Spartacus

By Lewis Grassic Gibbon

Rome, 73 BC. Kleon, a Greek slave, wakes early, cuts his master's throat, and flees south by a back road, clutching a copy of Plato's Republic. His destination is Capua, where he hopes to join the burgeoning rebel army of Spartacus, an escaped gladiator. So begins the definitive telling of one of the most famous stories in history. Spartacus and his companions, having burst out of the ludus where they were held, defeated every Roman force sent against them, are plundering the countryside and gathering to their ranks thousands of fugitives, brigands and itinerants. They seek to create a new world, one where men are not owner and owned. But they must first escape Italy, and the vengeful Roman legions already marshalling against them. Brutal and uncompromising in its depiction of the ancient world, Spartacus masterfully evokes the violence, hope and despair of the war that shook Rome to its very foundations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hesperus Press Ltd.
• Release date: Jun 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9781780943206

Lewis Grassic Gibbon

Lewis Grassic Gibbon (James Leslie Mitchell) was one of the finest writers of the twentieth century. Born in Aberdeenshire in 1901, he died at the age of thirty-four. He was a prolific writer of novels, short stories, essays and science fiction, and his writing reflected his wide interest in religion, archaeology, history, politics and science. The Mearns trilogy, A Scots Quair, is his most renowned work, and has become a landmark in Scottish literature.

Reviews for Spartacus

[john257hopper · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a historical novel written in the 1930s by a Scottish author, real name James Leslie Mitchell, about the famous slave rebellion against Roman rule in Italy in the late 70s BC. As a marxist, the author was concerned to present Spartacus's rebellion from the inside, and minimise his descriptions of the more familiar Roman scenes and imagery, or presenting the outlook from the point of view of Crassus and other leading Roman figures; this therefore reads differently from almost any other novel set in ancient Rome. This style befits the dramatic, tragic and elemental events the author is describing, though it can also make the narrative read rather narrowly and matter-of-factly (as per the introduction: "By deliberately depriving the reader of extensive areas of alternative information – Roman strategy, psychological insight into character, flashback or forward – Mitchell keeps the reader on edge for the information of the moment, which is all the reader possesses."). This is often rather a claustrophobic and relatively unstirring read, despite the episodes of great drama, tension and horror. Despite these factors, it's a 4/5 for the quality of the author's writing and the strength of his passion for justice.