08):
So they had no they had nowhere to go. They
had no safe harbor, no quarter. If I'm allowed, I
will allow that as well. And they said, Wow, we
got a place we can go. We can go join
up with this sky Spartacus. He's out there sneaking up
on glabs and killing him while he's taking a bath, right,
(28:30):
And they're like, that sounds pretty good to me. I
want to get in on the fund.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Yeah. I don't know if it was this historian Erwin
from Murray State or if it was part of the article,
but somebody says at some point that, and I'm sorry,
not Irwin, Aaron Irvin is the name of the historian,
but somebody says at some point that those slaves because
they had nowhere to go, like you were saying, but
(28:53):
also because of the way that slave uprisings were brutally
dealt with, that they sure they very frequently didn't even
require supervision, that they would that there were whole rural
areas and towns that Spartacus was moving around to where
the slaves vastly outnumbered the freed people, and they were
(29:17):
able to sustain that disproportionate population distribution because the slaves
in Rome had such little hope of any different life
than what they had. And so, yeah, like you're saying,
Spartacus provided hope and something different, and all of a sudden,
his little ragtag band of slaves and their slave uprising
(29:39):
suddenly became a very large slave uprising. And in a
really short time they attracted something like forty thousand slaves
from these rural areas up around Vesuvius and in northern Italy,
I think northeastern Italy that they would just run away
and now they had a place to go, i e.
Spartacus's camp, and they would join up there and show
(30:01):
up with like kitchen knives and farm tools and stuff
like that, and they would be trained in combat. And
now all of a sudden, it goes from this ragtag
band of gladiator slaves who had escaped to something that
looked a lot like an actual rebellion. And that's what
Rome started to think that maybe they're dealing with.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Yeah, and I get the ideas around this time that
Spartacus becomes kind of an idea even more so than
an actual human being, because you know, when the word
is getting around, it's not like the newspaper's head front
page headlines or anything. You get these whispers, and you
get these stories and the spark of hope among the slaves,
(30:41):
and this idea that there is this rebellion and he's
a great boss. He splits everything right down the middle,
and he's not some awful leader. He divides all the
spoils equally, and he's getting non slaves to join up,
because even if you're like a you know, you might
not be a slave, but if you're a very poor
farm hand or something, it might look appealing all of
(31:04):
a sudden because you're not part of the elite Roman
kind of upper echelon class.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Yeah, so the idea that he's splitting the spoils with
people like that's huge, and apparently that stands up that
basically all of the ancient sources agree like this guy
took all his plunder and distributed it. He didn't keep
it for himself, he didn't turn himself into a king,
and he was running around freeing slaves, and that, you know,
(31:31):
that's one of the reasons why he did, like you said,
become a hero or an idea, and a hero that
still to the state groups kind of latch onto so
he's attracting more and more people. One of the things,
one of the ugly truths about this is that when
they were going around to these small towns in these
rural areas, freeing slaves, getting them to join their ranks,
(31:53):
there was also a lot of plundering going on, and
they were not merciful with the slave owners who own
these big, enormous estates that they were plundering. They would
engage in rape, they would engage in torture, they would
engage in murder. And from what I saw, it wasn't
(32:14):
Spartacus that was doing that, that he actually commanded against that,
but that his army had a mind of its own
in a lot of cases, and that they would they
would be pretty merciless and brutal with the freed people
who whose stuff they were taking.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure they were like, no, you
rape and pillage, that's what you do, right That's what
That's how it is right now. Even in the movie Spartacus,
he he refuses to take part in that. So there
are a few things you know that that Kubrick he
didn't write the screenplay, that was actually Dalton Trumbo, but
he he had that in the movie. So there were
(32:56):
bits of truth throughout for sure. Right, so this is
going on, Rome finally is like, all right, we gotta
really deal with this guy. Can someone, can someone please
go kill Spartacus for me?
Speaker 4 (33:09):
Right?
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Labor glabor sucked so bad, you guys. We got to
get a non glabor in there to take care of business.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
And they did. They sent Publius Verennius and hit that guy.
He was another prayer. So they're sending like pretty important
guys along with their soldiers and Varenius he was almost
nearly captured, which would have been enormous. He was so
close to being captured that I believe Spartacus himself stole
(33:39):
the guy's horse. He got his horse, Verennius, Publius, Publius Verennius,
And that was a huge black eye to Rome that like,
not only as this you know, band of runaway slaves.
You know it will like able to engage Rome in battle,
(34:01):
but he stole your horse and your insignia and almost
got your guy. That was a big deal. And so
all these these victories. With each victory, Spartacus's legend just
grows and he's able to attract more and more people.
I think within a year that historian Kenneth Check says
within a year, maybe a little more than a year,
(34:24):
there was as many, possibly as one hundred and twenty
five thousand, freed slaves or slaves, escape slaves, and commons
who had joined Spartacus's army one hundred and twenty five thousand,
and he started with seventy gladiators the year before.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
Yeah, seventy not seventy thousand, right, just to reiterate, Yeah, no,
that's worth saying. So spring of seventy two BC, Spartacus
has these troops. Some of them stay in the south
with his buddy Crixus, and then he said the rest
of you come with me. Were to head toward the
Alps because it's lovely this time of year. And I
(35:05):
think at the time, who would they know? These guys
have great names. Rome sent armies led by Lucius Gellius
Public Public Colaa and Neus Cornelius, Lintulus Claudianus.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Those are great names.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Those guys were councils, so they were the highest elected
officials in Rome.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Yeah, and as many as like twenty thousand guys put
together like this is serious business at this time to
go take care of Spartacus.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Yeah, I think when he almost captured Varenius that was
that really caught Rome's attention for the first time. Unfortunately,
these two councils what were their names again.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
Chuck, let's just call him public Cola and Claudenius.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Okay, fine, They were no better equipped to fight Spartacus either.
I think by this time he had he hadn't come
close to one hundred and twenty five thousand people yet,
but he was up to forty thousand, and both of
both of the yea yeah, Peaches and herb nice they
(36:19):
underestimated how many troops he'd had. They also were unaware
that he had wintered in the I think the north
of Italy and had spent the winter stealing horses and
building up a cavalry unit, which they had no idea
he had. This and one other thing he put to
good use. So remember, this guy's potentially a Roman army
(36:41):
veteran from Thrace, which means he's familiar with guerrilla warfare
that the Thracians practiced and conventional warfare which the Romans practiced,
and he's like commanding tens of thousands of troops to
great effect. Built a cavalry, and he also so like
some of those commoners who joined up who weren't slaves,
but they were not well off and they wanted to
(37:03):
fight the fight the power, so they joined. They were
usually like herdsmen or shepherds or something like that from
local areas who knew the areas really well, so he
used them as scouts and Peaches and Herb had no
idea that this, again, this band of runaways slaves had
turned into an actual like legit army under the command
(37:25):
of somebody who knew what they were doing, and he
ate both of them alive.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
Yeah, well, it actually was. It was kind of tough
because Peaches went down there to the south where Crixus
was and killed him with a lot of the rebels.
And then Herb came in from the north of Spartacus,
where he was headed toward the Alps, came you know,
he was ahead of him, so he came south from
(37:50):
the north right, and he came in, and Spartacus was
basically trapped between these two armies that had better equipment
to better weaponry, better armor, more munitions and food and
water and everything and wine, and they had no idea
that this cavalry was waiting for him that he had
been working on. It was kind of his little kind
(38:12):
of his little trojan horse in a way, and they
had never seen anything like it. And he beat Peaches
I think, or was that Herb. Now I'm all confused.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
He beat Herb.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Okay, he beat Herb and got all the supplies that
Herb's army had, and then it was it was on
in a big, big way.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
So I misspoke. By this time, yes, he probably had
close to seventy five to one hundred and twenty five
thousand people in his army. But they had split off
because Crixus, who was one of the gladiators that you
just mentioned, one of the original gladiators he broke out
of the gladiator school with and who basically co operated
the army with him, he apparently wanted to split off
(38:57):
and take it straight to Rome, wanted to attack Rome,
and Spartakus's whole thing was like, no, no, no, let's
go north to Thrace, out of Italy. We can bill
our army up even better there and either just hang
out in Thrace and be great, or maybe then we
can come back to Italy. And they had a disagreement
they had a falling out and they split up, and
(39:18):
Crixis took thirty thousand men, and like you said, I
don't remember if it was Peaches or Herb who got him,
but the Crixis and his men were killed but simultaneously.
Even though Spartacus later beat that both of those guys,
he had just lost thirty thousand of his troops, which
is a pretty big troop reduction, especially basically overnight.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
Yeah, but he's still won in the end. In that
battle he did, he fought very bravely. He rushed either
Peaches or Herb, broke them down, captured their supplies, and
then we don't know for sure if he defeated Herb
or not, or if they just retreated, but at any rate,
that was sort of the end of them, and they
were allowed to go onto the Alps.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Right, So you want to take another break.
Speaker 3 (40:07):
Yeah, let's take our last break, and we'll wind it
up here with the last stand.
Speaker 4 (40:11):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
So sparta Kiss has not only now beaten prayers that
the Romans sent, he's beaten councils in their armies, and
rome Is flipped out. I don't know if they knew
that Crixus, who by the way was a celt which
I find mentally interesting. But Crixus, I don't know if
they knew that he was coming toward Rome and that
(41:02):
they just narrowly avoided being attacked by that contingent, but
it was definitely on their mind that Rome was left
unprotected because remember, the best generals and their best armies
were in Spain and Crete, and there was a really
really angry group of impoverished and escaped slaves who had
(41:28):
assembled themselves into a pretty respectable army possibly coming toward Rome.
Speaker 3 (41:33):
Yeah, and Rome was on thin ice at this point.
I mean, they were still super powerful, obviously, but they
make a good point in this article that they kind
of relied on the fact that everyone thought they were
great and was super scared of them, and they had
these big, scary armies. And once they started getting these defeats,
and once they started getting defeats, especially at the hands
(41:53):
of a former slave who was leading this kind of
ragtag team that was revolting against them, there's a little
chink in that armor and Spartacus is out. They're winning battles,
and everyone hears about this, and that's a big, big
deal to Rome. All of a sudden, they seem like
they're defeatable.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
Yeah, which if you are, if your society includes slaves,
and the slaves are kept in line by the idea
that you were undefeatable.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
That's right. And so they're there. They seem like they're defeatable.
Now their best armies in generals are away, and they
couldn't really find anyone to really take care of Spartacus
until this guy stepped up. He was a wealthy prayer
named Marcus Crassus, and he said, you know what, I've
got the dough and I'm a pretty brutal leader in
(42:41):
my own right. Maybe you've heard of me. And so
I'm going to finance this army and I'm going to
go kill that guy.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
And so if there's a villain in this story, it
is Crassus. He was a terrible, terrible person, possibly the
richest person Rome has ever seen. I read somewhere that
he would go to places that had caught fire with
his own personal fire brigade and would negotiate with the
owner of the house or whatever to buy it. And
(43:09):
if the if they would negotiate at just an extremely
cheap rate to sell their house that was on fire,
then Crassius or Crassus would have his fire brigade put
it out. If they didn't negotiate or sell, then he
would just leave with his fire brigade and let it burn.
Here's that kind of guy.
Speaker 3 (43:26):
Crasus was like, hey man, this place is on fire,
and I'm offering to buy it from you.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Right, it's a fire sale.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
You should you should take this.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
Yeah. But if they wouldn't, if they'd be like no,
this is completely unacceptable and immoral, he'd be like, all right,
see you later, and his fire brigade would leave. That's
just not good stuff. That's the kind of thing that
if you do that, people continue to talk about it
in a negative light two thousand years.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
Later on some dumb podcasts.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
So Crassus, you also might recognize this name. He was
part of the first triumvirate with Pompey and Caesar. He
was the third guy.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
Yeah, I remember that name.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
So so Crassus steps up and he says, you know what,
my father got a triumph, which is basically like a
military parade for a great military victory, and I've always
been envious. I want mine. I'm going to make mine.
The defeat of Spartacus I'm going to go get them.
I'm going to finance this army. I'm going to go
pick up some of the other armies that have been
(44:22):
defeated and kind of left scattered around Italy and reassemble them.
And there was one in particular, I think it was
the army of the Prader who was almost captured Verenius.
Some of his people ran away, and Crassus got them together,
I believe, five hundred people who had been accused of
desertion and running away during battle. And he brought out
(44:47):
of the old steamer trunk an old technique for keeping
your troops in line called decimation chuck, which is a
word that we've misused for years on this podcast. But
this is the real deal that he was doing.
Speaker 3 (45:00):
Yeah, and I don't think we've been misusing it for years.
I think it's now part of popular terminology, just not
necessarily reduced by ten.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
Okay, fair enough. But what he did was he said, okay,
all of you, five hundred, break up into fifty groups
of ten, and in every group, all ten of you
draw lots. Whoever draws the shortest lot gets executed. And
he executed fifty out of five hundred deserters in front
of his troops to basically say, hey, let's get that
(45:29):
morale up everybody. This is what happens to you if
you don't fight valiantly. And that was the kind of
leader that he was. So he's a real jerk in
business and a real jerk on the battlefield too, even
with his own.
Speaker 3 (45:41):
Troops, and a very selfish lover from what I.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
Hear he really was. He'd be like, well that's it
for me, Good luck to yourself.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
So he had a real be in his bonnet to
get that victory parade. He goes and chases Spartacus all
over Italy and there was some infighting going on, which
is what can happen a lot of times in a
rebellion and if you don't keep everyone's spirits up. So
that kind of weakened his army a little bit, and
so in a last ditch effort, Spartacus said, you know
what we need to do is we need to go
(46:09):
kill Crassus in front of everybody. And that'll do the trick.
If everyone sees Crasus is gone, you cut off that head,
maybe another one will not grow up in its place. Yeah,
And that didn't work out for Spartacus. He was actually
cut down in battle. His army was finally defeated. They
hunted down all six thousand of the survivors of the
(46:30):
army and crucified them. He was not himself crucified like
in the movie Spartacus, And there was never that great
moment in the movie that I'm Spartacus moment that never
really happened in real life. Unfortunately, they never found his body,
which is sort of a sad end to this to
(46:50):
a leader who did some pretty great things for a
little while.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
But now really though, because I read he was last seen,
he was really close to Crassus. He was headed to
Crasses to kill him himself, and he I think killed
two centurions in hand to hand combat on his way
to Crassus before he was swarmed on like Hollywood style
and cut down by like just a mob of dudes
(47:15):
who overwhelmed them. Which is that's not a sad end. No,
if you're living by the sword and dying by the sword,
that's the way to go for sure.
Speaker 3 (47:22):
Okay, I bet you he would have preferred to kill Crasses.
Speaker 2 (47:25):
Sure, I'll give you that. But if he was never
faded to kill Crasses, if that snake coiled on his
head and foretold that he would never kill crasses. That's
the way to go.
Speaker 3 (47:35):
Well, in the end, he is gone, his rebellion is squashed,
but some good comes out of it. Rome kind of says,
you know what, this taught us a great lesson, which
is maybe we should listen to the lower class a
little bit more. It wasn't some huge sweeping reform change
or anything like that. I don't want to like sugarcoat it,
(47:57):
but there were a number of reforms that were passed
that did strengthen the voice of the people as a whole,
and they had a little bit more say in their
government because they didn't want another Spartacus to come along.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
Yeah. And then over the years, like many thousands of
years later, like I said, he was kind of held
up as like this hero, this ideal, so like the
abolitionist movement in the United States held him up as
a hero because he was known to free slaves. That
was how he assembled his army. And he wasn't necessarily
freeing slaves for the ideal of ending slavery. He was
freeing slaves to help build up his army. But I'm
(48:31):
sure there was a certain amount of like this is
a good thing that these slaves are no longer slaves
when they're you know with me that he must have
entertained at least and then later on, like you said,
Dalton Trumbo wrote the script for the nineteen sixty movie
directed by Kubrick on Spartacus, and Dalton Trumbo was blacklisted
(48:51):
from Hollywood because he was a communist or he wouldn't
name names I can't remember. And Dalton Trumbo wrote that
script based on a novel written by a guy named
Howard Fast who had written the novel in jail because
he wouldn't name names on the McCarthy hearings. And so
Spartacus kind of became like a hero of Marxists because
(49:13):
he freed slates. He overthrew the oppressors, but he also
took the oppressor's wealth and redistributed it among you know,
the lower classes, which Marxists are just bonkers for.
Speaker 3 (49:26):
Pretty interesting stuff.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
Yeah, there's plenty more about Spartacist gladiators all that stuff.
This is really thick stuff, and this is stuff you
should know. It's not what we do. We just kind
of give an overview. So if this floated your boat
at all, go look up Spartacus, start reading on him
and you will be fascinated. And since I said that
it's time for listener.
Speaker 3 (49:46):
Mail, I'm gonna call this wastewater operator oh good or
a former now retired wastewater operator. I see, Hey, guys,
just finished listening to the episode on wastewater treatment with
a critical ear, having worked for over twenty years as
both a WW lab analyst and operator. While I understand
you were aiming for the least knowledgeable common denominator in
(50:09):
your audience, I feel like you did a disservice to
all wastewater treatment plants and their employees by failing to
mention that every treatment plant in America must abide by
strict regulatory permits issued under the Clean Water Act, tailored
to the needs of these specific facilities Influent. Your words
make it sound like we in operations made our own
decisions as to how clean the water, how clean is
(50:33):
clean enough, and that cannot be further from the truth.
I want to stop here because I don't feel like
we did that.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
Did we We certainly didn't mean to. I don't think
that we were Just like you know, it's up to
text who's running the levers to decide what's clean enough
if we did. Sorry, we definitely don't think that.
Speaker 3 (50:50):
No, we didn't think that at all. In my position
as analyst, I perform an average performed an average of
thirty thousand standard laboratory tests per year to maintain, permit,
comple clients, and support operations. That number increased dramatically when
there are operational upsets, process changes, influent variations, etc. In addition,
operators collect and analyzed process control samples several times per
(51:12):
shift for the same reason. I think we knew that
stuff was going on, right.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (51:18):
I don't want to sound defensive, but.
Speaker 2 (51:19):
Do this person listen or just say, oh, I see
this title. Here's all the things are going to get wrong.
Speaker 3 (51:24):
No, I think they listened.
Speaker 2 (51:25):
Okay, good.
Speaker 3 (51:27):
I wish to thank you for attempting to educate the
public on the vital role clean water and sewage treatment
play in the health and prosperity of the United States.
I firmly believe this is what truly makes America great.
You don't hear people saying they need vaccinations and antibiotics
to fend off waterborne illness when visiting the United States.
Sorry to rant On, I appreciate your time. Thanks for reading,
(51:48):
and please put out a big thank you to all
wastewater treatment operators about whom nobody is paying attention, but
whom everyone needs. And that is from Anne Danielson, retired
operator in Analyst.
Speaker 2 (52:00):
Thanks a lot, and that's good stuff. And yes, agreed.
If everyone doesn't know that we need wastewater treatment people
and they're not paying attention, so hats off to you
and your colleagues from us.
Speaker 3 (52:12):
Agreed. Yes, I know that there's a lot of work
and analysis and testing and if we didn't hammer that
home enough then we are now.
Speaker 2 (52:20):
Yeah. Well, if we missed the mark on something, or
you just want to add something or just want to say, hey,
you guys nailed it, nailed it. We love that. You
can get in touch with us via email, Wrap it up,
spanking on the bottom and send it off to Stuff
Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1 (52:39):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of Iheartradios How
Stuff Works. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of Iheartradios
How Stuff Works.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
Charles w Chuck Bryan over there. It's just the two
of us. So that's okay because you're here, dear listener,
insert your first name after that, and.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
This is Stuff you should That's right, Stanley Kubrick edition
sort of.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
I went to go watch that last night. Oh yeah,
and then I was like, wait, I think that's really long.
So I looked up the run time. I was like,
I'm not watching this, so I've yet to see it.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Yeah, watch Paths of Glory instead.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
What was that? Is that the one about Barry Lindon?
Speaker 3 (00:48):
No, that was Barry Lindon. That's great too, But if
you're gunning for early Kubrick, I would say Killer's Kiss
if you want to go super early. And then of Glory,
which is the other one he did with Kirk Douglas,
the World War One trench warfare film.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
That's great, okay.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
And Barry Lindon, which is just a masterpiece, wasn't that,
Ryan O'Neill, Yeah, boy, it's good.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yeah, he's one of my favorite movies of all time
Paper Moon.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
That's right, and one of my favorite movies. The main
event what was that? It was a rom com he
did as he played a boxer opposite barbar Streisand.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Was she a boxer?
Speaker 3 (01:28):
No?
Speaker 4 (01:28):
Okay, it was.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
It was not great. I mean it was fine. It
was one of the seventies rom coms, gotcha, but not
one of my favorite movies by any stretch.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Speaking of rom comms, but minus the rom part and
just the calm heavy on the colm. Have you seen
Eliza this Lessingers sketch show on Netflix?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
No, it is very good. How do I know that name?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
She's she's gotten pretty big as a stand up in
the last couple of years. She If you haven't discovered
her yet, you're welcome. She's really great.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
I'm looking her up now, which is something I don't
normally do. I don't think I recognize her.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Okay, Well, she's got some stand up specials that are
definitely worth watching. And then she just debuted a season
of a sketch comedy show that's pretty good, definitely worth seeing.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
I have to check that out.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Ryan O'Neill's not in it yet, but like I said,
it's just one season.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
We want to shout out Live Science. By the way,
we used house stuff Works article on Spartacus in this
great Live Science article on Spartacus, the real Spartacus, not
Kirk Douglas.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
I also read an article from a guy named Kenneth
Spartacus Kenneth p check cz Eh like check the Czech Republic.
I guess, okay, maybe that's where his family's from. Who knows,
but he wrote an article back in the nineties about
Spartacus that was very exhaustive, that was helpful. And then
(02:55):
there's also a historian named Barry Strauss who I read
some like interviews articles from him too. He's a bit
of a specialist on Spartacus, so shout out to those
cats as well.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Yeah, so the story is Spartacus. If you've watched this
the Kubrick film, it is not. I mean, there are
bits of truth in there, but it's definitely not some
real truthful biopic of his life. Good movie, But we're
going to give you the real story of Spartacus's life,
which is that of a and the leader of an
(03:28):
uprising of slaves who said, Rome, We're not going to
take it anymore.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
No, we ain't going to take it that's right, we're
not going to take it.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
It was the original title.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
I think we met that guy. We well, actually we
passed that guy backstage once remembers, right.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
What show was that?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Whatever show?
Speaker 3 (03:52):
I think it was Jeff Brops, wouldn't it?
Speaker 4 (03:54):
No?
Speaker 2 (03:54):
No, No, it was the whatever show with?
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Oh was it with? Was that Martha Stewart's daughter?
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yeah, but she has a first name, Alexis, Alexis and Jennifer, right.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Jennifer and Alexis. Wow. Yes, Remember we were on TV
every now and then.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Yeah, we would be on that. We were on Jeff Propes.
Do you remember the Jeff Probe show. He was interviewing
us and he zoned out so hard. I almost said like, Jeff,
are you okay while we were talking.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Yeah, and we used to occasionally we'd be on CNN.
They would have us on to do like talking head stuff. Yes,
and then yes, uh, everyone just sort of stopped caring
about us. We got really well, we got really popular podcasting. Yeah,
and they just all said, huh, well, whatever, we don't
need those guys.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Yeah that's okay, though.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
No, I don't want to be on CNN or any
news network.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Well, yeah, we were on the solid Ed O'Brien show.
We were interviewed by Christine Romans. She's like super legit journalist.
It was pretty neat, so is Jeff props right. The
tribe has spoken, yep, and they who else? Isn't that
what he said? The tribe is spoken? Yeah? And then
he'd set that candle. He'd kick you in the seat
(05:06):
of your pants on the way out.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
And you would think, God, because what a relief to
be kicked off that garbage show.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Man. It was good the first season or two.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
I think.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
I think I did watch the first couple of seasons,
but you know, I'm not gonna yuck someone's yell. There's
probably still Survivor shows going on.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Oh oh no, there are they. I think the most recent
season they brought together like past champions or past people
who got kicked off one of the two and said
who's going to win this time?
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Yeah? I don't do. The only one I do like
that is Top Chef, which has still maintained its integrity
after all these years and never became dumb. And then
for a little while I did that. Discovery had a
show I cannot remember the name of it where it
was like a post apocalyptic scenario where they would put
people in this area and like accasionally they would send
(06:01):
in these mad Max type people to mess with them
and take their stuff, and they had to build things
and defend themselves. God, what was that called? It was
really awful.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Were the people naked, because I can tell you the
name of the show if they were naked.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
I have watched more than one episode of Naked and
Afraid I haven't.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Did they just like like blur out their their the
parts of their bathing suit covers.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
No, they're completely naked and it's just shows dong out
the whole.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Time, like the Voyage or Golden Record.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Is blurred out. And the kind of the first thing
that the ladies do is fashion some sort of eve
like covering on her on her bits. And the men
either do that or they're just like, hey, whatever, he's
the guy at the gym that has a towel like
over his shoulder but not around his waist.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Oh yeah, that guy, that guy wearing tennis shoes with
no socks.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Yes, AKA men who were proud of their Jeni dong out.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
So I'm guessing Spartacus is probably dong out.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Oh sure he was.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Where are we back to Spartacus. Now you think, yeah, okay,
so Spartacus was this guy who everyone knows the name of,
and you may even know that he was a gladiator.
Maybe you know that he led a slavery volt. But
this guy was really nuanced, really detailed, and actually, even
after a couple thousand years of history analysis, you know,
(07:33):
falling in and out of favor of different cultures that
come and go, he stands the test of time pretty well,
even after being draped in you know, a lot of
people's hang ups and like, you know, held up as
a prime example of the ideals of whatever group are
revering him. Like, even after you strip all that stuff
(07:54):
away and look at the historical figure, he was still
a pretty pretty interesting and kind an upstanding guy as
far as leaders of slaver volts go.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
That's right, and that's a good way to put it.
He was a Thracian, which means he is from Thrace.
We don't know a ton about his early life because
they just didn't bother recording the history of nobody slaves
in ancient Rome. Why would they. It took him to
do remarkable things for historians to take notice. With their
(08:28):
quill and paper and the Romans at the time. This
was an area the Thrace was in southeast Europe where
they were always trying to subjugate this area of Europe
and first century BC, and it was just it was
just not a good scene if you weren't sort of
upper echelon Roman at the time.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
No, and Thrace was. I get the impression that it
was not really one to live under Roman yoke. But
I think I also have the impression that they were
they were in league with the Romans, but it was
kind of like one of those you know, we can
either we can either be an ally of yours or
you can conquer us kind of thing, And so I
(09:13):
think there was a bit of a tense truce and
there was a U I don't I don't think any
contemporary text about Spartakiss is still around today. Most of
the earliest stuff we know about him comes from at
the earliest the first century CE, and he was living
in the last century or the first century BCE, so
(09:36):
people were writing about him one hundred and two hundred
years later. But one of the early one of those
old texts says that he wasn't born a slave and
that he actually was a Thracian soldier who was an
ally who worked in the auxiliary or fought in the
auxiliary for Rome. So he was a soldier under Roman
(09:57):
command at some point, and they think that that he
was drummed out of the army for some reason unjustly,
this ancient author says, and that that kind of led
on this path to him becoming a bandit and a criminal.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Yeah, he was like the guy in the new Star
Wars movies, which one, which one, the guy that was
a stormtrooper and then said, you know what, I'm not
a stormtrooper anymore. I want to kill stormtroopers.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Okay, I haven't I've seen the The Last Jedi one.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Yeah, that's one.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Okay, So but that was a that was like a
side story, right, that wasn't one of the actual canon.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
No, So the Last Jedi was they made three main
ones a part of the cannon and then of Star
Wars fans, you have words for all these things. Rogue
one was the one that was outside, and then the
Han solo movie was outside and not outside canon, just
not part of the whatever that those movies.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
So Rogue one is the one I'm thinking of that
was really good.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Yeah, I enjoyed that one quite a bit.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
The other ones, I don't think I've been able to
make it through a single one yet.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Oh yeah, yeah, I like them, but they're Star Wars movies.
I don't expect greatness. I just think they're kind of fun.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Yeah, I mean I love the first three.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Yeah, sure, but not.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
The first three sequentially. You know the first three that
were released.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Ever you liked one through three sequentially or not sequinchally?
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Yeah, good god, I'm talking about a pan of menace. Yeah,
is the best of the bunch.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
All right. So he's like the stormtrooper guy in these
new movies that is no longer a stormtrooper and wants
to kill stormtroopers. He gets captured at one point, and
he gets sold into slavery in Rome. And then there
was this man that I love. This article says a
man referred to at times as Vaca. Right, I guess
(11:49):
that's his name, or maybe he just had a bunch
of names. But the upshot is this guy had a
gladiator school in Capua, about one hundred and twenty miles
southeast of Rome, and that's where Spartacus was sent to
train to be a gladiator.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Yes, in Hawaii, right, and I.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Feel like we should take a break and get our
Star Wars back straight and come back.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
Oh goodness, okay, all right, we'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
So when we left off, Chuck Boba Fett had left
the Army. You know, I'm not even gonna do that
to us.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Have you watched Mandalorian?
Speaker 2 (12:51):
No, huh, it's good, the one with Amy Sedaris.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Uh? Yeah, she is the Mandalorian.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
She's in it though she gets to like hang out
with baby Yoda.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
I think, no, it's she isn't it. And it's a
you know, I love seeing her in anything, but it
does take me out of the moment just a bit.
But it's a fun show. It's kind of like the
A Team. You'd like it?
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Oh well yeah, I probably would like it.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Then it's like a week to Adventure of the Week
type of thing.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Okay, cool, Yeah I might. I might actually check that out.
I've been looking for something new. I started Ozark and
I'm like, man, this is really dark.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Yeah, where are you now?
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Fifth episode? I think of season one?
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Oh okay, she did burn through season one or anything.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
No, I've been taking it slow.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
I don't like that.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Yeah, I mean, you've been taken in small doses here
or there.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Yeah, I think I'm through like the first four of
the latest season.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
And by the way, correction, I think I said it
was like Heartwell, it is like Alatuna.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Oh, Okay, that makes way more sense because I was thinking,
is that Alatuna?
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Yeah, Alatuna's you know where Alatuona is? Hardwell's youphord Damn is, Yeah,
Alatoon or Heartwell's up near South Carolina. It's not the
same lake.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Yeah, because I have friends, We have friends who have
a place on Heartwell. And I was like, I don't
recognize it. But then I thought I probably wouldn't recognize
this about any lake, so I just kind of went
with Heartwell it's fine or yeah, you know that from
what I learned, there was no such thing as a
natural lake in the state of Georgia.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
It's right. They're all and most of them are from
the Georgia Power Company.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
It's so creepy to me sometimes too, when you're swimming
in a lake, if you start thinking about what's beneath
your feet, it makes you want to get back on
the boat.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Sometimes you mean like a former town.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Yeah town or the woods or something. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Car oh, well, oh man, why do we get so
off track?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Okay, so we're talking about Sparta because who has he
left or was drummed out of the army, became a
bandit is captured and when he's captured, he's taken to
that gladiator school that you talked about by a man
sometimes called this sometimes referred to as Vadia. And the
(15:07):
thing about gladiators is thanks to movies like Gladiator or
I don't know, other movies about gladiators, Airplane, the original Airplane, right,
we have this conception of gladiators is kind of like
this awesome thing. But if you were living in Rome
around the turn of the last two millennia ago, you
(15:31):
did not think of gladiators very highly. There were some
that rose to incredible prominence, like the rock stars, sports
heroes all mixed together of today. A gladiator could rise
to that level, but it was incredibly rare. For the
most part, they were criminals, prisoners of war, slaves, and
(15:52):
they were considered the lowliest of the low where the
owner their owner in this case Vadia, who owned Sparta
kiss I basically said the only way for me to
make money off of you is to make you fight
for these gladiator battles and either bet on you or
(16:13):
license you or something like that, and that was it.
But you were like as far as the even the
cast of slaves went, you were at the bottom. If
you were a gladiator.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Yeah, and you know gladiators, if you've seen the movies,
it's almost always depicted as a fight to the death.
That's not necessarily the case. You could kind of tap
out or if they drew blood, sometimes that would be
the end. But if they drew blood that might also
be the end of view pre antibiotics. Either way, you
might end up dead, but it wasn't necessarily always a
(16:44):
fight to the death. And like you said, sometimes they
would if you were a great gladiator and a great warrior.
They didn't know what your face looked like, but you
had this cool mask that you were identified by, kind
of like wrestling or something like that, right, or I
guess the Lucha Libre are the ones who always have
the mask. Yeah, but I can't believe we did an
episode on that. It's so funny.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
It was a good one too.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
But you could be if you went a lot and
you had a cool helmet, you could be a pretty
big deal, to the point where you might have slaves
taking care of you, and you might lead a bit
of the better life, but you're still owned by someone else.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yeah, you were a slave, you were a prisoner of war,
you were a criminal. But when you were taken to
gladiator school, it wasn't like you were just kept there
and then you were thrown into the ring to fight.
Like you were trained. You were put on a diet,
you were you were basically put through boot camp and
(17:42):
you were introduced to the specifics of certain types of
gladiatorial combat. And apparently there were a handful of different types,
and one type of gladiator only fought one or two
other types of gladiators. And the type that Spartacus was
was a murmillo, which meant that he fought with a helmet,
a very long, tall shield, kind of like the Roman
(18:05):
centurions used, and then a short sword called the gladius,
and that's what he would have fought with. But there
were other kinds of gladiators too. I ran across a
super cool one, the Readyarius, and they would have a
trident and a net and a dagger, So, you know,
(18:27):
like those gladiators that fought with a net. I think
it might have been in Mad Max or something like that. Yeah,
that's based on an actual type of gladiator that used
to fight back in the day, and again here in
the twenty first century. We can sit there and think like, wow,
this is really interesting stuff, but you have to stop
for a second and think these people were being forced
(18:48):
against their will into fights to the death, sometimes in
front of spectators, for the sheer bloodlust of the crowds.
That was it, And you can't really forget that because
it really puts you in the mind of somebody like Spartacus,
who has been captured as prisoner, potentially unjustly according to
(19:11):
an ancient text, and being forced into this life of
fighting sometimes to the death for the joy of the
wealthy crowds who came out to see everybody.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
That's right, And that's why Spartacus looked around one day
and said, guys, we're here at Gladiators University, right, And
I know that sounds super cool, but I see where
the end is for all of us, and that is
dying for the entertainment value of rich romans. And what
do you say we get a group of us together,
(19:46):
like maybe seventy of us, we get the heck out
of here and let's do it, guys, And they all said,
that's a great idea. I don't want to go die
in a ring. So they got together. In seventy three BCE,
they hijacked a caravan that just happened to have a
bunch of gladiator weapons and armor, and they said, hey,
you know what we are, We're a little army troop.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
All of a sudden, think about the luck that that took.
Like they broke out. They overpowered their guards with meat
cleavers that they stole from the kitchen and broke out.
And as they were breaking out, they ran across a
supply truck of gladiator armor and weapons.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
I think that's a feeling that was targeted. That was
not the case.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
No, it happened to be coming in as they were leaving,
and they were like, oh, we'll take this or else.
They encountered it on the road headed to the gladiator school.
The timing was really fortunate.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
Well, at any rate, they got all this gear and
all of a sudden they were kitted up, and I
think one of the people he was with his wife.
This lady sounds very interesting. Like we said, we don't
know a lot about the actual historical record. We don't
know her actual name, but Plutarch was a writer who
(20:57):
wrote that Spartacus's wife was a prophetess who was possessed
by ecstatic frenzies that were part of the worship of
the god Dionysus. Yeah, which you know, you know what
that means. She liked a party.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
She did that was the party cult for sure, and
she apparently was one of the priestesses of this cult
in Thrace. She was Thracian as well.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Ecstatic frenzies.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Yeah, I'll thought that was cool. But she her name
apparently is just totally lost. No one has any idea
what her name is or what became of her. They
assumed that she probably died alongside with Spartacus, but she,
being a prophetess a priestess, apparently foretold his rise to
(21:45):
power even while he was a slave in the gladiator camp.
Like she lived with him there. I guess while he
was sleeping one night or day or whatever, a snake
coiled itself around his head and she was like, well,
that doesn't happen every day, And I'm pretty sure that
dian Issus has something to do with this, So my
husband's going to be pretty important at some point. But
(22:07):
he's also going to have a very unfortunate end too,
that the snake fore tells. And it turns out she
was right.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
That's right. And then she said, so I'm going to
go have an orgy with all these people.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
And drink some wine with some goat goat fellas.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
So these these dudes, this little kind of for lack
of a better term, battalion, all of a sudden they
start to train for combat. They're near Mount Vesuvius, which
don't be afraid of the volcano. Everyone. This is about
one hundred years before that happened.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Isn't that creepy though? To think, like this historic thing
took place and they were chomping all over Vesuvius to
have they had no idea what was coming, just like
a century from then. I like, don't know, I think
it's amazing.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
But Mount Vesuvius at this time, what we're saying is
it was lovely and it was lush and there was
you could farm there. It was very fertile, was covered
with vines, and they were down there training and eventually
Rome takes a little bit of notice. Although they weren't
seriously worried yet, they were hiding out and they were
(23:12):
training and one of his co leaders, this guy Crixis,
who kind of factors in as one of his big
co heads of state, I guess, and Ana mouse onomaus.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
No, the first time there was like an extra syllable
in there. Oh really, yeah, but the way you said
it the second time sounds better.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
Well, we'll just stick to that, okay. They would go
around and raid for supplies. They would recruit slaves eventually,
and we'll see later. They got so popular that they
could even get non slaves to join up in the rebellion.
And Rome was not super worry that they kind of
heard about what was going on, but they were busy.
(23:54):
They were fighting in Spain, they were fighting Crete, they
were fighting in Southeast Europe, and this little ragtime group
of former slaves wasn't that big of a deal.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
No, So the fact that they were fighting elsewhere like
Spain and Crete, that meant that their greatest military leaders
and those military leaders armies were away. They weren't in Italy,
and like you said at the time, they weren't taking
Spartacus in his runaway slave band seriously at all. But
they did, you know, take enough notice that they sent
(24:25):
a prader there, and a prader is like a very
high up elected official right under council, which is I
think the highest elected official in ancient Rome. So they
were really super high up. And actually they might have
been laterals to the councils. I'm not sure, but it
was a very important person, but I get the impression
that he was a very kind of low on the
(24:49):
scale of important people, because they sent him with a
few Roman soldiers and said, hey, when you get to Vesuvius,
just recruit some locals to go fight this this band
of runaway slaves and be back by dinner time.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
Police.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Yeah, it was, you know, love the national Guard not
knocking them, but it kind of reminded me of, you know,
sort of sending in the national Guard to take care
of something rather than the marine storming the beach.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
It's basically the story of John Rambo in First Blood.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
I trust me, I thought of that more than Blood rip.
Brian Dennehey, by the way, when like last.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Week, what, how did I not hear that?
Speaker 3 (25:34):
I think it's just sort of been under the radar
with everything going on.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Was it from coronavirus?
Speaker 3 (25:38):
No? Just I think he was like in his early
eighties and just just passed away.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Well, Rip, for sure, he was good.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
But I definitely, I definitely thought of Rambo a lot
while I was reading this. The difference is was that
Spartacus had a team to aid in his uprising. In
Rambo was of course a one man.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Army, an a team if you will.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
But at any rate, they didn't send the best of
the best because they were all busy Glaber's little army.
They said, you know what, we're not even going to
attack Spartacus. We'll just block off the route up to Vesuvius.
We're gonna pitch our tents, we're gonna hang out and
get drunk, and he's going to starve to death, and
that's kind of going to be the end of it.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
So we think, Yeah, you said, Glaber, Glaber is that praterer.
His name is Claudius Glaber. He sounds like an inept
kind of person that you would send to take care of.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
I'll send Glaber exactly.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
His name is just too close to Glavin.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
I think so.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
So Glaber said, he yeah, it's exactly what you said.
He posted a couple of guys on the road to Vesuvius,
the only road in or out up the mountain and
then the rest of the group is at camp, and
so Spartacus and his band are. They know that they
can't get down this road, but they're also not about
to starve at the hands of a guy named Glaber.
(27:00):
So they actually fashion rope and rope ladder out of
the vines that are growing up on Vesuvius, and they
climb down the mountain to a different spot and they
come up behind the guys who are guarding the road,
kill them, sneak into the Roman camp, kill all of
them while they're bathing and sleeping, and have done two things.
(27:22):
They just wiped out the soldiers of a prater, a
very high elected official, and they just captured a Roman
camp with all of its supplies, all of its weapons,
all of its armory. And these were really two really
big first strikes, if you'll allow that, and.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
I will so no, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
And it was a really big deal because you know,
word gets around and for the first time, slaves in
Italy were thinking, Wow, there's actually some place we could go.
It's not it's not like in America where there were
slaves in the south mainly and they could escape to
the north. It was just like that all over Italy.
(28:08):
So they had no they had nowhere to go. They
had no safe harbor, no quarter. If I'm allowed, I
will allow that as well. And they said, Wow, we
got a place we can go. We can go join
up with this sky Spartacus. He's out there sneaking up
on glabs and killing him while he's taking a bath, right,
(28:30):
And they're like, that sounds pretty good to me. I
want to get in on the fund.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Yeah. I don't know if it was this historian Erwin
from Murray State or if it was part of the article,
but somebody says at some point that, and I'm sorry,
not Irwin, Aaron Irvin is the name of the historian,
but somebody says at some point that those slaves because
they had nowhere to go, like you were saying, but
(28:53):
also because of the way that slave uprisings were brutally
dealt with, that they sure they very frequently didn't even
require supervision, that they would that there were whole rural
areas and towns that Spartacus was moving around to where
the slaves vastly outnumbered the freed people, and they were
(29:17):
able to sustain that disproportionate population distribution because the slaves
in Rome had such little hope of any different life
than what they had. And so, yeah, like you're saying,
Spartacus provided hope and something different, and all of a sudden,
his little ragtag band of slaves and their slave uprising
(29:39):
suddenly became a very large slave uprising. And in a
really short time they attracted something like forty thousand slaves
from these rural areas up around Vesuvius and in northern Italy,
I think northeastern Italy that they would just run away
and now they had a place to go, i e.
Spartacus's camp, and they would join up there and show
(30:01):
up with like kitchen knives and farm tools and stuff
like that, and they would be trained in combat. And
now all of a sudden, it goes from this ragtag
band of gladiator slaves who had escaped to something that
looked a lot like an actual rebellion. And that's what
Rome started to think that maybe they're dealing with.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Yeah, and I get the ideas around this time that
Spartacus becomes kind of an idea even more so than
an actual human being, because you know, when the word
is getting around, it's not like the newspaper's head front
page headlines or anything. You get these whispers, and you
get these stories and the spark of hope among the slaves,
(30:41):
and this idea that there is this rebellion and he's
a great boss. He splits everything right down the middle,
and he's not some awful leader. He divides all the
spoils equally, and he's getting non slaves to join up,
because even if you're like a you know, you might
not be a slave, but if you're a very poor
farm hand or something, it might look appealing all of
(31:04):
a sudden because you're not part of the elite Roman
kind of upper echelon class.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Yeah, so the idea that he's splitting the spoils with
people like that's huge, and apparently that stands up that
basically all of the ancient sources agree like this guy
took all his plunder and distributed it. He didn't keep
it for himself, he didn't turn himself into a king,
and he was running around freeing slaves, and that, you know,
(31:31):
that's one of the reasons why he did, like you said,
become a hero or an idea, and a hero that
still to the state groups kind of latch onto so
he's attracting more and more people. One of the things,
one of the ugly truths about this is that when
they were going around to these small towns in these
rural areas, freeing slaves, getting them to join their ranks,
(31:53):
there was also a lot of plundering going on, and
they were not merciful with the slave owners who own
these big, enormous estates that they were plundering. They would
engage in rape, they would engage in torture, they would
engage in murder. And from what I saw, it wasn't
(32:14):
Spartacus that was doing that, that he actually commanded against that,
but that his army had a mind of its own
in a lot of cases, and that they would they
would be pretty merciless and brutal with the freed people
who whose stuff they were taking.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure they were like, no, you
rape and pillage, that's what you do, right That's what
That's how it is right now. Even in the movie Spartacus,
he he refuses to take part in that. So there
are a few things you know that that Kubrick he
didn't write the screenplay, that was actually Dalton Trumbo, but
he he had that in the movie. So there were
(32:56):
bits of truth throughout for sure. Right, so this is
going on, Rome finally is like, all right, we gotta
really deal with this guy. Can someone, can someone please
go kill Spartacus for me?
Speaker 4 (33:09):
Right?
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Labor glabor sucked so bad, you guys. We got to
get a non glabor in there to take care of business.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
And they did. They sent Publius Verennius and hit that guy.
He was another prayer. So they're sending like pretty important
guys along with their soldiers and Varenius he was almost
nearly captured, which would have been enormous. He was so
close to being captured that I believe Spartacus himself stole
(33:39):
the guy's horse. He got his horse, Verennius, Publius, Publius Verennius,
And that was a huge black eye to Rome that like,
not only as this you know, band of runaway slaves.
You know it will like able to engage Rome in battle,
(34:01):
but he stole your horse and your insignia and almost
got your guy. That was a big deal. And so
all these these victories. With each victory, Spartacus's legend just
grows and he's able to attract more and more people.
I think within a year that historian Kenneth Check says
within a year, maybe a little more than a year,
(34:24):
there was as many, possibly as one hundred and twenty
five thousand, freed slaves or slaves, escape slaves, and commons
who had joined Spartacus's army one hundred and twenty five thousand,
and he started with seventy gladiators the year before.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
Yeah, seventy not seventy thousand, right, just to reiterate, Yeah, no,
that's worth saying. So spring of seventy two BC, Spartacus
has these troops. Some of them stay in the south
with his buddy Crixus, and then he said the rest
of you come with me. Were to head toward the
Alps because it's lovely this time of year. And I
(35:05):
think at the time, who would they know? These guys
have great names. Rome sent armies led by Lucius Gellius
Public Public Colaa and Neus Cornelius, Lintulus Claudianus.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Those are great names.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Those guys were councils, so they were the highest elected
officials in Rome.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Yeah, and as many as like twenty thousand guys put
together like this is serious business at this time to
go take care of Spartacus.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Yeah, I think when he almost captured Varenius that was
that really caught Rome's attention for the first time. Unfortunately,
these two councils what were their names again.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
Chuck, let's just call him public Cola and Claudenius.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Okay, fine, They were no better equipped to fight Spartacus either.
I think by this time he had he hadn't come
close to one hundred and twenty five thousand people yet,
but he was up to forty thousand, and both of
both of the yea yeah, Peaches and herb nice they
(36:19):
underestimated how many troops he'd had. They also were unaware
that he had wintered in the I think the north
of Italy and had spent the winter stealing horses and
building up a cavalry unit, which they had no idea
he had. This and one other thing he put to
good use. So remember, this guy's potentially a Roman army
(36:41):
veteran from Thrace, which means he's familiar with guerrilla warfare
that the Thracians practiced and conventional warfare which the Romans practiced,
and he's like commanding tens of thousands of troops to
great effect. Built a cavalry, and he also so like
some of those commoners who joined up who weren't slaves,
but they were not well off and they wanted to
(37:03):
fight the fight the power, so they joined. They were
usually like herdsmen or shepherds or something like that from
local areas who knew the areas really well, so he
used them as scouts and Peaches and Herb had no
idea that this, again, this band of runaways slaves had
turned into an actual like legit army under the command
(37:25):
of somebody who knew what they were doing, and he
ate both of them alive.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
Yeah, well, it actually was. It was kind of tough
because Peaches went down there to the south where Crixus
was and killed him with a lot of the rebels.
And then Herb came in from the north of Spartacus,
where he was headed toward the Alps, came you know,
he was ahead of him, so he came south from
(37:50):
the north right, and he came in, and Spartacus was
basically trapped between these two armies that had better equipment
to better weaponry, better armor, more munitions and food and
water and everything and wine, and they had no idea
that this cavalry was waiting for him that he had
been working on. It was kind of his little kind
(38:12):
of his little trojan horse in a way, and they
had never seen anything like it. And he beat Peaches
I think, or was that Herb. Now I'm all confused.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
He beat Herb.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
Okay, he beat Herb and got all the supplies that
Herb's army had, and then it was it was on
in a big, big way.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
So I misspoke. By this time, yes, he probably had
close to seventy five to one hundred and twenty five
thousand people in his army. But they had split off
because Crixus, who was one of the gladiators that you
just mentioned, one of the original gladiators he broke out
of the gladiator school with and who basically co operated
the army with him, he apparently wanted to split off
(38:57):
and take it straight to Rome, wanted to attack Rome,
and Spartakus's whole thing was like, no, no, no, let's
go north to Thrace, out of Italy. We can bill
our army up even better there and either just hang
out in Thrace and be great, or maybe then we
can come back to Italy. And they had a disagreement
they had a falling out and they split up, and
(39:18):
Crixis took thirty thousand men, and like you said, I
don't remember if it was Peaches or Herb who got him,
but the Crixis and his men were killed but simultaneously.
Even though Spartacus later beat that both of those guys,
he had just lost thirty thousand of his troops, which
is a pretty big troop reduction, especially basically overnight.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
Yeah, but he's still won in the end. In that
battle he did, he fought very bravely. He rushed either
Peaches or Herb, broke them down, captured their supplies, and
then we don't know for sure if he defeated Herb
or not, or if they just retreated, but at any rate,
that was sort of the end of them, and they
were allowed to go onto the Alps.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Right, So you want to take another break.
Speaker 3 (40:07):
Yeah, let's take our last break, and we'll wind it
up here with the last stand.
Speaker 4 (40:11):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
So sparta Kiss has not only now beaten prayers that
the Romans sent, he's beaten councils in their armies, and
rome Is flipped out. I don't know if they knew
that Crixus, who by the way was a celt which
I find mentally interesting. But Crixus, I don't know if
they knew that he was coming toward Rome and that
(41:02):
they just narrowly avoided being attacked by that contingent, but
it was definitely on their mind that Rome was left
unprotected because remember, the best generals and their best armies
were in Spain and Crete, and there was a really
really angry group of impoverished and escaped slaves who had
(41:28):
assembled themselves into a pretty respectable army possibly coming toward Rome.
Speaker 3 (41:33):
Yeah, and Rome was on thin ice at this point.
I mean, they were still super powerful, obviously, but they
make a good point in this article that they kind
of relied on the fact that everyone thought they were
great and was super scared of them, and they had
these big, scary armies. And once they started getting these defeats,
and once they started getting defeats, especially at the hands
(41:53):
of a former slave who was leading this kind of
ragtag team that was revolting against them, there's a little
chink in that armor and Spartacus is out. They're winning battles,
and everyone hears about this, and that's a big, big
deal to Rome. All of a sudden, they seem like
they're defeatable.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
Yeah, which if you are, if your society includes slaves,
and the slaves are kept in line by the idea
that you were undefeatable.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
That's right. And so they're there. They seem like they're defeatable.
Now their best armies in generals are away, and they
couldn't really find anyone to really take care of Spartacus
until this guy stepped up. He was a wealthy prayer
named Marcus Crassus, and he said, you know what, I've
got the dough and I'm a pretty brutal leader in
(42:41):
my own right. Maybe you've heard of me. And so
I'm going to finance this army and I'm going to
go kill that guy.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
And so if there's a villain in this story, it
is Crassus. He was a terrible, terrible person, possibly the
richest person Rome has ever seen. I read somewhere that
he would go to places that had caught fire with
his own personal fire brigade and would negotiate with the
owner of the house or whatever to buy it. And
(43:09):
if the if they would negotiate at just an extremely
cheap rate to sell their house that was on fire,
then Crassius or Crassus would have his fire brigade put
it out. If they didn't negotiate or sell, then he
would just leave with his fire brigade and let it burn.
Here's that kind of guy.
Speaker 3 (43:26):
Crasus was like, hey man, this place is on fire,
and I'm offering to buy it from you.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Right, it's a fire sale.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
You should you should take this.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
Yeah. But if they wouldn't, if they'd be like no,
this is completely unacceptable and immoral, he'd be like, all right,
see you later, and his fire brigade would leave. That's
just not good stuff. That's the kind of thing that
if you do that, people continue to talk about it
in a negative light two thousand years.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
Later on some dumb podcasts.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
So Crassus, you also might recognize this name. He was
part of the first triumvirate with Pompey and Caesar. He
was the third guy.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
Yeah, I remember that name.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
So so Crassus steps up and he says, you know what,
my father got a triumph, which is basically like a
military parade for a great military victory, and I've always
been envious. I want mine. I'm going to make mine.
The defeat of Spartacus I'm going to go get them.
I'm going to finance this army. I'm going to go
pick up some of the other armies that have been
(44:22):
defeated and kind of left scattered around Italy and reassemble them.
And there was one in particular, I think it was
the army of the Prader who was almost captured Verenius.
Some of his people ran away, and Crassus got them together,
I believe, five hundred people who had been accused of
desertion and running away during battle. And he brought out
(44:47):
of the old steamer trunk an old technique for keeping
your troops in line called decimation chuck, which is a
word that we've misused for years on this podcast. But
this is the real deal that he was doing.
Speaker 3 (45:00):
Yeah, and I don't think we've been misusing it for years.
I think it's now part of popular terminology, just not
necessarily reduced by ten.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
Okay, fair enough. But what he did was he said, okay,
all of you, five hundred, break up into fifty groups
of ten, and in every group, all ten of you
draw lots. Whoever draws the shortest lot gets executed. And
he executed fifty out of five hundred deserters in front
of his troops to basically say, hey, let's get that
(45:29):
morale up everybody. This is what happens to you if
you don't fight valiantly. And that was the kind of
leader that he was. So he's a real jerk in
business and a real jerk on the battlefield too, even
with his own.
Speaker 3 (45:41):
Troops, and a very selfish lover from what I.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
Hear he really was. He'd be like, well that's it
for me, Good luck to yourself.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
So he had a real be in his bonnet to
get that victory parade. He goes and chases Spartacus all
over Italy and there was some infighting going on, which
is what can happen a lot of times in a
rebellion and if you don't keep everyone's spirits up. So
that kind of weakened his army a little bit, and
so in a last ditch effort, Spartacus said, you know
what we need to do is we need to go
(46:09):
kill Crassus in front of everybody. And that'll do the trick.
If everyone sees Crasus is gone, you cut off that head,
maybe another one will not grow up in its place. Yeah,
And that didn't work out for Spartacus. He was actually
cut down in battle. His army was finally defeated. They
hunted down all six thousand of the survivors of the
(46:30):
army and crucified them. He was not himself crucified like
in the movie Spartacus, And there was never that great
moment in the movie that I'm Spartacus moment that never
really happened in real life. Unfortunately, they never found his body,
which is sort of a sad end to this to
(46:50):
a leader who did some pretty great things for a
little while.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
But now really though, because I read he was last seen,
he was really close to Crassus. He was headed to
Crasses to kill him himself, and he I think killed
two centurions in hand to hand combat on his way
to Crassus before he was swarmed on like Hollywood style
and cut down by like just a mob of dudes
(47:15):
who overwhelmed them. Which is that's not a sad end. No,
if you're living by the sword and dying by the sword,
that's the way to go for sure.
Speaker 3 (47:22):
Okay, I bet you he would have preferred to kill Crasses.
Speaker 2 (47:25):
Sure, I'll give you that. But if he was never
faded to kill Crasses, if that snake coiled on his
head and foretold that he would never kill crasses. That's
the way to go.
Speaker 3 (47:35):
Well, in the end, he is gone, his rebellion is squashed,
but some good comes out of it. Rome kind of says,
you know what, this taught us a great lesson, which
is maybe we should listen to the lower class a
little bit more. It wasn't some huge sweeping reform change
or anything like that. I don't want to like sugarcoat it,
(47:57):
but there were a number of reforms that were passed
that did strengthen the voice of the people as a whole,
and they had a little bit more say in their
government because they didn't want another Spartacus to come along.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
Yeah. And then over the years, like many thousands of
years later, like I said, he was kind of held
up as like this hero, this ideal, so like the
abolitionist movement in the United States held him up as
a hero because he was known to free slaves. That
was how he assembled his army. And he wasn't necessarily
freeing slaves for the ideal of ending slavery. He was
freeing slaves to help build up his army. But I'm
(48:31):
sure there was a certain amount of like this is
a good thing that these slaves are no longer slaves
when they're you know with me that he must have
entertained at least and then later on, like you said,
Dalton Trumbo wrote the script for the nineteen sixty movie
directed by Kubrick on Spartacus, and Dalton Trumbo was blacklisted
(48:51):
from Hollywood because he was a communist or he wouldn't
name names I can't remember. And Dalton Trumbo wrote that
script based on a novel written by a guy named
Howard Fast who had written the novel in jail because
he wouldn't name names on the McCarthy hearings. And so
Spartacus kind of became like a hero of Marxists because
(49:13):
he freed slates. He overthrew the oppressors, but he also
took the oppressor's wealth and redistributed it among you know,
the lower classes, which Marxists are just bonkers for.
Speaker 3 (49:26):
Pretty interesting stuff.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
Yeah, there's plenty more about Spartacist gladiators all that stuff.
This is really thick stuff, and this is stuff you
should know. It's not what we do. We just kind
of give an overview. So if this floated your boat
at all, go look up Spartacus, start reading on him
and you will be fascinated. And since I said that
it's time for listener.
Speaker 3 (49:46):
Mail, I'm gonna call this wastewater operator oh good or
a former now retired wastewater operator. I see, Hey, guys,
just finished listening to the episode on wastewater treatment with
a critical ear, having worked for over twenty years as
both a WW lab analyst and operator. While I understand
you were aiming for the least knowledgeable common denominator in
(50:09):
your audience, I feel like you did a disservice to
all wastewater treatment plants and their employees by failing to
mention that every treatment plant in America must abide by
strict regulatory permits issued under the Clean Water Act, tailored
to the needs of these specific facilities Influent. Your words
make it sound like we in operations made our own
decisions as to how clean the water, how clean is
(50:33):
clean enough, and that cannot be further from the truth.
I want to stop here because I don't feel like
we did that.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
Did we We certainly didn't mean to. I don't think
that we were Just like you know, it's up to
text who's running the levers to decide what's clean enough
if we did. Sorry, we definitely don't think that.
Speaker 3 (50:50):
No, we didn't think that at all. In my position
as analyst, I perform an average performed an average of
thirty thousand standard laboratory tests per year to maintain, permit,
comple clients, and support operations. That number increased dramatically when
there are operational upsets, process changes, influent variations, etc. In addition,
operators collect and analyzed process control samples several times per
(51:12):
shift for the same reason. I think we knew that
stuff was going on, right.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (51:18):
I don't want to sound defensive, but.
Speaker 2 (51:19):
Do this person listen or just say, oh, I see
this title. Here's all the things are going to get wrong.
Speaker 3 (51:24):
No, I think they listened.
Speaker 2 (51:25):
Okay, good.
Speaker 3 (51:27):
I wish to thank you for attempting to educate the
public on the vital role clean water and sewage treatment
play in the health and prosperity of the United States.
I firmly believe this is what truly makes America great.
You don't hear people saying they need vaccinations and antibiotics
to fend off waterborne illness when visiting the United States.
Sorry to rant On, I appreciate your time. Thanks for reading,
(51:48):
and please put out a big thank you to all
wastewater treatment operators about whom nobody is paying attention, but
whom everyone needs. And that is from Anne Danielson, retired
operator in Analyst.
Speaker 2 (52:00):
Thanks a lot, and that's good stuff. And yes, agreed.
If everyone doesn't know that we need wastewater treatment people
and they're not paying attention, so hats off to you
and your colleagues from us.
Speaker 3 (52:12):
Agreed. Yes, I know that there's a lot of work
and analysis and testing and if we didn't hammer that
home enough then we are now.
Speaker 2 (52:20):
Yeah. Well, if we missed the mark on something, or
you just want to add something or just want to say, hey,
you guys nailed it, nailed it. We love that. You
can get in touch with us via email, Wrap it up,
spanking on the bottom and send it off to Stuff
Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1 (52:39):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of Iheartradios How
Stuff Works. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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