On the Spartacus Road: A Spectacular Journey through Ancient Italy

On the Spartacus Road: A Spectacular Journey through Ancient Italy
Peter Stothard

In this inspiring and original book, former editor of The Times, Sir Peter Stothard, re-traces the journey taken by Spartacus and his army of rebels.In the final century of the first Roman Republic an army of slaves brought a peculiar terror to the people of Italy. Its leaders were gladiators. Its purpose was incomprehensible. Its success was something no one before had ever known.The Spartacus Road is the route along which this rebel army outfought the Roman legions between 73 and 71BC, bringing both fears and hopes that have never wholly left the modern mind. It is a road that stretches through 2,000 miles of Italian countryside and out into 2,000 years of world history.In this inspiring and original memoir, the former editor of The Times, Peter Stothard, takes us on an extraordinary journey. The result is a book like none other – at once a journalist’s notebook, a classicist’s celebration, a survivor’s record of a near fatal cancer and the history of a unique and brutal war.As he travels along the Spartacus road – through the ruins of Capua to Vesuvius and the lost Greek cities of the Italian south – Stothard’s prose illuminates conflicting memories of times ancient and modern, the simultaneously foreign and familiar, one of the greatest stories of all ages. Sweepingly erudite and strikingly personal, “On the Spartacus Road” is non-fiction writing of the highest order.

ON THE

SPARTACUS ROAD

A SPECTACULAR JOURNEY THROUGH

ANCIENT ITALY

Peter Stothard

To Anna and Michael

Contents

Cover (#u45b173a4-b12b-544e-ba24-56aad8ba3ee5)

Title Page (#udd4ba762-2af0-5ec1-8fdd-7185ea44e5fc)

Dedication (#ue7e9352b-8a4c-569e-9ded-9036c3d7962c)

Prologue (#ulink_c1f1b78e-bfcc-5730-ad77-4c110bfd1b1a)

I (#ulink_0e669c8c-3b04-5a24-88f9-ccea66c5afc9)

ROME to ARICCIA

SAXON SUICIDES | SENATOR SYMMACHUS REGRETS | FINISHING SCHOOLS | TOO MANY FOREIGNERS | RIDDLE OF THE NUMBER 3 | CHEMISTRY WITH KIRK DOUGLAS | CAPUAN CARLO’S VIRGIN

II (#ulink_9de0df8a-9daa-5a7e-8709-5f813fd74117)

ARICCIA to BENEVENTO

SPECTACULAR | POPLIOS PAPINIOS STATIOS | DWARF-EATING BIRDS | NAZI REVENGE | A CANCER CALLED NERO | HOW TO DIE WELL | HORACE AND HIS FATHER | HACKSAW TEETH

III (#ulink_72a24cae-93bb-5f52-b10f-6fe09b1f2c70)

CAPUA to ACERRA

SPARTACUS LEAVES THE KITCHEN | CONTRACT KILLERS | CURIOUS KOREANS | SABBIO’S LAS VEGAS | BUSH E SHARON = CRIMINALI | FLORUS OF FLEET STREET | WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND | MOUNTAIN MONSTER

IV (#litres_trial_promo)

VESUVIUS to POMPEII

SLAVES ON A VOLCANO | EPICURUS IN SCOTLAND | DEATH AND HIS HALF-BROTHER SLEEP | A BOXER FROM THEBES | HOW TO SUCCEED IN SELLING PLATES | WHAT PAIN DOES TO THE BRAIN

V (#litres_trial_promo)

POMPEII to NUCERIA

TERROR, RAPE AND REVENGE | CESSPOOLS IN OUR STREETS | VIRTUAL HERCULANEUM | A VICAR FROM ESSEX | SPARTACUS TRIUMPHANT | LOST LIBRARIES BY THE SEA

VI (#litres_trial_promo)

EGNAZIA to BOTROMAGNO

SOUTH FOR THE WINTER | MAGICIANS AND CASTRATI | GREEKS VS TROJANS | ARTHUR KOESTLER’S CRUCIFIXIONS | EARLY CASES OF SYPHILIS | MASSACRE OF THE HORSE-BUILDER’S MEN | BODY SCANS | THE DUTIES OF SLAVE WOMEN

VII (#litres_trial_promo)

GARGANO to POGNANA (#litres_trial_promo)

VICTORY FOR A PHILOSOPHICAL CONSUL | IN THE HOUSE OF ARCHANGEL MICHAEL | HUMAN ENTRAILS AROUND THEIR WAISTS | CALLS OF CROWS | CORPSES ON THE BEACHES | HOW SPARTACUS LOST HIS HOLLYWOOD WAR

VIII (#litres_trial_promo)

TORNO to PICENTINO

GHOST-HUNTING WITH THE YOGURT-SELLER | TO LEAVE ITALY OR TO FIGHT ROME | IN A CHEMO-FUELLED ROSE GARDEN | SOLID GOLD PISS-POTS | ENTER MARCUS LICINIUS CRASSUS

IX (#litres_trial_promo)

REGGIO CALABRIA to BUCCINO~VOLCEI

POPCORN FOR PLUTARCH | COIUMNS IN THE PRESS | BETRAYED BY PIRATES | MAN A AND MAN B | AT THE BITTER-SWEET LAKE | WHEN THE WAR WAS OVER

X (#litres_trial_promo)

SORRENTO to ROME

HOW TO LIVE A HAPPY LIFE | MARBLE MIMICS GRASS | THINGS TO DO WITH DEFEATED SLAVES | CRUCIFIED IN THEORY | A HEAD FULL OF MOITEN GOLD AND OTHER AFTERMATHS

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

List of Illustrations (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Prologue (#ulink_e21b791e-4a98-5a96-9d81-37e7192241f2)

In the final century of the first Roman Republic an army of slaves brought a peculiar terror to the people of Italy. Its leaders were gladiators. Its purpose was incomprehensible. Its success was something no one had ever known. Never before had the world’s greatest state been threatened from the lowest places that its citizens could imagine, from inside its own kitchens, laundries, mines, fields and theatres. Never again, the victors said when Spartacus was dead and his war was over.

The Spartacus Road is the route along which the slave army fought its Roman enemies between 73 and 71 BC. It is a road much travelled then and since by poets and philosophers, politicians and teachers, torturers and terrorisers of different times, those living today and those long ago dead, innovative thinkers about fear and death, some with truths to teach us, others whom we can try to forget. It stretches through 2,000 miles of Italian countryside and out into 2,000 years of world history. From Sicily to the Alps and from Paris to Hollywood, it has never wholly left the modern mind.