Kubrick's Spartacus: Historical Accuracy vs. 1960s Ideology

Introduction

Gerald Mast (2006) notes that "as with Renoir, Kubrick's social evils are human evils; the problem is human nature" (p. 542), and such observation can easily be applied to Kubrick's 1960 Spartacus—despite the fact that the film cannot really be said to be his. Spartacus is more Kirk Douglas's vehicle than anything. Bought by Douglas, the story was meant to be his answer to Heston's Ben-Hur—the same sweeping scope, the same Romantic epic. Douglas, in fact, fired several members of the crew, including the director, which is how Kubrick, then only thirty, got the job. Nonetheless, the Spartacus narrative does not shy away from the kind of themes that Kubrick would go on to make infamous.

Douglas transforms his Spartacus into a kind of Christ-figure—dying, of course, not for mankind's sins but for freedom. Liberation, after all, was on everyone's mind in the 1960s. Spartacus is as much a film about revolution as it is about the historical slave-revolt leader who challenged the Roman Empire and lost. This paper will examine Kubrick's Spartacus from a historical standpoint and discuss where the film stands and where it falls short.

John Fitzgerald (2009) is notably critical when he states that "this academy award-winning film was based on the life of an escaped slave in the Roman Republic who led a massive slave revolt in 73 BC. That's about where historical accuracy ends." Fitzgerald cannot be blamed for his bluntness—film critics cannot afford to be overly partial. Fitzgerald elaborates on this assessment, explaining:

"We don't really know much about the personal life of Spartacus, and what historical evidence we do have about the slave revolt is at times vague and contradictory. That didn't stop both Kubrick and Dalton Trumbo the screenwriter from adapting Howard Fast's bogus historical novel about Spartacus into an entertaining farce of reality."

Critical Perspectives on Historical Accuracy

Roger Ebert (1991) offers kinder words for Spartacus, though his criticisms run similarly deep. While Ebert praises the battle sequences and performances, one historical aspect of the film draws his particular attention:

"All historical films share the danger that their costumes and hairstyles will age badly. Spartacus stands at a divide between earlier epics, where the female characters tended to look like models for hairdressing salons, and later epics that placed more emphasis on historical accuracy. But the hairstyles of the visiting Roman women at the gladiatorial school are laughable, and even Jean Simmons looks too made up and coiffed at times."

Ebert observes that Douglas's Spartacus is portrayed as the kind of "dreamer" that the 1960s would have celebrated—echoes of Martin Luther King could not be louder—pining for the end of slavery. Such a motif, combined with the martyr and Christ-figure references, positions Spartacus precisely as Fitzgerald describes it: choking on its own moral self-worth. Ebert identifies the "moral fiber of the slaves" as evidence of a kind of class moralizing that had more to do with the twentieth century than with the first century BC.

John Woggon similarly concurs that while the film is "historically correct in the overall story" and "all the major characters are real," the "presentation of their characters is fictional." Barbara McManus offers a more rigorous historical approach to the slave revolt that made Spartacus such fodder for Hollywood in the 1960s. Her narrative, in fact, reveals just how much the film simplifies: "The story of the slave rebellion led by Spartacus really begins a lifetime earlier, in 146 B.C. Rome had finally and conclusively defeated its primary rival in the western Mediterranean, Carthage. For the next century Rome would follow a haphazard expansionist policy that saw more and more territory added to their control. Plunder and slaves poured into Rome. The social balance was fundamentally upset."

Kubrick's Spartacus begins on a mountain in Libya—a plot point for which there is no historical evidence suggesting the Thracian was ever there. The historical reasons for Rome's subjugation of Carthage are left unexplored. Instead, romance is highlighted.

The Film Versus the Historical Record

The Gracchi are referenced in the film but used out of context. The grandsons of the legendary Scipio Africanus actually fought as "champions of the poor" (Haaren, 2000, p. 143) in the second century BC—well before Spartacus led any revolt. What the Gracchi did accomplish in reality, however, was set the oppositional stage for two political parties. The wars between Sulla and Marius did not help matters, nor did the way in which they slaughtered one another's allies, drenching Rome in Roman blood.

Sulla outlived Marius and strengthened the Senate, "weakened the power of the tribunes," (McManus) and wrote the new law that would make Julius Caesar famous for crossing the Rubicon. Crassus and Pompey were next in line to receive history's focus—and now so was Spartacus.

Unlike Douglas's Spartacus, who is born into slavery, the actual Spartacus was free-born and from the hills of Thrace in Greece. Likely taken into bondage after deserting the Roman army, he was—as the film shows—purchased by "Lentulus Batiatus and trained at his gladiatorial school in Capua" (McManus). In 73 BC, seventy gladiators escaped and made their camp at Vesuvius, taking over the region with the assistance of neighboring slaves. The Roman army of three thousand that was sent to suppress the rebellion was routed by Spartacus and his men. Within the year, his group of seventy had expanded into a force of seventy thousand.

The film, however, falls short when it comes to finer details of the actual Spartacus's exploits. More allusions to the nobility of the working-class slaves are made through Antoninus, who joins Spartacus, offering his services as poet and magician and entertainer—seeing his duty as, first and foremost, soldierly in the fight for "freedom."

The film also emphasizes the angle that Crassus wished to become dictator. The slaves in the revolt thus become a kind of political ploy, with Gracchus attempting to thwart Crassus's chances for takeover by helping the slaves. Caesar, who for some reason is not off on one of his long campaigns (such as in Spain or England) expanding the Roman Empire, turns against Gracchus, leaving the evil-mastermind Crassus free to pursue his own ends.

Of course, all of this is fabrication. In reality, the power play was between Caesar and Pompey, not Gracchus and Crassus. It was Caesar, after all, who said in a poor village in the mountains of Spain, "I would rather be first here than second in Rome!" (Haaren, 1904, p. 183). Nonetheless, Spartacus does not exactly set out to be a history lesson, despite being one of only a handful of films that attempts to "cover the transition of Rome from Republic to Empire" (Woggon).

Spartacus concentrates much of its time on brewing class warfare, with Crassus on the side of the patricians and Gracchus on the side of the plebeians. Such plotting only serves to date the film as an obvious example of 1960s ideology. It does not help that Trumbo, the screenwriter, was blacklisted by Hollywood for suspected Communist sympathies. Not that Spartacus is the only film to emerge from Hollywood with such ideology—most of the great ones do, from The Hunchback of Notre Dame to Casablanca. All the same, the actual story of Spartacus contains more complexity than mere class conflict.

McManus states that as Spartacus's numbers grew, the Senate determined to send two legions into the mountains to root them out. In this 72 BC battle, Spartacus's friend Crixus fell; meanwhile, Spartacus fought and defeated the two consuls sent to lead the legions. "To avenge Crixus, Spartacus had 300 prisoners from these battles fight in pairs to the death," says McManus—hardly a reassuring sign that Spartacus was the noble poet-dreamer who could bear the thought of slaves fighting against their will in the Hollywood imagination.

From there, Spartacus moved toward central Italy. He might have made his way across the Alps at this time, but the Gauls now with him had more desire to stay in Italy, so the group headed south, "perhaps intending to take ships to Sicily" (McManus). By the fall of that year, Spartacus's group numbered over one hundred thousand. In view of this, the Senate granted Crassus the title of Imperium, which essentially made him commander over all Rome's armies.

Crassus's command was enough to keep Spartacus at bay. Spartacus was forced to retreat and "tried to cross the straits into Sicily, but the Cilician pirates betrayed him" (McManus). At the same time, Pompey was being requested by the Senate—which meant that his return from Spain was imminent. Here is where the real power play began. Then "Marcus Licinius Lucullus landed in Brundisium in the heel of Italy with his legions from Macedonia. When Spartacus finally fought his way out of the toe of Italy, he could not march to Brundisium and take ship to the east because of the presence of Lucullus" (McManus).

The following year, 71 BC, found Spartacus near the end of his resources. He again attempted to head north, and again the Gauls refused to go—leading to their near defeat at the hands of Crassus until Spartacus pulled them out of the fight. Spartacus and his men "gained one more minor victory against part of Crassus's forces but were finally wiped out by Crassus's legions in a major battle in southern Italy, near the headwaters of the Siler River. It is believed that Spartacus died in this battle; there were so many corpses that his body was never found. The historian Appian reports that 6,000 slaves were taken prisoner by Crassus and crucified along the Appian Way from Capua to Rome." (McManus)

This is where the crucifixion theme in the film originates—but whether Spartacus had any part in it is highly unlikely.

Some of the remaining slaves attempted to head north again but were blocked by the approach of Pompey. Ironically, Pompey would go on to receive a triumph—a parade in his honor—for his victories in Spain. Crassus received no such honor, despite the fact that he personally had put down the rebellion so close to home. Both men were made consuls, and Pompey would go on to order Caesar to disband his standing army—which would lead to a climactic struggle.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Kubrick's 1960 Spartacus is a grand, sweeping affair meant to rival Charlton Heston's Ben-Hur and the other great Roman epics of the time, such as Cleopatra. It was also meant to espouse the kind of political doctrine at the forefront of the 1960s social environment. Spartacus, therefore, became a vehicle for Douglas as an actor and Trumbo as a writer to reestablish their prominence in Hollywood. Historical accuracy had little to do with their mission—as the true events of Spartacus leading the slave revolt reveal.