The Gladiators

A widely known historical event—the slave uprising led by Spartacus in Arthur Koestler’s novel—takes on a completely different, unusual tone. For four long years, studying historical materials, he analyzed and tried to understand how a gang of seventy circus fighters managed, in just a few months, to grow into a real army and take control of half of Italy. Spartacus did not take the decisive step—he refrained from purging the renegade Celts, did not crucify them, and did not establish a merciless tyranny. By doing so, he doomed his revolution to defeat—this is the author’s conclusion. You may accept or reject this reading of long-past events, but you can’t deny the writer’s originality and freshness of perception.