Barry Strauss (2013 Resident), professor of history and professor of classics at Cornell University, will give a lecture entitled Spartacus: The Man, the Myth, the Legacy. A commentary will follow by Giuliano Amato. The event will take place at the Centro Studi Americani in Via Michelangelo Caetani, 32.

Spartacus led a revolt (73–71 BC) of gladiators and slaves that shocked Roman society at the time and that has echoed through the ages. He was a Thracian who served in an allied unit of the Roman army and who ended up unjustly enslaved and forced to be a gladiator in Capua. Most of his followers were rural slaves and most were foreigners. A man of liberal sentiments, he tried to rein in his soldiers' urges for revenge and to convince them to leave Italy. He failed, on both accounts. In 71 BC, the wealthy oligarch Crassus broke the back of the revolt and crucified 6,000 of Spartacus's followers on the road between Rome and Capua.

Although Spartacus and most of his followers were immigrants, ironically Spartacus has sometimes been a symbol of Italian nationalism as well as of regional identity in the Mezzogiorno. Spartacus was even cited as a freedom fighter by US President Ronald Reagan. The best-known use of Spartacus as a symbol has been as a symbol of socialism and communism. Marx and Lenin both praised Spartacus and he was a major figure in Soviet ideology. It's not surprising that Beppe Grillo, too, has compared himself to Spartacus (and quoted Strauss’s book).

Ironically, there is no evidence that Spartacus was opposed to slavery in principle. It's much more likely that he was opposed rather to his own enslavement and that of his followers. While we rightly honor Spartacus today for his rebellion against injustice, we should also remember the ironies. This lecture considers the man and the myth.