Spartacus

Wildly stylised, gleefully bloody, and much smarter about slavery, patronage and Roman social climbing than its reputation suggests. Push through the first few episodes; the show finds itself and then does not let go.

Kubrick's, with Kirk Douglas, and the film that broke the Hollywood blacklist by putting Dalton Trumbo's name on the credits. The history is loose and the politics of the making are a story in themselves.

Part of Greeced Lightning · Myths and movies with a doctor of classics; only the Roman episodes are indexed

Part of The Ancients

With Ben Kane

Seventy-six minutes with the novelist Ben Kane, the longest of the show's four passes at Spartacus and the one with room for the revolt itself: the route up and down Italy, the winter at Thurii, the six thousand crosses on the Appian Way.

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Two shows on Spartacus for over an hour, arguing about whether he had a political programme or simply wanted to go home.

Part of Lost Roman Heroes · Matteo and Matthew Storm, 101 episodes

Part of Kings and Generals · Military history in campaigns and battles; only the Roman episodes are indexed

Part of Cost of Glory · Alex Petkas on Plutarch, 45 hours

With Barry Strauss

Part of The Ancients

Forty-nine minutes on the revolt of 73 to 71 BC: how a gladiator from Thrace held Italy for two years, and why the Roman writers who recorded it were more frightened by the slaves who joined him than by the man himself.

Part of The Partial Historians

Khachaturian's Soviet ballet, in which Spartacus is a proletarian hero and Crassus dances. Forty-nine minutes on what each era needs him to be.

Part of The Ancients

Forty-seven minutes measuring the 1960 Kubrick film against the sources, which for Spartacus are Appian, Plutarch and Florus writing generations later and disagreeing with each other. The show ran it again in 2024 at the same length.

Part of The Ancients

The show's 2024 pass at the same question, in forty-seven minutes. Same ground as the 2020 episode, same running time; take whichever your app offers first.

Part of Emperors of Rome

Kubrick's film, the blacklist it broke, and the famous scene that no source supports. Forty-four minutes on how one movie fixed the story.

Part of Life of Caesar

Thirty-six minutes placing the revolt inside Caesar's own lifetime, which is the detail most tellings drop: he was in his twenties while it happened.

Part of Emperors of Rome

Crassus raising his own legions, reviving decimation, and building a wall across the toe of Italy. Thirty-three minutes on the reply the Republic eventually found.

Part of Ancient History Hound · Ancient Blogger on Greece, Rome and antiquity for every level; only the Roman episodes are indexed

Part of Kings and Generals · Military history in campaigns and battles; only the Roman episodes are indexed

Part of The Partial Historians

Twenty-six minutes of preview for their longer series, useful mainly as a map of what the sources for the revolt actually are.

Part of Emperors of Rome

Six thousand crosses along the Appian Way, and two thousand years of everyone from Marx to Hollywood claiming him. Twenty-five minutes on the afterlife.

Part of Emperors of Rome

Twenty-four minutes on the man himself, which is mostly a study in how little is known: a Thracian, an auxiliary, possibly a deserter, and after that nothing certain.

Part of Kings and Generals · Military history in campaigns and battles; only the Roman episodes are indexed

Part of The History of Rome

Nineteen minutes on the rising: seventy gladiators out of a school in Capua, then seventy thousand, then two years of defeating consular armies.