The Spartacus War Book

*Revised review
This book is not quite an academic treatise, and not quite a "popular" reconstruction of events, but something in-between; a work that is purely evidence based but written in a casual tone with a lack of textual references in a way that makes it very accessible to the casual reader. In short, a work of "popular history "in the vein of the plethora of popular science works out there.

But do not mistake it for creative non-fiction. Since a lot of the evidence relating to the subject is only circumstantial and according to hearsay and since Strauss is obviously committed to sticking to facts only, the work is inevitably interspersed with speculative discussions putting forth educated guesses where sources diverge or is of uncertain veracity. In these cases, the author addresses the various possibilities ("Maybe this… maybe that...").

However, he definitely does not do this in the "creative fiction" style. I myself am not a lover of creative fiction at all - I have my own imagination and prefer not to be treated to someone else's when it comes to history, so although Strauss' style does not lead to a very flowing narrative, I appreciated the honesty and lack of phony made-up scenarios that creative fiction tends to consist of to bring a scenario "to life".

I originally gave this book 5 stars, because I felt that since it was so well-researched, the writer so knowledgeable about the era, and so much work went into it that I felt it deserved 5 stars for the enormous effort (Strauss personally visited many of the geographical sites where events supposedly took place) and hard work and thoroughness with which the topic was tackled.

But on second thought if the book was really all that comprehensive, it would, in retrospect, have given me more background about causes and context, the what and how and why of things, less than so much the when and where of things, the latter which seems to be Strauss's most pressing preoccupations.

Firstly, I find myself more mystified about Spartacus the man, after reading this book, than I had been before reading it. I know that not much information is left about him as far as first-hand accounts go, but scientists often look at the effect of things and the behavior of things to divine more about the nature of that thing.

True, the title of the book is not "Spartacus", but "The Spartacus War", and it does seem to be exactly that- an account of the war, but an account seen very much from the Roman side. But even as that, I feel it falls a bit short as far as background and context is concerned. Yes, Strauss does continue on after the death of Spartacus to give us the aftermath of the war insofar as Roman leadership is concerned; but the book in general tells us very little of the societal, political and historical background to the war. There it's more a book about Roman generals than about the world in general.

I wanted to know more about questions like: What was Rome's exact relationship with Thrace, Macedonia and Greece? Which other wars was Rome engaged in, that distracted attention from the slave rebellion? How was the political structure of Rome put together in the 70's BCE? (He does deal a little bit with governmental structure, but he doesn't really go to great lengths to put it in context.) How did slavery work, and how did class structure work, all things that definitely had a bearing on the how and why of the "Spartacus War". These were things I would have liked him to deal with and put in context, if, then, the book was more concerned with "The Spartacus War" as seen from the Roman side.

But why see it from the Roman side only? Why not deal a bit more with the nature and background of the man whose name is borne by the rebellion, the "Spartacus War", namely, Spartacus?
For a character so famous that he became the mascot of many freedom fighters and liberation movements, Strauss seems hardly interested in the nature or character of Spartacus - speculative as it may be.

The famous runaway slave Spartacus was a complex and enigmatic character. Most likely having been a Thracian conscript in the Roman army, he was slapped into slave chains most likely when he tried to desert. He was forced to become a murmillo, a heavyweight gladiator, another job which he obviously disliked.

According to Plutarch (one of our few remaining sources regarding Spartacus), he was "possessed not only of great courage and strength, but also in sagacity and culture superior to his fortune, and more Hellenic than Thracian." (In those days, being called Greek or Hellenistic was to confer an air of distinction upon someone or something, because the Romans came to greatly admire Greek civilization. So for Plutarch to describe him thus, he was sort of saying that Spartacus was more civilized, genteel and/or educated than the average Thracian. The Thracians consisted of a great kingdom of many tribes, but it was thought that Spartacus came from one of the more warlike, nomadic tribes, so there is speculation that he was a nobleman from that tribe.)

I couldn't help getting an idea of Spartacus's character between the lines of the historical evidence, and started liking the man. In spite of the fact that he was a great fighter and tactician, and excelled at both hand-to-hand combat and as a battlefield commander, and the fact that he definitely did not come short where courage and bravery was concerned, he also seemed to have a soft side to him. Or did he have a soft spot in the form of a woman? Plutarch tells us that Spartacus had a Thracian prophetess as a companion. (People were extremely superstitious in ancient times, and consulted their various gods about literally everything they were about to do in life. A priestess or prophetess like Spartacus's woman would intercede with the gods and receive prophecies from them - in this case, from the god Dionysus.)

Spartacus was apparently a very good orator, and was well able to inspire people to throw off their slave-chains, revolt against the aristocracy and follow him, and yet he often seemed to lose personal arguments.

The latter is shown time and again where Spartacus got involved in arguments with the non-Thracian leaders, where he wanted to go North, but where they in return preferred to go south through Italy on a killing and pillaging spree. Now, one of the things that had been puzzling me, was why Spartacus seemed to have so little control over his followers, given that he was supposedly a good orator, charismatic and able to inspire people into action. He must also have been very intelligent and resourceful, taking into account all his tactical savvy, as well as strong-willed, taking into account his persistence in the face of adversity.

Why, if he was so charismatic that he could inspire his fellow slaves to revolt, could he not control them? Is it because the type of followers he mainly had (being besides his fellow Thracians, also Gauls, Germans and Celts), were savage warriors who were proud, enjoyed fighting and would rather die than to be slaves or to become mere farmers? That seems to be rather likely. Maybe they also thirsted for revenge against the Romans, and this was their overriding passion?

There is a theory put forward that Spartacus was actually just one of the four or five rebel leaders, and was never really the overarching leader. Ethnic divisions obviously played a strong role. Spartacus would undisputedly have been the leader of the Thracians, but the other leaders were mainly Gallic- as a lot of the slaves/gladiators had been.

Yet it was Spartacus's name that endured through history, and his name that defined the slave war, so he definitely must have had some dominance, not to mention that he was obviously more battle-savvy than the other leaders - since they got defeated where he kept managing to outfox the Romans.

Maybe his woman advised him to rather stay in Italy and fight? - as an oracle (or message-bringer of the gods), her word would probably have carried considerable weight.

So, contradictory as it might sound, Spartacus was both rebellious and strong-willed, yet also "soft" (idealistic - noble, even?). All he really wanted was to go back to Thrace and make a decent living there as a free person, and that is what he wanted for the slaves he had freed as well - to flee from Italy and go back to their countries of origin and just live their lives as normally as possible.

Strauss comes to the conclusion towards the end of the book, that : "Spartacus failed".

No bone thrown to the poor underdog that perhaps the reason why Spartacus eventually failed in a military sense or in the fact that he could not convince his followers to flee from Italy over the Alps was, that in spite of his brilliance, Spartacus was too noble and not brutal enough to have complete control over his underlings. (Perhaps too trusting as well, such as with pirates who tricked him). Maybe the Alps simply seemed too daunting to people who didn't have a specific place to go to on the other side of them.

At least, unlike the brutal Crassus (Spartacus's eventual conqueror) who used base tactics to discipline his men, Spartacus was inherently a good, or "humane" man. For example, he tried to stop his followers from killing, looting, raping and pillaging - but sadly Spartacus seemed unable to stop them. Of course they did need to loot food and implements and weapons. But Spartacus instructed his people not to rape and kill innocents; to no avail.

Military-wise, Spartacus was a genius where tactics were concerned, and before Crassus came along, Spartacus was the undisputed the king of the Italian countryside, and had beaten every single Roman force sent against him for two years, so in many, many battles, he had not been a failure.

So after reading a lot of tantalizing facts about Spartacus, I felt a bit frustrated to be left wondering, at the end, as to why Spartacus was not more forceful with his followers. I would have preferred Prof Strauss to have done a bit more elaborate speculation on that point, as well as on another point:

The actions Spartacus took just before and during his last battle also puzzled me. I suppose we will never know why this brilliant man ritually scarified his own horse before the battle, and then proceeded to storm into the Roman fray on foot, towards his rival, General Crassus, only to be, unsurprisingly, struck down by the Roman hordes around him as well as by members of Crassus' personal guard.
The decision to dispense with his horse obviously put Spartacus at a tactical disadvantage, and his actions in charging toward Crassus without a horse seems like a suicide mission.

Did his Thracian woman give him a prophecy which said that he would, in fact, be successful in reaching Crassus single-handedly and kill him? Did he, on the other hand, perhaps lose his Thracian woman somewhere along the way and was inspired by grief? Or did he perhaps despair that his followers would ever follow his commands with more discipline, let alone follow him over the Alps to freedom and did he consequently decide to take a gamble with death, which if lost, would at least give him an honorable death?

Who knows what would have happened had Crassus not been on the scene? It's likely that General Pompey would have beaten him in the end, but it's also likely that Spartacus could have invaded the city Rome itself as his followers seems to have wanted, before Pompey would have caught up with him.

The fates did seem to decide against Spartacus on many counts, but at least, if wanting an honorable fighter's death is what Spartacus sought, at least in that, he had succeeded.