Spartacus, a fictionalization of a slave revolt in ancient Rome in 71 BC, is well known today because of the 1960 movie starring Kirk Douglas and Laurence Olivier. It was originally published in 1951 by Fast himself, after being turned down by every mainstream publisher of the day because of Fast's blacklisting for his Communist Party sympathies. The story of Spartacus, born a slave, trained as a gladiator, who led a slave revolt that was eventually put down by Crassus, was immensely popular, and went on to sell millions of copies. The reprinting of this title in the North Castle series brings back into print a book that many regard as a classic.
PART ONE
How Caius Crassus journeyed along the highroad from Rome to Capua, in the month of May.
It is recorded that as early as the middle of the month of March, the highroad from the Eternal City, Rome, to the somewhat smaller but hardly less lovely town of Capua, was opened to public travel once again; but this is not to say that traffic upon this road immediately reverted to normal. For that matter, during the past four years no road in the Republic had known the peaceful and prosperous flow of commerce and person which was to be expected of a Roman road. More or less of disturbance had been encountered everywhere, and it would not be incorrect to say that the road between Rome and Capua had become symbolic of this disturbance. It was well said that as the roads go, so does Rome go; if the roads know peace and prosperity, so does the city know it.
The news was posted around the city that any free citizen having business in Capua might travel there to transact it, but for the time being travel for pleasure to that lovely resort was not encouraged. However, as time passed and sweet and gentle springtime settled down over the land of Italy, restrictions were lifted, and once again the fine buildings and splendid scenery of Capua called to the Romans.
In addition to the natural attractions of the Campania countryside, those who enjoyed fine perfume yet balked at inflated prices, found profit as well as pleasure in Capua. There were situated the great perfume factories, unequaled in the whole world; and to Capua were shipped the rare essences and oils from all over the earth, exotic and exquisite scents, Egyptian oil of roses, the essence of the lilies of Sheba, the poppies of Galilee, the oil of ambergris and of the rind of lemon and orange, the leaf of sage and mint, rose-wood and sandal-wood, and so forth and so on almost without end. Perfume at Capua could be purchased at less than half the price asked in Rome, and when one considers the growing popularity of scents in that time, for men as well as for women—and the necessity for them as well—one can understand that a trip to Capua for that, if for no other reason, might well be undertaken.
II
The road was opened in March, and two months later, in the middle of May, Caius Crassus and his sister, Helena, and her friend, Claudia Marius, set off to spend a week with relatives in Capua. They left Rome on the morning of a bright, clear and cool day, a perfect day for travel, all of them young and bright-eyed and full of delight in the trip and in the adventures which would certainly befall them. Caius Crassus, a young man of twenty-five, whose dark hair fell in abundant and soft ringlets and whose regular features had given him a reputation for good looks as well as good birth, rode a beautiful white Arabian horse, a birthday present from his father the year before, and the two girls travelled in open litters. Each litter was carried by four slaves who were road-broken and who could do ten miles at a smooth run without resting. They planned to spend five days on the road, putting up each evening at the country villa of a friend or relative, and this way, by easy and pleasant stages, to come to Capua. They knew before they started that the road was tokened with punishment, but they didn’t think it would be enough to disturb them. As a matter of fact, the girls were quite excited by the descriptions they had heard, and as for Caius, he always had a pleasant and somewhat sensuous reaction to such things, and he was also proud of his stomach and of the fact that such sights did not inordinately disturb him.
“After all,” he reasoned with the girls, “it is better to look at a crucifix than to be on one.”
“We shall look straight ahead,” Helena said.
She was better looking than Claudia who was blond but listless, pale skin and pale eyes and an air of fatigue which she nurtured. Her body was full and attractive, but Caius found her rather stupid and wondered what his sister saw in her—a problem he was determined to solve on this trip. He had several times before resolved to seduce his sister’s friend, and always the resolution had broken down before her listless disinterest, a disinterest not specific in terms of himself, but general. She was bored, and Caius was certain that only her boredom prevented her from being utterly boring. His sister was something else. His sister excited him in a fashion that troubled him; she was as tall as he, very similar to him in appearance—better looking if anything, and considered beautiful by men who were not fended away by her purpose and strength. His sister excited him, and he was conscious that in planning this trip to Capua, he hoped for some resolution of this excitement. His sister and Claudia made an odd but satisfying combination, and Caius looked forward to rewarding incidents on the journey.
A few miles outside of Rome, the tokens of punishment began. There was a place where the road crossed a little wasteland of rock and sand, a few acres in extent, and the person in charge of the exhibit had, with an eye for effect, chosen this particular spot for the first crucifix. The cross had been cut out of fresh new wood, pitch-bleeding pine, and since the ground fell away behind it, it stood stark and bare and angular against the morning sky, so huge and impressive—over-large, since it was the first—that one hardly noticed the naked body of the man who hung upon it. It stood slightly askew, as is so often the case with the top-heavy crucifix, and this added to its bizarre, demi-human quality. Caius drew up his horse, and then walked the animal toward the crucifix; and with a little flick of her courtesy quirt, Helena ordered the litter-slaves to follow.
“May we rest, oh mistress, oh mistress?” whispered the pace setter of Helena’s litter, when they came to a halt before the crucifix. He was a Spaniard, and his Latin was broken and wary.
“Of course,” said Helena. She was only twenty-three, but already of strong opinion, as all the women of her family were, and she despised senseless cruelty toward animals, whether slave or beast. Then the litter-bearers gently lowered the carriages, squatting gratefully beside them.
A few yards in front of the crucifix, on a straw chair shaded by a small, patched awning, sat a fat, amiable man of distinction and poverty. His distinction was manifest in each of his several chins and in the dignity of his huge paunch, and his poverty, not unmixed with sloth, was plainly evident by his poor and dirty clothes, his grimy finger nails and his stubble of beard. His amiability was the easily worn mask of the professional politician; and one could see at a glance that for years he had scavenged the Forum and the Senate and the wards as well. Here he was now, the last step before he became a beggar with only a mat in some Roman lodging house; yet his voice rolled out with the robust quackery of a barker at a fair. These were the fortunes of war, as he made plain to them. Some choose the right party with uncanny facility. He had always chosen the wrong one, and it was no use saying that essentially they were both the same. This is where it brought him, but better men fared less well.
“You will forgive me for not rising, my gentle sir and my gentle ladies, but the heart—the heart.” He put his hand on the great paunch in the general area. “I see you are out early, and early you should be out, since that is the time for travel. Capua?”
“Capua,” said Caius.
“Capua indeed—a lovely city, a beautiful city, a fair city, a veritable gem of a city. To visit relatives, no doubt?”
“No doubt,” answered Caius. The girls were smiling. He was amiable; he was a great clown. His dignity slipped away. Better to be a clown for these young people. Caius realized that there was money involved somewhere in these proceedings, but he didn’t mind. For one thing, he had never been denied money sufficient for all his needs or whims, and for another, he desired to impress the girls with his worldliness, and how better than through this worldly fat clown of a man?
“You see me a guide, a story teller, a small purveyor of bits of punishment and justice. Yet does a judge do more? The station is different, yet better to accept a denarius and the shame that goes with it than to beg—”
The girls couldn’t keep their eyes from the dead man who hung from the crucifix. He was directly above them now, and they kept darting glances at his naked, sun-blackened, bird-torn body. The crows swooped around him tentatively. The flies crawled on his skin. As he hung, his body leaning out and away from the cross, he seemed always to be falling, always in motion, a grotesque motion of the dead. His head hung forward, and his long, sandy hair covered what horror might have been in his face.
Caius gave the fat man a coin; the thanks was no more than what was due. The bearers squatted silently, never glancing at the crucifix, eyes on the ground; roadbroken they were, and well trained.
“This one is symbolic, so as to speak,” said the fat man. “Mistress mine, do not regard it as human or horrible. Rome gives and Rome takes, and more or less, the punishment fits the crime. This one stands alone and calls your attention to what will follow. Between here and Capua, do you know how many?”
They knew, but they waited for him to say it. There was a precision about this fat, jovial man who introduced them to what was unspeakable. He was proof that it was not unspeakable but ordinary and natural. He would give them an exact figure. It might not be right, but it would be precise.
“Six thousand, four hundred and seventy-two,” he said.
A few of the litter-bearers stirred. They were not resting, they were rigid. If anyone had regarded them, they would have noticed that. But no one regarded them.
“Six thousand, four hundred and seventy-two,” the fat man repeated. Caius made the right remark. “That much timber,” Caius said. Helena knew it was a fraud, but the fat man nodded appreciatively. Now they were en rapport. The fat man extracted a cane from the folds of his gown and gestured at the crucifix.
“That one—merely a token. A token of a token, so as to speak.”
Claudia giggled nervously.
“Nevertheless of interest and of importance. Set apart with reason. Reason is Rome and Rome is reasonable.” He was fond of maxims.
“Is that Spartacus?” Claudia asked foolishly, but the fat man found patience for her. The way he licked his lips proved that his paternal attitude was not unmixed with emotion, and Caius thought,
“The lecherous old beast.”
“Hardly Spartacus, my dear.”
“His body was never found,” Caius said impatiently.
“Cut to pieces,” the fat man said pompously. “Cut to pieces, my dear child. Tender minds for such dreadful thoughts, but that’s the truth of it—”
Claudia shuddered, but deliciously, and Caius saw a light in her eyes he had never noticed before. “Beware of superficial judgments,” his father had once said to him, and while his father had weightier matters in mind than estimation of women, it held. Claudia had never looked at him as she looked at the fat man now; and he continued,
“—the simple truth of it. And now they say Spartacus never existed. Hah! Do I exist? Do you exist? Are there or are there not six thousand, four hundred and seventy-two corpses hanging from crucifixes between here and Capua along the Appian Way? Are there or are there not? There are indeed. And let-me ask you another question, my young folk—why so many? A token of punishment is a token of punishment. But why six thousand, four hundred and seventy-two?”
“The dogs deserved it,” Helena answered quietly.
“Did they?” The fat man raised a sophisticated brow. He was a man of the world, he made plain to them, and if they were higher in station, they were younger enough in years to be impressed. “Perhaps they did, but why butcher so much meat if one can’t eat it? I’ll tell you. Keeps the price up. Stabilizes things. And most of all, decides some very delicate questions of ownership. There you have the answer in a nutshell. Now this one here—” gesturing with his cane, “—have a good look at him. Fairtrax, the Gaul, most important, most important. A close man to Spartacus, yes, indeed, and I watched him die. Sitting right here, I watched him die. It took four days. Strong as an ox. My, oh my, you would never believe such strength. Never believe it at all. I have my chair here from Sextus, of the Third Ward. You know him? A gentleman—a very great gentleman, and well disposed toward me. You’d be surprised how many people came out to watch, and it was something well worth watching. Not that I could charge them a proper fee—but people give if you give them something in return. Fair measure for fair measure. I took the trouble to inform myself. You’d be surprised what profound ignorance there is here and there about, concerning the wars of Spartacus. Now see here, this young lady, she asks me, is that one Spartacus? A natural question, but wouldn’t it be exceedingly unnatural if it was so. You gentle ones live a sheltered life, very sheltered, otherwise the young lady would have known that Spartacus was cut up so that not hair nor hide of him was ever found. Quite different with this one—he was taken. Cut up a little, true—see here—”
With his cane, he traced a long scar on the side of the body above him.
“Number of scars—and most interesting. Side or front. None in the back. You don’t want to stress such details for the rabble, but I can tell you as a matter of fact—”
The litter-bearers were watching him now and listening, their eyes gleaming out of their long, matted hair.
“—that these were the best soldiers that ever walked on Italian soil. Bears thinking about, something like that. Come back to our friend up here. Took four days for him to die, and it would have taken a good deal longer if they hadn’t opened a vein and bled him a bit. Now you may not know that, but you got to do it when you put them on the cross. Either you bleed them or they swell up like a bloater. And if you bleed them properly, then they dry properly and they can hang up there for maybe a month with no more offense than a little bit of smell. Just like curing a piece of meat, and you want plenty of sunshine to help it along. Now this was a fierce one, all right, defiant, proud—but he lost it. First day, he hung up there and cursed out every decent citizen who came along to watch. Frightful, foul language; you wouldn’t want any ladies around to hear such language. Comes of no breeding, and a slave is a slave, but I bore him no ill will. Here I was and there he was, and now and then I’d say to him, Your misfortune is my fortune, and while yours may not be the most comfortable way to die, mine is by no means the most comfortable way to earn a living. And precious little I’ll earn, you keep up that kind of talk. Didn’t seem to move him much, one way or another, but toward evening of the second day, he closed up. Clammed up, tight as a trap. Do you know what was the last thing he said?”
“What?” whispered Claudia.
“I will return and I will be millions. Just that. Fanciful, isn’t it?
“What did he mean?” Caius wondered. In spite of himself, the fat man had woven a spell over him.
“Now what did he mean, young sir? I have no more idea than you have, and he never spoke again either. I poked him up a little the next day, but he never said a word, just looked at me out of those bloodshot eyes of his, looked at me like he could kill me, but he wasn’t for killing anything else. So you see, my dear,” addressing Claudia again, “he wasn’t Spartacus, but was one of his lieutenants and a hard man. Close to Spartacus, but not so hard. That was a hard one, was Spartacus, hard indeed. You would not like to meet him along this highroad and never will neither, for he’s dead and rotting. Now what else would you like to know?”
“I think we’ve heard enough,” Caius said, regretting the denarius now. “We must be on our way.”
Release Date: October 6, 1960
Release Time: 197 minutes
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Cast:
Kirk Douglas as Spartacus
Laurence Olivier as Crassus
Jean Simmons as Varinia
Charles Laughton as Gracchus
Peter Ustinov as Batiatus
John Gavin as Julius Caesar
Nina Foch as Helena Glabrus
John Ireland as Crixus
Herbert Lom as Tigranes Levantus
John Dall as Marcus Publius Glabrus
Charles McGraw as Marcellus
Joanna Barnes as Claudia Marius
Harold J. Stone as David
Woody Strode as Draba
Peter Brocco as Ramon
Paul Lambert as Gannicus
Robert J. Wilke as Guard Captain
Nicholas Dennis as Dionysius
John Hoyt as Caius
Frederic Worlock as Laelius
Tony Curtis as Antoninus
Awards:
33rd Academy Awards - April 17, 1961
Best Supporting Actor - Peter Ustinov - Won
Best Art Direction–Color - Alexander Golitzen, Eric Orbom, Russell A. Gausman and Julia Heron - Won
Best Cinematography–Color - Russell Metty - Won
Best Costume Design–Color - Arlington Valles and Bill Thomas - Won
Best Film Editing - Robert Lawrence - Nominated
Best Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture - Alex North - Nominated
14th BAFTAs - 1961
Best Film - Stanley Kubrick - Nominated
18th Golden Globes - March 16, 1961
Best Motion Picture–Drama - Won
Best Actor in a Motion Picture–Drama - Laurence Olivier - Nominated
Best Supporting Actor–Motion Picture - Woody Strode - Nominated
Best Supporting Actor–Motion Picture - Peter Ustinov - Nominated
Best Director–Motion Picture - Stanley Kubrick - Nominated
Best Original Score–Motion Picture - Alex North - Nominated
AFIs 100 Years . . .
100 Thrills (2001) - #62
100 Heroes and Villains (2003) - Spartacus - #22 Hero
100 Cheers (2006) - #44
100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) (2007) - #81
AFI's 10 Top 10 (2008) - #5 Epic Film
Notes:
From Wikipedia:
Among the deleted footage was a bath scene in which the Roman patrician and general Crassus attempts to seduce his slave Antoninus, speaking about the analogy of "eating oysters" and "eating snails" to express his opinion that sexual preference is a matter of taste rather than morality. The four-minute scene had been removed following an objection by the National Legion of Decency. When the film was restored (two years after Olivier's death), the original dialogue recording of this scene was missing; it had to be redubbed. Tony Curtis, by then 66, was able to re-record his part, but Crassus' voice was an impersonation of Olivier by Anthony Hopkins.
Howard Fast (1914–2003) was one of the most prolific American writers of the twentieth century. He was a bestselling author of more than eighty works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and screenplays. The son of immigrants, Fast grew up in New York City and published his first novel upon finishing high school in 1933. In 1950, his refusal to provide the United States Congress with a list of possible Communist associates earned him a three-month prison sentence. During his incarceration, Fast wrote one of his best-known novels, Spartacus (1951). Throughout his long career, Fast matched his commitment to championing social justice in his writing with a deft, lively storytelling style.
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