Sources seem to describe them as spectacular victories. They often have little, sort of like tricks, cause they're trying to account for how how swartcus was so successful. He put corpses on stakes and lit fires, so that te the romans thought they were still in their camp. And meanwhile, they'd sort of snuck off. So this kind of trickery is sot are constant in the accounts of the battles. Yeell, he's like a greek hero, pluto, or the cunning slave. That's all you the slaves don't have fire power, but they thesot mari. What are they thinking? How are they working out what to do
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life of Spartacus, the gladiator who led a major slave rebellion against the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC. He was an accomplished military leader, and the campaign he led contributed significantly to the instability of the Roman state in this period. Spartacus was celebrated by some ancient historians and reviled by others, and became a hero to revolutionaries in 19th-century Europe. Modern perceptions of his character have been influenced by Stanley Kubrick's 1960 film - but ancient sources give a rather more complex picture of Spartacus and the aims of his rebellion.
With:
Mary Beard
Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge
Maria Wyke
Professor of Latin at University College, London
Theresa Urbainczyk
Associate Professor of Classics at University College, Dublin.
Producer: Victoria Brignell.