The name of Spartacus—the leader of the largest slave uprising in Rome—is known to everyone; it has already become a myth in itself. But who was he really: a doomed gladiator who rebelled against his fate, a rebellious slave who stood against Rome alone, a fighter for freedom, the first revolutionary who foretold the inevitable collapse of autocratic Rome five centuries before its fall? How many images—so many legends. But what do we know for sure about this man who left a short yet vivid mark on history? The French historian Éric Teyssier, a specialist in Roman antiquity, compares the texts of ancient authors who wrote about Spartacus and tries to separate truth from fiction.