The Ancients - Spartacus

Episode Date: December 29, 2022

‘I’m Spartacus!’ In the field of epic film making, the 1960 historical drama ‘Spartacus’, is legendary. Directed by Stanley Kibrick, adapted from the Howard Fast novel by Red Scare blacklisted screenwriter, Dalton Trumbo, and starring Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Peter Ustinov and Jean Simmons; it is a classic. But how much of the plot has emerged from the true story of a Thracian gladiator and slave who escaped his Roman captors and led an unsuccessful but impressive rebellion against their oppressors? How much of the film’s message was formed by the personalities involved in its creation, and the context in which it was made. In her own words, Dr Fiona Radford devoted years of her life to the man with the most memorable chin cleft in the world - Kirk Douglas, specifically as Spartacus. Her thesis traced the production history of this film, examining in particular the effect that the turbulent process had on the portrayal of female characters. Having taught at Macquarie University, ANU and the University of Sydney, she currently teaches history at secondary school level, and her conversation with Tristan in this episode is an eye-opener to 1950s film making as well as the legend of Spartacus.For more Ancients content, subscribe to our Ancients newsletter here. If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today!

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like The Ancients ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's The Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host. And in today's podcast, well, as it's between Christmas and New Year,

the Ancients team very much deserve a break. But fortunately, on the Ancients, we've already recorded more than 250 episodes. And today, we are delving deep into the archive from a couple of years ago and we're bringing back to the fore one of our earlier episodes so much younger much earlier Tristan one of our earlier episodes that really deserves to be shown again because it was such a great episode we have picked one that I think you will very much enjoy because it's all about Spartacus. We are talking to Dr Fiona Radford. She is one of the hosts of the renowned ancient history podcast, The Partial Historians. I chatted with her more than two years ago now. She dialled in from Sydney

in Australia. But Fiona, she's such good fun she's a wonderful speaker and she also knows so much about Spartacus the legacy of Spartacus because in this episode we talk about Spartacus's portrayal we focus in on the person that he was in ancient history but we do focus more on how he's been portrayed in film in the 20th century, particularly the sword and sandal epic featuring Kirk Douglas in the early 1960s. Fiona is an absolute star when it comes to revealing all about this particular depiction of Spartacus

with Kirk Douglas, Stanley Kubrick, and so on and so forth. This was a great chat. We are reviving it from the depths of our archive, and I think you'll absolutely love this one. So have a great inter-Christmas, New Year, break, rest. Enjoy it. Enjoy the end of 2022. And I will see you afresh at the start of 2023. But in the meantime, to talk all about the legacy, life and legend around Spartacus, here's Fiona. Truth or no, the story of Spartacus itself, it's caught people's attention throughout the whole of history. It certainly has. I mean, it would be a mistake to think that Spartacus was languishing

in the ancient sources, just waiting for a man with a chin dimple to discover him. He's been a popular figure. I mean, really, with the Romans themselves, you couldn't say that they forgot about him. But then he really takes off in a major way, really during the Enlightenment. And then from then on, he's always at the forefront of someone's mind in the world. Why do we think that? Is it because of the underdog idea, this idea of someone rising up against an oppressive regime, as it were? I think that is definitely a big part of it. He definitely comes across as the underdog, someone who stands up for the little guy. But I think it's also because even though the Romans didn't forget about him, the material that we're working from that has survived from antiquity,

it's enough of a blank slate, once you take into account the fact that the pro-Roman sources have a clear bias against him, that you can kind of make Spartacus into a little bit of whatever you want. I mean, there are a couple of things that we know for sure, but otherwise he's relatively malleable. And most importantly, he has a love interest, which always goes down well when you're reimagining ancient stories. Of course, especially in the film industry. So let's go on to that, the film itself now, because why do they decide in the 20th century to create an epic about Spartacus? Okay, this is a big question. Okay, well, Spartacus was picked up by various causes

since the Enlightenment, as we've mentioned, but he certainly comes to the attention of Marxists, of communists, of people who are working on behalf of labor unions and the working class and that sort of thing. So much to the point that in the early 20th century, when we're looking at Germany, you know, obviously things aren't going so well for Germany in World War I, there is an attempt by a left-wing group to seize control of the government, headed by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. They name their group after Spartacus, a clear nod to his role, I suppose, in being the leader of the underdog against the big oppressive forces of the world. Now, the reason why I bring that example up in particular is because when Howard Fast is sentenced to serve a term in jail for contempt of Congress after he's run afoul of the House of

Un-American Activities in the mid-20th century, he decides he wants to write a story about them. But then he's like, too soon. And instead, he decides to write a story about the man that seems to have inspired them or they've taken as their figurehead. And so he ends up writing the novel Spartacus, which comes out in 1951. That novel eventually finds its hands into the wife of Edward Lewis. And Edward Lewis works for Kirk Douglas. Now, Kirk Douglas is feeling rather sad at this point in time in the 1950s because he was really, really keen to play the character of Ben-Hur. And he was turned down for that. They offered him instead the role of Ben-Hur's adversary, Masala.

But he wasn't in for that. He didn't want to play a villain he thought they were two-dimensional and so he's feeling a bit mopey about that he really really really wants to star in some sort of sword and sander where he's the hero and then Spartacus is put into his hands and the rest is history I mean that's amazing how this comes about in the aftermath of I guess we can't call it a failure, but Kirk didn't get what he originally wanted in Ben-Hur, but from it, this Spartacus idea actually emerged. Absolutely, yeah. If it hadn't been for his disappointment, Spartacus may never have come about. Although, I shouldn't really say that, because of course one of the big factors in this whole production of the 1960 Spartacus that most people are familiar with is that there was actually another Spartacus film in production with Jules Brunner at the helm. And so maybe Jules

Brunner would have been the Spartacus that we all know and love if Kirk Douglas hadn't been turned down for Ben-Hur. Fascinating. What if of the 20th century? Yeah. Looking at that then. so the idea comes to Kirk Douglas. How long does it take for it to materialise into the production itself, into the start of filming? Almost as long as the Revolse itself. No, not really. Basically, it's in about 1957 that Kirk Douglas starts along his Spartacus journey.

And he actually rushes into production, and that's largely because he knows that there is this Yul Brynner version out there. I think that previous studies of Spartacus have sometimes underestimated how much of an impact the rival production had on Kirk Douglas making his movie. So the production is somewhat rushed, but producing a movie is a long process from conceiving the idea to writing the script, getting the cast, getting everything set up, finding locations, shooting it, editing it, all that kind of stuff does take a while. So it is finally released in 1960. So it does take a few years. So if you look at it from where to go, it is really as long as The Slave Revolts itself,

but that's probably being a bit unkind. And of course, I think one of the main figures in the production, is it Stanley Kubrick? He does become one of the major figures, but he wasn't involved in the planning stages. This is the thing about Spartacus. It's got a very complicated production history, which is why I like looking at it. Stanley Kubrick comes in very last minute. Basically, they start filming. They film for two weeks. And then their original director, Anthony Mann, is fired. Some sources say that he quit, but I think he was fired. And over the weekend, they recruit Stanley Kubrick. And so he basically is asked if he wants to do it on the Friday, he's there on the Monday, and he starts

working on the film. It sounds very much from what you've been saying so far that there is a lot of, I don't want to say last minute, but as you say, there is this idea of it being rushed, as it were, or there is this idea that things emerge that they have to resolve very quickly, these problems that emerge that they have to resolve. Yeah, it probably seems a bit more frantic to people like me who are looking back, looking at the documentary remains, but it does certainly seem as though they are always up against the clock of some kind. First, it's they have to secure the rights to the book, and then they have to extend their option on the book, and then they have to find financial backing, and then they have to secure the British actors that they want for the part, and then they have to race against Yul Brynner, and then they have to find a British actors that they want for the part and then they have to race against Yul Brynner

and then they have to find a new director. This is always something that's going on in the background there, which I think is, again, part of the craziness of this film, that there is always something ticking in the background. And this rushing against the clock, as it were, do you think, did it hinder Stanley Kubrick's ability, especially as he's called in the last minute, to research the whole story of Spartacus? From Stanley Kubrick's point of view, I would say yes. He was quite obsessive

in his film preparation normally. There are boxes and boxes of the research that he did for films like Napoleon, which never even got made. His research was usually very detailed. He would spend years preparing for a project. Spartacus was out of the norm for him. But then again, I think that's also a bit anachronistic to say that because it was so early in his film career. I don't know that I could really say he had a norm by that stage. And he certainly wasn't a director of stature by the time he came on board Spartacus. My theory is that Spartacus really helped to make Stanley

Kubrick's career. He would hate me for saying that, so I'm really glad that he's dead. Okay. But going back to the production, let's focus on that a bit more because you mentioned the big English actors, the big British actors at the time that were involved in this production. I mean, of course, Kirk Douglas is there from the beginning and of course he's not British, but getting these British actors on board, who are we talking about here? We are talking about Laurence Olivier, Sir Laurence Olivier.

We're talking about Charles Lawton and we're talking about Peter Ustinov. And Peter Ustinov, has he already done Nero by this time? Yes, he has. In fact, Charles Lawton and Peter Ustinov have both played Nero by this stage. So it sounds like they're diving into the classical history market of the 1950s. Context is very important for this film. One of the things that's the important backdrop for the making of this movie,

and especially in terms of your earlier question about why an epic, why now? The 1950s are known for these sword and sandals epics, partly because of what was happening in the wider film industry. The 1950s television was becoming a big deal. A lot of people were moving to the suburbs, the white picket fence deal in America. And so the movies were trying to make sure that people would still come. There was some sort of reason for them to come out of their living rooms and go and see an actual movie. What a thing to say in the COVID world. And so one of the things that they would try and do was make film even more spectacular. They partially did this with new technologies.

And Spartacus was no exception in terms of it being a widescreen epic. And if you were going to put film on a large scale like this, you needed to have stories that match the technology, something that was weighty enough. And so history was seen as being something very serious and something that would match these new technologies. And so you often see that these new gimmicks premiered with these sorts of ancient world

epics, starting with The Robe in 1953. Spartacus 1960 is a really fascinating case study because it's at once a film that's very much of its time, but then there's something also that happens within the making of it, which is particular as well. So it's very much of its time in that it is affected slightly by things like the civil rights movement, which are going on all around it, particularly being a movie about slavery. And it's also affected by what's going on in the film industry itself. So the studio system is starting to show signs of weakness. I mean,

Kirk Douglas himself is a symptom of that. He set up his own production company, Brunner, and he was making Spartacus as a part of that, basically set up his own production company, Brinner, and he was making Spartacus as a part of that, basically, and as was Yul Brynner, who was making the rival Spartacus film. And obviously, it's very much tied to what was happening with the Red Scare that was happening in the 1950s and the Blacklist. A lot of the most notable people to work in connection with this project, like Howard Fast, who wrote the novel, and then who contributed a lot to the screenplay, as well as Dalton Trumbo, were both notorious blacklistees. And Dalton Trumbo had a particular interest in seeing Spartacus succeed, because it started to become apparent that he might actually be able to get a screen credit on this film. So he obviously had a

particularly vested interest in this project being a smash hit. But then when you look at it, it's also a film that's very much about the particular dynamics that were going on on the set. And that's where we sort of step away from the context a bit and think about the particular personalities that were involved. So there were a lot of strong personalities working on the set and a lot of them had directorial experience. Quite unusual, I think, to see that many big actors with a variety of experience from writing to directing, as well as being big stars working on the one picture. And just to have people who has such a strong perspective on things. So people like Stanley Kubrick, who brought along their own agenda, influenced by a different novel to Howard Fast,

coming along and really stirring the pot. And so that's why Spartacus is so interesting. It's very much affected by context, but it's also very much affected by the particular blend of personalities that worked on this film. So the 1950s, because of the context of the time, it seems to be this golden age for these sword and sandal epics or these ancient history epics. Definitely. Yeah, it is the golden age of Hollywood. And let's just focus on the production a bit more because something I read from one of your articles, you mentioned all these problems with the production, but something that really stuck out was this large versus small Spartacus

issue. What was that? Ah, yes. This is something that Dalton Trumbo, who was one of the screenwriters on Spartacus and the one that got the credit for it in the end, identified once he saw the rough cut of the film. So they're thinking that they're getting close to finish. So he's apparently smuggled onto the lot to see how it's all come together in August of 1959. And he is horrified beyond belief. He can't believe what he's seeing up on the screen. Now, Dalton Trumbo was definitely someone who would sympathize with the large Spartacus idea. And the large Spartacus idea is that Spartacus is a man who is fighting for something more than himself. He's fighting for an idea. He's after freedom and justice for all. He's not just looking out for,

now's my chance to make a break from these Roman characters. I'm just going to scarper off into the sunset with my wife and child. Thank you very much. That's definitely more the small Spartacus point of view, someone who's really only looking out for himself. And the large Spartacus is someone who, you know, takes on the burdens of leadership and all these sorts of things. Whereas a small Spartacus has leadership foisted onto him. He's constantly filled with doubt. And yeah, so what he saw when he watched the rough cut was the fact that the film was not coherent at all.

And it was a mishmash of these two different versions of Spartacus. And so what he argued was they needed to do something to make a coherent film. Now, obviously, his sympathies lie with the large Spartacus, if you look at all the stuff that he's written and the scripts that he's written. But he did say, look, at the end of the day, I don't really care what you decide, but you need to make a decision and we need to fix this film because this does not make sense. And people are not going to like this guy and are not going to understand the story that we're trying to tell. So we need to do something to fix the story. So what do they decide to do?

Well, they do some reshoots where they try and restore some of the more large Spartacus elements. Kirk Douglas was really persuaded. This report that Dalton Trumbo wrote, he went home, he basically wrote it in two days, 80 pages long. It's crazy. He writes like a scene by scene analysis of all the things that's wrong. And it's hilarious reading if you ever want to read it. But yeah, Kirk Douglas is quite convinced by this report on Spartacus. And so they desperately try and insert

more large Spartacus material. So they're trying to give the impression that Spartacus was a good leader, someone who was wise and just, and someone who was beaten by overwhelming odds rather than someone who just kind of let things get away from him and that sort of thing. And so they try and do this, but there's obviously only a limited amount of money and time that they can throw at this. So it's still not quite the large Spartacus, not quite as coherent as they might've liked. That's why I, and I'm going to point this out here, I say that you end up with a medium Spartacus. Kirk Douglas totally ripped me off and said the same thing, but I said it first. Right. Okay. Going up against the

Hollywood man himself. Fair enough. That's right. So as you say, this, once again, this time idea, once again, it seems to come to the fore with the production of this whole epic. But as you say this once again this time idea once again it seems to come to the fore with the production of this whole epic but as you say at the end they seem to finalize with this medium Spartacus yeah you can still see the effects of the time rush and new people coming on board like Stanley Kubrick who introduced new ideas that confused their original vision. And also Howard Fast was still contributing all throughout the production, not to mention the actual actors themselves. Like everybody had a piece of this movie. So it's no wonder it's slightly lacking in coherence on the slave side of the story. On the Roman side of the story, it's actually relatively stable.

And I say relatively stable because I'm comparing it to the slave side. Yeah, it's pretty stable. Well, let's now focus on the history itself and particularly on the slave story that you mentioned there. Because first of all, big question, what do we actually know about the real Spartacus? Okay. I would say that there's a reasonable amount of information that's recorded, but the stuff that you can actually say for certain, not a lot. Of course, being a gladiator and a slave, he's not someone that the Romans would have paid any attention to or have any reason to write about before he decides to lead a rebellion. So what I think we can say for certain is that he was serving as a gladiator in a ludus in southern Italy. And he did decide

in the late Republic and around 73 BC to break out from that ludus, which was owned by a guy called Batiatus, and lead a rebellion against Rome. He does have some successes against the Roman forces that are sent against him. At first, it's whatever the Romans can throw at him and get together in a quick manner. But gradually, he's dealing with consular armies. And so he's facing some more impressive troops, and they do score numerous victories. And then, of course, they are defeated. That we can say for certain, by Marcus Licinius Crassus, who basically put some of his own money on the line and comes to the rescue of the Republic, probably for his own interests. And the survivors are rounded up, partly with the help of Pompey the Great, and they are crucified up and down the Appian Way. Lovely. It sounds like from what you were saying there, the stuff that we can say probably for certain is that we have a rough idea of the chronology of main events during the revolt.

rough idea of the chronology of main events during the revolt. Yeah, we do. I mean, we can be fairly certain of some of the Romans that were sent against him. We know that his victories were impressive in terms of the fact that he's just gathering together people as they join him. The numbers, very uncertain. The Roman sources are notoriously unreliable for providing us with numbers, so I'm not even going to bother. But it might have been as many as 100,000 people following him. The rest of it, though, is a bit of a mystery because, of course, we have absolutely nothing from Spartacus or any of his followers' point of view. So what they were actually trying to accomplish, like, were they trying to escape? What they were actually trying to do, apart from the obvious run, is a little unclear. I would wager they were trying to escape somewhere, but where do you

escape to? The Romans are in charge of a lot of things. No, exactly, exactly. And of course, the Roman source is just there. The fact that we don't actually know anything from the actual slaves themselves. I mean, I'm guessing the immediate people who write about this revolt, the portrayal of Spartacus, the portrayal of the slaves is overwhelmingly hostile. Yes, there is a certain amount of truth in that. Some of our earlier sources are people like Cicero, who doesn't write a history of the slave revolt or anything like that, but the mentions he makes of Spartacus, which is basically a burn that he uses in speeches, they're negative, yes. However, there are fragments preserved of sources like Sallust. And also we've got a very,

very tiny bit of Varro, which are earlier sources, and they're actually not hostile. They actually preserve a vision of Spartacus as remarkably positive. Sallust actually describes him as having an outstanding measure of strength and courage. And he comes across as quite an impressive military leader. It's a bit hard to know for certain because Sallust is so fragmentary, but it does seem as though he has respect for Spartacus. And Varro says that Spartacus was an innocent man and that he was condemned to a gladiator's lot. We've only got that one sentence, but that is very intriguing.

The idea that Spartacus might have broken out because he wasn't even supposed to be there in the first place. Yeah, that's very interesting, especially when you consider that famous saying, history is written by the winners. But as you say, in some of these earlier sources, Spartacus is not as derided as it were. No. Personally, I see there being a couple of traditions that seem to evolve. Our main sources where we get more detail and more of a narrative, they are much later. So they're about 200 years after the revolt. I'm referring

to sources like Plutarch and Appian. And of course, they're not writing about Spartacus, they're writing about Roman history, and he just happens to come up. But again, you can kind of see potentially some of that more positive view of Spartacus preserved, particularly in a source like Plutarch. He also says that Spartacus in sagacity and culture was superior to his fortune and more Hellenic than Thracian. Now, that's a high compliment coming from a Greek. So there's definitely, at first, a slightly more positive view of Spartacus that seems to survive. Appian is a bit more negative. His Spartacus is a bit more gritty, but there is that sense of positivity, but it fades. Once we get into the later sources that are preserving what has gone before, that's when we start to see Spartacus become a much more negative figure who's really a bogeyman,

like someone that would terrify the Romans because of what he did. Do you think this is when we start to see the myth of Spartacus starting to emerge? There are scholars who have argued that Spartacus from fairly early on could be said to be made to fit a sort of noble bandit trope. So Plutarch might be trying to use that a little bit. And he's made to resemble people that have gone before like Viriatus in the way that he conducts himself. And that would make sense because Plutarch is writing about him in a biography of Crassus and Plutarch does not like Crassus.

And so Spartacus is a way of showing Crassus's flaws. The fact that Spartacus, this bandit, gladiator, slave, rebel, what have you, has good qualities is meant to be a bit of a commentary on where Crassus is at in his personal development. I mean, that's quite interesting. So it sounds like as time goes on, there's these two different strands, as it were, in the portrayal of Spartacus from noble bandit or bloodthirsty rebel who should be an infamous name. And do these two strands seem to continue past antiquity into the Middle Ages and from there on? I think that whilst the negative, more hostile tradition is what lingers in the Roman imagination after a time, I do sort of wonder if those earlier sources, it's just a matter of because

Spartacus is Spartacus and he's not a Roman, he's just being made to serve whatever purpose the writers are serving. So whether it's to write a moral biography that teaches people lessons, or whether it's to write a commentary on the late Republic and what was going on then, or whether it's to talk about the civilized Roman world as opposed to the barbarian world, there's always a purpose. There's always an ax to grind. So he's probably just being used to serve whatever purpose is going. But I think the more negative tradition survives for the Romans, but there's enough of that early positive tradition to give rise to the more noble, heroic Spartacus, the leader of the oppressed that we see rise up in the Enlightenment. And does that continue into the 1960 portrayal of Spartacus? I think so, yeah. He's often used to tell the story of what's going on at the time. So during

the French Revolution, late Republican history is very popular. When you look at Italy and the Risorgimento movement, Spartacus is there. They write about Spartacus then. When Napoleon is marching into Austria, Spartacus is used there in a play. In America, he's used to comment on the British-America dynamic and potentially a bit of the whole slavery thing they had going there. And then, of course, Marx says that Spartacus was, you know, a smashing chap. And so there's definitely lots of people talking about him and generally in a way that is holding him up to be a more noble figure.

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New episodes dropping every Monday and Thursday. So join me on American History Hit, a podcast by History Hit. as you mentioned earlier in this interview kirk douglas he wanted to be the hero he didn't want to be the villain did he so i'm guessing this more noble virtuous portrayal of spartacus really appealed to him yes definitely again context i think is important a lot of the people that worked on spartacus were themselves jew Jewish and from really poor immigrant backgrounds. Kirk Douglas being no exception, I mean, that wasn't even his real name. So I think a lot of them felt a sympathy with the slaves and the underclasses of Rome. So yeah, I think playing the hero definitely appealed to him in that sense. And he felt, rightly or wrongly, a connection with the slaves

that had helped to build Rome. Let's look at the film then again. And there's a particular, I think there's a particular part in the film where there seems to be this conflict between the slaves when they're debating what they need to do. Is there any evidence in the historical record that there was this difficulty in managing the whole revolt? Definitely, yes. And that comes from our earlier source as well, Salus. There's definitely a sense that Spartacus sometimes struggles to control his followers. As you can imagine, if you've been a slave and in a ludus or something like that, when you finally get to break free, you probably want some revenge and you probably don't mind a spot of looting and raping and that kind of thing,

as horrible as it is. You've been treated pretty badly. And so we do, from the earliest time, get this idea that some of the slaves had different ideas about what they were going to do. And if you just look at their movement, whilst we don't have an account from the slave point of view, if we just look at their movement, it does seem a bit confused. They wander all over Italy. We're not really sure, were they trying to get across the Alps? Were they trying to escape via the sea? It is confusing what exactly they were trying to accomplish by wandering around. The ancient sources explain it by the fact that there was a divide in the slave army

about what they should do, whether they should make a break for freedom, how they should do that, where they should go, because of course they're probably all from different places. So going home means different things to all of them. And definitely some of them are more interested in just looting, just continuing to live off the land, whereas others may have had more long-term aspirations. And the really interesting thing for me is that when we do see potential division in the army, they tend to split along ethnic lines, at least as far as the pro-Roman sources have recorded. So Spartacus seems to be the leader of the Thracian etc. group,

but then there are other slave leaders who are mentioned. Spartacus does seem to be the main leader of this, but he does seem to have lieutenants, I'm going to call them. And some of them seem to be from Gallic background, Germanic background. And so when we do see the slave army splitting, it tends to be along ethnic lines. That's interesting in itself, because of course, I guess that's something we need to remember is that the slave revolt, it consists of slaves from all across the Roman Empire, all parts of the Roman Empire. And it sounds as if from what you're saying, Spartacus's leadership, he didn't just have to deal with the Romans, he had to deal with

his own people as well. Is this really emphasised one of the key points of Spartacus's leadership? Definitely. And that's one of those things in the sources. I just don't know we have enough material to resolve exactly what was going on. The Romans do seem to have got a hint that the vision was happening. And whenever there's a divide, unfortunately, it seems like the people that leave Spartacus end up being defeated. So his numbers are whittled down gradually. So that can't have been good. But every now and then he's able to come and save the day and help them out. But yeah, generally, it's not good. You leave Spartacus, you're not fated for a good end. And talking about Spartacus's close connections

and you mentioned the love interest thing earlier did Spartacus have a wife I don't know I mean Plutarch says yes Plutarch is the only source as he is one of the most important sources but Plutarch is the only source to record Spartacus having a wife. And it seems a really weird occurrence because he says that this wife was from the same background as Spartacus and that she was somehow sold along with him into the Ludus, which for anyone who knows anything about Roman slavery, the Romans just aren't that nice or organized. So it does seem a little strange, but she apparently is there according to Plutarch, and she apparently has this prophecy. She sees a snake crawling

around his face when he's sleeping, and she has connections to Dionysus, and she seems to be some sort of a prophetess or something. And she sees that as a sign of his fortune ahead, that he's going to be destined for glorious things. Okay, so we don't know because it sounds very interesting, as you say, the whole story in Plutarch compared to if you know about slavery in ancient Rome, whether it's actually true or not. It's one of those things where the very cynical historian part of you has to wonder, did Plutarch just want to include some sort of prophecy about Spartacus' future when he was just a gladiator? But then again, it does seem like a weird thing to make up. So he probably did have a woman, obviously, that he spent time with. But how does Blutarch know that she's from the same tribe? Like, what is going on? I don't know.

Well, leading on from that, how is this love interest portrayed in the 1960 film and in who? Oh, okay. This is another big question. And this is my main area of interest. Strap yourself in. Basically, the character of Varinia is Spartacus' love interest in this particular film. Spartacus always has a love interest, by the way. In all the many creative interpretations, there's always a love interest. In this particular version in Fast's novel, it's Varinia, and that is kept for the film. It seems as though Fast may have picked up that name from one of his

research sources, because again, for anyone who knows anything about Rome, you'll know that's not really a slavish name. It sounds a little Latin, so the name is a bit weird. But yeah, basically, they decide they're obviously going to make her a big part of his story because it always works well to have a love interest in movies and that sort of thing. But her storyline is one of the most changed throughout the production of the 1960 film. In Fast's original vision, he had this real idea of the slave community as a whole as being a sort of utopian community in a way. Clearly the slaves are meant to be like the communists, right? Where everyone's equal and all is hunky-dory. And so the slave women are seen as quite equal to the men in fast vision of things and quite

important to the story. And so the women help when the slaves decide they're going to break out. They fight along with the men. They're ferocious. They're seen as being Amazons on the battlefield. Varunia says things like, I can fight like a man can fight. And obviously when people are trying to put it back into place. So there's this real idea of equality and Varunia is seen as being almost the mother to the revolution because Spartacus is the father. And she's very important because it's through her in Fast that Spartacus's story survives, because she survives and her son by Spartacus survives, and they're the ones that bear out the legend in Fast's novel. Not true, obviously, but whatever. Anyway, when it came to putting that

into a film, Fast is the person who first has a go at adapting his own novel. And we do see Verenia being more or less in keeping with the Verenia of his novel. No surprises there. But then when Dalton Trumbo gets involved and starts to take over from Howard Fast, we definitely see women being ever-present throughout the revolt. They are definitely an important part of the slave following. And Verinia, again, is quite a fierce character. She's basically first given to Spartacus at the Ludus because she's too resistant to Batiatus, who's her master. Every time he tries to have sex with her, she fights like a cat in a bag and he's just sick of it. And so he's like, go to a vicious gladiator, see if I care, you know, enjoy. And so she's definitely a fierce character and she's definitely a slave leader.

She's definitely someone who has a real presence alongside Spartacus. She's revered amongst the slave women to the point that they actually have a cult of Varinia developed. She becomes almost like a goddess to them. So she's this really important person. And it's through her fame that the Romans hear about her and start to become really intrigued with her. Because of course, one of the funny things about Verinia's storyline, according to Fast, is that it seems like every man who beats

her falls in love with her, whether they're Roman or slaves or whatever. So it's because of this that they hear about her. And that is kept throughout a couple of drafts of the script, that Verinia is this very important person who's very present and is a real slave leader, very involved, capable of being fierce, capable of playing her part, working, fighting, doing all that kind of stuff. That really falls apart in the latter stages of the development of this project. And this is one of the things that Dalton Trumbo has such a problem with when he was watching the final cut. Verinia starts to really only exist in the background. She's not really a slave leader. She really seems to just exist for love scenes and to be impregnated.

That seems to be her main thing. And so you end up in the final film, even though some of the reshoots that they ended up shooting after the report on Spartacus say, try and restore some of Dalton Trumbo and therefore Howard Fast, because Dalton Trumbo was basing his vision on Howard Fast. They do try and restore some of the sense of the slave community by doing reshoots where women are more present, but it's too late to fix all of the problems that have arisen with Varinia. And so you end up with a much more bland character and someone I like to call Stepford Varinia in the final film. I mean, why exactly does this change in portrayal seem to happen?

It's a little hard to say exactly, because there's just so much chaos going on on set. And some of it happened behind closed doors. I can really only study what people decided to write down and the only reason why this film and the production is so easy to study is partly because the 1950s the technology is different but also because Dalton Trumbo was blacklisted he had to write so much from a distance. He had to send memos and do a lot of correspondence rather than being more present on the set and therefore having verbal exchanges that were never recorded so lucky for us. I think it partially is due to the fact that Jean Simmons, who ended up being cast to play Varinia, she was actually brought

along around the same time as Stanley Kubrick. They had had a bit of trouble deciding exactly who to cast to play Varinia. They had originally decided on this blonde, gorgeous girl called Sabina Bethman, and she had been their original Varinia. But when Stanley Kubrick saw her lack of acting ability, she was out and they brought Jean Simmons in. And then fairly early on after she was brought in, she had to have emergency surgery. So she was out for a little while. So that couldn't have helped her gain control over a project that

had already started without her and then on top of that they were essentially writing the script as they went particularly the slave side of the story they were constantly rewriting the script as they went so much so that both Jean Simmons who played Verenia and Tony Curtis who played Antoninus they really had no sense of what had happened in the past for their character and what was up ahead for their character. So it was very hard for them to get an idea of the storyline that they were dealing with. And they both, even though Jean Simmons is a fairly mild mannered person, she even admits that it was really frustrating. And so I don't know that she was really able to fight for her character in the same way that the British actors who

were playing the Romans certainly did, because their story was a little bit more stable and they were involved from an earlier time period. And they also had more weight, let's face it, than Jean Simonson, even though she was a well-respected actor and everybody loved her on set. And so in my conclusion, she is really like one of the main casualties of this battle over the vision of Spartacus. I mean, you mentioned the British actors there being the Romans. First of all, is this another idea of the British always being the bad guys in these films?

Yes, Kirk Douglas very deliberately cast it that way. Of course. That's actually why he didn't initially want to hire Jean Simmons because she's British. And he's like, she can't be a slave because she has a British accent. So. want to hire gene simmons because she's british and he's like she can't be a slave because she has a british accent so but in the in the long scheme of things of course sir lawrence olivier as crass is good choice oh fantastic i think most people are in agreement that the british actors really make this film worth watching to this day they are brilliant in their roles even though it might have been dragged out

of them kicking and screaming they are really really good in their roles i mean one of the reasons why kirk douglas had to race to secure them is that yul brinner apparently had his eye on a very similar cast for his movie so hence why kirk douglas had to snatch them out from underneath him oh thank goodness and just And just before we go on, let's hang on Varinia a little bit longer because the portrayal of Spartacus' love interest in other films, in other media in the 20th century and beforehand,

do they more represent the portrayal of Varinia as this equal figure or more as Kubrick's Varinia? No, generally Spartacus's love interest, and they have all sorts of different names, they come from all sorts of different backgrounds too. Like a popular idea is that Spartacus falls in love with the daughter of Crassus, very Romeo and Juliet. So there are all sorts of different imaginings of Spartacus's love interest. I think it's just the idea that he had one. That's what really hangs around. Varinia is very particular to Howard Fast and the 1960 version of Spartacus's story. The recent TV series, the Stars TV series, has a really interesting take on Spartacus's origin

story. And it's really his wife that he's fighting for at the beginning, you know, for a long time, because they have a whole season to fill. She's also an interesting character. But yeah, the love interest does change depending on the bigger story. And it's generally, she's going to change in relation to what kind of story about Spartacus they're telling. It sounds like a very suitable microcosm for understanding the whole flexibility of the Spartacus story that you were mentioning earlier. Exactly. I mean, all we know about her is that she's with him in the gladiator school, that she seems to come from the same tribe somehow, and that she has potentially prophetessy powers. That's really it. We don't know her name. Plutarch doesn't give us a name. So you can, again, reinvent her to suit your love story.

Now, I must focus on a couple more scenes before we wrap it up. And the first one I want to really look at is the final battle itself. I'm remembering now that hill and, of course, those fiery, I don't think they're bulls, but they're long haystack kind of things which they send down against the Romans. Haystack is probably completely the wrong word, but oh well. But this battle is worthy of a Hollywood epic film. Yes, but it was a very late edition. Ah, oh really? So it was a last minute thing as well? Basically, because they wanted to go for this large Spartacus storyline, they wanted

to focus on Spartacus as being the equal, if not the superior of the Romans. Someone who was a talented strategist, you know, someone with a military mind that made him a worthy adversary of Crassus. And that's not entirely out of keeping with the historical sources. Some of the stuff that we do know about Spartacus that's attested across a few different sources are pretty crazy stories, like how they managed to escape via Vesuvius when no one was watching the secret exit using vine ropes, and how they use fake sentries, like they use dead bodies as fake sentries to escape when the Romans are getting too close. There definitely are lots of pieces of evidence that Spartacus

is conducting this war like a real war, like a real general. His followers have armor, they have weapons, they seem to be trained. So that's not completely something that they've made up just for their own fancy. But they definitely want Spartacus to be a character who is worthy of facing the Romans, and they want to keep the focus, therefore, on his victories, on the amazing things that he managed to accomplish. So in the first couple of drafts of the script, they're definitely trying to highlight all the things that Spartacus managed to do to triumph over the Romans. They really want to highlight him as making the slaves train and doing things methodically and thinking things through.

And they show the victories and they talk about the victories and they show the Romans panicking about the victories. They do this in a couple of different ways. They have a few different ideas. Sometimes it's a montage. Sometimes it's like a battle map and that kind of thing. But that's definitely a focus. And then the final battle, they very deliberately did not want to show because they're like, everybody knows how this story ends. And so for a while, they had this symbolic final battle, which is one of those classic things, right, where you hear the clash of swords far off, and then you're watching a river, and suddenly the water starts to turn to blood, and then you see a helmet, that kind of stuff. And that's what they really wanted to do. And they wanted to make it clear that Spartacus was defeated by overwhelming odds, not because he

was not thinking strategically enough or anything like that. And so they actually have Spartacus being beaten by the three armies of the Cullis, Pompey and Crassus, rather than just Crassus alone, which is what historically happens. So they wanted to change that detail to make it clear that it wasn't Spartacus's failure. It was just inevitable, I suppose. When Stanley Kubrick comes along, he says, what are you crazy? This is an epic. We need to have this final battle. But part of the large Spartacus vision, which fell away at the same time, was they stopped really highlighting these slave victories and they found it difficult to reinsert them. There's actually a bit of debate about whether they did actually reshoot some extra battle scenes and they weren't put in, because a lot of the extra material to do with Spartacus was chucked out in

1975. So we'll never know. It seems unlikely that they did, but certainly the final battle was something that they really stretched the budget to do, and they had to shoot it in Spain because it was cheap. Okay, fair enough. So it's interesting how Kubrick's influence on that final battle is very evident from what you're saying. And I guess the other scene that I really want to raise before the whole ending is perhaps the most famous scene of all, the I'm Spartacus scene. But it sounds like this scene, Kirk Douglas, was he actually enamored with it? It sounds like this scene, Kirk Douglas, was he actually enamored with it? Yes, he was. It seems to have been a scene that Kirk Douglas had something to do with.

Certainly, he did insert a lot of ideas, and it's sometimes hard to track what are actually his ideas, particularly because Kirk Douglas is not averse to claiming credit for things that he maybe shouldn't. But yeah, it does seem like, certainly in the last book that he published not long before he died in about 2012, his memoir, I Am Spartacus, he claims very much so that the I Am Spartacus scene was his idea and that Kubrick hated it and didn't want to do it. But I think it's probably a bit more accurate to say it was probably a collaboration between Dalton Trumbo and Kirk Douglas.

Kirk Douglas may have had the idea of the slaves showing their unity and their love for Spartacus in that kind of a way. But I think Dalton Trumbo probably had a bit more to do with the final scripting that we see. Because there's various versions of the scene or like that kind of idea, which we see throughout the early drafts of the script. And then it's really not until the early 1959 script that we see it pretty much solidified as you see it in the final film. So Douglas, it looks like, liked it. Trumbo liked it. Kubrick wasn't so sure, but he did go

along with it in the end. Apparently, yes. And to wrap it all up, the whole Spartacus story, I'm guessing because there is so much myth around it. There's so much that we really don't know. And the whole story itself, the flexibility that it allows for a TV crew or for a film. Do you think that's one of the things that really appeals to TV crews looking to do epics in the ancient world? Do you think that is why the story of Spartacus really stands out? Yeah, I do think so. I think there is definitely a mythology that's grown up around Spartacus, which does make him a very appealing character. That's the thing about

looking at classical reception. You can't just look at the ancient sources and then look at the version that you're studying. You have to think about all the versions that have happened in between. And you really have to look at what were the people making this film looking at? Were they even looking at the ancient sources? I mean, I've looked at some of the research sources that people like Trumbo looked at as informing their vision of Spartacus, and I can totally see how they came up with what they came up with. And they were often doing it deliberately. You know, they weren't stupid. They weren't making a mistake and say, looking at Juvenal, even though he's in completely the wrong era. They had a particular vision that they wanted to promote. And there was a story they wanted to tell about the Romans as well, that was part of the whole movie. And so they made choices

to fictionalize, to fudge things here, to lean into the myth. I mean, they openly say in one of their earliest research documents that, oh, this source we're using is a bit pro-Spartacus, but hey, that's what we're trying to do, right? So let's just roll with it. And I'm guessing in turn of course the famous 2000 film gladiator can we say that the whole film and how it was made was a big influence on the creation of the russell crowe epic i think so i see spartacus as being a bit of a bastard love child between spartacus and fall of the roman empire which was directed by anthony mann who was fired from spartacus there you go small. All the small world in the film industry.

Fiona, that was fantastic. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Well, there you go. There was Dr. Fiona Radford talking all things life and legend around the figure of Spartacus. And of course, with a big focus on that 1960 epic sword and sandal movie with the likes of Kirk Douglas. I hope you enjoyed that episode from our archive. It's about time we get Fiona back on the Ancients podcast and don't you worry I've got a good feeling that Fiona is going to be returning to the show very very shortly for another topic but that's a hint to leave you on for 2023. Just a thank you from me once again for listening to so many of our Ancients podcasts. Thank you for listening to this episode

and just for helping us out. By doing all of this stuff, you are helping us with sharing, with spreading the words of ancient history, these incredible topics from our distant past, with as many people as possible. I wish you a very merry end to 2022 and I will see you back in 2023.