Spartacus

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.

→ Listen on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Mary Beard 11 episodes
  Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge
• Maria Wyke 8 episodes
  Professor of Latin at University College, London
• Theresa Urbainczyk No other episodes
  Associate Professor of Classics at University College, Dublin.

Reading list

• Slavery and Rebellion in the Roman World 140 BC-70 BC
  Keith Bradley (John Wiley & Sons, 1989) Google Books →
• I am Spartacus: Making a Film, Breaking the Blacklist
  Kirk Douglas (Open Road Media E-Riginal, 2012) Google Books →
• Spartacus
  Howard Fast (reprinted M.E. Sharpe, 1996) Google Books →
• Spartacus
  Lewis Grassic Gibbon (Pegasus Books, reprinted, 2012) Google Books →
• The Gladiators
  Arthur Koestler (Vintage Classics, reprinted, 1999) Google Books →
• Spartacus
  Aldo Schiavone (trans. Jeremy Carden) (Harvard University Press, 2013) Google Books →
• Spartacus and the Slave Wars: A Brief History with Documents
  Brent D. Shaw (Bedford, 2001) Google Books →
• On the Spartacus Road: A Spectacular Journey through Ancient Italy
  Peter Stothard (HarperPress, 2011) Google Books →
• The Spartacus War
  Barry Strauss (Phoenix, 2010) Google Books →
• Spartacus: The Myth and the Man
  M. J. Trow (The History Press Ltd, 2006) Google Books →
• Spartacus
  Theresa Urbainczyk (Bristol Classical Press, 2004) Google Books →
• Slave Revolts in Antiquity
  Theresa Urbainczyk (Acumen Publishing Ltd, 2008) Google Books →
• Spartacus: Film and History
  Martin M. Winkler (Wiley-Blackwell, 2006) Google Books →

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Programme ID: b03wq2p3

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03wq2p3

Auto-category: 937.03 (History of ancient Rome: Roman Republic, 510–31 BC)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello. In 1960, the American director Stanley Kubrick made a film starring Kirk Douglas, which was widely acclaimed by the critics and won numerous awards.