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by singwell-is off researching a lot on March 23rd, 2007

singwell-is off researching a lot

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I was just watching Spartacus. He came so close to defeating Rome. What do you think would have been the consequences for the world, if he had have defeated Rome?

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  • by Stormarm on June 26th, 2009

    Stormarm

    1. Movies aren't history, and movies like Spartacus, Quo Vadis, Cleopatra, or Gladiator make all Roman historians either cringe or laugh. (If you want to see the only movie that does a fair job of capturing life and society in ancient Rome, watch A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum ... but then its story and characters are actually a compillation of 3 Roman plays by Plautus.)

    2. Spartacus had no chance of defeating Rome, nor did he come close. His early military successes were due simply to 2 factors:
    a) all of Romes experienced troops and best commanders were off fighting wars in Spain and Asia when he got started.
    b) the backbone of his army were Samnite guerillas -former Roman auxilliaries, veterans of the Italian Social War, who'd been living in hiding for 10 years since their defeat, and were the only trained army in Italy at the time.

    As soon as Pompey and Lucullus got back it was all over.

    "Winning" for Spartacus would have been simply escaping from Italy. But even if he'd succeeded, there would have been no place to hide. The few parts of the Mediterranean they didn't rule directly, were ruled by their client kings, and the Romans of the Republic were notoriously and absolutely relentless in avenging Rome's "honor" - as one would expect from a cartel of Mafia families with the resources of an empire behind them, which is essentially what Rome was.

    But, if something had happened to break Roman power circa 70 BC, and break it so completely that it never recovered, then the Parthian Empire probably would have taken the hegemony of the Eastern Mediterranean, while the Gauls of Germans would have taken over Western Europe - as they eventually did anyway.

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    • +4 Excellent answer. One other possibility is that Carthage may have made a resurgence in the region. But as you say, Spartacus was intent on escape not on toppling the empire.

      Hyperion is back in China

      by Hyperion is back in China on June 26th, 2009

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