Roman Culture

Roman Culture Spartacus The 1960 film Spartacus claims to tell the story of the famous slave revolt, also known as the Gladiator War, which terrorized Rome for years and can be pinpointed as one of the most influential causes of the eventual destruction of the Roman Republic and its descent into imperialism and tyranny. One must say "claims to be," rather than "is," in this case because the film is wildly inaccurate historically.

The creators of this work were, of course, aware of its lack of historical authenticity, which is partly attributed to the artistic necessity of condensing four years of political upheaval and constant warfare into less than four hours. Indeed, condensation of time is the biggest historical inaccuracy here -- for example, many main Roman characters are rather indiscriminately condensed in time, such as Gracchus who appears to be a combination of two Gracchus brothers active fifty years before Spartacus, or the condensation of Crassus with Sulla as a military tyrant.

Among these many historical inaccuracies is a serious distortion of the facts regarding slavery in the Roman Republic. This distortion is not so much made explicit as it is subtly portrayed through-out the film. The bare realities of slave demographics and culture are obscured, the slave revolutionaries are simultaneously idealized and made less effective warriors than they were historically, and Spartacus as an individual suffers the same fate.

The obfuscation of slave life is subtle but pervasive, in that slavery in Rome is frequently made to appear more like American slavery than is quite accurate. There are several ways in which this happens -- first, in this film the source of slaves appears to be mainly through natural reproduction and occasionally the kidnapping or enslaving of free adults from other countries. This is evidenced in all the slave stories.

Spartacus's story, for example, is told by the narrator: "In the conquered greek province of Thrace, an illiterate slave woman added to her master's wealth by giving birth to a son whom she named Spartacus..." Varinia, meanwhile, appears to have been kidnapped from across the ocean in Brittania when she was 13 years old -- Most likely an adult, by Celtic standards. The people speak about going home to the countries from which they were kidnapped, as if --like American slaves-- they all originated from some specific continent.

Historically, however, the ways in which individuals became enslaved were more numerous. The historical Spartacus, for example, appears to have been a soldier before he was a slave. One rumor has it that he was a Roman legionnaire that mutinied and was thereafter enslaved (the film actually addresses this rumor and dismisses it inthe discussion of "royal blood") and more credible sources suggest that he was a captured Thracian soldier. Historically, slaves were frequently criminals, captured enemy soldiers, or Roman children who has been "exposed" at birth.

John Madden wrote an excellent article on this subject which shows conclusively that though there did exist Vernae, or children that were born to enslaved mothers and remained as slaves, they were not the primary source of slaves and neither were captured noncombatants, but very many of slaves in the early Republic were either foundlings abandoned by their birth parents, people sold into slavery by their own families, prisoners of war, or criminals. The later two categories were especially common among gladiators.

Another obfuscation occurs when the film subtly indicates that there are as many women as men among the slaves. The majority of women's work in the film (such as attending to the kitchen or weaving) was done by women, and some of the men's work as well. Women even fought in the army. Varinia, for example, says that "my master had me tutored..." And indicates that she had been a teacher to his children.

Spartacus, at one point says there are "too many women" come to join his army, and eventually consents to let them stay if they will fight. Historically, however, it appears that less than one quarter of the slaves (and possibly as few as 12%) were female. Men often performed female roles (something hinted at in the oysters or snails.. dialog).

John Madden records that "in general, whenever slaves were bought, males outnumbered females, and that this was the pattern also for the total slave body of the Empire..." And speaks of male hairdressers, cooks, and kitchen workers. Other minor inconsistencies no doubt exist as well, such as the focus on illiteracy being synonymous with slavery through-out the film. Disallowing slaves to be educated was true in America, but slaves in Rome were as likely to be literate as were free people.

(Antoninus is an example of that truth) Of course, in many other ways the portrayal of slaves is accurate for the era. For example, the fact that many slaves were freed and joined the ranks of Roman citizens is hinted at in the movie. Perhaps because the causes of slavery are so simplified here, the motivations and idealism of the slave army is also simplified and even fictionalized -- the army is made both more ideological and more incompetent than it really was.

In this movie, all the slaves want is to escape Rome and return home. This is clearly stated by Spartacus when he says "all we want is to get out of this damn country" and reiterated by Glabrus to the Senate. The film shows the army mustering and then marching straight through to the ocean, presumably in less than seven months (as Spartacus tells the Silesians to be.