I'm Spartacus!

looked up the run time. I was like, I'm not watching that, so have yet to see it. Yeah, watch Pazz of Glory instead. What was that? Is that? The one about Barry Lyndon? Now that was Barry Lindon. That's great too, But if you're gunning for early Kubrick, I would say, uh, Killer's Kiss if you want to go super early. And then as of Glory, which is the other one he did with Kirk Douglas, the World War

One trench warfare film. That's great, okay. And Barry Lyndon, which is just a masterpiece, wasn't that Ryan O'Neill, Yeah, boy, it's good. Yeah, he's in one of my favorite movies of all time Paper movie. That's right, and one of my favorite movies. The main event? What was that? It was a rom com? He did as he played a boxer opposite Barbra Streisand was she a boxer? No? It was. It was not great. I mean it was fine. It was one of the seventies rom coms, but not one

of my favorite movies by any stretch. Speaking of rom coms, but minus the rom part and just the calm, heavy on the calm. Have you seen Eliza this Lessengers sketch show on Netflix? No, it was very good that How do I know that name? She's She's gotten pretty big as a stand up in the last couple of years. Um. She If you haven't discovered her yet, you're welcome. She's really great. I'm looking her up now, which is something

I don't normally do. I don't think I recognize her. Okay, well, she's got some stand up specials that are definitely worth watching. And then she just debuted a season of a sketch comedy show that's pretty good, definitely worth seeing. I have to check that out. Ryan O'Neil's not in it yet, but like I said, it's just one season. Uh, we're

on a shout out Live Science. By the way, we used how Stuff Works article on Spartacus and this great Live Science article on Spartacus, the real Spartacus, not Kirk Douglas. I also read an article from a guy named Um Kenneth Spartacus Kenneth P check c z e c H like check the Czech Republic. I guess maybe that's where his family is from. Who knows, but he wrote an article back in the nineties about Um Spartacus that was

very exhaustive, that was helpful. And then there's also a historian named Barry Strauss who I read some like interviews articles from him too. He's a bit of a specialist on Spartacus, so shout out to those cats as well. Yeah. So the story of Spartacus, if you've watched this the Kubrick film, it is not Um. I mean, there are bits of truth in there, but it's definitely not some

real truthful biopic of his life. Good movie, but we're going to give you the real story of spartacus life, which is that of a and the leader of an uprising of slaves who said Rome We're not going to take it anymore. Um, no, we ain't gonna take it. That's right, We're not going to take it. And it's the original title, I think. Um, and we we met that guy. Oh, actually we passed that guy backstage on's members right? What show was that? Whatever? I think it

was Jeff Brokes, wasn't it? No? No, no, it was the whatever show? With? Was it with? Was that Martha Stewart's daughter? Yea, she has a first name, Alexis, Alexis and Jennifer, right, Jennifer and Alexis. Wow. Yes, remember when we were on TV every now and then, Yeah, we'd be on that. We were on Jeff Probes. Do you remember the Jeff Probes Show. He was interviewing us and he zoned out so hard I almost said, like, Jeff, are you okay while we were talking. Yeah, and we

used to occasionally we'd be on CNN. They would have us on to do like talking head stuff, and then, uh, everyone just sort of stopped caring about us. We got really well, we got really popular podcasting, and they just all said, huh, well, whatever, we don't need those guys. That's okay, Now, I don't want to be on CNN or any news network. Well, yeah, we were on the soul A Deed O'Brien show. We were interviewed by Christine Roman. She's she's like super legit journalist. It was pretty so

was Jeff Probest right. The tribe has spoken and they who else? And that what he said, the tribe is spoken? Yeah, and then he that candle. He'd kick you in the seat of your pants on the way out, and you would thank God, because what a relief to be kicked off that garbage show man. It was good the first season or two. I think. I think I did watch the first couple of seasons. Um, but you know, I'm not gonna yunk someone's army. There's probably still Survivor shows

going on. Oh no, there are they. I think the most recent season they brought together like past champions or past people who got kicked off one of the two and said who's going to win this time? Yeah? I don't. The only one I do like that is Top Chef, which is still maintained its integrity after all these years and never became dumb. And then for a little while

I did that. Discovery had a show I cannot remember the name of it where it was like a post apocalyptic scenario where they would put people in this area and like a ocasionally they would send in these mad Max type people to mess with them and take their stuff, and they had to build things and defend themselves. God, what was that called? It was really awful. And where the people naked? Because I can tell you the name

of the show if they were naked. I have watched more than one episode of Naked and Afraid I haven't. Did they just like like blur out there there, um the parts of their bathing suit covers. No, they're completely naked and it's just shows dong out the whole time that like goyage Golden Record is blurred out. And the kind of the first thing that the ladies do is fashion some sort of uh eve like covering on her on her bits. And the men either do that or

they're just like, hey, whatever. He's the guy at the gym that has a towel like over his shoulder but not around his waist. Oh yeah, that guy, that guy wearing tennis shoes with no socks. Yes a k A. Men who were proud of their generals dong out. So I'm guessing Spartacus is probably dong out. He was, um, are we back to Spartacus now you think, okay, So Spartacus was this guy who everyone knows the name of. Uh. And you may even know that he was a gladiator.

Maybe you know that he led a slave revolt. But this guy was really nuanced, really detailed, and actually even after a couple of thousand years of history analysis, you know, falling in and out of favor of different cultures that come and go, he he stands the test of time pretty well, even after being draped in you know, a lot of people's hang ups and like, you know, held up as a prime example of the ideals of whatever

group are revering him. Like, even after you strip all that stuff away and look at the historical figure, he was still a pretty pretty interesting and and kind to upstanding guy as far as leaders of slave revolts go. That's right, and that's a good way to put it. Uh. He was a Thracian, which means he is from Thrace. We don't know a ton about his early life because they just didn't bother recording the history of of nobody's

slaves in ancient Rome. Why would they. It took him to do remarkable things for historians to take notice with their their quill and paper, and the Romans at the time, this was an area the Thrace was in southeast Europe where they're always trying to subjugate this area of Europe and first century BC, and it was just it was just not a good scene if you weren't sort of upper echelon Roman at the time. No, and Thrace was UM.

I get the impression that it was not really want to live under Roman yoke, but I think I also have the impression that they were, um, they were in league with the Romans, but it was kind of like one of those you know, we can either we can either be an ally of yours or you can conquer us kind of thing, and so I think there was a bit of a tense truce and there was a U. I don't I don't think any contemporary text about um

Sparta Kisses still around today. Most of the earliest stuff we know about him comes from at the earliest the first century CE, and he was living in the last century or the first century BC. UM, so people were writing about him a hundred two hundred years later. But one of the one of those old texts says that he wasn't born a slave, and that he actually was a Thracian soldier who was an ally who who worked in the auxiliary or fought in the auxiliary for Rome.

So he was a soldier under Roman command at some point, and they think that that he was drummed out of the army for some reason unjustly, this ancient author says, and that that kind of led on this path to him becoming a bandit and a criminal. Yeah, he was like the guy in the new Star Wars movies, which one which one, the guy that that was a stormtrooper and then said, you know what, I'm not a stormtrooper anymore. I want to kill stormtroopers. Okay, I haven't I've seen

the Last Jedi one. Yeah, that's one. Okay, So but that was a that was like a side story, right, that wasn't one of the actual cannon. No, So the Last Jedi was they made three main ones, a part of the cannon, and then a Star Wars fans, you have words for all these things. Rogue one was the one that was outside, and then the Han solo movie was outside and not outside cannon, just not part of the whatever that those movies. So Rogue one is the one I'm thinking of that was really good. Yeah. I

enjoyed that one quite a bit. The other ones, I don't think I've been able to make it through a single one yet. Oh yeah, I like them, but they're Star Wars movies. I don't I don't expect greatness. I just think they're kind of fun. Yeah, I mean I love the first three. Yeah, sure, but not the first three seal you know, the first three that were released. Ever you liked one through three sequentially or not? Yeah, I'm talking about a fan of Menace. Yeah. It is

the best of the bunch, all right. So he's like the stormtrooper guy in these new movies that is no longer a stormtrooper and wants to kill stormtroopers. Uh. He gets captured at one point, and he gets sold into slavery in Rome. And then there was this man that I love. This article says a man referred to at times as Vacca. I guess that's his name, or maybe

he just had a bunch of names. But the upshot is this guy had a gladiator school in Capua, about a hundred and twenty miles southeast of Rome, and that's where Spartacus was sent to train to be a gladiatory in Hawaii, right, and I feel like we should take a break and get our Star Wars facts straight and come back. Goodness, Okay, all right, we'll be right back, Chuck, Chuck. So when we left off, Chuck um Boba fett Head left the army. You know, I'm not even going to

do that to us. Have you watched Mandalorian? No, huh, it's good, the one with Amy Sadaris. Uh. Yeah, she is the Mandalorian. She is in it, though she gets to like hang out with baby Yoda. I think, no, it's she isn't and it's a you know, I love seeing her in anything, but it does taking me out of the moment just a bit. But it's a fun show. It's kind of like the A Team. You'd like it, Oh well, yeah, I probably would like it. Then it's like a week adventure of the Week type of thing. Okay, cool,

Yeah I might. I might actually check that out. I've been looking for something new. I started Ozark and I'm like, man, this is really dark. Yeah, where are you now? Fifth episode? I think of season one? Okay, burned through season one or anything. No, I've been taking it slow. I don't like that. Yeah. I mean you've been taken in small doses here there. Yeah, I think I'm through like the first four of the latest season. And by the way, correction, I think I said it was like Heartwell, it is

like Alatuna. Okay, that makes way more sense because I was thinking, is that Ala Tuna? Yeah? Alatuna is you know where Alatuna is for damn is? Yeah? Ala Tuna or heart wells up near South Carolina. It's not at the same lake, yeah, because I have friends, We have friends who um have a place on Heartwell. And I was like, I don't recognize it. But then I thought I probably wouldn't recognize this about any lake, so I

just kind of went with Heartwell. It was fine. Or from what I learned, there was no such thing as a natural lake in the state of Georgia. It's right there all and most of them are from the Georgia Power Company. Yeah. It's so creepy to me sometimes too, when you're swimming in a lake, if you start thinking about what's beneath your feet, um, it makes you want to get back on the boat. Sometimes you mean like a former town, yeah town or the woods or something. Yeah.

Car Oh well, oh man, how do we get so off track? Okay, so we're talking about Sparta because who has Um he left or was drummed out of the army, became a bandit is captured and when he's captured, he's taken to that gladiator school that you talked about by a man sometimes called this call, sometimes referred to as Vodia. And the thing about gladiators is thanks to movies like Gladiator or UM, I don't know other movies about gladiators, Airplane,

the original Airplane, UM. You we have this conception of gladiators is kind of like this awesome thing. But if you were living in in Rome around the turn of the last two millennia ago, you did not think of gladiators very highly. There were some that rose to incredible prominence, like the rock stars, sports heroes all mixed together of today. Gladiator could rise to that level, but it was incredibly rare.

For the most part, they were criminals, prisoners of war, um slaves, and they were considered the lowliest of the low where the the owner their owner in this case Bodia, who owned Um Sparta kiss It basically said the only way for me to make money off of you is to make you fight for these gladiator battles. Um and and either bet on you or license you or something like that, and that was it. But you were like as far as the even the cast of slaves went,

you were at the bottom. If you were a gladiator. Yeah, and you know gladiators, if you've seen the movies, it's almost always depicted as a fight to the death. That's not necessarily the case. You could kind of tap out or if they drew blood, sometimes that would be the end. But if they drew blood that might also be the end of view pre antibiotics. Um. Either way, you might end up dead. But it wasn't necessarily always a fight to the death. Uh. And like you said, sometimes they

would if you were a great gladiator and a great warrior. Um. They didn't know what your face look like, but you had this cool mask that you were identified by, kind of like wrestling or something like that. Or I guess the Luca Libre are the ones who always had the mask. But I can't believe we did an episode on that.

It's so funny. It was a good one too. Um. But you could be if you want a lot and you had a cool helmet you could be a pretty big deal to the point where, um, you might have slaves taking care of you, and you might lead a bit of the better life, but you're still owned by someone else. Yeah, you were a slave, you were a

prisoner of war, you were a criminal um. And but when you were taken to gladiator school, it wasn't like you're just kept there and then you were thrown into the to the ring to fight like you were trained. You were put on a diet um, you were you were basically put through boot camp and and you were introduced to the specifics of certain types of gladiatorial combat. And apparently there were a handful of different types, and one type of gladiator only fought one or two other

types of gladiators. And the type that Spartacus was was a murmillo, which meant that he fought with a helmet, a very long um tall shield kind of like the Roman centurions were used, and then a short sword called the gladius um, and that's what he would have fought with. But there were other kinds of gladiators too. I ran across the super cool one, the ready ready, ready arius, and they would have a trident and a net and a dagger, So you know, like those gladiators that that

like fought with a net. I think it might have been a mad Max or something like that. Yeah, that's based on an actual type of gladiator that used to fight back in the day, and again here in the twenty one century. We can sit there and think like, wow, this is really interesting stuff, but you have to stop for a second and think these people were being forced against their will into fights to the death, sometimes in front of spectators, for the sheer blood lust of the crowds.

That was it, and you can't really forget that because it really puts you in the mind of somebody like Spartacus, who has been captured as prisoner, potentially unjustly according to an ancient text, and being forced into this life of fighting, sometimes to the death, for the for the joy of

the wealthy crowds who came out to see everybody. That's right, And that's why Spartacus looked around one day and said, guys, we're here at Gladiator's University, right, And I know that sounds super cool, but I see where the end is for all of us, and that is dying for the entertainment value of rich romans, and what do you say we get a group of us together, like maybe seventy of us, we get the heck out of here, and let's let's do it, guys. And they all said, that's

a great idea. I don't want to go die in a ring. So they got together. In seventy three b c. They hijacked a caravan that just happened to have a bunch of gladiator weapons and armor, and they said, hey, you know what we are, We're a little army troop. All of a sudden, think about the luck that that took. Like they broke out. They overpowered their guards with meat cleavers that they stole from the kitchen, and um broke out. And as they were breaking out, they ran across a

supply truck of gladiator armor and weapons. I feeling that was targeted. That was not the case. No, it happened to be coming in as they were leaving, and they were like, oh, we'll take this or else. They encountered it on the road headed to the gladiator school, and the timing was really fortunate. Well, at any rate, they got all this gear and all of a sudden they were kidded up. And I think one of the people he was with with with his wife, This lady sounds

very interesting. Um, Like we said, we don't know a lot about the actual historical record. We don't know her actual name. But Plutarch was a writer who wrote that Spartacus is why it was a prophetess who was possessed by ecstatic frenzies that were part of the worship of the god Dionysus, which you know, you know what that means. She she liked a party. She did. That was the party cult for sure, and she apparently was one of the priestesses of this cult in Thrace. She was thracy

and as well ecstatic frenzies. Yeah, all though that was cool. Um, But she her name apparently is just totally lost. No one has any idea what her name is or what became of her. They assumed that she probably died alongside with Sparta kissed. But um, she being a prophetess, a priestess, apparently foretold his rise to power even while he was a slave in the gladiator camp, like she lived with him there. Um, I guess while he was sleeping one one night or day or whatever, a snake coiled itself

around his head. And she was like, well, that doesn't happen every day, and I'm pretty sure that Dionysus has something to do with this. So my husband's going to be pretty important at some point, but he's also going to have a very unfortunate end too that the snake for tells. And it turns out she was right, that's right. And then she said, so I'm gonna go have an orgy with all these people and drink some wine with

some goat goat fellas. So, uh, these these dudes, this little kind of for lack of a better term, battalion, all of a sudden they start to train for combat. They're near Mount Vesuvius, which don't don't be afraid of the volcano everyone. This is about a hundred years before that happened. Isn't that creepy though? To think, like this historic thing took place and they were tramping all over Vesuvius to have they had no idea what was coming, just like a century from then. Mhm, I I don't know.

I think it's amazing, but not Vesuvius at this time. What we're saying is it was lovely and it was lush, and that was you could farm there. It was very fertile, was covered with vines, and they were down their training. And eventually Rome takes a little bit of notice, although they weren't seriously worried yet. Uh. They were hiding out and they were training. And one of his co leaders, this guy Crixus, who kind of factors in as one

of his big co heads of state. I guess, and uh, oh an a mouse as No, I think you had it the first time. There was like an extra syllable in there. Really, Yeah, but the the way you said at the second time sounds better. Well, we'll just stick to that. Uh. They would go around and raid uh for supplies. They would recruit slaves eventually, and we'll see later. They got so popular that they could even get non slaves to join up in the rebellion. And Rome was

not super worried yet. They kind of heard about what was going on, but they were busy. They were fighting in Spain, they were fighting Crete, they were fighting in Southeast Europe, and this little ragtime group of former slaves

wasn't that big of a deal. No. Less so the fact that they were fighting elsewhere like Spain and Crete, that meant that their greatest military leaders and those military leaders, armies were away, they weren't in Italy, and like you said at the time, they weren't taking Spartacus in his his runaway slave band seriously at all. But they did, you know, take enough notice that they sent a praetor there.

And a prator is like a very high up elected official right under council, which is I think the highest elected official in ancient Rome. So they were really super

high up. And actually they might have been laterals to the council's I'm not sure, but it was a very important person, but I get the impression that he was a very um kind of low on the scale of important people, because they sent him with a few a few Roman soldiers and said, hey, when you get to Vesuvius, just recruit some nicals to to go fight this this band of runaway slaves and be back by dinner time. Please. Yeah.

It was you know, I love the National Guard, not knocking them, but it kind of reminded me of, you know, sort of sending in the National Guard to take care of something rather than the Marines storming the beach. It's basically the story of John Rambo in First Blood. I trust me, I thought of that more than what R I P. Brian Dennehy. By the way, when like last week, what, how did I not hear that? I think it's just sort of been under the radar with everything going on.

Was it from coronavirus? No, just I think he was like in his early eighties and just just passed away. R I P. For sure he was good, But I definitely, I definitely thought of Rambo a lot while I was reading this. The difference is was that Spartacus had a team um to aid in his uprising, and Rambo was of course a one man army in a team if you will. But at any rate, they didn't send the best of the best because they're all busy. Glabor's little army.

They they said, you know what, We're not even gonna attack Spartacus. We'll just block off the route up to Vesuvius. We're gonna pitch our tents, we're gonna hang out and get drunk, and he's gonna starve to death and that's kind of gonna be the end of it. So we think, yeah, you said, Glabor glabors that praytor um. His name was Claudius Glaber. He sounds like an inept kind of person that you would send to take care of. I'll send

Glabor exactly. His name is just too close to Glaban, I think so so Um Glaber said, he yeah, it's exactly what you said. He posted a couple of guys on the road to Vesuvius, the only road in or out up the mountain. Um. And then the rest of the group is at camp, and so um Spartacus in his band are. They know that they can't get down this road, but they're also not about to starve at

the hands of a guy named Glaber. So they actually fashioned rope and rope ladder out of the vines that are growing up on Vesuvius, and they climbed down the mountain to a different spot, and they come up behind them. The guys who are guarding the road, kill them, sneak into the Roman camp, kill all of them while they're

bathing and sleeping, and have done two things. They just wiped out the soldiers of a praetor a very high elected official, and they just captured a Roman camp with all of its supplies, all of its weapons, all of its armory um. And these were really two really big first strikes of fuel allow that and I will not. And it was a really big deal because you know, word gets around and for the first time slaves in Italy we're thinking, Wow, there's actually someplace we could go.

It's not it's not like the in America where there were slaves in the south mainly and they could escape to the north. It was just like that all over Italy. So they had no uh, they had nowhere to go. They had no safe harbor, no quarter. If I'm allowed, I will allow that as well. And they said, wow, we got a place we can go. We can go join up with this guy Spartacus. Um he's out there sneaking up on on glabers and killing them while he's taking a bath. And then like that sounds pretty good

to me. I want to get in on the fun. Yeah. Um. I don't know if it was this historian Irwin from um Murray State or if it was part of the article, but somebody says at some point um that and I'm sorry, not Irwin, Aaron Irvine is the name of the historian, but somebody says at some point that those slaves because they had nowhere to go, like you were saying, but also because of the way that slave uprisings were brutally dealt with that they very frequently didn't even require supervision.

That they would Um that there were whole rural areas and towns that Spartacus was moving around to um where the slaves vastly outnumbered the freed people. And Um they were able to sustain that disproportionate um population distribution because the slaves in Rome had such little hope of any

different life than what they had. And so yeah, like you're saying, Spartacus provided hope and something different, and Um, all of a sudden, his little ragtag band of slaves and their slave uprising suddenly became a very large slave uprising. And in a really short time they attracted something like forty thousand slaves from these rural areas up around Vesuvius

and in northern Italy I think northeastern Italy. Um that they would just run away and now they had a place to go, I e. Spartacusses camp and they would join up there and show up with like kitchen knives and farm tools and stuff like that, and they would be trained in combat. And now all of a sudden, it goes from this ragtag band of gladiator slaves who had escaped to something that looked a lot like a actual rebellion. And that's what Rome started to think that

maybe they're dealing with. Yeah, and I get the ideas around this time that sparka spartacus becomes kind of an idea um, even more so than an actual human being, because you know, when the word is getting around, it's not like the newspaper's head front page headlines or anything. You get these whispers and you get these stories and uh, the spark of hope among the slaves, and this idea that there is this rebellion and he's a great boss. He splits everything right down the middle, and he's not

some awful leader. He divides all the spoils equally, and he's getting non slaves to join up. Because even if you're like a you know, you might not be a slave, but if you're a very poor farmhand or something, uh, it might look appealing all of a sudden because you're not part of the elite Roman kind of upper echelon class. Yeah, so the idea that he was splitting the spoils with people like that's huge, and apparently that stands up that um.

Basically all of the ancient sources agree like this guy took all his plunder and distributed. He didn't keep it fro himself. He didn't turn himself into a king UM. And he was running around freeing slaves. And that you know, that's one of the reasons why he he did, like you said, become a hero or an idea, and a hero that's still to the state group's kind of latch onto.

So he's attracting more and more people. UM. One of the things, one of the ugly truths about this is that when they were going around to these small towns, in these rural areas, freeing slaves, getting them to join their ranks. UM, there was also a lot of plundering going on, and they were not merciful with the slave owners who own these big enormous um estates that they were plundering. They would um engage in rape, they would

engage in torture, um, they would engage in murder. And from what I saw, it wasn't Spartacus that was doing that, that he actually commanded against that, but that his army had a mind of its own in a lot of cases, and that they would they would be pretty merciless and brutal with them the freed people. Who who's stuff they were taking? Yeah, I mean I'm sure they were like, no, you're rape in pillage. That's what you do, right, That's

what That's how it is right now. Um, even in the movie, Spartacus he uh he refuses to take part in that. So there are a few things you know that that Kubrick Um he didn't write the screenplay. That was actually Dalton Trumbo, but he uh he he had that in the movie. So there were bits of truth throughout for sure. So, oh this is going on. Rome finally is like, all right, we gotta really deal with this guy. Can someone can someone please go kill Spartacus

for me? Right? Slabor glabor sucked so bad, you guys. We gotta get a non glabor in there to take care of business. And they did. They sent um Publius Varennius, and he was another prator. So they're sending like pretty important guys um along with their soldiers, and um Varennius. He was almost nearly captured, which would have been enormous. He was so close to being captured that I believe Spartacus himself he stole the guy's horse. He got his

his horse and Varennius Publius, Publius, Varennius um. And that was a huge black eye to Rome that like not only as as this you know, band of runaway slaves. You know it will like able to engage Rome in battle, but he stole your horse and you're insignia and and almost got your guy. That was a big deal. And so all these these victories. With each victory, spartacus legend

just grows, and he's able to attract more and more people. Um. I think within a year that UM historian Kenneth Check says within a year, maybe a little more than a year, there was as many, possibly as a hundred and twenty five thousand freed slaves or slaves, escaped slaves and commoders um who had joined spartacus army. A hundred and twenty five thousand. And he started with seventy gladiators the year before. Yeah, seventy, not seventy, just to reiterate, yeah, no, that's worth saying.

So spring of seventy two, b c uh, Spartacus has these troops. Some of them stay in the south with his buddy Crixus, And then he said the rest of you come with me. We're the head towards the Alps because it's lovely this time of year. And I think at the time, who would they These guys have great names. Uh, Rome sent armies led by Lucius Gellius public Publicola and Neus Cornelius Lentulus Claudianus. Those are great names. Wow. Those guys were councils, so they were the highest elected officials

in Rome. Yell of as many as like twenty guys put together like this is serious business at that at this time to go take care of Spartacus. Yeah. I think when he almost captured Varennius, that was that really caught Rome's attention for the first time. Um. Unfortunately, these two councils what were their names again, Chuck, let's just call him public Coola and claude Anius. Okay, fine, Um, they were no better equipped to fight uh Spartacus either.

I think by this time he had he hadn't come close to people yet, but he was up to forty thou and both of um, both of the yeah, peaches in herb nice Um. They underestimated how many troops he'd had. They also were unaware that he had wintered UM in the I think the north of Italy and had spent the winter stealing horses and building up a cavalry unit, which they had no idea. He had this UM and

one other thing he put to good use. So remember this guy's potentially a Roman army veteran from Thrace, which means he's familiar with guerrilla warfare that the Thracians practiced and conventional warfare which the Romans practiced. And he's like commanding tens of thousands of troops to to great effect built a cavalry. And he also so like some of those commoners who joined up who weren't slaves, but they were not well off and they wanted to fight the

fight the power, so they joined UM. They were usually like herdsman or shepherds or something like that from local areas who knew the areas really well. So he used them as scouts and um peaches and herb had no idea that this, again, this band of runaways slaves had turned into an actual like legit army under the command of somebody who knew what they were doing, and he ate both of them alive. Yeah, well it actually was, UM.

It was kind of tough. Because Peaches went down there to the south where Crixus was and killed him with a lot of the rebels. And then Herb came in from the north of Spartacus, where he was headed toward the Alps. Uh came you know, he was ahead of him, so he came south from the north and he came in, and Spartacus was basically trapped between these two armies that had better equipment, better weaponry, better armor, more munitions and

food and water and everything and wine. And they had no idea that this cavalry was waiting for him, that he had been working on. It was kind of his little Uh, kind of his little trojan horse in a way, and they had never seen anything like it. And he beat Peaches, I think, or was that Herb. Now am all confused? He beat Herb. Okay, he beat Herb and got all of the supplies that Herb's army had, and then it was it was on in a big, big way.

So I misspoke. By this time, yes, he probably had close to people in his army, but they had split off because Crixus, who was one of the gladiators that you just mentioned, one of the original gladiators, he broke out of gladiator school with and who basically co operated the army with him. Um. He apparently wanted to split off and take it straight to Rome, wanted to attack Rome. Him and Sparta Kisses whole thing was like, no, no, no,

let's go north to Thrace, out of Italy. We can be we can build our army up even better there and either just hang out in Thrace and be great or maybe then we can come back to Italy. And they had a disagreement, they had a falling out, um, and they split up, and crix Has took thirty thousand men.

And like you said, I don't remember if it was Peaches or Herb who got him, but the Crixus and his men were killed, but simultaneously, even though Sparta kiss later beat that both of those guys, he had just lost thirty thousand of his troops, which is a pretty pretty big troop reduction, especially basically overnight. Yeah, but he's still won in the end. In that battle, he uh, he fought very bravely. He rushed either Peaches or Herb, broke them down, captured their supplies, and then we don't

know for sure if he defeated Herb or not. Or if they just retreated, but at any rate, that was sort of the end of them, and they were allowed to go onto the Alps. Right, So you want to take another break, Yeah, let's take our last break and we'll we'll wind it up here with the last stand. Okay, change to Chuck. So Sparta Kiss is not only now beaten prators that the Romans sent, he's beaten councils in

their armies, and Rome is full lipped out. I don't know if they knew that Crixus, who by the way, was a celt which I find immensely interesting, but Crixus Um, I don't know if they knew that he was coming toward Rome and that they just narrowly avoided being attacked

by that contingent. But it was definitely on their mind that Rome was left unprotected because remember, the best generals and the best their best armies were in Spain and Crete Um, and there was a really really angry group of um impoverished and escaped slaves who were who had assembled themselves into a pretty respectable army UM possibly coming toward Rome. Yeah, and Rome was on thin ice at

this point. I mean, they were still super powerful, obviously, but um, they make a good point in this article that they kind of relied on the fact that everyone thought they were great and was super scared of them, and they had these big, scary armies. And once they started getting these defeats, and once they started getting defeats, especially at the hands of a former slave who was leading this kind of rag tag team that was revolting

against them, there's a little chink in that armor. And Spartacus is about they're winning battles, and everyone hears about this, and that's a big big deal to Rome. All of a sudden, they seem like they're defeatable. Yeah, which if you are, if your society includes slaves and the slaves are kept in line by the idea that you were undefeatable, that's right. And so they're there. They seem like they're defeatable.

Now they're best armies in generals are away and they couldn't really find anyone to really take care of Spartacus until this guy stepped up. He was a wealthy prater named Marcus Crassis, and he said, you know what, I've got the dough and I'm a pretty brutal leader in my own right. Maybe you've heard of me, and so I'm gonna finance this army and I'm gonna go kill that guy. And so if there's a villain in this story, it is Crassis. He was a terrible, terrible person, possibly

the richest person Rome has ever seen. Um. I read somewhere that he he would go to places that had caught fire with his own personal fire brigade and would negotiate with the owner of the house or whatever um to buy it. And if the if they would negotiate at just an extremely cheap rate to sell their house that was on fire, then Crassies or Crassis would have his fire brigade put it out. If they didn't negotiate or sell, then he would just leave with his fire

brigade and let it burn. Here's that kind of guys is like, hey man, this place is on fire, and I'm offering to buy it from you. Right, it's a fire sale. You should you should take this. Yeah. But if they wouldn't, if they'd be like, no, this is completely unacceptable and immoral, he'd be like, all right, see you later, and his fire brigae would leave. That's just

not good stuff. That's the kind of thing that if you do that people continue to talk about it in a negative like two thousand years later on some dumb podcasts. So Crassis, you also might recognize his name. He was part of the first triumvirate with Um, Pompey and Caesar. He was the third guy. Remember that name, so Um. So Crassus steps up and he says, you know what, my father got a triumph, which is basically like a military parade for a great military victory. And I've always

been envious. I want mine. I'm gonna make mine the defeat of Spartacus. I'm gonna go get them. I'm gonna finance this army. I'm gonna go pick up some of the other armies that have been defeated and kind of left scattered around Italy and reassemble them. And there was one in particular, I think it was um, the army of the Praetor, who was almost captured Verennius. Some of his people ran away, and Crassus got them together, I believe five hundred people who had been accused of desertion

and running away during battle. And he brought out of the old steamer trunk, an old technique for keeping your troops in line. Called decimation chuck, which is a word that we've misused for years on this podcast. But this is the real deal that he was doing. Yeah, and I don't think we've been missusing it for years. I think it's now part of a popular terminology, just not

necessarily reduced by ten. Okay, fair enough. But what he did was he said, okay, all of you five break up into fifty groups of ten, and in every group, all ten of you draw lots. Whoever draws the shortest lot gets executed. And he executed fifty out of five hundred deserters in front of his troops to basically say, hey, let's get that moral up everybody. This is what happens to you if you don't fight valiantly. And that was

the kind of leader that he was. So he's a real jerk in business, in a real jerk on the battlefield too, even with his own troops, and a very selfish lover from what I hear he really was. He'd be like, well that's it for me, good luck to yourself. So he had a real be in his bonnet to get that victory parade. He goes and chases Spartacus all over Italy and there was some infighting going on, which is what can happen a lot of times in a rebellion,

and if you don't keep everyone's spirits up. So that kind of weakened his army a little bit. And so in a last ditch effort, Spartacus said, you know what we need to do is we need to go kill Crassis in front of everybody. And that's that'll do the trick. If everyone seas Crassis has gone, you cut off that head, maybe another one will not grow up in its place. Uh. And that didn't work out for Spartacus. He was actually

cut down in battle. His army was finally defeated. Uh. They hunted down all six thousand of the survivors of the army and crucified them. Uh. He was not himself crucified like in the movie Spartacus. And there was never that great moment in the movie that I'm Spartacus moment that never really happened in real life. Unfortunately, Um, they never found his body, which is sort of a a

sad end to this. Um to a leader who did some pretty great things for a little while, but not really though, because I read he was last seen he was really close to Crassis. He was headed to Crasses to kill him himself, and he I think killed two centurions in hand to hand combat on his way to Crasses before he was swarmed on like Hollywood style and cut down by like just a mob of dudes who overwhelmed them. Which is, it's not a sad end. No, if you're living by the sword and dying by the sword,

that's the way to go for sure. Okay, I bet you he would have preferred to kill Crasses. I'll give you that. But if he was never faded to kill Crasses, if that snake coiled on his head and fore told that he would never kill Crasses, that's the way to go. Well. In the end, Uh, he has gone. His rebellion is squashed, but some good comes out of it. Rome kind of says, you know what, this taught us a great lesson, which is maybe we should listen to the lower class a

little bit more. It wasn't some huge sweeping reform change or anything like that. I don't want to like sugarcoat it, but there were a number of reforms that were passed that did strengthen the voice of the people as a whole, and they had a little bit more say, in their government because they didn't want another Spartacus to come along. Yeah.

And then over the years, like many thousands of years later, like I said, he was kind of held up as like this hero, this ideal, so like the abolitionist movement in the United States held him up as a hero because he was known to free slaves. That was how he assembled his army. And he wasn't necessarily freeing slaves for the ideal of ending slavery. He was freeing slaves

to help build up his army. Um, but I'm sure there was a certain amount of like this is a good thing that these slaves are no longer slaves when they're you know with me that he must have entertained at least. And then later on, like you said, Dalton Trumbo wrote the script for Um, the nineteen sixty movie directed by Kubrick on Spartacus, and Dalton Trumbo was blacklisted from Hollywood because he was a communist or he wouldn't

name names I can't remember. And Dalton Trumbo wrote that script based on a novel written by a guy named Howard Fast who had written the novel in jail. Because he wouldn't name names on the McCarthy hearings. UM, and so Spartaca's kind of became like a hero of Marxists because he freed slates. He overthrew the oppressors, but he also took the oppressor's wealth and redistributed it among you know, the lower classes, which Marxists are just bonkers for pretty

interesting stuff. Uh, there's plenty more about sparta kiss, gladiators, all that stuff. This is really thick stuff, and this is stuff you should know. It's not what we do. We've just kind of given overview. So if this floated your boat at all, go look up Spartaca's start reading on him and you will be fascinated. And since I said that it's time for listener mail, I'm gonna call

this wastewater operator or a former now retired wastewater operators. Hey, guys, just finished listening to the episode on wastewater treatment with a critical ear. Having worked for over twenty years, is

both a w W lab analysts and operator. While I understand you were aiming for the least knowledgeable common denominator in your audience, I feel like you did a disservice to all wastewater treatment plants and their employees by failing to mention that every treatment plant in America must abide by strict regulatory permits issued under the Clean Water Act

tailored to the needs of the of these specific facilities. Influent, your words make it sound like we and operations made our own decisions as to how clean the water, Uh, how how clean is clean enough? And that cannot be further from the truth. UM. I want to stop here because I don't feel like we did that, did we? We certainly didn't mean to. I don't think that we were just like you know, it's up to text who's running the levers to decide what's clean enough. If we did, Sorry,

we definitely don't think that. No, we didn't think that at all. Uh. In my position as analysts, I perform an average performed in average of thirty thousand standard laboratory tests per year to maintain permit compliance and support operations. That number increased dramatically when there are operational upsets, process changes, influence variations, etcetera. In addition, operators collect and analyzed process

control samples several times per shift for the same reason. Um, I think we knew that stuff was going on, right, Yeah, I don't want to sound defensive, but do this person listen or just say, oh, I see this title. Here's all the things are going to get wrong. Now I think they listened. I wish to thank you for attempting to educate the public on the vital role clean water and sewage treatment play and the health and prosperity of the United States. I firmly believe this is what truly

makes America great. You don't hear people saying they need vaccinations and antibiotics to fend off water borne illness when visiting the United States. Uh. Sorry to rant On, I appreciate your time, Thanks for reading, and please put out a big thank you to all wastewater treatment operators about whom nobody is paying attention, but whom everyone needs. And that is from uh. Anne Danielson, retired operator and analyst. Thanks a lot, and that's good stuff. And yes, agreed.

If everyone doesn't know that we need waste water treatment people and they're not paying attention, so hats rop to you and your colleagues from us. Agreed. Yes, I know that there's a lot of work and analysis and testing, and if we didn't hammer that home enough, then we are now yeah, Well, if we missed the mark on something, or you just wanted to add something, or just want

to say, hey, you guys nailed it, nailed it. We love that You can get in touch with this via email, Wrap it up, spanking on the bottom, and send it off to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radios. How Stuff works from More podcasts for my heart Radio is at the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.