Blood, vengeance, and freedom: A review of Spartacus: The Gladiator

Tomorrow I’ll have an interview with Mr. Kane and will have information for a giveaway of this title.

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Ben Kane returns to comfortable territory, ancient Rome, in his latest novel Spartacus: The Gladiator. Given the relative paucity of historical documentation on the ancient gladiator-turned revolutionary, there is considerable room for an author to present his own unique take on the man. Mr. Kane accomplishes that well, with a presentation of Spartacus that rings true to the few historical details we have about him while, at the same time, being distinct from the famous Kubrick/Fast/Douglas version or the  version defined for a new generation by the recent cable television series.

While the broad shape of the plot follows unsurprising historical territory by taking Spartacus from slave gladiator to leader of an insurgent army, Mr. Kane does a fine job of fleshing out many incidents and battles to create an exciting, if often violent, story of blood and vengeance. This is the first part of the series and covers the initial portion of what is now known to us as the Third Servile War.

The book’s primary strength is its battle scenes. Action is executed and described with crisp, yet tense, economy, reflecting well the chaos of battle. The author’s fine eye for historical detail helps enhance the battle scenes. There are a few deviations from known history, but the author explains those in later notes following the story.

Although the emphasis is on action, the author uses balanced historical detail well to help enhance the background of several of the characters and even provide some plausible explanations for some of the shocking and early successes of Spartacus against the Romans. Those familiar with the period will definitely respect the effort. There are even a few sly nods to historical controversies that keen-eyed readers will likely appreciate.

Those less familiar with ancient Roman history should not be overwhelmed either, as the historical information is integrated well and not just dumped on the reader. A few unusual historical details were also used to help create a few new characters that aren’t typically seen in Spartacus retellings. These new additions added some interesting perspectives to the story.

Characterization is generally good for Spartacus and a few characters close to him, but some of the other secondary characters come off a bit flat at times.  The action-focused nature of the narrative somewhat minimizes this issue, though.

The attention to accuracy could be disturbing for some readers. The slave force of Spartacus takes the old “rape and plunder” idea seriously, even if their leader himself is presented as being above the worst of it. This is realistic for the period and, as pointed out by one of the characters, the “disciplined” Roman army certainly wasn’t above this kind of behavior (even ignoring their penchant for slavery), but it does create a more morally nuanced tale than “righteous slave army of freedom versus the dastardly Romans” and results in several scenes that reflect the often indiscriminate brutality of ancient war.

Though some nods are made toward Roman politics and there are a few scenes that do a fine job of delightfully painting why Marcus Licinius Crassus was such a foul man even by the standards of ancient Rome, the focus is still firmly on Spartacus and his allies. While enhancing the intimacy of their particular gladiator/slave struggle, it does potentially rob the narrative of a bit more epic scope.

Overall, Spartacus: the Gladiator was a solid action-packed retelling of the opening moves of an ancient, bloody struggle of slaves for both freedom and vengeance against the powerful Roman Republic.

Disclaimer: An ARC of this novel was provided to me for free by the publisher. My opinions of the book are my own.

Magical Mondays #5: Blemmyes, the headless threat

Welcome to my fifth Magical Monday. In these segments, I'll be briefly overviewing various magical traditions, creatures, and elements that people have been believed in (or continue to believed in) throughout history. Eventually, I may also move onto depictions that appear only in novels, but there's plenty of historical material to keep me busy for a while.


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Blemmyes traduntur capita abesse, ore et oculis pectore adfixis. (It is said that the Blemmyae have no heads and that their mouth and eyes are in their chests).

Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book V, Paragraph 46 (75 A.D.)


The fear of the unknown. The fear of uncertainty. The fear of the other. In our modern television and internet-linked world, we are able to see and even interact with people all over the world. No matter how ignorant a person is about people of another culture, we still understand they are human beings, maybe different in culture but not truly alien.

While some monsters and legends were manifestations of a culture's attempt to understand the often seemingly dark and capricious world around them, others are just the projection of the fear of the unknown onto another people--such is the case with the Blemmyes (the middle-gazer or chest-gazer).

The Blemmyes is the fourth from left.
Image from Cosmographia, a 16th-century German atlas

Pliny's Natural History was nothing less than an attempt to comprehensively document all the knowledge known in the world available to the Roman Empire at the time. Divided into thirty-seven sections, the Blemmyes are discussed, along with various other fantastic peoples, in a general section devoted into sections best described as geography and anthropology. In subsequent centuries, the Blemmyes were not just known for their freakish appearance but also for their tendency to eat normal humans.


In truth, the Blemmyes were a Nubian tribe. Though they had some conflicts with the Romans in later centuries, it wasn't that many decades before Pliny's description that other ancient sources described them as mostly a peaceful tribe. Pliny was not the first to describe them as headless. In the fifth century BC, the Greek historian Herodotus described a headless tribe in the same region of the world. The convergence of description, however, likely just reflects that the Natural History was a compendium of existing expert sources, including Herodotus.


At the time of Natural History, there didn't seem to be much in the way of a cannibal reputation, so the later century propaganda after conflicts with the Romans likely lead to a the tarnishing up their reputation, and their evolution into a full-fledged monster. 

There's a certain irony to this. By the time the Blemmyes entered into conflict with the empire, the Romans would have obviously become aware that they were not headless monsters. This negative reputation has lingered throughout the centuries with even a reference to their cannibal ways in Othello of all things.