Spartacus/Spartaco | a Review
originally published on 18/05/2025;
Hello everyone, I am the ex-Rome enjoyer, G.E.M.Simov, a being so distraught by the plight of the slaves and gladiators, that I have ended my relationship with the Roman Empire, and now the Incan Empire is my friend. I have come to tell you about Raffaello Giovagnoli’s book, “Spartacus”, which also appears as “Spartaco”.
Simple review details - I rank books on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it.
A disclaimer - I did not read the book in its original language, I read a translated version of it. That might have affected my experience.
Content
Spartacus is a book that’s around 150 years old, in which the titular Spartacus, a Thracian Gladiator (slave) wins his freedom and then goes on to start a war against Rome in the hopes of winning the freedom of all those who have been enslaved by Rome.
It deals with a bunch of things, but the most important one of them all is the conflict between the perception that one race of people - in particular the Romans - is not only fit to lord over all other races, all other people, but is also superior in some regard, and the perception that that is not the case. The Romans, naturally, hold the belief that they are superior, or if not superior, that they are special, whereas every other nationality, every other identity, is lesser.
Even those Romans, who somewhat sympathize with the plight of the gladiators and the slaves, maintain their affiliation to Rome as the most important part of their identities. That could be argued to be a bit of commentary on how people might consider something bad and terrible, but so long as it does not directly affect them, or if it requires concessions that would too thoroughly affect their own way of life, suddenly cease to care.
It could be said that this is just a means of shining a light on the fact that unless one is directly affected by a plight, or unless doing something about that plight in question will in no way negatively impact the doer of that something, no one will actually do something about it. Thus, there is a privilege in being able to help others, which privilege rests on a rotten, unpleasant foundation… Unless, of course, the ability and desire to help others does not come from being in a place that indicates your own need to be helped.
Aside from that, there is a very interesting amount of consideration that gets given to opposing ideas, or, rather, arguments against the idea of freeing all the slaves. What will come to pass if they are, indeed, freed? To be freed from one endless toil so as to engage in another, what difference does it make?
In those moments of relative calm that the book offers every now and then, characters converse and talk, and their ideas and, more importantly, ideals clash… Though there is a weird thing that the book does every now and then. It does not exclusively present Spartacus’ quest, and his ideals, in opposition to the ideals and goals of the Romans. It also introduces a third entity - the author, or the lyrical speaker, the one who is telling the tale of Spartacus.
That fellow - the author - constantly sends mixed messages. On the one hand, he occasionally praises the task of Spartacus and expresses support of his efforts, or at least admiration. However, in other instances he speaks in such a manner that suggests an almost dismissive or outright hostile disposition towards the gladiators and the slaves.
The same applies for the Romans - there are many times that the Romans, or particular Romans, are spoken of in an incredibly prissy manner, in a sense praising them so much, attributing to them some insane, internal greatness that these great people have, in part, or exclusively because, they are Romans. Then there are times when the Roman people are, much like the gladiators, belittled, spoken of in what amounts to hushed, contemptuous gup.
The author sings both sides’ praises and bemoans and besmirches them equally, it feels, though the slaves and gladiators get some flak far more often than the Romans, and that’s incredibly strange.
However, with that out of the way, what winds up remaining is something very insubstantial. Yes, it has monumental value in regards to revealing to the reader how Romans made war, how they lived their day-to-day lives, at least the upper class, and it is such an impressive piece when it comes to taking a look at this distantly past moment in history, that I am unable to not nod in appreciation to the great deal of culture and knowledge that this book imparted upon me.
However, it did not do anything else. Aside from having a few neat moments, featuring Spartacus’ faith being put into question, causing him to halt and ponder for a moment how he would deal with the conceptual situation at hand, there was nothing provocative. Granted, the book is heavily geared towards youths - at least in contemporary times - but there is almost nothing that might spur the reader into thinking, into considering whether an idea or an action was proper.
Thus, and only because of the antiquarian value, because of the peek into the life of a roman it provides the reader with, Spartacus gets off with something more than just a nod, for otherwise it is quite middling and meager. 2/3
Richness of Expression
Similarly to the previous field, Spartacus has one very strong side - that facing history - and a couple of weaker sides. There was nothing too impressive in the manner of expression shown off by Giovagnoli, nor was there a consistently passable element to it. It was just there, and more often than not I was left with a very sour feeling, primarily when reading about Characters who had “correct” or “right” faces.
That was a shocker without comparison. I was almost immediately flung into some hole of concern that I was reading something written by a person who considered right face shapes and wrong ones, calling back to phrenology, but as I considered, I became aware of the fact that Chinese novels and even some Japanese ones feature those terms, referring to symmetrical visages.
That eased my worries, but the fact that the shocker was so powerful when it first appeared left me a bit befuddled. Regardless, I maintain that the book was either poorly translated and/or it was not that spectacular, prose-wise.
What it did do well was that it had a lot of words that I did not know. A lot of words that were used to describe particularly Roman things, such as their outfits, parts of their houses, certain bits of furniture - all sorts of funky things. That was really entertaining and quite neat, but aside from it, there really was nothing else of great note here. 2/3
Story
As previously mentioned, Spartacus is about Spartacus, who starts off as a gladiator. He so thoroughly impresses the current dictator, Sulla, that he earns his freedom. When that happens, he has already been working, tirelessly, on establishing a network among all gladiator schools in Rome, hoping to use that network to forge an uprising that will allow him, and all gladiators and slaves, to win their freedom from Rome.
A bunch of things happen - characters get introduced, folks move around, but everything is somewhat unimportant, excluding the fact that Spartacus falls in love with Sulla’s wife, Valeria Messalla, who also falls in love with him. Additionally, he encounters another woman - Eutibida - who falls in love with him, too. He refuses her advances, she gets very mad and sends a letter hoping to reveal that he is Valeria’s lover, but Sulla dies just a moment before that can transpire.
Still, Spartacus gets going, working on making the uprising come to pass. Alas, a certain actor - Metrobius - reveals the plot and informs the senate. Things get tough for a bit, but the gladiators manage to squeak out a rebellion, which grows ever larger and more intense. At one point they almost wield a force of 100,000 men!
Alas, over the course of the rebellion, even though Spartacus leads the slaves and gladiators to victory after victory, Eutibida appears and joins the rebellion. She attempts to win Spartacus’ heart over once more, but he still loves Valeria, and so she gets so mad, so angry, that she decides she wants to see him fail and die miserably - which is a totally understandable reaction when the person you love happens to love someone else, of course.
So Eutibida snakes her way into the heart of one of Spartacus’ closest friends, turns him against the leader of the rebellion, and separates the army in two. Originally, her plan involved a near 50% of the army leaving Spartacus, but that does not happen as intended, as a result of which Spartacus manages to deal with an incoming pair of roman praetorians, however his close friend and the 10,000 men who followed him are butchered. Eutibida pretends to have had no part in it, as a result of which she gets a pass, and even gets to be considered a great asset.
Spartacus starts struggling from that point onwards, but he still manages to get wins everywhere he goes. Alas, Eutibida keeps working to undermine him, while a number of idiots (because the motivations of these characters are so unbelievably implausible that they can only be described as idiots) essentially want to do the exact opposite of what Spartacus wants to do, but then when he says he will not lead them they start whining and moaning, ultimately forcing him to lead them but against his wishes - which is, again, very difficult to understand.
Regardless, Rome mounts a very serious attempt at crushing the rebellion, and Spartacus is prone to be able to outmaneuver it and win, even with the great loss previously mentioned, but Eutibida betrays him even more dreadfully than before. Half of Spartacus’ army is slaughtered, and from that point onward any hopes of victory are totally dashed.
Some time later, Eutibida plots with the leader of the Roman army dealing with Spartacus - Crassus - and almost gets to kill Spartacus’ sister, but winds up killed instead. That small victory means nothing, though, because while Spartacus, biding his time, is slowly replenishing his forces and growing his army, thanks to the fact that slaves from all over are constantly coming to join the rebellion, two great generals with 100,000 strong armies return, one from Africa, one from Asia, and are sent to aid Crassus in dealing with the rebellion.
Ultimately, Spartacus dies in battle, and almost no gladiator survives. So ends the story, and it is a very underwhelming one.
The fact that the story is based on true events - the Third servile wars, if I recall correctly - and the fact that Spartacus is a figure in popular culture that is decently well known (as one who dies in the end and ultimately fails), the story did not look as though it featured much room for… Surprise.
It was obvious to me that this slave rebellion would not work. It was obvious that I was just reading about it, getting characters introduced to me, events described - but it did not really matter. For a decent amount of time, however, the story had me hooked, because it seemed as if Spartacus was just too good to be beaten. I knew at that point in time that he would be betrayed, because he had to lose, somehow, but the way that the betrayal happened, and the motivation for the betrayal - those were so unsatisfying that I just got upset at the book.
The spurned lover is, as usual, a horrible human being, wohoo! It is such a stupid trope, almost always found in older pieces of literature - someone’s advances are denied, someone’s love is not requited, and that individual goes on to desire the destruction of their previously beloved. Just goes to show that both the one who loves is not good at being a human, as in is not a believable character in almost every single case, especially here, but also that they do not see the other person as human, too.
Aside from that, following Eutibida’s betrayal, I was kept entertained by the want to know how whether she would get her comeuppance. She ultimately does, which is nice, but it was not very satisfying. What was even more unsatisfying was the small subplot involving Spartacus’ sister and one of his friends and companions, which was a romance subplot, which revolved around her saying: “we can’t be together” and him constantly asking: “why, please tell me why”.
It had me thinking that she was staying away from any relationships out of a desire to avoid becoming an even greater burden on her brother than she already was, or because she wanted to dedicate herself to helping her brother, to caring for him, to making sure things were going smoothly. Maybe I was hoping that her reason would be that she did not want to provide any opening, no matter how slight, in Spartacus’ guard, or something along those lines.
Instead, it’s just her afraid she is not worthy of the buddy, because she’s “damaged, well-used goods”. That was incredibly underwhelming.
Ultimately, everything about this book was underwhelming. It had some stuff in it that had potential, but then that potential was squandered. It had some good stuff in it, but then it faded away. It was interesting to see how the author managed to weave in these large-scale fights, how time passed over the course of the chapters - but it was, ultimately, a curiosity, rather than something truly captivating, while the rest of it was middling. 1/3
Legendary Point
Does this book get the Legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? No, it does not get it. Spartacus is a disappointing book that has the inkling of something good, the echoes of a revolutionary shout let out by the oppressed, a cry against arbitrary distinctions that make no sense when considered thoroughly, but are still observable to this day. Instead of being something inspiring and truly provocative, it is just a story about someone who wanted to do something good and who was crushed by the system he rose up against. 0/1
Conclusion
5/10. Spartaco, Spartacus, this book by Giovagnioli, is an average, though a bit too middling, read, which does nothing particularly impressive with what it has, aside from helping the reader get to better know ancient Rome and its customs. It would probably be better suited as a read for younger folks, perhaps teenagers, while or others… Maybe as a gateway into literature that is more focused on revolution? Still, I would not recommend it all that enthusiastically.
In the bag of mediocrity it goes, and while it was not bad, it was definitely not exceptional. To gather dust and be picked up by the kids of the future, if there are any of those.