Spartacus: Blood and Sand it is first season of biographical serial about Spartacus, the most famous revolutionary from ancient history. I don’t’ like write reviews, I also don’t want to write all story. I want only write some impressions, why we should watch this serial, and why we should encourage to do this our friends. Spartacus was the leader of the greatest slaves rebellion in Roman Empire. It was not a first uprising of slaves, but it was most dangerous for Rome, because the uprising had place in Italy. We must remember, that most of slaves were prisoners of war from other countries, and they didn’t spoke Latin language, and they didn’t knew culture of Rome. They had to work in production, in mines, or in agriculture, and their work was so hard, that after finish they can only sleep. They lived like animals. They had to wear a chains, and for Roman reach peoples, they were only “talking tool” how used to say philosopher Aristotle.
Spartacus and his comrades were different. They didn’t have to work in production. They were gladiators. They live in the center of Roman Empire and some of them were famous. They have better food and good possibilities of training. After duels in arena they were invited to feasts and they had chance to meet roman aristocracy and known her customs. Life of gladiators was better then production slaves, but sooner or later they must die. Some of them were Romans, who become slaves, because they don’t had money to pay taxes. In the school of gladiators (Ludus) we can meet people from all ancient world. Spartacus was Thracian. He was born in Thrace, small region between Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey. His friend Varro was Roman, who was gambler and he lost in gamble all his money and his freedom. They were also Celts, Carthaginians etc. They all can speak Latin language, maybe not perfect, but they had no problems to understand each other.
In Bible we can read a story about Tower of Babel. In this story peoples cooperate each other and they were strong, and they started to build big building, tower, which they can climb to the heaven. The God was scared and he punished mankind and invented different languages, and they must stopped their work, because they can’t understood each other. They can’t no longer cooperate. They were divided and they were weak.
As I said earlier, Spartacus was a biggest revolutionary in ancient history, but this serial is not communist production. This is typical western production full of sex, fights and blood. This is tale for adult children. It was shown in HBO after 22 hour, because this is very cruel serial. I have never seen in TV something like this. In every episode we have sex not in soft erotic version, but hard porno sex full of TV’s taboo like sucking a dick or homosexual man’s sex. The duels between gladiators are full of blood, cutting heads, hands and legs. For example after one fight Spartacus put up the cutting head his dead opponent on his sword and show it to audience, and their starting to applaud.
This is not historical or political serial. This is tale for adult children, and the historic background is on the second plan. I think, that they need historical background to made serial full of sex and blood, and they can always say: “this is realistic and we only want to show the customs of ancient Rome”. In first plan we have strong, handsome, almost naked gladiators who training, fighting or fucking the aristocratic or slave women. In every episode we can see duels between gladiators and this is most important for producers. But we have also story of Spartacus who in the finish become a leader of slaves rebellion. We have important political accents in the last episodes, and the last episode named: “KILL THEM ALL” can be a training movie for all revolutionaries. Why? The title says everything, but it is very beautiful to watch, how the slaves are killing their masters.
Spartacus was a barbarian warrior. The Roman Empire cooperate with barbarians tribes and the barbarian warriors fight in the helping army (auxilia). In this time Rome was fighting against Mithridates who was king of Pontus, and this two strong countries had barbarian allies. The war had place in Thrace and Thracians join to war – to protect their families. Romans were different, they fight to conquer the world. And after victory in Thrace they want to moved all army to Minor Asia. Thracians said, that their war is over, and Romans called them deserters. They starting to fight, but in this conflict between big empire and small barbarian tribe, Spartacus and his comrades were without chance. In the beginning they killed some Roman soldiers, and some of their leaders, but after that they were captured and sold as a slaves. Spartacus and other Thracian warriors went to Rome, and they must fight in the arena. All Thracians died, but Spartacus won his fight. He was fighting against 4 people, and he killed them. He was sold to school of gladiators.
This is short description of first episode. In next episodes we can watch story how he trained and became a champion of Kapua. This is very interesting, but it is not a subject for political article. We can see many similar movies about boxing, where we have story of fighters who hard training and from zero became a hero. In this struggles we can see blood and cutting heads, but we know that sooner or later our hero must win. In all serial he lose only two fights, in the gladiator school and in the arena with the same man – champion of Kapua Krixos. But in the last episodes Krixos was injured, and Spartacus became a new champion. So in the first episode we have short history about wars of Roman Empire and how free peoples became slaves. Next we have many episodes about gladiators and in the finish of first season we have important change.
In the feast Spartacus must fight against his friend Varro. This wasn’t real fight for death. This was only show of their skills. As always Spartacus won and aristocracy wanted death of Varro. Spartacus didn’t want to kill his friend, and when the Roman soldiers surrounded him, Varro toke Spartacus sword and he killed himself. It was very sad, and Spartacus started to cry. In past he killed many slaves, maybe 50 or 100 or more, and he never thought, that it was wrong. He didn’t have time for thinking. He must fight, and only one slave could survive in arena. He always must fight for his life. But now he experienced glare, and he change himself. And he decided, that he will never kill slave for joy of aristocracy. From this time he want to fight only against Roman aristocracy and Roman army. From stupid barbarian warrior he change himself to revolutionary who wanted fighting against slavery. In the lasts episodes we can learn, how to prepare revolution.
This is the main story, but we have also many love stories, but I will not describe this. I think that big advantage of this serial was realistic showing of Roman aristocracy. They all were very bad peoples. We hate all of them (not only me, but also my not-political friends) and when rebel-gladiators are killing them, we are happy. So this is good propagandist movie. This is important, because the subject of revolutionary violence is very controversial. I know many stupid peoples, who called themselves “revolutionaries without violence”. They often says, that if you are killing people, you are a monster. When we seen this movie, we know that if you are killing exploiters you are a hero. You are as great hero, as many exploiters you kill. They hated all exploiters class, not only his masters, but also their wives and their children. All of them had big joy, when they watched , how slaves-gladiators had to killing each other, and all of them must die. This is so simply and so beautiful. When you are watching the last episode, you can see, that killing exploiters is beautiful. It was beautiful for other slaves who lives in this ludus, and they were not gladiators, they can’t fight against Roman soldiers, and Spartacus gave them hope. We are all slaves, and if we want to be free we must be united and we must cooperate. This is movie about ancient history, but this rule is eternal. If we want to fight against exploiters we must be united. If we want to win, we must kill them. If we want to be heroes, we must kill so many exploiters as Spartacus.
