Spartacus: Swords and Ashes

“Sicilia is a special case,” Verres was saying.

“Every province can claim its own particulars and peculiarities,” Cicero said. “I speak to the wider issue, of slavery itself, and its future.”

“Slavery is a fact of life.”

“A fact that has gouged holes in our memory of our history. No monuments stand in Rome to the Sicilian slave revolt. No great plays or poetry that commemorate either it or the proscriptions that ended it. We prefer not to dwell on the massacre of innocents, the rape and murder of good Roman citizens, not only by slaves, but by low-ranking peasants who chose to join the slaves rather than die alongside the wealthier freeborn.”

“Hardly a subject suitable for drama,” Verres laughed, to supportive cries from some of the crowd.

“Why not? It is the most perfect and terrible of tragedies.”

“We learn from tragedies,” Verres said. “We must purge the revolt from living memory, not for matters of aesthetics, but simply to ensure that it does not spread such ideas.”

“Do you think the slaves who rose up in Silicia needed drama to inform their anger? Do you think they read books about the precedents? Of course not! They rose up because they had nothing left to lose.”

“And that, good Cicero, is why I say that as governor of Sicilia I must be ever vigilant, and to stamp out with firm hand indication of further revolt.”

“And that, good Verres, is why I say that Sicilia is not a special case at all. The uprising in Sicilia could have come to pass anywhere in the Republic. At any time! And might still again.”

“Where is your evidence?”

“By the time I had evidence, it would be too late! Rome is not founded on bricks and cement. Whisper it, that only your inner circle may hear. Rome is founded on the blood and sweat of slaves. Our borders must expand ever outward to bring in new slaves to till fields, rear children, wash clothes… And we sit at our tables and cheer each other with tales of nobility and virtue. But cast eyes around you. One in every three people in this house, in this town, in this land, is a slave!”

“And kept in their place.”

“For now. What if they found opportunity to rise against us?”

“You see, now I am concerned!” Verres said. “But consider, slaves are in a state of perpetual revolt.”

Cicero looked around him in mock concern.

“I see no burning buildings. No fleeing citizens,” he said archly, to titters from the crowd.

“Of course not. But there are ways far subtler of fighting back. And you would know it, too, if you spent more time managing your household.”

“How, then, do slaves revolt?”

“Stupidity feigned to manage their master’s expectations. Pilfering from the house or on return from market. Selling their master’s things. And worst and most prevalent of all, by not working hard enough!” This last was greeted with grumbles of approval from the menfolk present, and hearty outbreaks of applause.

“How is that revolt?” Cicero asked, frowning at the audience as if they had insulted him.

“If I buy a slave,” Verres said, “I buy everything that he is. I buy his every waking moment, and his dreams if I wish them. I buy every day of labor while he is under my authority, and if that day ends too quickly, or is not busy to my satisfaction, if that day is truncated by illness feigned or otherwise, then my slave is stealing from me.”

It was dark. The openings to the outer world were small, and little light shone through from the cloudy night beyond the walls. The gloom was such that Medea could not even see the bars on the far side of her cell. She held up her arms, able to pick out only the most striking of her painted symbols. She prodded unhappily at the bowl of gruel left for her in her solitary cell.

In the next cell, she saw something watching her.

“What is this offal?” she said to the darkness.

“There is offal? We are fortunate tonight,” the voice of Spartacus replied.

“Almost. It is a foul paste of pulses and leftovers.”

“It is your miscellany.”

“My what?”

“Your miscellany. The food of the gladiators.”

“It is no better than pig food.”

“There is all you can eat.”

“But I can eat none of it!”

“Then truly, there is all you can eat.”

She smiled. They looked at each other through the bars.

“Does my body excite you?” she asked, suddenly.

“It does not,” Spartacus said.

“You lie to me. Come close to the bars, Thracian. I shall relieve your animal hungers.”

“My appetite is not for you.”

“I suppose I owe you my life,” she said, in Thracian.

“Think not of it,” he replied, in the same language.

“I repay my debts,” she said.

“Live,” he replied. “Live to spite them. That is repayment enough.”

“Now I see it. You love men, like the Carthaginian.”

“I do not.”

“You love animals? Like the Cretan queen!”

They laughed together at the suggestion.

“I do not,” Spartacus chuckled.

“Then what is it, Thracian?”

“I love a woman,” Spartacus said.

“All men love women,” Medea said.

“I mean,” Spartacus said, “I love one woman, and one woman alone.”

Medea was silenced.

“You have a wife?”

“I do.”

“Then where is she?”

“She was sold into slavery, as was I. I fight here for the House of Batiatus, that she will be returned to me.”

Medea leaned her head against the wall, staring up at the moon.

“Now I see it, Thracian. Now I see why you prize the life of Batiatus above your own. But what will happen when your wife is returned to you?”

“We shall live together at the House of Batiatus, until I win my freedom.”

“And if she is not returned to you?”

“She will be.”

“And if she is not?”

“She will be. There can be no alternative.”

“You are a trusting man. Too trusting.”

“I have nothing else.”

“They call you Spartacus,” she said. “After the Thracian king of old?”

“The only Thracian they have ever heard of.” He shrugged.

“You are fortunate that they have heard of even one.”

“But what matter?”

“Indeed. What do we care now? We are all barbarians to the Romans. One great seething mass of savages. We all look alike. We all think alike.”

“We do not.”