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The Spartacus War, by Barry Strauss
Free PDF The Spartacus War, by Barry Strauss
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An authoritative account from an expert author: The Spartacus War is the first popular history of the revolt in English. A leading authority on classical military history, Barry Strauss has used recent archaeological discoveries, ancient documents, and on-site investigations to create the most accurate and detailed account of the Spartacus rebellion ever written—and it reads like a first-rate novel.
A thrilling story that has inspired novelists and filmmakers: The real-life Spartacus is even more amazing than his fictional counterparts. A slave from Thrace (modern day Bulgaria), possibly of noble origins, he led a shocking rebellion at a gladiatorial school in Capua in 73 BC. Within two years the ranks of his army, which started with fewer than 100 men, swelled to 60,000; they routed nine Roman armies and for a time controlled all of southern Italy. The Roman general Crassus eventually defeated the slave army and while Spartacus apparently died on the field of battle, his body was never recovered. The legend arose that he escaped and remained undefeated..
- Sales Rank: #156148 in Books
- Brand: Brand: Simon n Schuster
- Published on: 2010-02-02
- Released on: 2010-02-02
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.13" h x .90" w x 6.12" l, .69 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 288 pages
- Great product!
From Publishers Weekly
No one presents the military history of the ancient world with greater insight and panache than Strauss (The Trojan War). His latest work tells the story of a slave from the Balkans, a gladiator who in 73 B.C. led an uprising of 700 gladiators that eventually attracted over 60,000 followers. Strauss depicts Spartacus as a charismatic politician, able to hold together a widely disparate coalition of Celts, Thracians, Germans and Italians. As a general, he was a master of maneuver and mobility, keeping the ponderous Romans consistently off balance. Strauss reconstructs the rebels' movements across southern Italy and their development into an army good enough to overcome Rome's legions in battle after battle. Not until Marcus Licinius Crassus was given command of Roman forces did Spartacus face an opponent who could match him. Spartacus forced a battle that resulted in complete defeat and his anonymous death. But the uprising he sparked left a permanent mark on the Roman psyche and made Spartacus himself a figure of myth as well as history, as Strauss shows at the end of this brisk, engrossing account. 8 pages of b&w illus., maps. (Mar. 17)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
The first-century BCE slave revolt against Rome was led by Spartacus, a Thracian-born gladiator who had previously served as a Roman auxiliary soldier. Spartacus and the struggle he led have served as the inspiration for movies, an opera, and several fictionalized accounts. He has also been adopted as a symbol of freedom by political movements of both the Left and Right. Yet the historical Spartacus remains a murky figure, while the details of the revolt remain subjects of historical dispute. Strauss, professor of history and classics at Cornell University, has made an admirable attempt to fill in some of the gaps in the historical record in a compelling but highly speculative effort. Strauss admits the lack of reliable primary sources has forced him to engage in some tricky conjectures regarding the character and motivation of Spartacus. Still, many of his assertions are credible, and his efforts to portray the political and social milieu of Italy during the late Republic are superbly done. Strauss sees Spartacus as a brave and charismatic leader who was limited by some personal shortcomings. --Jay Freeman
Review
"With his trademarks of extensive knowledge, insight, and great storytelling ability, Barry Strauss brings us as close as we can get to the enigmatic Spartacus, the slave who defied the Roman Republic." -- Adrian Goldsworthy, author of Caesar: Life of a Colossus
Most helpful customer reviews
68 of 71 people found the following review helpful.
A Legend is Given Life
By Richard Masloski
This is a wonderful book. A page-turner. An eye-opener for those whose eyes are filled with the movie 'Spartacus.' In clear, exciting, often times poetic prose, Barry Strauss gives us the true story as best it may be known from the scant historic record. After all, as the quote goes, history is written by the victors. But did Spartacus truly lose in his heroic and daring bid for freedom from his Roman oppressors? His name remains vivid and vital on the lips of men down through the centuries unto our present day. He may have lost the war wherein he and his army of slaves held Rome at bay for two long years - but he most assuredly won the history writ in the heart of man. This book is tangible proof of that immortality.
The book reads as bravely and briskly as Spartacus fought for the freedom all peoples dream of. The only things that would have made the book all-the-better would have been a few maps outlining stategic movements in the gladiator-rebel's numerous battles with the enemy - especially of the last battle, speculative as it might have been to reconstruct. Also, there is a bit too much geographical description that, rather than clarifying key locations of the story, tend to confuse it. I would have liked to have learned more about Rome itself - it's history, it's day-to-day life in the days of Spartacus; also a deeper delving into the origins of crucifixion (which plays a huge part in the end game of the gladiatorial revolt) would have been welcome. Who first practiced it - and why? What actually kills a man on a cross? There is no analysis as to why the captured 6,000 did not fight to the death - or commit suicide - knowing what awaited them once they laid down or lost their weapons.
Despite these few matters, Mr. Strauss has given us the living man Spartacus whose Life is every bit as compelling as his Myth. Thumbs up on this one (even though we learn within the book that thumbs up actually signalled death for the defeated.)
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful.
Hats off to Barry Strauss
By Ben Kane
Little more than 4000 words about Spartacus survive from ancient texts. Placed alongside what we know about other events or aspects of Roman history, this is a paltry amount. It's not much information to write a book around. Yet that is what Barry Strauss has done. And boy, has he done a good job. Many textbooks are dry, hard-to-read affairs with little attraction to the average reader. The Spartacus War, on the other hand, is richly detailed. The late Roman Republic is described very well, allowing the reader to picture the scene readily in his/her mind's eye.
We're told about the day to day happenings of gladiator life and the background to Spartacus' rebellion, given vivid descriptions of the warlike Thracians (to the Romans, they were "worse than snow") Gauls and Germans. Where there are gaps, Strauss admits to them, before filling them in with a deft and believable touch. Examples include most of the battles which Spartacus and his men fought - if I remember correctly, it was nine major ones against the Romans. In all of these, the slaves were victorious - even when they faced both consuls and their legions. An incredible achievement by anyone's standards.
Ultimately, however, Spartacus did not escape over the Alps as he could have done. Why he didn't is one of history's great unanswered questions. Strauss discusses in depth the possible reasons why, and his theories hold a lot of water in my opinion. If you want to read an excellent study of one of the greatest rebellions of all time, buy this book. You won't be disappointed. Even the bibliography is a goldmine of further texts to consult. If you're after a good, short synopsis, or another book about Spartacus, look no further than Spartacus and the Slave War.
Ben Kane, author of Spartacus: The Gladiator.
42 of 48 people found the following review helpful.
As Much Fact as We Can Get about the Legend
By Rob Hardy
You know the name Spartacus, probably from the many fictional descriptions of his life, especially Kirk Douglas playing the title role in the 1960 film by Stanley Kubrick. There are novels about him, too, and a ballet by Khachaturian. Ronald Reagan was no scholar of Roman history, but in an address in Britain, he referred to the rebellious slave Spartacus as a symbol of the fight against totalitarianism. Spartacus's name seems as if it will resound forever, and so a case could be made that we ought to know more about him than the "facts" presented in a Hollywood biopic. Here are the facts: _The Spartacus War_ (Simon and Schuster) by classicist Barry Strauss. It is a compelling story, the sort of history that makes sense of the far-distant Roman world while being frank about how little we can know for sure. Strauss has authoritatively put together facts from the original ancient documents, or the ancient documents citing older documents now lost, and has judiciously filled in the gaps. Spartacus didn't write a biography, of course, but his followers didn't write about him either, and it is only from a few Roman or Greek writers that we get some idea of what Spartacus did. Those writers were writing from the point of view of those who had put down Spartacus's rebellion. We can't even put together some of his battles with certainty; those around Vesuvius, for instance, were more than a century before the volcano had its famous explosion in 79 AD, and the terrain was changed completely. Nonetheless, Strauss's narrative is compelling, and the excitement of the story combined with its detail make this a superb history.
Spartacus was a Thracian who fought in the Roman army. He deserted, and was later captured, made a slave, and condemned to become a gladiator. In 73 BC he convinced seventy other slaves to revolt from their gladiator school, using kitchen knives as weapons. Spartacus and his growing army (perhaps as many as 100,000 at one point) began his two years of ravaging the countryside and defeating one Roman army after another. The Romans underestimated the power of the slave revolutionaries, and the first armies sent out against Spartacus were badly defeated. They finally sent in Marcus Licinius Crassus, who He took over the troops in the most forceful of ways, literally decimating any deserters; 500 runaways were divided into fifty groups, and nine men clubbed the selected tenth man to death. He was hungry for a victory, not least because he wanted to win before his rival Pompey could return from battles in Spain and take some of his glory. Crassus pursued the slave army, splitting it and eventually gaining a victory for Rome. The Romans seem to have admired Spartacus, for all the threat he was to their entire society. He was clever and brave. His end came mostly because he was betrayed by pirates he had commissioned to get his army out of the Italian peninsula and into Sicily. He was not, despite what Hollywood might show, crucified. Crassus did crucify 6,000 of the captured slaves, hanging them up along the Appian Way. Spartacus, however, died on the field of battle. The Romans loathed slaves and had contempt for their rebellion, and it is only Roman commentators who wrote about that final battle, but they all commented in awe upon his bravery, and that of his slave troops: "They met with a death worthy of real men," wrote one.
Strauss writes, "Spartacus was a failure against Rome but a success as a mythmaker. No doubt he would have preferred the opposite, but history has its way with us all. Who, today, remembers Crassus? Pompey? Even Cicero is not so well remembered. Everyone has heard of Spartacus." Yes, and almost everyone has sparse ideas about the facts of the man, who was a genuine hero. Strauss's book, which is both about Spartacus's history and about the limits of history, brings as much truth to the tale as we are ever going to get. It also provides surprisingly satisfying excitement.
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