Directions: Watch "The Life of Spartacus" video to help you answer the questions on your worksheet. Add more facts from the class discussion to the right.
Background Information
In the Roman world, slaves and gladiators were at the bottom of the social ladder. Because of this, there is often little information about the individuals that made up these groups. Spartacus’ revolt understandably made him well-known and a person of interest to the Romans, and often a figure of fear. However, even as an exception to the rule, there are no records from Spartacus himself or his former slave followers about his life or their revolt. The entire legend of Spartacus and his revolt is based on material from the Roman point-of-view, which means that the perspective is generally also that of an upper-class Roman male.
There are a number of references to Spartacus in pro-Roman sources, including two lengthier accounts from Appian (Civil Wars, 1.116-120) and Plutarch (Life of Crassus, 8-11), both written in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE and therefore between 100 or 200 years after the revolt. The earliest accounts, written by men such as Varro, Cicero, and Sallust who lived through the conflict itself, don't really talk much about it beyond using it as an example for how one man's name can be used to inspire fear. Some references, such as those in Cicero’s speeches, are brief and serve mostly to show that Spartacus’ name could be used as an insult or to inspire fear.
An important thing to remember when reading the primary sources is that there was not a one way to talk about a topic. Without the slave perspective, it's hard to know why Spartacus or the slaves acted in the way that they did. Spartacus' story was often shaped according to the author’s motivations. Some writers were more concerned with using Spartacus and the revolt as a way to be critical of Roman society and government than with telling the "truth" about the gladiator himself. Plutarch, for instance, talks about Spartacus as a courageous leader of the common people so that he can show the man who defeated him, Crassus, as being an elitist and out of touch with the struggles of poorer Romans. Remember, Crassus was the richest man in Rome at the time and would partner with Pompey the Great and Julius Caesar to form an alliance called the First Triumvirate which directly led to the collapse of the 500 year old Republic and over 20 years of civil war which saw hundreds of Roman legions fighting each other across the Mediterranean, hundreds of thousands die, and the rise of the first emperor, Augustus.