A short essay on the politics (real and imagined) of the Three Servile Wars that shook the Roman Empire, with an emphasis on the rebellion led by Spartacus between 73 and 71 B.C.
By Steve Donoghue Correspondent
So persuasive, so memorable, is the artistry of William Shakespeare that devotees of his plays who are only casual skimmers of history might be surprised to remember that it wasnât just Marcus Brutus and Gaius Cassius who assassinated Julius Caesar on the Ides of March in 44 B.C. Despite the fact that theyâre the only two being forever gnawed in the jaws of Danteâs Satan at the heart of the Inferno, it was actually a small crowd of senators who drove the knives in.
And their goals were so passionately focused â kill this one man they feared was making himself a tyrant and then explain themselves to their colleagues and countrymen â that they laid themselves open to a danger that more cynical men would have anticipated: retribution. Caesarâs grandnephew and heir, Octavian, was away at his studies in the Western Balkans when word of the assassination reached him, and he wasted no time returning to Rome and fighti