The Spartacus War

What follows is a description of the main works used to write this study and a guide to further reading. It is not a complete list of references but a representative sample, with the emphasis on English-language scholarship. I include a few works in foreign languages that I have found essential, but many fine studies in French, German and Italian have been omitted.

The indispensable reference book for classics and ancient history is The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). Excellent maps of the ancient world can be found in Richard J.A. Talbert, ed., The Barrington Atlas of the Ancient Greco-Roman World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).

Spartacus

The best place to begin is with Brent D. Shaw’s excellent edited collection and translation of the main documents of the revolt, Spartacus and the Slave Wars, a Brief History with Documents (Boston, Mass: Bedford/St Martins, 2001). The book also includes the main documents on the two Sicilian slave revolts as well as other Roman slave uprisings; it has a fine introductory essay too. Theresa Urbainczyk’s Spartacus (London: Bristol Classical Press, 2004) offers a concise and prudent overview. M.J. Trow’s Spartacus: The Myth and the Man (Stroud, UK: Sutton Publishing, 2006) is a highly readable work by a non-scholar. Keith Bradley’s Slavery and Rebellion in the Roman World, 140 B.C. - 70 B.C. (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1989) has an outstanding chapter on Spartacus. F.A. Ridley, Spartacus, the Leader of the Roman Slaves (Ashford, England: F. Maitland, 1963), is a concise and often accurate little book by a socialist activist and writer. Several important books on Spartacus have appeared in European languages; two of the best are J.-P. Brisson, Spartacus (Paris: Le club français du livre, 1959) and A. Guarino, Spartaco (Napoli: Liguori, 1979). Guarino sees Spartacus as more bandit than hero; the argument does not convince but it is highly stimulating. The standard scholarly encyclopedia article is (in German) F. Muenzer, ‘Spartacus’, in August Pauly, Georg Wis sowa et al., Paulys Real-encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, 83 vols. (Stuttgart: 1893-1978), Vol. III A: cols. 1527-36 and Suppl. Vol. V: col. 993. There is a great deal of value, especially on topography, in the works of Luigi Pareti, particularly his Storia di Roma e del Mondo Romano III: Dai prodromi della III Guerra Macedonica al ‘primo triumvirato’ (170-59 av. Cr.) (Turin: Unione Tipografico-Editrice Torinese, 1953), 687-708, and Luigi Pareti, with Angelo Russi, Storia della regione lucano-bruzzia nell’ anti chita‘ (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1997), 459-69.

A 1977 scholarly symposium held in Bulgaria contains many important essays, most in English: Chr. M. Danov and Al. Fol, eds., SPARTACUS Symposium Rebus Spartaci Gestis Dedicatum 2050 A.: Blagoevgrad, 20-24.1X.1977 (Sofia, Bulgaria: Editions de l’Académie Bulgare des Sciences, 1981). Also in 1977 the Japanese Spartacus scholar Masaoki Doi published in English a valuable bibliography of scholarship on Spartacus, but copies are not easy to find: Bibliography of Spartacus’ Uprising, 1726-1976 (Tokyo: [s.n.], 1977).

The ancient evidence for Spartacus is notoriously inadequate. All the Greek and Latin sources are collected in one place, in the original languages, in Giulia Stampacchia, La Tradizione della Guerra di Spartaco di Sallusto a Orosio (Pisa: Giardini, 1976), which also offers (in Italian) a careful and measured study of the narrative of the revolt as seen through the various sources. The most important ancient work about Spartacus was probably the Histories of Gaius Sallustius Crispus, better known as Sallust (86- 35 BC). A failed politician who commanded a legion for Julius Caesar, Sallust was a teenager at the time of the Spartacus War. He wrote extensively about Spartacus in his Histories, and, to judge from what remains of this work, he wrote trenchantly, but only bits and pieces have survived. The basic Latin edition is B. Maurenbrecher, C. Sallusti Crispi Historiarum Reliquae. Vol. II: Fragmenta (Leipzig: Teubner, 1893). For an excellent translation and historical commentary of the surviving fragments of Sallust’s Histories, see Patrick McGushin, Sallust, The Histories. Translated with Introduction and Commentary, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992-4).

The great Roman historian Titus Livius, or Livy (59 BC - AD 12) also wrote about Spartacus, but that section of his work survives only in a sketchy summary probably written centuries later.

The two most complete histories of Spartacus’s revolt to survive from antiquity are by Plutarch (c. AD 40s-120s) and Appian (c. AD 90s-160s). They are useful but problematic. Both writers were Greek, and both moved in government circles in the heyday of the Roman Peace. Both wrote about Rome’s past, drawing their information from earlier writings that no longer survive, and each preserved important details. But Appian condensed his sources imperfectly, and Plutarch cared less about history than biography. His account of Spartacus, for example, is just a section of his biography of Spartacus’s conqueror, Marcus Licinius Crassus. Plutarch has a maddening habit of sacrificing narrative for a good moral. And Plutarch is our best single source about Spartacus! Still, Plutarch was careful and worldly, and a cautious reader can get a lot from him. There is an important historical commentary in Italian in M.G. Bertinelli Angeli et al., Le Vite di Nicia e di Crasso (Verona: Fondazione Lorenzo Vallo: A. Mondadori, 1993). An excellent historical commentary on Appian can be found in Emilio Gabba, Appiani. Bellorum Civilium Liber Primus (Firenze: La Nuova Italia Editrice, 1958).

Other Romans and Greek writers provide important details about Spartacus, all drawn, more or less accurately, from earlier histories. The most important of them are Velleius Paterculus (c.20 BC - AD 30s?), Frontinus (c. AD 30-104), Florus (c. AD 100- 150) and Orosius (c. AD 380s-420s). An important study of Florus on Spartacus is H.T. Wallinga, ‘Bellum Spartacium: Florus’ Text and Spartacus’s Objective’, Athenaeum 80 (1992): 25-43. Cicero lived through Spartacus’s revolt as a grown man and referred to it in several of his speeches, most notably in his orations against Verres, especially Oration 6 (also known as II,5). An English translation of the speech by Michael Grant is conveniently found in Cicero, On Government (Hardmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1994), 13-105. For an overview, see M. Doi, ‘Spartacus’ Uprising in Cicero’s Works’, Index 17(1989): 191-203.

Two brilliant but speculative and ultimately unconvincing studies argue that Spartacus’s revolt was primarily nationalist and anti-Roman rather than a slave revolt: W.Z. Rubinsohn, ‘Was the Bellum Spartacium a Servile Insurrection?’, Rivista di Filologia 99 (1971): 290-99, and Pierre Piccinin, ‘Les Italiens dans le “Bellum Spartacium” ’, Historia 53.2 (2004): 173-99. See also Piccinin, ‘À propos de deux passages des œuvres de Salluste et Plutarque’, Historia 51.3 (2002): 383-4 and Piccinin, ‘Le dionysisme dans le Bellum Spartacium’, Parola del Passato 56.319 (2001): 272-96.

The following are important studies of specific topics in the history of Spartacus’s revolt: R. Kamienik, ‘Die Zahlenangaben ueber des Spartakus-Aufstand und ihre Glaubwuerdigkeit’, Alter tum 16 (1970): 96-105, on the number of rebels at various points in the revolt; K. Ziegler, ‘Die Herkunft des Spartacus’, Hermes 83 (1955): 248-50, on the possibility that Spartacus was a Maedus; M. Doi, ‘Spartacus’ Uprising and Ancient Thracia, II’, Dritter Internationaler Thrakologischer Kongress vol. 2 (Sofia: Staatlicher Verlag Swjat, 1984): 203-7, and M. Doi, ‘The Origins of Spartacus and the Anti-Roman Struggle in Thracia’, Index 20 ( 1992): 31-40, on the influence of Spartacus’s Thracian background; G. Stampacchia, ‘La rivolta di Spartaco come rivolta contadina’, Index 9 (1980): 99-111, on the rural character of Spartacus’s supporters; C. Pellegrino, Ghosts of Vesuvius: A New Look at the Last Days of Pompeii, How Towers Fall, and Other Strange Connections (New York: W. Morrow, 2004), 147-66, on Spartacus’s sojourn on Mount Vesuvius; E. Maróti, ‘De suppliciis. Zur Frage der sizili anischen Zusammenhange des Spartacus-Aufstandes’, Acta Antiquae Hungariae 9 (1961): 41-70, on Spartacus’s planned crossing to Sicily; Maria Capozza, ‘Spartaco e il sacrificio del cavallo (Plut. Crass. 11, 8-9)’, Critica Storica 2 (1963): 251-93, on Spartacus’s sacrifice of a horse during his last battle. Allen Mason Ward, Marcus Crassus and the Late Roman Republic (Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press, 1977), esp. 83-98, ‘Chapter IV: The War with Spartacus’, offers a fundamental study of the crucial last six months of the war.

The titles of the following all make the subjects clear: R. Kamienik, ‘Gladiatorial Games during the Funeral of Crixus. Contribution to the Revolt of Spartacus’, Eos 64 (1976): 83-90; M. Doi, ‘Why did Spartacus Stay in Italy?’, Antiquitas. Acta Universitatis Wratislaviensis 598 (1983): 15-18; M. Doi, ‘On the Negotiations between the Roman State and the Spartacus Army’, KLIO 66 (1984): 170-74; M. Doi, ‘Female Slaves in the Spartacus Army’, in Marie-Madeleine Mactoux and Evelyne Geny, eds., Mélanges Pierre Lévêque, II: Anthropologie et Societe, Annales littéraires de I’Universite de Besançon, 377; Centre de recherches d’histoire ancienne, 82 (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1989): 161-72; R.M. Sheldon, ‘The Spartacus Rebellion: A Roman Intelligence Failure?’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 6.1 (1993): 69-84. Also valuable are B. Baldwin, ‘Two Aspects of Spartacus’s Slave Revolt’, Classical Journal 62 (1966-7): 288-94, and J. Scarborough, ‘Reflections on Spartacus’, Ancient World 1 no.2 (1978): 75-81.

Study of the Spartaks fresco begins with the publication by Italian archaeologist Amadeo Maiuri, Monumenti della pittura antica scoperti in Italia; Sezione terza: La pittura ellenistica romana; fasc. 2. Le pitture delle case di ‘M. Fabius Amandio’, del ‘Sacerdos amandus’ e di ‘P. Cornelius Teges’ (reg, I, ins. 7) (Rome: La Libreria dello Stato, 1938). Jerzy Kolendo makes the case for scepticism in ‘Uno spartaco sconosciuto nella Pompei osca. Le pitture della casa di Amando’, Index 9 (1980): 33-40 and ‘Spartacus sur une peinture osque de Pompei: chef de la grande insurrection servile ou un gladiateur inconnu originaire de la Thrace?’, Antiquitas. Acta Universitatis Wratislaviensis 10 (1983): 49-53. Fabrizio Pesando weighs possible changes in the architecture of the building where the fresco was found in ‘Gladiatori a Pompei’, in Adriano La Regina, ed., Sangue e Arena (Milan: Electa, 2001), 175-98. A sensible overview of the debate in English can be found in van A. Hoof, ‘Reading the Spartaks Fresco Without Red Eyes’, in S.T.A.M. Mols and Eric Moormann, eds., Omni pede stare. Saggi architectonici e circumvesuviani in memoriam Jos de Waele (Naples: Electa Napoli and Ministeri per i Beni e le Attivite‘ Culturali, 2005), 251-6.

Spartacus in Fiction, Film and Ideology

Brent D. Shaw offers an excellent overview of Spartacus in western culture before Marx in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with a look forward to the present in ‘Spartacus Before Marx: Liberty and Servitude’, Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics Version 2.2, November 2005, http://www.princeton. edu/~pswpc/pdfs/shaw/110516.pdf. On Marxist scholarship on Spartacus in the Soviet Union, see W.Z. Rubinsohn, Spartacus’ Uprising and Soviet Historical Writing (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 1987).

Three twentieth-century novels about Spartacus are available in English: Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Spartacus (New York: Pegasus Books, 2006), originally published in 1933; Arthur Koestler, The Gladiators, trans. Edith Simon (New York: Macmillan, 1939), a work by a disillusioned ex-Communist that sees in Spartacus’s revolt the excesses of revolution; and Howard Fast’s famous 1951 Spartacus, republished in 1996 by North Castle Books (Armonk: New York) with a brief introductory essay by Fast about his experiences as an American Communist in the McCarthy era.

Stanley Kubrick’s 1960 film is available in DVD, in several versions; the Criterion Collection version is the best. A 2004 remake, Spartacus - the Complete TV Miniseries, is also available on DVD. A fascinating and enjoyable collection of essays about Kubrick’s film is M.M. Winkler, Spartacus: Film and History (Malden, Mass. and Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007).

Khachaturian’s ballet Spartacus, with choreography by Yuri Grigorovich and performed by the Bolshoi Ballet, is also available on DVD. The 1990 Arthaus DVD version, one of two starring Irek Mukhamedov as Spartacus, is probably the best. Recordings of the music alone are available.

Among documentaries on Spartacus, there is The Real Spartacus, a 2001 production by Britain’s Channel 4; Decisive Battles - Spartacus, from the History Channel in 1994, available on DVD; Spartacus, Gladiator War, from the National Geographic in 2006.

Rome and Romans

A good introductory textbook to Roman history is M.T. Boat-wright, Daniel J. Gargola and Richard Talbert, The Romans (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004). Michael Crawford, The Roman Republic, 2nd edn (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993), offers a brief and incisive scholarly analysis. A lively and accessible overview is P. Matyszak, Chronicle of the Roman Republic (London: Thames & Hudson, 2003). A classic and more detailed alternative is T.R. Holmes, The Roman Republic and the Founder of the Empire, 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923). There are excellent introductory essays in Nathan Rosenstein and Robert Morstein-Marx, A Companion to the Roman Republic (Malden, Mass, and Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006).

Tom Holland offers a vivid account of the final decades of the Roman Republic in Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic (New York: Anchor, 2005). A scholarly introduction is Mary Beard and Michael Crawford, Rome in the Late Republic: Problems and Interpretations, 2nd edn (London: Duckworth, 1999). The indispensable scholarly analysis of Roman politics in those years is E.S. Gruen, The Last Generation of the Roman Republic (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974).

An essential reference book for Roman officials is T.R.S. Broughton, with the collabouration of Marcia Patterson, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, 2 vols. (New York: The American Philological Association, 1951-2). See also T.C. Bren-nan, The Praetorship in the Roman Republic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

On the economy of Late Republican Italy, see Neville Morley, Metropolis and Hinterland: The City of Rome and the Italian Economy, 200 BC - AD 200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Nathan Rosenstein, Rome at War: Farms, Families and Death in the Middle Republic (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004).

On the demography of Late Republican Italy, see P.A. Brunt, Italian Manpower 225 BC - AD 14 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971); T. Parkin, Roman Demography and Society (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992); W.W. Scheidel, ‘Human Mobility in Roman Italy, I: The Free Population’, Journal of Roman Studies 94 (2005): 1-26, and ‘Human Mobility in Roman Italy, II: The Slave Population’, Journal of Roman Studies 95 (2005): 65-79.

On individual Roman politicians of the Spartacan War, see A. Keaveney, Sulla, the Last Republican (London: Routledge, 2005); A. Keaveney, ‘Sulla and Italy’, Critica Storia 19 (1982): 499-544; Allen Mason Ward, Marcus Crassus and the Late Roman Republic (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1977); F.E. Adcock, Marcus Crassus, Millionaire (Cambridge, England: W. Heffer & Sons, 1966); B.A. Marshall, Crassus, a Political Biography (Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert, 1976); B.A. Marshall, ‘Crassus’s Ovation in 71’, Historia 21 (1972): 669-73; B.A. Marshall, ‘Crassus and the Command Against Spartacus’, Athenaeum 51 (1973): 109-21; P. Greenhalgh, Pompey, the Roman Alexander (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1980); R. Seager, Pompey the Great, a Political Biography (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2002); Anthony Everitt, Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome’s Greatest Politician (New York: Random House, 2003); B.A. Marshall, R.J. Baker, ‘The Aspirations of Q. Arrius’, Historia 24.2 (1975): 220-31; I. Shatz man, ‘Four Notes on Roman Magistrates’, Athenaeum 46 (1968): 345-54.

On Sertorius, see Philip O. Spann, Quintus Sertorius: Citizen, Soldier, Exile (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1976); C.F. Conrad, Plutarch’s Sertorius: A Historical Commentary (University of North Carolina Press, 1994). On Mithridates, see Adrienne Mayor, Mithridates (Princeton: Princeton University Press, forthcoming).

Other valuable studies include M. Beard, The Roman Triumph (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007); J. Percival, The Roman Villa: An Historical Introduction (London: B.T. Batsford, 1976); J.S. Ackerman, The Villa: Form and Ideology of Country Houses (London: Thames and Hudson, 1990). C.V. Sutherland, The Romans in Spain, 217 BC - AD 117 (London: Methuen & Co., 1939); J.S. Richardson, The Romans in Spain Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, (1998); J.S. Richardson, Hispaniae: Spain and the Development of Roman Imperialism, 218-82 BC (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986); Wilfried Nippel, Public Order in Ancient Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

Gladiators

Two accessible and readable recent introductions to the subject are Alison Futrell, The Roman Games (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), and Fik Meijer, The Gladiators, History’s Most Dangerous Sport (New York: St Martin’s Press, 2003). S. Shadrake, The World of the Gladiator (Stroud: Tempus Publishing, 2005), offers reconstructions of gladiatorial combat, as does M. Junkelmann, Das Spiel mit dem Tod. So kampften Roms Gladiatoren (Mainz am Rhein: von Zabern, 2000); the latter is in German but the excellent photos speak for themselves. An English-language summary of some of Junkelmann’s ideas is found in M. Junkelmann, ‘Familia Gladiatoria: The Heroes of the Amphitheatre’, in Gladiators and Caesars: The Power of Spectacle in Ancient Rome, Eckart Koehne and Cornelia Ewigleben, eds., English version edited by R. Jackson (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 31-74; see also M. Junkelmann, ‘Gladiatorial and Military Equipment and Fighting Technique: A Comparison’, Journal of Roman Military Equipment Studies 11 (2000): 113-17.

Karl Grossschmidt and Fabian Kanz, Gladiatoren in Ephesos: Tod am Nachmittag (Vienna: Osterreichisches Archaologisches Institut, 2002), summarizes important discoveries from a gladiators’ cemetery in Ephesus. Luciana Jacobelli, Gladiators at Pompeii (Los Angeles; John Paul Getty Museum, 2004), focuses on the important evidence of the first century AD but contains much of interest.

Other valuable books on gladiators and their place in Roman society and culture include D.G. Kyle, Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome (London and New York: Routledge, 1998); T. Wiedemann, Emperors and Gladiators (London and New York: Routledge, 1992). K.E. Welch theorizes a Roman initiative behind Campania’s first stone amphitheatres: K.E. Welch, The Roman Amphitheatre: From Its Origins to the Colosseum (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), along with an article by the same author, ‘The Roman Arena in late-Republican Italy: A New Interpretation’, Journal of Roman Archaeology 7 (1994): 59- 80. Carlin A. Barton, The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans: The Gladiator and the Monster (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), is speculative but often insightful. On gladiators in the armed gangs and bodyguards of the Late Republic, see Andrew Lintott, Violence in Republican Rome (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 83-5.

Slaves

The best introduction to Roman slavery is K.R. Bradley, Slavery and Society at Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). See also his very thoughtful earlier study, Slaves and Masters in the Roman Empire: A Study in Social Control (Brussels: Lato mus, 1984). The little book by Michael Massey and Paul More-land, Slavery in Ancient Rome (London: Bristol Classical Press, 2001), is also a good start. T. Wiedemann, Greek and Roman Slavery (London: Routledge, 1981), is an excellent collection of documents. J.C. Dumont, Servus. Rome et l’Esclavage sous la République. Collection de l’École Française de Rome 103 (Rome: Ecole Française de Rome, Palais Farnèse, 1987), is fundamental on slavery in the Republic. Two important introductory studies are John Bodel, ‘Slave Labour and Roman Society’, in K. Bradley and P. Cartledge, eds., The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), and Willem Jongman, ‘Slavery and the Growth of Rome. The Transformation of Italy in the Second and First Centuries BCE’, in Catherine Edwards and Greg Woolf, eds., Rome the Cosmopolis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003): 100-122.

M.I. Finley, Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1998), is an essential discussion of the problem of slavery in the classical world. See also Joseph Vogt, Ancient Slavery and the Ideal of Man, trans. Thomas Wiedemann (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975); Keith Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaves (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978); Niall McKeown, The Invention of Ancient Slavery, Duckworth Classical Essays (London: Duckworth, 2007).

F.H. Thompson, The Archaeology of Greek and Roman Slavery (London: Duckworth, 2003) is valuable, but there remains much work to do on this subject. See Jane Webster, ‘Archaeologies of Slavery and Servitude: Bringing “New World” Perspectives to Roman Britain’, Journal of Roman Archaeology 18(1)(2005): 161-79.

On the Roman slave trade, see John Bodel, ‘Caveat Emptor: Towards a Study of Roman Slave-Traders’, Journal of Roman Archaeology. 18(2005): 181-95, and the debate represented by such works as W.V. Harris, ‘Demography, Geography and the Sources of Roman Slaves’, The Journal of Roman Studies 89 (1999): 62-75, and by W. Scheidel, ‘Quantifying the Sources of Slaves in the Early Roman Empire’, The Journal of Roman Studies 87 (1997): 156-69.

Revolts and Resistance

There is an excellent introduction to the subject in K.R. Bradley, Slavery and Rebellion in the Roman World, 140 BC - 70 BC. (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1989). See also Theresa Urbainczyk, Slave Revolts in Antiquity (Stocksfield, England: Acumen, 2008). Although the emphasis is on Greece, not Rome, a seminal discussion is found in Paul Cartledge, ‘Rebels and Sambos in Classical Greece: A Comparative View’, in his Spartan Reflections (London: Duckworth, 2001), 127-52. Brent Shaw’s Spartacus and the Slave Wars (Boston, Mass.: Bedford/St Martin’s, 2001) offers translation of the major sources and a valuable introductory essay. Also useful is Zvi Yavetz, Slaves and Slavery in Ancient Rome (New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1988). W. Hoben, Terminologische Studien zu den Sklavenerhebun gen der roemischen Republik (Wiesbaden, Germany: Steiner, 1978), represents an important study of the terminology of revolt used in the ancient sources. On the First Sicilian Slave War, see P. Green, ‘The First Sicilian Slave War’, Past and Present 20 (1961): 10-29, with objections by W.G.G. Forrest and T.C.W. Stinton, ‘The First Sicilian Slave War’, Past and Present 22 (1962): 87-93. On the Sicilian Revolts, see also G.P. Verbrugghe, ‘Sicily 210-70 BC Livy, Cicero and Diodorus’, Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 103 (1972): 535-59, and G.P. Verbrugghe, ‘Slave Rebellion or Sicily in Revolt?’, Kokalos 20 (1974): 46-60.

Thomas Grünewald has written a fascinating study in Bandits in the Roman Empire, Myth and Reality, trans. John Drinkwater (London and New York: Routledge, 2004).

Warfare

Adrian Goldsworthy offers a concise introduction to the Roman way of war in Roman Warfare (New York: Smithsonian Books, 1999). His The Complete Roman Army (London and New York: Thames & Hudson, 2003) is a detailed overview of the legions and auxilia. For futher study, see his The Roman Army at War, 100 BC - AD 200 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996). Peter Connolly, Greece and Rome at War (London: Greenhill Books, 2006), offers superb illustrations and sound history. C.M. Gilliver, The Roman Art of War (Charleston, SC: Tempus, 1999), offers thoughtful analysis. P. Sabin, Lost Battles: Reconstructing the Great Clashes of the Ancient World (London: Hambledon Continuum, 2008), combines wargaming and scholarship to reconstruct the ancient battlefield. See also Sabin’s important article, ‘The Face of Roman Battle’, The Journal of Roman Studies 90 (2000): 1-17.

Some valuable studies of Roman logistics, equipment, marching order and discipline are M.C. Bishop and J.C.N. Coulston, Roman Military Equipment from the Punic Wars to the Fall of Rome (London: B.T. Batsford, 1993); J.P. Roth, The Logistics of the Roman Army at War (264 BC - AD 235) (Leiden: Brill, 1999).

On piracy in the Roman Mediterranean, see P. De Souza, Piracy in the Graeco-Roman World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) and the still valuable H.A. Ormerod, Piracy in the Ancient World. An Essay in Mediterranean History (Liverpool: The University Press of Liverpool, 1924).

On the Roman ideal of single combat, see S.P. Oakley, ‘Single Combat in the Roman Republic’, The Classical Quarterly 35, no.2 (1985): 392-410. See also the stimulating remarks of J.E. Lendon in Soldiers and Ghosts: A History of Battle in Classical Antiquity (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2006), esp. 172-232.

On ‘barbarian’ warfare, see C. Webber, The Thracians 700 BC - AD 46 (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2001); S. Allen, Celtic Warrior, 300 BC - AD 100: Weapons, Armour, Tactics (Oxford: Osprey Military, 2001); J.-L. Brunaux, Guerre et Religion en Gaule: Essai D’Anthropologie Celtique (Paris: Editions Errance, 2004); Daithi O’Hogain, Celtic Warriors: The Armies of One of the First Great Peoples in Europe (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1999).

On guerrilla warfare and counter-insurgency, see R.B. Asprey, War in the Shadows, The Guerrilla in History, vol. I (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1975); R. Taber, War of the Flea. The Classic Study of Guerrilla Warfare (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2002); and C.E. Calwell, Small Wars: Their Principles and Practices, 3rd edn, with an introduction by Douglas Porch (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996).

Thracians, Celts and Germans

Introductions to the ancient Thracians include R.F. Hoddinott, The Thracians (London: Thames & Hudson, 1981); Alexander Fol and Ivan Mazarov, Thrace and the Thracians (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1997); L. Casson, ‘The Thracians’, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 35, no.1 (1977): 2-6. N.M.V. de Vries, ‘Die Stellung der Frau in der Thrakischen Gesellschaft’, Dritter Internationaler Thrakologischer Kongress 2 (1984): 315-21, is fundamental on Thracian women.

There is a large bibliography on the Celts. Two good introductions are B. Cunliffe, The Ancient Celts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997); J. Haywood, Atlas of the Celtic World (London: Thames & Hudson, 2001). For the documents, see P. Freeman, War, Women and Druids. Eyewitness Reports and Early Accounts of the Ancient Celts (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002). On Celtic women, see M. Green, Celtic Goddesses: Warriors, Virgins and Mothers (London: British Museum, 1995); P.B. Ellis, Celtic Women: Women in Celtic Society and Literature (London: St Edmundsbury, 1995).

For an introduction to the ancient Germans, see Anthony King, Roman Gaul and Germany (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990).

For general considerations on Romans and barbarians, see B.W. Cunliffe, Greeks, Romans and Barbarians: Spheres of Interaction (New York: Methuen, 1988); P.S. Wells, Beyond Celts, Germans and Scythians: Archaeology and Identity in Iron Age Europe (London: Duckworth, 2001).

Religion

Mary Beard, John North and Simon Price, Religions of Rome, 2 vols. (Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 1998), is an essential history and sourcebook. Valerie Warrior offers a concise introduction in Roman Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

On the messianic aspects of the Roman slave revolts, see N.A. Mashkin, ‘Eschatology and Messianism in the Final Period of the Roman Republic’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 10(2)(1949): 206-28, and P. Masiello, ‘L’Ideologica Messianica e le Rivolte Servili’, Annali della Facolta‘ di lettere e filosofia 11 (1966): 179-96.

A concise analysis of the Bacchanalia affair of 186 BC can be found in J.A. North, ‘Religious Toleration in Republican Rome’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 25 (1979): 85-103. See also P.G. Walsh, ‘Making a Drama out of a Crisis: Livy on the Bacchanalia’, Greece & Rome 43 (1996): 188-203. A detailed and sophisticated analysis bringing in an archaeological perspective is J.-M. Pailler, Bacchanalia: la répression de 186 av. J.-C. à Rome et en Italie (BEFAR 270) (Rome: Ecole Française de Rome, 1988).

On Thracian religion, see Ivan Marazov, ‘Thracian Religion’, in Alexander Fol and Ivan Marazov, Thrace and the Thracians (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1977), 17-36; S.E. Johnson, ‘The Present State of Sabazios Research’, in H. Temporini and W. Haase, eds., Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt vol.II 17.3. (1984): 1583-613; A. Fol, The Thracian Dionysos. Book One: Zagreus (Sofia: St Kliment Ohridski University Press, 1991); A. Fol, The Thracian Dionysos. Book Two. Sabazios (Sofia: St Kliment Ohridski University Press, 1994); N. Dimitrova, ‘Inscriptions and Iconography in the Monuments of the Thracian Rider’, Hesperia 71, no.2 (2002): 209-29.

On Celtic religion, see J.-L. Brunaux, The Celtic Gauls: Gods, Rites and Sanctuaries (London: Seaby, 1988); M.J. Green, The World of the Druids (London: Thames & Hudson, 1997); N.K. Chadwick, The Druids (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1997).

On the use of Dionysus as a political symbol in the Hellenistic world, see Walter Burkert, ‘Bacchic Teletai in the Hellenistic Age’, in Thomas H. Carpenter and Christopher A. Faraone, eds., Masks of Dionysus (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), 259-75, esp. 259-70.

On heroization and divine honours for great men in the Late Roman Republic, see Stefan Weinstock, Divius Julius (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 287-97; Itta Gradel, Emperor Worship and Roman Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002), 27-53. On the widespread belief that successful Roman Republican generals were supernaturally inspired, see J.P.V.D. Balsdon, ‘Sulla Felix’, Journal of Roman Studies 41.1-2 (1951):1-10.

Italian Topography and Archaeology

Basic introductions to the Italian geographical context of Spartacus’s revolt include T.W. Potter, Roman Italy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990); R. Ross Holloway, The Archaeology of Ancient Sicily (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), and guidebooks in the Blue Guide series such as P. Blanchard, Southern Italy (London: A&C Black Publishers, 2004). H.V. Morton, A Traveller in Southern Italy (London, Methuen & Co, 1969), is impressionistic but stimulating.

R.J. Buck published a series of studies on the ancient roads of Lucania between 1971 and 1981: R.J. Buck, ‘The Via Herculia’, Papers of the British School at Rome 39 (1971): 66-87; R.J. Buck, ‘The Ancient Roads of Eastern Lucania’, Papers of the British School at Rome 42 (1974): 46-67; R.J. Buck, ‘The Ancient Roads of Southeastern Lucania’, Papers of the British School at Rome 43 (1975): 98-117; R.J. Buck, ‘The Ancient Roads of Northwestern Lucania and the Battle of Numistro’, Parola del Passato 36 (1981):317-47.

The following regional and local studies are helpful. On the archaeology and history of Campania, see M. Frederiksen, Campania (Hertford: Stephen Austin, 1984). On Capua, see S. De Caro and Valeria Sampaolo, Guide of Ancient Capua (Santa Maria Capua Vetere: Soprintendenza Archeologica delle province di Napoli e Caserta, 2000). On ancient Lucania, see E. Isayev, Inside Ancient Lucania: Dialogues in History and Archaeology (London: Institute of Classical Studies, University of London, 2007). There is a brief but illuminating discussion of the Roman Republican era at Metapontum in J.C. Carter, Discovering the Greek Countryside at Metaponto (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2006); Antonio De Siena, Metaponto, Archeologia di una Colonia Greca (Soprintendenza Archeologica della Basilicata, Taranto: Scorpione Editrice, 2001); Franco Liguori, Sybaris Tra Storia e Leggenda (Castrovillari: Bakos, 2004).

Laura Battastini argues that Spartacus’s battle with Lentulus took place in the northern Tuscan Apennines near the village of Lentula: Lentula La dinastia dei Lentuli Corneli, la guerra di Spartaco e la storia di antichi villaggi dell’Appennino Tosco Emili ano, 2nd edn (Restignano Italy: Editografica, 2000). R. Luongo opens a window into the journey of Spartacus’s army in the region of the Picentini Mountains: R. Luongo, ‘L’esercito di Spartaco nella regione dei Monti Picentini’, Rassegna Storica Salernita 42, n.s. 21.2 (2004): 21-32. E. Greco’s study of Spartacus on the Strait of Messina is illuminating if unconvincing: E. Greco, Spartaco sullo stretto ovvero Le origini di Villa San Giovanni e Fiumara di muro (Rome: Gangemi Editore, 1999).

Domenico Raso offers a plausible theory of Crassus’s military works in the Aspromonte Mountains in Domenico Raso, ‘TIN-NARIA: Antiche opere militari sullo Zomaro’, Calabria sonosciuta 37 (January-March 1987): 79-102, and Domenico Raso, Zomaro: La montagna dei sette popoli, tra i misteri della montagna calabrese (Reggio di Calabria: Laruffa, 2001).

On Roman roads, see Raymond Chevallier, Roman Roads, trans. N.H. Field (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1976); Ray Laurence, The Roads of Roman Italy: Mobility and Cultural Change (London and New York: Routledge, 1999); Romolo Agosto Staccioli, The Roads of the Romans (Rome: ‘L’Erma’ di Bretschneider, 2003); Ivana della Portella, Giuseppina Pisani Sartorio, Francesca Ventre, The Appian Way from its Foundation to the Middle Ages, trans. from the Italian (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2004) and A.R. Amarotta, ‘La Capua-Reggio (e il locus Popilli) nei pressi di Salerno’, Atti della Accademia Pontaniana XXXIII (1984): 289-308.

A brief but valuable introduction to the archaeological evidence for Spartacus’s revolt is found in A. Russi, ‘La romanizzazione: il quadro storico’, in Dinu Adamesteanu, ed., Storia della Basilicata, vol. 1: L’Antichita‘ (Rome: Editori Laterza, 1999), 531-7, and in the same volume, A. Small, ‘L’occupazione del territorio in eta‘ romana’, 577. For the coin hoard buried at Siris, see A. Siciliano, ‘Ripostiglio di monete repubblicane da Policoro’, Annali dell’ Istituto Italiano di Numismatica XXI-XXII (1974-5): 103-54. For the treasure buried at Palmi, in an olive grove 25 miles north of Cape Caenys, see P.G. Guzzo, ‘Argenteria di Palmi in ripostiglio’, Atti e memorie della Societa‘ Magna Grecia 18-20 (1977-9): 193- 209.

Miscellaneous

On tattooing in Greece and Rome, see C.P. Jones, ‘Stigma: Tattooing and Branding in Graeco-Roman Antiquity’, Journal of Roman Studies 77 (1987): 139-55. On tattooing in Thrace, see A. Mayor, ‘People Illustrated’, Archaeology 52.2 (March/April 1999): 54-7.

The best introduction to crucifixion and the Romans is M. Hengel, Crucifixion in the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of the Cross (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977). For a concise overview, see Haim Cohn and Shimon Gibson, ‘Crucifixion’, Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd edn, vol. 5, Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik, eds. (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007): 309-10, or J.J. Rousseau and Rami Arav, ‘Crucifixion’, Jesus and his World: An Archaeological and Cultural Dictionary (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1995): 74-8. On the evidence of material culture, see J. Zias, ‘Crucifixion in Antiquity, the Anthropological Evidence’, www.joezias.com/CrucifixionAntiquity.html, and J. Zias and E. Sekeles, ‘The Crucified Man from Giv’at ha-Mivtar: A Reappraisal’, Israel Exploration Journal 35 (1985): 22-7. On medical questions regarding crucifixion, see M.W. Maslen and Piers D. Mitchell, ‘Medical Theories on the Cause of Death in Crucifixion’, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 99 (2006): 185-8.

For a stimulating if speculative theory about the enduring, Celtic way of war, see G. McWhiney, Attack and Die. Civil War Military Tactics and the Southern Heritage (University of Tusca loosa: University of Alabama Press, 1981).