"Spartacus" gives the lie to the scientific law that two bodies cannot occupy the same space: it exists simultaneously as an epic piece of historical fiction and as powerful (if less-than-subtle) bit of Leftist propaganda. The fact that most people know the story of Spartacus from the Kirk Douglas movie is a shame, because while the movie remains a classic, the book does the story far more justice.
Everyone knows the basic story of Spartacus, the anonymous third-generation slave sold to a gladiator school to fight for the amusement of decadent Romans, and how he ended up leading a gigantic slave rebellion that nearly destroyed the Republic. What Fast explores in the novel is how and why this rebellion came about, and what effect it had on the psychology of the Romans, whose culture even during the years of the Republic was enormously dependent on slavery. Most importantly, Fast explores the moral climate of Rome by following around the "victors" of the Servile War as they reminisce about Spartacus and how he was defeated. It is in this backward-looking manner that "Spartacus" unfolds.
Fast draws his characters, most of whom are real-life figures, with wonderful clarity: Crassus, the general who crushed Spartacus' rebellion, is shown as "the bronze hawk of the Republic" -- ruthless, sensual, grasping, yet ultimately hollow; Cicero, the historian-philsopher, as a scheming opportunist of the worst sort; Gracchus as a basically decent man turned cynical and decayed by the evils of his society. The lesser Roman characters are much worse: empty-headed, venal, vain, cruel, parastic, sexually depraved, almost unspeakably vicious and treacherous, all holding onto illicit fortunes wrung from the sweat and labor of slaves, and all desperate to increase their wealth, power and position relative to each other. Nor are the common folk of the cities and towns spared: Fast depicts them in passing as a lazy, bloodthirsty, amoral mob who live for cheap wine and the grain dole and the games, who "strangle their children at birth" and whore themselves on the streets for pennies.
In contrast, Fast holds the slaves as being rendered pure and noble by virtue of their suffering. Spartacus is depicted as almost Jesus-like in his simplistic divinity; Varinia (his lover) as a pillar of wifely and motherly virtue; David (the Jewish gladiator) as a hate-filled soul brough to love and redemption through his apprenticeship at Spartacus' side. Once freed, the slaves live in perfect socialistic harmony, sharing their property, keeping no more than they need, living as equals and brothers, and -- inflamed by their passion for freedom -- fighting like lions against the numercially superior and better-equipped Roman legions.
If all of this seems rather heavy-handed to you, it is. Fast's Rome is metaphoric. The Romans are modern-day capatalists, the slaves the modern-day working class; and in attacking capitalism and imperialism he is suggesting, as most Marxists did, that the triumph of socialism/communism is a "historical necessity"....not because it is stronger (the slaves are defeated), but because it is righteous (the slaves will rise again). It hardly comes a surprise that this book was required reading for many Soviet schoolchildren.
What saves "Spartacus" from bogging down into a tiresome polemic is Fast's skillful prose and his ability to re-create the atmosphere of ancient Rome. The exhausted slaves, the hawking street vendors, the awesomely disciplined legionary camps, the blood-splattered gladiatorial arenas, the cramped and sweating tenements, the lavishly-set dinner tables of the slaveholders....all of it is brought to life vivdly by Fast's poisoned pen. Unlike most political zealots, he was able to avoid descending into cant and Orwellian duckspeak even when making the most thinly-transparent references to modern society. If he is often blatant and obvious, he at least is obvious in an entertaining way.
Historically "Spartacus" is pretty solid except where the real story interfered with Fast's own ideology or just with the narrative in general. Pompey's role in Spartacus' defeat goes unmentioned (probably for the best), and the fact that the slaves had a chance to flee Italy through the Alps but elected to stay and loot Roman cities -- thus giving Crassus the chance to destroy them -- is conviently forgotten by Fast, who insists somewhat amusingly that the slaves are above such greed and do not want any more than they need. Fast also plays fast and loose with some of the uglier details of the rebellion -- most notably he makes the slaves less vindictive and bloodthirsty than they really were. None of this really matters, however, or makes the story less inspiring. In a revolt of slaves against slave-masters, picking a side is not really difficult.
I found it very ironic that Viktor Belenko, the Soviet fighter pilot who defected in his MiG 25 to Japan in 1979, named reading "Spartacus" as one of the reasons why he FLED communism to come to a capatalist society. Obviously Fast's politics, dazzled as they were by an alluring but false ideology, were simplistic and wrong: poverty doesn't make a man saintly any more than wealth makes him evil, and capitalism -- while crass, disgusting and amoral -- has slaughtered far fewer people than socialism (whether Nazi or communist) ever did. His basic message, however, was correct: freedom is freedom, no matter what you call it, and it is very much worth fighting for.
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Jezza
Brilliant book by an author who has rather been forgotten
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 1, 2014