In the late second century b c as the time when daggers came into the forum, it was decidedly unstable. It was becoming a time of high state competition between individual big men who are sometimes competing with each other. And they were wanting access to power because the stakes had got so big. If you got a big command to go and fight an eastern king, you came back wealthy, but beyond belief. Also a kind of leader of the world, maria wagi.
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.