Spartacus (novel)

:"See also the novel by Howard Fast, "Spartacus (Fast novel)"."

"Spartacus" (published 1933) is a historical novel by the Scottish writer Lewis Grassic Gibbon, first published under his real name of James Leslie Mitchell.

Although Gibbon is mainly known for his trilogy "A Scots Quair", this is his best known full length work outside that trilogy.

As its name suggests, it is an account of the great slave revolt in Ancient Rome, led by Spartacus.

Plot summary

The central character is not Spartacus himself, but Kleon, a fictional educated slave and eunuch who joins the revolt. (His name appears to be taken from a leader of the First Servile War.) The first chapter, an account of Kleon's early life, is a particularly powerful piece of writing. We are told how he was sold into slavery as a child and sexually abused by an owner. Its opening sentence is arguably the most dramatic in the whole of English literature.

Another important character is Elpinice, a female slave who helps Spartacus and his fellow gladiators escape from Capua, and who becomes Spartacus's lover. She gives birth to a son, but while Spartacus is fighting elsewhere she is raped and murdered by soldiers, and the child is also killed. The novel touches on Gibbon's views on human history, with Spartacus seen as a survivor of the Golden Age.

However, in spite of various additions and speculations, it does stick fairly closely to the known historical facts about the revolt. Plutarch's life of Crassus is clearly the main source, but it does make use of some other classical sources.