Spartacus and the Slave Wars: A Brief History with Documents (The Bedford Series in History and Culture)

The old adage that history is more often than not written by the victor is nowhere more highlighted than in the conflicts that arose between the Roman Republic and its slaves.Be aware that Spartacus dominates maybe only a quarter of the book. That said the author has titled it "Spartacus ad the Slave Wars" and not "Spartacus". The uninitiated may be surprised to realise that slave uprisings werent isolated to the Spartacus revolt but occured several times between 2nd and 1st C BC and on reasonable scales as to be a serious threat to Roman psyche.So 3/4 of the work is for contextural purpose: Capturing the background,value, usage and life of slaves and their positive and negative contribution on Ancient Rome. It also examines social attitudes and bias of Romans and non Romans to the slave and nowhere is this captured more than in the source documents that make up the bulk of this work.Narrative by the author is short once one passes the introduction chapter (that has some nice black and white maps covering the Spartacan slave war as well as slave routes in the Ancient Med), more often just pretext to lead the reader into the relevance of the document so one can assess the background events, setting, time frame etc it pertains to. The source documents can cover anything between a mere paragraph onwards to several pages. Written by statesmen, writers, historians, etc they are plucked from several centuries of contributors(2nd C BC - end of Empire)and give the work a more reliable and historical feel than if the book were simply endless narrative to limited references leading to conjecture by a modern historian.Yes its not solely about Spartacus but that is what makes it more interesting, for after combing through several pages of source documents purely about the Spartacan rebellion one will realise that the story is essentially twisted around the same loop and wisely Mr Shaw has not devoted the whole work to it. Of Spartacus the man, only a third party view from a Roman perspective exists and of his rebellion, the essential differences in the sources are often the contempt or praise (pending their performance) of the main Roman protagonists chosen to lead efforts to suppress it. Only modern times and popular culture has restored/saved a more sympathetic view of Spartacus (as covered in the introduction). No doubt he had his admirers then too but those opinions if expressed are long gone. Overall this work is a reminder that good things come in small packages.

When Brent Shaw says "a brief history", he means brief.This could have used a bit more in the history part, especially on Spartacus and the revolt he led since his name is in the title of the work.While there was good information in the first part, to me the real strength of this work is the second part which contains translated primary sources.It is a useful source for anyone studying this period, but don't expect too much in the way of detail.

To be honest, I only read half of this book. I was disappointed that most of the focus was not on Spartacus, but rather the all three slave wars, which is very informative, but I wanted more about Spartacus, but then again, I still need to read the other half of the book!

Great and brief source on the Servile Wars/Spartacus.It truly is fascinating how few ancient sources remain. This would be a great supplementary source for any course on Roman history, as well as courses on Historiography/methodology.

I used this to great effect on a research paper I did on Spartacus. It had a lot information on Spartacus and the insurrection he led against Rome. I would recommend this if you are looking for a good source on Spartacus or you are simply interested in history.

The author lays out the topic vividly in easy-to-grasp fashion for the lay public and with superb references. His translations of the ancient texts into modern English are superb. Can barely put down the book.

Shaw uses the writings (what little survive) about the Spartacus War and the two slave wars that preceded it to paint a picture of the slave experience in Roman times.

Author does an excellent job of telling you the history from all perspectives available, while offering his interpretation of their versions, while holding back his own opinions.

Around 4,000 words have come down to us through history about Spartacus. That's all. Given this tiny amount of original material, I think it's incredible how much the western world knows about him. For nearly a century and a half, countless books and films have been produced about him. There have even been stage plays and ballets. Most iconic of them all of course was the 1950s Howard Fast novel, and the film which arose from it, starring Kirk Douglas. More recently, there have been TV miniseries, most notably the blood 'n' guts 'n' sex  Blood And Sand , which makes for compelling viewing but plays extremely fast and loose with the history (even more than the Douglas film).For anyone who is interested in Spartacus and what he did, and wants to know more than they've seen in screen representations of the man, I recommend this slim yet excellent volume by Brent Shaw, of the University of Pennsylvania in the USA. It contains every little scrap of information about Spartacus that is known of, even when it's only a sentence or two. It also gives accounts and the records of the two largescale slave uprisings on Sicily. These took place about 60 and about 30 years before Spartacus' own rebellion, and may well have helped to inspire him, and the tens of thousands of men who joined him. As one of the other reviewers has noted, there is also an excellent bibliography.A great addition to anyone's library. Other useful books include  The Spartacus War  by Barry Strauss, and the Osprey volume  Spartacus and the Slave War .Ben Kane, author of Spartacus: The Gladiator. Blood And SandThe Spartacus WarSpartacus and the Slave War

It is quite shocking to see how little there exists regarding primary source materials for the story of Spartacus - this brief book provides good coverage of that which exists and includes an interesting aside relating to the slave wars in Scicily. However, unless you are a Spartacus buff this will not appeal and if you are one of those thristing for more information you will enjoy the text but still be left with a feeling of wanting more!

L'anthologie proposée par Brent D. Shaw est une source de documents sur l'esclavage à Rome que les enseignants et étudiants en histoire ancienne auront à cœur d'utiliser ; une introduction fouillée d'une trentaine de pages, suivie de 82 documents où se mêlent sources littéraires variées, documents épigraphiques, numismatiques, papyrologiques, graffitis et textes de loi, documents datant du 2e av. J.-C. jusqu'au 5e s. de notre ère. L'auteur consacre la dernière partie de son ouvrage à la révolte de Spartacus proprement dite en choisissant les 21 textes les plus représentatifs. Quelques illustrations bienvenues, en particulier des gravures du 19e s. Excellent.