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00:00Ancient Rome is powerful and violent.
00:12Its people pack amphitheaters to watch gladiators fight and die for entertainment.
00:21The arena for the Romans was a cinema.
00:24You think you've seen spectacle?
00:27It's way bigger than you might expect.
00:31Over time, these nameless warriors become icons.
00:36They're symbols of best manhood could attain.
00:41As the empire expands, the games grow increasingly more important to Rome.
00:48It was a staging of Roman power.
00:51The obsession of the people and the excess and ruin of emperors.
00:56The emperor holds your life in his hand.
01:02Before Rome became an empire, one gladiator stood above the rest.
01:07Spartacus.
01:08The story of Spartacus tells us about a moment in gladiatorial history.
01:14An innocent man condemned to a gladiator's lot.
01:18Thousands died fighting in the arenas and we don't know most of their names.
01:23But we do know the name of Spartacus.
01:29Once a soldier, he's captured by Rome and forced into gladiatorial combat.
01:35But where most accept their fate, Spartacus defies it, leading one of Rome's largest and bloodiest rebellions.
01:45The future of the Republic lies in the hands of one man and his army of courageous gladiators.
01:52The term gladiator is able to stir the imagination. The thrill of the games. The crowd roars. That very fancy gladiatorial armor.
02:05The word gladiator comes from the Latin word gladius, which means a sword. So a gladiator is simply a swordsman.
02:11Ultimately, they were people who faced death.
02:16They were people that were hired, who were hired, who were hired, who were hired.
02:19They were purely swordsmen for entertainment.
02:20But there is a great mythology that surrounds gladiators.
02:22So the fact that Spartacus is associated with the gladiator gives them a certain amount of mythos.
02:23which means a sword so a gladiator is simply a swordsman
02:28ultimately they were people who faced death
02:33they were people that were hired to do a job they are purely swordsmen for entertainment
02:40but there is a great mythology that surrounds gladiators so the fact that spartus is associated
02:45with the gladiator gives them a certain amount of mythos unlike many other gladiators when
02:52we know a lot about spartacus he became a celebrity and a bogeyman in his own lifetime
03:00he's probably one of the most famous gladiators from all of ancient rome
03:05in fact he's probably one of the most famous characters from ancient rome full stop most
03:10people have heard of spartacus the sources that we do have aren't interested in him for himself but
03:17rather for what he does and for the impact that he has on rome our sources actually are all from the
03:23roman side and a lot of them are much later more than 100 years later so by then he's become this
03:30mythical figure although spartacus earned his fame as a gladiator he honed his deadly talents long before
03:40he set foot in the arena spartacus is a soldier he comes from a military background he has something
03:50of an aura of being kind of tough rogue figure spartacus was a free man born in thrace which is
04:00in the eastern part of the mediterranean modern day bulgaria it was a barbarian land and roman influence
04:08was penetrating to those areas rome was conducting military campaigns in the eastern empire in the
04:1580s and 70s bce the thracians were particularly hardened warriors they had a reputation for being
04:24quite difficult to deal with they were tenacious and the romans admired their courage in battle
04:30spartacus is a skilled and fearless warrior but the roman army overwhelms him
04:41he is captured
04:44prisoners of war become property and they therefore can be sold into slavery for whatever purpose their
04:50enslaver requires they had no say of what happened to them
04:54and spartacus was brought to rome to be sold into slavery
05:06spartacus is taken to the slave market where he could face a life of hard labor in the fields and farms
05:14or join the back-breaking construction of rome but instead he finds himself in the sights of a man
05:22called lentulus batiatus who has a far more brutal purpose in mind lentulus batiatus is a lanista
05:32an owner of gladiators so if you wanted to put on a gladiatorial show you didn't just go and
05:40find them yourself you went to a middle man and that's what batiatus does he trains up gladiators
05:47sources them and then he hires them out to people who want to put on games
05:54lentulus batiatus had a large number of gladiators and was attached to a training school in capua
06:01he is quite a wealthy man he can afford to invest in a couple of hundred gladiators which would not come
06:08cheap those who look healthy and strong are highly prized by lannisters like batiatus
06:19not everybody could just become a gladiator you have to be physically impressive you have to be that
06:24exception spartacus is already probably fit he's used to hand-to-hand combat he's used to handling weapons
06:34before making the investment in these gladiators they had to be fight worthy and so perhaps there
06:39was a test fight they had no option if they don't throw themselves into it it's the end for them
06:47there was no saying no he would have been tortured and killed
06:54so all they can do really is try and impress their new owner that they're going to be a great gladiator
07:02spartacus shows potential
07:06he may make a good gladiator but before he's thrust into the arenas
07:11he will have to endure months of brutal training at a school in capua 130 miles south of rome
07:30capua is the heart of the gladiatorial history this idea of gladiatorial fights really is cemented and
07:45rusted onto the culture it was a microcosm of the roman world it was a plethora of people from all parts
07:54and walks of life of roman society somewhere that's sort of known for having gladiatorial
08:01schools and for being a sort of center of training gladiators
08:08what better way to develop gladiators than having professional schools to train them
08:13a gladiatorial school it's called a ludus
08:17the ludus would hold 250 men the gladiators are locked up
08:22kept behind bars it had an armory it had a medical center it had a kitchen
08:29an exercise sandy area and that is where the gladiators would do all of their training
08:36it's kind of like a small military camp in a way
08:41they weren't pleasant places gladiators were shackled to the wall
08:46they could sit and they could lie down but they could hardly even stand up
08:49when spartacus arrives into the ludus he's probably assigned into a cubicle
08:57he will have some comrades who settle him in
09:00cricksus is one of spartacus's cellmates they're comrades in arms they look after each other
09:09they help train each other these folks were thrown together they're living in very very close quarters
09:16and having the same horrific daily activity thrust upon them
09:28batty artis doesn't do all of the training himself he's got a team of doctores who are trainers
09:35they're learned men in the skills and the arts of being gladiator experts in specific areas whether
09:44it's attacking strokes defense fitness and most of them are probably former gladiators
09:52they're the kind of people who would be the real experts in all the skills that they would need to
09:58survive in the arena they did a lot of exercises against the big wooden stake in the ground it's
10:06called the palace and so he could strike at this pole which is the equivalent i suppose of a punch bag
10:12in a gym and practice his sword strokes against that and he would have been learning combinations as
10:19you do in boxing how to parry how to attack by driving against this wooden stake
10:28but also a big part of your training would have been how to put on a good show
10:34the point is not to kill the point is to entertain it's no good simply hacking your opponent to death
10:41no one wants to see that they want to see something that's exciting
10:46you've got to draw the fight out so there would have been a great amount of aerobic training
10:52these guys have to fight in the med straight in heat and the implements they're using for training
10:58are heavy so they're trying to get them used to spears heavy swords tridents
11:07all of which they'll be using later on in the arena
11:10spartacus is caught in a grueling routine of training but the comrades he trains with
11:20and the captors who guard him have no idea that this new gladiator
11:25will soon leave a mark far beyond the walls of the ludus
11:28it's hard to know how long spartacus would have trained for a gladiator has got to get fit
11:41they've got to build up muscle they've got to acquire skills in the particular weapons that
11:47they're going to use it must have taken at least six months until you were prepared to go into the arena
11:53lunchless batiatus would try to monetize these individuals to the max
12:01no tea breaks no lunch breaks spartacus is being pushed to the limit to survive in the arena
12:11spartacus will be forced to fight for the crowd's amusement in gladiatorial combat
12:18one of the most popular forms of entertainment in the roman republic
12:25we're pretty sure that the romans didn't come up with gladiatorial combat
12:30entirely by themselves but which culture they're drawing from we're really unsure
12:37some theories point to ancient rites practiced by an italian people known as the etruscans
12:44other sources suggest they may be of greek origin or from a nearby region campania
12:52the romans were innovators they weren't inventors they took great ideas from the cultures they
12:58encountered and they amplified it in the tools of paste them we have fourth century bc images
13:04and they depict exactly the first images of gladiatorial combat in italy
13:14in 264 bce we have our first recorded gladiatorial event in rome
13:21an aristocrat thought it would be a great honor for their dead father to have some prisoners of war fight
13:27to the death to demonstrate the great things your ancestors had done and these are another form of
13:36celebration and this is something which the crowds find fascinating and they are hooked almost at once
13:48they quickly become very popular
13:53people want to see them and it doesn't take the romans too long to figure out that this is a way
14:00of currying favor with the people of rome to put on these spectacles roman republican culture was a
14:08culture of visibility of physical visibility to be seen was vital for the elite but more broadly as well
14:20to validate themselves through various types of performances in front of the people
14:26so spectacles were a part of political culture
14:28gladiatorial combat and its evolution fits within that culture of spectacle
14:37and it quickly becomes a popular thing amongst the aristocratic class
14:41to try and show off their status in society by having more and more gladiators fight at their funerals
14:49the people are accepting a gift when they come along to the games
14:53and those people who are putting on the games are gaining a reputation and romans love building their reputation
15:06for 700 years rome has been growing in size and strength countless wars drive this expansion
15:15thousands of enemy soldiers are captured some of these enslaved men become gladiators forced to perform
15:22their defeat again and again as entertainment for the roman citizens in the early republic second
15:30century first century bce the majority of gladiators were prisoners of war captives from rome's wars of
15:37conquest they've armed their enemies and then put them on as entertainment or as displays
15:45the arena was a chance to witness and experience what the romans only heard about the different groups wore
15:54different types of armor so in gladiatorial combats those different identities through armor are on stage
16:03there were samnite gladiator there was a gladiator known as a gallus or gaul and there was a gladiator
16:12known as a thrice it's a thracian gladiator now over time of course the gladiatorial combats become hugely
16:22popular it's a funerary show but it's also a popular public spectacle and in the late republic these two
16:29sort of start to merge there's a gradual growth in the size of the games
16:35so by 183 bc we've got 120 pairs of gladiators fighting a hundred years later we hear of 320 pairs
16:56over the next 200 years the funerary links fade as the games become regular spectacles gladiators become one
17:05of rome's favorite obsessions as the upper classes compete to stage the most dazzling shows seeking
17:13men like batiatus to hire their fiercest fighters you want to get the best gladiators in there that you can
17:23you want this spectacle to go beyond the spectacles that people have seen before so there is a constant
17:29sense of one-upmanship alanista he's the person that people probably approach in order to rent out the
17:36gladiators under his control it is not long until spartacus is called upon to fight he has no choice
17:46and will soon face his first jewel in the arena
18:00in a community like capua lentulus batiatus would have rented his gladiators to important local officials
18:09they've been elected to high office and this is a way of rewarding the people of the town for their
18:17election and so they would want to impress them it's an expensive exercise only the rich are really
18:25capable to do this so there's probably a few thousand in the crowd it's not like the massive games
18:32we have later in the coliseum and tickets are kind of handed down through patronage the wealthy will
18:39definitely have a portion of those tickets and they will give some out to their friends and then
18:45their friends would hand them down to their kind of supporters and their clients but there's a whole
18:50bunch of tickets that are reserved for the common people small business owners day-to-day farmers
18:57people earning their trade through petty crime who knows
19:02we're not necessarily having the citizens divided up by their class in this period
19:08this is something that tends to happen later
19:12so there is a mingling of all sorts of people jamming themselves into the arena a bit like a sports
19:17stadium this is what's great about the amphitheater whoever you were outside the amphitheater was
19:23irrelevant when you were in it you were in a joined spectacle where you all spent the day together
19:29the crowd is here to be entertained a fast fight and swift death is unacceptable spartacus and the other
19:44gladiators have been trained to deliver a spectacle you would want them to be fighting one-on-one so that the
19:52audience can appreciate their skill level because it is a show one of the things that we tend to get
20:00wrong about gladiators is that everybody dies it's not necessarily to the death if a gladiator died the
20:08giver of the games have to pay the cost of replacement gladiators were very expensive about 10 percent of
20:17gladiators die that might seem quite low but if you're fighting three or four times a year it probably
20:24means you've got you know a one in three chance of dying every year
20:27the uncertainty was in fact one of the most compelling aspects of the gladiatorial spectacle
20:37no one knew what was going to happen so you've got to assume that if you don't give a good performance
20:44or you don't fight well that you are going to die from backstage spartacus can hear the roar of the
20:53crowd he is about to make his debut as a roman gladiator spartacus fought as a thracian that's
21:02where he comes from and so he has a sword he has a shield he's probably going to be up against other
21:09swordsmen usually they were from the same barracks and so you would be fighting against someone you're
21:15trained with which is a particularly cruel aspect of the roman games
21:19the fights were fought in rounds and it was a point system they're just trying to score points
21:28against each other a bit like modern day fencing you have two referees the guy in the middle of the
21:34action and the guy in the outside of the action spartacus is quite dynamic very fast ruthless the
21:43thracians were particularly hardened warriors the romans admired the courage of battle which is not
21:49the surprise then that they would take the idea of the thracian and put them in the arena fighting
21:54for the pleasure of the roman crowd he was enormously charismatic you've got to entertain the audience
22:02you had to be spectacular it was a spectacle it doesn't matter if you can quickly dispatch a guy in
22:08a couple of minutes you want him to go all the rounds you want him to almost be losing you want
22:14to come back at the end and you want a successful triumph
22:22so if a gladiator couldn't go on his only option was to appeal for mercy and so he would raise his
22:29finger and it's up to the giver of the games whether he gives him mercy and people would either shout out
22:37let him go or they'd say kill him and then the giver of the games would signal with a turned thumb
22:45whether there was going to be mercy or death in latin the term is polychaverso which just literally
22:53means a turned thumb we would use it that thumbs down was death and thumbs up is they stay alive
23:01but it's not actually clear in the sources what they mean it could mean that thumbs down was turning
23:07down the request to have them killed thumbs up was actually sort of sticking the sword up in their
23:13throat or it might even be that it's a kind of turning of the thumb into the palm which seems to
23:20have been some sort of symbol of mercy that you find in some religious context
23:26the sponsor of the games really has made the crowd happy that's why the games are on so if you're
23:35offside with the crowd as a gladiator your time in the arena and your time in life is really really
23:41numbered if spartacus forced his opponent into submission the host of the games would decide on
23:49the fate of a fallen fighter
24:01this idea that a loss meant death it is an exceptionally rare form of fighting just because
24:07the cost of the gladiator had to be recouped you had to have somebody who's willing to pay
24:12out the gladiator's contract to the lenista but in one law we have a figure that that cost would be 50
24:18times the cost of hiring them and if in the first fight spartacus was to meet death or kill another
24:25gladiator somebody's lost that investment spartacus has won his first contest but there is little to
24:37celebrate he will return to a cycle of training in combat freedom just a distant hope
24:48having won his first bout in the arena spartacus is returned to his training school where his wounds
25:06are treated the medical care of gladiators was amongst the best in the republic not for compassionate
25:13reasons but because their owners wanted them in fighting shape you're probably only fighting
25:20three perhaps four times at most in a year it's long periods of training recovery recuperation and then
25:29you're in this life and death situation again gladiators had quite serious injuries including cuts
25:38bruises bruises head injuries so doctors come into the ludus to look after them because of the state of
25:49medicine at that point in time it would have been difficult for them to arrest an infection you know
25:54if it got in through a cut to the leg or something like that that was probably riskier in a sense than breaking a bone
26:02there will be gladiators who get injured either in the fight or in training
26:12there will be others who die in the arena
26:17so there's going to be always a steady sort of trickle of new recruits coming into the looters
26:22for years spartacus's life is consumed with nothing more than training fighting
26:36and recovery he dreams of finding a way out
26:44if you really impress the crowd repeatedly as a gladiator you could be given your freedom
26:50you could be given at the rudis a wooden sword which was a sign that you were no longer risking your
26:58life with real weapons that you could retire and leave
27:04but statistically it must have been a very small number most gladiators either died or were so badly
27:11injured that they couldn't fight on
27:23spartacus must have enormously resented his absence of freedom and terrible conditions in the training
27:29school spartacus a captured prisoner of war he wants to be free he wants to not be a gladiator
27:37spartacus is buying enslaved people as part of a broader slave trade he will want to make as much
27:47money as he can from these people so he has no intention of letting spartacus go it's possible a
27:54gladiator like spartacus will have to fight until he dies and it is this horrifying fact that we really
28:01have to keep in mind when we think of what's happening to spartacus
28:04we could speculate that what he would like to do is return home to escape italy itself but he's trapped
28:12there they can't get out of italy and this starts something that no one is expecting
28:21spartacus
28:30spartacus manages to convince a bunch of his fellow gladiators that it is time to bust out of this place
28:38that now is their chance to fight for themselves rather than to fight for the entertainment of the
28:44romans they are highly trained and highly skilled fighters that presents a problem for the lenista
28:53because you have people that can fight against you but they were not equipped with weapons the
28:59weapons were kept strictly separate from the men living there however spartacus was an opportunist
29:08he managed to see an opportunity to escape and he took it
29:14they were having something to eat and he manages to get his hands on some weapons utensils from the
29:22kitchens cleavers and steaks and they overwhelm the guards what he'd learned fighting as a gladiator
29:31that will have helped him escape the lewdness it's a daring escape spartacus and his companion
29:39crixus pull it goes to show the gladiators in fact were trained to such a high level
29:46they could out fight the guards one-to-one
29:49over 70 of these gladiators in training escape
30:01his rebellion doesn't stop there he doesn't just get out and think great i'm free off i go
30:09they would have had the opportunity to leave italy to cross the alps and to head homewards but they don't
30:19it's a difficult path it is this very narrow peninsula of a place because you've got to go
30:25over those mountains and there's not many paths over those mountains it's tough going and you could
30:32be cut off really easily possibly that was what he was trying to do but certainly it seems that he
30:40changed his mind spartacus wants to take on rome for all that it's done
30:45of exploitation of the enslaved and of gladiators spartacus decides to fight rome in various different
30:54ways spartacus's days of fighting as a gladiator are over instead of making the dangerous trip home
31:02he remains in italy soon he will come face to face with the roman forces that first enslaved him
31:09and a fight bigger than simply his own freedom
31:19spartacus and his men have escaped the ludus
31:25the romans severely underestimated the threat of this break in kapoa six dozen gladiators would not
31:34have seemed an immediate threat to the state but boy were they wrong and a lot of it had to do with the
31:38terrain what they do first is actually go and hide up on the slopes of mount vesuvius which is in the
31:46highlands south of capua there were plenty of places for spartacus and his compatriots to hide
31:52but also to build support people from the italian countryside begin to join spartacus
32:00who are disenfranchised who are upset with rome in various ways having difficulty with their land
32:09facing quite extreme poverty who are maybe enslaved as well or had formerly been enslaved
32:17his rebel army is drawn initially from the gladiators but it's more of a slave rebellion than a gladiator
32:24rebellion there is a regular trade in enslaved people that is happening throughout italy in this
32:36period the romans and the italian peoples generally are building their societies through enslaved people
32:44that is happening and traveling throughout all of italy the roman republic wages countless wars
32:51and with every victory prisoners are captured the cities swell and enslaved people now make up more
33:00than a quarter of the population of rome according to our literature if the enslaved population of rome were
33:08to revolt they'd have either a numerical advantage over the rest of the population or something that's not
33:14far off that just speculated that the population of rome might be somewhere around a million and between
33:2330 40 percent in rome is enslaved that's an awful lot of people
33:31traditionally rome has not put a lot of stake or value in conflicts with the enslaved
33:36the enslaved are not valued as honorable opponents this is to change with spartacus
33:51spartacus is seen as a very good organized leader what he'd learned before as a soldier would have helped
33:57him plan a campaign organize men skills that made you a really successful gladiator which is really
34:05becoming a showman will have helped him provide leadership to what becomes effectively a very large army
34:15spartacus sets up a kind of pseudo military arrangement where he's got other gladiators from
34:21the ludus who are serving underneath him as kind of his lieutenants crixus is certainly somebody who seems
34:28to be a leader alongside spartacus he seems to be somebody that spartacus values
34:38the roman armies begin chasing them
34:43so the romans to start off with send a small body of troops and they get defeated
34:48the romans send a bigger army and a bigger army but even they are defeated
34:55spartacus had military experience and that was very helpful to them
35:00he really terrorized the italian peninsula
35:05they've sent multiple military leaders against spartacus's forces who have failed
35:11so it's a huge issue the priority militarily is to keep this under wraps
35:18the elite roman military leaders and commanders are talking about it because they're like this
35:22is a problem that we really need to deal with and as an extension of that their soldiers know that
35:28this is a problem and this is how the reputation of spartacus begins to spread
35:38and more and more enslaved people join him until he's got thousands of men
35:44anything from sixty to a hundred thousand
35:52spartacus enjoys victory after victory after victory but when little groups break off
35:57from his army that's when they tend to face defeat or problems of some kind
36:03spartacus is caught in a war against the roman republic
36:11as his army treks north crixus heads east
36:19and is defeated by roman forces
36:21when news of his death reaches spartacus
36:30he seeks vengeance
36:38he has captured soldiers fighters gladiators
36:41what he's trying to do here is humiliate them and to give the romans a taste of their own medicine
36:56so after these various conflicts rome is taking spartacus seriously
37:07spartacus really produces an enormous fear in the romans
37:11people would have thought there are a lot of enslaved people in roman society what happens if they all rise up
37:23they put one of the wealthiest roman politicians in charge of the conflict
37:29marcus sicinius crassus
37:31the roman military has underestimated spartacus
37:35but with immense wealth at his disposal
37:38crassus is able to raise a fierce army that could finally crush spartacus and his rebel troops
37:53spartacus and his army face growing danger
37:58having won impressive victories on the battlefield
38:01they now face the powerful general crassus
38:07who has been appointed by rome to end the uprising once and for all
38:12crassus is a very rich man and he's also a military general
38:18crassus was really pursuing power
38:23being sent to face with this massive army
38:26and his military strategy does outweigh that of spartacus
38:39the rebel forces are ambushed by crassus and his troops
38:44spartacus retreats south with his men but crassus and his army give chase
38:50crassus
38:52crassus manages to pin them down in the very toe of italy
38:58build a wall shuts them in there's a siege at this point
39:05spartacus is fighting hand-to-hand combat
39:08they try to escape but they can't
39:21and in the final battle he is killed
39:39spartacus has been defeated
39:44he is killed in battle
39:48as far as we know his body is not recovered
39:56his remaining troops 6 000 of them are captured
40:00the romans made a huge example out of spartacus and his followers
40:106 000 people were crucified along the appian way from capua to rome
40:20thousands of enslaved and free people were killed in this conflict
40:25their corpses would have hung there for months
40:31and been a real cautionary tale to anybody who felt that they could resist roman power
40:37the crucifixions mark the end of the uprising
40:41rome has triumphed over spartacus and his army of gladiators
40:46however his actions will never be forgotten
40:51the rebellion by spartacus really shook
40:54rome this revolt produces a real transformation in attitudes to the control of the enslaved
41:01and to gladiators and the restrictions on sizes of gladiatorial training schools
41:09you can't have too many gladiators in one place
41:13rather than sort of risking breaking out
41:17the senate put a limit on the number of gladiators that you can use
41:21they're worried that this will be a threat to the safety of rome itself
41:26what would happen if all of these enslaved people in the roman world rose up against their masters
41:32spartacus does
41:35it's one of the great mysteries how spartacus could have his jailbreak snowball into a full-scale rebellion
41:43this testament to his strategy is testament to his skill as a leader he has become such an important symbol for this kind of uprising
41:55he becomes this really famous name because we have this rebellion
42:04spartacus is the only gladiator we know of who has a career beyond the gladiatorial arena
42:11and for that he's remembered
42:13when people mention the name spartacus the first thing we think of is spartacus the gladiator
42:22but he's more famous i think as someone who has come to stand for freedom freedom from oppression
42:31freedom freedom from enslavement that's his legacy more in the modern world
43:01just one time to stand for a fight
43:04and if you have to disple punkt
43:06that's what you want to say
43:07that he's making all of us
43:08it's a huge factor
43:11so
43:12the part of the adaptation of the wonderful compound
43:13is that we have the kind of control over the kingdom
43:15in terms of digital abundance
43:17so
43:21that's great
43:24so
43:26you
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48:00
48:00
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