46 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Legend is Given Life, March 20, 2009
This review is from: The Spartacus War (Hardcover)
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.)
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25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
As Much Fact as We Can Get about the Legend, May 8, 2009
This review is from: The Spartacus War (Hardcover)
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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16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Classical history for the Hoi Poloi, March 23, 2009
This review is from: The Spartacus War (Hardcover)
Professor Strauss has done it again - producing a serious addition to the historian's bookshelf that is readable and enjoyable by those without a graduate education in classics. This is not to say that Strauss has "dumbed down" his work, but more that his writing style and contemporary analogies make for a remarkable enjoyable read - an enjoyable page-turner.
The author, an historian and scholar of note, is in top form meshing (near) contemporary accounts, his own research, and such illustrative anecdotes as the myth of Scylla and Charybdis to make the ancient story come alive for the modern reader.
This historical example of insurgency - which has become a modern strategic theme of note - is a must read for military professional an amateur historian alike.
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