READ JANUS
  • Venture Advice
    • Fundraising
    • Reviews
    • Experience
    • Contact
  • Books
    • Growth Company Guide >
      • The Back Story
    • Ancient Selfies >
      • Sample the Coins
      • Show Me the Money!
    • Passports in his Underpants >
      • 5-Star Review
    • Book Store
  • TrekPic
  • Venture Moola

venture moola

the photo blog about travel, history, and business

Why Spartacus Matters

9/20/2018

 
Picture
Coin issued in 71 BC by Manius Aquilius to celebrate the defeat of Spartacus' army of slaves.
Ancient money's silent witness to history and how it influences our lives today is the subject of today's post.

The image displayed above is from a coin was issued by a Roman Senator in 71 BC. In that year, Rome’s legions finally and violently quashed a massive slave rebellion on the Italian peninsula. The coin, as you can see, portrays a legionnaire holding a prostrate and defeated slave. The coin was a comfort to Rome’s citizens and a warning to its many slaves.  

You may have heard about the rebellion. Bestselling author Howard Fast wrote about it in the 1950s and actor Kirk Douglas turned Fast’s book into a blockbuster movie in 1960. As the story goes, a Thracian mercenary named Spartacus is enslaved and sent to the gladiatorial school of Lentulus Batiatus in Capua in the year 73 BC. Plans were to include him in gladiatorial bouts hosted throughout Rome’s empire after his training.

Instead, he masterminds an escape and defeats all challenges thrown at him, dispatching Roman legion after Roman legion and accumulating over a two year period nearly 100,000 followers. His slave nation made camp on Mount Vesuvius near modern day Naples and earned international notoriety for its resilience.
Click to Follow Venture Moola!
Picture
Roman coin issued by Lentulus Batiatus in 82 BC. Spartacus would crush his legions in 72 BC.
Knowing Rome must crush them to survive, Spartacus and his army of former slaves made arrangements to escape from the peninsula. But they failed. While trying to depart, the legions of Marcus Crassus and Magnus Pompey converge on them and defeat Spartacus and his armies in a crushing battle.

After the defeat, Crassus crucifies 6,000 captives from the battle, all former slaves, while marching the rest of them 350 miles from the battle site to Rome. The number equates to about 17 crucifixions per mile, spreading them apart far enough so that the screams of each crucified slave could not be heard by the other slaves as they marched under the watchful eyes of Crassius’ legions.
Picture
Coin issued by Crassus 20 years later shortly before he was beheaded by Parthian forces.
What you probably don’t know is that Howard Fast had to self-publish his book about Spartacus because his name appeared on Senator McCarthy’s black list of communist sympathizers. The Committee thought Fast and the story were too sympathetic to communist ideals.

Even with the impediment of self-publishing, however, Spartacus quickly became a number one bestseller on the New York Times Bestseller List. And then the story of Spartacus’ struggle took on new meaning and managed to impact modern America in a surprising way.

Kirk Douglas, annoyed at losing the lead role in Ben Hur to Charleston Heston, bought the film rights to Fast’s book and hired the incomparable Dalton Trumbo to write the screen play for his movie. Trumbo had been imprisoned for refusing to testify to the McCarthy’s Un-American Affairs Committee and was blacklisted by the motion picture industry. When it came time to release the film, Douglas made another bold move and put Trumbo’s name in the movie credits.
Picture
Hedda Hopper, a driving force behind Hollywood's Blacklists, with actress Carol Lombard.
Hedda Hopper and other influential media people panned Douglas and the move as un-American. Protesters appeared at the opening. But the movie nonetheless became an instant popular success marking a defeat for McCarthyism. When President Kennedy attended a showing and commented positively on the film, an important victory for American freedom was sealed.
Spartacus lost his own battle for freedom in 71 BC but centuries later his story helped free Dalton Trumbo and Americans everywhere from a tyranny of their own. The past matters. Ancient coins like the one above can remind us of important past events that can and do still impact our modern world.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Next week we start our Kenyan Safari series. What is it like to spend two weeks in the African wild? What do you experience and see when you are there? Check out our Safari 1: The Hunt next Thursday.

The coins pictured are from the Ancient Selfie collection and featured in Ancient Selfies - History Revealed Through the World's First Social Media. All coin photos and text are copyright Clinton Richardson. See more coin images at TrekPick.com on the Coins page.

If you like these posts, please tell your friends about the Venture Moola blog at Readjanus.com. For more pictures of the cormorant or the great blue herons whose territory he is invading, see the Jurassic Cove Gallery at TrekPic.com under the heading New.

Feel free to share this blog. The more readers the better.  Click here to subscribe to a weekly email that tells you when we issue new entries. Or, click in the column to the left to follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

The venture moola blog comes to you from Atlanta, Georgia. Find it at readjanus.com. Copyright Clinton Richardson.

Comments are closed.

    Subscribe to Venture Moola!

    Order: Ancient Selfies
    Growth Company Guide 5.0

    the blog

    Travel, business and history with original photos.

    your host

    Clinton Richardson - author, photographer, business advisor and traveler.

    Categories

    All
    African Safari
    Alaska
    American West
    Ancient Coins
    Blue Ridge Trail
    Entrepreneurship
    Life's Moments
    Lincoln Log
    Photography
    Photo Safaris
    Sky Above
    Venture Capital
    Where In The World?
    Wildlife

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    September 2022
    March 2022
    June 2021
    October 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    June 2017
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016

    Enter your email address to subscribe to venture moola:

    Follow us on Facebook

Check out Ancient Selfies: History Revealed Through the World's First Social Media - Ancient Coins
a 2017 International Book Awards Finalist in History and 2018 eLit Awards Gold Medal Winner and
Passports in his Underpants - A Planet Friendly Photo Safari a 2020 Readers' Favorite Winner in Nonfiction
Site Copyright 2022 by Clinton Richardson

  • Venture Advice
    • Fundraising
    • Reviews
    • Experience
    • Contact
  • Books
    • Growth Company Guide >
      • The Back Story
    • Ancient Selfies >
      • Sample the Coins
      • Show Me the Money!
    • Passports in his Underpants >
      • 5-Star Review
    • Book Store
  • TrekPic
  • Venture Moola