Spartacus in the television arena: essays on the Starz series 9780786498017, 9781476620305, 0786498013

Table of contents :
Introduction: blood, sand and men / Michael G. Cornelius --
Arenas of memory: Spartacus and the remediation of historical narratives / Drago Manea --
"It is for history to decide": the story space of the Spartacus series / James Klima --
The sound world of Spartacus: representations of ancient musical instruments in the series / Lorenzo Sorbo --
Single combat, the semiotics of the arena and martial intimacy / Larry T. Shillock --
Spartacus' entrapment in the underworld in blood and sand / Rachel S. McCoppin --
Blood, sex, sand and mills: the sociological imagination between gladiators / Jason Smith --
Spartacus and the shifting sands of sacred space / Michael G. Cornelius --
The predators of Capua: Spartacus and the limits of the human / Ariel Gómez Ponce --
(Re)presenting the phallus: gladiators and their "swords" / Robert K. Dickson and Michael G. Cornelius --
Queer heroes and action heroines: gender and sexuality in Spartacus / Anna Foka.

Citation preview

Spartacus in the Television Arena

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Spartacus in the Television Arena Essays on the Starz Series Edited by Michael G. Cornelius

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Jefferson, North Carolina

Also of Interest and from McFarland Of Muscles and Men: Essays on the Sword and Sandal Film, edited by Michael G. Cornelius (2011) The Boy Detectives: Essays on the Hardy Boys and Others, edited by Michael G. Cornelius (2010) Nancy Drew and Her Sister Sleuths: Essays on the Fiction of Girl Detectives, edited by Michael G. Cornelius and Melanie E. Gregg (2008) The Sex Is Out of This World: Essays on the Carnal Side of Science Fiction, edited by Sherry Ginn and Michael G. Cornelius (2012)

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Spartacus in the television arena : essays on the Starz series / edited by Michael G. Cornelius. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7864-9801-7 (softcover : acid free paper) ISBN 978-1-4766-2030-5 (ebook) 1. Spartacus (Television program : 2010–2013) on television. I. Cornelius, Michael G., editor. PN1992.77.S6725S73 2015 791.45'72—dc23

♾

2. Masculinity

2015003634

BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE

© 2015 Michael G. Cornelius. All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Cover image © Dreamstime.com Printed in the United States of America

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640 www.mcfarlandpub.com

As with all things, this is for Joe… …and also for Andy Whitfield, who brought a legend to life

Acknowledgments There are many people to thank when a work like this comes together. Many thanks to my colleagues at Wilson College and elsewhere, who offered support, advice, or just plain interest, especially to Larry Shillock and Bob Dickson, whose contributions were immeasurable. You remain heroes to me. Many kind thanks also to all of the contributors, whose work regularly placed me into a stupor of awe as I edited it. Thanks to Joseph Louis Garcia for continual support and the generosity of allowing me the time to work on these projects. It is a great gift and joy to work everyday in a field that offers such rich treasures to explore and the opportunity to share those explorations; I hope I never take it for advantage.

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Table of Contents Acknowledgments

vi

Introduction: Blood, Sand and Men Michael G. Cornelius

1

Arenas of Memory: Spartacus and the Remediation of Historical Narratives—Dragoş Manea

27

“It is for history to decide”: The Story Space of the Spartacus Series—James Klima

46

The Sound World of Spartacus: Representations of Ancient Musical Instruments in the Series—Lorenzo Sorbo

63

Single Combat, the Semiotics of the Arena and Martial Intimacy—Larry T. Shillock

77

Spartacus’ Entrapment in the Underworld in Blood and Sand—Rachel S. McCoppin

97

Blood, Sex, Sand and Mills: The Sociological Imagination Between Gladiators Jason Smith

118

Spartacus and the Shifting Sands of Sacred Space Michael G. Cornelius

130

The Predators of Capua: Spartacus and the Limits of the Human—Ariel Gómez Ponce

152

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Table of Contents

(Re)Presenting the Phallus: Gladiators and Their “Swords”—Robert K. Dickson and Michael G. Cornelius

170

Queer Heroes and Action Heroines: Gender and Sexuality in Spartacus—Anna Foka

186

About the Contributors

207

Index

209

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Introduction Blood, Sand and Men Michael G. Cornelius Perhaps more than any other historical figure, the Thracian gladiator-turned-rebel leader Spartacus owes his continuing name recognition to the reception of one particular piece of popular culture— Stanley Kubrick’s 1960 eponymous film. While historical narratives have long been part of stories designed for mass consumption, both as a wellspring for narrative progression and a means of connecting to particular audiences united by sociocultural or nationalistic distinctivenesses, these narratives have either been built on historical traditions that had long been part of the public memory or, conversely, utilized particular historical moments as a jumping off point for their own distinctive rendition of historical revision or critique of contemporary sociopolitical culture. The tale of Spartacus remains somewhat unique in the sense that, prior to Kubrick’s film and Kirk Douglas’ stirring portrayal of the man, Spartacus was a figure known in historical-political circles but hardly prevalent as a zeitgeist in popular culture. The film altered this; as a result, Spartacus became a name that most members of the general public could identify, who could then recount the bare facts of his history, though they had only absorbed them second-hand from the film, or, in some cases, by simply knowing the basic plotline of the film without having ever viewed it. It is often the case that a mass, general audience can recognize particular names from history in part because of the popular culture that surrounds the individual; the myriad films and 1

Introduction books about Abraham Lincoln, for example, have certainly raised his renown in the public consciousness, and Cleopatra’s profile was not harmed through the interventions of Elizabeth Taylor. Yet in both of these examples, the historical personages would be familiar without popular culture; in these and many similar instances, popular culture at most shapes what public memory claims to know about the individual. Regardless of whether that knowledge is accurate or not is irrelevant; popular culture adds to the mythopoesis of an individual already established in the public memory, but does not generally induce the genesis of that personage by itself. Conversely, on occasion, popular culture can introduce an historical personage into the larger public consciousness; few people had likely heard of the Spartan king Leonidas, for example, before Zack Snyder’s wildly popular 2006 film 300. Yet such movement into the public memory tends to be fleeting; once the film left theaters and became relegated to the purview of pay cable and fanboys, the name of Leonidas slipped out of the public consciousness again, as easily as it had crept in. Spartacus thus represents a rather unique configuration among historical characterizations; his name has been firmly etched into the public, cultural consciousness, and largely through the existence of one film. With Spartacus, both history and fiction remain equally of significance in establishing the character’s permanent residence in the public memory. The historical figure enabled the creation of the fictional figure and, in return, the fictional personage of Spartacus has ensured the legacy of the historical person. Fiction has often done this for historical peoples, epochs, and movements, but never has the relationship been so perfectly counterbalanced and symbiotic as it is with Spartacus. To put it succinctly, from the perspective of a collective contemporary public memory, one would not, could not, exist without the other. The relationship of Spartacus, then, to popular culture has long been significant; the Thracian gladiator/general may have been one of Karl Marx’s personal heroes, and Toussaint L’Ouverture may have been referred to as the “Black Spartacus” by the Comte de Lavuax, but it was Howard Fast’s 1951 novel Spartacus, on which the film is based, that created the conditions for the name of Spartacus to enter into a larger public pantheon. One interesting result of this interdependency between his2

Blood, Sand and Men—Cornelius tory and fiction is the insistent nature of the Spartacan narrative to be utilized as more than just a vehicle of entertainment. Spartacus is rarely a good yarn, or, perhaps more precisely, rarely just a good yarn; the narrative has always been connected to larger social issues related to the time in which the fictional versions of the history have been created. Margaret Burton suggests that Fast’s rendition of the tale was a “defense of his work on behalf of the persecuted and exploited,” focusing specifically on his affiliation with the Communist Party USA and his work regarding equal rights for African Americans (3). This can be viewed in the novel itself, when Fast writes of a utopian (though clearly mythic) “golden age” that preceded the events of the novel and “where all men and women too had been equals and there was neither master nor slave and all things had been held in common. That long ago was obscured by a haze of time; it was the golden age” (164). In writing his novel from such an idealized perspective, Fast continues the use of Spartacus as a figurehead for oppressed peoples of all stripe, a notion that had its root in classical times but which came to Fast through figures like Marx and Rosa Luxembourg, who often depicted the historical Spartacus as a metaphor of a “heroic worker who fought the exploitation of capital and empire” (Burton 4). Such themes were continued in the film version by star and producer Douglas, director Kubrick (who replaced Anthony Mann a week after filming commenced), and writer Dalton Trumbo who, like Fast, had been called before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) during the 1950s and who likely found the tale of Spartacus irresistibly linked to his own experiences with authority and the long, overreaching arm of the state. Because of the resonant authority of Kubrick’s film, the tale of Spartacus has been infrequently revisited by other popular culture creators and auteurs since 1960. Director Sergio Corbucci did a peplum entitled Il figoli di Spartacus (The Slave: The Son of Spartacus) in 1962, a motion picture that purported to be a “sequel” to Kubrick’s film that followed the exploits of Randus, Spartacus’ son by Varinia from the prior movie. The plotline of The Slave mirrors the original film quite closely, with Randus, a decurion in the Roman army, leading a rebellion against Rome, though it also emphasizes the sword-and-sandal action elements common to Italian pepla of the time. More recently, in 2004 USA Networks 3

Introduction released a made-for-television version of Fast’s novel starring Goran Višnjić as Spartacus, but the work carried little heft, perhaps because, in a world only three years removed from the terrorist attacks of 9/11, there was little social concern over governmental overreach. Far more interesting—and the subject of this study—is Steven S. DeKnight’s fourseason series of Spartacus that debuted on the Starz network in January 2010. While the series maintained the structural history of Spartacus’s life and the events of the Third Servile War, and thus had as one of its cynosurial thematic foci the physical and economic exploitation of persecuted peoples, the series, buoyed by the long-form freedom of the television format, branched out thematically in its exploration of classical and contemporary cultures. Easily surpassing the 184 minutes of Kubrick’s film, Starz’ Spartacus highlights the exploitative and harsh conditions of Roman slavery but is able to expand beyond that theme and tackle such meaty topics as the dynastic concerns of patrimony, the role of women in political and military conflict, the stresses of clan culture, and the machinations of geopolitics, along, of course, with the host of romantic, familial, and intrigue-filled, “soap opera-ish” subplots that any dramatic series tends to embrace. Yet with Spartacus: Blood and Sand and its brother series/seasons—the prequel Spartacus: Gods of the Arena; Spartacus: Vengeance; and Spartacus: War of the Damned—it soon becomes clear that while the format of the series will allow for dramatic intention to soar into numerous distinct directions, all of the plots and all of the “issues” of the show tend to ultimately revert back to one large, central subject matter: the subject of men themselves. Indeed, even as the series contends with the weighty truculence of history, more than the master/slave conflict inherent to accounts of the Third Servile War, DeKnight’s Spartacus is concerned with the subject of masculinity, using a classical milieu to explore contemporary anxieties about the role of men. In Spartacus, men jockey for social position and advantage; men question the nature of their lives; men examine their interpersonal relationships with women and, more especially (and perhaps more interestingly), with each other; and men examine their roles in society and the universe. This hardly seems revolutionary; men, after all, have long been politically, culturally, and narratively dominant. Indeed, it still seems 4

Blood, Sand and Men—Cornelius unusual (though no longer wholly uncommon) for popular cultures to focus on women as their cynosure, either as dominant protagonist over subordinate male characters or, indeed, to flourish without the palpable presence of men at all. Yet Spartacus differs from these dominant narratives in not that men are just the driving force(s) of the story, but, rather, in that men are the driving objects of the narrative as well. Most popular culture works feature men, but do not scrutinize masculinity— not as a cultural construct, not as a fragile condition, and not its connectivity to class, gender, sexuality, or purpose. Those few spare works that do consider the masculine as subject/object tend to represent masculinity as monolithic rather than multi-faceted. Snyder’s 300 contrasts the brutish but eminently admirable masculinity of Leonidas and his Spartan band with the grotesque, effete masculinity of the Persian godking Xerxes and his faceless, nameless, dehumanized hordes. In the film, the straining, masculine forms of the Spartans reflect their virtue, and Spartan society is depicted as prizing masculinity above all else, in all its rituals and tendencies—even above life itself. As the film’s opening narration intones: When the boy was born, like all Spartans, he was inspected. If he’d been small or puny or sickly or misshapen, he would have been discarded. From the time he could stand, he was baptized in the fire of combat. Taught never to retreat, never to surrender. Taught that death on the battlefield in service to Sparta was the greatest glory he could achieve in his life. At age 7, as is customary in Sparta, the boy was taken from his mother and plunged into a world of violence.… By rod and lash the boy was punished … taught to show no pain, no mercy. Constantly tested, tossed into the wild. Left to pit his wits and will against nature’s fury. It was his initiation … his time in the wild … for he would return to his people a Spartan … or not at all [300].

Depictions of such reckless bravery are meant to contrast with the hairless, glittery, painted form of Xerxes, who uses treachery to overcome the righteous masculinity of the Spartans. Jerry B. Pierce writes that 300 offers the clearest representation of positive and negative masculinity found in recent epic movies about the ancient world. Leonidas (stern, toned, and manly) is a solider ready, as the Greek historian Herodotus noted, “to do or die manfully,” fighting to save Sparta and the rest of Greece from Persian tyranny, while Xerxes (arrogant, decadent, and femi-

5

Introduction nized) wishes to see the world kneel in submission before his whip (Herodotus 7.209) [Pierce 40].

In the end of the film the Spartans may be defeated, but masculinity itself wins a moral victory; better to die a man than live with one’s maleness in question. Other sword-and-sandal films follow similar patterns. Ridley Scott’s 2000 film Gladiator posits the laudably masculine Maximus against the preening, whining Commodus. There is no debate over who the “real” man is in this contest; in the film’s conclusion, Commodus cannot defeat a mortally wounded Maximus in single combat, who kills his lesser foe before succumbing to his wounds. Italian pepla of the 1950s and 1960s often featured effete sorcerers and kings who acted as villains to be toppled by the forzuti, the strongmen heroes of these films. For a genre founded upon the notion of single, man-to-man combat, it may seem “natural” that the division of the two main combatants must bifurcate along gendered lines. In this dichotomy, masculinity is always good; hence, that which is deemed anti-masculine—femininity, effeteness, treachery, sorcery, corruption—is posited against the simple maleness of the hero. As Lynne Segal observes, “the contemporary guardians of true manhood still believe that living one’s life as a man involves toughness, struggle and conquest” and an “increasing glorification of a more muscular, militaristic masculinity,” creating “a new ideal of manhood based on physical fitness, courage and audacity” (89, 91, 92). This is the common hero of the gladiator narrative: a physically fit, courageous, righteous man. The normative characterization of the gladiator in these narratives resists not only challenges to his masculinity, but even questions about his masculinity. These figures are inevitably normative: sexually, politically, culturally, socially—to the point where, if it were not for their penchant for incredible violence, they may even be considered stolidly bland (though usually the violence is brought out of them reluctantly; they need to be coerced, often, into such reactive measures). Spartacus, however, disrupts this usual dichotomy completely; in fact, it is more accurate to note that it obliterates it wholly. Though Spartacus features a wide array of masculinities—the gladiator, the slave-owner, the solider, the dominus, the mentor, the politician—they are all, invariably, men. 6

Blood, Sand and Men—Cornelius Ethnically diverse, sexually flexible, physically unalike, representational of all manner of class strata—nonetheless, the men in Spartacus are men. Yet they are not just men acting or reacting, as it were. Though not questionable, their masculinities are continually questioned, and usually by themselves. This is what makes Spartacus unique; not its subjects, but its subject. In Spartacus, the subject of inquiry is masculinity; and some answers to those inquiries form not only the basis of this study, but to the series as well. And like any worthy subject, some of those answers— and some of those questions—will undoubtedly surprise.

Blood, Sand and History History demands satisfaction. What we believe we know of the historical Spartacus largely comes to us from Plutarch, Appian and Florus, whose narrative accounts of Spartacus contain roughly the same story, though they often diverge in both detail and some of the more fanciful tales that surround the man. According to these sources, Spartacus was a Thracian by birth, likely from the Maedi tribe, one who had perhaps served as a solider in the Roman army (Florus goes further than this in his Epitome and details Spartacus’ colorful pre-enslavement career as including stints as a mercenary, soldier, theif, and gladiator [2.8]). All accounts agree that Spartacus was sold into slavery and trained as a gladiator at the ludus of Lentulus Batiatus near Capua. In 73 bce, Spartacus was indicated in a plot to escape captivity, and eventually did so with about seventy other men, plundering the lands surrounding Capua and recruiting other slaves to their cause. The escaped gladiators chose Spartacus and two slaves from Gaul—Crixus and Oenomaus—as their leaders, and moved to a position on Mount Vesuvius to defend themselves. The Romans sent a militia headed by Gaius Claudius Glaber to quell the slaves, but Spartacus led his men to attack the Romans’ poorly defended rear and defeated Glaber’s men. By this time the rebel force had swelled to 70,000, and the Romans began to realize the growing threat. A larger force was sent, headed by Lucius Gellius Publicola and Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Clodianus, but after some initial success, this group, too, was defeated by Spartacus. Finally, the Roman Senate 7

Introduction dispatched eight legions under the leadership of Marcus Licinius Crassus, the wealthiest man in Rome and the only volunteer for the task of putting down the rebellion. Under Crassus’ stern command, the Romans began to have greater success, and Spartacus was killed in a final battle in 71 bce. These are the bare bones of history with which any adapter of Spartacus’ tale must contend. Talking about the nature of writing history, Morton White writes that “every history is a history of some entity which existed for a reasonable period of time, that the historian wishes to state what is literally true of it in a sense which distinguishes the historian from a teller of fictitious or mendacious stories” (4). Histories thus have a vested interest in “getting it right.” Yet, as Linda Hutcheon notes, “History and fiction have always been notoriously porous genres,” and “the problems of writing history are not unlike those of writing fiction” (106, 107). While this is true, the biggest “problem” in writing historical fiction is the rigidity of the narrative plot itself. Narrative and history will both insist on the unfolding of events; in the construction of a story, any adaptor has to decide which one should win out. Key events of any history cannot easily be changed without causing too much of an uproar. Conversely, a narrative tale tends to progress in ways that are devoted to the logical development of the story. Truth may be stranger than fiction, but rarely is it as well-told. Certainly, some details of any history may be altered in devotion to a narrative. Carl Hoffman recounts that this was true of Fast’s version of Spartacus: One ancient account states that Spartacus had been a mercenary, a Roman solider, a deserter, a highwayman, and finally, a gladiator. But Fast rejects all this. His fictional character is a third-generation slave, originally sold from Thrace to Egypt, someone who has never known freedom, never been a solider or a mercenary … the reason for Fast’s alteration is clear … it makes Spartacus a greater hero and better symbol of the downtrodden [64].

Here, history—as best as it can be discerned—is sacrificed under the aegis of fictional narrative. Thus while certain facts of the life of Spartacus may seem immutable, his origins do not seem to figure among them. This is the challenge any historical adaptor encounters: what can 8

Blood, Sand and Men—Cornelius be altered—for the sake of building narrative tension, crafting a more pleasing story, or achieving particular thematic aims—and what cannot? Drastic alterations to historical narrative can create a disconnective effect in the viewer; eschewing the public memory of popular events in favor of alternative history usually renders a work ahistorical. A text like Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 film Inglourious Basterds boldly revises the historical record, though the work never declared itself historical to begin with. In this text history is a point of departure, and nothing more. Tarantino’s revenge fantasy is a psychological manifestation, not of public memory, but of public desire—what the (collective) individual wishes had transpired, instead of what actually did. Public desire cannot countermand public memory, no matter how diligently it attempts to do so, because the insistence of facts—or of what is believed to be factual— tends to win out over those outcomes that are desirable. For a text like Inglourious Basterds, which wears its revisionist perspective of the historical record proudly on its sleeve, such memories and desires are collusive, working hand-in-hand to promote the ideologies of the film. Yet those works that deign to recount the actuality of a narrative history as something more closely aligned to their own aims and goals must account for the cultural, public memory of the historical events in questions. As John Bodnar notes, public memory comprises “a body of beliefs and ideas about the past that help a society understand both its past [and] present, and by implication, its future” (15). Stephen Browne adds that public memory reflects “a shared sense of the past, fashioned from the symbolic resources of community and subject to its particular history, hierarchies, and aspirations” (248). History, as it is understood by mass audiences, depends upon public memory for its existence; movement away from the historical record in the depiction of historical incidents can negate the initial purpose of utilizing history in the narrative to begin with. Yet, as Hoffman has observed, “popular interpretations of history change according to their cultural context” (63). Any adaptation of any source material—whether historical or fictional—cannot remain wholly faithful to the original, if for no other reason than the transmission of text from one medium to another, and from one culture to another, demands adaptation and change. Furthermore, these alter9

Introduction ations are typically why historical narratives are so appealing to producers, directors and writers to begin with. These adaptors are drawn to connections between the public memory of particular events and contemporary issues within the adapting culture. Maria Wyke suggests that this is especially true with narratives set in ancient Rome, as these narratives create their “own distinctive historiography of ancient Rome that has vividly resurrected the ancient world and reformulated it in the light of present needs” (8). Rome has become a contemporary stand-in for all world empires and nation states that are often viewed as powerful and authoritative but also decadent and decaying. Rome is our most apt metaphor for the state, just as Spartacus has become our most apt metaphor for persecution—a metaphor that allows adaptors to explore issues within their own societies without directly turning the exposition onto that society directly. How, then, does any adaptor handle a historical work like Spartacus? What needs to be maintained in order to be historical, and what can be altered? Clearly, Fast creates enormous changes in Spartacus’ back story, but these did not upset the reception of the work—indeed, they only enhanced Spartacus’ public memory and reception, making his back story less violent and his rise all the more righteous. Regarding this content-adaptation dilemma, Brian McFarlane suggests adaptors adhere to a quasi-rigid structuralist methodology that essentially consists of objectifying the original source material and breaking it down into what he labels “cardinal functions”—“‘hinge points’ of narrative … that open up alternatives of consequence to the development of the story” (13). In other words, any historical narrative has key components that are generally widely known within the confines of public memory. As long as these aspects are maintained, the rest of the narrative may be altered/alterable to fit the design of the adaptors and the mores of the culture in which the work is created. The history of Spartacus seems to contain five “cardinal functions”: his enslavement, his gladiatorial training, his violent escape from the ludus, his initial success in leading the rebel army, and, finally, his defeat at the hands of Crassus. If these aspects of the story are maintained, then what is presented, regardless of other changes, may still very well be considered by a mass, general audience a “history” of Spartacus. 10

Blood, Sand and Men—Cornelius There is something in McFarlane’s “cardinal functions” that may seem a tad disingenuous to readers, or, perhaps more accurately, there is something disingenuous in my reading of them; clearly, one could not have Spartacus zooming around in an automobile in ancient Rome and have anyone consider the text “historical” in nature. The presentation of history is likewise important in these works; how an era is perceived needs to be depicted on the screen alongside key historical markers. Historians could easily point to errors in every episode of Spartacus that do not reflect what we know of Roman practice or culture, and certainly anachronisms abound, but the stylistic representation of ancient Rome is very important in the series. One example of this is the series’ dialogue; the series emphasizes a stilted syntactic structure and grand use of pronouncement that can be heard in such statements as “You strike a solid blow against an ill-trained fool who taints the name of Gaul” and “Once again the gods spread cheeks and ram cock in fucking ass,” or even the use of “Gratitude” in lieu of “Thank you” (“Mark of the Brotherhood”; “Revelations”). This reflects what an audience might expect literally translated Latin to sound like. Even the disclaimer at the start of each episode—“Spartacus is a historical portrayal of ancient Roman society that contains graphic violence and adult content. Viewer discretion is advised”—indicates the series’ aspiration to have their representation of ancient Rome be connective to what a mass audience might expect Rome to look or be like (along with the visceral methodologies used to achieve such an effect). The reality of historical representation here is less relevant than the audience’s sense of expectation; to them, as long as it seems like ancient Rome, it may as well be. This places the series’ sense of self—and all that accompanies it— firmly in the past, in this case the classical, ancient past. It presents itself as a history, or, at the very least, as historical. Such a temporal distancing allows, perhaps, for more fanciful movement to or from the controlling subject of the series itself; as long as the main events of Spartacus’ life are duly recorded, the rest is open to be utilized by the show’s creators in the way they deem best. Such considerations thus allow for a varied presentation of both the man and his history. History is reckoned with in Spartacus; the narrative’s cardinal functions are maintained. Other aspects of the history—more fanciful tales of 11

Introduction the man from Florus and Appian—are included in the narrative as well. All of this is designed to authenticate the historical nature of a narrative that never intended to be truly historic in the first place. As Bodnar observes, public memory “is an argument about the interpretation of reality” (14). The slavish devotion to historical source material and the freedom to interpret reality provides DeKnight and the series’ creative team more freedom and latitude; with the tenets of history accounted for, the series can readily turn its considerable attention to more contemporary matters.

Blood, Sand and Masculinity Spartacus’ classical setting and historical bent fashions its vision of masculinity with roots seemingly in the distant past. History, however, becomes more a vehicle of expression rather than a means to craft an authentic vision of Roman masculinity in the series. The means and forms of ancient masculinities are important to Spartacus; they are, however, designed to provide an essential psychic distance from the present day—all the better, then, to critique a (masculine) present that can be sensitive and reactive to sociocultural appraisal. As noted earlier, it may seem disingenuous to suggest that a work of popular culture focused on men is unusual, when male representation tends to dominate many popular culture forms, especially works derived from peplumic generic formulae. What makes Spartacus so unique, however, is that men are not only the subjects of the series, but also, more generically speaking, the subject of the series as well. Tobias G. Natter notes that in the twentieth century, it is “the shift of roles [for men] that has transformed men from subjects into objects—even erotic objects” (9). Here, the objectification of men is not erotic—or, to be more precise in this matter, not just erotic—but sociocultural as well. Men are not just those individuals upon whom the action centers, or who do the heavy lifting of progressing the narrative; they are also what the series deigns to study. To put it fancifully, they are the ant under the magnifying glass as well as the truculent child focusing the light of the sun on the hapless creature below. Many films and television series have professed to present an explo12

Blood, Sand and Men—Cornelius ration of masculinity, but few truly do; rather, the presence of men is left to suggest the subject of men as well. Males in these works take on the role of the controlling subject, the baseline against which Others in these narratives (generally women, children, and/or minorities) are measured. Men are often representatives of what the milieu of the work denotes as “normal,” though whether this normalcy is desirable or not depends on the individual text. Spartacus, though, is that rare piece of popular culture where the controlling subject turns its lens onto itself, in part because the differences between the men presented in the series are ultimately less significant than their similarities. Time and again the series connotes Roman to outsider, connecting Spartacus to Glaber, to Batiatus, to Crassus, to Julius Caesar. This, in turn, creates a condition for the audience to view the male characters not as being involved in an “us” versus “them” dichotomy, but rather existing as differing aspects of the same representational paradigm. In classical Roman times, masculinity “was imagined as a vertiginous equipoise—a fragile and precarious middle ground between rusticity and refinement or even austerity and excess” (Latham 89). This seems to echo Camille Paglia’s observation that, “Ever since man emerged from the dominance of nature, masculinity has been the most fragile and problematic of psychic states” (125). For Romans, the presentation of their masculinity was key; Jacob Latham writes, “how men looked was central to their success as public men” (89). Understanding the “public” nature of this masculinity is important; in ancient Rome, as today, masculinity was a performance, measured by particular markers across cultural registers, reflected by the judgment, admiration, and gaze of those individuals for whom the performance was recorded in the first place. Masculinity has always reflected this “intertwining of social structures and personal life practices” (Sasson-Levy 358). The concept of masculinity as both a social construction as well as an individual notion is neither new nor radical. It does, however, indicate that at any given time, there is one generally accepted, standard definition of masculinity (one that continually transmutes, in ways both small and large), but that males must also define the concept for themselves. Thus men must be deliberate in their construction of their own masculine identity. Paul 13

Introduction Smith argues that identity is always created or fashioned in opposition to some Other: The “subject” is generally considered epistemologically as the counterpart to the phenomenal object and is commonly described as the sum of sensations, or the “consciousness,” by which and against which the external world can be posited. That is to say, the subject as the product of traditional western philosophical speculation, is the complex but nonetheless unified locus of the constitution of the phenomenal world. In different versions the “subject” enters a dialectic with the world as either its product or its source, or both. In any case, the “subject” is the bearer of consciousness that will interact with whatever the world is taken to consist in [Smith xxvii].

Smith adds, “the human species is not prone to think of itself except in some version of that opposition” (Smith xxviii). David Morley and Kevin Robins are perhaps more succinct than Smith: “[I]dentity must be defined, not by its positive content, but always by its relation to, and differentiation from, other [identities]” (10). By this ratiocination, an oppositional construct against which individual males must determine and/or, on occasion, differentiate their masculine identity constructs is the standard delineation of masculinity itself. As R. W. Connell notes, “It follows that any particular form of masculinity can be analyzed as both a personal project and a collective project” (454). Collective forms of masculinity may be socioculturally defined, but Connell’s “individual projects” of masculinity are crafted in comparison to the standard cultural form. Men thus look to the stereotypes of masculinity and measure out the ways in which they differ from the norm to determine and define—at least in part—their own sense of (masculine) self. There are fewer masculine stereotypes more broadly drawn, and more widely recognizable as so overtly masculine, than the gladiator. In Roman times, gladiators as overt forms of masculinity enjoyed a complex relationship with broader society that both deified and vilified them. Burton notes that the pool of gladiatorial combatants was comprised of the “enslaved from every people within the far-flung reach of the Roman Empire” and that they “embod[ied a] culturally diverse platoon, a brotherhood made up of the oppressed of every nation” (2). Cultural diversity was not a value Romans espoused; as such, gladiators were marked as Other, different from not only the norm but also the ideal. Gladiatorial 14

Blood, Sand and Men—Cornelius contests also marked their participants as performers, and performers were denigrated in Roman society. Yet when gladiators reenacted moments of Roman history on the sands, they were not only teaching the Romans about their own past, but also playing the parts of the most exalted men in Roman history. These slaves, then, were performing as the most idealized masculine figures the Roman world had to offer. As Erik Gunderson observes, The arena can thus be taken as an apparatus which not only looks in upon a spectacle, but one which in its organization and structure reproduces the relations subsisting between observer and observed. The arena thus becomes a mapping of a technology of power whose consequences are felt beyond the arena as a mere festive institution.… Indeed, the spectacle of the arena has a specular effect which makes a new spectacle of its own observers, revealing and determining them through their relationship to the image of themselves produced by their relationship to the arena [115– 116].

This complex relationship of viewer to viewed is reflected in how many Romans wrote and felt about gladiators. Cicero, for example, uses the term “gladiator” as an insult in his work, but also writes of gladiators in his Tusculan Disputations, “Gladiatores, aut perditi homines aut barbari, quas plagas perferunt!” (2.17) Gunderson translates this as “The gladiator, in his best moments, is a sort of noble savage whose virtue can serve as an example but whose savagery renders him otherwise safely removed from the elite strata” (137). Gunderson adds, “The theme of the noble, willing gladiator, already noted in Cicero and picked up by Seneca in De tranquillitate animi 11.4, becomes the token of his bravery. Livy likewise uses this image in a positive light during the course of his histories, and the historian frequently proves himself an editor of noble gladiators” (138). He concludes, “In short, the gladiator and venator were marked with a repugnant otherness attended by criminal associations. At the same time, though, the venator and gladiator both possessed sufficient culturally valued traits to evoke confused and mixed reactions. Each had the performer’s stigma, but both in the course of their performance would ideally evince noble Roman virtues” (136). Gladiators thus reflected the best of Roman masculinity and also what the Romans most feared about Other masculinities, virile and savage, that existed within the Empire. 15

Introduction This dichotomy is seen in Spartacus. In the first episode, after Spartacus has survived execution by combat in the arena and bested four gladiators, the Roman audience expresses admiration for the man’s fighting prowess. It is this admiration that allows Batiatus to purchase an otherwise condemned man, and even provides Spartacus with his name: Albinius: What name does the man carry? Glaber: I never cared to ask. Batiatus: The way he fights … like the legend of the Thracian king of old.… Spartacus he was called [“The Red Serpent”].

This sense of admiration for Spartacus’ “noble savagery” extends even to his greatest enemy; before their final battle, Spartacus and Crassus parley on the field, Crassus openly expressing his admiration for his nemesis: “Would that you had been born a Roman, and stood beside me” (“Victory”). Indeed, there is even some suggestion here that Crassus wishes Spartacus could take the place of his own fallen son, Tiberius, believing that Spartacus, Other as he is, may have made a better successor to Crassus than the disappointing son he has lost. This concept reflects what Connell labels “the dual mechanism of inclusion and marginalization by which is the existing social order is preserved” (377). Gladiators had the potential to reflect the Roman masculine self, and, indeed, the very best of the Roman masculine self, but they also suggested an Otherness that could never be, and would always be, disconnective to Roman ideals and mores. Awe and otherness intertwined in these figures; as a result, they could be admired and rejected. Similarly, contemporary men likewise look upon the gladiator heroes of sword-and-sandal films with a bifurcated sense of awe and Otherness, of acceptance and dismissal. Maggie Günsberg rightly argues, “Heroic masculinity in the peplum also constantly defines itself through differentiation from other types of masculinity,” and it is this difference that incites these conflicted reactions in the viewer (115). We admire these men, their bodies and forms; yet we also recognize a measurement of masculinity that remains generally unattainable to us, the viewer. David Chapman suggests our dualistic reaction to the male bodies in Spartacus and other sword-and-sandal narratives emanates from conflicted erotic reactions: “many secret sensations and unspoken desires washed up on the shores of modern masculinity itself ” (13). Jonathan Weinberg indi16

Blood, Sand and Men—Cornelius cates, however, that the very hardness we admire in these forms is what renders them less erotically defined: “The erotic tease inviting our possession is countered, however, by the very hardness and exaggerated musculature of his body” (93). Here these two dueling critics present their own bifurcated reading of the male form: musculature is both erotic and off-putting; it awakens secret desires in us and also countermands those desires; it shows us what we want, or what we want to be, while simultaneously cutting us off from any hope of such possession. Erotic desire, however, is not the only complicating factor for the muscular, naked forms on display in Spartacus. Just as these forms reflect physical masculinities most can never attain, they also achieve physical feats that “mere mortals” could never replicate. Spartacus and Crixus together bring down the giant Theokoles; Spartacus survives the dreaded Pits from which no one returns; Spartacus becomes gladiatorial champion of Capua; indeed, perhaps the most indelible image of Blood and Sand is Spartacus leaping up high, out of the ludus training ground, and onto the balcony of Batiatus’ villa, the movement that incites the rebellion against his master. These forms thus demonstrate both masculine potential and masculine inadequacy. In sword-and-sandal films, the peplumic hero must act to topple the tyrant or slay the monster not because no one else has the will to do so, but because they lack the tools. Only the mighty arms and hyper-developed muscles of the strongman hero can save the day. Yes, we admire this man; but we envy and deride him as well.1 Such complicated reactions are at the heart of Spartacus and at the heart of this study as well. The work presented herein is curious about the series’ and our own complicated relationships with the male form, masculinity, and history. If the heroic male form is designed to elicit a continually divergent reaction from its audience, then the male form so prominently displayed in a popular culture text like Spartacus, one so intricately connected with its own sense of history and masculinity, is clearly intended to speak to its audience about both ancient and contemporary forms of masculinity and masculine identity. Yet what does it say? How does a work like Spartacus edify its viewers on these complex interconnections between history, masculinity, and our evolving understandings of masculine identity? One of the constructs that is essential to the series’ formation of 17

Introduction masculine identity is the gladiatorial combat at the heart of the series. The transformative, constructive nature of gladiatorial combat is depicted throughout the series. Battles in the arena, training at Batiatus’ ludus, and, later, training in the rebel camp consistently alters the quiddities of many characters in the series, male and female alike. This notion of an identity forged through the fires of combat is not unique to Spartacus; it is, in fact, somewhat indicative of the entire sword-and-sandal genre. In John Milius’ Conan the Barbarian (1982), for example, gladiatorial combat aids the protagonist in awakening to a sense of self: “He did not care any more. Life and death—the same. Only that the crowd would be there to greet him with howls of lust and fury. He began to realize his sense of worth. He mattered” (Conan the Barbarian). In Gladiator, Maximus gives a rousing speech in the arena that re-affirms his self: My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next [Gladiator].

In both instances, however, the gladiator characters revert to earlier forms of pre-enslavement masculine identities, ones that had either previously been forged and were removed from them (Maximus), or ones that reflected the gradual development of the self (Conan). Conan, in particular, dismisses any notion of forging a new identity when he violently rejects the antagonist cult leader, Thulsa Doom, who tells him, “My child, you have to come to me, my son. For who now is your father if it is not me? I am the wellspring from which you flow. When I am gone, you will have never been. What would your world be, without me?” (Conan the Barbarian). In destroying Doom, Conan destroys any notion of a new identity forged through his association with him, preferring the path he established in homage to his fallen father, his people, and the earth god Krom. In Spartacus, however, identity formation is never depicted in reversion back to earlier norms, but in the continuous progression of fashioning entirely new identities. Batiatus himself speaks to this when he is attempting to persuade Spartacus to acquiesce to the situation he finds himself in: 18

Blood, Sand and Men—Cornelius I am a lanista. Like my forefathers, a trainer of gladiators. I see things in men that they themselves have lost, small spark, an ember. I give it breath … until it ignites in the arena [“Sacramentum Gladitorum”].

Spartacus embraces his fate, and with it his new identity, especially once the last connection to his former self—his wife—is removed: “I no longer concern myself with thoughts beyond these walls” (“Party Favors”). Why is combat so essential in the formation of identity in the series? In the 1960 film, identity is connoted with freedom from combat, not association with it. As a slave, Spartacus rages against the inhuman diminishment of his fundamental identity: “I’m not an animal,” he rails, struggling against a system that is designed to strip him not only of his identity as an individual, but even his identification with humanity (Spartacus [Kubrick]). Post-freedom, even in the grip of defeat, Spartacus and the other slaves now have the momentary freedom to select their own identity: “I am Spartacus,” he cries, as do 6,000 others (Spartacus [Kubrick]). Of this stirring scene in the film, Burton writes, “Reverberating through ranks of shackled rebels, these three words constitute the identity announced by six thousand slaves attempting to save their leader from death. As the Thracian gladiator has freed slaves from the latisfundia, they join him to free others and to fight to the shores of Brundusium and hence to the boats for freedom” (11–12). In the Starz Spartacus, identity formation is likewise directly connective to the process of gaining freedom, though in the case of the series, it works in reverse from the film; while in the movie the slaves declare their identities only at the end of their bid for ultimate freedom from the shackles of Rome, in the series, the beginning of identity formation is what commences the thirst for freedom as well. Indeed, while the series pays homage to the famous film scene, by having several characters declare “I am Spartacus!” as they raid various Roman villas, the scene almost mocks the film’s notion that identity formation is the culmination of the struggle for freedom. In the series, identity formation is based on success in combat. Writing on the perception of combat and group cohesiveness in military culture, Orna Sasson-Levy observes that the “male who has served in a combat role and has proved his willingness to risk his life for the collective good … [is a] good citizen.… Therefore, the masculinity of the combat solider has achieved a hegemonic status 19

Introduction and turned into a social ideal, the emblem of both masculinity and full citizenship” (360). Alexander Watson echoes this notion when he writes of “military resilience derived principally from the social cohesion of the ‘primary group’ or squad, which acted as a focus of loyalty for its members and supported them in battle both physically and emotionally” (530). Both look to the formation of group identity—in this case, the brotherhood of gladiators at the ludus of Batiatus—that, in a combat situation, stresses the solidarity of group identity. Karen A. Cerulo notes that this formation of group identity “addresses the ‘we-ness’ of a group, stressing the similarities or shared attributes around which group members coalesce” (386). Since gladiatorial combat requires both group cohesion and individuated action, the emergence of unique quiddities for the gladiators is hardly surprising. This is a lesson Batiatus realizes only too late. After his men have turned upon him, Spartacus’ sword pointed at his chest, Batiatus angrily confronts his champion: Batiatus: You were nothing before me. I gave you everything. I gave you the means to accept your fate. Spartacus: Now you are destroyed by it [“Kill Them All”].

In many ways, Batiatus is literally correct when he notes that Spartacus was “nothing before me.” He was a man without a country, a people, a future, a name. Batiatus did provide him with a purpose—just not the ultimate purpose Batiatus intended. In the end, violence both begets identity and terminates it—usually, and quite literally, at the end of a sword. Indeed, this role of violence in identity formation holds true for many members of the rebel army. Characters like Naevia, Mira, and Nasir become transformed as they are trained in combat, while others, like Crixus and Gannicus, alter as they embrace the group dynamic of the rebel army. Katharina Schramm notes that “the memory of violence is … embedded into peoples’ bodies and minds” (5). In her case, Schramm is describing instances of traumatic and memorialized violence; in Spartacus, however, violence tends to be constructive. Memorializing violence on the site of the body seeks to leave a permanent mark of the shifting identity of the bearer; Steve Neale suggests that images of violence directed against the male body “are marks both of 20

Blood, Sand and Men—Cornelius the repression involved and of a means by which the male body may be disqualified as an object of erotic contemplation and desire” (14). Violence may aid in negating the erotic potential of the sword-and-sandal form, but it also works to construct new identities for those participating in gladiatorial combat. Of course, such forms of combat and violence no longer exist; thus the series can more safely explore a theme of violence shaping identity because it is planted firmly in the past. Again, history intersects with masculinity in interesting and surprising ways. All of the essays in this collection seek to explore these same notions—the ways in which history and/or masculinity collide or collude in the series. Our first three essays explore the ways in which the series utilizes history in its construction. Dragoş Manea’s essay “Arenas of Memory: Spartacus and the Remediation of Historical Narratives” examines the construct of Spartacus as a foundational narrative and looks to the series’ relationship to cultural memory as both product and producer. Another essay that looks to Spartacus’ relationship with the historical past is “‘It is for history to decide’: The Story Space of the Spartacus Series” by James Klima. Both essays seek further understanding of the contemporary series’ interdependent connection to its source material and the public memory of those materials, seeking to explore how the past has shaped the present and, perhaps more significantly, how the present has shaped the past. Concern with the past is also part of Lorenzo Sorbo’s essay “The Sound World of Spartacus: Representations of Ancient Musical Instruments in the Series.” Here, Sorbo focuses on one specific aspect of the series’ rendition of ancient Rome—the use and visual depiction of musical instruments— and connects both the sight and the sound not only to our recreation of the past but especially to the construction of contemporary associations with past identifications. Identity formation, and its relationship to historicity and masculinity, is also of key concern in this collection. Larry T. Shillock, in “Single Combat, the Semiotics of the Arena and Martial Intimacy,” considers the nature of man-on-man combat in the series and the ways in which such intimate connections between gladiatorial combatants both shapes and limits the characters and genre of the series. Rachel S. McCoppin’s essay, “Spartacus’ Entrapment in the Underworld in Blood and Sand,” 21

Introduction explores the heroic journey Spartacus undertakes in his own identity formation in the first season of the series. Jason Smith examines a similar notion from a wholly different perspective in his work “Blood, Sex, Sand and Mills: The Sociological Imagination Between Gladiators.” Using C. Wright Mills’ conceptualization of the “sociological imagination,” Smith explores the identity-shaping and decision-making processes of both Spartacus and Crixus during Blood and Sand. My own contribution, “Spartacus and the Shifting Sands of Sacred Space,” looks to the ways in which space— the space of the arena and the ludus—unites the gladiators in a common group identity that will foment the rebellion that occurs at the end of season one and ultimately ensure group cohesion through the battles that lie ahead. Each of these essays examines the milieu and conditions in which Spartacus himself and the rebellion are produced, as well as the ways in which identity is both self- and culturally-fashioned and derived. The final three essays each tackle subjects of masculinity and humanity from differing perspectives. Ariel Gómez Ponce, in “The Predators of Capua: Spartacus and the Limits of the Human,” delves into the notion that the series’ cultural imagery of gladiatorial violence can be both atavistic and necessary. While violence, and those who perpetuate it, may seem predatory to Gómez Ponce, it is also, in many ways, significantly human. Robert K. Dickson and I coauthored the essay, “(Re)Presenting the Phallus: Gladiators and Their ‘Swords,’” which looks to how the presentation of the male form—and particularly one specific aspect of the male form—works to humanize the gladiators, whose typical sword-and-sandal physiques may otherwise be deemed too godly or unattainable to allow for an earnest appreciation of their subordinate and bound social positions. Lastly, Anna Foka investigates masculinity by exploring what is frequently posited as its opposite. In “Queer Heroes and Action Heroines: Gender and Sexuality in Spartacus,” she purports that the series’ deliberate obfuscation of stereotypical gender and sexuality lines results in a critical re-examination in the series of the role of women and non-heteronormative sexualities within our own society. This, of course, is the role of any good artwork, even one with roots so deep in the historical past—to speak to its audience about the present. Spartacus is rich in the conversations it attempts to originate, its subjects as wide and varied as the many characters depicted in the series. Ulti22

Blood, Sand and Men—Cornelius mately, though, Spartacus’ cultural and artistic conversation seems to hearken back to one subject matter: masculinity. Though it sieves this conversation through numerous filters—history, genre, representation— the series continually concerns itself, and its viewer, with the past and present state of men. Wolfgang Schmale, speaking of a particular space in the city of Florence that is decorated with numerous busts, statues, and monuments depicting the male form, suggests that such a place creates, “A masculine symbolic space” (27). He adds: “All of these artifacts say something about men, and in many cases about ideals of masculinity, and in particular anchor masculinity as a determinative trait in and for public space. No one can pass through these spaces without being confronted with statements about masculinity” (27). Spartacus: Blood and Sand and its brother seasons in the series work in the same way. Though the series has much to offer, its presentation of men—in all their muscular, thewy glory—continually confronts us with issues related to masculinity, its ascendance and authority, its decline and rehabilitation, its past and present, and certainly its future. More than any other television series, Spartacus is about the world(s) of men. And though it may not reach a singular conclusion regarding them—as, indeed, there is no one, singular conclusion to ever reach about so rich and complex a subject— the questions it asks, the interrogations it poses, and the conversations it starts may cause us to consider men and masculinity in new and surprising ways for years to come.

Note 1. What is truly under discussion here is what I label the homogendered gaze, which, unlike the heterogendered gaze (or even homosexualized gaze), tends to view the objects of its gaze with the desire of self-attainment as an aim. For more on this, see the introduction to my edited collection, Of Muscles and Men: Essays on the Sword and Sandal Film (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2011).

Works Cited Bodnar, John. Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992. Print. Browne, Stephen. “Reading, Rhetoric, and the Texture of Public Memory.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 81 (1993): 237–265. Print. Burton, Margaret. “Performances of Jewish Identity: Spartacus.” Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 27.1 (2008): 1–15. Print.

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Introduction Cerulo, Karen A. “Identity Construction: New Issues, New Directions.” Annual Review of Sociology 23 (1997): 385–409. Print. Chapman, David. Retro Stud: Muscle Movie Posters from Around the World. Portland, OR: Collectors Press, 2002. Print. Cicero. Tusculan Disputations. The Latin Library. Web. 6 Aug 2014. Conan the Barbarian. Dir. John Milius. Perf. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sandhal Bergman, James Earl Jones. Universal, 1982. Film. Connell, R. W. Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Print. Fast, Howard. Spartacus. Armonk, NY: North Castle Books, 1996. Print. Il figlio di Spartacus [The Slave: Son of Spartacus]. Dir. Sergio Corbucci. Perf. Steve Reeves. Titanus, 1962. Film. Florus, Lucius Annaeus. Epitome of Roman History. Ed. T. E. Page, E. Capps, W. H. D. Rouse. Trans. Charles E. Bennett. London: William Heinemann, 1925. Print. Gladiator. Dir. Ridley Scott. Perf. Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix. DreamWorks Pictures, Universal, 2000. Film. Gunderson, Erik. “The Ideology of the Arena.” Classical Antiquity 15.1 (1996): 113– 151. Print. Günsberg, Maggie. Italian Cinema: Gender and Genre. New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2005. Print. Hoffman, Carl. “The Evolution of a Gladiator: History, Representation, and Revision in Spartacus.” Journal of American and Comparative Cultures 23.1 (2000): 63–70. Print. Hutcheon, Linda. A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. New York: Routledge, 1988. Print. Inglourious Basterds. Dir. Quentin Tarantino. Perf. Brad Pitt. Universal, 2009. Film. “Kill Them All.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Steven S. DeKnight. Dir. Jesse Warn. Starz. 16 Apr 2010. Television. Latham, Jacob. “‘Fabulous Clap-Trap’: Roman Masculinity, the Cult of Magna Mater, and Literary Constructions of the galli at Rome from the Late Republic to Late Antiquity.” Journal of Religion 92 2012: 84–122. Print. “Mark of the Brotherhood.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Aaron Helbing and Todd Helbing. Dir. Rowan Woods. Starz. 12 Mar 2010. Television. McFarlane, Brian. Novel into Film: An Introduction to the Theory of Adaptation. Oxford: Clarendon, 1996. Print. Morley, David, and Kevin Robins. “Spaces of Identity: Communications Technologies and the Reconfiguration of Europe.” Screen 30 (1989): 10–34. Print. Natter, Tobias G. “Foreword: The Long Shadow of the Fig Leaf.” Natter and Leopold. 5–12. Natter, Tobias G., and Elisabeth Leopold, eds. Nude Men: From 1800 to the Present Day. Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 2012. Print. Neale, Steve. “Masculinity as Spectacle: Reflections on Men and Mainstream Cinema.” Screening the Male: Exploring Masculinities in Hollywood Cinema. Eds. S. Cohan and I. R. Hark. London: Routledge, 1993. 9–20. Print. Paglia, Camille. Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990. Print. “Party Favors.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Brent Fletcher and Miranda Kwok. Dir. Chris Martin-Jones. Starz. 26 Mar 2010. Television. Pierce, Jerry. “To Do or Die Manfully: Performing Heteronormativity in Recent Epic

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Blood, Sand and Men—Cornelius Films.” Of Muscles and Men. Ed. Michael G. Cornelius. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2011. 40–57. Print. “The Red Serpent.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Steven S. DeKnight. Dir. Rick Jacobson. Starz. 22 Jan 2010. Television. “Revelations.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Brent Fletcher. Dir. Michael Hurst. Starz. 9 Apr 2010. Television. “Sacramentum Gladiatorum.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Steven S. DeKnight. Dir. Rick Jacobson. Starz. 29 Jan 2010. Television. Sasson-Levy, Orna. “Constructing Identities at the Margins: Masculinities and Citizenship in the Israeli Army.” The Sociological Quarterly 43.3 (2002): 357–383. Print. Schmale, Wolfgang. “Nakedness and Masculine Identity: Negotiations in the Public Space.” Natter and Leopold. 27–35. Print. Schramm, Katharina. “Landscapes of Violence: Memory and Sacred Space.” History & Memory 23.1 (2011): 5–22. Print. Segal, Lynne. Slow Motion: Changing Masculinities, Changing Men. 3d ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Print. Smith, Paul. Discerning the Subject. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988. Print. Spartacus. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons. Universal, 1960. Film. Spartacus. Dir. Robert Dornhelm. Writ. Robert Schenkkan. USA Networks. 18 and 19 Apr 2004. Television. 300. Dir. Zack Snyder. Perf. Gerard Butler, Lena Headey. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2007. Film. “Victory,” Spartacus: War of the Damned. Writ. Steven S. DeKnight. Dir. Rick Jackson. Starz. 12 Apr 2013. Television. Watson, Alexander. “Culture and Combat in the Western World, 1900–1945.” The Historical Journal 51.2 (2008): 529–546. Print. Weinberg, Jonathan. “Stripped Bare but not Exposed: The Male Nude in American Art.” Natter and Leopold. 89–97. Print. White, Morton. “The Logic of Historical Narration.” In Philosophy and History: A Symposium. Ed. Sidney Hook. New York: New York University Press, 1963. 3–31. Print. Wyke, Maria. Projecting the Past: Ancient Rome, Cinema, and History. New York: Routledge, 1997. Print.

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Arenas of Memory Spartacus and the Remediation of Historical Narratives Dragoş Manea There are historical narratives that loom so large in our cultural memory they become part and parcel with how we define ourselves— with their every reiteration and adaptation, they play a fundamental part in the continuous reconfiguration of cultural identity. This essay attempts to explore the strategies employed in adapting precisely such formational texts from the premise that their adaptation inextricably brings with it either a legitimation or a contestation of the discourses engendered by this ceaseless process of interpretation. In rewriting their source texts, they impose upon them—whether consciously or not—an ideology that is always of the present: that orients the audience towards a certain articulation of how they should understand themselves and their relationship with the world around them. Few characters have had as great an impact on Western cultural memory as Spartacus, the Thracian gladiator who led a slave revolt against the Roman Republic. From his rediscovery in early modernity, to his reinterpretation during the Enlightenment as an enemy of absolutist tyranny, to his idealization under Communism as a revolutionary leader beholden to the principles of class struggle, Spartacus has found himself immortalized in operas, plays, novels, movies, concept albums, 27

Spartacus in the Television Arena and video games, nearly all prompting their audience to identify with the hero, to project themselves into the past and to understand the world thus depicted as meaningful and fundamental to their current communities. Spartacus, and the Third Servile War as a whole, have become a kind of conduit for the formation of various types of identity—whether they are national (Spartacus the forerunner of Italian unification), political (Spartacus the Marxist revolutionary), or even sexual (Spartacus the international gay guide). 1 What permits the creation and transmission of such contrasting discourses is Spartacus’ place in the pantheon of Western cultural memory, his consecration as a relevant figure through which to discuss issues pertinent to both antiquity and to the present day, as well as to the sundry relationships that exist between the two. In the course of the first part of this essay, I try to sketch the formation of Spartacus as a relevant “figure of memory” (Assmann 11). I do so at least to the extent that it is pertinent to the Starz television show, though for now I would merely like to reiterate that in adapting any such figure a conscious decision is made on the part of the adapter: whether to contest or to endorse the legacy it has attained in the cultural memory of its audience. By this I do not merely mean that Spartacus has to be presented as a hero or a villain, although this is the simplest way of achieving it, but that the adaptation has to position itself within the greater tradition of works that have tackled the subject and the various discourses that they have engendered: Spartacus the Marxist revolutionary and Spartacus the national liberator, for example, both have to be re-examined, judged, and found wanting or adequate for the adapter’s current purposes. An historical adaptation draws not only on a past reality (which is often understood as stable and immutable), but also on all of the discourses and narratives that have sprung from it and that are available to the adapter. Yet a work of art is not merely the result of conscious decisions, deliberated rationally. It is often bedeviled by unintended meanings, unquestioned assumptions, and unidentified errors. This stands truer still for collaborative media such as television, where there is not one authorial voice, but a multitude of them, whether harmonious or dissonant. Following Thomas Leitch (150) and Linda Hutcheon (81), we 28

The Remediation of Historical Narratives—Manea are faced with the question of who exactly is the adapter, and in the case of Spartacus, as with all television shows, we find no pat answer, as the many professionals engaged in the production of the show all contribute substantially to the finished product. While the principal task of adapting the various historical sources into a coherent script falls to the writers— under the guidance of the show’s creator or showrunner—directors, actors, editors, and visual effects artists are responsible for actively transposing it from page to screen, and their decisions are of equal importance as they fill in the blanks left by the script and convey a material reality only alluded to previously: the visual rendition of dress, art, architecture, and all other elements constitutive of past societies are crucial to historical television shows and are rarely part of the screenplay or of the historical sources. The presence of a creator or a showrunner is essential for a show to develop a coherent identity, but he or she alone cannot be held accountable for all of the adaptational choices, regardless of creative control. One of the great feats performed by the team lead by Steven S. DeKnight, the show’s creator and co-showrunner, is that Spartacus stands as a coherent work of art with regard to its narrative progression, thematic development, and visual style, to the point that we can argue for the existence of a consistent authorial vision—an implied author. This is very helpful when it comes to offering a narratological analysis, as I attempt to do in the second part of my article, as questions of individual, extra-textual decision-making can be bypassed to a large extent. My interest here pertains to how the show proposes itself as a reliable rendition of the Third Servile War, with a focus on how it constructs its aesthetics, both as an allegedly autonomous text and in relation with its memorial intertexts. Astrid Erll has recently referred to long-standing narratives centered on the same subject, such as those of the Spartacan tradition, as “memory media,” in an attempt to go beyond the conceptual limitations of Pierre Nora’s lieu de memoire (memory site) terminology, particularly its static, spatial boundedness—its reliance on synchronic analysis of memory texts, which it takes as materially finite and unchanging (Memory in Culture 126). This is part of a larger shift within German cultural memory scholarship towards an interest in the dynamics 29

Spartacus in the Television Arena of memory, its encoding, transmission, and reception, one that takes into account “not just the social factors at work, but also the ‘medial frameworks’ of remembering (Erll 161) and the specifically medial processes through which memories come into the public arena and become collective” (Erll and Rigney 2). Such an approach proves salutary when analyzing a television show such as Spartacus, as it allows us to conceptualize it both as a product of cultural memory (drawing on the various discourses commonly associated with the historical event) and as a producer of cultural memory (re-encoding and transmitting a new version of a narrative that has come to be understood as foundational for a given community, so as to cater to its current needs). Or, as Ann Rigney would have it, as “both monuments and agents” (350). While I find Erll’s attempt at revisiting staid and problematic terminology felicitous, I am nevertheless forced to concede that her own turn of phrase proves confusingly repetitive when discussing both memorial and artistic mediality. As such, I cling to the term memory site to describe the Spartacan memorial tradition, although with the caveat that I do not conceive it as static or ahistorical. Memory sites—especially transnational ones like that of Spartacus—are in a continuous process of reinvention and contain a variety of competing discourses, the navigation of which must be endeavored by any would-be adapter. Towards a better understanding of the relationship between history and fiction, I propose drawing on Philippe Lejeune’s work on autobiography, including the existence of an historical pact between the producer and the consumer of historical fiction, which prefigures the text and the context of its circulation (17). By this I mean that the pact determines both how historical fiction is produced and how it is read, the various expectations and assumptions that have to be fulfilled for a given work of fiction to be read as authentically historical. The pact is, as I shall soon demonstrate, constantly negotiated and revised, changing with the society in which it is constituted. The reasons for this are many, but there are two that are most crucial. First, a change may occur in the understanding of the two main spheres involved, history and fiction; for example, a society where history is heavily institutionalized and seen as crucial for 30

The Remediation of Historical Narratives—Manea the identity formation of the individual will generally accept a lesser degree of fictionalization. Second, a change may occur in the information available about—or the appraisal of—the specific historical narrative that is adapted and the larger period in which it takes place; this is done not merely via historiography, but also via other medial adaptations, which shape the way we think about the past. The historical pact helps construct what Martin Winkler has called “the frame of the historically possible,” a phrase which I take to mean that which governs the amount of fictional invention that an audience will accept, as well as the kind of norms and values it will recognize as endemic to the period depicted (139). Foundational narratives—especially those understood as crucial for a given community—typically allow less room for invention and require that the norms and values they portray have a greater compatibility with those of the adaptation’s ideal audience. There is, of course, a continuum here, with religious texts like the Bible—whose value for the identity formation of a Christian or even post–Christian community is so great that very little invention is allowed—on one side, and memory sites such as that of Spartacus, which are well known, capable of serving as conduits for identity formation and often adapted, but which are nevertheless understood as less than essential and afforded a greater leeway in character invention, event selection, chronological ordering, and so on, on the other. Nevertheless, what unites the two is the audience’s assumption that they know how everything is going to turn out in the end, that the unimportant details of history may be changed or tweaked, but that the overall form and meaning will conform to what they remember. As such, there is a transgressive pleasure involved in breaking the historical pact, one recently exploited to great success by Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, and one which, by dint of its global popularity, has to a certain extent altered the rules of the historical pact. “To pull an Inglourious Basterds” (DeKnight “Spartacus Creator Steven DeKnight” [hereafter “Creator”]) has become a byword for such narrative choices, which, as DeKnight attests (“Spartacus Creator Stephen DeKnight on the Show’s Tumultuous History and Overall Legacy” [hereafter “Tumultuous”]), now serves as a conscious factor in the production and consumption of historical fiction. 31

Spartacus in the Television Arena

Spartacus as a Figure of Memory In 393 ce, a Roman Consul by the name of Symmachus wrote to his brother inveighing against a group of Saxon gladiators who had chosen to take their own lives rather than fight in the arena, by calling them “worse than Spartacus” (Stothard 10). About five years later the Greek scholar Synesius wrote to the Eastern Roman Emperor in an attempt at convincing him that barbarians have no place in the Roman army. To bolster his argument, he very briefly retells the story of Spartacus, asserting that “every slave [is] the enemy of his master when it appears possible to overthrow him” (Urbainczyk 87). What is interesting about these two references is that they are, to a certain extent, superfluous: the former a casual comparison, not further pondered, the latter a rhetorical flourish meant to figuratively equate the barbarians of the time to the rebels of the past. Plus, they both reveal that Spartacus was not just a figure of history, but one of memory: the comparison comes naturally to Symmachus (he does not need to explain it), and while Synesius feels it necessary to succinctly relate the events of the Third Servile War (perhaps twisting the historical record to suit his own purposes—Spartacus and Crixus are said to have escaped in Gaul, home of the Bagaudae, a group of peasant insurgents), he does seem to believe that stirring the memory of Spartacus in the emperor’s mind should be enough to convince him. Much like most of the ancient writers on Spartacus, these were welleducated men of the slave-owning class, and their distaste of the man is readily apparent. Without veering into outright speculation, it is very difficult to reckon how far the memory of Spartacus permeated the lower, less-educated classes. Yet for the tenor of this article it is enough to note that the Thracian gladiator still functioned as a memory site—at least among the aristocracy—almost 500 years after his death, one that was important enough to be retold across generations, and that could also be used to describe and prefigure current events. Following Erll, we may identify the two actions that govern “the inter-medial dynamics of cultural memory” as remediation and premediation: events significant to cultural memory are represented time and time again, across different media, and also serve to prefigure the representation of current and future events (“Literature, Film” 392). For Symmachus, the Third Servile 32

The Remediation of Historical Narratives—Manea War functions as a schema by which the barbarian tensions are made intelligible, and for Synesius, Spartacus functions as a benchmark by which to judge the deviant behavior of slaves. Remediation and premeditation are fundamental for the functioning of any narrative as a memory site; once they no longer work, the narrative is returned to the archive of history. This is what seems to have happened to Spartacus for more than one thousand years—as the Western Roman Empire fell, and its institution of slavery became less and less relevant, the figure of Spartacus appears to have been forgotten. Because there has yet to be an in-depth academic study on the transmission and reception of Spartacus in Byzantium and medieval Europe, I have been forced to rely on a number of works which touch upon the various adaptations of the Third Servile War.2 Yet my interest lies not so much in the individual adaptations or mentions, but in the various memory sites that have developed around the character and their own particular evolution and dissolution. The writings of Symmachus and Synesius afford us a glimpse at the original Spartacan memory site, near the end its life-span, but before its modern adoption and adaptation. It was a memory site that lasted more than 500 years and spanned many different media and genres, some of which remain to this day: histories, biographies, speeches, letters, and frescoes. In most of these, the man himself is cast as a villain, although some are more sympathetic. In general, it functions as a cautionary tale, enforcing a binary opposition between Roman and slave (of which Synesius takes advantage, as we have already seen) and using Spartacus as a kind of benchmark for unworthy behavior (“worse than Spartacus”). The importance of this memory site for modern adaptation is unquestionable; its constituent elements have represented the sources for almost all subsequent depictions of Spartacus. Until recently, the three most significant sources have been the writings of Plutarch, Appian, and Florus. This was primarily because of their wide availability, both in Latin (although Plutarch and Appian originally wrote in Greek) and in translation. Theresa Urbainczyk has convincingly argued for the singular importance of Plutarch to the formation of the Romantic image of Spartacus (95–105). Unlike other ancient historians, he eschews nearly all mentions of barbaric deeds done under the command of Spartacus 33

Spartacus in the Television Arena including, for example, Appian’s description of a sacrifice organized by Spartacus, where 300 Roman soldiers were slaughtered to honor the fall of Crixus (239). Instead, Plutarch offers us a Spartacus that is “a Thracian of Nomadic stock, possessed not only of great courage and strength, but also in sagacity and culture superior to his fortune, and more Hellenic than Thracian,” high praise indeed from a Greek historian writing for a predominantly Greek audience (234). As Urbainczyk argues, this is part of Plutarch’s rhetorical strategy of contrasting a man he deems as unworthy, Crassus, with an unusually sympathetic portrayal of his enemy. Due to Plutarch’s great influence in early modern Europe (Urbainczyk 93), the image of the Romantic Spartacus finds its way in the first modern adaptation of the historical narrative, Roger Boyle’s seventeenth-century oriental romance Parthenissa, whose aristocratic Parthian protagonist plays out the part of Spartacus while stranded in the Republic (Dunlop 408). Boyle is apparently much more interested in evoking Spartacus as a great warrior than as a revolutionary. Still, his work did not resonate with the English-speaking public, and Spartacus seems to have disappeared for at least one hundred more years. The second proper memory site centered around Spartacus and the Third Servile War comes into being in Enlightenment France, around the time of Voltaire, who describes the rebellion as a “just war, indeed the only just war in history” (qtd. in Urbainczyk 11). Nine years previously Bernard-Joseph Saurin had written a play about Spartacus, portraying him as one of the greatest fighters against absolutist tyranny. This resonated with the spirit of the time, and Spartacus soon became a vehicle of revolutionary sentiment appropriate for the formation of a new bourgeois identity. This all took place within the greater framework of Neoclassicism, which appropriated the symbolism of Republican Rome for its own ideological purposes (Shalev 114), with the important consideration that French Enlightenment thinkers believed the end of the Republic (as an object of admiration and emulation) came not with the formation of the Empire, but with Rome’s triumph in the Third Punic War and subsequent Mediterranean hegemony, which brought great wealth and avarice to the once virtuous Republic (Bokina 7). For the philosophes, the rot had then set in, and it was up to the enemies of Rome, with Spartacus occupying a privileged position, to serve as a cor34

The Remediation of Historical Narratives—Manea rective. The Third Servile War was thus made to function as a space where the reformist intellectuals of the time could project both themselves (in the position of Spartacus and his forces) and France (understood, much like Rome, as a once virtuous power that was now in need of reproof). This metaphorical projection, while heavily indebted to the logic of Neoclassicism, was also predicated on the privileged position of Rome in Western memory—the discursive formation which permitted and legitimated Neoclassicism in the first place, and which has allowed the survival and further development of Spartacus and of other similar memory sites after the nineteenth century. Spartacus now also returns to being a figure of memory and premediation. He becomes a conduit through which events are made intelligible. Little children are named after him as an augur of things to come (Bokina 7). The character of revolutionary leaders is divined by associating him with Spartacus: Toussaint L’Ouverture, for instance, is described as the “Black Spartacus” (Futrell 86). In Britain, the libertarian Spartacus gives way to the socialist one, as he is appropriated by the Chartist movement (Hunnings 3), and Marx embraces him as “a genuine exponent of the ancient proletariat” (qtd. in Wyke 48), thus assuring his place in the communist pantheon. In Italy, he becomes a forerunner of Garibaldian nationalism in Raffaello Giovagnoli’s novel Spartaco (Wyke 40), and in America he gives voice to the social tensions engendered by slavery in Robert Montgomery Bird’s The Gladiator (Wyke 57). These adaptations of Spartacus serve to naturalize their creators’ ideologies by making them appear older than they actually are and by associating them with something that is crucial for the cultural memory of their audience. Yet much like Spartacus, these remediations are not merely the product of an innocent adaptation of ancient historical accounts, but are constituted within something that we may call a memorial field: a place where the various discourses, representations, and memories concerning Spartacus and similar memory traditions intersect. To adapt Spartacus, one also has to adapt Rome, and to do so one must rely on recent conventions and prior representations. I explore this more indepth later, but a brief sketch of Spartacus’ memorial field at the time of its conception would have to include the historical sources, their most 35

Spartacus in the Television Arena recognizable remediation, Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus (1960), depictions of Roman life such as Gladiator (Ridley Scott, 2000) and the HBO series Rome (2005–2007), and incredibly influential renditions of ancient warfare such as 300 (Zack Snyder, 2006). These are just some of the memorial intertexts with which Starz’ Spartacus converses.

The Aesthetics of Spartacus: Between Familiarity and Estrangement As mentioned before, one of the triumphs of the television show is that it manages to give the impression of a coherent authorial vision. For the duration of its four series, Spartacus tackles a number of themes that are introduced in the first few episodes or that emerge organically, establishes consistent visual conventions of depicting reality, and observes a coherent narrative logic. Following James Phelan, we may refer to these three components as the thematic, the mimetic, and the synthetic (29). Now this is in itself no great feat; most television shows, in fact, achieve it to a greater or lesser extent, as audiences are quite willing to accept at least some degree of variety and incoherence, without faulting the showrunners. What makes Spartacus particularly successful is the way in which all three components cohere, forming a finished product that revolves around a parallel (Roman/slave) that is depicted across the three components, which is to say that the characters overtly discuss—and are also driven by—the distinction between Roman and slave, and that the visuals and narrative logic of the show further reinforce this parallel. This is done by a variety of formal techniques (crosscutting, the employment of different aesthetic codes for events which are to be viewed differently) and narrative techniques (ironic reversals, character plots whose progression mirror each other, and the use of simile as the central rhetorical trope). Yet Spartacus is not merely content to portray this parallel as an essential binary opposition, as many in its genre and memorial tradition have done, but actively attempts to deconstruct it, to reveal its sheer arbitrariness, and it does so without affording the majority of its characters this crucial insight. This is a bold, rewarding choice and one difficult to sustain: characters have to consider this binary valid and to act 36

The Remediation of Historical Narratives—Manea according to its logic, even as the audience is afforded knowledge of its invalidity. This means that some characters have to be granted greater knowledge of its vacuous nature and that they thus become potential moral centers—I say potential, since possessing this knowledge does not necessarily entail acting upon it. Ashur, for example, is a slave who dreams of becoming a Roman, realizes the possibility of doing so (and thus suggests the porousness between the two categories), but all of the actions he undertakes towards this goal nevertheless violate the show’s ethical system—and he is punished for it. Spartacus is a very traditional show in this regard: villains get their comeuppance, heroes survive or die honorably, and the logic of catharsis is observed. Yet there are a number of exceptions to this: Caesar and Crassus, for example, walk towards Rome, half triumphant, on a road strewn with crucified slaves, and the explanation for this is fairly straightforward: they existed and they survived. Spartacus is a show which is unwilling to break the historical pact—it might thrive on its particular tensions and indulge in the transgressive pleasure of suggesting such a violation (see, for example, the tense final battle between Spartacus and Crassus, which subverts our expectations numerous times), but it balks at egregiously rewriting its historical sources. DeKnight has called this adaptational approach “historically adjacent,” stating that he “didn’t want it to just fly off into fantasy land” (“Tumultuous”). In effect, this means that while Spartacus condenses events, invents ancillary characters, and tweaks the established historical record, it only does so to the extent that it does not irrevocably violate it: the dead still die (though perhaps in different places and at different times), and the living still live. To my mind, no other adaptation of Spartacus has been as respectful of its sources. We can, I believe, attribute this to two main factors: the growing availability of historical sources dealing with the subject matter and an increase in the cultural capital of (perceived) historical accuracy. The internet has revolutionized the way we access information, and particularly the ease with which we find it. Websites like Wikipedia offer informative reference articles that are at the top of Google’s search results, while others like Amazon allow buyers to trace down niche books. Testing a work’s historical accuracy has never been easier. To review Spartacus’ source texts, for example, one can easily order Win37

Spartacus in the Television Arena kler’s Spartacus: Film and History or Brent Shaw’s Spartacus and the Slave Wars or just search for online versions of the historical accounts, most of which are readily available. Such a cultural milieu necessarily alters not just the way audiences interact with historical fictions, but also the way that they are written. Spartacus, for instance, is the first adaptation that I know of to draw on the work of Frontinus, and this has resulted in some of the show’s most spectacular moments: the filling of the ditch that had trapped the rebel forces on the mountain ridge near Sinuessa with the bodies of those who had perished in the winter cold (“Mors Indecepta”), as well as an earlier scene where Spartacus decides to dress the fallen Romans of Sinuessa in rebel outfits to give the impression that they are still in the city, only to be thwarted by Caesar’s betrayal (“Blood Brothers”). Thus the two factors that I have mentioned above feed off each other; the growing availability of historical sources generates an increase in the demand for accuracy, while the inverse is likewise true, that the demand for accuracy suggests a deeper concern for available historical source material. Some of the films and television shows that have recently marketed themselves as historically accurate include King Arthur (2004), Robin Hood (2010), and Camelot (2011). The last one proves particularly edifying; its press release states: “‘Camelot’ will weave authenticity into a modern telling of the Arthur legends that is relatable to contemporary audiences” (starz.com). Thus it lays bare the logic behind its adaptational strategy: the show promises to be both authentic and relatable. Yet true historical authenticity presupposes the depictions of norms, mores, and rituals shocking to contemporary sensibilities, whose very rendition would prove unrelatable. Thus we have two very different types of pleasure: one that defamiliarizes modern audiences, portraying the past as truly foreign and strange, and one that renders it current and intelligible. These two approaches are manifestly contradictory: the strange and the familiar cannot be experienced at the same time, so a show whose agenda requires it to legitimate the discourses associated with a particular memory site cannot present it as foreign or unrelatable without risking contesting them. Yet since audiences have come to expect historical authenticity, it nevertheless has to navigate this paradox, so its 38

The Remediation of Historical Narratives—Manea adapters have to rely on something that I have previously called “the familiarly unfamiliar” in their attempt at harnessing the fertile tensions engendered by this dialectic (151). Consider the disclaimer that was aired before every episode of Spartacus: Spartacus depicts extreme sensuality, brutality and language that some viewers may find objectionable. The show is a historical portrayal of ancient Roman society and the intensity of the content is to suggest an authentic representation of that period [“The Red Serpent”].

Matt Feeney has argued in Slate (“Authenticus Maximus”) that the disclaimer serves to foreshadow the show’s postmodern attitude, but given the actual content of the show, I find such a position facile. The suggestion of authenticity is a function of nearly all historical fictions, and it seems difficult to me to fault the writers for owning up to it. In fact, what the disclaimer does is make manifest the tension that I have outlined above. The “familiarly unfamiliar” is an attempt at suggesting historical accuracy—at giving fiction the veneer of authenticity—without compromising the audience’s ability to relate to the world thus depicted. For narratives that are part of larger memory sites, such as Spartacus, this is what allows viewers to understand the fictional universe that the show constructs as both authentic and relevant to their current interests. The show employs a number of such familiarly unfamiliar features, some of which had already become conventions for encoding similar historical narratives. One such instance is the appropriation of the aesthetics of related popular entertainment to portray violent scenes of ancient warfare. This serves to make Spartacus’ own extreme use of violence more easily acceptable as authentic. Such graphic depictions include faces that are sliced off, swords going through the back of the neck and emerging through the mouth, jaws being so broken that they tear off from the rest of the face, intestines that spill out, blows that cause eyes to detach from the socket, or that cut the scalp right off, revealing the naked brain. Of particular interest is the representation of blood. The show often uses digital fake blood of a texture that borders on the painterly, and it spurts, leaks, and flows with great abandon; yet sometimes the show is more conservative in the digital manipulation of blood and it flows more naturally (or at the very least, in a manner with which we are accustomed from more traditional representations). 39

Spartacus in the Television Arena This particular remediation of the Spartacan memory site is thus encoded in two aesthetic registers, which are really two extremes of a generally coherent mimetic component, which could also be described as a continuum. The first belongs to Zack Snyder’s 300, and it is used to represent battle scenes that do not engage the emotions of the audience and are instead offered as vignettes to be aesthetically admired. It relies on a number of formal techniques, including the abundant use of slow motion, a digitally altered color palette, a score that includes elements of rock music, and ample use of digital effects that are markedly nonnaturalistic. These are evidence of a show that revels in the fakeness of its aesthetics. One such scene portrays Spartacus’ attack on a large wagon transporting Crassus’ supplies (“Blood Brothers”). It opens with an establishing shot of the Sicilian skyline, colored an unnatural reddishbrown; the mise-en-scène is stark and austere—there is scant vegetation and only one leafless tree pays testament to the possibility of life. In the center of the frame, roughly a dozen Roman soldiers are escorting a wagon, moving towards the camera. The soldiers are draped in the most recognizable signifier of Roman military prowess: the anachronistic lorica segmentata (a familiarizing touch that helps reconcile the show to our common perceptions of ancient warfare, even as it is historically inaccurate). The rebels then ambush the wagon from both sides of the frame, and the shot is constructed in a consciously artificial manner: the motion of the actors is slowed down or fast forwarded; blood flows artfully; and the Romans are dispatched one by one, to the beat of drums and guitar riffs. The soldiers are all wearing helmets and are visually indistinguishable—a sign that their lives are narratively meaningless and that their sole purpose is to offer the main characters a chance to shine. As Sanus bludgeons a Roman to death, his blood spurting upwards in slow motion, the audience is made to feel neither pity for the Romans nor apprehension that that our heroes may fall. Instead, the audience merely experiences an aesthetically pleasing rendition of warfare. Yet why do such ostensibly defamiliarizing formal techniques not open a space of ethical engagement? Why do they not make us ponder the actions of our heroes, and why do they not, in Bertolt Brecht’s words, “free socially-conditioned phenomena from that stamp of familiarity which protects them from our grasp today?” (192). 40

The Remediation of Historical Narratives—Manea I think one answer lies in the fact that they have become conventions of representing ancient warfare and have colonized our cultural memory to such an extent that they cannot achieve defamiliarization, but merely suggest it; they have become familiarly unfamiliar. A short list of films that have followed in 300’s aesthetic footsteps includes Clash of the Titans (2010), Immortals (2011), and The Legend of Hercules (2014). Even the extremely popular Turkish television soap, Muhtesem Yüzyil (Magnificent Century, 2013), has made use of this aesthetic register to portray the conquest of Belgrade (1521), as it is well suited for small budget productions: the non-naturalistic quality of the visual effects helps mask the absence of imposing vistas or large crowds. Yet there is, I reckon, another answer to my questions, which is that an ethical engagement cannot be engendered by aesthetics alone. It has to be present on the thematic and the synthetic levels, as well: the killing of the Roman soldiers is never discussed again (nor are we shown a scene of them leaving their families beforehand or anything else that could potentially humanize them), and their sole narrative function is to be beautifully defeated by the rebels. As such, the vignette manages to ward off anything that could allow the viewer to see it as something more than an object of aesthetic admiration. The second aesthetic register belongs to more conservative Hollywood productions and is used in scenes that are supposed to engage the emotions of the audience and perhaps generate catharsis. The color palette becomes more naturalistic, the use of slow-motion more restrained, the music forfeits guitar riffs for operatic choruses, and even the blood spills more realistically. Perhaps the most apt example of this is the climactic battle between the rebels and the Romans (“Victory”). As the two forces clash, the camera always follows the main characters, adrift in a sea of friends and foes alike. It captures their anguished expressions and invites us to identify with them—and the world around them enables such identification. The mise-en-scène is as naturalistic as Spartacus gets: the colors are vivid, yet believable; the digital effects are kept to a bare minimum; and the ever-present blood adheres to the laws of physics. Slow motion is employed sparingly, and even then it is of a variety that I would hazard to call intradiegetic, meant to suggest a character’s own experience of time. As main characters die one by one 41

Spartacus in the Television Arena (their heads conveniently unobstructed by helmets), the camera closes in on them and their comrades: Saxa experiences Lugo’s death; Nasir, Castus’; and Gannicus, Saxa’s and Naevia’s. Whether by having both of them in the same shot or by cutting from one to the other, the show establishes that these lives are worth mourning. We pity them and fear for the ones who still live, but we are so engrossed that we are not afforded the opportunity to question the validity of what we are witnessing—we remain within the realm of the familiar. Spartacus as a whole is a show that depends on the audience identifying with its characters. The language they use might first appear strange, an English whose grammar gives up its articles and pronouns and whose vocabulary trades “thank you” for “gratitude” in an attempt at approximating the feel of Latin, but the ideas and feelings they express soon reveal themselves as convincingly modern. For the duration of the show’s final season, two characters function as the moral centers of the two opposing factions: Spartacus and Crassus. Both of them are shown to have some awareness of the show’s primary ethical standpoint, that the binary opposition between the factions has no natural basis, that it is merely the result of an ideological naturalization by Roman hegemonic practices, intended to maintain their privileged position in society, and that this opposition has been preserved and merely inverted by the rebel slaves. Crassus displays it in the episode where he is introduced, “Enemies of Rome,” as he trains with the purchased gladiator Hilarus. His son, Tiberius, arrogantly dismisses this practice as being beneath him, as slaves are by their very nature less worthy than Romans. Crassus counters by giving him the example of Spartacus and by arguing that, “He’s a man. No better or worse than any sharing title” (“Enemies of Rome”). Tiberius scoffs at the idea, but his father decides to make him fight Hilarus to prove that he is wrong. The boy is easily trounced, and the invalidity of the binary is reinforced for the audience. Another example of Crassus’ greater awareness is his relationship with his slave Kore, as he invites her to accompany him on his campaign against Spartacus, where their romantic relationship can continue without his wife’s interference. He asks her not to call him “dominus,” but to relate to him as she would to “a man” (“Wolves at the Gate”). Again, Crassus is revealed as someone whose insight allows him to see beyond the façade 42

The Remediation of Historical Narratives—Manea of the Roman/slave binary. Yet such clarity of vision does not necessarily imply ethical action: his entire purpose is his own social elevation. As such, he is similar to Spartacus’ two other antagonists, Batiatus and Glaber, but unlike them, Crassus is one of the characters whom the show cannot afford to kill without breaking the historical pact, and thus it has to devise other means of punishing him: the death of his son; the realization that his decisions played a part in the boy’s transformation into a monster; his decision to crucify Kore (whom he still loves) to save face. Spartacus echoes similar sentiments. Before the final battle, he eloquently claims “that all who draw breath are of equal worth,” and his actions throughout the show mostly confirm his belief in this statement (“Victory”). Spartacus’ main interest is not the crushing defeat of Rome or vengeance for the sake of vengeance, but rather the survival and escape of the former slaves. He tries to stop his soldiers from taking innocent Roman lives and he is visibly horrified when they do (“Decimation”). He starts a romantic relationship with Laeta, even though she is of Roman birth. He sees value in the Roman blacksmith Attius. On a rhetorical level, the show thus constructs a simile between Spartacus and Crassus. They both have similar meteoric rises, they both understand the inherent value of human life, and they both care for people from the other side of the binary. The show reinforces this simile by having them meet each other as equals before the final fight. Yet what makes Spartacus a protagonist and Crassus an antagonist is the simple fact that Spartacus desires to topple a corrupt system, rather than profit from it. Spartacus thus proposes itself as a relevant and relatable rendition of the Third Servile War by camouflaging its presentist outlook under a veneer of historical authenticity. The show makes use of a number of conventions of representing reality. Depending on its dramatic agenda, Spartacus may opt for a style that emphasizes the artistic beauty of what we are witnessing or that makes it easier for audiences to identify with the characters. Yet what both extremes have in common is that they make the unfamiliar, the strange, and the historical feel relevant and relatable—they enable us to project our own ways of seeing and understanding the world upon the past. 43

Spartacus in the Television Arena

Notes 1. I am referring to Spartacus: An International Gay Guide, a travel book aimed at gay men, which was first published in 1970 and which still enjoys relative success to this day (Waitt and Markwell 66). 2. For an extended discussion on the circulation of Spartacus in the modern era, I recommend Wyke, Urbainczyk, Bokina, and Futrell, on whose work I draw here.

Works Cited Appian. “The Civil Wars 1.14.111 and 116–121.1.” Spartacus: Film and History. Ed. and Trans. Martin M. Winkler. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007. 238–40. Print. Assmann, Jan. Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997. Print. “Blood Brothers.” Spartacus: War of the Damned. Writ. Alison Miller. Dir. T.J. Scott. Starz. 1 Mar 2013. Television. Bokina, John. “Spartacus in the Enlightenment.” The Midwest Political Science Association. Palmer House, Chicago. 20 Apr 2006. All Academic. Web. 25 Jun 2012. Brecht, Bertolt. “A Short Organum for the Theatre.” Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic. Trans. John Willett. London: Methuen, 1992. 179–205. Print. “Decimation.” Spartacus: War of the Damned. Writ. Seamus Kevin Fahey. Dir. Michael Hurst. Starz. 22 Feb 2013. Television. DeKnight, Steven S. “Spartacus Creator Steven DeKnight.” Interview by Ryan McGee. The A.V. Club. Onion, 30 Mar 2012. Web. 26 Jan 2014. _____. “Spartacus Creator Steven DeKnight on the Show’s Tumultuous History and Overall Legacy.” Interview by Ryan McGee. The A.V. Club. Onion, 15 Apr 2013. Web. 26 Jan 2014. Dunlop, John. The History of Fiction. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1825. Web. 26 Jan 2014. “Enemies of Rome.” Spartacus: War of the Damned. Writ. Stephen S. DeKnight. Dir. Mark Beesley. Starz. 25 Jan 2013. Television. Erll, Astrid. “Literature, Film and the Mediality of Cultural Memory.” Cultural Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook. Ed. Astrid Erll and Ansgar Nünning. Berlin: Walter De Gruyter, 2008. 389–399. Print. _____. Memory in Culture. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Print. Erll, Astrid, and Ann Rigney. “Introduction: Cultural Memory and Its Dynamics.” Mediation, Remediation, and the Dynamics of Cultural Memory. Berlin: Walter De Gruyter, 2009. 1–11. Print. Feeney, Matt. “Authenticus Maximus: Making Sense of the Bloodiest Postmodern Show on Television, Spartacus.” Slate. 12 Oct. 2010. Web. 15 Dec. 2014. Frontinus. “Strategies 1.5.20–22 and 7.6, 2.4.7 and 5.34.” Spartacus: Film and History. Ed. and Trans. Martin M. Winkler. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007. 245. Print. Futrell, Alison. “Seeing Red: Spartacus as Domestic Economist.” Imperial Projections: Ancient Rome in Modern Popular Culture. Ed. Sandra R. Joshel, Margaret Malamud, and Donald T. McGuire. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. 77–118. Print.

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The Remediation of Historical Narratives—Manea Hunnings, Leanne. “Spartacus in Nineteenth Century England: Proletarian, Pole and Christ.” Remaking the Classics: Literature, Genre and Media in Britain 1800– 2000. Ed. Christopher Stray. London: Duckworth, 2007. 1–20. Print. Hutcheon, Linda. A Theory of Adaptation. New York: Routledge, 2006. Print. Leitch, Thomas M. “Twelve Fallacies in Contemporary Adaptation Theory.” Criticism 45.2 (2003): 149–71. Print. Lejeune, Philippe. On Autobiography. Trans. Paul John Eakin. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989. Print. Manea, Dragoş. “The Shadow upon the Screen: Merlin (2008–2012) and the Matter of Britain.” University of Bucharest Review 3.2 (2013). 146–154. Print. “Mors Indecepta.” Spartacus: War of the Damned. Writ. David Kob and Mark Leitner. Dir. Jesse Warn. 15 Mar 2013. Television. Muhtesem Yüzyil. Dir. Durul Taylan and Yagmur Taylan. Perf. Meryem Uzerli and Halit Ergenç. Kanal D, 2013. DVD. Phelan, James. Narrative as Rhetoric: Technique, Audiences, Ethics, Ideology. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1996. Print. Plutarch. “Crassus 8–11 and Pompey 21.1–2.” Spartacus: Film and History. Ed. and Trans. Martin M. Winkler. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007. 234–37. Print. Rigney, Ann. “The Dynamics of Remembrance: Texts Between Monumentality and Morphing.” Cultural Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook. Ed. Astrid Erll and Ansgar Nünning. Berlin: Walter De Gruyter, 2008. 345– 355. Print. Rome: The Complete Collection. Prod. Bruno Heller. Perf. Kevin McKidd and Ray Stevenson. Warner Home Video, 2007. DVD. Shalev, Eran. “Empire Transformed: Britain in the American Classical Imagination, 1758–1783.” Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 4.1 (2006): 112– 46. Web. 26 Jan 2014. Spartacus. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Kirk Douglas and Laurence Olivier. Universal Pictures, 2006. Film. Spartacus: The Complete Collection. Prod. Steven S. DeKnight. Perf. Liam McIntyre and Andy Whitfield. Anchor Bay Entertainment, 2013. DVD. Stothard, Peter. Spartacus Road: A Journey Though Ancient Italy. New York: Overlook, 2010. Print. 300. Dir. Zack Snyder. Perf. Gerard Butler and Lena Headey. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2007. Film. Urbainczyk, Theresa. Spartacus. London: Duckworth, 2004. Print. “Victory.” Spartacus: War of the Damned. Writ. Stephen S. DeKnight. Dir. Rick Jacobson. Starz. 12 Apr 2013. Television. Waitt, Gordon, and Kevin Markwell. Gay Tourism: Culture and Context. New York: Haworth Press, 2006. Print. Winkler, Martin M. “Cinema and the Fall of Rome.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 125 (1995): 135–54. Web. 26 Jan 2014. “Wolves at the Gate.” Spartacus: War of the Damned. Writ. Aaron Helbing and Todd Helbing. Dir. Jesse Warn. Starz. 1 Feb 2013. Television. Wyke, Maria. Projecting the Past: Ancient Rome, Cinema, and History. New York: Routledge, 1997. Print.

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“It is for history to decide” The Story Space of the Spartacus Series James Klima “History narratives,” or dramatic works that are based on historical events, face the constant challenge of creating compelling content while managing audience expectations regarding the accurate portrayal of those events (Munslow 5). Starz television’s Spartacus franchise was no different. Based on events that took place nearly 2,100 years ago, its four seasons depicted the journey of characters whose ultimate fates are effortlessly accessible—even a quick glance at the Wikipedia entry for the “Third Servile War” reveals the demise of all of the main characters in the series. Yet, precisely because the narrative was driven by events that took place so long ago, the series had an escape hatch: an incomplete historical record. While a central character’s tragic destiny could be easily discovered, even ancient historical accounts do not provide specifics on the figure’s path toward that destiny. Spartacus, accordingly, was free to insert additional characters and events into the narrative without running afoul of the historical record of its protagonists’ real-world lives. In fact, the series succeeded in using its non-fictional backdrop as a source of added tension for its fictional characters. The past therefore played an expanded role beyond merely dictating the resolution of the narrative. In consuming a history narrative, the audience must recognize that 46

The Story Space of the Spartacus Series—Klima “the past” and “history” are “separate entities or categories” (Munslow 9). The past “is what once was, is no more and has gone for good” (Munslow 9). History, meanwhile, “is a narrative representation of past reality that specifically recognizes the sequential and temporal relationships that exist in and between ‘the real,’ ‘the story’ and ‘its telling’” (Munslow 17). The world this narrative representation depicts is the story space— “the world of the once real past … as imaged (i.e., fictively constructed) by the historian and which the history consumer is invited to visit” (Munslow 18). A story space functions “to give a form to and meaning for the past for reasons that have little to do with the past itself, but everything to do with history as an authored narrative creation” (Munslow 20). While the story space clearly must reference “a part of the once real world,” in giving meaning to that reference, the historian is free to make several artistic choices; importantly, “new information can be added and old information reconsidered” (Munslow 17). Assuredly, “all the details [of the past] are honestly researched according to the available evidence,” but in fitting the past into a particular story space, the historian makes history “an aesthetic, figural representation” of the past, not a simple statement of it (Munslow 19, 92). In short, the story space “reflects upon the actuality of the past while acknowledging the intellectual commitments of the author-historian to their particular story space vision for the past” (Munslow 18). A story space therefore helps the historian do two things: “explain what happened in the past as a story and what it means as history” (Munslow 43). Yet the first function is of lesser importance in certain story spaces. Generally, author-historians “acknowledge that ‘what happened,’ though important, is no more important than any other feature of the story space” (such as the setting or time period in which the narrative is set) (Munslow 18). This is especially true whenever an audience consumes a history narrative with a prior understanding of “what happened,” as was the case with the Spartacus franchise. Indeed, series creator Steven S. DeKnight recognized as much when he analogized the story of the Third Servile War to that of the Titanic: “[the Spartacus saga] is not unlike the story of the Titanic. It’s no big secret the boat will sink. It’s how you get there that keeps the audience invested” (Logan). One might think that the Spartacus story space was therefore prin47

Spartacus in the Television Arena cipally concerned with giving meaning to the past. Yet, precisely because the audience was aware of the unfortunate ends its favorite characters would meet, it formed an expectation regarding the accurate depiction of “what happened” upon which the series had to deliver. Hence, managing audience expectations became the second important function of the story space. The Spartacus story space cleverly used the audience’s knowledge of the past to serve the dual ends of imparting meaning and managing audience expectations, and it did so in three ways: the story space 1) expanded beyond the historical record in introducing additional characters; 2) used the historical record to foreshadow the fates of both fictional and non-fictional characters; and 3) deviated from the historical record to preserve the logic and flow of the narrative. More than the mere arena in which the history narrative unfolded, the Spartacus story space was wielded as a pivotal storytelling weapon.

Expanding the Story Space Beyond the Historical Record A history narrative “aims to be an accurate representation” of the past (Munslow 29). Yet it is not an exact replication of it, for the authorhistorian’s story space “is the site of all kinds of possibilities and imaginaries” (Munslow 18). An author-historian wishes to learn all of the “useful things” about the past, but also wishes “to experiment” (Munslow 19). Experimentation is particularly possible when there are gaps within the historical record. Such a situation happens, for example, where historians have noted a major event (such as the death of an historical figure) but have not provided many of the details concerning what led to it; alternatively, the historical record might briefly mention a certain individual’s involvement but not give any background information on him or her. There are many such gaps in the historical accounts of the Third Servile War. The story space of the Spartacus franchise accordingly expanded beyond the historical record in giving its narrative meaning— all while retaining an air of plausibility. As a preliminary example, the historical record is clear that Gannicus was a general in Spartacus’ army who was eventually killed in battle (Strauss 165). Yet, ancient sources 48

The Story Space of the Spartacus Series—Klima did not provide any details of his life before the Third Servile War began. There is no record of him even being a slave, much less a gladiator Champion of Capua. By having Gannicus win his freedom several years before the start of the Third Servile War, the series was able to weave into his story such fictional characters as Melitta, Tullius, and Attius. Moreover, the series provided a plausible explanation as to why no record exists of Gannicus’ time in captivity: it happened too long before the war for it to seem relevant to ancient historians. Perhaps the most significant expansion beyond the historical record was the addition of Gaius Julius Caesar in Spartacus: War of the Damned. Caesar was in his late twenties at the time of the Third Servile War of 73–71 bce, and not much is known about this period of his life. He sailed to study in Rhodes in 75 bce (Suetonius 10), and was elected a military tribune around 72 bce (McManus; Suetonius 11). There is then a gap in the historical record until 69 bce, when Caesar was elected quaestor (Freeman 51). It therefore was plausible that he was involved in the war against Spartacus in some capacity. Indeed, modern historians agree that “Caesar probably fought in the campaign against Spartacus” (Freeman 45) and that “Caesar may well have served under Crassus and if so it would mark the first known connection between the two men” (Goldsworthy 79). Given that Caesar is one of the most famous individuals in all of history, nearly all Spartacus audience members likely knew of his future glories. Counterintuitively, this knowledge led to increased suspense in viewing his scenes in the series. Caesar, portrayed as a man as skilled with a sword as he is with women, naturally became a bitter rival to Gannicus, whose improbable gladiatorial victories earned him the title of “God of the Arena” and whose charm captured the heart of seemingly every woman in the Republic. They dueled four times throughout Spartacus: War of the Damned. Their first bout was with wooden training swords, and Caesar had to conceal his true sword-fighting ability since he was disguised as a rebel. During each of the remaining three clashes, however, viewers bit their fingernails because history dictated Caesar’s survival—either by killing Gannicus, or through a nonfatal defeat. The show fulfilled the audience’s wish for the latter outcome in their first three matches. When their swords met for the final time in 49

Spartacus in the Television Arena “Victory,” the series finale, the audience, aware that Caesar’s journey was far from over, expected Caesar to slay the former Champion of Capua. While Gannicus did meet his end, Caesar required substantial assistance—an unsurprising result brought about in a surprising manner. The unexpected unfolding of their final bout revealed the overarching effect of Caesar’s presence on the audience. Dueling as two among tens of thousands of rebels and Romans, Gannicus and Caesar were each fully prepared for what Caesar called a “true contest”—unlike their two previous matches, when one caught the other off-guard (“Victory”). Gannicus was about to preserve his pristine record against the future dictator when a horde of Roman soldiers suddenly appeared, surrounding the Celt with their shields. Gannicus ferociously swung his sword even after they brought him to his knees, but was knocked unconscious and crucified. Caesar’s role in the death of Gannicus paralleled his role in that of Crixus two episodes prior. He and Crixus were also in the heat of open battle, and Crixus, with Caesar on his backside after a vicious head-butt, raised his blade in preparation of a slash that would have changed the course of history. However, a spear was thrust toward Crixus’ back from off-screen and pierced his gut. Caesar narrowly escaped death several times throughout Spartacus: War of the Damned, and in so doing decimated the rebel army by indirectly causing the deaths of two of its most important generals. The inclusion of Caesar in the not-so-subtly-titled final season of the Spartacus franchise therefore had two effects on the audience. First, he intensified the sense of impending doom every time he faced off against one of the rebel gladiators—and the collective pulse of the audience skyrocketed in response. Second, and primarily, his presence emphasized the overwhelming nature of the Roman army the rebels dared to defeat. In a one-on-one matchup—even in a three-on-one matchup—the former Champions of Capua were unbeatable. They became tragically heroic in the eyes of the audience because history, acting as Caesar’s guardian angel, could not be stopped. Including Caesar in the Spartacus story space therefore both imparted meaning (history has doomed the rebels) and managed audience expectations (Caesar must live, and hence whoever faces him in battle must die).1 Plus, as demonstrated, his real-life counterpart prob50

The Story Space of the Spartacus Series—Klima ably was involved in the Spartacus war. This expansion of the story space beyond the historical record was therefore not an implausible one. Yet, history narratives are not subject to the “conventional restraints of probability or possibility” (Hutcheon 106). Indeed, author-historians often turn to “fictional representation to create imaginative versions of their historical, real worlds” (Hutcheon 106). One way in which the Spartacus franchise fictionalized its story space was with the addition of fictional characters. While Caesar underscored the external hardship facing the gladiator-generals, a flock of fictional characters stressed their internal battles. Consider the fictional Romans who came to understand and support the plight of the rebel slaves, such as Lucius Caelius and Laeta. The first Roman to support the rebel cause, Lucius Caelius represented the rebels’ temptation to “sell out” Spartacus. Although he had aided Spartacus in providing the rebels shelter, Lucius was given an opportunity to regain the land a ruthless military general had seized from him over a decade ago—but only if Lucius were to lead Glaber and his army to the rebels’ location. He declined, believing that Spartacus’ cause was of much greater importance than his personal desires—and, it turned out, his own life. A similar offer was presumably available to any rebel: aid in bringing about Spartacus’ end, and be treated mercifully and perhaps even forgiven. Indeed, Glaber explicitly made such an offer to the rebels in the finale of Spartacus: Vengeance. A reasonable person, in the position of the rebels or of Lucius, would think it doubtful that Glaber would have actually honored his offer—but that is precisely the point. Lucius Caelius represented the temptation of regaining what was lost, while the rebels, starving and losing hope atop Vesuvius, were tempted with the avoidance of loss. Temptation of either sort often clouds reason. Yet, no matter which temptation the audience believed was greater, both were still of secondary importance to Spartacus’ cause of collective freedom. Like Lucius Caelius,2 Laeta was betrayed by her people and consequently became sympathetic to Spartacus and his cause. She began Spartacus: War of the Damned as the privileged wife of a Roman politician and ended it as an enemy of Rome who provided Spartacus with “comfort” (“Victory”). Spartacus, although aware by then that he could never 51

Spartacus in the Television Arena offer any woman his heart, could not deny the chemistry between them. Laeta’s involvement with Spartacus demonstrated that Spartacus was not biased against all Romans, as perhaps most of his peers were—and as most Romans were against all slaves. It also offered a glimpse into what might have been a loving relationship, one denied by the Romans who ignited Spartacus’ inner strife. The audience, in turn, grew more sympathetic to his cause every time its collective heart ached for his broken one. Ashur occupied the opposite end of the spectrum. A fictional Syrian character who was more Roman than rebel, Ashur lived for himself and himself alone. He came to the ludus of the House of Batiatus as a recruit who had—in the words he used to describe his fellow recruit, Crixus— “dreams of blood and glory” (“Past Transgressions”). Yet, unlike Crixus, who humbly learned from his mistakes against more seasoned gladiators, Ashur hungered for instant glory. Whereas Crixus would rise to claim the title of Champion of Capua, Ashur resorted to backstabbing and scheming to make up for his lack of gladiatorial skill and an injury sustained in the arena. Indeed, Ashur’s deviousness rivaled that of Romans such as Batiatus who wanted to ascend the social ladder. The fictional character of Ashur therefore revealed that anyone could possess the traits that perpetuated Rome’s “me-first” society of slavery and excess. The ones who never displayed those traits—who never succumbed to the urge to self-serve at any cost—were the true rebels whose deaths the audience could justly feel were undeserved. Lucius Caelius, Laeta, and Ashur are but three of many fictional characters who populated the Spartacus story space. Unlike the inclusion of Caesar, whose presence within the story space both imparted meaning and managed audience expectations, the presence of a fictional character by itself cannot serve those dual ends. There was a purpose behind every major fictional character the series introduced, as the above sampling helped to establish. Yet a fictional character cannot be used to manage audience expectations precisely because the character is fictional; the audience has no basis from which to form an expectation regarding the character. The next section of this essay, however, addresses one way such a basis can be established: through the use of foreshadowing. 52

The Story Space of the Spartacus Series—Klima

The Past as a Foreshadowing Device Foreshadowing is a simple literary device “that consists in evoking in advance an event that will take place later” (Lothe 55). In other words, it evokes “a story-event at a point before earlier events have been narrated” (Lothe 56). Once those events begin to unfold, the audience “interprets what [it] learn[s] about them in light of ” the information the foreshadowing imparted (56). Despite its simplicity, therefore, foreshadowing can have a powerful effect upon the audience’s understanding of a narrative. The Spartacus series made extensive use of foreshadowing, especially in reference to the historical record. Specifically, the series foreshadowed the death of a character by connecting that character to another, non-fictional one who had already fallen. The story space accordingly was no longer merely the figurative space in which the narrative was revealed. In effect, one portion of the story space—the past— became part of the narrative. The connection between two characters often was made via dialogue. One character would repeat a phrase first uttered by another, nonfictional character who had already been slain by the time the phrase was repeated. The two occasions in which this form of foreshadowing occurred both involved the character Quintus Lentulus Batiatus. The first instance had its origins in the Spartacus: Blood and Sand episode “Revelations.” Batiatus in that episode sought to gain political and financial patronage from Gaius Claudius Glaber, who at the time was a legatus. Batiatus, a lowly life-long lanista, faced an uphill battle in his dream of entering Roman politics because of his inferior social status. Glaber, himself campaigning for the higher office of praetor, would have been able to significantly aid Batiatus, but he refused to do so. Naturally, Batiatus then blackmailed Glaber into granting patronage. An enraged Glaber grumbled, “You forget your place, lanista!” Batiatus replied, “No, I secure it” (“Revelations”). In attempting to climb beyond his station “to the very steps of the Senate itself,” Batiatus schemed his way to patronage, but was slain in the following episode by Spartacus, whose wife was a victim of that scheming, in the massacre that began the Third Servile War (“Old Wounds”). Ashur also aspired above his rank and paid the ultimate price for 53

Spartacus in the Television Arena it. At the beginning of Spartacus: Vengeance, he was a lone wolf. His treachery toward Barca, Crixus, Naevia, and Oenomaus in Spartacus: Blood and Sand made him an exile among the brotherhood. Yet the Romans did not trust him either. Ashur tried to gain Glaber’s support by aiding him in his efforts to locate Spartacus and his band of rebels and bring them to justice. As those attempts to curry favor bore fruit, Ashur’s ambitions swelled—he even maneuvered to take over Batiatus’ ludus and claim Lucretia, Batiatus’ widow, as his wife. Lucretia confronted Ashur in the Spartacus: Vengeance episode “Chosen Path” and attempted to bring him to heel by saying, “You forget your place.” Ashur quickly replied, “No, I secure it” (“Chosen Path”). Naevia beheaded him four episodes later in the Spartacus: Vengeance finale, “Wrath of the Gods.” Repeating this exchange of dialogue in a similar context served two purposes. Primarily, it reinforced the overarching theme of the Spartacus franchise: everyone, Roman or rebel, is a slave to someone or something. Gannicus efficiently summarized this theme in Spartacus: Vengeance by noting, “No man is ever truly free” (“Sacramentum”). Ashur and the Romans were figuratively shackled within the Roman political and social structure. In Spartacus: Vengeance, Ashur answered to Glaber, who in turn answered to the Senate; likewise, in Spartacus: War of the Damned, Caesar was the “word and will” of Crassus, and although Crassus had sole command as imperator, the Senate had the power to decide who would receive credit for winning the war (“The Dead and the Dying”). A Roman who attempted to ascend the political and social hierarchy required the aid of those higher up the ladder. However, because of the zero-sum nature of the hierarchy, such a person simultaneously stood as a threat. Indeed, any attempt to achieve one’s desires became its own form of rebellion in the Spartacus franchise. Another purpose of this repetition was to foreshadow Ashur’s death. Because Ashur was a fictional character, the audience could in no way form an educated expectation regarding his fate beyond mere speculation without the show foreshadowing it. Batiatus, on the other hand, was not. History dictated that his gladiators revolt and escape from his ludus, but ancient historians did not note whether he was killed during the breakout (Plutarch 60). The show therefore could not fore54

The Story Space of the Spartacus Series—Klima shadow the death of Ashur—or any character for that matter—during Spartacus: Blood and Sand by linking him to the fate of Batiatus for the simple reason that the dominus’ death was not an historical certainty. Waiting until Spartacus: Vengeance, after the depiction of Batiatus’ killing, to make a connection between the two strengthened the degree to which an astute audience member could expect Ashur’s eventual death. Moreover, killing Batiatus in the finale of Spartacus: Blood and Sand plausibly closed a gap in the historical record. The character of Batiatus is particularly noteworthy because the series portrayed him as a villain in Spartacus: Blood and Sand, but shined the spotlight on his younger, more benevolent (or, perhaps more accurately, less malevolent) self ’s descent into treachery in the prequel season, Spartacus: Gods of the Arena. The series cleverly used dialogue to not only link Ashur, who was undoubtedly a villain, to the evil Batiatus of Spartacus: Blood and Sand, but also to connect its hero, Spartacus, to the morally rotting Batiatus of Spartacus: Gods of the Arena. This second instance of dialogue-driven foreshadowing originated in the finales of Spartacus: Gods of the Arena and Spartacus: Vengeance. Batiatus, in the Spartacus: Gods of the Arena finale entitled “The Bitter End,” sought vengeance against Tullius, the man he held responsible for the poisoning death of his father. With the aid of a few of his gladiators and his friend (and soon-to-be rival) Solonius, Batiatus kidnapped Tullius and brought him into an empty corridor within the newly erected arena. Realizing that there was no bargaining or scheming his way out, Tullius confidently yet maddeningly foretold, “There will be an accounting, Batiatus—for this, and everything that follows. The Gods will see to it someday.” A smirking Batiatus countered with, “Yes— but not this one” (“The Bitter End”). He then stabbed Tullius and had his men do the same, before enclosing him inside a stone wall in the arena. Likewise, Spartacus exacted his revenge on Glaber, the man who condemned him and his wife to slavery, in “Wrath of the Gods.” After leading the rebels in a surprise attack against Glaber’s army, Spartacus found his way to the praetor, engaged him in combat, and penetrated Glaber’s breastplate with his sword. A dying Glaber prophesied, “Rome will send legions in my wake, and one day soon, you shall fall to deserved 55

Spartacus in the Television Arena end!” Spartacus replied, “Perhaps—yet it is not this day,” and plunged his sword down Glaber’s throat (“Wrath of the Gods”). This repetition of a similar exchange of dialogue in a similar context (here, the fulfillment of vengeance) again served foreshadowing purposes: it foretold a likely grim fate for the Thracian gladiator. The body of the real-life Spartacus was never found, and he was simply presumed dead after his final confrontation with Crassus’ army (Appian 1.120). Fans of the show, even those cognizant of ancient Roman history, therefore may have hoped to see a happy ending in which Spartacus escaped Rome’s grasp—an ending which would not be implausibly inconsistent with the historical record. The typical history narrative “asserts that its world is both resolutely fictive and yet undeniably historical” (Hutcheon 142). Most “blur the line between fiction and history” (Hutcheon 113). Ending the series with Spartacus’ escape amidst rumors of his death, as a potential yet highly unlikely conclusion, would have blurred the line between undeniably fictional and passably historical. Linking Spartacus to the fallen Batiatus closed the door on that possible ending. Mere minutes before the Glaber/Spartacus exchange, Ashur was beheaded, confirming any hunches that arose from the Batiatus/Ashur foreshadowing. In other words, fulfilling the Batiatus/Ashur prophecy lent credibility to the Batiatus/Spartacus one. Troping is “a basic human intellectual faculty through which we ascribe meaning to events (past and present) in terms of similarity or difference” (Munslow 35). Further, “understanding action demands telling a story”; only by considering action as a text can history and, indeed, action itself be understood (Munslow 31). Taken alone, the underhanded acts of Ashur and Batiatus, and the gory and violent acts of Spartacus and Batiatus, seem little more than moments of personal satisfaction for those characters. Batiatus’ vengeance against Tullius was even misplaced, which hence rendered his action pointless—Batiatus was unaware that Tullius was not the individual responsible for the death of his father. Yet when those acts are linked across the story space so that their similarities can be highlighted, audience expectations can be formed and meaning can be imparted. Foreshadowing can thus be used to advance both purposes of a story space. 56

The Story Space of the Spartacus Series—Klima The series similarly used dialogue as simple, stand-alone foreshadowing of events in the historical record that had yet to be depicted. For example, before leaving the ludus in the finale of Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, a guilt-ridden Gannicus reminded Oenomaus, who was unaware that Gannicus had coupled with his late wife, that Melitta loved him “above all others.” Oenomaus replied, “The thought shall keep me warm until I join her in the afterlife” (“The Bitter End”). Gannicus, embracing his brother for what he believed was the final time, said, “And I shall meet you both there” (“The Bitter End”). His word choice implied that Oenomaus would be the first of them to fall—and fall he did, in the finale of Spartacus: Vengeance. His death preceding that of Gannicus was the result history dictated; the real-life Oenomaus died in a battle early on in the Third Servile War, while the real-life Gannicus perished in one of the later ones (Orosius 5.24.2). Yet Spartacus: Gods of the Arena not only foretold the timing of Oenomaus’ death, but also its manner of occurrence. In “Reckoning,” a promising gladiator named Dagan became blind in his right eye. (Ashur, until then his friend, popped Dagan’s eye out with a cheap shot so that he could finally win a match against a more seasoned opponent). Oenomaus, in speaking with the dominus about Dagan’s gladiatorial future, doubted his ability to survive in the arena, saying, “Dagan is now blind to attack from the right” (“Reckoning”). This appraisal foreshadowed Dagan’s death in the following episode, but it also provided insight into Oenomaus’ mindset in Spartacus: Vengeance heading into the battle in which he was killed. In the penultimate episode of Spartacus: Vengeance, Oenomaus was also blinded, albeit in his left eye, when the Romans attacked the rebels’ stronghold and forced them to retreat to Mount Vesuvius. Spartacus devised an ingenious plan to escape from the mountaintop and rout Glaber’s army in a surprise attack, and Oenomaus without hesitation helped lead it. He inspired the rebels in saying, “A man is never too weak or too wounded to fight if the cause is greater than his own life” (“Wrath of the Gods”). A sword tore through his midsection during the fight, undoubtedly because he was blind to attack from the left. Oenomaus therefore marched down Vesuvius likely aware that he had a small chance of survival, as evidenced by his appraisal of Dagan 57

Spartacus in the Television Arena in Spartacus: Gods of the Arena. Although Oenomaus’ death was objectively likely given his injury even without the Dagan/Oenomaus connection, an audience member aware of it realized that Oenomaus himself knew his death was forthcoming, which made his end all the more heroic. Killing him in an early battle between the rebels and Romans satisfied any expectations the audience had about seeing a historically accurate depiction of his demise. His death was foreshadowed, and consequently given meaning, by linking one point in the story space (i.e., Dagan’s blinding and death in Spartacus: Gods of the Arena) to another (Oenomaus’ blinding and death in Spartacus: Vengeance). This serves as another example of how the simple literary device of foreshadowing was used to significantly advance the dual purposes of the Spartacus story space. Depicting an event necessitated by the historical record often runs the risk of coming across as unsurprising and meaningless— that it was included solely out of deference to “the past as referent” (Hutcheon 24). Yet foreshadowing here transformed such an event into one that had a highly emotional and meaningful impact on the audience. The series character Marcus Crassus once intoned, “It is for history to decide” (“Spoils of War”). He was speaking prophetically about how only future generations would be able to determine, upon reading the historical record of the Third Servile War, who between he and Spartacus stood as the hero and who as the villain. His comment, however, was also an explicit affirmation that the Spartacus narrative was largely dictated by history. Alun Munslow defines history as “the story space relationship existing between” the content of the past and the “past represented as a ‘history narrative’” (26). Indeed, the content of the past dictated the fates of the non-fictional characters of the Spartacus series. Yet it also actively interacted with the narrative in forming and managing audience expectations regarding the fictional characters of the series, as well as in giving their deaths meaning. Plus, as the first section of this essay demonstrated, the past heavily influenced the size of the Spartacus story space. However, the Spartacus story space did not always faithfully represent the past; at times, it diverged from the historical record of the Third Servile War. Yet it did so only when a divergence would have resulted in a more dynamic and logical narrative. 58

The Story Space of the Spartacus Series—Klima

Divergences Between the Story Space and the Historical Record An author-historian “build[s] the story space with selective reference to … the whole universe of past events” (Munslow 20). Thus, although “the ultimate compulsion in history is reference to the past,” when a “narrative requires modification,” an author-historian can choose to tend to the needs of the narrative at the expense of historical accuracy (Munslow 25, 41). The Spartacus story space did at times deviate from recorded history, but never with respect to whether an historical character lived or died. A deviation occurred only when the narrative required it. For example, the real-life rebels took refuge atop Mount Vesuvius almost immediately after escaping from the House of Batiatus (Appian 1.116; Florus 2.8.4). In contrast, their fictional counterparts in Spartacus: Vengeance were forced to retreat there several months after the rebellion began. Yet, this inaccuracy allowed for more storytelling flexibility. Rather than portraying a stationary rebellion that plundered one nearby plantation after another, Spartacus: Vengeance had the gladiators attack the arena in Capua and the port of Neapolis. The end result was the same—Glaber and his army fell at Vesuvius, and the rebellion surged in number and in spirit—but the latter approach made for a more interesting, dynamic build-up to that climactic battle. As another example, the historical record indicates that there were two splits in the rebel army. Sometime after Crixus separated from Spartacus and took with him approximately 30,000 slaves, Gannicus and Castus did the same, albeit perhaps with a smaller force (Strauss 155). Their army was routed some time before Spartacus’ final stand against Rome in 71 bce (Strauss 167; Orosius 5.24). Spartacus: War of the Damned opted not to depict this split, and instead had Gannicus and Castus perish in “Victory” along with Spartacus and most of the rest of the rebel army. The narrative required this historical deviation, as Gannicus had no logical reason to separate from Spartacus after Crixus’ death. A split would have required Gannicus to lead tens of thousands of men into battle, which he hesitated to do until the last episode of the series, when there remained no one else capable of helping Spartacus execute his bold battle strategy. His taking co-command was the final 59

Spartacus in the Television Arena step in his journey from the cocky playboy who proclaimed that “every night is time for drink” in Spartacus: Gods of the Arena to the moralistic freedom-fighter who had fallen in love and given up such base desires by the conclusion of Spartacus: War of the Damned (“Past Transgressions”). The show therefore had to balance the audience’s dual expectations regarding the accurate portrayal of history and regarding how the character it had come to know so well would behave. Bringing both the narrative and Gannicus’ character arc to a logical conclusion tipped the scale in favor of the latter, and any expectations the Spartacus audience had regarding the former were still largely satisfied. The Spartacus story space was the metaphorical arena of the series. Built upon the sands of history, it was where bursts of intense and often shocking acts of violence gripped the audience and left it demanding more. The story space in which the audience “was invited to visit” therefore mimicked the arena in Capua, where a Roman audience always chanted for more bloodshed after witnessing an epic battle (Munslow 18). After the series ended, critics praised the story space’s compelling mixture of the historical and the fictional, with one stating, “more emotional than we [the audience] could have predicted, and more representative of what’s good about television than nearly all of its contemporary peers, this is a series … that will echo for decades to come as viewers come to discover this show they simply can’t believe no one told them about” (McGee). The gladiator-generals lived every day under the threat of death, from the moment they stepped foot into the ludus until their last breaths upon the battlefield. The audience could often tell when they would live to see another day, due to either knowledge of the historical record or the show’s use of it as a foreshadowing device. Yet such insight created perhaps the highest level of dramatic tension: knowing how much time remains until a beloved character dies. For often the greatest drama comes not from fear of the unknown, but knowledge of the impending.

Notes 1. While this essay focused on the impact on the audience of having Caesar battle Gannicus, the analysis also applies to Caesar’s fight against Donar in “Spoils of War” and against Naevia in “Victory.” Those clashes saw Caesar claim victory and his

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The Story Space of the Spartacus Series—Klima opponent’s life (although Donar killed himself when he realized he was beaten). While Donar and Naevia were fictional characters and Gannicus was not, these results were unsurprising for the same reason the audience expected Gannicus to lose in his final bout with Caesar: history was on Caesar’s side. 2. That the series bestowed the name “Lucius Caelius” upon the character is significant. Astute Roman history scholars will note that Lucius Caelius was a legatus, or Roman military general, during the Third Macedonian War of 171–168 bce (Livy 43.21.1). Legatus Lucius Caelius was killed while attempting to take the Illyrian town of Uscana. For those in the know, it came as no surprise that his fictional counterpart was also killed, albeit while supporting the rebels. His name was a subtle clue—used in linking a fictional character to the historical record—that demonstrates the commitment of the Spartacus franchise to not merely following the past, but embracing it as a storytelling device.

Works Cited Appian. The Civil Wars Book I. Trans. Horace White. Ed. T. E. Page. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964. Print. “The Bitter End.” Spartacus: Gods of the Arena. Writ. Steven S. DeKnight. Dir. Rick Jacobson. Starz. 25 Feb 2011. Television. “Chosen Path.” Spartacus: Vengeance. Writ. Misha Green. Dir. Michael Hurst. Starz. 2 Mar 2012. Television. “The Dead and the Dying.” Spartacus: War of the Damned. Writ. Jeffrey Bell. Dir. Michael Hurst. Starz. 5 Apr 2013. Television. Florus, Lucius Annaeus. Epitome of Roman History. Trans. Edward S. Forster. Ed. T. E. Page. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966. Print. Freeman, Philip. Julius Caesar. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008. Print. Goldsworthy, Adrian. Caesar: Life of a Colossus. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006. Print. Hutcheon, Linda. A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. New York: Routledge, 1988. Print. Livy. Ab Urbe Condita Book XLIII. Trans. Alfred C. Schlesinger. Ed. T. E. Page. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961. Print.’ Logan, Michael. “Sneak Peek: Spartacus Prepares for the End with ‘War of the Damned.’” TV Guide. 4 Dec 2012. Web. 25 Mar 2014. Lothe, Jakob. Narrative in Fiction and Film: An Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Print. McGee, Ryan. “Spartacus: ‘Victory.’” A.V. Club. 12 Apr 2013. Web. 28 Nov 2013. McManus, Barbara. “Julius Caesar: Historical Background.” The VRoma Project. 2011. Web. 22 Nov 2013. Munslow, Alun. Narrative and History: Theory and History. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Print. “Old Wounds.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Daniel Knauf. Dir. Glenn Standring. Starz. 2 Apr 2010. Television. Orosius, Paulus. Seven Books of History Against the Pagans Book V. Trans. Irving W. Raymond. Ed. Austin P. Evans. New York: Columbia University Press, 1936. Print. “Past Transgressions.” Spartacus: Gods of the Arena. Writ. Steven S. DeKnight. Dir. Jesse Warn. Starz. 21 Jan 2011. Television.

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Spartacus in the Television Arena Plutarch. “Life of Crassus.” Trans. J. & W. Langhorne. Plutarch’s Lives of Nicias, Crassus, Aratus, and Theseus. London: Cassell & Company, 1888. Print. “Reckoning.” Spartacus: Gods of the Arena. Writ. Brent Fletcher. Dir. John Fawcett. Starz. 18 Feb 2011. Television. “Revelations.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Brent Fletcher. Dir. Michael Hurst. Starz. 9 Apr 2010. Television. “Sacramentum.” Spartacus: Vengeance. Writ. Seamus Kevin Fahey. Dir. Jesse Warn. Starz. 9 Mar 2012. Television. “Spoils of War.” Spartacus: War of the Damned. Writ. Jed Whedon. Dir. Mark Beesley. Starz. 8 Mar 2013. Television. Strauss, Barry. The Spartacus War. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009. Print. Suetonius. “Life of Julius Caesar.” The Twelve Caesars. Trans. Robert Graves. London: Penguin, 1967. Print. “Victory.” Spartacus: War of the Damned. Writ. Steven S. DeKnight. Dir. Rick Jacobson. Starz. 12 Apr 2013. Television. “Wrath of the Gods.” Spartacus: Vengeance. Writ. Steven S. DeKnight. Dir. Jesse Warn. Starz. 30 Mar 2012. Television.

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The Sound World of Spartacus Representations of Ancient Musical Instruments in the Series Lorenzo Sorbo One of the features common to many Hollywood historical narratives is the use of a “catchy” soundtrack written in a hybrid style that draws on a variety of musical languages: classical, rock, pop, ethno, new age, to name but a few. Even though this may seem chronologically inconsistent with the historical argument represented in the narrative, it is entirely consistent with the type of television product primarily designed for contemporary audiences. Spartacus’ soundtrack is no exception to this, and composer Joseph LoDuca blended different musical languages in creating the series’ distinctive sound, as he himself elucidates: “There are Classical forms that develop through the series. In one episode, I wrote a passacaglia; in another was a five-voice for string choir. But on top of that, in the arena, we kick into third gear and go headbanging rock!” (Morton). Even if the soundtrack is functional to the series’ characteristic violence and action-packed imagery, there is generally little or no reference or citation to the musical style of the ancient Romans in the series, both in instrumentation and in the arrangement. However, LoDuca tries to 63

Spartacus in the Television Arena recreate a “sound world” in Spartacus, using traditional instruments such as the folk percussions and winds, as well as oriental influences, which are often traceable in the types of harmony used throughout the show and in the vocal soloists’ styles. In this sense, the reference to oriental styles serves to evoke ancestral and mythological sounds contaminated with a contemporary language, an aural style of language already utilized by other composers in previous sword-and-sandal narratives, such as Gladiator, 300, and Troy. Thus LoDuca aims to evoke epic and dramatic qualities through a score that mingles several musical styles drawing on contemporary genres; he seeks to evoke the past, but not faithfully recreate it. In other words, he is not interested in reconstructing or evoking the timbres or the music of ancient Capuans, because his soundtrack “is made for today’s audiences. There is some obligation on the part of the writers to be historically accurate, but at the same time, the language is a hybrid of profanity and Shakespeare. It’s a primetime soap opera, but the backstabbing is literal” (Morton). If LoDuca is operating on an emotional level functional to the images on the screen, then there is no doubt that he writes a perfect soundtrack to the series, and for a wide variety of reasons. First, he uses ancestral, ethnic sounds, inducing the listener to conjure up something “ancient,” because, from an anthropological point of view, everyone maintains echoes of musical timbres in his or her sound memory. Secondly, these sounds are well scattered within a soundtrack based on a contemporary musical language, recognizable and tested to the perception of a generalist audience. For instance, through the use of distorted electric guitars, an obsessive rhythm similar to techno music, video game soundtracks, and persuasive pop vocals is created. Therefore, the connectivity is instant for viewers who immediately recognize more familiar musical elements, but at the same time manages to make a bridge into the distant past through sound re-enactments that enable the viewer to recover (a somewhat forged) collective historical memory. For these reasons, this type of soundtrack has contributed to the global success of the series; indeed, I would posit that that the series would not be as structurally successful had the composer used more a philological music or sounds closer to those actually present in the Roman world. In this case, only an educated viewer (not a mass one) could have grasped the 64

Representations of Ancient Musical Intruments—Sorbo contiguity between a more philological music and the historical setting of the series. Moreover, like the music, the direction presents a reinvented and reconstructed Roman world through a contemporary cinematic language of immediate recognition by a contemporary, mass audience. Indeed, the viewer is brought to a state of emotional, psychological introjection in relation to the scenes, but at the same time there is a process of identification in that world of gladiators yet so far away, one patterned after a current dimension through contemporary sounds. Yet even if LoDuca’s soundtrack has nothing to do with Roman music, ancient musical instruments appear on screen in a few cursory scenes, and are faithfully reconstructed, at least according to descriptions of them that have been handed down from ancient iconographic and orthographic sources. Therefore, the association between a wellreconstructed Roman world (in the costumes, sets, etc.) and a contemporary soundtrack requires little perceptive effort on the part of the mass audience. The presence of these instruments suggests, indeed, the fidelity of the soundtrack; while the reality of this is, in many ways, far from being accurate, the combination of a visual representation of sound and the use of a soundtrack style familiar to the genre creates a notion that Spartacus reflects Roman sound and song. The reality of Roman music and Roman sound, however, demonstrates that the series’ avowed desire to adhere to “historical reality,” as its familiar disclaimer reads, extends more to the ethos of sound rather than the accurate representation of the music of Rome itself.

Music in Ancient Rome When we talk about Roman music, no one can truly make an accurate and philological reconstruction of its sound, as the sources on this matter are very scarce and not nearly as descriptive as would be necessary. While a series viewer can spy musical instruments and practices in Spartacus—reflecting a sense of continuity and consistency between historical setting and soundtrack—archaeological, iconographic, and textual sources from the time period suggest that Roman music sounded very different than as represented in Spartacus. For this reason, it is useful to begin this essay by providing an overview of Roman music. 65

Spartacus in the Television Arena The music of ancient Rome was heavily influenced by Greek and Etruscan culture. The Roman musical system adopted techniques, forms, and theory from the Greeks, who in turn had inherited them from the ancient East (Synaulia 4). Roman music was based on a series of musical scales composed on the combination of tetrachords that depended on the intervals between each note and gave rise to different modes: Dorian, Hypodorian, Phrygian, Hypophrygian, Lydian, Hypolydian, Mixolydian, Hypomixolydian. The Romans adopted a very basic form of musical notation, because the music was largely passed down orally and possessed an aura of secrecy as it was transmitted from master to student as a mystery by initiation rite reserved only for a select few (Synaulia 6). It is important to specify that there has been no evidence of the musical repertoire composed before the third century bce, except for a very few musical works quoted in literary texts that give little instructions on musical theory and practice (Comotti 3). The reason for this gap lies in the fact that, prior to this time, music was orally transmitted through listening and memorization of real performances that combined music, poetry, and dance (Comotti 9). Another key characteristic of the music of the Greeks and Romans can be found in its technical aspects, which ignored harmony and polyphony as it is understood in the modern sense. Their music was essentially based on a melody with an instrumental accompaniment in unison or octave range; only after the fourth century bce were some chants accompanied with intervals of the fourth and fifth (Comotti 15). After this preface, the first musical practices date back to the third century bce as a result of increasingly frequent contacts with the Greek and Etruscan civilizations found mainly in southern Italy. The first evidences refer to the ritual monodic and choral chants Carmi sacrali; chants on historical arguments (Carmina convivalia); chants in honor of the victories of the generals (Carmina triumhpalia); or dirges (neniae). Even in theatrical production, chants and dances largely just accompanied the actors’ performances until the third century bce, mostly based on improvisation, as in Fescennini, Fabulae Atellane, and Saturae. It was only later that developed representations of tragedies and comedies formed in Latin, by authors such as Livius Andronicus, Ennius, Plautus, and Naevius, whose models and arguments were taken from classical Greek repertoire. However, the Greek model served only 66

Representations of Ancient Musical Intruments—Sorbo as a starting point; in fact, Latin authors often did not respect the integrity of their models, making transpositions or replacements of whole passages. For example, comedies often commonly practiced contaminatio, in which the introduction of entire scenes were borrowed from other Greek comedies of the same, or even another, author (Gentili 12). In all these works the music soon assumed a vital role. In tragedy the vocals alternated with recited lines, while the choral singing was not widespread (with a few notable exceptions). In the comedies, the vocals were predominant over those recited, as in the works of Plautus and Terence, where an instrumental interlude could be placed between two acts, as attested in the Pseudolus by Plautus. In general, the accompaniment of chants was entrusted to the tibiae, though, unfortunately, there is nothing left of all the melodies of the Latin theater except for some vague indications in Latin texts. In imperial times, coinciding with the expansion towards the whole territory of Greece, many artists came to Rome and music became a subject of study for young men and women of high social standing (Comotti 56). In the first century bce, plays changed their physiognomy and the pantomime developed, a show based on the mime of a historical or mythological scene accompanied by dancers and an orchestra made up of different musical instruments. Outside of performance, music was virtually present in all public and private occasions, including the worship of deities, as in the case of ritual ceremonies in honor of Cybele, Isis, or Dionysus in the Bacchanalia. In Roman society music was important for the various stages of human life. The trend of instrumental and vocal concerts spread to Rome in the late Empire: the virtuosos were highly sought after, well paid, and occupied a prestigious place in the courts of the emperors. In Spartacus, musicians often appear in houses of noble characters (such as Albinius), in public places (the arena), and at Batiatus’ home, typifying a provincial lanista who aims at elevating his rank. From the historical point of view, in fact, musical activity was very intense during the last decades of the Republic and only grew in the first two centuries of the Empire. Many musicians, both men and women, found a place at the residences of the noble families, and later the Romans themselves, 67

Spartacus in the Television Arena especially the nobles, took part in musical performances to entertain their wealthy guests. Thus the presence of musical instruments and musicians in these public, celebratory scenes in the series is hardly surprising; they reflect a Roman society that was growing steadily more music-oriented. Their presence, however, does not necessarily reflect their accurate usage; while visually these instruments may have been depicted faithfully, from an aural perspective, the series leaves something to be desired.

The Presence of Roman Instruments in Spartacus Musical instruments appear almost exclusively in the first season of the series, Spartacus: Blood and Sand, with a high prevalence toward the depiction of wind instruments. In the first episode “The Red Serpent,” in the party scene inside the home of Senator Albinius, two musicians are depicted; one plays the single tibia, the other the tympanum, and both are evoked by the soundtrack through an obstinate percussive loop. The tibia was an instrument corresponding to the Greek flute aulos. It was equipped with a reed, a thin tongue set in vibration by the breath of the player, and applied in such a way as to form the mouth of the instrument. As a result of its vibration, the sound tube was opened and closed alternately by vibrating the column of air contained therein and producing sound. When the reed was inserted, an amplified sound was produced by vigorously blowing, the height of which varied according to the length of the barrel. The length for amplification and the pitch changed by closing the holes with the fingers on the barrel. To play the instrument, the performer had to place on his lips a leather belt with two holes stopped by a strap behind the head. In this way not only the mouth of the two rods was facilitated, but the pressure of the breath was higher. At first, the tibia had three holes on the left and four on the right, but some specimens from Herculaneum and Pompeii contain up to fifteen holes. The length of the instrument varied according to the number of holes; with the invention of the rotating rings, similar to the keys of modern clarinets, the length of the tibia came to approach sixty centimeters. The tympanum was a round bronze frame drum with a diameter of about thirty centimeters, made of cow or donkey hide and beaten 68

Representations of Ancient Musical Intruments—Sorbo in rhythm with the hands or a plectrum. The tympanum is the only drum present in almost all ancient civilizations and in Roman iconography, as in the famous mosaics of Pompeii (see, for example, Musician with tympanon. Detail of a roman mosaic of a street scene with musicians from the Villa del Cicerone in Pompeii, a mosaic signed by Dioskurides of Samos, 2nd–1st century bce). The reconstruction of the two instruments is accurate as well as the setting. It is documented that such instruments were used to entertain guests at banquets, often accompanying chants and dances, as depicted in the party scene where the gladiators are exposed. However, it must be said that, according to iconographic tradition, the typical ensemble for this genre of celebration usually consisted of three and not two instruments: the tibia, tympanum, and cymbalum. The cymbalum was an Eastern instrument similar to the cymbals, made up of two bronze discs, sometimes strongly convex, and rhythmically beaten with one another. The depictions of cymbalum relate mostly to the ceremonies in honor of Cybele, Demeter, and Dionysus, but in Roman usage this instrument soon lost its religious character and frequently appeared in the hands of dancers. This combination of tibia, tympanum, and cymbalum often appears in depictions of the time, and is found in many ancient civilizations (Synaulia 4). In the episode “Party Favors,” during the scene of a party in Batiatus’ home, the audience can catch a glimpse a seven-stringed cithara player for a few seconds. A casual glance may have suggested that the actor was playing a lyre, but, in reality, the instrument was a cithara. The lyre and the cithara were similar and comprised of a soundboard, two arms or uprights which, starting from the board, were joined at the top by a horizontal crossbar, and a variable number of strings of equal length stretched between the bottom of the soundboard and the crossbar. In the lyre the soundboard was originally derived from a turtle shell, reminiscent of the lyre invented by Hermes, and a concave surface on which was proffered an ox hide. In later instruments wood was used so that the shape and the concavity of the original carapace were strictly maintained. In the cithara, the soundboard was made entirely of wood and the arms and the soundboard were massive, thereby helping to amplify the sound. Lyre and cithara strings were gut or hemp and fixed to the 69

Spartacus in the Television Arena bottom of the case, raised by a bridge and connected to the crossbar by means of ox-rolled straps, useful for the tuning of the instrument. Later, tuning pegs were hammered into the crosspiece, at least in cases where the thickness of the latter allowed it. The number of strings ranged from three to twelve, increasing to eighteen in late cithara, but in iconography the seven-stringed lyre almost always appears. The two instruments were played either sitting or standing, and generally the strings were plucked from under using the left-hand. In the musician’s right hand the player held the plectrum, a small arrowhead-shaped tool, usually attached with a cord to the instrument in order to be always at hand. The instrument is widely documented in the iconography of the time, and Ovid described the technique of playing the instrument in a passage aimed at a Roman lady: “Nec plectrum dextra, citharam tenuisse sinistra / Nesciat arbitrio femina docta meo” (“Every woman, taught under my advice, should know / that the lyre has to be held with the left hand and played with a plectrum in her right hand”) (Synaulia 24, translation by the author). In the scene, the young cithara player can be seen holding the cithara in the chest with his right hand while his left hand plucks the strings from behind. Thus he does the exact opposite of what is recommended by Ovid and, furthermore, he does not use a pick, either. However, the handle of the cithara and its usage of the pick is not uniform in the iconography, and often we see depictions of strings plucked with the left hand, with the right hand, or both, and with or without a pick (see, for example, Apollo kitharoidos [holding a kithara] and musagetes [leading the Muses], marble, Roman artwork, 2nd century ce; or Seated woman playing a kithara. From Room H of the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale, ca. 40–30 bc; Late Republican Roman, wall painting, fresco). In any case, the cithara was commonly used to entertain at banquets and parties, often played in concert with the sambuca, an instrument that originated in the Middle East (Synaulia 25). The cithara was aimed at professional musicians, reflecting that Batiatus has hired professional musicians to play at his party, and not just enlisted the aid of his own house slaves (Comotti 67). This may reflect his rising ambitions and fortunes at this point in the narrative; the presence of such a player reflects high society and luxury. 70

Representations of Ancient Musical Intruments—Sorbo However, the most represented and significant instruments in the series reflect the show’s militaristic and violent propensities, and insistence on combat, both individual and army. Chief among these is the cornu, since it appears in numerous scenes throughout the entirety of the show. The cornu was a wind instrument of bronze used mainly in the army and in particular by the infantry, but also during religious ceremonies, funerals, or the games of the amphitheater. Originally, it was converted from an animal horn and appeared as a strongly curved trumpet, fitted at the center of a crosspiece, allowing the musician to play the instrument resting on the shoulder. Some specimens were not equipped with the crosspiece, which was made of bovine horn. A similar instrument, the bucina, possessed a semicircular shape; in source material, it is sometimes confused with the cornu. At first the bucina was only used by the army to give signals inside the camp; later, it came to be used on the battlefield and in particular by the cavalry. It should be noted that bucina and cornu were often mentioned in ancient texts as synonymous and interchangeable because parts of the instruments were originally made from animal horn (cornu means that), and the first syllable of bucina (“bovine-note player”) would suggest that horns of cattle were used. The characteristic shape was later reproduced in metal, most probably bronze [Landels 178–179].

A confirmation of this lexical ambiguity can be found in a passage of Virgil’s Aeneid, in which the term cornu recurvo is renamed bucina, although the English translation below makes this term the general word horn: At saeva e speculis tempus dea nacta nocendi ardua tecta petit stabuli et de culmine summo pastorale canit signum cornuque recurvo Tartaream intendit vocem, qua protinus omne contremuit nemus et silvae insonuere profundae; audiit et Triviae longe lacus, audiit amnis sulpurea Nar albus aqua fontesque Velini, et trepidae matres pressere ad pectora natos. tum vero ad vocem celeres, qua bucina signum dira dedit, raptis concurrunt undique telis indomiti agricolae, nec non et Troia pubes Ascanio auxilium castris effundit apertis [Virgil, lines 511–522].

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Spartacus in the Television Arena Alecto then, prompt to the stroke of mischief, soared aloft from where she spying sate, to the steep roof of a tall byre, and from its peak of straw blew a wild signal on a shepherd’s horn, outflinging her infernal note so far that all the forest shuddered, and the grove throbbed to its deepest glen. Cold Trivia’s lake from end to end gave ear, and every wave of the white stream of Nar, the lonely pools of still Velinus heard: while at the sound pale mothers to their breasts their children drew. Swift to the signal of the dreadful horn, snatching their weapons rude, the freeborn swains assembled for the fray; the Trojan bands poured from their bivouac with instant aid for young Ascanius [Williams, lines 511–522].

Ovid describes the instrument’s harsh tone and the particularly scary effect it has, although the term is translated here as trumpet: iam revocare dato: cava bucina sumitur illi, tortilis in latum quae turbine crescit ab imo, bucina, quae medio concepit ubi aera ponto, litora voce replet sub utroque iacentia Phoebo; tum quoque, ut ora dei madida rorantia barba contigit et cecinit iussos inflata receptus, omnibus audita est telluris et aequoris undis, et quibus est undis audita, coercuit omnes [Ovid, lines 335–342]. And in his hand a crooked trumpet bears. The sovereign bids him peaceful sounds inspire, And give the waves the signal to retire. His writhen shell he takes; whose narrow vent Grows by degrees into a large extent, Then gives it breath; the blast with doubling sound, Runs the wide circuit of the world around: The sun first heard it, in his early east, And met the rattling echoes in the west. The waters, listening to the trumpet’s roar, Obey the summons, and forsake the shore [Garth et al., n.p.]

The bucina and cornu appear throughout all four seasons of the series. In the show, the cornu almost always announces the start of any form of gladiatorial combat. This is consistent with tradition; according 72

Representations of Ancient Musical Intruments—Sorbo to sources, musical instruments accompanied gladiatorial contests at various stages, marking the moments of greatest tension through sound, such as when the winner was allowed to deliver the coup de grâce, creating a sort of “live soundtrack” to accompany the fight (Augenti 19). Towards the end of the third episode of Spartacus: Blood and Sand, “Legends,” eight cornu players can be seen announcing the start of the arena fight between Spartacus and Crixus. In this scene the instruments are faithfully reproduced, according to the iconography. Yet, aurally, their representation is less accurate. From the musical point of view, the starting signal of the games in the arena in the third episode is played as follows:

This theme is made up of intervals of fourth and fifth (D flat–G flat / D flat–A flat) that evoke a rhythmic-melodic figuration that actually refers to a topos belonging to the tradition of military music that did not start in the Roman period, but in the Middle Ages, in a context of chivalry, in which the signals were often played by the military horn (Ratner 18; Monnelle 43). The contemporary listener perfectly understands the sense of the signal, because it is a conventional topos recognizable in a musical language developed over the centuries and stabilized especially in the works of the great Romantic composers such as Mahler and Wagner. Yet the sound itself is not remotely Roman, neither in origin nor styling; only the instrument that is represented as making it is. Another instrument depicted in the series is the tuba. At the beginning of the episode “Kill Them All,” the gladiators in chains are arranged in the courtyard of Batiatus’ home and, for a few moments, one can see three soldiers playing a start signal with the tuba. Judging from the large iconography that shows us the real features of the instrument, it can be said that, in the series, it has been faithfully reproduced (Ramsay 24). The tuba was important in religious ceremonies, in public ceremonies, in the solemn sacrifices, in circus games, and in large funerals. Its sound was originally believed to have a magical effect, though over the course of time the sound of the tuba merely became honorific. 73

Spartacus in the Television Arena The sound of the tuba is described in a verse of Ennius famous for its effective use of onomatopoeic alliteration that imitates the timbre: “At tuba terribili sonitu taratantara dixit,” which, in English becomes, “And the tuba through a terrible tone taratantara sounded” (Ramsay, translation by the author). The verse so adroitly conveys the timbre of the tuba that Virgil himself recalls and modifies it, losing the onomatopoeic effect but specifying the material with which it is built: “at tuba terribilem sonitum procul aëre canoro increpuit” (“but by far the bronze trumpet sounded a shrill terrible sound”) (Ramsay, translation by the author). The confirmation that the tuba was made of bronze comes in another verse of Ennius describing a scene that could easily appear in Spartacus for its focus on the macabre: “Quomque caput caderet carmen tuba sola peregit / et pereunte viro raucum sonus aere cucurrit” (“the solo tuba continues to play / and one hears a hoarse sound in the air while the man dies”) (Galasso 163, translation by the author). The cornu, bucina, and the tuba were all musical instruments used by the military. The historian Flavius Vegetius describes their use: The music of the legion consists of trumpets, cornets and buccinae. The trumpet sounds the charge and the retreat. The cornets are used only to regulate the motions of the colors; the trumpets serve when the soldiers are ordered out to any work without the colors; but in time of action, the trumpets and cornets sound together. The classicum, which is a particular sound of the buccina or horn, is appropriated to the commander-in-chief and is used in the presence of the general, or at the execution of a soldier, as a mark of its being done by his authority. The ordinary guards and outposts are always mounted and relieved by the sound of trumpet, which also directs the motions of the soldiers on working parties and on field days. The cornets sound whenever the colors are to be struck or planted. These rules must be punctually observed in all exercises and reviews so that the soldiers may be ready to obey them in action without hesitation according to the general’s orders either to charge or halt, to pursue the enemy or to retire. For reason will convince us that what is necessary to be performed in the heat of action should constantly be practiced in the leisure of peace [Vegetius].

Thus it is unsurprising that these instruments, specifically the cornu and the bucina, play the most prominent role in the series. Visually, they contain a direct link to warfare and combat; aurally, they likewise con74

Representations of Ancient Musical Intruments—Sorbo nect the viewer/listener to a militaristic frame of thought. They reflect the combative nature of the series and its emphases on violence and masculinity. The fact that they are military instruments specifically indicates, in the first and prequel seasons, a foreshadowing of the rebellion to come. In later seasons, they legitimate the threat of the rebellion army, noting that this combat is less masters-versus-slaves and more armyversus-army. The visual and auditory presence of these instruments reflects not only the serious intent of the rebel army, but the earnest respect which the Romans—and the audience—should accord them as well.

Conclusions Any film or television production dealing with the Roman world has never ventured to include philological music simply because it would be a futile task. The sounds of that time are simply too alien to contemporary ears; moreover, it would be almost impossible today to reconstruct the exact music of the Romans. On the contrary, cinema has always reworked that world through modern reinterpretation, as happens in Spartacus. The producers of the series aimed not at exact reconstruction and historical (auditory) setting, but at using the Roman civilization as a pretext for a dramatic transposition of the story with a contemporary language. The soundtrack works on similar principles. While visually the show represents an authentic reflection of ancient Rome (at least as far as the representation of musical instruments is concerned), aurally, the series builds on traditional sound and musical motifs found within contemporary sword-and-sandal and martiallythemed films and television epics. In many ways, the creators of the series, similar to an old Latin tradition, have used the contaminatio technique by inserting many anachronisms and historical inventions into their narrative. Visually, the representation of musical instruments evokes ancient Rome’s splendor, the luxury of her excess, and the might of her military machine. Aurally, the sounds that seem to emanate from these instruments are modern takes on evoking that same sense of luxury and might. The final outcome may not be historically accurate, but, for the audience watching—and listening to—the series, the end result is pleasing to both the eye and the ear. 75

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Works Cited Augenti, Domenico. Spettacoli del Colosseo: Nelle cronache degli antichi. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2001. Print. Comotti, Giovanni. La musica nella cultura greca e romana. 1979. Torino: EDT, 1991. Print. D’Angour, Armand. “How Did Ancient Greek Music Sound?” BBC, 22 October 2013. Web. 2 May 2014. Galasso, Luigi. “Un frammento di Ennio (391–398 Sk.) e gli storici di Alessandro.” Materiali e discussioni per l’analisi dei testi classici 50 (2003): 163–168. Print. Gentili, Bruno. Lo spettacolo nel mondo antico: Teatro ellenistico e teatro romano arcaico. Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1977. Print. “Kill Them All.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Steven S. DeKnight. Dir. Jesse Warn. Starz. 16 Apr 2010. Television. Landels, John G. Music in Ancient Greece and Rome. London: Routledge, 1999. Print. “Legends.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Steven S. DeKnight. Dir. Grady Hall. Starz. 5 Feb 2010. Television. Monelle, Raymond. The Musical Topic: Hunt, Military and Pastoral. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006. Print. Morton, Mark. “Exclusive Interview: Composer Joseph LoDuca on the Music of Leverage and Spartacus: Blood and Sand.” Examiner. Examiner Magazine, 8 Apr. 2012. Web. 25 Nov. 2013. Ovid, Publius Naso. Metamorphoseon libri primus. The Latin Library. Web. 12 Aug 2014. _____. Metamorphoses Book 1. Trans. Samuel Garth, John Dryden, William Congreve, et al. Jacob Tonson, 1717. Sacred Texts. Web. 27 Nov 13. “Party Favors.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Brent Fletcher and Miranda Kwok. Dir. Chris Martin-Jones. 26 Mar 2010. Television. Ramsay, William. “Tuba.” LacusCurtius Educational Resource. Web. 22 Feb. 2002. Ratner, Leonard G. Classic Music: Expression, Form, and Style. New York: Schrimer, 1980. Print. “The Red Serpent.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Steven S. DeKnight. Dir. Rick Jacobson. Starz. 22 Jan 2010. Television. Suetonius, C. Tranquillus. De Vita Caesarum. Ed. Maximilian Ihm. Leipzig: Teubner, 1908. Perseus Digital Library. Web. 27 Nov. 13. Synaulia: La musica dell’antica Roma. Vol. 2. Floren Amiata Records, 2002. Print and CD. Vegetius, Flavius Renatus. The Military Institutions of the Romans. Trans. John Clarke. 1767. Digital Attic. Web. 26 Nov. 2013. Virgil. Aeneid. Trans. Theodore C. Williams. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1910. Perseus Digital Library. Web. 27 Nov. 2013. Virgil. Bucolics, Aeneid, and Georgics of Vergil. Ed. J. B. Greenough. Boston: Ginn, 1900. Perseus Digital Library. Web. 27 Nov. 2013.

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Single Combat, the Semiotics of the Arena and Martial Intimacy Larry T. Shillock For generations, scholars have asserted with confidence that Homer begins the Western literary tradition. If that assertion seems less than strictly true today, it is nevertheless the case that the Iliad is both part and epitome of a battlefield tradition in which men undergo trials and thereby reveal their qualities. The fight on the Trojan plain is fated to be between armies, given its provenance and scale, and yet Homer’s account veers from the wave-like assaults of chariots to heroic combat between men who are important enough to the action to possess lineages and epithets. Beginning with the inconclusive encounter between Menelaus and Paris and ending, nineteen books later, when Achilles stabs Hector’s throat just above the collarbone, Homer thus gives single combat a defining role in the epic. The spear is his weapon of choice for such ritualistic encounters. Ash-handled and bronze-bladed, it kills at a distance through flight or up-close when thrust. In good measure, Hector dies at the hands of Achilles because his own spear misses its target and he is left, abandoned by the gods, to contest a superior warrior with but a sword. By the time the Romans codify gladiatorial combat, swords paired with shields largely displace the spear and assume an intimate role in martial narrative—a shift in tactics gleefully taken up in Spartacus: Blood and Sand. The popular Starz television series revolves around a title 77

Spartacus in the Television Arena character whose heroics propel him from unknown slave to star attraction in the arena and on to leader of a great revolt. The arc of his development takes the man who will become Spartacus from an athletic, if undisciplined, barbarian to a combatant whose trained body is put to the service of spectacle. Viewers watch with fascination as he is bloodied and then rallies characteristically to vanquish his foes. With its emphasis on close combat and CGI-enhanced crescendos of blood, the series thus represents bodies in states of intense, even ecstatic, sensation, a type of representation and a means of eliciting response that Linda Williams, following the work of Carol Clover, associates with female “body genres.” As she demonstrates, even sensationalistic images may be systematic— and systematically read. My approach here is to treat the early part of Spartacus as a nascent body genre, only one which focuses on the indexical responses of male more than female bodies. I argue that the series solidifies during season one when the signs associated with battle—once foregrounded, reiterated, and inverted—join to produce single combat as a micro-story that punctuates the larger serial narrative. It is a significant fact of the Roman arena that there are limits to how paired men can fight and die, and therefore, I conclude, that even as one combatant perishes in its indexical embrace, the type of combat he represents will be crossed by signs of martial intimacy as well as generic decline.

On Becoming Spartacus Season one begins with passionate sounds in the distance and a black screen crossed by the title “The Red Serpent.” As darkness gives way to light, viewers see a man chained to a wall marked by grease, dirt, and blood—the detritus of bodies. Disoriented, he sits in a dungeon below the amphitheater in Capua, a city on the Appian Way just south of Rome and north of Pompeii. Like so much of Italy in this period, Capua, a center of perfume and meat production, derives its wealth from slave labor. Yet neither the enchained man nor the territory is the focus of the scene; a fellow Thracian—fighting above in the amphitheater—is at its center. Showing a clear sense of narrative economy, the camera assumes the prisoner’s point of view and leaves the dungeon by tilting, rising non-diegetically through a wooden floor, and emerging in the 78

Single Combat and the Semiotics of the Arena—Shillock clear skies characteristic of the region. There two men face off in single combat. The unidentified Thracian, armed with a straight-bladed sword known as a gladius, stands in his loincloth before a towering combatant in armor who wields a sword and heavy shield, its surface resplendent with a red snake. Following a lengthy flashback that shows the Roman army in battle and a brief but equally rapid flash-forward, the narrative returns to single combat and the Thracian’s end. Brought from the dungeon to fight next, the man whom viewers first saw enters the arena and faces the triumphant killer. This unidentified slave, too, has been condemned to death, but he will fight four men who sport an array of Roman weaponry, rather than just one. As the crowd voices its disapproval of the contest, we hear that the slave’s death would be insufficient punishment for his crimes. “He must be humiliated as an example,” states Gaius Claudius Glaber, a legatus in the Roman army and son-in-law to a Roman senator (“The Red Serpent”). Confident in their advantage, the gladiators form a loose circle around the slave. Dispatching him outright with a spear or trident is not an option because the crowd expects a pitched battle, and so the gladiators take turns rushing their nearly naked and unshielded opponent. Still recovering from a coma, his imprisonment at sea, and the abduction of his wife, the slave is in no shape to parry effectively. In short order his back is scored by a sword; his belly kicked; his face distorted by the sweeping blow of a shield. Holding a battle ax horizontally, a gladiator steps forward and snaps its handle against the slave’s exposed skull. Blood splays outward and upward, an index of the blow’s force and its recipient’s abjection. The gladiator then pivots and faces the crowd, exulting. Again, the crowd voices its frustration with the combat. Quintus Lentulus Batiatus, the owner of a gladiator training facility or ludus, goes further, calling the contrived battle before him “a mockery” (“The Red Serpent”). Struck almost senseless, the slave falls face-down in the sand, his value to the spectacle at its nadir. Rising unsteadily to his knees, he focuses on the Roman shield and its uncoiled serpent. Inspirited by his wife’s memory and her long-ago command to “Kill them all,” he picks up his weapon, leaps forward, and thrusts it through the belly of a gladiator owned by Solonius, a man whose ludus competes with the House 79

Spartacus in the Television Arena of Batiatus (“The Red Serpent”). Ripping the sword to his right, the slave cuts his opponent’s torso from lower lung to left kidney. The sudden reversal in fortune inspires recognition—from the Roman elites, the crowd, and especially the gladiators, who close on the slave, attacking in unison. Parrying their blows, the slave cuts the arm of a shield-bearing opponent at the elbow. Scarcely pausing, he turns his disarmed opponent into the path of a battle ax, which strikes the man’s neck and head. Gladiator blood washes over the combatants, and the commoners stand and cheer. The slave then rolls under the outstretched iaculum of a third gladiator. From a crouch, he cuts him at the knees, reducing first one and then the other leg to red stumps. Eluding the ax a final time, he slices the abdomen of the fourth gladiator before grabbing the man at the shoulder, holding him close, and driving his gladius under the chin and into the gladiator’s cranium. One intimate beat later he pushes the sword through the top of the helmet and watches his foe fall. Only the gladiator armed with an iaculum remains alive, but he is crawling on his elbows towards the stands. The slave dispatches him with the man’s discarded trident. Equally dramatic, the indices of spilled blood and cheering vie for viewers’ attention. Season one of Spartacus begins dramatically before turning to the demands of exposition. What we see and hear, the characters we meet— all must be sketched before narrative can elicit the density of interest associated with identification and, following the Poetics, catharsis. An amphitheater where nearly naked gladiators fight before commoners and elites alike evokes imperial Rome. The name of Spartacus calls to mind a time when the republic, despite its far-reaching power, was at war on multiple fronts—with Mithridates, most importantly, in Asia Minor and Greece, but also with renegades in Spain and pirates off Crete. Exploiting their command of narrative, the series’ writers and directors fill in the historical background available to them deliberately. Spartacus, the throwback scenes show, joins the auxilia only after Glaber promises to extinguish his tribe’s long-time enemies, the Getae. The temporary alliance is intended to reduce the threats to Thracian villages as it secures the Romans’ northern flank. Fighting as a member of the auxiliary lives up to its servant-like billing, however, since the auxilia lead the assaults on the Getae and the Romans follow, content to fight after most of the 80

Single Combat and the Semiotics of the Arena—Shillock killing is over. When Glaber revokes his pledge and orders the Thracians to march east and fight with him against Mithridates, Spartacus and his compatriots revolt, a decision that will condemn six of them to the arena and Spartacus’ wife, Sura, to slavery and an early death. The throwback and flash-forward elements of the plot solidify the exposition by introducing characters whose relationships—and enduring enmities—become the focus of later episodes. In rough order, we meet Spartacus, Glaber, Ilithyia, Batiatus, Lucretia, Solonius, Crixus, Barca, and Sura—slave owners and slaves, husbands and wives, elites and gladiators. How we meet them and what they do indicate that Spartacus establishes itself in opposition to chronicle. Specifically, its multitemporal story, recourse to legend, focus on a hero whose ambitions affect the fate of his tribe, and ritualistic violence mark it as a secondary epic. To be sure, viewers access its narrative not by way of a singer like Homer but through the digital resources of cable television. We have nevertheless been thrown into the midst of an ancient world where men live or die based on how well they parry and riposte with a sword.

The Conventions of Single Combat It is no accident that the first episode of the first season of Spartacus is bookended by gladiatorial contests. The series’ creators have foregrounded single combat so that they might shape—indeed, reshape— its component signs. How the show represents the contestants and the “gladiatorial arts,” as Batiatus terms single combat, may depend less on Roman practice than viewers might anticipate. If, for instance, audiences expect formal rules and a pair of referees to oversee the first gladiatorial contest in “The Red Serpent,” as historical accounts indicate would have been in place, they are about to be disappointed. What they get instead is a rapid course in single combat, Starz-style. From the first, the heavily armored murmillo occupies the arena’s center, holding a large shield that protects most of his non-dominant leg and left flank. Although there are exceptions, single combat typically turns from a more or less equal battle to an unequal one once a combatant is injured. The first such injury occurs when the Thracian is kicked in the stomach and knocked to the ground. A bear of a man, he blocks a blow intended to kill him 81

Spartacus in the Television Arena and regains his feet, although such a turnabout—while a convention— seems unlikely. Next, and more troublingly, he suffers a cut across his arm between the bicep and triceps muscles. His woes worsen when he is slashed across his ample belly. The speed with which he counterattacks declines as his wounds multiply and desperation grows. As is fitting, the gladiator commands the crowd’s attention and that of his listing opponent. Forced to take up the sword in his left hand, the Thracian exposes himself to a blow from an armored forearm to his neck, ear, and head. Stunned, he drops his guard further, and the gladiator responds by sweeping the tip of his sword through his opponent’s neck and into the windpipe. Arterial blood spurts and the arena’s crowd erupts. Framed by the bars of a door, Spartacus watches, awaiting his turn in the arena. Spartacus, too, does not quite match his historical predecessor, a formidable gladiator who was renowned for strength and endurance (Strauss 13). The character as played by Andy Whitfield is a mediumsized murmillo, not a man of towering presence. To be sure, he carries a gladius in his first contest, as gladiators did; but he fights unshielded. Later, he will sport a small round shield, not a scutum, as one might expect, before forgoing even that protection so he can fight with a sword in each hand, a decision that does not hold up to historical or tactical scrutiny. The importance of shields should not be underestimated, since gladiators use them to batter and to cut and especially to knock opponents off-balance. It is better for them to crash shields, in almost all cases, than cross short swords, since doing so means that the fighters have gotten too close for either’s health. Given as much, Spartacus is surprisingly indifferent about his armor. He may wear a helmet while fighting or may not. Even when helmeted, he may lack the extensive protection on his body that his predecessors wore into the ring. Despite his sculpted abdomen and chest, Spartacus is no heavyweight. Nimble and wary, he is a formidable presence without being true to type. While death may occur early in a bout, most gladiatorial contests in Spartacus are choreographed to draw out the violence. From the first, combatants size each other up, often circling warily. A verbal taunt may follow, a sign which announces dominance (“Ready, Thracian cunt?”) or that predicts how the combat will end (“Prepare to die”) (“The Red Serpent”). The distance separating the men lessens almost imperceptibly. 82

Single Combat and the Semiotics of the Arena—Shillock Then one combatant tests his opponent’s strength and quickness by attacking. Unless the maneuver draws blood, such charges are inconclusive—at least from the perspective of the commoners in the arena, whose response the director characteristically shows by cutting to a reaction shot. Treating the crowd as so much background noise, the warriors interpret the initial clash, for a charge and its response are more complicated signs in the endurance game they are playing than mere taunts. Multiplied meaningfully, such signs may indicate a preferred method of fighting, on the part of the aggressor, or of defending. Combatants need to determine—and soon—whether a gladiator who appears to be overpowering possesses that quality. Is such strength purchased, by extension, at the expense of speed? Arm strength and hand speed are no less salient, whether these related qualities involve holding a shield or thrusting a sword. The nimbleness of a smaller combatant, should there be one, needs to be ascertained as well. Tellingly, a combatant’s sense of balance may be indicated by the first clash as well, since both men are at their most rested and athletic. Does the gladiator who defends himself stand his ground or deflect a charge? Do his legs do work that more properly belongs to his shield? By extension, does he parry and counterattack? Short of those times when a fighter suffers a mortal blow earlyon, initial clashes raise questions that require interpretation. The problem for combatants is that fighting and interpreting are overlapping, if not also competing, activities. An accomplished gladiator therefore inventories an opponent’s weaponry, identifies the side of his body that he favors, listens to his respiration (not his taunts), and tracks his eyes. At issue is a martial paradox: what an opponent will do in combat depends, in good measure, on what he is doing. Accurate predictions of such behavior are typically built out of indexical signs that range from the obvious (blood) to the subtle (e.g., a less-imposing stance). Once a foe is hurt, a gladiator must determine how badly, since being at a disadvantage may compel a last-ditch attack. Should an opponent be unsteady on his feet, with copious bleeding and especially labored breathing, the gladiator must decide whether to strike or move in for the kill. The point is to produce maximum force at minimum risk. Throughout, combatants read for openings that may be seized, advantages that can be pressed. Single combat is thus a semiotic as well as physical contest. 83

Spartacus in the Television Arena Charles Sanders Peirce, the founder of semiotics, conceives of the index as a special kind of sign that produces a special kind of response. An index, he writes, is “a real thing or fact which is a sign of its object by virtue of being connected with it as a matter of fact and by also forcibly intruding upon the mind, quite regardless of its being interpreted as a sign” (4.359). The idea of connection is the first key element in this famous, if awkward, definition. A symptom is connected, for instance, to an illness. The emotion signaled by a person screaming is connected to a request for aid. Where a weathervane points is connected to wind direction. And a hygrometer is connected to, and dependent upon, the amount of air moisture. The second key element of the definition may outweigh the first, since an index is a “fact” that has the power of “forcibly intruding [itself] upon the mind.” Here Peirce asserts that an index compels an observer to bridge or conjoin disparate phenomena and, in so doing, create a new interpretant. A person may be conscious or unconscious of how that sign came to be but, in these terms, a kind of judgment nevertheless results. In all, an index evokes a powerful process as well as another sign. The greatest Roman gladiators—those who reside in the House of Batiatus, say, or are overseen by Solonius—are fearsome opponents because they judge more quickly and accurately than do their opponents. Whether we call that judgment anticipation, interpretation, prediction, or reaction matters less than the fact that all are tied to discipline. Disciplinary practices are not so much “an art of distributing bodies, of extracting time from them and accumulating it, but of composing forces in order to obtain an efficient machine” (Foucault 164). Training exercises break maneuvers into parts, through isolation and repetition, until actions, gestures, motions, and tactics achieve maximum utility. The goal of training is to produce a body that is more useful than the sum of its individual actions. Seen in these terms, a disciplined training regime is less a punishment—despite its being done to slaves and by a slave, Doctore, in Spartacus—than a technology of power that treats humans as malleable objects that may be imbued with knowledge. Consequently, the rituals associated with a ludus invest bodies with an unstable mixture of reactive deadliness, docility, and efficiency. Despite his experience as a Thracian warrior and a member of the 84

Single Combat and the Semiotics of the Arena—Shillock Roman auxiliary, Spartacus is no gladiator. He is at a marked disadvantage as a result, since his first experience of the arena pits him against men who have benefited from training that he has yet to undergo. Evidence of their discipline emerges even as the gladiators stride into the ring. The low angle at which they are filmed exaggerates their physicality, though only slightly. Viewers sense that each man is at home in his body and his armor. As murmillones, they know their weapons and use them well. The gladiator who dispatched Spartacus’ colleague may have commanded the ring, but the four gladiators, conceived as a group, bestride it. Spartacus is right to look on silently when they arrive; the crowd is right to be displeased by the mismatch; and Batiatus, finally, is right to suggest that the battle spurns the conventions of the arena. Why Spartacus lives and his opponents die is not at first evident, but it is key to the arc of the series. Clearly, he is its star and so cannot perish in the opening episode. As clearly, he can take a punch—or a kick, or even a blade to the back. Unlike his predecessor in the arena, then, he rallies despite being injured. Rallying is a sign of resilience, but it, too, does not explain his survival. Indeed, to take a different tack, it could be that he lives because his strengths align with his opponents’ weaknesses. That is to say, the murmillones may die because they occupy too much space to defend themselves against injury from a more nimble opponent, and viewers, even this early in the series, sense that injury is a choreographed precursor to death. Worse, the gladiators occupy the wrong kind of space, since their erect carriages are ill-positioned to parry a man who fights lower to the sand than do they. Indeed, Spartacus attacks them from below and they fail to block his sword, whether he directs it at a man’s knees or belly or thrusts it in a low to a high arc. Further, the gladiators are bound to let him live until Glaber gives them the sign to kill. Restricted from killing quickly or at a safe remove, they must fight, wound, and stop just short of producing a death blow, a theater of cruelty that Spartacus interrupts. Unbound by restrictions, he has no allegiance other than to a promise he has made to his wife. Finally, he has no responsibilities to the crowd and so does not waste energy playing to it. He is therefore free to press his advantage when it unexpectedly arises. The problem of his lack of training remains. There must be, within 85

Spartacus in the Television Arena his existing expertise, some further edge that he is able to exploit and that the series can return to. One such advantage is that he watches the first gladiator fight and kill. Thus Spartacus has time to apprize his style of fighting—and not while in the arena, which means that he can inventory his opponent’s strengths (and weaknesses) rather than just react to them. Viewers who attend to his eyes and facial expressions see less a kind of disbelief or fear than an attentive reserve. Indeed, Spartacus responds to the Capuan sunlight with more discomfort than he does to the death of his colleague. He interprets the fight and its outcome, then, undistracted by emotion. That sense of calm is unmarred even when he looks over his shoulder and sees that four of his six Thracian comrades are dead and stacked in a loose pile. Characteristically, his gaze lingers. Based on their wounds and the blood that besmears the bodies, the men did not die from a single blow. These cruel indices show Spartacus that he can expect—before the eyes of the Roman elite and thinly clad commoners—to be played with before he is killed. His is the interpretive ability of a semiotician. Under threat of death, his body undergoes powerful physiological changes that are unseen by viewers but no less real. The parasympathetic nervous system cedes most of its authority to his sympathetic nervous system, which oversees what is known—inadequately—as the fight-orflight response. The adrenal medulla generates adrenaline. His blood pressure rises, delivering increased blood to his muscles and, just as importantly, his extremities. Soon-to-be-needed pain-reducing chemicals flow to the brain. Cortisol, which is part of another indexical process, enables him to metabolize energy in ways that increase his stamina despite his recent suffering. What does not happen to him is almost as important as what does: Spartacus does not panic. Put in physiological terms, the response of his amygdala to a threat does not overwhelm his frontal cortex, and he is thus able to think even under profound duress— first, while watching his compatriot be killed and second, while fighting himself. It follows that he rightly fears his fate but not to the point where that emotion can inhibit the efficiencies that it brings about. Thus, even as Spartacus waits, he prepares for combat, a disciplined process whose value should not be underestimated. We do not have direct access to what he is thinking while the changes to his physiology 86

Single Combat and the Semiotics of the Arena—Shillock occur, since his face is impassive and such an index is easy to misread, but we know that he has promised his wife that he will find and free her. It is just such a felt responsibility—to others, to love—that enables those in survival circumstances to persist when it would be easier to relent and die. Finally, we should remember that Spartacus has survived handto-hand combat multiple times and so is no stranger to the head-tohead advantages that accrue from keeping fear at bay so as to better read and react to one’s circumstances.

Training Days—And the Problem of Time Recognizing Spartacus’ potential after his initial victory in the arena, Batiatus intercedes and offers to buy and train him. The offer shifts the slave from prison to ludus, itself a prison, and temporarily rescinds the death sentence put in place by Glaber. “Sacramentum Gladiatorum,” the second episode of season one, begins with an angle-offate shot of Spartacus in the throes of a dream that ends with a portent of Sura’s death. Chained, he awakens in a cell before guards he does not know. The narrative returns to real-time and then to training exercises that audiences associate with early episodes in the stories of warriors and battle, armies and war. By evoking in medias res, the series re-signals its refusal of chronicle and elevation of epic. Not knowing that he has been renamed or where he has been brought, Spartacus surveys his surroundings. “You are now the honored guest of Batiatus, master of the greatest ludus in Capua,” a naked, and visibly hostile, gladiator announces. It is “a school of training,” Crixus, a Gaul, adds, “where men are forged into gods” (“Sacramentum Gladiatorum”). So begins the hazing of the new slaves. In keeping with a series whose privileged signs are battle and blood, its form is intimately indexical, since Crixus represents the Thracians and their women by the scents of shit and piss that their bodies purportedly emit. Single combat is an art dependent upon proximity, and throughout that imperiled space reside the embodied signs of anguish, blood, hormones, sweat, even tears. Spartacus rejects the ideology of god-like men and answers the affront, though at the cost of earning Crixus’ ire. What might seem a small matter is instead a sign of his recklessness. As a new recruit—if 87

Spartacus in the Television Arena that is what he is—he has little to gain by being confrontational, and much to learn. His first lesson is that men like him are nothing to the gladiators. The second lesson is that there are three ways training can end: with death; by being sold to the mines; or by becoming a gladiator who fights for Batiatus. Death is less the subtext of the future than an almost certain outcome. In the first training session, Spartacus is singled out by Doctore, the trainer, and praised for his victory over Solonius’ men. The praise is both ruse and part of a trial, as he is then forced to fight Crixus, a bout which shows his storied prowess to be illusory. To be sure, his wounds are unhealed and he remains weak; and yet, at each point of attack, Spartacus is rebuffed by the more experienced fighter, who easily blocks moves that worked in the arena. Doctore dissects Spartacus’ failings before the trainees, citing poor footing, impatience, an inability to defend against blows to the back. Isolating each flaw, he names the maneuvers as misconceived. As the bout nears its end, Spartacus acts in ever-riskier ways. “Become entangled with a more powerful opponent,” Doctore narrates to him and to the trainees, “and you are dead.” Signaling his disdain, he adds, “Throw your sword in the arena, and you are dead, again” (“Sacramentum Gladiatorum”). Crixus controls the action during the single combat because, like Doctore, he reads Spartacus easily. He anticipates what his opponent will do based on what he is doing and, especially, signaling. The indices that announce Spartacus’ intentions are obvious, not hidden by a preternatural mask of calm. Having failed his trial, Spartacus refuses to submit and appears ready to die at the hands of the Gaul. Radically cutting to continuity, the director compresses the training regime that occurs under the drought-stroked sun and conveys the misery associated with the ludus. That evening, Doctore reports on the slaves’ first day to Batiatus, saying, “One or two show promise. But the rest not even my own mother would have them in the arena.” “These men are all the straw afforded,” Batiatus replies. “Bake them to brick or crumble them to the mines” (“Sacramentum Gladiatorum”). Training resumes and goes through the night uninterrupted. Not until the second day does Spartacus learn, during a visit from Glaber, that Sura has been gang raped by her Roman guards and sold to a Syrian. Glaber has no 88

Single Combat and the Semiotics of the Arena—Shillock interest in killing Spartacus now but in seeing him return to the arena where he will be wounded, in small measures, until he bleeds out. Public domination, not mere vengeance, is his aim, a goal in keeping with the Roman predilection for cruelty (Auguet 13). Batiatus is alarmed by the turn in his new slave’s fortunes. Fearing that his expensive investment will generate no profit, he calls Spartacus to his chambers so that he might motivate him. Batiatus begins by evoking his father and his father before him, but his assertion that “even the most vile among us can rise to honor and glory” fails to move Spartacus (“Sacramentum Gladiatorum”). Changing subjects, he refers to money, power, position, prestige. Not until he names “love” does the restraint of his slave waver. Batiatus, a lanista, a trainer of gladiators, knows the ways of the arena and so reads the indices that Spartacus displays as existential bonds. He concludes that the man before him has chosen to live because of a woman. “And do you love her? Of course you do,” he adds. “I can see it in the eye, the tensing of a jaw.” Batiatus strikes a deal with his new charge: “Pass the final test tonight, with honor and servitude; call me dominus; and I will help to reunite you” (“Sacramentum Gladiatorum”). Cut, punched, and knocked to his back, Spartacus experiences his second humbling from Crixus during the test. As the gladiators roar and Batiatus grows anxious, Crixus gloats over his fallen foe. Asking for and receiving permission to kill the Thracian trainee, he prepares to strike. Calm before the falling sword, Spartacus kicks Crixus’ left leg out from under him. His opponent falls from the raised platform and onto the rock- like sand, where he is weaponless and disabled. Remarking that he has learned the lessons delivered by Crixus, Spartacus stands ready to end the Gaul’s life. Curiously, he shows none of his antagonist’s passion for the kill or investment in the honor of being a slavegladiator. When Batiatus commands him to stop fighting, he turns away. He will swear his allegiance to the ludus shortly and become a gladiator. Or so the audience is meant to think. On the basis of three days of training and a pledge he voices without conviction, Spartacus is no Titan of the arena. He can press the advantage against gloating, strutting, playing-to-the-crowd foes who have little reason to think him a capable 89

Spartacus in the Television Arena fighter. He can contain his fear. And he can punch above his weight. Yet the compressed continuity that marks episodes two and three indicates that Spartacus must endure more than humiliation if he is to become a practiced, not merely opportunistic, warrior, since discipline begun and discipline endured stops short of a technology of power so routinized as to be almost natural. Doctore speaks to this linkage when he corrects Spartacus for attacking and speaking “without thought”; “Study, train, bleed,” he emphasizes through clenched teeth, thereby indicating that only with intensive practice does one become excellent (“Sacramentum Gladiatorum”). Spartacus, in a remarkable series of reversals, will have none of it. His problem is that he does not know how long Sura can live in slavery, based on his dream, and so he must get to the arena, make a name for himself there, and pay Batiatus handsomely for his investment or he is lost. Time is not his problem alone. Spartacus moves too quickly from the arena to the ludus and back to the arena. As the other gladiators observe resentfully, he has not earned such an unprecedented elevation. Doctore considers his untutored charge to be at best unpredictable, an approach to combat that Spartacus misconceives as a strength, and knows that he is ill-prepared to battle someone who has trained for years. For their parts, the creators of Spartacus make a calculated bet in episode one that they can show their hero overcoming difficult odds, and therefore earn viewers’ investment in him, without moving their narrative forward too quickly. However, should Spartacus succeed in his rematch with Crixus in the Vulcanalia, he would best a renowned gladiator and gain fame on the basis of two bouts of single combat. If that were to occur, the series’ longer narrative would rise too rapidly through season one and towards a climax. What must happen instead— for Thracian legend and series alike—is that he be defeated, shown to belong neither in the arena nor the ludus. If, through hubris, Spartacus wishes to hasten his rise by subversion and manipulation, he can fall instead to the pits, a subterranean arena where the meaner elements of Rome watch as men fight to the death in an almost rule-free zone. There, as gamblers count both the odds and their money, Spartacus will fight and train in tandem—an unlikely experience of discipline that he must accept as part of introjecting discipline itself. 90

Single Combat and the Semiotics of the Arena—Shillock

The Pits—And Its Body of Signs Whether Thracians and gladiators are men or animals is a topic of conversation between privileged Romans, and now, with Spartacus banned, the vector points to animals. The pits of the underworld, Doctore explains, are “a place of pain and suffering, of beasts dying without honor.” “If the beast cannot be tamed,” Batiatus says, “it must be unleashed” (“The Thing in the Pit”). Humiliation in the arena for Spartacus is joined to humiliation in the ludus when he is ritualistically spurned and dirtied. He goes to the pits with a fugitive, a slave who will die in his first fight, overmatched by a foe who celebrates victory by cutting off the facial skin of a victim and wearing it. The facemask is gruesome to see created but it is likely to be almost traumatic for Spartacus to encounter, since it recalls the Getae who laid waste to Thracian villages and killed everyone that he and his wife knew. Later, as the doubly bloodied fugitive is dragged from the ring, guards open Spartacus’ cell. He has heard but not seen the battle, since his sightlines are few. As in his first arena contest, he readies himself by fighting back fear. His unlabored breathing occurs in voice-over, but it is contrasted by a worried cast to his face. Still, he walks to where he will fight calmly, assessing what he sees and anticipating what awaits. The man who did in the fugitive greets him in passing by holding the skin of his fellow slave aloft. “May the gods fare you better, for both our sakes,” says a visibly alarmed Batiatus to his combatant (“The Thing in the Pit”). When Spartacus is introduced it is clear that he has lost even this crowd’s favor. The fall resulting from his submission to Crixus in the arena has a predictive quality, since this fight, too, goes against him quickly. His opponent, sporting brazen points on both fists, slashes at his face and closes to blind him. Blows to the body drive Spartacus against the wooden edges of the pit. Yet the greatest danger comes from being kicked once he is almost supine on the sand. Unbowed, he reverses the action by grabbing his opponent’s leg and rolling it over. The wrestling move enables Spartacus, although hurt, to stand. He then doubles the reversal by turning the spikes and forcing them into the man’s own neck. Again and again the spikes impale his foe until he can be turned and stuck on a hook that hangs from the rafters. He bleeds out 91

Spartacus in the Television Arena from beneath the chin, like an ox or goat, as Spartacus rages, his engorged muscles glazed by the telling indices of dirt, hormone, sweat, blood—his own and his opponent’s. Here dust rises, hormones spread through arteries, sweat and blood splash from fighter to fighter and onto the audience. The intimacy of sword-to-sword combat in the arena has been rendered abstract by the enforced proximity of killing hand-tohand in the pit. The body genres of pornography, horror, and melodrama pale before the indexical emissions associated with close-quarter male combat. Unlike Crixus’ body, which remains almost unblemished until the battle against Theokoles, Spartacus’ torso will soon be scored by scars that speak the unerring language of indexical signs and signify his inability to begin combat well. If he is to survive and the series to live on in his name, he must be retrained in the pits to seize, rather than squander, the advantage. That lesson is slow to take, for in his next fight, Spartacus exchanges blows too often and is battered even more extensively. Varro, familiar with the pit, worries less for his friend’s body or spirit then his mind—concerns that are borne out as the bouts continue. Increasingly, Spartacus lives in a haze, an index of suffering that recalls a battle to one’s mind long after it ends. His strategy is to reserve energy and fury for the squalid arena that defines his existence. In such a state, another vision comes to him unbidden. It shows that Sura will perish before the rains, and so Spartacus offers to die in a rigged match in exchange for a vow from Batiatus that he will bet heavily against him and take a portion of the winnings and free his wife. The pater familias, a man who “want[s] everything and yet can buy nothing,” given his debts at interest, agrees; but Spartacus must drive up the odds against himself by hurting his opponent gravely before expiring (“The Thing in the Pit”). The foe that evening is the man who de-faced the fugitive. By bringing these men together, the narrative comes full circle momentarily and forces Spartacus to face his Thracian past and what we assume to be its Getaen horrors. As Spartacus fights, he sees assassins sent for Batiatus slip through a crowd transfixed by the battle. His dilemma is clear: he can either fight until he stage-manages his fate and dies, as promised, or he can intervene. Honorably, he draws attention to the plot and, fighting on, rips a 92

Single Combat and the Semiotics of the Arena—Shillock two-sided ax through the throat of his opponent so that he can then hurl it at an assassin intent on Batiatus. The bout is won; the wager, lost. Yet the lanista lives, and in vexed gratitude he frees Spartacus from the pits and returns him to the ludus. Almost unnoticed in this two-part melee is the fact that Spartacus sees what others do not—an index of great athleticism. He also fights with renewed self-possession. Specifically, he now chooses to be put at a disadvantage and choreograph his own wounding, rather than beginning a fight in pain. Evidence of this change can be seen on his body, which should be marked by ever more scarring, given the many opponents he has fought. Instead, its surface seems unchanged. Of course, an episodic series like Spartacus is marred, perhaps inevitably, by continuity errors. Realism is neither its method nor its genre. Yet because Spartacus wins repeatedly, we can surmise that he has of late learned to fight without having to wrest momentum from an overconfident foe. Spartacus thus leaves the pits for the ludus a better trained, if wounded, fighter. He is now versed in proximate combat. He has won with an array of weapons. And he has increased his hand-speed and hand-force, as evidenced by the blows he lands on opponents’ torsos and heads, distorting both. We watch such indices in fulsome slow motion, a technique that can be mesmerizing. As part of learning different modes of fighting, moreover, Spartacus has had to rely less on his strengths. The nimbleness that he used to such good stead in the broader arena, for instance, has proved of little value in the narrow pits, since larger foes routinely drive smaller ones into corners to pummel them. There is, by extension, no room to dive and roll in a space where spectators are so close to the action that they rejoice frenziedly when contestants’ blood cross-hatches their skin and clothes. The underground arena is no place to learn to fight, much less to undergo training, but Spartacus has turned even its glaring disadvantages to his purposes.

The Improper Ends of Narrative and Martial Intimacy Through their usage of the pits, the creative team behind Spartacus: Blood and Sand appears to have triumphed over its temporal problems 93

Spartacus in the Television Arena as well. Specifically, it has addressed the risks associated with its hero’s too-rapid ascension to the arena by sending him to fight and be disciplined in the Roman underworld. Having established how men battle in the endurance-games that comprise the gladiatorial arts, then, the series changes its own code so that the micro-story of single combat can change, too. Unlike the Iliadic tradition, which moves from sweeping battle scenes to the fighting of named, and celebrated, men, Spartacus shifts, during the initial episodes of season one, from the arena to the ludus to the pits and back to the ludus. This progression is itself disrupted by the introduction of new characters and the subplots that attend them. Drought, money woes, an assassination—all show Batiatus and Lucretia holding on to a way of life that could end at any moment. The shift in space to the pits and the shift in time to episodic subplots distract audiences from realizing that the arena spectacles evoked by the sign of Spartacus are difficult to choreograph in arresting ways, a point made when Spartacus and Crixus must set aside their mutual antagonism and defeat Theokoles together. The more success such scenes achieve, for audiences in the arena and before the television screen, the more likely that viewers will come to desire scenes of debasement that may be too much even for cable programming. Subplots like these also carry what Peter Brooks calls “the improper end [that] indeed lurks throughout narrative” (104). Getting to the end of the plot is what readers desire. Yet narrative best grows in force when its aims are tactically deferred or even reversed. In this way, the “improper end” is much like an improperly fought single combat. A wounded Spartacus, it follows, is of more interest for audiences once he resolves to survive single combat. For all the campiness that Spartacus represents, then, its creators are deft at knowing when to split viewers away from its central character’s plight and onto other persons and their ambitions. Complicating matters still further, they apparently know that there are only so many ways that men can fight and die in the open air, and only so many times that a director can cut to reaction shots of spectators who are beside themselves before repetition intrudes and our catharsis wanes. By moving from outside to inside, from the arena’s expanses to the pits’ constraints, the series takes on a new rhythm. Now it is quicker, 94

Single Combat and the Semiotics of the Arena—Shillock harder, bloodier—changes in space-time which exploit bloodlust, a term that speaks to the intimate ways that men bleed and desire at each other’s hands. It is tempting to treat one side of that double-voiced sign, to speak of desire, that is, while averting our eyes from mortality. Doing so leads to the assertion that almost-naked men who live and fight together must deny the indexical attractions that arise from the existential bonds of being close. It follows that battle is a way for them to disavow the desire that honor cultures arouse, and so they kill rather than love each other, protected from a vexing embodiment by grotesque armor. Seeing violence as male proximity gone wrong misconstrues martial intimacy. To fight a man, to risk humiliation at his hands before an audience, is to partake of a body genre whose choreographed cruelty intoxicates. Shooting an arrow or throwing a sword, as Homer’s heroes do, is thrilling but largely abstract—especially for the warrior who attacks successfully. Evidence of one’s triumph (or failure) is affirmed by sight, the most objective, and least emotional, of the senses. Fighting with swords in the arena is excessive and intimate and hyper-indexical by comparison. Now men inventory each other’s abilities and weaknesses. They feel and hit, touch and cut, and in the process become wet with a blood that carries a scent differing from their own. To call what men do in the sweet science of boxing, the arena, or even the pits a refusal of homoeroticism ignores what it is that they do together, which is bleed. From the stands or the living room couch, fighting may be spectacular. Yet up close it is decidedly the reverse. There is little or no crowd to be concerned with; the important matters—self and foe—are at hand. Weapons resist the aura audiences ascribe to them, but compel an almost unequalled attention nonetheless. Combatants act and react, thrust and parry, clash shields and swords, fight to keep their balance. To put the matter bluntly, single combat is more intimate than sex, and blood more intimate in its expression than semen. Indeed, blood is an exemplary index whose meaning imposes itself on the mind and bodies of combatants and audiences alike. It epitomizes Peirce’s sense that the index “exercises a real physiological force over the attention, like the power of a mesmerizer, and directs it to a particular object of sense” (8.41). And so it is perhaps inevitable that the writers and directors behind 95

Spartacus in the Television Arena Spartacus: Blood and Sand move away from the arena, subtending single combat, and take up the revolt of slaves whose actions create a new tableau and different sensation thresholds. In effect, the series becomes more epic as it evolves, more like Homer, with his emphasis on imperishable glory (kleos aphthiton) and less focused on love. As a crucial subplot, Sura’s separation from Spartacus is defined by both martial and marital intimacy. She dies, fittingly, in his arms, the two of them one in her blood. The blood he has spilled for her and she for him is the index they will share. It is at once a sign of embodiment and a memory that must console our hero as he lives on to fight—alone.

Works Cited Auguet, Roland. Cruelty and Civilization: The Roman Games. New York: Routledge, 1994. Print. Brooks, Peter. Reading for the Plot: Design and Intention in Narrative. New York: Random House, 1985. Print. Clover, Carol J. “Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film.” Representations 20 (Fall 1987): 187–228. Print. Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. Vintage: New York, 1979. Print. Peirce, Charles Sanders. The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. 8 Vol. Ed. Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960. Print. “The Red Serpent.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Steven S. DeKnight. Dir. Rick Jacobson. Starz. 22 Jan 2010. Television. “Sacramentum Gladiatorum.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Steven S. DeKnight. Dir. Rick Jacobson. Starz. 29 Jan 2010. Television. Strauss, Barry. The Spartacus War. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009. Print. “The Thing in the Pit.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Aaron Helbing and Todd Helbing. Dir. Jesse Warn. Starz. 12 Feb 2010. Television. Williams, Linda. “Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess.” Film Genre Reader III. Ed. Barry Keith Grant. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003. 141–59. Print.

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Spartacus’ Entrapment in the Underworld in Blood and Sand Rachel S. McCoppin A societal hero, in a contemporary milieu, is someone who fulfills a mission, usually saves lives, and changes society for its own betterment. Heroes of yesteryear, however, were perhaps more complex than modern incarnations of the concept. In The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell proposes that the ancient mythic hero’s journey is more than just a tale of explicit gallantry; Campbell contends that heroism is a process of introspection wherein the hero is called to face psychological components of his or her own unconscious portrayed symbolically as expeditions into unknown and even terrifying realms. In the hero’s journey, the archetype of the underworld, a horrific place or experience that forces the hero to face his or her own unconscious and the reality of mortality, is often directly responsible for transforming a champion from a societal hero into an enlightened hero. The mythic representation in the first season, Spartacus: Blood and Sand, portrays the protagonist, later named by his Roman captors as Spartacus, as a recognizable societal hero. He is strong, brave, and acts in accordance to an inner determination of what is right and wrong, despite a demented and corrupt portrayal of the excesses of Roman society. This essay examines Spartacus’ experience in the underworld to reveal that Spartacus only partially achieves the inner psychological journey necessary to define him as a psychically enlightened hero. 97

Spartacus in the Television Arena In ancient myth from around the world, the journey of the living protagonist into the underworld is a popular theme. The underworld is symbolic; though countless myths portray it in physical terms, as a place below the land of the living where the dead reside, the myths’ significance usually promotes the underworld as a place of psychological horror and destruction; therefore, its depiction is understood to be representational. The underworld is often portrayed symbolically in situations such as facing a terrifying monster or becoming hopelessly lost and confused. In these myths, the underworld is a necessary stage that the hero must overcome in order to achieve enlightened heroism. The ascent out of the mythic underworld often signals a transformation or rebirth of the protagonist: “The goal of the myth is to dispel the need for … life-ignorance by affecting a reconciliation of the individual consciousness with the universal will, and this is affected through a realization of the true relationship of the passing phenomena of time to the imperishable life that lives and dies in all” (Campbell Hero 238). The Greek myths of Demeter and Persephone and Orpheus and Eurydice, as well as the Babylonian story of Ishtar and Ereshkigal and the Japanese myth of Izanagi and Izanami, all capture the underworld experience of symbolic death and renewal of the protagonist: “In ancient times … the underworld was not necessarily a place for the dead. Rather it was a … place of learning, a cauldron for rebirth” (O’HareLavin 202). The story of the Buddha provides a prime example for the potentiality of “rebirth.” Before obtaining enlightenment, as Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree, he encountered his symbolic underworld of fear first; every representation of horror visited him in monstrous form. He had to both face and overcome these fears, and in overcoming his fear of the monstrous, he faced his fear of death, which is usually the role the underworld plays in ancient mythology. Next the Buddha had to resist desire, as he was tempted to continue to want a connection with the physicality of life—even the desire to continue to live is a form of desire that was essential for him to relinquish. Part of the heroic quest is a willingness to cease to exist, as Orpheus, Hercules, Ishtar, and many others are forced to acknowledge as they enter into the realm of their respective underworlds. The hero is often only able to ascend out of the underworld 98

Spartacus’ Entrapment in the Underworld—McCoppin upon leaving behind a desire for an independent identity. In heroic myth from India and East Asia, “the ego concept is both expanded and annihilated, so that one’s self is not identified with the temporal phenomenon here and now, but with the reincarnating principle” (Campbell Myths of Light 61). Paradoxically, then, to attain self-actualization, the hero must relinquish his or her identity. Heroic myths from the east and west often seem to have different outcomes for the hero, but when one looks towards the underworld archetype, the lesson of the underworld experience is similar. Upon being abducted by Hades, Persephone dies an untimely death. Her myth recounts a full acceptance of death, as she is depicted as falling in love with Hades. Persephone also values life, as she annually ascends the depths of the underworld to live with her mother Demeter in the abundance of nature. The myth recounts the ancient Greek embrace of the cyclical side of existence; with winter, the natural world dies each year, but it is always reborn in spring, just as Persephone annually dies and is reborn. Hercules also experiences a symbolic death in the underworld that allows him to attain a rebirth into immortality. In popular versions of the myth of Hercules, he is superior to mankind, divinely strong, brave, and righteous, but in the ancient version of his myth, audiences find much more psychological confusion and muddled messages of heroism. According to legend, Hercules commits the twelve labors to eradicate his shame of killing his wife and children; though he was tricked by Hera into doing this unforgivable deed, his classical heroism is firmly tied to this psychological story of needing to reconcile his inner state of mind. In order to accomplish this, he completes his impossible tasks, including going to the underworld to capture Cerberus, the vicious, three-headed dog that guarded the gates of Hades, and take it back to the corrupt king Eurystheus. Hercules’ final challenge to go alive into the underworld allows him to face mortality, and instead of attempting to defeat death, he embraces it by taking Cerberus alive to the king, before releasing it back safely into its domain. By facing death and symbolically shedding his former self, Hercules has achieved his own psychic transcendence. The ancient myth states that he finishes his journey psychically healed, and this psychological self-actualization is precisely why 99

Spartacus in the Television Arena he achieves immortality, as well as a place among the gods and goddesses on Mount Olympus. In Blood and Sand Spartacus also undergoes a psychological rejuvenation during symbolic death in a very real underworld, as the facing of mortality “is the structural and emotional climax of every adventure. It is the touchstone to shape every hero-to-be, for the candidate eventually finds that the solution to his difficult mission and the sense of his existence lie in himself. After all … heroism consists of self-sacrifice: the sacrifice of life and freedom” (Sanchez-Escalonilla 156). For Spartacus to ascend his underworld and become a psychologically transformed hero, he must forgo all aspirations to return to his former life, as his previous self-identification must be expelled; he must also ascend with a spiritual knowledge that does not value his singular life, but values the lives of all. The initial visual impression of Spartacus: Blood and Sand immediately showcases physical underworld imagery, as the very first scene opens with slaves below a gladiatorial stadium awaiting their gruesome fate. The scene is shot to show a slave literally underground, which is the first signal that this is the classic underworld; the slave is also portrayed as utterly terrified as he listens to the shouts of a frenzied audience outside. The scene then shifts to raise the camera view to show what is above the initial underworld imagery of the slave-holding pen, yet what is shown as above is not much better—the gladiator stadium itself, where men kill their opponents through gruesome means or die a painful and dreadful death themselves. This initial scene of Blood and Sand reflects a tenet that will dominate the first season of the series—that the underworld that Spartacus will have to endure is multi-faceted in both experience and psychological intricacy. After this initial scene, and the establishment of the series’ underworld tenet, the plot and view shift to the character of Spartacus, who is first portrayed as an unnamed Thracian living an idyllic life with his wife Sura. Portraying the character of Spartacus as initially unnamed suggests that he lacks an identity at the start of the series, which again suggests that the epic journey he is about to undertake is meant to reveal to him his true, self-actualized identity. Carl Jung’s analytical psychology stresses a process of self-actualization through merging one’s uncon100

Spartacus’ Entrapment in the Underworld—McCoppin scious with one’s conscious persona. Jung’s goal of analytical psychology calls for each individual to examine all aspects of the self in order to self-actualize, realizing that each individual has aspects of the self that may be terrifying. Jung states that “no one can become conscious of the [unconscious] shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition of any kind of self-knowledge” (The Shadow 112–113). Jung pointed to the heroic journey as presenting archetypes of the individual search for psychic harmony (Lefkowitz 432). The underworld represents, to Jung, this critical stage of facing the horror of the unconscious. The underworld also suggests more than just a realm of self; it is also the reality of mortality to all human beings: Hell is when the depths come to you with all that you no longer are.… Hell is when you must think and feel and do everything that you know you do not want. Hell is when you know that everything serious that you have planned with yourself is also laughable [Jung Red 170].

In the underworld, the hero must resign the self; this is the conundrum of ancient mythology—to self-actualize, the hero must accept a demise of self. For Spartacus to self-actualize, he will have to cease to connect to his former identity and accept the fact of mortality. The initial scene between Spartacus and Sura looks idyllic, with light flooding the natural imagery that dominates every open area of the shot and colorful leaves flowing past the two characters of focus. It is soon clear that Spartacus has a happy marriage, portrayed through long moments of uninterrupted eye contact and a sexual scene meant to convey a clear connection of love in a solid and legitimate relationship. Though the scene is shot to look ideal, it is also evident that it is meant to appear unrealistic. This scene and those like it that will later haunt the psyche of the captive Spartacus within his underworld are serving as contradictions to the sheer atrocity of his changed existence. Blood and Sand shows these scenes between Spartacus and Sura through a dream-like gaze because they are meant to be just that—dreams. Classic heroes are called—usually unwillingly, as Hercules was after fate made him murder those he loved—to leave behind a life that is often filled with naiveté. 101

Spartacus in the Television Arena Spartacus chooses to go to war against troublesome neighbors, the Getae, with the aid of the Romans, though against the blessings of Sura, who has had a fearful and perhaps prophetic dream about his fate. Once he leaves his familiar and idealized life behind, the scene again shifts to show Spartacus’ surroundings as now dark and foreboding. The beautiful and abundant nature of the previous scene is replaced with only snow; the shot reflects a white, grey and black colorscape, void of color, save for sparsely interspersed fires lit in the background. It is here that Spartacus begins his heroic journey. Campbell identifies the first heroic archetype as the hero leaving behind tradition; this involves the protagonist shedding the components of his or her former life of family, friends, and community. The move away from the innocence of conscious selfidentification is crucial to the mythic hero because he must acknowledge that his created conscious persona and life view is naïve or even false; he must embrace life as it really is, full of horror, sadness, and confusion. Spartacus believes that he will return to Sura through “blood and honor,” but this return to previous life existences in not permissible in the heroic journey (“The Red Serpent”). He does momentarily return to Sura after he and his fellow Thracians have been betrayed by the Romans and subsequently mutinied against them, though upon his return he sees that masked soldiers are trying to rape her. His timing is also part of the idealistic past of his connection with her, since he (quasimagically) is able to save her moments before she is harmed. They gruesomely kill the soldiers together, supporting their actions with the claim, “There is no life without you” (“The Red Serpent”). They are fighting with what is to them a clear purpose—their love for each other. Their love justifies to the pair everything, including the statement his wife utters to Spartacus before he departs for his initial battle, a statement that reverberates within him throughout in the series: “Kill them all” (“The Red Serpent”). “All” here is utilized with an open denotation; initially, it refers to the enemy Getae, but also equally applies to allied Romans or any other who may interfere in the reunion of the lovers and the realization of their re-joining. Nothing at this point is muddled or confusing for the pair, though the narrative progression of the season will reveal that this thinking was unrealistic and naive. Their philosoph102

Spartacus’ Entrapment in the Underworld—McCoppin ical views are false because they believe they reside in a world of two, when Blood and Sand clearly shows that the world, and the suffering within it, is much larger than only the two of them, and this will be part of what Spartacus must learn to fulfill his heroic quest. After a passionate moment together, Sura and Spartacus are forever torn apart; the Romans invade, steal Sura from him, rape her, and sell her into slavery. They also take Spartacus as a prisoner to be put to death in front of Roman officials. This marks another crucial component for the heroic journey—the hero must undergo the journey alone; because of its psychological components, it cannot be a journey for two. The inner world has no space for interlopers or companions. When Spartacus is imprisoned, his first true underworld scene begins. Spartacus wakes after having been unconscious for four days. Upon regaining consciousness, a fellow slave remarks to him, “I thought you were dead there for a while” (“The Red Serpent”). The reference to death shows that Spartacus is undergoing a symbolic death experience that will remove him from any ties with his previous life and self. Spartacus enters a clear otherworld, one born of Roman debauchery. The otherworld experience, coined by Campbell as the “Belly of the Whale” archetype, is central to the classic hero’s journey; this stage of being thrust into an environment that is completely unknown causes confusion and disorientation in the hero, and this is vital in separating him from his previous, known existence (Hero 90–96). When Spartacus enters into the Roman festivities, it is clear that Blood and Sand purposely depicts this experience as disorientating for him. Roman excess is shown wonderfully within the whole of the season; when Spartacus initially arrives within its decadent state, naked slave women swim in rose petals, while other nude women pose as mythic statues. Political excess is likewise depicted, as corrupt deals are continuously struck, and issues of social and economic inferiority and superiority are evident everywhere in the room: in ancient Rome, slaves and gladiators “were paraded as examples of what those who wrought officially sanctioned dignitas (‘social standing’) should at all costs avoid. Paradigms of the antithesis of honor, they occupied a crucial place in the symbolic order” (Hallett 67). What also becomes quickly apparent is that the openness and trust portrayed in the short scenes between Spartacus and his wife 103

Spartacus in the Television Arena are nowhere to be found here, as the sex that is depicted in Roman chambers is mostly void of love, and usually involves slaves being forced into the act. In this otherworld, it is clear in looking through Spartacus’ eyes that he is filled with both fear and awe at what he sees; as he states to a fellow Thracian captive as they are paraded before the crowd as a prize to a Roman magistrate, “I’ve never beheld such sights” (“The Red Serpent”). It is soon announced that Spartacus and his comrades will be put to death the next day at the hands of gladiators, to the general acclaim of all present. Blood and Sand portrays the otherworld as merging within Spartacus’ confused psyche when he has his first glimpse of his true underworld experience, which he will both endure and stay trapped within for most of the season. In classic myth, it is common to merge the hero’s otherworld experience to his underworld experience. In the underworld, the hero must face what terrifies him most, coined by Campbell as the stage of “Atonement with the Father,” meaning that the hero must learn to face the fears that have accompanied him throughout his former life, even if those fears are currently unknown to the conscious mind of the hero (Hero 126–148). As Campbell states, “the ogre aspect of the father is a reflex of the victim’s own ego.… Atonement … consists [of] no more than the abandonment of that self-generated double-monster … this requires an abandonment of the attachment to ego itself, and that is what is difficult” (Hero 130). Usually the underworld is the definitive place that demands the hero accept the fact that he is mortal and will die. The underworld must, again, be terrifying and harsh, and it certainly is depicted this way here. Spartacus is now legitimately given his new name, and for his character in the series it is the first time he achieves a named identity, explicitly indicating that in this unknown and terrifying realm, he will change. In the symbolic underworld of the Roman arena, Spartacus watches helplessly as his three comrades are killed, and thus is forced to await his own death. Part of the heroic underworld experience is about facing humility as one encounters death. A famous Babylonian myth recounts Ishtar, the goddess of life, confidently, perhaps even egotistically, demanding to be let into the underworld to confront her sister Ereshkigal. Upon being let in to the underworld, the myth systematically takes 104

Spartacus’ Entrapment in the Underworld—McCoppin away every quality that permitted Ishtar to rule over life, as well as every quality that allowed her to live any semblance of a happy life; she is stripped of each jewel she is adorned with and every piece of clothing she wears, until she stands before her sister naked and vulnerable. There her sister gives her every imaginable disease that human beings must face, and talks to her about what it truly means to be mortal and die or lose a loved one. The myth teaches Ishtar, a divinity without a sense of mortality, what it means to be human, and in this lesson she learns humility. In this initial scene that will mark Spartacus as a champion gladiator in his experiences to come, he will also just begin to experience the process that Ishtar was forced to accept—he will systematically be stripped of all remnants of his former self; he will face his own death, and he will continuously be forced to evaluate his motives before he will be permitted to leave the underworld, if, indeed, he ever does leave it. Immediately this process of utter saturation into despair is quickly evident when Spartacus walks into the arena for his turn at death; he stares at his competitor, but then is shocked when it is deemed that instead of fighting one trained gladiator, he must fight four of them. At first Spartacus fails; he is slashed in the back, kicked to the sand, and is losing all hope. Yet then he receives help. A common aspect of the heroic journey, succor, arrives to Spartacus in the form of a vision. Spying the shield of one of the gladiators moments before he attacks, the snake depicted as emblem on the shield glows and hisses at him. He then hears the voice of Sura reiterating her earlier charge to “Kill them all.” Mystical helpers or numinous occurrences are common aspects of mythic journeys, and here, too, this brief supernatural element aids Spartacus in his initial embracement of his newly configured identity. Renewed, Spartacus kills all four men with the zeal typical of a hero, to the shock and debauched excitement of the crowd. What is vital to note, however, is that in classic myth, brute strength or force is not a quality that allows a hero to leave the underworld; instead, it is often the opposite. The Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice only lets Orpheus emerge from Hades after having failed to retrieve his dead wife, Eurydice, back to the land of the living. It is the harshness of his experience, the humility of accepting death as part of human existence, which makes 105

Spartacus in the Television Arena Orpheus a classic hero. Orpheus slew no adversary, as he is a musician and not a fighter, and failed the one mission he set out to accomplish. Yet Orpheus still became a respected hero because of the psychological enlightenment he attained; it is this quality that spurred the ancient Orphic cults to worship him. This myth of Orpheus explains the goal of the classic heroic quest: the hero must face elements that contradict his initial quest. Often, like Orpheus, he fails his mission, and to Greek mythology this acceptance of failure is part of what makes the hero admirable. Failure and hardship are an integral aspect of ancient mythology. Often, if the hero appears to succeed, hardship will quickly follow to reveal to audiences that the quest is not over. The myth of Theseus and the Minotaur shows a brave and successful Theseus accomplishing his mission of slaying the Minotaur in the symbolic underworld of the labyrinth and saving the twelve youths of Athens from being sacrificed. However, the end of the myth, and the subsequent life of Theseus, is quite revealing. Theseus kills the terrifying Minotaur, and takes Ariadne, princess of Crete, with him after she gave him an essential clue needed to slay the frightful monster. Theseus and Ariadne have one night of passion, far from her homeland, and when Theseus awakens, he decides to leave her alone and desecrated. He returns home to Athens, and in his haste forgets to raise a white flag of success to his father the king Aegeus, so Aegeus, seeing a black flag of defeat, leaps to his death into the sea. The black flag is a signal to audiences that Theseus’ heroic quest was not wholly a success. Theseus, though strong and brave, does not possess the evolved psychological traits expected in an ancient hero. He wrongfully leaves Ariadne; he suspiciously forgets to appropriately signal his father; and, after he succeeds his father in kingship, he is eventually overthrown and exiled, dying in a similar fashion as his father, being flung into the sea by the Lycodemes. Theseus goes into the symbolic underworld of the labyrinth, where he should have faced his own death, but the myth suggests that he failed to see the vital connection between the Minotaur and himself. For Theseus, there is no moment of symbolic death and subsequent embrace of humility. Though the myth explicitly portrays the labyrinth with its Minotaur as a psychological journey into Theseus’ own unconscious, slaying the Minotaur only brings the hero fame, not enlightenment. 106

Spartacus’ Entrapment in the Underworld—McCoppin Similarly there is a general temptation for Spartacus to fail his quest by becoming too self-assured and arrogant, as some of his fellow gladiators have become in the gladiatorial ludus of his new owner Batiatus. Part of achieving psychic betterment is leaving arrogance behind, as fame is not the goal of the mythic hero. In Homer’s Iliad, Achilles resists fighting in the Trojan War because he wants only a simple life filled with the love of a wife; when he finally succumbs to his fate, killing Hector as revenge for the death his friend Patroclus, it is viewed as a failure of his heroic quest, most notably by him. In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus states: “But you, Achilles, there’s not a man in the world more blest than you— there never has been, never will be one. Time was, when you were alive, we Argives honored you as a god, and now down here, I see, you lord it over the dead in all your power. So grieve no more at dying, great Achilles” [265].

Achilles retorts to Odysseus, “No winning words about death to me, shining Odysseus! By god, I’d rather slave on earth for another man— some dirt-poor tenant farmer who scrapes to keep alive—than rule down here over all the breathless dead… For I no longer stand in the light of day” (265). It is clear that embracing, humbly, the fact of mortality allowed Achilles to see that the true goal of a hero is not fame. Achilles feels that he is a failure, and thus, according to myth, he remains forever in the underworld, both physically and psychically. Blood and Sand shows Spartacus being constantly tested to prove his resistance of such arrogance. His gladiatorial teacher states to the laughing crowd of his new “brothers” that he “defied death, fate, and the gods themselves,” and it is clear that for a true hero, this would be a risky thing to believe (“Sacramentum Gladiatorum”). Sex is also abundant to a successful gladiator, and thus it is soon offered amply to Spartacus, but Spartacus does not take part in it willingly, as he wishes to remain faithful to Sura. He is demonstrating that he remains true to his own code of morality. He maintains that he will defy every divine and natural law to win back his simple life with the love of Sura. With such similar goals as Achilles, it remains to be seen if Spartacus will fail his hero’s quest, as Achilles believes he did before him. Throughout most of Blood and Sand, Spartacus proclaims broad, 107

Spartacus in the Television Arena near-baseless sentiments like, “I fight for no cause but my own” (“Sacramentum Gladiatorum”). He also promises to “kill all” to get Sura back, as he believes that Batiatus will return her to him if he wins enough battles to gain his freedom. Throughout much of the season, audiences see Spartacus doing almost anything out of his love for his wife and the thin promise that he will one day be reunited with her. Yet, just as the true heroic journey often leads to enlightenment and self-actualization, it also renders the hero incapable of returning home as the same man he was when he left. Both Hercules and Orpheus were unable to ever reunite with the wives they lost. Odysseus does return to Penelope, but the circumstances of his homecoming are nebulous. Odysseus returns home, but it becomes difficult to view him as heroic, in no small part because he proceeds to kill countless suitors only because Athena made them appear worse than they were. He also executes his former maids who had affairs with the suitors, which is a seemingly minor offense. Such disregard for human life is a contradictory element for a classic hero, as again Achilles tried to make Odysseus understand that he would do anything just to live one more day. In addition, Odysseus will not remain at home with his loving wife; shortly after his return, Tiresias prophecies that Odysseus will yet sail on another long journey, and will die alone far from the home to which he struggled so long to return. Spartacus is also fighting for something valuable—the love of his wife. He does anything to gain this once again: he kneels to his teacher and suffers him to kick him to the dirt; he states his subservience to Batiatus and allows himself to be branded by him; he even permits himself to be thrown into a pit of feces as a punishment for a temporary insubordination. Yet the goal of retrieving the love he had in his former life, with his former name and identity, is not an attainable goal in a classic heroic quest. Many heroes do indeed complete their journeys by returning home; Sir Gawain, in the Arthurian romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, finishes his quest back at Camelot. Yet the problem for most heroes, like Gawain, is that they have evolved, and home is no longer the place it once was, because the requisite for what constitutes a sociocultural construction like home is no longer the same. Gawain returns changed; he began his journey declaring a false humility that only came from duty to his social position. Once he fails at killing the Green Knight, and sub108

Spartacus’ Entrapment in the Underworld—McCoppin sequently fails at overcoming his fear of death by wearing the sash that will keep him from harm, he returns home grappling with an acceptance of a vastly different world than the one he assumed he lived in. Gawain is a hero, not because he slew his adversary, but because he faced mortality and came out of it a changed man, one who is truly humble. In obtaining humility through an awareness of mortality, the hero obtains a new life: “As a typical pattern of the monomyth suggests … the turning point for the protagonist’s search for a true self … is the moment when one transcends one’s old ego, leaving behind the accustomed world, and seeing the self, the world … in a new way” (Kim 330). Achilles in Hades only longs for the chance to have one more day in the sun because he knows, through his experience of the underworld, the value of life. In the Japanese creation myth, the divine Izanagi goes down to the underworld to rescue his wife, the divine Izanami, who dies giving birth to fire. Upon seeing her decaying form in the underworld he quickly realizes that his quest was absurd; death was insurmountable, even to him and his wife. He flees from her out of shock at what death has done to her and barely escapes the underworld. Izanami, outraged at her husband’s bravado for attempting such a mission, swears to kill one thousand people a day to bring the fact of death to the world. The only retaliation that Izanagi can give is life—he vows to allow one thousand people to be born each day. Therefore, many myths of the underworld reveal to the hero knowledge of the inescapable processes of life and death. After the hero transgresses the underworld and dies a symbolic death, knowledge of the value of life remains: He who journeys to Hell also becomes Hell; therefore, do not forget from whence you come. The depths are stronger than us… The depths want to keep you; they have not returned very many up to now … the depths indeed have changed themselves into death… We cannot slay death… If we still want to overcome death, then we must enliven it. Therefore, on your journeys be sure to take golden cups full of the sweet drink of life [Jung Red 169].

Gilgamesh learned a similar lesson is his heroic quest for immortality. Gilgamesh begins his journey self-assured, killing the giant Humbaba without clear reason for doing so. It is through his experience of seeing his symbolic other half, Enkidu, die that Gilgamesh symbolically 109

Spartacus in the Television Arena experiences the underworld. Through the death of his closest friend, his old persona of an unjust and egotistical king also dies. Gilgamesh thus goes on a fevered quest to assure that he will never die, but this is short lived, as he realizes the fault of such a quest. The myth ends with Gilgamesh embracing, with great humility, the fact that he will assuredly die, as all mankind must. This knowledge allows him to see the insignificance of his singular identity, and enables him to finally become a revered king, because he now sees the importance of each life among his people. If the heroic journey is a symbolic quest towards self-actualization and a realization of the value of life, the failure to rise out of the underworld shows a stagnation of the psyche and a failure to learn the lessons the underworld has to offer. Throughout most of the rest of Blood and Sand, Spartacus descends further into the underworld, instead of ascending from it. Spartacus becomes stuck facing and causing death many times, not valuing life as a true hero should. It becomes evident that Spartacus’ incessant goal of doing anything, killing anyone, and even losing his own sense of self just to get back to his singular life with Sura is not a justifiable goal, especially not when he becomes cognizant that thousands of people are currently suffering and dying in Roman slavery. An important point within the episode “Legends” comes when Spartacus fails a fight with Crixus and is almost killed; Batiatus saves him, to the disappointment of the crowd. Incensed, Batiatus tells him that he is losing favor from the people, and that to redeem himself, he needs to go the “pits of the underworld,” which is described as a place full of pain and suffering, where no one survives. He is told that in the “pits of the underworld” he will be able to finally be reunited with his wife (“The Thing in the Pit”). “The pits of the underworld” are a place where some of the most violent gladiatorial fights take place; men are beaten to death slowly with hammers and hooks as close crowds cheer on. It is in these explicitly terrifying scenes that Spartacus is forced to descend even deeper into his underworld journey. Spartacus keeps winning, but comes close to death each day, and the stagnancy of his state becomes strikingly apparent. He must make a psychic change or will die, if not physically, then surely psychologically. All of what Spartacus did not comprehend before is presented to 110

Spartacus’ Entrapment in the Underworld—McCoppin him here in an unmistakable manner. The remark that he will finally be able to be with his wife again after presumably not being able to survive the pits presents him a crucial choice: he can either remain dead and stagnant within his hope that he can return to the life he lived before, and thus remain in his psychic underworld, or he can choose to rise slowly out of his underworld once and for all. To initiate the psychological aspect of Spartacus’ transformation, it is in these scenes that Spartacus begins to see more visions of Sura; mostly, he interprets these visions to tell him that he should simply maintain the unproductive path he is on, but finally, Spartacus has a different sort of dream about Sura. In this new dream, Sura stands in an odd desert environment, where the winds blow the clouds by at an accelerated rate; it is a scene shot to convey importance and change. Sura tells Spartacus with some finality that she will “be with him even in the afterworld” (“The Thing in the Pit”). This assurance allows Spartacus to experience a psychic turning point; he sees the symbol of his former life and identity, his wife, and is forced to acknowledge his loss of her, just as he symbolically acknowledges the death of his former self. Instead of resisting death in the gladiatorial arena, he says that he will now willingly sacrifice his own life to try to save his wife, as he makes Batiatus promise that he will obtain Sura’s freedom if Spartacus purposely loses the fight. This is remarkably different from any of Spartacus’ behavior thus far. It signals to audiences that Spartacus realizes that the path he has been on for presumably months is self-defeating. Also, it signals that he now understands that the “perfect” life he longs to gain back is not a realistic potentiality in the harsh world he and the thousands of other slaves live within. Also, by finally not resisting or fighting back in the gladiatorial circle, Spartacus is truly facing death for the first time in Blood and Sand. An acceptance of mortality is a necessary stage for Spartacus’ heroic development: “the world, as we know it, as we have seen it, yields but one ending: death, disintegration, dismemberment, and the crucifixion of our heart with the passing of the forms that we have loved” (Campbell Hero 217). Though Spartacus is ready to die to save the life on his wife, he cannot yet do so because he has not actualized his quest. At this stage, he has only barely survived within the underworld; he has not at all 111

Spartacus in the Television Arena begun to crawl out of it into higher levels of consciousness. Spartacus does not die at this point because his sacrifice, however well intentioned, is based on falsity; his wife will soon be killed en route to Batiatus’ ludus, and the sacrifice of his life here would only lead to the unheroic promise of more wealth for Batiatus. Instead, Spartacus saves Batiatus from an assassination attempt. Spartacus then undergoes a false ascension, where he is allowed to rise above the “underworld pits” through the rescue of Batiatus. Yet to propel Spartacus to begin his true ascent, he must, like Orpheus, forever let go of Sura. Just as Orpheus turns to see Eurydice descend back into the underworld, so, too, must Spartacus fully face the fact of death. Orpheus tried to defy death by playing music that lulled Hades and Persephone into breaking the laws of mortality, but his myth proves that death is ultimately unavoidable. Spartacus also must accept that death is physically insurmountable. In watching Sura die in his arms, the unnamed Thracian dies with her, and Spartacus, the potential hero, is born. The acknowledged death of Sura, like Eurydice for Orpheus, is the essential symbolic acknowledgement of the hero’s own death. After Sura dies, Spartacus initially flounders within his new identity. After killing Theokoles and becoming champion of Capua, he revels momentarily in the prestige of this new stance, which clearly, as has been stated, will not lead to heroic enlightenment. This false path of fame does not last for Spartacus, though, as he soon is forced to fight and kill his only friend, the gladiator Varro. He finally sees that he has been selfishly killing men who mostly have been slaves themselves, and by doing this again and again, he is not at all closer to attaining any kind of sustainable enlightenment, since the enlightened mythic hero comes out of the underworld embracing the importance of life. With the death of Sura and subsequent death of his former persona, as well as the death of Varro, Spartacus finds for himself a path that he embraces as righteous. Spartacus develops what is to him a heroic goal— to lead thousands of slaves into freedom. Blood and Sand fairly revels in repeated depictions of slaves in unendurable bondage; almost every lewd act the Romans enact is at the expense of a slave. Most of the sexual scenes depicted in the season starkly contrast to the initial love-making between Spartacus and Sura; the rapturous confirmation of Roman revelry is always portrayed alongside the grim, frozen countenances of the 112

Spartacus’ Entrapment in the Underworld—McCoppin male and female slaves as they sexually gratify their masters. It becomes evident to the audience, as it becomes clear to Spartacus, that killing other gladiators is unjust because, like him, they are mostly forced into the trapped lives they live. For Spartacus to rise above his underworld, he must put aside all hopes of returning to his former life. He does this in Blood and Sand, but his heroism remains questionable in mythic terms. In order to truly achieve an enlightened hero status, Spartacus must become more than his past-self or the present selves that have been proffered him. Blood and Sand ends with Spartacus believing that his true heroic role would be in helping the slaves around him attain freedom, but the heroic quest in ancient myth demands a psychological journey towards spiritual betterment. In slaying the Minotaur, Theseus accomplishes a task too gruesome and terrifying for most, and momentarily becomes a hero of the people of Athens, but the myth does not allow him to become a self-actualized hero. Orpheus, on the other hand, reaches selfactualization because he fails his physical quest, but emerges from Hades spiritually enlightened. The music Orpheus plays after his psychic confrontation with the inevitability of death is so mystical that all of nature stops to listen. It produces such frenzy in the maenads, followers of Dionysus, that they physically tear Orpheus’ body to shreds. His physical death, though, is inconsequential to the myth’s message, as his disembodied head still emits the mysterious music. Orpheus returns from his quest so psychically changed that he is now profoundly different from the world in which he left. His new identity is a paradox, for his return suggests a lack of identity, a willingness to cease the need to identify oneself as autonomous. The underworld forces the hero to accept that life is filled with suffering, and it will inevitably, always, end with death. The need to believe one is special and superior to this fact of existence must be exposed as false. The spiritual enlightenment of the ancient hero, as represented with Orpheus and the Buddha, is often attained by relinquishing the conscious persona to accept the unconscious knowledge that a belief in an autonomous self is self-absorbed and naïve: The agony of breaking through personal limitations is the agony of spiritual growth. Art, literature, myth and cult, philosophy, and ascetic disci-

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Spartacus in the Television Arena plines are instruments to help the individual past his limiting horizons into spheres of ever-expanding realization… Finally, the mind breaks the bounding sphere of the cosmos to a realization transcending all experiences of form—all symbolizations, all divinities: a realization of the ineluctable void [Campbell Hero 190].

Yet, as the Buddha, Orpheus, Gilgamesh, and Izanagi learned in their respective underworld experiences, the letting go of an autonomous identity with its desires of fame or even individual happiness provides an opportunity for spiritual transformation: “enlarge the pupil of the eye, so that the body with its attendant personality will no longer obstruct the view. Immortality is then experienced as a present fact” (Campbell Hero 366). Often, the ancient hero, through experiencing the underworld of his own unconscious, comes to understand that life must include death, but out of death, new life also inevitably returns; therefore, a “letting go” of the struggle to self-identify occurs. The facing of mortality, and the subsequent relinquishing of the self, paradoxically allows the importance of life to emerge. It is a changed life perspective, full of the knowledge of the inevitable suffering that comes with being alive, just as Orpheus’ sad and mystical song that he can only play upon leaving Eurydice forever in Hades, but it is still a valuable embrace of the nature of life: Now we come to this Dionysian realization: the whole universe is an everburning sacrifice, unquenchable, inexhaustible, going on and on. Once one has had this realization, there are two directions one can take: one can either say yes to the horror of this world or say no to it. If you’re going to say yes, you affirm the world as it is. If you choose to say no, you turn your back on it… This is absolute affirmation of the world as it is. And the problem is to put yourself into accord with the world not as it ought to be but as it is. This concept [states] that out of the death of burning comes life [Campbell Myths of Light 21–22].

With this appreciation of life as it is, full of the horrors of the underworld, often comes an understanding of the importance of the lives of others: “The Labyrinth is thoroughly known. We have only to follow the thread of the hero path… And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. And where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world” (Campbell Hero 25). 114

Spartacus’ Entrapment in the Underworld—McCoppin At the end of Blood and Sand, Spartacus revolts against the house of Batiatus, with the aid of his former rival Crixus and the other gladiators, and ends the season killing Batiatus, as well as wounding and killing many other Romans. He vows to end slavery beyond the house of Batiatus to “all of Rome” (“Kill Them All”). For the first time in Blood and Sand, he believes that he is saving lives, rather than only destroying life, as he helps many slaves taste momentary freedom, but it is difficult to avoid the fact that though his revenge seems to have a more just focus—killing Romans rather than slaves—Spartacus still may not resemble the classic, psychologically enlightened hero. In Blood and Sand, audiences only see a small glimpse of Spartacus beginning to emerge from the underworld. There are psychological heroic archetypes in Blood and Sand that Spartacus nobly faces, such as the demise of his persona and former life perspectives; he learns that the world is harsher than he ever before imagined and acknowledged the hard fact of inevitable mortality for all, and these components suggest movement towards self-actualization for Spartacus. Yet his psychic transformation is not wholly actualized to the requirements of the classic hero in season one. The true mythic hero often fails in the eyes of social onlookers; they often save no one, and the act of killing, even a monster, is usually followed by guilt or regret, as it was with Hercules and the Amazons, or with Gilgamesh and the giant Humbaba. Spartacus, in the concluding episode of Blood and Sand, revels in the death of his Roman master and the other Romans trapped within the villa. Throughout this first season, Spartacus remains mostly trapped within the murky and terrifying depths of a complex underworld; though he has begun his ascent from darkness, he has not fully realized the self-actualization that characterizes the enlightened hero. Clearly, there is more work to be done. Spartacus, in the seasons to come, will go on to lead a glorious slave rebellion that is of course doomed for failure. As he murders Romans to obtain the freedom of thousands of slaves, sacrificing his own life, and stating that his concept of freedom will live on forever in the descendants of those who obtained momentary freedom, he historically earns a place as a societal hero. There are some inclinations in War of the Damned that Spartacus has even wearied of conquest and war; when he 115

Spartacus in the Television Arena departs from Crixus and the other warriors to lead the slaves to freedom beyond the mountains, it may be that Spartacus, in his weariness of death, has finally embraced life. Or perhaps, for Spartacus, such action may not be permissible, for even when he wishes to avoid conflict, he discovers that he is inevitably drawn back into the bloody embrace of war. Ultimately, it may be up to the viewers of Spartacus to determine if he truly and completely ascends the underworld of his own unconscious and attains the stance of an enlightened hero. It is clear, however, that such work was well begun throughout the first season of Blood and Sand; having chronicled here its commencement and significance, I can only surmise that its conclusion, if it ever came, is a fate best left to the audience, or, perhaps fittingly, to the stars.

Works Cited Campbell, Joseph. Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973. Print. _____. Myths of Light: Eastern Metaphors of the Eternal. New York: New World Library, 2012. Print. Dobson, Marcia W. “Ritual Death, Patriarchal Violence, and Female Relationships in the Hymns to Demeter and Inanna.” NWSA Journal 4.1 (Spring 1992): 42–58. Print. Downing, Christine. “Journeys to the Underworld.” Mythosphere 1.2 (1999): 175– 193. Print. Hallett, Judith P. Roman Sexualities. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997. Print. Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. by Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin, 1996. Print. Jung, Carl. The Red Book: A Reader’s Edition. Trans. by Sonu Shamdasani. New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 2012. Print. _____. “The Shadow.” In Understanding Dreams. New York: Penguin, 1998: 112– 113. “Kill Them All.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Steven S. DeKnight. Dir. Jesse Warn. Starz. 16 Apr 2010. Television. Kim, JinHyok. “The Journey of the Suffering Servant: The Vulnerable Hero, the Feminine Godhead, and the Spiritual Transformation in Endo Shusaku’s Deep River.” Exchange 41 (2012): 320–324. Print. Leader, Carol. “The Odyssey—A Jungian Perspective.” British Journal of Psychotherapy 25.4 (2009): 501–520. Print. Lefkowitz, Mary. “The Myth of Joseph Campbell.” American Scholar 59.3 (1990): 429–442. Print. “Legends.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Steven S. DeKnight. Dir. Grady Hall. Starz. 5 Feb 2010. Television. Print. O’Hare-Lavin, Mary Ellen. “Finding a ‘Lower, Deeper Power’ for Women in Recovery.” Counseling and Values 44(3) (April 2000): 148–62. Web.

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Spartacus’ Entrapment in the Underworld—McCoppin “The Red Serpent.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Steven S. DeKnight. Dir. Rick Jacobson. Starz. 22 Jan 2010. Television. Print. “Sacramentum Gladiatorum.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Steven S. DeKnight. Dir. Rick Jacobson. Starz. 29 Jan 2010. Television. Print. Sanchez-Escalonilla, Antonio. “The Hero as a Visitor in Hell.” Journal of Popular Film and Television 3.2 (2011): 149–156. Print. “The Thing in the Pit.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Aaron Helbing and Todd Helbing. Dir. Jesse Warn. Starz. 12 Feb 2010. Television.

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Blood, Sex, Sand and Mills The Sociological Imagination Between Gladiators Jason Smith C. Wright Mills coined “sociological imagination” to conceptualize what he saw as the promise of the social sciences to humanity. A term that finds itself at the heart of much modern sociological study, its general concern is understanding the connection of one’s biography and place in history, and in particular understanding the ways in which individuals realize that their own personal troubles are in fact interconnected as public issues. Although the sociological imagination is required to undertake sociological research, it is also an insight that lends itself to dealing with everyday life. The utilization of a popular cultural artifact such as the Starz’ television series Spartacus allows its audience to grasp the model that Mills developed, which helps them, in turn, to understand their individual condition within a larger sociocultural structure. As David Simmons has noted in regard to season one of the series, it is a “dualistic, serio-artificial” construct, especially with its excessively camp depiction of Roman life. Although Simmons’ reading of the show can help shield it from the traditional criticisms it has received by situating it as a blend of new media forms, it is also instructive to highlight what the show brings to the table as a narrative and the type of story it tells, which is somewhat unique in comparison to a majority of series on television. In Spartacus: Blood and Sand, this first season of the series pres118

The Sociological Imagination Between Gladiators—Smith ents a narrative that is essentially showing the sociological imagination “in process.” This essay seeks to highlight this process through paying particular attention to Spartacus and Crixus, who generally shift their individual troubles towards a collective issue by the end of the season. The movement from the individual to the collective is what is unique about this particular season’s narrative, bringing to life the construct of the sociological imagination, in ways both poignant and profane, and always essentially illusory.

Mills and the Sociological Imagination In her essay highlighting the fiftieth anniversary of the now classic Hollywood picture Spartacus (1960), Theresa Urbainczyk points out that its social backdrop at the time of release was one in which anti– Communism in the United States was at a fever pitch and there was anxiety over the film itself being perceived as a Communist picture (8). The screenwriter for the film, Dalton Trumbo, injected a rebel’s spirit into the narrative. This spirit, some critics contend, was designed to criticize the American system at the time for its McCarthy hearings and its treatment of racially underrepresented groups (Urbainczyk) while simultaneously working to uphold the individualized dimensions of American ideals of religion and freedom as personified through the character of Spartacus (Winkler). This time period, interestingly enough, was also when C. Wright Mills was compiling his sociological works, most famously his work The Sociological Imagination, which was originally published in 1959. The same social backdrop for the film also informed much of Mills’ work, and in particular his foundations for what many in sociology would refer to as a radical sociology—a sociology in which its goal is to enable human agency (see Chasin; Scimecca “Paying Homage”). The tension between agency and structure are distinguished within Mills’ discussion of “the personal troubles of milieu” and “the public issues of social structure” (8). To elaborate, Mills distinguished troubles as pertaining to individual character and the immediate relations one has with others, and issues as matters that move beyond the individual’s social world and “have to do with the organization of many such milieux into the institutions of an historical society as a whole” (8). Joseph 119

Spartacus in the Television Arena Scimecca, who has spent considerable time tracing out Mills’ model, points out that The Sociological Imagination was more action-orientated for Mills than his previous works. The work placed a greater emphasis on the historical location of social structures and less emphasis on personality formation (Scimecca Society & Freedom 20–24; see also Scimecca The Sociological Theory). This highlights the role that having a sociological imagination plays in the present day social structure. Once individuals are able to transcend their troubles, they understand that much of what causes those troubles is linked to larger structural institutions. As individuals develop and use their sociological imagination, they are able to link the biography of their own lives to the history of their current structure, thereby enacting social change. A critique against Mills’ model, though, is that it failed to move beyond the point of critiquing society. Iain Wilkinson posits that this critique largely occurs because Mills passed away before he could develop the model further to incorporate a point of praxis to engage with groups in their everyday lives. Despite this lack of praxis, Mills’ concept of the sociological imagination allows its practitioners room to grasp and understand the everyday conditions that people face—the “‘social suffering’ … that refers to the lived experience of deprivation, misery, pain, and loss” (Wilkinson 186). However, developing the sociological imagination does not occur without considerable effort. Due to unequal power distributions among institutions and the groups within those various institutions, the shift from private troubles to public issues is constrained. From an individual’s point of view, much that happens to the individual emanates through forms of manipulation, or what Mills referred to as “blind drift”—when authority is not overtly expressed yet forces individuals to adapt to the situation they are in. As Mills states more precisely: [The individual] gears his aspirations and his work to the situation he is in, and from which he can find no way out. In due course, he does not seek a way out: he adapts.… This adaptation of the individual and its effects upon his milieu and self results not only in the loss of chance, and in due course, of his capacity and will to reason; it also affects his chances and capacity to act as a free man [170].

This perpetuation of individuals operating through a blind drift undermines the ability each has to understand the connection and com120

The Sociological Imagination Between Gladiators—Smith plexity of their own troubles and larger collective issues. Without knowing their own values and threats to those values, individuals cannot concretely define their own troubles, feeling instead “the misery of vague uneasiness” (Mills 11). Additionally, as Mills pointed out, neither can such an understanding of collective issues be contained within specific and micro-level approaches; the approach must concentrate on the structural level of a society. This structural position is one that is reflected in Spartacus: Blood and Sand with the development and process of the sociological imagination at work. The series itself first aired in 2010, the same year as the film version’s fiftieth anniversary. Although the film highlights the rebel spirit that is now the basis for the tale of Spartacus—and is very much a cornerstone of the Starz series—it operates on the level of societal critique rather than focusing on the practice of understanding the more micro dimensions of each character. Blood and Sand however, perhaps benefiting from its medium as a series rather than a single film, provides a more detailed exposition of the characters and the social sufferings they face at the whims of the structural composition of Roman life and those in higher positions of power. The following can be glimpsed by tracing the characters as they begin to recognize their personal troubles as part of larger processes, as well as the blind drift which invokes them at different times throughout the season, up until their collective overthrow of Batiatus in the season finale. Although there are a number of characters in Blood and Sand who could be discussed in detail, this essay—with regard to tracing out the development and implementation of the sociological imagination— largely focuses on the season’s main protagonist Spartacus and his chief gladiatorial rival Crixus. I have selected these two characters due to the fact that they represent most clearly how troubles can transform themselves into public issues. Additionally, despite Spartacus being the protagonist, the character development of Crixus runs parallel to Spartacus’ own journey throughout the first season. In having character development paths which run parallel, and frequently in conflict with each other, the two characters are often dynamic and provide rich social interactions to observe—both for the pleasure of the casual viewer and the inquiring academic. 121

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The Troubles of Gladiators In focusing on the troubles faced by Spartacus and Crixus, it is imperative to examine their own individual characters and explore the immediate opportunities and hindrances that face them within their given social world. Values play a particular role in defining how the troubles these characters face are realized and thus acted upon, especially given that Spartacus and Crixus interact and respond to the same social world from different perspectives, with Spartacus being thrust into Batiatus’ ludus, while Crixus has already become acclimated there and has earned the title of “Champion.” Exploring these values helps distinguish how the troubles component of Mills’ model works at the everyday level for both characters. The conflict between values is most readily seen in two early scenes of the season, when Spartacus first enters the ludus. During the second episode, when Spartacus is thrown into the gladiator quarters for grooming, he is provoked by Crixus and Barca, representing the “old guard” of the ludus. During this scene he learns of his new name, and when attempting to respond by revealing his true name is cut off by Crixus, who states, “No one gives shit to who you were, Thracian,” thereby nullifying Spartacus’ past and his attempt at holding onto it (“Sacramentum Gladiatorum”). Within the same scene we see Crixus further note the glory of the ludus as where “men are forged into gods!”—marking the transformative nature of the ludus itself as something that is designed to reshape the individual (“Sacramentum Gladiatorum”). This transformation is outlined more specifically in the scene immediately following this confrontation, in the training grounds of the ludus, as the new lot of gladiators are introduced to Doctore: Doctore: What is beneath your feet? Answer! What is beneath your feet? Recruit: Sand? Doctore: Crixus! What is beneath your feet? Crixus: Sacred ground, Doctore! Watered with the tears of blood! Doctore: Your tears. Your blood. Your pathetic lives, forged into something of worth. Listen. Learn. And perhaps, live. As gladiators. Now, attend your master! Batiatus: You have been blessed! Each and every one of you, to find yourselves here, at the ludus of Quintus Lentulus Batiatus! Purveyor of

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The Sociological Imagination Between Gladiators—Smith the finest gladiators in all of the Republic! Prove yourselves, in the hard days to follow. Prove yourselves more than a common slave. More than a man. Fail, and die. Either here where you stand, or sold off to the mines. Succeed, and stand proud among my titans! [“Sacramentum Gladiatorum”].

Within this scene the viewer is able to distinguish with clarity what the new recruits are there for and who their master is. In asserting the dominate values—welcoming and embracing death in the arena for the glory of the house and master they serve—Doctore and Batiatus highlight for the audience the manipulative structure that is at play within the ludus. As Crixus noted in the scene before, the training and conditioning the new recruits go through is meant to scrape away who they were, beginning a process of transformation that will lead them into what they truly are— “gods” of the arena. Spartacus runs into conflict with these values when he is asked to spar with Crixus to both put Spartacus in his place and demonstrate the training to be received. Upon refusing to initially fight, catching Doctore’s lash of the whip, and stating that his name is not Spartacus, he sets up value tensions early on within the season. Spartacus’ unwillingness to adhere to the values set forth by Batiatus for his gladiators demonstrates for the viewer how the troubles that Spartacus faces throughout the season are tied to his previous life before the ludus. For Spartacus, the betrayal he faced in fighting for the Romans, having his wife taken from him, and himself being turned into a slave are components of his sense of self that cause him to conflict with his new social world. Whereas Spartacus’ values from his past life lead to his troubles, it is the development of a different set of values that prompts Crixus to be overcome with troubles. In the beginning of the season the viewer is shown Crixus as the “Champion of Capua” and whole-heartedly invested in his role as Batiatus’ top gladiator. In an early episode in the season (“Legends”), however, the viewer learns of Crixus’ affections for the slave girl Naevia, as well as his affair with Batiatus’ wife Lucretia. As Crixus begins to pursue his feelings for Naevia, embodied by the symbolic gesture of giving her a necklace as a gift, his value orientation begins to change. This shift in value-orientation is clearly stated just before Spartacus and Crixus battle Theokoles, as Crixus looks to Naevia before entering the arena: 123

Spartacus in the Television Arena Crixus: Your woman, is she the reason you refuse to die? Spartacus: She is. Crixus: Then perhaps there is something beyond glory [“Shadow Games”].

In abandoning his pursuit of glory in the arena and his twin purposes of honoring the house of Batiatus and his own personal gain, Crixus has realigned the value system within his personal world. The later troubles which thus arise from this realignment come from external forces that impose upon the relationship that Crixus and Naevia are struggling to build. The troubles that Crixus faces come to a climax when Lucretia discovers this relationship. Toward the end of the season, when Naevia is sold and Crixus punished for his affections, those values to which Crixus initially aligned himself in the ludus finally crumble, a movement that highlights the true contention that deviation from the values of the ludus produces. As the values that Spartacus and Crixus hold create conflict for them within the ludus, the viewer begins to see how the troubles being formed are part of the structural dimensions of the ludus.

Struggling with Blind Drift As the sociological imagination takes shape throughout the course of Blood and Sand, its development is hindered as both Spartacus and Crixus are coming to accept their troubles as conditions which are outside of their control. This blind drift, which Mills saw as a form of alienation that prevented critiques of the structure, takes multiple forms during the season, wherein Spartacus and Crixus waver in their journey before coming to an understanding of the sociological imagination in regard to their social world. Although this argument is focused on the two characters discussed so far, we can more fully come to appreciate how they are both engaged in and eventually see through their blind drift by closely scrutinizing their interactions with other characters in the show. An important component in the blind drift that individuals go through relates to the power relations which shape how those individuals experience their social worlds. For Spartacus and Crixus, their status as slaves highlights the apparent power dynamic which exists between them 124

The Sociological Imagination Between Gladiators—Smith and their owner Batiatus—as well as with Glaber for Spartacus and Lucretia for Crixus. The concept of blind drift operates in tune with Theokoles’ title as the “Shadow of Death.” As noted above, rather than being overt in its actions, the concept of blind drift is tied to the covert ways in which authority is expressed and manipulative in its actions— acting more the “shadow” that is always present and prefiguring of forces which shape individuals’ abilities to act fully to their own ends. The manipulative effect this has on Spartacus is seen in his value realignment to acting as the champion and the responsibilities (and privileges) such an “honor” entails. Following Sura’s death upon being “reunited” with her, as promised by Batiatus, Spartacus is cast into his role as the new champion of Capua, the “Bringer of Rain.” As he struggles with accepting this newfound position, Spartacus is caught between his own noble version of morality and the values in which Batiatus runs his ludus. This is seen particularly in the episode “Great and Unfortunate Things.” When Batiatus commands Spartacus to fight in Mercato’s games, he firmly reminds Spartacus of his position as a slave. The viewer sees the conflict play out as the episode progresses: Spartacus refusing to fight dressed as a Roman against his opponents, who are dressed as Thracians; Pietros’ hanging of himself to escape the abuses of Gnaeus; Gnaeus’ death at the hands of Spartacus over his actions towards Pietros; and Spartacus’ eventual capitulation to Batiatus’ values. By the episode’s end, Spartacus has embraced this new value set; realizing that his own doubt in his wife’s beliefs have led him to this position, he accepts his fate as being the champion, and embracing all that it entails (much to the benefit of Batiatus). As his self comes to adapt to this newfound role, Spartacus is no longer preoccupied with his former life. Although he misses Sura, and this remembrance hinders his potential love interest with Mira, Spartacus has given up on former plans of escape and returning to the life he once had. Additionally for Spartacus, his friendship and interactions with Varro offer a more complex view of the concept of blind drift. As they go through the initial training and trials to become gladiators for Batiatus, Varro acts as a cool- hand to Spartacus’ flaring temper. Varro’s instructions to merely obey and get by appeal to the adaptation that one needs to undertake in order to survive. Due to their positions as slaves 125

Spartacus in the Television Arena (although Varro gave himself freely to the ludus to pay debts), adaptation is a forced requirement for Spartacus and the other slaves if they wish to live. When conditions such as these play out, the drift that Spartacus and Varro go through reflects the overt conditions which force them to obey. The complication enters once Spartacus has been forced to kill Varro unexpectedly in an exhibition match for the local magistrate’s son. Following this event, Spartacus begins to contemplate revenge and killing Batiatus, yet his mind is changed once he realizes that Varro’s wife, Aurelia, has taken work in the house of Batiatus to finish paying off Varro’s debts, especially after Mira informs him of the consequences when a slave kills a master—that all slaves in the master’s house are slain. In feeling the guilt of Varro’s death and internalizing it as a purely individualistic trouble, Spartacus has given into a blind drift based on the friendship he had formed with Varro; whereas before the two had been allies in “getting by,” the social connection the two developed itself eventually became part of the blind drift to adapt to the situation Spartacus finds himself in, keeping him locked in servitude. In relation to Spartacus, who has taken over as champion, Crixus has adjusted himself to the purpose of winning back the title of champion. Doing so, however, will require him to regain his honor and glory in the arena and eventually defeat Spartacus. Despite the connection that the two men face in regard to their love for their respective women, and having felt the loss of both, Crixus clings to the values that he has previously known in order to cope. This tension is highlighted explicitly when Spartacus tries to convince Crixus to join a rebellion within the ludus in the last episode; as Crixus refuses his aid, he responds, “You know that in another life, you and I may have been as brothers. But not in this one. I must win my freedom in the arena” (“Kill Them All”). The statement itself indicates the recognition that Crixus has for Spartacus and an understanding that he feels for Spartacus’ plight. Yet driven by his own goal to win his freedom in the arena—the traditional means made available to him—Crixus reduces himself to blind drift, remaining locked within his own personal troubles. The decision to perform in the arena merely prolongs the structural arrangements that are present for all of the gladiators and slaves under Batiatus. Whereas Spartacus’ eventual plan is to disrupt this structural arrangement, Crixus has chosen 126

The Sociological Imagination Between Gladiators—Smith to try and overcome his troubles through the very same structural arrangement that is also the cause of his troubles.

“Kill Them All” In analyzing social structure, what Mills offered sociology was his conception of structure that did not leave out the “volitional, active nature of human beings” (Scimecca Society & Freedom 21). Because individuals are composed of unique physic structures, they confront and adjust to conditions in their social worlds. As Spartacus and Crixus progress through the season, they both react and adapt to their social interactions in unique ways. Looking at the concept of blind drift demonstrates the give-and-take that is exerted on individuals as they interact within their social worlds. By the final episode (“Kill Them All”), the viewer arrives at a collective sense of what the real issue is that must be resolved—freedom from Batiatus’ ludus and, to a larger extent, from Roman rule. The ultimate moments in coming to the collective issue are seen predominately in the final two episodes. As Spartacus learns of the betrayal that Batiatus has levied against him—learning of his wife’s death at the order of Batiatus—his thoughts move from individual revenge to a mass rebellion of the slaves that Batiatus owns. The system deemed unjust by Batiatus’ slaves is embodied largely through the social sufferings the viewer sees inflicted onto Spartacus and Crixus throughout Blood and Sand. Although the supporting cast helps to highlight further how the structural arrangements are stacked against them, their struggles become representative in the troubles that Spartacus and Crixus face. For example, the killing of Barca, who had bought his freedom through traditional methods of escape from gladiatorial combat, is reflected in Crixus’ own effort to do the same in his attempt to get Naevia back. When Crixus finally joins with Spartacus in the final episode by launching him onto the deck overseeing the training grounds, their troubles converge into a collective issue. As mentioned in the last section, whereas Spartacus’ plan involved a disruption in the structural arrangements, Crixus chose to work within it. However, the system itself rejects Crixus; thus the betrayal of Crixus by Lucretia and Batiatus through 127

Spartacus in the Television Arena poisoning him before his battle with Spartacus moves Crixus to align himself with Spartacus’ plan for freedom. Given the tension that existed between the two throughout the season, the moment when Crixus aligns himself with Spartacus, signaling their reconciliation, is the impetus to move beyond individual grievances. After the violent overthrow and the death of Batiatus, Spartacus speaks to the slaves of the house: I have done this thing because it is just. Blood demands blood. We have lived and lost at the whims of our masters for too long. I would not have it so. I would not see the passing of a brother, for the purpose of sport. I would not see another heart ripped from a chest, or breath forfeit for no cause. I know not all of you wish this, yet it is done. It is done. Your lives are your own. Forge your own path, or join with us, and together we shall see Rome tremble [“Kill Them All”].

His final speech is emblematic of the social sufferings faced by all and brings Batiatus’ slaves within the larger collective issue. In stating that “Rome [will] tremble,” Spartacus is able to position the issue as one that is not just limited to how Batiatus treated his slaves, but how the system of Roman rule itself is unjust.

Conclusion The tension and eventual reconciliation between Spartacus and Crixus highlights the sociological imagination at work. Focusing on the struggles that each of these gladiators faces, the viewer sees the development and connection of the sociological imagination to their worldview. Beyond the blood, the sex, and the sand that is heavily prevalent in the first season (and the entire series) exists a very clear-cut framework of understanding the structural impositions that impact the lives of individuals. As the starter for the series, Blood and Sand works into its narrative an understanding of the role that social sufferings play in everyday life. The viewer is thus able to see how everyday elements of social life can lead to issues of inequality and social suffering, which can largely only be undone through structural change. Additionally, in focusing on the everyday elements, Blood and Sand highlights how easy it is for individuals to fall into a blind drift—where the onus for change is limited at an individual level. Yet, by the conclusion of the season, the 128

The Sociological Imagination Between Gladiators—Smith sociological imagination has become fully formed. Acknowledging how the Romans rule their subjects as a collective grievance, Spartacus and his followers can begin to mobilize themselves. In moving from the individual troubles to the collective issue, the beginnings of a social rebellion have been staged for the following seasons to explore.

Works Cited Chasin, Barbara H. “C. Wright Mills, Pessimistic Radical.” Sociological Inquiry 60.4 (1990): 337–351. Print. “Kill Them All.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Steven S. DeKnight. Dir. Jesse Warn. Starz. 22 January 2010. Television. “Legends.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Brent Fletcher. Dir. Grady Hall. Starz. 5 February 2010. Television. Mills, C. Wright. The Sociological Imagination. 1959. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Print. “Sacramentum Gladiatorum.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Steven S. DeKnight. Dir. Rick Jacobson. Starz. 29 January 2010. Television. Scimecca, Joseph A. “Paying Homage to the Father: C. Wright Mills and Radical Sociology.” The Sociological Quarterly 17.2 (1976): 180–196. Print. _____. Society & Freedom. Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1995. Print. _____. The Sociological Theory of C. Wright Mills. Port Washington: Kennikat Press, 1977. Print. “Shadow Games.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Miranda Kwok. Dir. Michael Hurst. Starz. 19 February 2010. Television. Simmons, David. “‘By Jupiter’s Cock!’ Spartacus: Blood and Sand, Video Games, and Camp Excess.” Of Muscles and Men. Ed. Michael G. Cornelius. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2011. 144–153. Print. Urbainczyk, Theresa. “Spartacus: A Hero Turns 50.” Film International 8.3 (2010): 7–13. Print. Wilkinson, Iain. “With and Beyond Mills: Social Suffering and the Sociological Imagination.” Cultural Studies/Critical Methodologies 12.3 (2012): 182–191. Print. Winkler, Martin N. “The Holy Cause of Freedom: American Ideals in Spartacus.” Spartacus: Film and History. Ed. Martin N. Winkler. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007. 154–188. Print.

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Spartacus and the Shifting Sands of Sacred Space Michael G. Cornelius In the second episode of the Spartacus: Blood and Sand series, Oenomaus, doctore at the ludus of Quintus Lentulus Batiatus, addresses some raw recruits about the nature of the terrain upon which they stand: Doctore: What is beneath your feet? Answer! What is beneath your feet? Recruit: Sand? Doctore: Crixus! What is beneath your feet? Crixus: Sacred ground, Doctore! Watered with the tears of blood! Doctore: Your tears. Your blood. Your pathetic lives, forged into something of worth. Listen. Learn. And perhaps, live. As gladiators [“Sacramentum Gladiatorum”].

Reflectively, in the penultimate episode of the Spartacus: War of the Damned series, Gannicus, former champion of Capua and former pupil of Oenomaus, and Sibyl, a slave girl he has rescued, watch a series of games held in honor of Crixus, the fallen slave general who recently died in battle with Crassus, a scene straight out of the pages of Appian. Sibyl, new to the ways of the arena, reacts viscerally to the violence she witnesses, and Gannicus attempts to explain the significance of the games, and the granular surface upon which they are enacted, thusly: Sibyl: I have never laid eyes upon the games. Gannicus: These are but dim reflection of the glory. Sibyl: You speak as if heart yearns for such days. Gannicus: To return to shackle and lash, no. To stand upon the sands

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Spartacus and the Shifting Sands of Sacred Space—Cornelius again—to know clear purpose of who you are and what must be done … that is a thing that calls to all of my kind [“The Dead and the Dying”].

Though separated by the broad expanse of the entire series, the two scenes reflect notions of spatiality and sacrality: a place, and the mythoreligious significance that is ascribed to that place by those who most appreciably act upon it—gladiators. Throughout Spartacus, sand—never constant, ever-shifting, a common staple in the arena1 landscapes of sword-and-sandal narratives—is referenced by the series’ gladiatorial caste with terminology that reflects consecrated, hallowed ground. For the brotherhood that fights and resides within the ludus of Batiatus and, later, leads a slave rebellion against Rome itself, sand is a reverent substance. It is afforded a sacred, quasi-mystical station in the fraternalistic, occasionally religic rhetoric that surrounds and informs the larger gladiator mythos that is, if not at the heart of the series, then surely essential to the core of its identity formation. For the gladiatorial caste in Spartacus, sand acts as a totem that differentiates them from the other social classes represented in the show while simultaneously providing key markers for identification and, as Gannicus’ words above demonstrate, purpose. In turn, this reverence toward sand and the sacrality imbued unto the arena transforms gladiatorial acts of savagery into sanctified acts of worship. This transformation is essential in understanding not only the maintenance of the gladiatorial caste in the ethos of the series, but also their bond as “blood” brothers and their successful cohesion into a reference group dependent upon the other for survival, self-concept, and self-construct. Despite its ubiquity and inconstant nature, sand becomes the glue that holds the rebels together, and the relationship between the sacred and the sand will come to reflect not only the rebels’ rejection of Roman values, but the very nature of the rebellion itself.

The Formation and Organization of Sacred Space Sacred spaces have been part of human existence since long before recorded history; parsing area into that which is consecrated and that which is not has been fundamental to human societal formation and 131

Spartacus in the Television Arena functioning. John North and Philip North suggest that “certain areas of space are sacred and, correspondingly, that other areas are worldly,” a notion that not only bifurcates space but places the sacred into a hierarchical categorization above that which is worldly (3). As a result, it is sacred space that truly matters, at least from a communal, societal perspective; the homespace may be of greatest significance to those who dwell within it, but from the viewpoint of the larger community, sacred spaces, often communalized in their identification and usage, remain the most meaningful.2 Jamsheed K. Chosky, writing on the dualistic importance of sacred space to the individual and the community, notes that, “Notions of ritual space, and patterns of behavior within such spaces, seem to be intrinsic to individual aspiration and collective resolution” (21). Thus sacred spaces impact both the individual and the community through similar means—influencing notions of identity and behavior construction. An individual worshipper may curtail or alter his/her behavior based on the teachings of his/her faith; concurrently, the faith may, as part of its doctrine, establish some construct of individualistic achievement that is possible only through the faith, whether this be the attainment of a paradisiacal afterlife, the reincarnation or cyclical return of the soul into (optimally) a higher form, or some other “end” result that only the faith can provide the individual. Thus while each individual within the faith may share these singular goals, as a community, the faith impacts behavior differently, leading the “flock,” as it were, to feed the poor, proselytize, or shun the external world, to note just a few examples of religiouslyderived communal behavior. Chosky argues that, “ritual spaces and the rites conducted therein seem to condition devotees to understand and accept events in particular manners that benefit both the individuals and the communities” (21). Thus these behaviors are inscribed with notions of advantage and subsidy. In some ways, this is the general promise of faith: that the consequence of belief will benefit the believer, and outweigh any minor or major identity alteration or behavioral proscription that may accompany it. Moreover, the creation of sacred space is a communal effort. This effort, however, alters the nature of the space thus created. As Sigurd Bergmann suggests, “Religions can in fact themselves be analysed as rit132

Spartacus and the Shifting Sands of Sacred Space—Cornelius ualizations which depend on space and reshape it” (11). Key to understanding this, of course, is understanding the human relationship to space and the role agency plays in the fabrication and formation of significant and, indeed, sacred spaces. Forrest Clingerman writes that “place is defined through the interpretation of space” (47). Christoph Rehmann-Sutter agrees: “The inclination needed to see a place is an expectation of the observing subject to become involved in an autonomous space of meanings” (176, emphasis in the original). For Clingerman and Rehmann-Sutter, space is a sociocultural construction, and it contains no particular meaning until it is imbued with that meaning by individuals or communities. Martyn Smith notes that “meaning creation…[is] a central task of every culture,” which includes the “‘transmutation’ of physical places into places of cultural significance” (7, 20). Thus it is the believers who create sacred space. From this perspective, the gods did not forge Mt. Olympus; the faithful did. Yet, as Rehmann-Sutter indicates, human beings are also, and perhaps instinctually, inclined to construct generic space into places of meaning through particular characteristics contained within these spaces. Society has, as a basis of functioning, a need for spaces that are imbued with meaning. There can be stretches of terrain that are nothing more than terrain; yet we must also have spaces that are important to us and serve purposes for societal functioning. A town square may indicate a gathering place, to disseminate information or make decisions regarding the functioning of state. A memorial site may indicate a shared recollection of past events and, perhaps, a shared indication to not repeat those events. George Wolfe argues that, “Since the dawn of civilization, humans have had a need for sacred gathering places—spaces designated for worshipping the omnipotent force or forces to which we all inevitably succumb” (400). The “inevitability” of these places indicates their significance in human societal functioning. Yet what, specifically, is that significance? What role do sacred spaces serve in societal functioning? On one hand, sacrality implies exclusivity. According to Katharina Schramm, “Declaring something sacred means to remove it from the everyday realm, giving it special attention and symbolic value and, at least ideally, deeming it undisputable” (7). She continues: “To some extent, sacralization can be regarded as a means of creating extraordi133

Spartacus in the Television Arena nary space” (15). Thus access to these spaces likewise implies exclusivity amongst those allowed entry into these hallowed grounds, exclusivity that may be physical and/or metaphysical. This process of exclusion shapes a community that is likely already centered around particular ideologies; whether those ideologies have manifested into specific creeds and doctrines or whether those ideologies merely remain manifest as a loose amalgamation of ideas and precepts, there is nonetheless a particular knowledge basis that is unique only to those who have gained full admittance into the sacred space. Chosky suggests that this sense of exclusivity conveys with it a sense of prerogative and dominion: “sacrality is linked to social authority thought to be conferred upon individuals and families by the deity” (25). This relationship with the central figure or figures of the sacred space connotes the exclusivity of the space. The sacrality of a particular space also reflects the transformation/ transformative nature of the space itself. Mircea Eliade writes that, “By manifesting the sacred, any object becomes something else, yet it continues to remain itself, for it continues to participate in its surrounding cosmic milieu. A sacred stone remains a stone… But for those to whom a stone reveals itself as sacred, its immediate reality is transmuted into a supernatural reality” (12). This transmutation of reality is also reflected in the transmutation of identity that accompanies full admission into the sacred space. This identity process begins with the single subject identifying the nature of the sacred space, establishing a link between the significance of the space and those mysteries that are contained therein. Once this identification occurs, the larger process of communal identification can begin. Peter Foreman and David A. Whetten note that, “Scholars in social identity … begin with the premise that people classify themselves and others based on various social or demographic groups, e.g., gender, race, ethnicity, religion, occupation, and so on. This social classification scheme provides individuals with a means of defining themselves through a sense of oneness, or identification with a particular group” (619). They add that an implied or explicit identity comparison process involves an evaluative component, the intent of which is to help group members reduce dissonance between perceptions regarding “who I am” and “who we are.” Fur-

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Spartacus and the Shifting Sands of Sacred Space—Cornelius thermore, these models propose that an underlying desire or pressure for congruence, or “fit,” shapes certain attitudes and behaviors [619].

It is not inevitable that the recognition of sacred space leads to the evaluation of the mysteries contained therein; individuals may visit a sacred space, when permissible, simply to view it, understand it, or merely record its existence. This recognition, however, is the first step in a continuum that may lead to an eventual identity alteration that requires conformity to the larger group identity, should such a shift be warranted and permissible. In this way, sacred spaces are likewise inclusive, in no small part because of their exclusivity. Most—though not all—faiths seek the expansion of their membership, but key to admittance is the acceptance of the communal identity forged at the heart of the sacred space. On a macro scale, this may include ritualistic ceremonies and the study of key ecclesiastic texts; yet on a micro scale, on the scale that resonates within a particular sacred space—say, for example, one particular church, even though that church belongs to a larger denomination—admittance into the sacred space requires conformities that generally extend beyond the doctrinal. Movement into sacred and communal standards of identification requires understanding the ways in which the space informs those who worship within it, as well as how the faith of the believers has altered the space. This exclusive nature, then, is of great appeal to outsiders, not in spite of the fact that it requires identity alteration, but, rather, because of that fact. Mary Bucholtz and Kira Hall, in examining the complex relationship between individual identity and social identification, suggest that the individual is both responsible for the process of identification and, simultaneously, subject to it as well. As they note: We use the term “intersubjectivity” rather than “identity” to highlight the bivalency of social identification: On the one hand, the subject is the agent, the subject of social processes; on the other, the subject is the patient, subject to social processes. “Intersubjectivity” emphasizes that identification is inherently relational, not a property of isolated individuals. Thus, tactics of intersubjectivity may position the self, the other, or (most often) both [493–494].

This complex process is only heightened in the presence of the sacred, since, “Every sacred space implies a hierophany, an irruption of the 135

Spartacus in the Television Arena sacred that results in detaching a territory from the surrounding cosmic milieu and making it qualitatively different” (Eliade 26). The hierophantic nature of sacred space disrupts—or, conversely, enhances—the intersubjective nature of social identification because of the promises contained within the explanation of mystery and the attainment of individual achievement that nearly all faiths contain. This is not to suggest that faith is imbued with an inherent sense of bribery, although individuals tend to identify with groups that are, in some way, beneficial to them. (Of course, these choices can be proscribed by a wide variety of individual, geographic, and social traits). Nonetheless, the individual’s identification to and with sacred space is heightened by a sense of advantageousness. This was certainly true in ancient Rome, where sacred spaces, in the exercise of faith, enjoyed, at best, an ill-fitting sense of boundary. As John North and Philip North observe, classical Greek and Roman sacred space consisted of a network of sacred groves and springs, of temples and sacred enclosures, of wayside altars and shrines. The Romans in particular—that is the Romans of Rome, before they had incorporated the whole Mediterranean world—had elaborate distinctions between different degrees of sacredness and also elaborate rituals for the consecration of sacred land to the gods and for fixing the boundaries within which religious or political activity could take place—when consulting the gods, for instance, or making state decisions. The Romans also had a strong sense of the places made sacred by remembered divine action: the action would provide the material for a narrative or myth and a tradition of worship would be maintained at the scene [3].

The inconsistency of Roman sacred space—both natural and man-made, both segregated and integrated with the larger populace, waxing and waning in both popularity and degree of sanctity—reflects, in some ways, the inconsistent nature of Roman belief itself. Rather than a strict series of doctrinal beliefs, Roman faith incorporated a wide panoply of deities arranged in a loose conglomeration of tenets that often shifted depending on the needs and beliefs of the ruling individuals or public taste. If there was one consistency about Roman space in general, however, it is that it reflected the caste of the individual or group it was designed to service. This is most visible among the elite and imperial 136

Spartacus and the Shifting Sands of Sacred Space—Cornelius classes; as Gerhard van den Heever has noted, “ancient spaces, public and private, were highly colorful and richly decorated surfaces” (209). Speaking of one particular part of the Empire, van den Heever observes that “the rich tapestry of mosaic decoration in Levantine Roman houses evidences a sense of urban consciousness and civic pride illustrative of imperial class consciousness and comportment,” an observation that holds true of the larger aspects of Empire as well (210). Because they controlled the economies of ancient Rome, “The elites … were also the class of people who financed public building works, erection of imperial temples and shrines, in effect, not only creating, recreating and maintaining their own romanitas, but also their represented world as empire” (van den Heever 210). These often ostentatious displays of wealth reflected the elite caste’s control over space, both private and public. This control over public and private spheres allowed the elites not only control over the Empire itself, but also indicated the economic nature of their control. Control of space is key to controlling those who dwell within said space; as such, even sacred spaces were not beyond the control of the Roman elite. As van den Heever notes, “In the arena of religion this [control] translated into new styles of sacred architecture and new depictions of deities… Changes in the religious landscape also include the flowering of mysteries/mystery cults in the period.… The mysteries were essential pageantry, son et lumiere tableaux vivants, performances loosely enacting mystical narratives, and as performatives, creating the reality of what was represented” (211). Thus, van den Heever argues, public Roman faith was crafted as a result of the intervention of the elite caste into its public sacred spaces. The ruling caste constructed the shape and essence of the faith itself, changing, indeed, the very faces of the gods, to reinforce their own social status and the conditions that favored their domination. The most significant social functioning of any group or organization is, after all, the continued functioning of the group itself. In Rome, sacred space was one way that the elite caste could maintain a sense of control over the vastness of the Empire itself. By controlling the realms and spheres of faith, they controlled Rome. Yet this narrative of control is not without its disruptions, and one of those disruptions is inherent in the religic nature of the gladiatorial “brotherhood” that is formed at the ludus of Batiatus in the Spartacus 137

Spartacus in the Television Arena series. By rejecting the sacred spaces of their Roman masters and forming, in a manner of speaking, their own centers of faith, the gladiatorial caste—at first symbolically and, later, literally—rejects Roman control over their beliefs and, ultimately, their fates. It is faith that leads them first, to brotherhood, then ultimately to rebellion and freedom.

The Shifting Sands of Sacrality In rejecting Roman sacred spaces and instead fashioning a sacrality for the very sand beneath their feet, the gladiators in the house of Batiatus transform their surroundings from slavery cells into religious cells. This, in turn, communalizes them, forming a group identity based not on Roman standards of gladiatorial performance but on sacred expressions of sanctified behavior, eventually creating the proper conditions for the rebellion that would win them their freedom. The sacralization of sand directly connects the gladiatorial caste to a more natural practice of faith, with the emphasis here on “nature” reflecting both intrinsic human behavior and space generally untouched by the “civilizing” efforts of humanity. From a contemporary perspective, their connection to nature renders the gladiators at Batiatus’ ludus more “natural,” more bound to the earth and thus reflecting a more solid system of values. Clingerman writes that “nature arises from the mediation between human, nature, and place” (47). Here, Clingerman uses “nature” to refer largely to unspoiled territory, but the referent could also relate to instinctual behavior as well. This suggests that the sacralization of sand by the gladiators is thus derived in part based on both personal and social imperative. However, when this need is combined with Clingerman’s “mediation between human, nature, and place,” the implication is that the gladiatorial practice of sacralizing sand, far from being just an intuitive gesture, is the result of considered thought and practice. This is not merely a result of being forced to fight upon the sand, or to largely live upon it; this tenet of their brotherhood reflects deeper bonds of faith. Sand is, of course, ubiquitous in the sword-and-sandal narrative. It is a material object that dominates the arena floor and landscapes of these films and televisions series. The genre itself has long been marked 138

Spartacus and the Shifting Sands of Sacred Space—Cornelius by its connectivity to the material objects and cultures that have given it definition. In an earlier work on the sword-and-sandal film, I noted the significance of this relationship between objects and the genre itself: [The sword-and-sandal film] derives its common name from two objects, two aspects of a material culture that are recurrently utilized by the protagonists of the films themselves. It is the only genre of film thus named.… [Yet it] is no accident that another name for this genre is the “strongman movie” … a name that would seem, at first, to go against the predominant material theme reflecting the other common generic names for these films. However, like the sword, the sandal, and the peplum, the hero’s body exists as a tool, to serve a purpose, to function, in the larger schema of the film [2, 7, emphasis in original].

The connectivity of object to utility in the sword-and-sandal genre reflects larger concerns about the utility of masculinity that these narratives manifest. On its surface, sand seems to be another utilitarian object directly connected to concerns about/over masculinity. Sand, after all, not only cushions the fall of a gladiator in practice or combat, but it is also an absorptive material, soaking in the blood of the wounded gladiator, as Crixus has already observed: “Watered with the tears of blood!” Yet, in Spartacus, the swords, sandals, peplum, and even the bodies of the gladiators are not afforded sacred status—only the sand itself is. This is indicative, then, of the larger relationship at work between the gladiator and the space that surrounds him. Clearly, he is not his sword, his weapon, or even his body; he is, however, directly connected to the space he inhabits. Sallie McFague, noting the intrinsic relationship between nature and fundamental forms of humanity/ humanism, writes that, “‘Nature’ is everything there is; we are nature; we are also nature reflecting on nature; nature is our physical, emotional, and spiritual home; it is our place and our space—our one and only place and space” (xi). In correlating themselves to natural expressions of faith—in connecting sand to “sacred ground,” as Crixus does in the second episode of the series—the gladiatorial caste in Spartacus eschews the material functionality of their role in Roman society and seeks, instead, a deeper understanding of their place in the world. Smith suggests that, “Here we see the pliability of the relationship between landscape and narrative,” the ways in which our stories are written on the spaces we inhabit, and vice-versa (8). Ascribing sacral value 139

Spartacus in the Television Arena to sand thus reflects the sacralization of the gladiatorial act itself. Thus it is not surprising that the gladiators find their sacred space, quite literally, on the ground beneath their feet. This correlates, as Wolfe notes, to older, more primitive forms of sacred terrestrial design: “Originally, [sacred] gathering places were unconfined, open and integrated into the natural world” (400). In a contemporary parlance, the expression of “nature” religion connotes to paganism, Wicca, and other practices that mainstream Western culture often derides as tangential, feminine, and unorthodox.3 Placed within an ancient milieu, however, these “primitive” expressions of faith can take on more down-to-earth, natural, and even benign connotations. In the 1982 film Conan the Barbarian, for example, Conan prays to his earth god, Krom, while his companion Subotai prays to the four winds. Both are natural expressions of faith, individualistic and seemingly loosely organized. Conan needs no particular sacred space to pray, and his relationship to his faith, while omnipresent, remains nonetheless skeptical; he prays to Krom out of habit as much as anything else. This contrasts sharply with the snake-cult of the film’s protagonist, Thulsa Doom, which has arisen in the cities of Conan’s world, spaces whose landscapes the heroes of the film find dubious and distrustful, as Subotai observes: “civilization … ancient and wicked” (Conan the Barbarian). Writing of the film’s relationship to ritual, John Elia notes that, “Conan reviles the power of the cultic priest, Thulsa Doom… Empty ritual behavior disrespects the values and traditions being ritually preserved while promoting the power of the interpreters and practitioners of the ritual or ceremony” (80). This same false presentation of religion is reflected in the representation of Roman faith in Spartacus, as Batiatus observes: “I’m just a simple Roman trying to make his way against the whim of the gods, the politicians, the miscreants. So often you can’t tell one from the other” (“Sacramentum Gladiatorum”). In eschewing the corruptive nature of the official state religion, the gladiatorial caste in Spartacus reverts to older, more primitive forms of faith. As Michael Bell has observed, primitivism reflects a release from civilized moral restraint which derives its potentially heroic aspect in two ways: by comparison with the moral hollowness of contemporary civilized man and by virtue of the courage, albeit perverse courage, that is required to pursue this human potentiality to its extreme. But the

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Spartacus and the Shifting Sands of Sacred Space—Cornelius very implication that such courage is required highlights the fundamental assumptions that the primitivist urge, if indulged, can only lead to the destruction of the civilized self [38–39].

Embracing primitivism results in the rejection of the civilized world that surrounds the gladiatorial caste. Yet considering this is a world that has enslaved them and forced them to fight to the death, it is not surprising that “civilization,” and all that it entails, would be rejected by the gladiators. Yet what rises up to take its place seems, at first, to be neither doctrinal, in the strict sense of the word, nor, indeed, a religion that allows for identity expression for its practitioners beyond their existence as gladiators in the first place. Crixus, in castigating Spartacus for his more laissez-faire attitude toward the arena, at one point sermonizes to him on the significance of “glory,” ending his catechism by stating that, “There is no greater thing than standing victorious in the arena” (“Shadow Games”). If sand is the sacred space of the gladiatorial caste, then what is the expression of the faith that practices upon it? What is contained within their gladiatorial creed?

Brotherhood as “Religion” In his response to Crixus’ sermon on “glory,” Spartacus answers not with invective, but with questions: “Is there no purpose beyond the blood? No dream beyond the cheering crowd? Is there nothing else you fight for?” (“Shadow Games”). Crixus, lacking answers, walks away. Yet Spartacus’ questions of faith compel us to ask one of our own: what do the gladiators actually believe? It is evident that the Roman elite have little understanding of the faith of their gladiatorial slaves. Batiatus shares his perspective on the matter when he notes, “no man [is] without worth … even the most vile among us could rise to honor and glory” (“Sacramentum Gladiatorum”). Yet when he speaks of worth, Batiatus refers to coin, coin that, largely, will lace his pocket; for him, gladiators are as material as the swords and sandals that give the genre its common name. According to a noble Roman woman, Ilithyia, gladiators “live for their editors, and for those whose honors they enact” (Clements 119, emphasis in the original). Ilithyia, representative of Roman thought, believes all slaves to be an 141

Spartacus in the Television Arena extension of those who own them—and thusly, by extension, of the will, and faith, or lack of faith, of their masters as well. In the Spartacus novel Swords and Ashes, a young incarnation of the famous Roman author Cicero posits, “Which divinity rules the blood and sand? … Nemesis! … The daughter of night! The queen of rough justice! The goddess of vengeance!” (Clements 141). He adds: “Wander within the warriors’ quarters and you shall see their cells adorned with nude statuettes and medallions. You shall see them laying coin for temple sacrifices and whispering her name as they walk onto the sands. It is Nemesis to whom they pray. Nemesis! The architect of spite!” (Clements 141–142). Glory … lucre … duty … retribution … these are not the tenets of the gladiatorial faith. They each reflect, however, the violence that is inherent to a gladiatorial existence. Violence is problematic to our understanding of faith, largely because, in a modern world, it serves little purpose in the practice of sacred ritual. Indeed, as Wolfe observes, sacred spaces have become, in contemporary usage, the place where “one finds refuge from the world,” including the violence contained therein (403). Yet, as Elia notes, “Though [sword-and-sandal] films are chock full of fantasy violence and, increasingly, bloodshed, engagement with characters such as Spartacus, Conan, or King Leonidas [300] can deepen one’s understanding of violence and its costs, especially violence untempered by heroic reverence” (76). He adds: “In spite of all of the pain and suffering violence causes, it happens; the best one can do is to prepare not to forget one’s humanity and the humanity of others, and to preserve the values one ought always continue to be awed by, even at the height of conflict and competition” (77). What Elia refers to here reflects how the Roman elite demonstrate that their understanding of gladiatorial faith and gladiatorial motivation in Spartacus is read largely through their relationship to violence. The Roman elite fail to recognize that there is an essential humanity to the gladiators; to them, after all, they constitute an inferior class of beings who exist, like the sword, the sandal, and the peplum, to serve a purpose, to function as utility. The nature of gladiatorial violence has little meaning to them—just as the gladiators’ lives are relatively meaningless to them—and, as such, their considerations of the role violence plays in a gladiatorial existence is cursory at best. For Cicero, violence is a means to an end, a way to quell the rancor 142

Spartacus and the Shifting Sands of Sacred Space—Cornelius within, presumably a rancor that is manifested from the process and condition of enslavement (for him, Nemesis is a deity for gladiators, not Romans). Cicero suggests that gladiators enact revenge upon their masters in the arena, a symbolic gesture at best, though, arguably, all ritual is, at heart, a symbolic gesture. For Ilithyia, the violence of the gladiators reflects the violence of the Roman elite caste, a violence that is kept in check, in part, via the vicarious destruction enacted in the arena. For Batiatus, who is closest to the gladiators and who suggests he is a lanista because he can “see things in men that they themselves have lost … and give it breath … until it ignites in the arena,” the violence of the gladiators is part of long-standing tradition, a ritualistic world that, most closely, matches an actual doctrine of faith itself (“Sacramentum Gladiatorum”). However, for Batiatus, this results in a truly singular, exclusive faith community; as he tells Spartacus, “fight for me, and the honor of my forefathers” (“Sacramentum Gladiatorum”). Violence, for Batiatus, becomes part of a ritualistic sacrifice to both his ancestors and, even more significantly, himself, offerings to the deistic manner to and from which he views himself, and, thus by extension, mirrors how the Roman elite views itself. For the gladiators, violence takes on a reverent characteristic in the expression of their faith. Clearly, the blood intermingling with the sand is meant to infer sacrifice—yet sacrifice to what end? Clifford Geertz, writing of the nature of ritual, observes that, “In ritual, the world as lived and the world as imagined, fused together under the agency of a single set of symbolic forms, turn out to be the same world” (112). Thus one consequence of the sacralization of sand, and the sanctification of sand through blood, through—and perhaps more significantly, as Oenomaus notes—self-blood, is the fusion of the arena and the external environment. This spatial amalgamation is seemingly rational for slaves whose mobility is strictly regulated and whose lives revolve around their cells, their ludus, and the arena itself. Thus, in some ways, the gladiatorial faith teaches its followers not to strive for achievement in the outside world, but rather to strive for performance on the sand. An argument can be made that the reverence through which the gladiators perceive the sand—and, by extension, their own world and existence—may force them into the social structure/stricture that confines them. For gladia143

Spartacus in the Television Arena tors, there is no secular world—no world beyond the sacred space of the sand. Lacking impetus to rebel, their own gladiatorial “faith” may conspire to keep them confined in the slave roles from which this faith first materializes. Thus their world mirrors a religious community where vows of poverty and chastity are seemingly replaced by vows of glory, violence, victory, and masculinity. Entrance into this exclusive domain comes at a heavy price, since they generally never leave it, at least not until their own blood sacrifice on the sand costs them everything. There is some truth to this—even in the final episode of Blood and Sand, after Batiatus has removed Crixus’ love Naevia and sold her, he refuses to depart from what he believes is his “true” path: “I am far removed. My escape would not aid Naevia” (“Kill Them All”). Yet the reason he refuses to alter what he believes to be his life’s trajectory is not a consequence of his gladiatorial faith but the impetus for it: brotherhood. In the same scene, Crixus questions Spartacus about the plan to rebel against the house of Batiatus: “Rhaskos speaks of your desires. What fever grips brain, that Spartacus would think me to band with him. To risk the lives of my men, my life” (“Kill Them All”). Indeed, the gladiators frequently placed the lives of their “brothers” above all other consideration. In the first season episode “Mark of the Brotherhood,” Spartacus is set upon by a new recruit to the ludus, Segovax, who had been ordered to kill Spartacus by his owner, Ilithyia. His attempt on Spartacus’ life was thwarted by Crixus, who saved the man he claimed to despise: Spartacus: You would kill a fellow Gaul, to save a man you hate? Crixus: I did not save Spartacus. I saved a brother, who shares the mark [“Mark of the Brotherhood”].

Fraternalism is one of the key tenets of the gladiatorial faith, the cornerstone upon which the reverence for sacred sand is fashioned. Once an individual has earned commission into the ranks of Batiatus’ gladiators, he becomes literally and transfiguratively marked. The branded “B” inscribed into his forearm indicates that he is a part of a particular and highly specialized brotherhood, one that frames its conceptual understanding of itself through religic rhetoric and ritualistic enactment. Ancient sources of Spartacus’ rebellion indicate that most of the gladiators in Batiatus’ ludus were either Thracian or Gallic. In Howard Fast’s 144

Spartacus and the Shifting Sands of Sacred Space—Cornelius original 1951 novel, however, the gladiators include myriad ethnicities, religions, and races, creating what Carl Hoffman describes as a “multicultural proletariat” of rebellion (63). Both the 1960 film version and the Starz’ television series maintain this heterogeneous composition to Spartacus’ immediate army. In the novel and the film, the rebel band can be united in a single, joint purpose; in the series, however, especially in the first two seasons of Blood and Sand and Gods of the Arena, something else is necessary to create a cohesive gladiatorial unit. According to Jay C. Wade and Chris Brittain-Powell, males are “dependent on a male reference group for [their] gender role selfconcept” (323). The authors continue: “The gender role self-concept is one’s self-concept with regard to gender roles and includes one’s genderrelated attributes, attitudes, and behaviors” (323). As such, “males identify with other males to the extent that they feel psychological relatedness to a particular group of males or to all males” (324). On the surface, protagonists in sword-and-sandal narratives seem to fall into Wade and Brittain-Powell’s “No Reference Group,” which “is characterized by a lack of psychological relatedness to other males, an unintegrated or undifferentiated ego identity, an undefined or fragmented gender role self-concept, and confusion, anxiety, alienation, and insecurity associated with gender role experiences” (324). Wade and Brittain-Powell suggest that men who belong to the “No Reference Group” feel isolated from larger male communities, not wanting to belong to any but often being forced to pledge membership to one group or another to enact the role of male. This can sometimes result in a state of hypermasculinity, a profile of masculine behavior that typically involves high levels of aggression and violence, as well as “destructiveness, low tolerance for delay of gratification, crime, drinking, and similar dispositions” (Broude 103). Garry Chick and John W. Loy suggest that such behavior can result in overtly and overly stereotyped masculine behavior (3–6). A hypermasculine male does not work well within a larger societal group because his behavior is antithetical to the operational dynamics of the group itself; unless the group is bent on destruction, hypermasculinity threatens the stability of the unit. The hypermasculine male certainly seems descriptive of any number of sword-and-sandal protagonists—from Hercules to Conan to 145

Spartacus in the Television Arena Leonidas—though, as I argue in the introduction to Of Muscles and Men, the hypermasculinity of the sword-and-sandal hero is generally redirected into the service of his fellow man, and not against it, a characteristic that distinguishes this form of the “No Reference Group” male from others (6–8). This description also seems an apt way to describe Spartacus, Crixus, and any number of gladiators in Batiatus’ school, whose hypermasculinity is on display through male posturing, threats of violence, repeated bloodshed, and their exposed, thewy flesh. Yet their insistence upon “brotherhood,” and the common catechism they share as brothers, alters their individual subjectivities. This is perhaps best demonstrated through the death of the gladiator Auctus. In the Gods of the Arena episode “Paterfamilias,” the veteran gladiator Auctus is challenged in the arena by Crixus, then still a new recruit to the ludus of Batiatus. Crixus had not yet “earned” his branded “B” and his entrance into their brotherhood, obtained through the defeat of an alreadyenshrined gladiator in combat; thus, to this point, he has been shunned and hazed by the gladiators, who view him as outsider. Yet when Crixus stood victorious upon the sand, he was immediately welcomed into the gladiatorial fraternity, even though the man he just killed was liked and respected by his peers. Indeed, even Auctus’ lover, Barca, held no resentment toward Crixus, demonstrating that the bonds of brotherhood go beyond even the bonds of romantic love. This is because, unlike other sword-and-sandal heroes, the gladiators in Batiatus’ ludus do not belong to the “No Reference Group”; rather, their gender role self-concept falls into the “Reference Group Dependent status,” which “is characterized by feelings of psychological relatedness to some males and not others, a conformist ego identity, dependence on a male reference group for one’s gender role self-concept, and thereby rigid adherence to gender roles, stereotyped attitudes, and limited or restricted gender role experiences and behaviors” (Wade and Brittain-Powell 325). These groups thus become a way for the individual to claim a larger construct of manhood in an environment that reflects both how he identifies himself and how the world perceives him in a way that will ultimately define or re-define his role as male. These groups tend to alter or proscribe behavior, homogenize values and beliefs, and aid in the self-fashioning of a masculine identity. 146

Spartacus and the Shifting Sands of Sacred Space—Cornelius Typically, the “Reference Group Dependent status” is used to characterize groups like military units, where unit cohesion is key to the functioning of the group. This seems like an unusual identity formation pattern for gladiators who, while training and occasionally fighting sideby-side, are often led into the arena alone and deemed to find individual glory the highest aspiration of all. It is, however, the composition of their sacred space that allows them to circumvent the individual nature of their states. Linda McDowell tells us that, “All identities are a fluid amalgam of memories of places and origins, constructed by and through fragments and nuances, journeys and rests, of movements between” (215). The selection of sand as sacral space not only solemnizes the relationship that gladiators have to their vocation, it solemnizes their relationship to their brother gladiators as well. It creates conditions for a singular, cohesive masculine referent whereas, without the bonds of sacrality, competition and hypermasculine behavior would result in continuous self-individuation and the assurance that social bonds would never be formed among the gladiator caste. Though based on a precept of fraternalism, gladiatorial faith also reflects notions of honor and fatalism as well. As honor, at its most fundamental, is a behavioral code governing interrelationships between a man and his peers, a man and his deities, and a man and women, it functions powerfully in the gladiatorial faith. When Crixus killed Segovax, for instance, it was because honor caused him to do so. Already intrinsically connected with brotherhood, honor allows the sacred bond to deepen; it is the unspoken creed that ultimately connects the behavior—and the fate—of each gladiator to the other. As the third buttress in the tripartite foundations of Spartacus’ gladiatorial faith, along with fraternity and honor, the concept of fate is trickier to quantify. An important concept throughout the series, it works, at least in the initial episodes, as a means to pacify the gladiators, who accept the conditions of their lives and deaths as the vagaries of fate. This is given to them by the false prophet Batiatus, who frequently tells them, “A man must accept his fate, or be destroyed by it” (“Sacramentum Gladiatorum”). From the mouth of Batiatus, the utterance is meant, at best, as empty rhetoric, and, at worst, as a threat, reminding the gladiators that he is dominus over them all. Their fate, as he sees it, is to make 147

Spartacus in the Television Arena him coin and to live and die by his command. Initially, none of the gladiators question this, even Crixus, who laments his fate when he is grievously injured in the fight against Theokoles and Spartacus captures the glory of the victory. In fact, it is only Spartacus who seems to question the concept of fate. He does so from the very beginning; in the first episode, when his wife Sura has a prophetic dream showing, “My husband on his knees, bowing before a great red serpent, the life draining from his veins,” Spartacus rejoins that, “It was just a dream” (“The Red Serpent”). Once brought to Batiatus’ ludus, Spartacus seems at first content to not even know his fate; later, he struggles with it. Eventually, though, Spartacus accepts his fate and his place, until he is forced to kill his “brother” and boon companion, Varro, in a sparring exhibition. Brooding, when he dreams again of his wife, the two share a familiar exchange: Sura: Why did you kill him? Spartacus: I had no choice. A man must accept his fate. Sura: Or be destroyed by it [“Old Wounds”].

Echoing the words of Batiatus, Sura demonstrates to her husband the true nature of fate, that it is forged by the behavior of individuals and reflective of an intrinsic sense of agency that any individual may possess. For the slaves at Batiatus’ ludus, however, it is only the sacred nature of their space that allows them to circumvent the fatalistic notion that their destiny has already been decided. It is worth noting here McDowell’s observation that “bodies in space raise all sorts of questions about the space and place they occupy” (40). It would seem that Spartacus’ insertion into the sacred brotherhood alters the nature of the faith itself; and yet, this is no surprise, since, as Michael Tavinor would attest, “Sacred space does not remain static over periods of time” (35). Space and faith both change, transmute, and alter as that which supplies both their definitions—individuals and/or communities, those who practice the faith and dwell within it—change and alter as well. Eventually, Spartacus will use the bonds of brotherhood to unite the gladiators against their master. When this occurs, Batiatus rounds on Spartacus: Batiatus: You were nothing before me. I gave you everything. I gave you the means to accept your fate. Spartacus: Now you are destroyed by it [“Kill Them All”].

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Spartacus and the Shifting Sands of Sacred Space—Cornelius United as before, but now by a different purpose, the gladiatorial caste leaves the house of Batiatus behind, seeking, as Gannicus so eloquently put it, “clear purpose … upon the sands.”

Conclusion It may be disingenuous for me to argue here, as I do, that the social code practiced by the gladiators of Batiatus’ ludus is an actual faith. It lacks, in many aspects, a codified sense of doctrine or dogma. It does contain, however, particular precepts of fraternity, honor, and fatalism that mirror religious tenets, and these precepts cohere the disparate individuals of the ludus under one identity and purpose. All of this is accomplished, of course, on the sacred sands of the arena and the ludus training field. It is interesting that Oenomaus’ first lesson to the gladiator recruits is the lesson of sacred ground. Schramm writes “the relationship between violence, memory, body and landscape—namely the sacralization of … space.… [T]he sacred is not to be understood as an innate and unchanging quality inherent to certain objects or sites, bur rather as potentiality” (6). The potentiality espoused is seemingly one of gladiatorial glory; yet, in reality, the band of brothers training under the watchful eyes of the lanista Batiatus saw something much more in the sacral ground beneath their feet—they saw freedom. In the Spartacus television series, it was the gladiators’ faith in each other, and in the sacred space beneath their feet, that finally permitted them to see beyond their proscribed place in the world and imagine a fate far better than those their master had laid out before them. It was the sacred ground—the holy blood, the consecrated sand—that created the conditions for brotherhood, for rebellion, and, eventually, for freedom.

Notes 1. The word “arena” itself is derived from the Latin term (h)arena, meaning sand, or a place covered with sand. 2. It is worth pointing out that, as slaves, the gladiators have no true homespace anymore, though a few, like Spartacus, long for it; as such, the import of sacred space becomes even more significant, since it acts, in a very essential way, as homespace for the gladiators as well. 3. Thus the connectivity of “nature-based faiths” to female-dominated popular

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Spartacus in the Television Arena culture expressions like Charmed and the propensity for popular culture to depict its followers as nearly-universally female and to use such faiths in ways to explore aspects of feminine/feminist thought, expression, and culture. For more, see Joanne Overend, ed. Nature Religion Today: Paganism in the Modern World (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998); Hannah E. Sanders, “Living a Charmed Life: The Magic of Postfeminist Sisterhood.” Interrogating Postfeminism: Gender and the Politics of Popular Culture. Eds. Yvonne Tasker and Diane Negra. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007. 73–99; and Christine Jarvis, “Becoming a Woman through Wicca: Witches and Wiccans in Contemporary Teen Fiction.” Children’s Literature in Education: An International Quarterly 39.1 (2008): 43–52.

Works Cited Bell, Michael. Primitivism. London: Methuen & Co Ltd., 1972. Print. Bergmann, Sigurd. “Nature, Space and the Sacred: Introductory Remarks.” Bergmann, Scott, Samuelsson, and Bedford-Strohm. 9–18. Print. Bergmann, Sigurd, P. M. Scott, M. Jansdotter Samuelsson, and H. Bedford-Strohm, eds. Nature, Space and the Sacred: Transdisciplinary Perspectives. Farnham, Surrey, England: Ashgate, 2008. Print. Broude, Gwen. “Protest Masculinity: A Further Look at the Causes and the Concept.” Ethos (1990) 18: 103–122. Print. Bucholtz, Mary, and Kira Hall. “Theorizing Identity in Language and Sexuality Research.” Language in Society 33.4 (2004): 469–515. Print. Chick, Garry, and John W. Loy. “Making Men of Them: Male Socialization for Warfare and Combative Sports.” World Cultures 12.1 (2001): 2–17. Print. Choksy, Jamsheed K. “To Cut Off, Purify, and Make Whole: Historiographical and Ecclesiastical Conceptions of Ritual Space.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 123.1 (2003): 21–41. Print. Clements, J. M. Spartacus: Swords and Ashes. London: Titan, 2012. Print. Clingerman, Forrest. “Interpreting Heaven and Earth: The Theological Construction of Nature, Place, and the Built Environment.” Bergmann, Scott, Samuelsson, and Bedford-Strohm. 45–56. Print. Conan the Barbarian. Dir. John Milius. Perf. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sandhal Bergman, James Earl Jones. Universal, 1982. Film. Cornelius, Michael G., ed. Of Muscles and Men: Essays on the Sword and Sandal Film. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2011. Print. Cornelius, Michael G. “Of Muscles and Men: The Functions and Forms of Sword and Sandal Movies.” Cornelius. 1–14. Print. “The Dead and the Dying.” Spartacus: War of the Damned. Writ. Jeffrey Bell. Dir. Michael Hurst. Starz. 5 Apr 2013. Television. Elia, John. “Reverent and Irreverent Violence: In Defense of Spartacus, Conan, and Leonidas.” Cornelius. 75–86. Print. Eliade, Mircea. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. Trans. Willard R. Trask. New York: Harcourt, 1959. Print. Foreman, Peter and David A. Whetten. “Members’ Identification with MultipleIdentity Organizations.” Organization Science 13.6 (2002): 618–635. Print. Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic, 1973. Print. Hoffman, Carl. “The Evolution of a Gladiator: History, Representation, and Revision

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Spartacus and the Shifting Sands of Sacred Space—Cornelius in Spartacus.” Journal of America and Comparative Cultures 23.1 (2000): 63–70. Print. “Kill Them All.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Steven S. DeKnight. Dir. Jesse Warn. Starz. 16 Apr 2010. Television. “Mark of the Brotherhood.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Aaron Helbing and Todd Helbing. Dir. Rowan Woods. Starz. 12 Mar 2010. Television. McDowell, Linda. Gender, Identity, and Place: Understanding Feminist Geographies. Cambridge: Polity, 1999. Print. McFague, Sallie. “Preface.” Bergmann, Scott, Samuelsson, and Bedford-Strohm. xixii. Print. North, John, and Philip North. “Introduction.” North and North. 1–8. Print. North, John, and Philip North, eds. Sacred Space: House of God, Gate of Heaven. London: Continuum, 2007. Print. “Old Wounds.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Dan Filie, Patricia Wells, and Daniel Knauf. Dir. Glen Standring. Starz. 2 Apr 2010. Television. “Paterfamilias.” Spartacus: Gods of the Arena. Writ. Aaron Helbing and Todd Helbing. Dir. Michael Hurst. Starz. 4 Feb 2011. Television. “The Red Serpent.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Steven S. DeKnight. Dir. Rick Jacobson. Starz. 22 Jan 2010. Television. Rehmann-Sutter, Christoph. “An Introduction to Places.” Worldviews: Environment, Culture, Religion 2 (1998): 171–177. Print. “Sacramentum Gladiatorum.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Steven S. DeKnight. Dir. Rick Jacobson. Starz. 29 Jan 2010. Television. Schramm, Katharina. “Landscapes of Violence: Memory and Sacred Space.” History & Memory 23.1 (2011): 5–22. Print. “Shadow Games.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Miranda Kwok. Dir. Michael Hurst. Starz. 19 Feb 2010. Television. Smith, Martyn. Religion, Culture, and Sacred Space. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Print. Tavinor, Michael. “Sacred Space and the Built Environment.” North and North. 21– 42. Print. van den Heever, Gerhard. “Space, Social Space, and the Construction of Early Christian Identity in First Century Asia Minor.” Religion & Theology 17 (2010): 205– 243. Print. Wade, Jay C., and Chris Brittain-Powell. “Male Reference Group Identity Dependence: Support for Construct Validity.” Sex Roles 43.5/6 (2000): 323–340. Print. Wolfe, George. “Inner Space as Sacred Space: The Temple as Metaphor for the Mystical Experience.” Crosscurrents 52.3 (2002): 400–411. Print.

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The Predators of Capua Spartacus and the Limits of the Human Ariel Gómez Ponce On the time of the expansion of the Roman Republic into Thracian lands, a warrior ready to go to war in service of Rome is warned by his wife, Sura, of a big red snake that will put him on his knees. When the Thracian realizes the betrayal of Rome and flees, he is captured and put into the arena to be humbled and executed. There, the red snake appears on the shield of one of his opponents in a baptismal fight that seals his fate as a gladiator and gives him a new name: Spartacus. Sura’s vision indicates that an animal destiny was present in the warrior from the beginning: the gods had imposed a cruel fate on the man who was destined to become one of the greatest revolutionary leaders of the Roman Republic. Latent from the very first moment in the series, the symbolic force of the snake opens a semiotic game in the animal becoming of Spartacus; these feature will leave a set of footprints and will gestate a process of objectification and dehumanization of gladiators throughout the series’ four seasons, a growing animalization that ends with the mark of a pack: a group of slaves with the chance to dismantle the political, social, and power order in ancient Rome. In this essay I focus my theoretical discussion surrounding the man/animal tension in Spartacus: Blood and Sand from the point of view of the predation category and analyze it under the light of ecosemiotics and the semiotics of culture. 152

The Predators of Capua—Gómez Ponce In Spartacus, the question of the predator-becoming can be approached from a new system of theoretical relationships, focusing my study on the practices and behaviors of gladiators in Ancient Rome to demonstrate how mankind represents itself in its animalistic configurations, and how subjects/Others (slaves and gladiators) are produced and transformed in new media products. Throughout history, the question of human/animal tension and its limits has led science to question not only whether it is possible to think of ourselves as part of the animal world, but also to continually consider what differentiates us from other living creatures. One possible answer to these questions has been sought through the consideration of man as a predator, a notion that belongs to the field of ecology and is associated with certain animal behaviors that have been thought to apply to humans as well. However, regardless of any scientific proposals, it is possible to recognize this idea of the predator as a recurring construction in cultural imagery through diverse representations that reflect animalbecoming in agonistic modes of human behavior: in this sense, from the perspective of the series Spartacus, I can argue that certain forms of violence are associated with a “wild,” atavistic, and primitive world. Brutality and cruelty are classic characteristics of gladiators. Characters like Spartacus, Crixus, and Barca, both on the sand and in the open, are subjects carried away by an innate nature that moves and impels them to survive in a hostile environment, propelling a “survival of the fittest” philosophy. Taking the historical rebellious slave to fiction, Spartacus the series uses the most basic behaviors (even those which humankind may share with other species) to bring forth a new understanding of humans in their practices: predatory zeal.

On Predators In the middle of last century, paleoanthropology claimed that, thanks to a “carnivorous adaptation,” human beings could be defined as predators. This is part of a long scientific discussion that explores an evolutionary leap in the food practice that led to the emergence of technology (the invention of the weapon) and bipedal gait. This theory refers to the formative period of early hominids, when the hunt was set as an 153

Spartacus in the Television Arena everyday practice. Thus the man-hunter and the animal learn some kind of behavior in a mutual domestication (Fromm 143). With the emergence of language and symbolic capacity, humanity was able to otherwise interpret the animal contact: in the convergence of ecosemiotics and semiotics of culture, it can be defined as a “semiotic moments,” products of an interaction of species that become sources of signification (Martinelli 359). What impression may this have caused on the first subject who, armed only with a spear, stood face-to-face with beasts that were both competition and food source? Since the practice of hunting was a necessary and primary means of survival, it is not inconceivable that animals with highly developed hunting strategies became the central point of cult and ritual, and hence a representational element in this early stage of the culture. In this regard, I have been interested in reflecting the ways in which culture semanticizes figures of the predator, in its many artistic creations, from cave paintings to contemporary figures (Gómez Ponce 108–109). It is known that early hominids were able to express a range of cultural strategies that linked them directly to the behavior of the predatory animal, including dressing in the skins of captured prey (camouflage), imitating their poses, mimicking the movements and practices of wild hunters (mimesis), and copying their sounds and configuring them as cries of triumph or war (onomatopoeia), among others. With development and its inherent cultural complexity, humanity evolved in its ability to generate complex models of the environment and the subjects that live in the natural space and to communicate a more sophisticated type of information: its ability to semiotize nature (Nöth 334). Following this logic, ecosemiotics gives us a framework to think about how humankind was able to transpose the strategies and mechanisms of the animal world to become, in its cultural manifestations, a predator. Thus, from its biological and ecological understanding to a textual configuration, the predator as a cultural category realizes a process of metaphorical sophistication, a cultural operation that overlaps certain behaviors that are not admitted into the canon of “normality,” such as aggressiveness. The cultural category of predator works well as a “bridge” between practices of the natural and the cultural world that links social forms of human violence (sexual, moral, legal, political) and generates a series 154

The Predators of Capua—Gómez Ponce of recurring predatory figures that problematize the human condition: rapists, murderers, monsters, femme fatales, international companies, or, what particularly interests us in this work, gladiator warriors. Spartacus: Blood and Sand has frequently depicted the construction of the figures of gladiators in a sustained animality that is a sign of the potential, power, and violence necessary for success in the arena of Capua. The construction of characters like the Gargan Twins, “sons of a whore raped by a jackal,” depicts subjects closer to beast than to man, not only in their physical appearance but also in the nature of their behavior (“Legends”). It is no coincidence that the “ferocity” of the gladiators leads to titles like “Barca, the beast of Carthage” (“The Red Serpent”) or “Crixus, the caged lion” (“Kill Them All”). These are zoomorphic forms that much remind us of Rome’s own cosmogony, the daughter of a wolf suckling two small babies who will be the founders of the future great empire. Throughout Blood and Sand, the House of Batiatus narrates a gradual process of domestication in the gladiators, chapter by chapter, altering not the animality of the gladiators, but their perceived sense of utility and risk. Conceptually, the end result of this could have mirrored the rise of the Republic itself—animality leading to civilization, as it were. However, what most interests me here is to highlight those behaviors and practices that create conditions to specifically read the characters in the series in terms of predation. Liminal subjects who respond to a mode of appropriation of wild behavior analogous to natural hunters, the warriors of Capua translate (transpose) aspects of certain ethologies to link cultural phenomena where violence is understood as a form of animality. Both in the arena of struggle and in the journey around the Roman road during the other seasons, this series metaphorizes the human/animal frame via two logics: in the sand ad gladium (gladiator versus gladiator), and in the rebellion space (the Third Servile War—or, the slaves versus the Republic). The gladiators’ struggles are fights in which they are prey and predator at the same time: the hunter and the hunted, stalking their enemies (their own “kind”) and chasing their freedom, a cultural appropriation of the practices of some species in the natural world that, in this series, manifest different natures of predation: political, physical, financial, and even sexual. Here, 155

Spartacus in the Television Arena I intend to explore the cultural operation in which texts read the metaphor of predator as a cultural form to relate with the Other, particularly in the social and historical circumstances of the Roman Republic represented in the contemporary reading of Spartacus: Blood and Sand. The treatment of the Other in culture has been extensively examined by the tenets of semiotics of culture. Yuri Lotman, in The Universe of the Mind, holds that each culture is delimited by a space that is characterized as an area of exchange between the known and the unknown: the notion of boundary, which allows us to think in two different formations, the inside and the outside. When cultures divide between their own space and others’ (and here I think in geographic, intellectual, and semiotics spaces), they establish a binary function which separates “our world” from “their world.” This determines the model of the world that each culture creates, where man himself is the first parameter of semioticization. As Lotman says, the frontier is one of the “human cultural universals” which determines “the expressions they use to describe the world beyond the boundary” (131). Thus, there are historic constructions such as the “barbarian,” the Other that has been placed across the cultural border of antiquity. In some historical cases, this kind of otherness has been used to draw an analogy between different aspects of the behavior of living beings which describe them in terms of behavior of certain animals—for example, in this assimilation between the barbarian hordes and the pack of savage animals. Considering the notion of “the human,” the ways in which society incorporates the “cultural Other” into new spaces, making a connection between the subject and the environment can be considered an act of creation or one of alienation in which the subject no longer recognizes itself. In Spartacus: Blood and Sand, the geographical boundary (the real one) is the limit Gaius Claudius Glaber guarded, and into which, without thinking of the consequences, he introduced a future source chaos to Rome. However, in semiotic terms, this limit is presented as a place of passage between culture and a “zoomorphic world” that determines a symbiotic animal/man alliance: slaves, prisoners of war, and the rebels are animals whose utility can be productive for the civilization of the Republic. Quintus Lentulus Batiatus, owner of the ludus in which 156

The Predators of Capua—Gómez Ponce Spartacus will eventually reside, notes this rather explicitly when he observes I’m just a simple Roman trying to make his way against the whim of the gods, politicians, and miscreants. So often you cannot tell one from another. But you … you are the most dangerous of animals. The beast born of the heart [“Sacramentum Gladiatorum”].

Here, Batiatus demonstrates the Roman citizen/slave distinction, drawing the civilization/barbarism antinomy as a way of reading the natural order and the Other. However, there is something deeper here: the appellant antithesis in the history of mankind is built, as indicated by Elena Pérez under the conceptualization of “civilizing is taming,” looking to erase the taint of animality (46). The violence of the gladiator is animal, and hunting, in this sense, is a political witch-hunt. From aggression as practical binding, the man/animal (prey/predator) tension is drawn to perfection by the political domestication of the loose animal that threatens to return as a herd: one barbarian announcing the arrival of the entire horde. As Batiatus suggests, the “most dangerous of animals” represents a logic of dehumanization throughout the first season that establishes that the predatory animalization of Spartacus functions as synecdoche of the entire gladiator group.

Natures of Predation: The Domestication of Animal Behavior What are those traits that blurred humanity in Spartacus while he became functional to Roman service? In the first instance, there is a manner of predation in the political use of certain practices that can be observed as animalistic or, in semiotics terms, as a cultural process of translation of certain behavior that match humanity and hunter beast. For Spartacus, war and battle are his “nature”: “I sprung from my mother with a sword in hand. The ways of battle are my second nature, passed from father to son” (“Party Favors”). The quality of a warrior is presented from the beginning as a result of something innate and instinctive, which is the result of an almost genetic inheritance. However, this thinking is also adopted by the Roman people, though from a different perspective. While in the Thracian village this hereditary warrior condition was the 157

Spartacus in the Television Arena legacy of the nation; in Rome, this becomes subject to a control mechanism that has been in function for centuries of domain. The series shows how well Thrace worked as a contractor of the Roman state and Spartacus, in terms of Michel Foucault, is a political instrument (and then mass entertainment) (23–24). In this sense, the notion of instinct that was founded by scientists like Konrad Lorenz and Niko Tinbergen during the ethology of the last century serves to explain how the predatory act of the belligerent hunt is “driven” by the mechanisms of power and operated by an instinctive policy. This instinct has a cultural performance that can be thought of as the effect of a “nature” that moves the subject as a kind of intervention of biological forces. That which appears in Spartacus as environmental determinism is, in fact, the product of a naturalization of behaviors that should be understood, in terms of Foucault, as a social, cultural, and especially political operation. Spartacus, in this sense, is subject of an instinctive submissions system (219). However, Spartacus’ attachment to the Roman system is under the domination of another device whose significance is essential for the development of the first season: his wife, Sura. Spartacus’ captive love becomes “the instrument of his taming,” and Batiatus was very clear when he stated that, “With his wife removed from thought, I will mold Spartacus into a gladiator the likes of which the world has never seen” (“Great and Unfortunate Things”). Thus, under the logic of these networks of power, it is possible to think of the ludus and its extensions as the complex whole spaces where animal aggression in one-on-one meetings (duels) find a space of authorized and controlled violence. These are ways to tame the apparent predatory nature of the subjects in the form of a mass culture spectacle, the domination of what is understood as the “animal nature” of the gladiator. Rome, with its gladiatorial arena, marks a “before” and “after” in the control of this violence that becomes entertainment for the people, which remains in guises that can be observed today in the case of sports like boxing or wrestling. However, these sport practices underlie something even more profound: the predatory manifestation of man and his relationship with hunting. As José Ortega y Gasset states, it is very probable that the germ of play behavior is in the practice of early hominid hunting and sport; 158

The Predators of Capua—Gómez Ponce therefore, every sporting event has the inspiring principle of perpetuating the past when man was still in the “orbit of animal existence” (476). From this point of view, it is logical that, for the Roman people, gladiators became animalized subjects who demonstrated that atavistic savagery is still present in man, though always under the figure of the cultural Other. This particular fictionalization of the historical character in the series serves as a clear example to think about the animal becoming of subjects who, as Lotman says, exist “beyond the boundary” and are not admitted into the canon of “normality” that sets the cultural center (The Universe 140). Spartacus arrives in Capua as a “Thracian jackal” who, battle by battle, will become a hero or, what the characters themselves call, a “God of the Arena.” Not surprisingly, Batiatus remembers near the end of the season that, “I have taken a wild beast, and I molded him into a god” (“Revelations”). The lanista function is presented in analogy with the Beastmaster: Batiatus and Solonius, his rival lanista in season one, buy slaves in the market and then exercise (thanks to the help of their doctores) a culturization and conversion process of the savage to a warrior of the Roman circus. Crixus, during his devotion to the gladiator trade, highlights this aspect, indicating that the ludus is “a school of training where men are forged into gods, blood their ambrosia, the arena their mountaintop” (“Sacramentum Gladiatorum”). Commonly, there are three actions that establish the process of domestication of our protagonist (which were likewise performed on Crixus in the prequel season Gods of the Arena): the cutting of long hair (which was, to the Thracian people, a symbol of war victory); the brand of the House of Batiatus (in the manner of livestock); and the bestowing of a new name, leaving absolutely aside the original that, in Spartacus’ case, the audience never learns throughout the entirety of the series. These highly symbolic gestures determine the start of a “domesticated predator becoming,” in which the beast will be locked and placed under the dominion of Roman rule and his hunter faculties are used to stalk others like him. The ludus becomes the taming space, and the arena a hunting preserve. Although Spartacus has the choice between holding his Thracian nature (“animal” in the eyes of the Romans) or being tamed by the ludus (turning his animal instincts into a “content” predatory zeal and thus becoming an 159

Spartacus in the Television Arena instrument of the state), the decision will be taken with the sacramentum gladiatorum under the temporary control exercised by Spartacus’ desire to recover Sura. Moreover, in addition to this political use, there is an exercise of a particular feature in the competitions of the arena: violence. For authors such as Michel Maffesoli, violence is presented as an anthropological constant that supports the existence of the human animal which the West, over the centuries, locked (or tried to lock) behind the idea of the rational subject. So “stories and legends, tribal traditions, movies and other choreographies show that the fight is an anthropological structure that makes us see that, in humans, there is an animality too” (12).1 The series is part of this logic in the acts of extreme aggression, since a matrix behavior in each gladiatorial meeting shows a predatory nature that is capitalized for entertainment: through the detection and stalking of prey, studying it, attacking it, and finally killing it, the audience witnesses a scheme of hunting in the encounter of gladiator versus gladiator that produces a constant exchange between predator/prey. Observing the early stages of domestication defined previously, Spartacus is represented as “an unpredictable beast” who speaks and attacks without thought (“Legends”). In this sense, it is interesting to note the first episodes in which Batiatus looks for ways to convince his new slave to be part of the brotherhood. Aggressiveness in Spartacus upon his arrival to the House of Batiatus is marked by his unpredictable behavior. Yet in the arena, this behavior is quite useful as an effective strategy that has a psychological basis through which the enemy becomes disoriented. I refer to unpredictability used for strategic purposes, which can be found, for instance, in ad gladium struggles. This mechanism can be seen in the state of violent excitement that comes over Spartacus in the first episode, “The Red Serpent,” when he hears Sura’s voice (her “kill them all” is piped in, as a whisper, over the scene), or in “Revelation,” when the protagonist, full of rage and revenge for the death of his love, tears down Glaber’s guards. In Culture and Explosion, Lotman states that this kind of “madness” is not understood in the medical sense but as “a form of permissible, albeit strange behavior” (42). In such events, chaos appears as the characteristic feature of the animal world. Later, it would be interesting to 160

The Predators of Capua—Gómez Ponce stop at the act of the pack, but highlighting here that, unlike what is considered cultural, these mechanisms and strategies that are disorganized in appearance have a phylogenetically defined objective and are highly structured. In the field of zoosemiotics, Thomas Sebeok has indicated that the gesture systems animals use to communicate are highly ritualized and have specific meanings to its interlocutor. The “inconsistency” and “disorganization” in the behavior of the species are, for Lotman, “man-made legends” (Culture and Explosion 27). Hence, the semiotician of culture warns us that [it] is interesting to note that in such a case the comparison of man to animal is seen as a release from all prohibitions although, as we saw, the true conduct of the animal is moved by much greater prohibitions than those of man [Culture and Explosion 40].

Spartacus’ unpredictable behavior in the arena and ludus will preoccupy Batiatus during the early stages of his gladiator training. However, it opens the door to one of the practices where animal violence is better reflected: the competition in the arena. In this logic, it is interesting to highlight the sequences that fall under “The Pits in the Underworld” (in the episode “The Thing in the Pit”) that can be understood in terms of a heroic descent into hell. Theorists of heroic myth such as Joseph Campbell and Juan Villegas have understood these passages as crossing the threshold that determines the status of the hero character: the crucial and more transcendent instance in the path of the hero. The initiatic rite that the heroes of the epic model met in varying degrees, in the case of Spartacus’ gladiators, implies a submission to a competition without rules that excludes humanity in a meeting that is described as “mongrel to mongrel” (“The Thing in the Pit”). Standard definitions of “mongrel” refer to both a dog of mixed race or a person without a caste. When Batiatus decides that Spartacus should be part of these games in order to increase his own profits, the series’ hero is subject to a process of extreme dehumanization that implies not only degrading animalization but also the removal of the competitive honor that belongs to the gladiator exercise. Batiatus says that, “if an animal cannot be tamed, it must be unleashed” (“The Thing in the Pit”). This “animal liberation” implies the construction of a radical otherness that encompasses all participant subjects as inferior 161

Spartacus in the Television Arena to the most brutal animal. The survival of the fittest is the only rule for those sent to the Pits. In this sense, the gladiators, competing predators on sand and blood, carry zoomorphic marks of their animal nature, not by their appearance, but by their aggressive behavior. If, as Roland Barthes suggests, these sports and competitive practices are effectively a return to the atavistic, an ancient world where the human being is measured with natural elements in struggle, it is also possible to say that they are “based on the demonstration of superiority” (18).2 For the semiotician, competition implies the meeting to be achieved by excessive gestures where the body is the sign that germinates in the base of the activity. In a practice such as this competition (whose violence is extreme), the gladiators’ bodies remind the audience of the strict hierarchical order established in some animal species based on body posture, size, and especially displayed aggressive tendencies. Each match in which Spartacus is participant is encoded by a marked system of gestures and positions that determine a particular language, a language that is analogous to those behaviors that have significant “character of dialogue” in the animal world (Lotman Culture and Explosion 27). Spartacus, along with the other gladiators, uses the body as a communication tool of regulated and codified aggressiveness. Finally, it is important to note a third aspect of what I call a predatory nature: the animalistic read of the sexual act. While the aggressive body is established in gladiators’ fights as a mean, in other contexts, it becomes particularly relevant, since it involves an almost primitive and animal usage. In addition to training in combat, gladiators are subject to the service of other practices: in Lucretia’s terms, as “something of a more physical nature” (“Legends”). When Varro is set to the sexual entertainment of the guests of the House of Batiatus, the women present observe his ministrations and comment thusly: Ilithyia: He rams her like an enraged bull. Lucretia: A gladiator’s virtue extends well beyond the sands of the arena. As lovers, they are said to be ravenous beasts providing unimaginable pleasures … [“Legends”].

In every scene where gladiators are shown naked, the series proceeds with the construction of the body as an object of consumption, typical 162

The Predators of Capua—Gómez Ponce of the condition of a slave. This representation of the body finds its starting point in the reproductive and sexual use, where dialogue between individuals, in the first instance, aims to perpetuate the species. As George Bataille indicated, reproductive activity is common among men and animals, but in the former, factors such as cognitive leap, the rise of weaponry, cultural development, and the establishment of a set of prohibitions make this act phylogenetically into a cultural process. The body is read beyond its reproductive function and has developed complex forms where the biological is constituted of subjectivities. Not surprisingly, gladiators such as Segovax are measured as “specimen” by their “virtues”; that is, their physical attributes and (in this case) phallus are features that determine their masculinity and sexual use (“Mark of the Brotherhood”). In this sense, Bataille is very relevant since, according to his thinking, it would seem that man, despite centuries of cultural evolution, always has a stain from the animal: man is, in short, an “erotic animal” (15). It is important to note that Spartacus uses this as a marketing strategy, in which the nudity scenes work almost by a corporal saturation. As with violence, Gilles Lipovetsky and Jean Serroy note that these effects in the construction of some genres get inside the “image-excess,” that is, the proliferation of hyperbolic phenomena characteristic of the hypermodern aesthetic which promotes the body and sexual exacerbations (90). This aesthetic is the result of contagion between cultural textualities where sodomy, masturbation, fellatio, and scenes of sexual couplings were incorporated into a frame that is not booking the pornographic domain. However, Lipovetsky clarifies this by stating that this boom cannot be justified only in market rules; rather, it is a slow process that is being generated from sexual forms emerging since the 1960s. After these emerging forms of sexualities expand into different social orders in contemporary cultures, artistic texts (literature, film and, of course, television) assimilate in their representations a more inclusive and divergent sexual aesthetic. However, of most significance here is the close link between these representations and the construction of a predatory corporeality. Lucretia, the wife of Batiatus and one of the most important female characters in the series, will be very clear in stating of the gladiators that “some 163

Spartacus in the Television Arena instinct remains. So they may yet unleash their savagery in the arena” (“Mark of the Brotherhood”).3 In this sense, there is a close link between the “wild slave” and the Roman woman, since both forms were placed in an inferior condition than the heterosexual Roman male. This cultural understanding exposes the savage nature of the sexual act that, in an animal sense, seeks escape routes. It is the “instinctive subjugation” of the body that must be released, both in the arena and in the bed, although the status of “stud” gladiator is still in service to the Roman ruling class. By tracing a genealogy in linking bodies/representation from the Roman conception (or even forward in time), it is possible to find that information that cultures segregate in memory parcels by overlapping certain practices and the manifestation of the borders of the expressible and forbidden: that which is enabled or culturally taboo. The constitution of nature in mankind, the nudity and sex acts, show, in their representation, the characteristics of each cultural system over time (Barei 139). Spartacus, in this sense, does not remain oblivious. This particular understanding of body and sex works with an animalized understanding of the cultural Other. His condition remains the position of the slave to the entertainment and pleasure of the Roman people. Again, the animalistic traits of the gladiator’s beast behavior are controlled and reused for those who hold the power strap.

The Logic of the Pack I have not exhausted here the predatory features that Spartacus reflects. However, it is important to emphasize one last point that bridges to a new form of predatory logic that will be particularly developed in the final two seasons of the series: the predator/prey investment by which the Roman state will hunt a well-organized group of hunters-gladiators. In this way, the characters establish a coordinate group that, to unexpected degrees, will leave the Roman Republic to form a servile revolution. It is very likely that the first gesture of cooperation leading to a pack behavior is in the Spartacus/Crixus symbiosis that defeated Theokoles. In “Shadow Games,” both gladiators make the first step toward a pack behavior that will culminate with the rebellion of the 164

The Predators of Capua—Gómez Ponce slaves at the finale of the first season. The inclusion of social networks (that is, interpersonal ties, such as those Crixus established with Spartacus and, more significantly, his lover Naevia) are an amalgamation of the condition of slavery, a way of searching for a freedom that, as can be seen, will never be realized. Also, the confrontation with Theokoles likewise notes the climax of the ludus domestication: the forms of synchronization that give gladiators their herd-like behavior. After the first season finale, Spartacus manages to coordinate a group of slaves whose only apparent characteristic is their use of excessive violence in the battle space. As ethology has shown us, herds are complex social structures that coordinate the behavior of large groups of animals; in the same way, a group of gladiators controls their own animal violence in order to achieve a clear goal: freedom. As in every animal organization (herds, flocks, schools of fish and swarms, among others), the timing of locomotion and communication acts like the transmission of information. In the final episodes of the first season, Spartacus encourages an affiliation, which functions as a means to ensure the survival of a group of slaves and gives them the benefit of social unity. This collective function underscores a mimetic mechanism in which an individual follows the “logic of the pack” and mimics the behavior of the partner who, in turn, has taken cues from another and so on, to the leader or alpha that rules the whole group, as packs of wolves so clearly demonstrate. Semiotics of culture has informed the existence of cases in which humans act effectively as a pack. As Lotman states, in the creation of a non-articulated image of the other (which is not distinguished individually), the subject is constructed as a collective without individualization (Culture and Explosion 30). There are examples of those speeches where a whole group of subjects is determined in the same form of definition, removing the individual and projecting a generalization. In semiotic terms, the revolution of the gladiators under the leadership of Spartacus symbolizes those cultural moments in which man has appropriated animal collective logic, mainly in situations of chaos and disorganization generated by the destabilization of the individual behaviors. Throughout the first season, the series foreshadows many signs pointing to the kind of organization that historical foreknowledge has already demonstrated 165

Spartacus in the Television Arena beforehand. In this sense, Barca and Pietros’ caged birds (which have been serving as a metaphor for the animal condition of these slaves) are an important symbolic gesture that anticipates some kind of rebellion (“Delicate Things”). A few scenes shortly before the end of Blood and Sand, there is a final moment that closes the cycle of predatory powers to open the symbiosis of the pack: the final “competition to the death” between Crixus and Spartacus. The two leaders unite in order to break Batiatus’ dominance over their lives and, in doing so, initiate a new scenario that will be addressed in subsequent seasons. However, in this union, there is a fact of even greater importance. The group of predators that I have described here participates in a self-awareness process that enables them to recognize themselves, recognize the Other, and distinguish between different courses of action, which involves the ethics that animals lack. The pursuit of freedom (and hence the removal of the animal condition) manifests itself as a collective act that homogenizes a heterogeneous social grouping, one identifying itself as strictly “human.” This conscious and free choice allows gladiators to detach from their becoming animal in recognition of moral standards. Spartacus opens the possibility of rational action to a group of slaves who, until now, had been content to exercise their predatory nature under the hands of Roman control.

Conclusion: Beyond the Red Serpent Due to a fever crisis contracted as a result of the death of his closest friend, Varro, Spartacus enters into a state of hallucination where he kills himself in his old Thracian clothes. This instance reminds us of the moment in which the protagonist accepts his fate as a gladiator and leaves his primary origins. The dream has an important symbolic force: Spartacus remembers the nature that has been lost in such a manner that he became one of the most exalted gladiators in Capua. Moments before he discovers what really happened to Sura, Spartacus notes an important contradiction thanks to this oneiric intervention: the abandonment of the nature that was so proper in the Thracian people. Once more, Spartacus functions as a metaphor of animal instinct that can never be tamed. The protagonist, along with the other gladia166

The Predators of Capua—Gómez Ponce tors, is subject to a conception of corporeality understood as an “instinctive submissions system” that confronts the idea of desire and aggression as risks seeking escape routes. Nicolás Rosa tells us that if there is indeed an instinct, “man as subject of a species fights tenaciously against this program, tries to change it, to substitute it, to sublimate it, but does not know if he succeeds because he hides behind the education mask” (207).4 Batiatus, as synecdoche for the power system of Rome, has made this very clear with the forms of domestication that have been reviewed in previous portions of this essay. However, as Rosa noted, there are certain subjects that “nullify” the distinction between the human, the inhuman, and the extra-human. In this case, it is a diffuse boundary that divides man and beast from an “adhesion relationship” that allows one to think in terms of the other (Rosa 198). Hence, thinking about the existence of an “animal nature” in characters such as Spartacus, the series demonstrates a similarity between “perfectible human” and “animal to perfecting,” where the proposal of Foucault to think discipline and power apparatus becomes a foundation for the study of these characters and the boundaries within which they move. The construction of Roman barbarism (of which the rebellious Thracian is a clear example) functions as a power device that nullifies free will and the possibility of its own identity determination. Finally, I agree with Edgar Morin on the importance of the “virtual forms of barbarism” as virtual forms that coexist and live even today (26). Barbarism is presented as a potentiality in all modes of understanding of man, from the rationality of Homo sapiens (the rational human being) to the playful forms practiced by the Homo ludens (the capacity of play in mankind that generates, for example, the Roman gladiatorial arena). Yet with the formation of historical societies, barbarism gestates according to state power, through conquest, destruction, and enslavement, and no longer from the cultural outside. What Morin called “purification phenomena” contributes to an apparent integration that finally generates forms of racism and classism that will remain dormant until those moments of crisis or cultural excitement (75). In this sense, Spartacus offers a good example of what has been called “depurated barbarism”: the Roman attempt to tame a social group in order to match it to the canon of civil and moral force of the Republic normality (Morin 95). 167

Spartacus in the Television Arena In this way, Spartacus uses the human/animal tension (or, in other words, civilization/barbarism) to reveal how man, even in slavery, has the chance to distance himself from the “animal status” into which he has been inserted. The ability to create, model, and fictionalize reality is a human specificity that resides in the ability to differentiate the individual from the collective, the self from the common, the “I” from “all other less than I” (Lotman Culture and Explosion 31). This distinction also generates another mechanism that highlights the ability to be an individual and, at the same time, represent someone else. It reflects the ability of representation, which allows all human beings to position themselves in “the role of the other” and assimilate the cultural Other, as artistic texts show daily. Finally, Spartacus presents a message of a moral nature that leads its audience to revise how history has treated the Other in terms of cultural and biological inferiority. It is an Other that, not satisfied with the animal condition imposed to him, threatens to break every established social order.

Notes 1. This translation is my own. 2. This translation is my own. 3. It is important to note that the notion of instinct, as it is understood today, is not determined in Roman thought and the use of the Latin language. As is indicated in the Latin VOX Dictionary, the meaning as the animal’s intuitive perception comes from the fifteenth century as result of the biological theory. In it first meaning in Latin, “instinct” was used as instigation, or divine inspiration (“Instinctus”). 4. This translation is my own.

Works Cited Barei, Silvia. Reversos de la palabra. Poesía y vida cotidiana. Córdoba: Ferreyra Editor, 2005. Print. Barthes, Roland. Del deporte y los hombres. Barcelona: Paidós, 2008. Print. Bataille, George. El erotismo. Buenos Aires: Tusquets Editores, 2010. Print. Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. New World Library: California, 2008. Print. “Delicate Things.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Tracy Bellomo and Andrew Chambliss. Dir. Rick Jacobson. 26 Feb 2010. Television. Foucault, Michel. Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Editions Gallimard, 2012. Print. Fromm, Erich. The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness. Open Road Media: New York, 2013. Print.

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The Predators of Capua—Gómez Ponce Gómez Ponce, Ariel. “El devenir animal. El depredador como manifestación cultural.” Seminario de Verano I. La pregunta por lo humano 1 (2003): 93–123. Print. “Great and Unfortunate Things.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Steven S. DeKnight and Brent Fletcher. Dir. Jesse Warn. 05 Mar 2010. Television. “Instinctus.” Def. 2. Vox Dictionary. Latin-Spanish. Barcelona: Larousse, 2009. Print. “Kill Them All.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Steven S. DeKnight. Dir. Jesse Warn. 16 Apr 2010. Television. “Legends.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Steven S. DeKnight. Dir. Grady Hall. Starz. 5 Feb 2010. Television. Lipovetsky, Gilles, and Jean Serroy. La pantalla global: Cultura mediática y cine en la era hipermoderna. Barcelona: Anagrama, 2009. Print. Lorenz, Konrad. On Aggression. Routledge: London, 2012. Print. Lotman, Yuri. Culture and Explosion. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 1992. Print. _____. The Universe of the Mind. London: Tauris & Co Ltd, 1990. Print. Maffesoli, Michel. Ensayos sobre la violencia banal y fundadora. Buenos Aires: Dedadus Editores, 2009. Print. “Mark of the Brotherhood.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Steven S. DeKnight and Aaron Helbing. Dir. Rowan Woods. 12 Mar 2010. Television. Martinelli, Dario. “Introduction.” Sign System Studies. Special Issue on Zoosemiotics 37 ¾ (2009): 353–368. Print. Morin, Edgar. Breve Historia de la Barbarie en Occidente. Barcelona: Paidós, 2009. Print. Nöth, Winfried. “Ecosemiotics.” Sign System Studies 26 (2008): 332–343. Print. Ortega y Gasset, José. Obras completas. Tomo V. Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1942. Print. “Party Favors.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Brent Fletcher and Miranda Kwok. Dir. Chris Martin-Jones. 26 Mar 2010. Television. Pérez, Elena. Retóricas de la deshumanización. Grupo de Estudios de Retórica. Córdoba: Ferreyra Editor, 2008. Print. “Revelations.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Brent Fletcher and Steven S. DeKnight. Dir. Michael Hurst. 9 Apr 2010. Television. Rosa, Nicolás. Relatos críticos. Cosas, animales, discursos. Buenos Aires: Santiago Arcos Editor, 2006. Print. “Sacramentum Gladiatorum.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Steven S. DeKnight. Dir. Rick Jacobson. Starz. 29 Jan 2010. Television. Sebeok, Thomas. Signs: An Introduction to Semiotics. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001. Print. “Shadow Games.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Miranda Kwok and Steven S. DeKnight. Dir. Michael Hurst. Starz. 19 Feb 2010. Television. “The Red Serpent.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Steven S. DeKnight. Dir. Rick Jacobson. Starz. 22 Jan 2010. Television. “The Thing in the Pit.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Aaron Helbing and Todd Helbing. Dir. Jesse Warn. Starz. 12 Feb 2010. Television. Tinbergen, Niko. El estudio del instinto. México: Siglo XXI, 1989. Print. Villegas, Juan. La estructura mítica del héroe en la novela del siglo XX. Barcelona: Planeta, 1973. Print.

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(Re)Presenting the Phallus Gladiators and Their “Swords” Robert K. Dickson and Michael G. Cornelius Perhaps the most singular and distinctive aspect of Starz network’s and Steven S. DeKnight’s series featuring Spartacus is its presentation of the male form—or, rather, to be more specific about this, its constant presentation of one particular part of the male form—the penis. Never before in the history of American television has the male form, and the most private member of the male form, been so on display. Of course, the gladiator, peplum, and sword-and-sandal genre has long been noted as putting the masculine body in the position that is usually occupied by the feminine body in filmspace—the body as object of the audience’s gaze. Regarding the male form in the peplum, Peter Bondanella writes that the “single most important feature of the Italian peplum is its typical protagonist: a strong man, usually a bodybuilder, whose muscular physique dominates the screen and defines the nature of the various plots” (163). David Chapman takes this focus on physical masculinity one step further when he argues that, “Masculine torsos, nude and straining with effort, are at the heart of the message here” (19). Chapman adds, “For the first time in film history, male rather than female beauty is consistently touted as a selling point” (34). Despite this emphasis on the masculine, however, sword-andsandal narratives have been reluctant to present the male form as wholly naked. Usually, the nearly naked male hero is covered by a peplum, a 170

(Re)Presenting the Phallus—Dickson and Cornelius loincloth, or some other form of undergarment that suggests nudity but still reflects modesty. This allows the penis to be considered but not actually observed; this “imagined” phallus thus becomes a locus of masculine authority instead of diminishing the representation of the male. At the same time, hiding the phallus ensures that the emphasis on the male form in these films, which may occasionally be viewed as troublingly erotic, does not slip into the indiscriminately sexual (the heroes of these narratives are only sexualized when in the company of female sexual companions, and then, it is the female form that is presented for the audience’s gaze, not the male). Spartacus, however, frequently presents the male fully unclothed, and fully visible to the viewing audience. It does this not to eroticize the male (though this is a consequence of such representation, whether intended or not), nor to emphasize his power; indeed, showing the phallus has very much the opposite effect. Diminishing masculine presence hardly seems a tenable goal for a television series that so readily depicts the brutal, aggressive, and hostilely masculine world of Roman gladiators and seeks to raise this profile even higher by heroizing these figures as it prepares the foundations for the Third Servile War. And yet, that is exactly the show’s intent. For, indeed, in frequently presenting its male characters in their full, unencumbered nudity, the show seeks to present them not as men—or, to be more precise about this, not just as men—but as human. This is especially true of the gladiators, who are continually objectified by their social “betters” as both body and phallus. The audience, in turn, bears witness to both the object and the process of objectification, establishing conditions that ensure we share in the culpability of objectification and witness the horror of it as well. We are thus drawn to the gladiators and simultaneously empathetic for their plight. Thus diminishing the male characters in Spartacus in this manner only humanizes them all the more, connecting the vulnerability of their naked forms with their caste as slaves and human chattel to the larger Roman state. Presenting the male form in this manner is complex business,1 especially in a genre that is explicitly designed for heterocentric male consumption. These films suggest a fetishization of physical masculinity that is not replicated—or even replicable—in other film genres. It is our contention that masculine genres of film tend, as a whole, to fetishize 171

Spartacus in the Television Arena violence: action films fetishize violence in the form of guns; slasher films fetishize violence in the form of blade weaponry; sports films fetishize violence in the form of athletic prowess (and often the punishment the body can endure); superhero movies fetishize violence through the use of preternatural powers in a do-gooder body; science fiction films fetishize violence through technological forms; war films fetishize violence through reproductions of actual combat. Sword-and-sandal films—and, more broadly, fantasy films in general—tend to fetishize violence directly through the representation of the male form itself. In these narratives the male body is both the source and object of violence. While the gladiators, warriors, and barbarians that act as the protagonistic figures for these films use all manner of weaponry, and most especially swords, their true strength lies in their hands and in their muscular forms. As Maggie Günsberg observes, this “hard musculature is key in differentiating the [sword-and-sandal] hero from other men, who either have less or no muscles, or whose bodies are not exposed to the camera eye” (116). It is their bodies that demarcate these individuals as both heroes and men, and as such it is important that these bodies are put on display for all to see. In these masculinized film genres it is evident that phallic representation abounds: guns, swords, knives, machetes—and even more indirectly associative objects such as sporting equipment and tanks— are all representative of the phallus. It is no surprise that the phallus is typically represented metaphorically in film and television rather than directly. As Jacques Lacan has observed in his writings on the phallus, the veiled or hidden phallus attains a power and largesse that it may not otherwise obtain if presented on its own accord. As Christopher Vitale, writing on Lacan’s theories, puts it, “The phallus as the (veiled) signifier of male potency (symbolic phallus) … gives rise to the imaginary image of the phallus (imaginary phallus)” (n.p.). Exposure thus diminishes not only the authority of the phallus, but its societal value as well. As Naomi Schor observes, “To subject the penis to representation is to strip the phallus of its empowering veil, for… while the phallus can be said to draw its symbolic power from the visibility of the penis, phallic power derives precisely from the phallus’s inaccessibility to representation” (112, emphasis in the original). Noting the phallus as symbolic of the typified 172

(Re)Presenting the Phallus—Dickson and Cornelius male role in society, Lacan, Vitale, and Schor all argue that exposing the penis devalues the masculine. Vitale writes that both the symbolic and imaginary phallus “support and are supported by the rules within society which maintain male privilege and power” (n.p.). Exposing the male to too-close scrutiny carries the risk of altering the image of masculine power and authority. Why does the exposed phallus present a palpable threat to masculine hegemony? Conceivably, one could argue that since men and women possess and present different sexual organs, the exposed phallus would only work to reinforce the representation of maleness. After all, nothing is more indisputably male than the penis. Yet exposing the penis does not modify the viewed as much as shifts the perception of the viewer. As Steven Cohan observes, “an open acknowledgement of the male body’s erotic appeal confuses the gender orthodoxy of who looks as opposed to who is looked at,” suggesting that a shift in gender-based gazing power occurs when the male body is made more available to the viewer than the female form (19). Representing the phallus is societal; the suggested presence of the phallus is enough to ensure maleness, and its authority when hidden remains difficult to challenge. When exposed, however, the phallus—and the male body attached to it—becomes more explicitly eroticized (and thus more explicitly private), and as such not only is the function of maleness shifting (from asserting authority to engaging coitally), but also the gaze of the viewer. Presumably the actual phallus is presented only to those the male wishes to engage with sexually; thus the viewing audience extends only to sexual partners of the male. The penis becomes here a source of potential vulnerability, and the gaze shifts from one that is representative of the controlling subject to one that carries a distinctly minoritizing viewpoint. The male now becomes solely the object of the sexual partner’s gaze, either a female or another (gay) male. No longer a source of authority, it is also no longer a source of fetish; thus exposed, the body becomes real, fleshy, and susceptible, to both base desire and the gaze of a (lesser) other. Masculine genres of film and television, including the sword-andsandal genre, are largely created for masculine consumption—men watching men, men observing men, men gazing at men. Thus in a narrative that is both male-centric and designed for male consumption, the 173

Spartacus in the Television Arena eroticization of the male form is enormously problematic. This is why these narratives typically expose the female form but leave the male phallus hidden. Of course, sword-and-sandal texts complicate this formula by consistently exposing so much of the male form that the phallus remains only barely concealed. This constant exposure to near-naked masculinity can create a potentially adverse reaction in the viewing audience: the naked male body makes most heterosexual North American men very nervous, so society has devised several alibis for its display. One of these is when the musculature is objectified and displayed as in bodybuilding competitions, but another more common excuse is when a man’s nude muscles are engaged in some sort of destruction. Red-blooded American men can happily watch a shirtless Rambo shoot bad guys or enjoy the pratfalls of semi-naked professional wrestlers, but they immediately become nervous when a male strips for action intending to pursue goals other than mindless violence [Chapman 26].

Steve Neale agrees with Chapman that, “in a heterosexual and patriarchal society the male body cannot be marked explicitly as the erotic object of another male look; that look must be motivated in some other way, its erotic component repressed” (14). Surely, these critics argue, the audience (at least, not in its entirety) cannot be reacting to these straining, thewy forms in a sexualized manner (at least not consciously so); there must be something else at work here. In an earlier work one of us has argued that the homogendered gaze reflects a desire for attainment (Cornelius “Beefy Guys” 159–160). The airbrushed, highly Photoshopped forms of naked female bodies found in women’s magazines suggest not a desire for material possession but rather a desire for self-attainment. These are forms of emulation, representing what the viewer believes to be the idealized body structure based on the dictates of the societal controlling subject.2 The muscular heroes of sword-and-sandal films reflect, in a similar sense, unattainable self-desire. Represented as pinnacles of masculine body achievement, they seemingly become symbols of a masculine ideal that, coupled with the heroic actions of the peplumic hero, represent the “best” of men. Indeed, this sense is substantiated by the actions of these heroic male figures: saving the day, righting wrongs, toppling evil empires in the name of justice, and freeing the oppressed. These forms thus become 174

(Re)Presenting the Phallus—Dickson and Cornelius useful—tools for attaining ends that could otherwise not be achieved: “just as the hero’s muscles work to save the day and restore what was wrong, so, too, does his form come to represent that which unifies, restores, and recovers what had been lost” (Cornelius Of Muscles and Men 7). Thus for the designated heterosexual male audiences of these narratives, the male form becomes a locus of power, not sexuality. This delineation of form and phallus is almost pathological in its social construction. To see the male and not see the male—to imagine the phallus and not imagine the phallus—seems nearly impossible when one considers the near nudity of the male heroes in these narratives. Yet this clear separation of form and phallus reinforces the notion of the fetishization of violence in these narratives (which, in sword-and-sandal narratives, is almost always presented as existing in a “good-versus-evil, black-and-white” duality) and the symbolic phallus as representative of masculine authority. In these texts, the body is the source of masculine violence and aggression: it wields swords, cuts down enemies, topples towers, breaks chains, upends tyrants. This combination of brute violence and clear morality is irresistible to already empowered members of the controlling subject, as it reinforces their own sense of self. The phallus, however, is not a source of violence in these films, because the violence associated with the penis represents amoral purpose. Sexual violence is anathematic to the code of the warrior-hero; in the Conan the Barbarian film series, for example, when Conan is first given the opportunity to bed a woman, rather than take her by force, he woos her, treats her kindly, covers her modestly, and seemingly gains her consent before he begins the act of copulation. This representation of sexual morality is true even in the gritty portrayal of sexuality in Spartacus. Generally, in the series, it is only Romans who perpetuate sexual violence against others, mostly their slaves and prostitutes. Inevitably, these Romans receive their just comeuppance in the end, usually in the form of brutal violence enacted by one of the gladiatorial heroes in the series. Indeed, when the slave boy Pietros is abused by Gnaeus, who not only rapes the boy but beats him as well, Spartacus avenges the lad by killing Gnaeus, violently forcing him over the cliff side of the ludus. Thus the exaggerated muscularity, the overextended swords, the consistently exposed flesh—all of these aspects of the sword-and-sandal 175

Spartacus in the Television Arena hero are designed to reinforce their masculinity as well as their societal authority. This is why these narratives deign never to show the actual male penis. The exposed penis would diminish the god-like masculinity and authority of the peplumic hero. Yet Spartacus complicates the notion of the nearly nude, over-exaggeratedly muscular masculine form as a site of utility and authority by frequently revealing that which is almost universally concealed in sword-and-sandal films— the penis. Here the visible presence of the penis suggests an eroticization of the male form that these narratives otherwise seem to assiduously avoid. It is true that nearly every time the male phallus in actually shown in Spartacus, it is with sexual intent, either as precursor to the act of coitus or in substitution for the act of coitus (such as when a male gladiator is forced to reveal himself to crowds of Roman women or, on occasion, mixed gendered crowds, a full demonstration of the gladiator’s purported “masculine prowess”). Thus if the nearly nude male form contains an erotic potential, then the wholly nude male form would suggest the kinetic realization of that potential. And if a male audience struggles with the display of a hyperdeveloped, muscular chest, then how does it react when confronted with the most private aspect of masculinity? Such a question is rife with the presumption that the fleshy representation of the phallus has always been associated with erotic inclination. This, however, is not the case. While the female form has consistently been eroticized in Western culture, the naked male form, as Elisabeth Leopold asserts, “can have a wide range of meanings and associations… the male nude’s morphological compass is wide enough to embrace the child, the youth, and the old man and all their attendant physical and psychological states” (17). Daniela Hammer-Tugendhat notes that, for example, in Renaissance art and statuary, following classical models, “the male nude is public, the female nude private; the former symbolizes civic pride, the latter private nuptials” (40). She adds: “We are accustomed to seeing in the ‘realistic’ nude a mimetic image of the body, the truth of nature, perhaps even ideal nature.… The male nude, by contrast, is often perceived as something universal, as a body that is not sexual at all” (37). She concludes that, “The nakedness of the male nude signals his autonomy; it tells us he is in control of his own 176

(Re)Presenting the Phallus—Dickson and Cornelius actions and that he is master of his own fate” and thus male nudity can be aptly labeled “heroic” in nature (40). Greek art has a long history of exposing the fully naked male form. Seemingly from its inception, from the Archaic Kouros figure to decorated pottery replete with male and female nudes, Greek art celebrated the naked masculine form. Typically, these works featured athletic males in classical poses designed to show off the body as if in action, such as the famous Discobolus (ca. 450 bce) and Doryphoros (Spear-bearer, ca. 440 bce). These celebrated statues present the male form in an idealized state: youthful, developed, and balanced. Famously, Greek statuary downplays the exposed phallus, rendering it disproportionately small— a seemingly odd decision, considering the overall proportionality of the rest of the form displayed. In a piece like the Doryphoros, the imbalanced penis becomes even more prominent in proportion to the rest of the form. The Doryphoros represents military might; the spear-bearer as depicted is confident, both in victory and in his own masculinity. This can be seen in both his puffed-out chest and in the casual nature of his stride. Yet this confidence seems at odds when connected to his undersized phallus. A juxtaposition of form is thus created: the muscular, perfected male body versus the miniaturized genitals. Lacan, of course, notes an ontological difference between the phallus (the symbolic representation of the male) and the penis (the actual representation of the male sexual organ). If we accept this juxtaposition to be so, then the questions it raises about symbolic representation in Greek culture are all the more puzzling. And perhaps, just as puzzling, is the predominance of this representation: as Abigail Solomon-Godeau notes, “the modest size of the genitals” became “a convention firmly established by the fifth century bce and never modified, either by those artists, like Michelangelo, who so powerfully imprinted the nude with their own idiosyncratic and visionary imagination, or by those like [Jacques Louis] David, [the eighteenth-century neoclassical painter] who sought to re-animate the antique model through the devoted study of nature” (178). Solomon-Godeau locates the foundation for this representation in the “beliefs, preferences and social and sexual practices specific to Athenian culture and society” (181). Larissa Bonfante agrees: “The image of the nude young male, the 177

Spartacus in the Television Arena kouros statue of early Greek art … embodied the arete or glory of an aristocratic youth” (544). Gladiator films, however, are generally set in Roman times, when gladiatorial culture reached its zenith; Spartacus, based on an actual historical figure from ancient Rome, is no exception. The Romans took a varied approach to exposing male genitalia in their art. As a general rule, the Roman gods were nude, but images of mortal men were usually draped. When they depicted the exposed phallus, the Romans crafted genitalia using similar proportions to the Greeks; this can be seen in a piece such as the famous second century ce–era statue of Apollo. Portrait sculptures of living individuals, however, tended to reflect more modest ideals, and the genitalia were generally draped or in some other manner covered. The Romans thus discerned a palpable difference between images that were figurative, representing mythic figures or ideals, and works that reflected actual people. In those latter works the concealed phallus extends itself into the symbolic phallus; the might of the Roman male who could afford to have a statue commissioned in his honor certainly could not be diminished by exposing the phallus, and certainly not exposing it as being so lackluster. Furthermore, the size of the exposed genitals on statuary of deific or mythic figures reflected not only the Athenian/Greek ideal of masculine beauty, it also reflected Greek values of status as well. Bonfante observes that “nakedness, like clothing or armor, was used to distinguish social groups” (544). The popular masculine forms in Greek and Roman statuary represented the elite, noble caste. As Solomon-Godeau relates, depictions of enlarged genitalia in Greek art can be seen, in figures like the ithyphallic satyr, but these representations were “an index not of his masculinity, but of his animality; cause for mockery rather than admiration” (182). Thus for Greek and Roman culture, the idealized phallus, modest as it is, represents, still, the social dominance of the male—not only in the representation of his beauty, but in the representation of his noble status as well. The classical ideals of Renaissance art were based in large part on their interpretation of Greek and Roman culture; male nudes like Michelangelo’s David (1501–4) and Cellini’s Perseus with the Head of Medusa (1545) reflect earlier classical sculpture like the Doryphoros and 178

(Re)Presenting the Phallus—Dickson and Cornelius the Discobolus. Here again the male form is idealized, while the phallus (literal and symbolic) is minimized. Status is important here; while the direct connection to wealth and nobility may not be as evident in the Renaissance as it was in classical times, the allusions to Greek and Roman culture in the Renaissance indicated an unequivocal correlation to the culture most admired by the educated elite in Renaissance Europe. Thus it must be concluded that modest genitals are inherent deceivers; despite their diminutive nature, they reflect masculine authority, status, and privilege. They connect their makers and the cultures in which they are created to lofty masculine ideals. They do not reflect the reality of human flesh, nor the actuality of human existence. Like most symbols of the masculine, especially in the ancient world, they represent high culture and higher ideals. In many ways, the near-nudity of the sword-and-sandal protagonist works on similar principles. The power of the imaginary, symbolic phallus rests within its ability to incite the imaginations of the viewer. As Bonfante notes, “a ‘body taboo’ against nakedness in public is fairly universal” (544). The imagined phallus resists the taboo but creates the illusion of nakedness; as such, it speaks volumes about the masculinity of the hero through both its conspicuousness and its absence. Yet, as Tobias G. Natter observes, “the naked body’s artistic and political potential [extends] far beyond the boundaries imposed by conventional morality and socially defined taboos” (9). If the nearly-naked male form reflects both a classical ideal and also artistic and political potential, then what is the function of the wholly naked male form in Spartacus? Jonathan Weinberg puts the same matter quite differently when he observes, “nudity is just as likely to be another form of masking” (97). What may be “masked” by such blatant disrobing? On one hand, it could be argued that the “un”masking of the male form may be designed to highlight the central subject matter of the series—men, and masculinity, laid bare for the world to gaze upon (framed, though, and perhaps for the first time, differingly but consciously for distinct points of view: heterosexual male, heterosexual female, and homosexual male). For, indeed, we would posit that no television series before or since has been so concerned with the potential—political, yes, but also, and more inherently, the social, individual, and collective potential—of men. Laying men bare is a means 179

Spartacus in the Television Arena for the series to deconstruct the male to his most reductionist, objective design. Natter suggests that male nudity in art has long existed as a “topos of experimentation and exploration of … personal and social identity” (9). This is the beginning of what is at work in Spartacus. The social identity of men is under scrutiny here. Katharina Pewny has suggested that society is currently undergoing “the disempowerment of the masculine or of sex, one that is no longer exceptional in the early twentyfirst century,” and that male nudity reflects a spectrum that can span from “the reinstallation of overpowering (corporeal) masculinity…[to] ironic, equivocal reflections on loss of power and on the significance of masculinity,” and leave off at any point in between (112). The key to understanding this is that the presentation of the phallus—not its allusory representation, but depicting the actual male penis—forces the viewer to consider the subject to which the penis is attached. Our societal taboos about male nudity force the viewer to look elsewhere, to avoid focusing on the taboo; as a result, we instead consider the entire subject to which the phallus is attached.3 Normally, the exaggerated musculature of the peplumic hero has the potential to fragment the individual, to reduce him to his overdeveloped body parts—his bulging pectorals, his thickset legs, his “straining torso” as Chapman describes the hero of these films. Presenting the penis so directly forces the viewer to consider the entirety of the being presented onscreen. To put it crudely, the penis makes the man. Yet it does so by humanizing the god, by converting the object of the gaze from masculine to male, from man to human. The temporal context of Spartacus is of great importance here. The male bodies on Spartacus do not resemble the naked statuary of ancient Rome or the Italian Renaissance—the bodies are bigger, the muscles larger, the penises bulkier—but clearly the classical milieu in which these nude forms are presented are designed to evoke those marble echoes of ages past.4 Yet it is the bulk of the penis that causes the most significant disputation of this image. And this is true not just in size, but in contextual presentation as well. For the most part, images of the male genitals in Spartacus are sexualized (though not always erotic). They are shown preceding, during, or just after acts of coitus—and this occurs with both Roman men (like Glaber) as well as slaves (like Crixus). However, the gladiators are often subject to forms of inspection that involve 180

(Re)Presenting the Phallus—Dickson and Cornelius the removal of all clothing, exposing the phallus and reducing it, in Lacanian terms, into a mere penis. In one such scene, the Gallic gladiator Crixus is presented by Lucretia, the wife of Batiatus, for the amusement and wonderment of a group of her female peers. Lucretia orders Crixus to remove his loincloth, and he does so. Here, Laura Mulvey’s classic presentation of the gaze in cinema springs to life—but, here it is the female who holds the gaze, and the male who becomes the object of it. As Vitale observes, “This is precisely the sort of scene which, at least to Lacan, would be disastrous to the entire concept of the male phallus in society” (n.p.). The women gaze at Crixus’ bulging muscles and exposed flesh with obvious desire, and this scene is replicated throughout Blood and Sand and Gods of the Arena, with both Roman women and men the gazers, and gladiators the unwilling object of their attention. For the Romans in Spartacus, then, the viewing of the genitals instantly eroticizes them; while there is no indication that Crixus or Spartacus or any of the gladiators are “turned on” by such display (indeed, if anything, they seem to seethe with wrath at their own powerlessness and shame), for the noble caste in the series, the exposure of the genitals indicates the availability of the form sexually. Here, then, the exposed phallus also reflects social caste and status; like the statuary of ancient Greece and Rome, when presented for the viewing pleasure of others (as opposed to when it is depicted in coital action), the exposed phallus represents the social class and caste of its bearer. Here, though, male nudity reflects diminished, lower class status, especially, in the case of Spartacus, a bound status. His genitalia—just like the rest of a slave’s body—are not his to command.5 Yet, in Spartacus, the exposed phallus does more than simply eroticize male flesh. For, in sexualizing the male, and in delineating his strictures and structures of power, Spartacus works to humanize the male as well. Heroes in sword-and-sandal films are near mythic, larger-thanlife, unattainable representations of the male; in Spartacus, though, the nudity of the male renders this image less imposing, less god-like, less disconnective. Thus it is no accident that the representation of the male phallus is mostly (but not wholly) confined to the male slaves being housed and trained at the ludus of Batiatus. It has the effect of creating 181

Spartacus in the Television Arena humans out of heroes. Once free of the ludus, the genitals tend to remain covered; the freedom of the gladiators is thus expressed by a reversion to the symbolic phallus, and the concealment of the actual penis. This concealment coincides with a rise in their literal authority, as they take positions of power within the rebellion and lead the slaves to several crushing victories over the Romans. Indeed, the series ends with the gloriously masculine death of Spartacus himself, killed in combat by troops headed by the most elite male in all of Roman society, a man who, before the battle, parleys with his foe and recognizes his status and worth. The exposed phallus can also take on a totemic quality in Spartacus. Bonfante notes that, in many cultures, “When the sexual organ was uncovered, its power was unleashed. Apotropaic and magical nudity, involving the exposure of male genitals and female breasts, and the exhibition of the enlarged male phallus have been used from early times, and testify to the enduring force of this complex image” (544). This is perhaps best depicted through the character of Segovax. A new recruit brought to the house of Batiatus, Segovax caught the eye of Ilithyia— and, indeed, everyone present—when his loincloth is lowered and his enormous genitals are revealed. Believing his “impressive display” to be a sign of both his masculinity and prowess, Ilithyia selects him to be her personal gladiator, investing money in his training. She also bargains with him—his freedom in exchange for Segovax killing Spartacus. The plan, however, does not come off, and Segovax is stopped by a recovering Crixus when he attacks Spartacus. Segovax illustrates the notion that when the penis is onscreen it becomes the warrior it/himself. The sight of such an abnormally large male penis obscures both the rest of his body and his self. This is what the Greeks feared when they demarcated the proportions of their statuary centuries ago. However, Spartacus demonstrates the foolishness of this belief in the totemic nature of the male phallus. Segovax proves inferior to the other gladiators. When he exposes him, Crixus does so not to save Spartacus, but to save “a brother,” another who bears the same branded mark as Crixus—the mark of the gladiator (“Mark of the Brotherhood”). The shared experiences of the gladiators—including their shared exposure—creates honorific bonds that cannot be easily 182

(Re)Presenting the Phallus—Dickson and Cornelius destroyed. While Segovax is likewise exposed, the nature of his genitalia, and his lack of mark, “others” him amongst his fellow slaves. He is not one of them, and the classical mode of masculine nakedness is not one of totemism, but modesty reflecting status and authority. Segovax fits neither model, and thus he has to go. Ultimately, the representation of the penis in classical art reflected masculine status. The same principle is at work in Spartacus, but inverted. In ancient Greece, the diminutive nature of the male penis on ancient statuary reflected the nobility of the subject; in ancient Rome, the concealed phallus accomplished the same affect. In Spartacus, the exposed male phallus most often reflects the bound condition of the bearer. This constant exposure is a key part in humanizing the otherwise godlike posture of the sword-and-sandal hero, as well as demonstrating the dehumanizing nature of slavery in the Roman world. For a fan of the series, Spartacus, Crixus, Agron, and Gannicus may make it seem “cool” to be a gladiator, but the lack of agency the gladiators suffer— best symbolized by their inability to control even the most private portion of their bodies—demonstrates that slavery is a condition that continually dehumanizes even the strongest and most godlike of men.

Notes 1. It is worth pointing out that it is also business, in the commercial sense of the word. It would be naïve for us to imply that the depiction of naked forms on television is not motivated, to some degree, by ratings and the need for instant, sensationalized, social-media-driven attention for the show itself. Generally this manifests in depicting the female form full-frontally, leading Sezin Koehler to conclude, in a discussion on the subject of female full-frontal nudity on HBO television shows, that the “systematic sexual objectification of women comes from upper management” (n.p.). Of course, Spartacus is an equal-opportunity “sexual objectifier,” and presents the naked male form more frequently than the female, inverting the standard “commercial” paradigm of nudity but also creating new structures that seek to commodify the naked male form. 2. This also hearkens to the difference between the “naked” and the “nude” in art and representation. Rob Cover—citing Kenneth Clark—indicates that high art, and thus the form of representation, “has the ability to render the naked as nude, as if ‘nude’ is another form of or style of clothing, leaving behind ‘naked’ as the truly disrobed” (53). While Cover believes this distinction is more complex than Clark would indicate, he does acknowledge the influence this viewpoint has had on artistic scholarship and thought. Larissa Bonfante agrees, which suggests that the presentation of the homogendered gaze is further complicated by the function and representation of the form (artistic, commercial, erotic) as object of the gaze (544).

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Spartacus in the Television Arena 3. Though, of course, we secretly look as well, and are continually titillated by the exposure of the penis. Here, the essence of taboo is a significant part of the appeal. This juxtaposition of the gaze—wanting to look and not wanting to look—is perhaps best illustrated in an anecdote recounted by Katrina Law, who played Mira in the series, during an interview with the gay entertainment website The Backlot: One of the gladiators—I’m not going to say which one—he is gay, and the two of us literally just lean against the wall on certain days and just stare. (laughter) And comment. And daydream! It’s a lot of fun. One of my favorite memories with him occurred when he was new to the set. Sometimes it is really difficult, if you don’t know what is coming up in a scene—when sometimes they surprise you—and you don’t know where to look. It can be a shock. He said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” And right on that day we had to do this scene where we were looking out at the gladiators and, all of a sudden, about eight of them just decided to drop their drawers! Suddenly we were staring at eight penises. (laughter) Out of nowhere! And he is looking at the ceiling, saying, “I get it, I so get it. I want to look but I feel like I shouldn’t” [n.p.].

4. These forms do bear resemblance to some of Michelangelo’s later figures (see Last Judgment, 1536–1541), though Michelangelo’s figures are not as defined as their modern counterparts. 5. It bears reiterating that there exists a strong connection here between the class status of the exposed penis and the priapic association with the lower classes, barbarians, and animals—all of which the gladiators in Spartacus are considered by their Roman masters.

Works Cited Bonfante, Larissa. “Nudity as a Costume in Classical Art.” American Journal of Archaeology 93.4 (1989): 543–570. Print. Bondanella, Peter. A History of Italian Cinema. New York: Continuum, 2009. Print. Chapman, David. Retro Stud: Muscle Movie Posters from Around the World. Portland, OR: Collectors Press, 2002. Print. Cohan, Steven. Masked Men: Masculinity and the Movies in the Fifties. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997. Print. Conan the Barbarian. Dir. John Milius. Perf. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sandhal Bergman, James Earl Jones. Universal, 1982. Film. Cornelius, Michael G. “Beefy Guys and Brawny Dolls: He-Man, the Masters of the Universe, and Gay Clone Culture.” Cornelius. 154–174. Print. Cornelius, Michael G., ed. “Of Muscles and Men: The Functions and Forms of Sword and Sandal Movies.” Of Muscles and Men: Essays on the Sword and Sandal Film. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2011. 1–14. Print. Cover, Rob. “The Naked Subject: Nudity, Context and Sexualization in Contemporary Culture.” Body & Society 9.3 (2003): 53–72. Print. Günsberg, Maggie. Italian Cinema: Gender and Genre. New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2005. Print. Hammer-Tugendhat, Daniela. “On the Semantics of Male Nudity and Sexuality: A Retrospective.” Natter and Leopold. 37–45. Koehler, Sezin. “The Sexual Politics of Full Frontal on HBO.” Sociological Images. 24 Jun 2014. Web. 9 Jul 2014. Lacan, Jacques. “The Signification of the Phallus.” In Ecrits: A Selection. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997.

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(Re)Presenting the Phallus—Dickson and Cornelius Law, Katrina. “Katrina Law of ‘Spartacus: Vengeance’ Talks Hot Men in Diapers, Ogling ‘Nagron’ and Getting Axed.” Interview by Michael G. Cornelius. The Backlot. 2 Apr 2012. Web. 23 Sep. 2014. Leopold, Elisabeth. “Poetry of the Body: The Naked Man in the History of Art.” Natter and Leopold. 17–25. “Mark of the Brotherhood.” Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Writ. Aaron Helbing and Todd Helbing. Dir. Rowan Woods. Starz. 12 Mar 2010. Television. Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and the Narrative Cinema.” Screen 16. 3 (1975). Print. Natter, Tobias G. “Foreword: The Long Shadow of the Fig Leaf.” Natter and Leopold. 5–12. Print. Natter, Tobias G., and Elisabeth Leopold, eds. Nude Men: From 1800 to the Present Day. Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 2012. Print. Neale, Steve. “Masculinity as Spectacle: Reflections on Men and Mainstream Cinema.” Screening the Male: Exploring Masculinities in Hollywood Cinema. Eds. Steven Cohan and Ina Rae Hark. London: Routledge, 1993. 9–20. Print. Pewny, Katharina. “Male Bodies as Contested Terrain: Depictions of Demasculinization and Remasculinization in the Contemporary Performative Arts.” Natter and Leopold. 107–113. Schor, Naomi. Bad Objects: Essays Popular and Unpopular. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995. Print. Solomon-Godeau, Abigail. Male Trouble: A Crisis in Representation. London: Thames & Hudson, 1999. Print. Vitale, Christopher. “A New Queered Gaze?: Reading ‘Spartacus: Blood and Sand’ as Symptom of a Shift in the Male Gaze.” Networkologies: A Manifesto. 22 Mar 2010. Web. 9 Jul 2014. Weinberg, Jonathan. “Stripped Bare but Not Exposed: The Male Nude in American Art.” Natter and Leopold. 89–97. Print.

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Queer Heroes and Action Heroines Gender and Sexuality in Spartacus Anna Foka History-inspired narratives are often revamped for and by contemporary media in order to operate as nexuses for sociocultural examination. Of course, some narratives are more open to speculation and interpretation than others. Take, for example, reconstructions of the Roman Empire in film: while archaeological and literary epistemologies can proffer us significant macrohistoric information about wealthy, educated males (and less often notable females), microhistoric reconstructions of the lives, bodies, and behaviors of the “lesser classes” (gladiators, entertainers, and other Romans of lower status) are much more a product of scholarly speculation. In film and other screen-mediated arts, then, authors and producers are necessarily faced with a lot of intricate, difficult-to-answer questions. Microhistoric details that are primarily visual and help unfold the plot, such as ancient bodies and their respective social behaviors, often need to be speculated upon and recreated without the benefit of the tangible types of archaeological and literary evidence that scholars have uncovered about upper-class and upper-crust Rome. These microhistoric reconstructions of antiquity in popular culture are often infiltrated through the lens of contemporaneity. They are informed by their producers’ and scriptwriters’ own understanding of 186

Queer Heroes and Action Heroines—Foka Greek and Roman culture. It is therefore not surprising that screenmediated expressions of antiquity are often explored from the scholarly perspective of classical reception, the “two-way relationship between the source text or culture and the new work and receiving culture” (Hardwick 4). Indeed, classical narratives offer a rather overt environment for discussion of both ancient as well as contemporary issues. Against this backdrop, this essay examines how narratives of equality in the television series Spartacus (2010–13) correspond with or deviate from historical detail and contemporary audience expectations regarding the nexus of heroism, gender, and sexuality in the Roman Empire. Spartacus is the attested leader of a rebellion against the Roman Republic (from 73 to 71 bce; for historical discussion of this, see Plutarch, Crassus 8; Appian, Civil Wars 1.116; Florus, Epitome of Roman History 2.8). Though none of Spartacus’ historical representations overtly suggest that he aimed at societal reformation by abolishing slavery and promoting equality, his legacy inspired many intellectuals across times and cultures to revamp his tale in order to connect it to their own concepts of social equality.1 Marx, in the Manchester letter to Engels in 1861, for example, considered Spartacus a real representative of the ancient proletariat. Spartacus also inspired the German Spartacus League, a forerunner of the Communist Party of Germany. The figure of Spartacus has also been reproduced several times within the realm of popular culture. In this capacity, Spartacus has operated as a platform to explore social hierarchies, equality, the abolition of slavery, and egalitarianism.2 In this (re-)making of ancient time and space, both authorship and social context are active: authors often reproduce narratives in order to elucidate specific concepts in favor of others that tie in to some form of ideology, or, at times, construct ideologies where they may be deemed lacking. This explains how key narratives can be leveraged for varying cultural and political purposes. It also explains how narratives of Spartacus afford varied expression and interpretation by enacting the same basic components differently. Like alternative versions of any old tale, Spartacus enables new layers of expression through primary persistence. In this capacity, narratives carry explanatory frameworks for the social context of their tales, in turn shaped by its subsequent re-telling, a reception of antiquity. 187

Spartacus in the Television Arena Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus (1960), for example, was largely interpreted as an allusion to the Cold War and further political and social frictions in late 1950s Hollywood. The film Spartacus furthermore inspired the plot, setting, and costumes of an American mini-series similarly titled Spartacus (2004).3 Both adaptations largely follow the stereotypical form and characterization of a sword-and-sandal film: the main character is a muscular tanned man, while women are given only subordinate roles (for more on masculinity and the genre, see Cornelius 9, Bondanella 159, and Lucanio 2). In both adaptations, men and women also operate within the boundaries of particular contemporary gender roles. Men engage in arguments, duels, and battles, whereas women are primarily attractive with minimal character development: they serve as décor, both figuratively and literally. Both film narratives of Spartacus then, reinforce traditional patriarchal views of (non-dominant) women in ancient and current society. Similarly, their narratives of social equality are also crafted within homosocial outlines: the story focuses on Spartacus’ masculine struggle against the Roman social elite, while the “female realm” remains auxiliary to the plot. In contrast, I argue that the Starz-produced television series Spartacus deviates from such traditional enactments of gender roles. In the first season, Spartacus: Blood and Sand (2010), the narrative concentrates on Spartacus’ enslavement in Thrace and his struggles as a gladiator in the ludus of Quintus Lentulus Batiatus. In the second season, Spartacus: Gods of the Arena (2011), the viewer is offered a prequel; it puts the story of Spartacus in context through narrating the rise of Batiatus as a lanista in the gladiator business. The third season, Spartacus: Vengeance (2012), then continues the main plot as the narrative depicts the aftermath of the slaves’ bloody escape from the ludus, a narrative of conflict which escalates into the final season, Spartacus: War of the Damned (2013), where Spartacus and his band of rebels rise against the Roman military, led by Marcus Licinius Crassus. Clearly, Spartacus is thus consistent with the audience’s primary and current stereotypical expectations of a sword-and-sandal film: the narrative grows out of events within a ludus in the city of Capua, a carefully constructed male environment. While Spartacus could thus be read as yet another story of masculine play, this essay shows that other, more 188

Queer Heroes and Action Heroines—Foka emancipatory, interpretations are possible. Here, I argue that Spartacus, in spite of belonging to a genre comprised primarily of heteronormative and male-centered narratives about gladiators, redefines the genre’s definition of heroism by depicting a wider spectrum of sexual behaviors as well as granting female characters critical, action-infused roles throughout all four seasons of the television series. I show that sexual preference matters little for male heroes, thus offering an arena for discussion on concepts of contemporary masculinities and heroism; in the same breath, female characters also evolve from the older sexualized and objectified females of other gladiatorial sword-and-sandal films into strong and brave action heroines, thus marking the evolution of the perception of ancient female sexuality in popular culture. Therefore, Spartacus operates as a platform for social equality from a gender perspective and can be used as an example of changing fashions in the representation of gender within the genre. Finally, I discuss how the television series reflects upon the impact of deeper scholarly outcomes on gender equality in the depiction of both ancient and contemporary societal structures.

Redefining Gender Within the Genre: Masculinity, Sexuality and Heroism Rome in popular imagination projects a variety of visual interpretations and meanings, and it has been reproduced for film across disparate times and cultures. Within mainstream popular culture, historical fantasy inspired by antiquity was popularized after the cinematic trend of the Italian pepla of the 1950s and 1960s that were based loosely on mythology and legendary Greco-Roman history (for pepla see Bondanella, Günsberg, and Lucanio). Recent scholarship has further investigated the Roman Empire in film, specifically from the perspectives of masculinity, cultural identity, and even whiteness studies. Indeed, within the context of a sword-and-sandal film, the action hero has been traditionally Caucasian and male, with females largely cast in supporting roles. The very emphasis on the representation of the body suggested the construction and projection of a specific type of a muscular (Caucasian) masculinity (Dyer 148–151).4 In fact, the majority of these strong heroes were actual bodybuilders, especially since the 1950s. Body189

Spartacus in the Television Arena builders’ bodies are clearly gym or competition products: projects of leisure and wealth with connotations of (self) objectification, since the very sport of bodybuilding is centered upon the spectator’s gaze (Davis and Weaving 105). In classic Hollywood, the bodybuilder-shaped film protagonist evolves after the 1960s and obtains a heroic identity that is based on communal ideology rather than physical strength. Within the context of gladiatorial sword-and-sandal films, there are connotations of social equality that gradually become more central to the plot than the protagonist’s physical strength and action. Kirk Douglas in Spartacus (1960), for example, is not necessarily crudely violent, however muscular he may appear. In spite of the fact that the professional bodybuilder trend dies out entirely during the ’90s, the idealized image of the white muscular male continued to serve as the precise embodiment of the ancient hero in contemporary film. Facilitated by the emergence of digital technology, the current representation of the male hero is now digitally enhanced. The occasional use of the chroma key is deployed for special (action hero) effects as well as the enhancement of body, as in 300 (2006), Immortals (2011), and the remake of Wrath of the Titans (2012). Over time, however, the aesthetically pleasing embodiment of the male protagonist became less central for the genre. Male characterization currently follows the latest trend of the fragmented hero, where heroic qualities are distributed evenly within the group instead of the protagonist, thus pointing to collectivity rather than individualism (Elliott 59–74). Furthermore, heteronormativity has been always another key relational aspect of the genre. Even recent films like Gladiator (2000), Troy (2004), 300, Immortals, and Wrath of the Titans all depict standard tropes of positive masculinity (Pierce 40–57). The heroism of the male protagonist is evident through the use of physically active struggle against tyranny and is often built upon heteronormative lover, father, and husband roles. Gladiator, 300, and Troy go to great lengths to describe ancient masculinity as “safely” heteronormative by placing emphasis on the heterosexual performance of the leading men who are depicted in carefully constructed hetero-environments (Pierce 41–42). The masculinity of these protagonists (Maximus, Leonidas, and Achilles, respec190

Queer Heroes and Action Heroines—Foka tively) is also reinforced further by the presentation of their antagonists. Villains appear in striking antithesis to the lead heroes in every way: they are physically weaker, morally degenerate, or even effeminized. The concept of the “good” and heteronormative male hero is further contrasted via the respective villain’s sexually deviant behavior, which ranges from cross-dressing to adultery to (implied) homosexuality. An exception is Oliver Stone’s Alexander (2004), a film in which the protagonist is portrayed as a bisexual male. However, sadly, Alexander’s sexual identity was perceived negatively by specific ethnic groups (Greeks of the American diaspora) as well as Christian unions (Carver 83–4 and Crowdus 12–23). The representation of male characters in Starz’ Spartacus has a lot in common with earlier sword-and-sandal film, yet there are specific points in which it differs a great deal. The plot of the series unfolds in primarily masculine environments: Batiatus’ ludus, Roman amphitheatres (wooden and stone), and the underground pits (especially in Gods of the Arena and Blood and Sand). As the show focuses on gladiators, there are naturally muscular action heroes involved in a (digitally processed) active struggle against the higher echelon of the society of Capua. Communal ideology is of course central in Spartacus, where male characterization follows the trend of the “fragmented hero” and heroic qualities are distributed evenly within the group of characters. In spite of these common attributes with older sword-and-sandal films, however, the series redefines the genre definition of heroism through a thorough deconstruction of previous receptions of Roman sexuality in relation to heroism. So what makes male protagonists in Spartacus differentiated from the usual paradigms? Character behavior in Spartacus seems to be inspired by actual Roman cultural concepts of sexuality. The nexus of heroic masculinity and sexuality are broadly defined in the series, deviating from the strict stereotypical heteronormative model of previous sword-and-sandal films. Roman society was indeed patriarchic, and masculinity was premised on governing oneself and others of lower status in both civic and sexual terms (Cantarella xii, Langlands 17). Roman conceptions of sexuality did not recognize current dichotomies such as “homosexuality” or “heterosexuality,” and there are no words in Latin 191

Spartacus in the Television Arena to describe these concepts (Skinner). In terms of concepts of heroic masculinity, a man was meant to have valor in the battlefield (McGinn 326, Evans 156–157) but this was unrelated to his sexual preferences or practices. Roman ideals of masculinity were thus premised on taking an active role that was also the prime directive of the social construction of masculine sexual behavior for Romans. The impetus toward action might express itself most intensely in an ideal of dominance that reflects the hierarchy of Roman society (see Skinner). In Spartacus one observes a variety of socio- sexual behaviors among male protagonists. Strong heroes such as Spartacus, Varro, and Gannicus are on par with the latest positive and heteronormative paradigms of lover, father, and husband roles found in previous sword-andsandal films (see Pierce 40–57). Beyond such strict, heteronormative models, however, one observes a further, unconventional potpourri of heroic masculinities. Barca, for example, is on close, respectable terms with Crixus and acts as one of Batiatus’ most loyal gladiators as well as his bodyguard, often sent on assignments without his dominus. He is generally seen as powerful, is called “the Beast of Carthage,” and although he enjoys the discomfort of new recruits, he develops strong bonds with other gladiators. Most importantly, he reveals a gentler side with his partners, Auctus and Pietros, fighting for their freedom, displaying loyalty and straight-forward affection. Similarly, in Spartacus: Vengeance and War of the Damned, Agron appears as one of the top generals of the rebel group that Spartacus leads. His relationship with the Assyrian Nasir, and the occasional intimate kisses they share throughout the series, do not undermine their respective skills in battle and heroism against the noblemen of Capua. They embrace a communal ideology for the sake of the group (brotherhood). Their sexuality is not defined as deviant, or unnatural, by their fellow rebels. When Mira, for example, finds them kissing instead of guarding Ilithyia (“Balance”), she simply relieves them from their duty. In Spartacus, then, heroism and positive masculinity is not defined by means of sexual preference. On the other hand, negative paradigms of behavior—villains in the series—are defined primarily by their lack of respect towards others manifested via enforced acts and unrelated to sexual preference. The series alludes to both contemporary as well as ancient concepts of socio192

Queer Heroes and Action Heroines—Foka sexual deviance. Socially unacceptable sexual behavior in a Roman context was enforcing one’s desires on another. Again, during the Republic, a Roman citizen’s political liberty (libertas) was defined in part by the right to preserve his body from physical compulsion, including both corporal punishment and sexual abuse, though this was obviously not the case for everyone in an economy based on slavery. No moral censure was directed at the sexual preferences of adult males, as long as they did not violate the rights and prerogatives of their male peers. Indeed, in Spartacus similar rules apply. Less sympathetic characters are often characterized by a specific sort of sexual deviance that is unrelated to sexual preference. Cossutius, Ashur, and Tiberius often force others to pleasure them, whether through violent means or through status. Spartacus’ depiction of negative masculinities is not defined by sexual preference but by sexual dominance and enforcement of one’s sexual desire on others. For example, the Roman noble Cossutius (“Paterfamilias”) is brought to the house of Batiatus by Varus, to attend sexual displays. Cossutius chooses Lucretia’s virgin slave Diona and pairs her with the rather brutal, dirty, and bloody gladiator Rhaskos. Cossutius justifies his actions as essential in teaching Diona that “this world is filled with the grotesque and the divine” (“Paterfamilias”). Once he rapes her, Cossutius and Varus immediately leave the ludus. Diona emerges from the room, visibly bruised and broken. Cossutius’ lack of empathy and compassion for the young woman, as well as the fact that he is brutally dominant by means of status, paint him as an unsympathetic character. Deviance in the series is not restricted to noble Romans assaulting slaves; it also appears as a consequence of elevation in the society of Capua and a display of dominance and power. Ashur in Blood and Sand, when promoted in the villa as Batiatus’ right hand, requests to have Naevia, although he is aware that she romantically involved with Crixus. Although there is no depiction of direct violence, it is implied that sexual acts are enforced upon Naevia. Ashur’s further elevation of status enables him to act in a similar way in Vengeance, thus manipulating more characters with violence and threats. Ashur manages to earn trust with Glaber and, as a result, he convinces Lucretia that he has more power than her, and rapes her multiple times. He calls her “my love” and offers 193

Spartacus in the Television Arena her the jewels he has stolen from people he has killed, while he continues to express himself through possessiveness and violence. The shift in both characters’ status enables his dominant and enforcing behavior. Along similar lines, violent behavior and rape can also appear as a manifestation of dominance between characters of similar status. For example, in War of the Damned young Tiberius evolves as a villain of great significance. After his father forces him and the rest of his unit to perform decimation, he uses brutal and immoral methods in order to display the hegemony he believes his father has taken from him. First, he viciously rapes his father’s beloved mistress Kore as an act of revenge against his father. When Caesar blackmails him over the rape, which caused great distress to Crassus, Tiberius smashes a flagon in Caesar’s face and attacks him. The praetorian guards that protect Tiberius restrain Caesar, who Tiberius then threatens and rapes. The act of rape between men of equal status is yet another example of malevolent behavior in the series and a brutal act of social dominance on behalf of Tiberius. Masculinity in Spartacus, therefore, deviates from strict heteronormative constructs found in previous sword-and-sandal films. Surely the muscular warrior is still a focus, and an abundance of “positive masculinities” are distributed between the protagonists; however, heroism is not defined by one’s sexual preference in strict binary terms. Villains are not those who deviate from strict heteronormative models but rather those who exercise hegemonic or physical powers over others. In this sense, the series utilizes historical detail in depicting ancient sexualities. Concepts of sexual deviance are defined by levels of agency, consent, and enforcement and are not strictly dependent on modern definitions of sexual preference. However, the series is equally interested in modernizing sexual relationships rather than being historically accurate. This is evident in the fact that sexual relationships are romanticized and central to the plot in several ways, as when fighting for one’s lover (see Agron and Nasir, Barca and Auctus) or promoting loyalty among the servile class as a virtue. The novelty of Spartacus in its depiction of masculinities is that negative qualities are manifested through sexual dominance and enforcement of their sexual desire on others. Along similar lines, the depiction of heroic femininity in Spartacus goes beyond the 194

Queer Heroes and Action Heroines—Foka objectified female stereotype found in other sword-and-sandal films. To some extent, it is similarly tied to questions of power depicted either through physical prowess or status.

Sexualized Hyper-Femininity and the Emergence of the Action Heroine In past decades important studies on the role of Roman citizens and “other” women (non–Roman, slaves, etc.) have shed light on the fluidity of constructs/concepts of femininity in antiquity.5 Indeed, microsocieties across the Roman Empire were patriarchic and valued masculinity, which was then socially constructed as valor, political activity, and military prowess. Women in Rome had a limited public role and were less frequently mentioned than men by (male) contemporary historians. In this context, freeborn, elite women in Rome were citizens, though they could not vote or hold political office (Frier, Woodward and McGinn 31–32, 457). Yet while Roman women held no direct political power, those from wealthy or powerful families could and did exert influence through private negotiations (Milnor 278). Unfortunately, however, we know very little about women who were not prominent. Within a slave system, the majority of women in the Roman Empire derived from the lower segments of society, of which our image is still incomplete. Nonetheless, it remains a popular subject of speculation for the artistic conceptualization and reconstruction of the female realm in sword-and-sandal films. Throughout Spartacus, female characters of all social backgrounds gradually involve themselves in the male realm of the ludus. Unlike older gladiator-inspired films that are based primarily in carefully constructed hetero-normative and male-focused narratives, women comprise at least one-third of the series’ characters and play a central role in the plot and outcome of Spartacus. Spartacus’ hatred of the Romans is presented in the series as the result of his wife’s unjust rape, capture, and death. Moreover, the plot of the television series deals with micro-historic aspects of life in the provinces of the Roman Empire, which enables further the use of female characters. It entails leitmotifs of domestic economy, the roles of a domina and slaves in the ancient household, religion, social 195

Spartacus in the Television Arena interaction, and indirect engagement with politics.6 In the series, wealthy noble Roman women and female slaves have equally important parts. Romans like Gaia, Lucretia, and Ilithyia are central to the plot: their drive for power and social recognition urges them to act according to their own aspirations, sometimes contrary to their surrounding patriarch’s wishes. In the same breath, female slaves are also of great importance. They join the slave rebellion, most notably Mira, Naevia, and later Saxa; these are cast in terms of manly virtue as they espouse the cause of Spartacus in seeking freedom. In Spartacus one can observe a plethora of portrayals of female characters; some of these are stereotypical in sword-and-sandal films while others expand beyond the qualities of womanhood usually found in the genre. As with most sword-and-sandal films, many characters are scantily clad and subject to the spectators’ gaze (see discussion by Schubart 224–30). The concept of sexy (action) heroines is certainly not something new to the producers of Spartacus, especially for Rob Tapert, who was also the producer of Xena: The Warrior Princess (1995–7). Xena, like Naevia and Saxa in War of the Damned, is also dressed in a tight and short leather outfit, and one could argue that films typically re-enact male domination of women by objectifying the heroine, using strong definitions by early feminist film theorists such as voyeurism, sadism, and the fetishistic representation of the female image (Minkowitz 74– 7). The male viewer can identify with the active power of the erotic look of the male protagonist (see discussion by Inness 1–17). The argument that females tend to be objectified more than males, although reductionist, describes accurately certain features of stereotypical sword-andsandal films. However, in a post-feminist reading one could also argue that the hyperbole of signifiers, the exposed skin, breasts, long legs, and athletic thighs, coupled with action and the very challenging of male strength, may be also read as a critique of sexual difference and power (Morgan 119, 131). In Spartacus, female gladiators’ costumes appear specifically designed to evoke the masculine world of fighting, yet at the same time to reveal the female hero’s natural physique. Their femininity underscores their prescribed gender code while their aggressiveness challenges it. Another representational trait that falls into standardized feminin196

Queer Heroes and Action Heroines—Foka ity in sword-and-sandal film is, most certainly, the ability of female action heroines to scheme against others (women or their patriarchs). Elite female characters in the series indeed exercise power behind the scenes. This is on par with a stereotypical representation of elite Roman women as scheming, corrupt, selfish, and with hegemonic tendencies. For example, the characters of Atia, Servilia, and Octavia in HBO’s series Rome (2005–7) are part of a long tradition of using Roman upper class women to illustrate the corruption of Roman society (Ragalie 4–6). Indeed, scheming women have been a part of literature and popular culture since the dawn of recorded text. In Roman literature the scheming, sexually voracious, and uncontrollable woman is often used as a negative paradigm. Tacitus and other writers such as Dio Cassius and Suetonius used Messalina’s sexual voracity to illuminate the corruption and decay of the Roman Empire rather than to represent accurately historical womanhood in Rome (Joshel 221–54). As a result, the idea of using women’s behavior to represent the corruption of the Roman Empire has become a common device in both ancient and contemporary portrayals; such influence can be found in novels such as I, Claudius and Claudius the God, published in 1934 and written by Robert Graves. Graves depicts Rome as a “stagnant pool sexually and politically,” while the hegemonic shrewd behavior and lack of chastity of the women of the imperial house (Messalina, Agrippina, Livilla, and Julia) are represented as symptomatic of a larger corruption of these women (Joshel 123). The subsequent television series I, Claudius brings voracious, hegemonic, and corrupt women to the forefront of its plot. In Spartacus, one observes the same scheming behavior, a tendency to control behind the scenes, facilitated by immense sexuality and motivated by hegemonic tendencies. Yet the first distinction between the series and older depictions of these same characters is that, in Spartacus, women often come together to resist patriarchal order. Lucretia, the central elite character of the first three seasons, pairs with Gaia and Ilithyia, two prominent Roman women, on different occasions. In Gods of the Arena, Gaia is portrayed as a manipulative hyper-female with few inhibitions. As a widow of substantial wealth with no family, she stands as the only free woman in the series, who would otherwise be under the control of her father, brothers, or husband. Gaia first helps Lucretia and 197

Spartacus in the Television Arena Batiatus with their business by luring the wealthy Varus to their household and securing his favor for house of Batiatus. With Gaia’s help, Lucretia and Batiatus organize an evening of events, inviting many men and offering them slaves and gladiators to spend the evening with. When Gaia is eventually killed by Tullius, Lucretia swears vengeance. The relationship between Gaia and Lucretia goes beyond a mere friendship, with the two of them being physically intertwined at times. In any case, they are mostly successful in their co-operation, and they do play a critical part in the plot’s outcome. Another example of the elite scheming woman in the series is Ilithyia, whose hatred for Spartacus certainly fuels myriad gruesome murders. In Blood and Sand, she manages to convince her own sponsored gladiator, Segovax, to make an attempt on Spartacus’ life, and she remains emotionally unmoved when he is caught and crucified as punishment. In the same season she seduces Numerius by joining him naked in a pool. She asks him to choose Varro to fight Spartacus instead of Crixus, so that Varro will die. In Vengeance, Ilithyia is scheming to seduce and marry someone more prestigious than Glaber, and for that she seeks the help of Lucretia. Overall, however, Ilithyia’s friendship to Lucretia springs from self-interest, and she does not hesitate to abandon her if that serves her purpose. The true novelty of the series is that Ilithyia is a villain who displays agency and is not only scheming behind the scenes, but also commits acts of raw violence. Unlike other film inspired by antiquity, where violent acts are premeditated by prominent women but executed by men (see Atia in Rome or female acts in Conan the Destroyer [1984] if we are strictly discussing sword-and-sandal film), Ilithyia inflicts violent acts upon others herself. Upon Licinia’s secret decision to bed Spartacus, Ilithyia asks to sleep with Crixus; this angers Lucretia, who, however, is instructed by her husband to ensure Glaber’s patronage at any costs. Spartacus is painted and masked in preparation to meet Licinia, but instead is paired with Ilithyia, also masked. Unaware and discovered by Licinia, Ilithyia falls into a rage and attacks Licinia, smashing her skull violently into the marble. Ilithyia’s realization that the death of a noble Roman woman might have consequences on her causes the balance of the relationship between the two noble Roman women to change, with 198

Queer Heroes and Action Heroines—Foka Lucretia becoming the dominant one. In Vengeance, Ilithyia traps and eventually assassinates her husband’s lover, Seppia. The corporeal ways Ilithyia manifests violence in the series when she attacks Licinia and Seppia are examples of physicality that, ultimately, advances sword-andsandal femininity. Ilithyia utilizes her prominent position and sexuality, as well as brutal violence to serve her own purpose, a combination unique to Spartacus. She takes the paradigm of the scheming Roman female a step further: she is a cruel, premeditating killer. The producers of Spartacus have argued that representations of strong, physical femininity in the series are on par with those of Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003), namely action heroines who can fight and think at the same time. The action heroine paradigm is indeed strongly represented in the series, as there are numerous different portrayals of powerful women with a special focus on physicality. The presence of physical women in the narrative and material cultures of antiquity is rare. Heroism and warlike physicality is not expected from a woman, especially in patriarchal, ancient societal structures, where they primarily belong to the realm of mythology rather than reality. Normally, the depiction of militant females fighting against men in such milieus remains unique to mythological characters, such as the Amazons (Tyrrell 77). For Vengeance, the producers of Spartacus speculated the incorporation of a gladiatrix, a female gladiator. Historically, female gladiators appear one hundred years later than Spartacus, and they are a type of entertainment somewhat saucier than the male ludi. Female gladiatrices in Spartacus are oppressed slaves (Naevia and Mira) who join the slave commune and rebellion. Naevia and Mira acquire skills in battle with the help of their male counterparts. In Vengeance, Mira proves herself skillful with the bow, joining the battle with the other slave rebels. Naevia is a household-born slave who, after Melitta’s death, becomes Lucretia’s personal body slave in Gods of the Arena. Naevia appears at first reserved, yet after implied sexual abuse and hard labor in the mines, she trains to become a fighter with the other rebels. Naevia’s physical fragility is manifested in several ways, especially when she encounters Ashur and struggles to decapitate him, yet seems relieved by her obsessive thirst to kill Romans. Plus, while at the end of 199

Spartacus in the Television Arena Vengeance a traumatized Naevia struggles in a fight, she evolves into a capable warrior by War of the Damned who emasculates and defeats Tiberius before an audience. Last, but certainly not least, Saxa is a unique example of a female character who appears in the series already (and, as the series suggests, perhaps culturally) prepared for battle, rather than being depicted as having been trained by a male counterpart to do so (like Mira and Naevia). She possesses an aggressive, powerful personality, similar to the other Germanic fighters in the series. Unlike most of the other female characters, Saxa appears already battle-hardened and skilled, fighting with twin daggers, while also showing dexterity in unarmed combat. She enjoys challenging men to battle, wanting to prove that her strength is on par with theirs. Saxa clearly has a high rank in Spartacus’ army, and dies in the final battle with Crassus, fighting alongside Gannicus. Overall, female heroines in Spartacus are central to the series’ action and plot and they portray a new form of femininity: that of the action heroine. In its representation of action heroines and specifically freedom fighters, Spartacus follows more or less the very same stereotypes found in other action films that feature female fighters. Female (action) heroines appear to be relational and comparable to male characters: they are trained by men, and they try to prove themselves better than them or they are avenging men for their own misfortunes. What distinguishes the fighters in Spartacus is the fact that they physically fight for social equality, embracing the group’s solidarity, much like the male fragmented hero. Furthermore, there is not just one, but many women, who are active and physical. In the very few third-wave pepla that embraced women—Red Sonja (1985), or the Grace Jones character in the Conan sequel—there is only one action character per film. Yet Spartacus has Naevia, Mira, and Saxa, and they are all capable warriors. So, is Spartacus gender equal? In associating and interpreting physical power exclusively with males and passivity exclusively with females, if anything, one reinforces binary gender models. The emergence of premeditating, physical, and often cruel female action heroines in popular culture generated a deep debate in feminist and post-feminist scholarship. The female action hero in male film genres is an ambiguous entity. She can be both rejected and welcomed, as she is often both hypersex200

Queer Heroes and Action Heroines—Foka ualized and physically strong at the same time. Recent scholarship discusses the female action hero’s ambivalence and the responses she generates for the audience. In Spartacus, however, there are several types of the new woman warrior, a polysemous image that may offer a lot of possibilities for alternative storytelling, even if it has its limitations as a model for feminism (Early and Kennedy 6).

Conclusion As I have noted, Spartacus differs from previous sword-and-sandal narratives in how it weaves concepts of gender and sexuality into the plot. In terms of portrayal, contemporary visual renderings of the genre’s hero and heroine still focus largely on their bodies, masculine and feminine. As intentionally organized materiality, the body and its possible enactments are both conditioned and circumscribed by socio-temporal conventions. In other words, the body is a historical situation and, thus, a manner of dramatizing and reproducing historical situations. Embodiment clearly manifests a set of strategies, “the stylistics of existence” (Butler 15). Strong, athletic bodies are bared and tanned; they are desired and powerful. Just like the actual audience of an arena, the audience of Spartacus is invested in the object of their gaze: athletic feminine bodies and developed, muscular men. Actual power, though, as defined in the series, goes beyond mere embodiment and extends into the sphere of societal hierarchies, physical strength, solidarity within groups, and their refined dynamics. Unlike older samples of the genre, Spartacus’ depictions of masculinities and femininities vary and remain unaffected by sexual preference, while female characters do not operate solely as passive décor. The emphasis on social domination in the series seems to reflect scholarly expressions of Roman (male) sexuality in terms of an “active and passive” binary model. The “passive” agent in a sexual relationship threatened the partners’ liberty as a free citizen as well as one’s sexual integrity. Indeed, throughout Spartacus, the lower the status (slaves, gladiators), the more readily available for passive, objectified, physical sexuality, conditions that are reversed once the tables are turned in the final season and the servile class gains power. Against this backdrop, 201

Spartacus in the Television Arena gender in Spartacus indeed matters less than in previous sword-andsandal depictions. Characters in Spartacus, irrespective of gender, display hegemony by means of physicality, status, or solidarity, or a combination of all these qualities. Historical reproduction in popular culture is a way of narrating the past through its representational elements as well as a manifestation and materialization of the on-going construction process of social and cultural identities. Accordingly, focus should be placed on uncovering interrelations and frictions between historical and popular culture. Similarly, popular expressions of antiquity films are not just “reflecting reality” but instead co-constitute within specific contexts according to particular relations of power (Foucault 376–7). The testing of these foundations, as well as their extension through to the theoretical edifice, proves that contemporary social knowledge can appear in the form of historically situated realism in film. In any case one can imply that the representation of gender in Spartacus moves away from a traditionalist point of view that sees male characters as fighters, fathers, and husbands and women as sexually objectified subordinate tokens. Sexuality in the series is defined in broad and contemporary terms. Owing to the pervasive and increasingly interconnected nature of popular culture, Spartacus indeed mirrors both Roman and current discourses on gender representation, and it can be further used to discuss the complex mechanisms of visual narratives of historically situated social identities within the sphere of popular culture. Fictionality as a cooperative art of communication between creator and audience—a formation of a propositional content which becomes the focus of a special kind of imaginative effort among participants (Lamarque and Olsen 74)—thus projects a far better outlook of gender within Spartacus than older sword-and-sandal narratives. The very construction of the cognitive realm of ancient social culture is then altered from within the adaptation of its basic components. It thus provides a “Trojan horse” through which embodiment from the sphere of current reality is carried into the domain of augmented social realism in film. Hence, and most importantly, Spartacus becomes a platform, an arena for the discussion of social equalities once more; yet here the social justice is viewed from both a sexuality and gender perspective. 202

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Notes 1. See: Plutarch, Crassus 8–11 and Pompey 21.1–2; Appian, The Civil Wars 1.14.111 and 116–121.1; Sallust, The Histories 3.96 and 98 (M) = 3.64 and 66 (McG); Livy, Periochae 95–97; Velleius Paterculus, Compendium of Roman History 2.30.5–6; Florus, Epitome of Roman History 2.8 (3.20); Frontinus, Strategies 1.5.20–22 and 7.6, 2.4.7 and 5.34; Orosius, History Against the Pagans 5.24.1–8 and 18–19. 2. Hardwick briefly discusses the variable receptions of the Spartacus story within the context of sword-and-sandal films. For Kubrick’s film, see Winkler. 3. The series was directed by Robert Dornhelm and produced by Ted Kurdyla from a teleplay by Robert Schenkann. It aired over two nights on the USA Network. However, the 2004 series follows Howard Fast’s novel more closely than Kubrick’s film. 4. Dyer’s study indeed inaugurated the paradigm in film and cultural studies as it precisely registered the theoretical background to discuss “whiteness” in other areas of cultural inquiry. Ever since then, whiteness as a field of inquiry has been challenged (see Ahmed for a criticism of whiteness studies). In the case of swordand-sandal films, indeed, one could argue for exotic, tanned, southern European identities rather than Dyer’s rigid definition of white. While this is the subject perhaps of an entirely different essay, for the sake of economy here, one could simply isolate the fact that Dyer identified correctly the centrality of the concept of the male muscleman in sword-and-sandal films, irrespective of complexion/racial theories. 5. See Augoustakis and Gruen; also Renger and Solomon. 6. This is similar to the trend that HBO’s Rome (2005–7) follows in stretching the portrayal of microhistory through the imaginary reconstruction of the lives of two Roman soldiers, Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus, as found in Gaius Julius Caesar, Commentarii De Bello Gallico 5.44. A similar trend can be found in exhibitions and museums, using a fictional or lesser known historical individual as a “guide” into both the physical exhibit and the historical past presented therein (see for example: Life and Death in Pompeii at the British Museum: 2013).

Works Cited Ahmed, Sara. “Declarations of Whiteness: The Non-Performativity of Anti-Racism.” Borderlands E-Journal 3.2 (2004): 1015. Web. Augoustakis, Antony. Motherhood and the Other: Fashioning Female Power in Flavian Epic. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Print. Avila-Saavedra, Guillermo. “Nothing Queer about Queer Television: Televised Construction of Gay Masculinities.” Media, Culture, and Society 31.1 (2009): 5–21. Print. Bondanella, Peter. A History of Italian Cinema. London and New York: Continuum International, 2009. Print. Butler, Judith. “Gender as Performance.” In A Critical Sense: Interviews with Intellectuals. Ed. Osborne Peter. London and New York: Routledge (1996): 108–125. Print. Cantarella, Eva. Bisexuality in the Ancient World. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. Print.

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Spartacus in the Television Arena Carver, Tim. “Oliver Stone’s Alexander: Warner Bros and Intermedia Films (2004).” Film and History 35:2 (2005): 83–84. Print. Cohen, Beth. Not the Classical Ideal: Athens and the Construction of the Other in Greek Art. Leiden: Brill, 2000. Print. Cornelius, Michael G. Of Muscles and Men: Essays on the Sword and Sandal Film. Editor. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2011. Print. Crowdus, Gary. “Dramatizing Issues that Historians Don’t Address: An Interview with Oliver Stone.” Cineaste 30:2 (2005): 12–23. Print. Davis, Paul, and Weaving, Charlene. Philosophical Perspectives on Gender in Sports. London and New York: Routledge, 2010. Print. Dyer, Richard. White. London and New York: Routledge. 1997. Print. Early, Frances and Kennedy, Kathleen. Athena’s Daughters: Television’s New Women Warriors. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2003. Print. Elliott, Andrew. “From Maciste to Maximus & Co: The Fragmented Hero in the New Epic.” Cornelius. 58–74. Print. Evans, Richard. Utopia Antiqua: Readings of the Golden Age and Decline at Rome. London and New York: Routledge, 2008. Print. Foka, Anna. “Beauty and the Beast: Femininity, Animals and Humour in Greek Middle Comedy.” Classica et Mediaevalia: 62 (2011): 51–80. Print. Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. New York: Random House Digital, Inc, 1988. Print. Frier, Bruce, Woodward, Thomas, and A. J. McGinn. A Casebook on Roman Family Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Print. Futrell, Alison. Blood in the Arena: The Spectacle of Roman Power. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001. Print. Graves, Robert. Claudius the God and His Wife Messalina. London: Arthur Barker, 1934. Print. Graves, Robert. I, Claudius. London: Arthur Barker, 1934. Print. Gruen, Erich S. Rethinking the Other in Antiquity. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2011. Print. Günsberg, Maggie. Italian Cinema: Gender and Genre. New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2005. Print. Hardwick, Lorna. Reception Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Print. Joshel, Sandra R. “Female Desire and the Discourse of Empire: Tacitus’ Messalina.” Roman Sexualities. Eds. Judith Hallett and Marilyn B. Skinner. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press (1997): 221–54. Print. Joshel, Sandra R. “I, Claudius: Projection and Imperial Soap Opera.” Imperial Projection: Ancient Rome in Modern Popular Culture. Ed. Sandra Joshel, et al. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press (2001): 119–61. Print. Inness, Sherrie A. Action Chicks: New Images of Women in Popular Culture. New York: Palgrave and Macmillan, 2004. Print. Lamarque, Peter, and Olsen Stein Haugom. Truth, Fiction, and Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. Print. Langlands, Rebecca. Sexual Morality in Ancient Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Print. Lucanio, Patrick. With Fire and Sword: Italian Spectacles on American Screens 1958– 1968. Metuchen, NY: Scarecrow Press, 1994. Print.

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Queer Heroes and Action Heroines—Foka McGinn, Thomas A. J. Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Print. Milnor, Kristina. “Women in Roman Historiography.” The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009: 276. Print. Minkowitz, Donna. “Xena: She’s Big, Tall, Strong—and Popular.” Ms. 7.1 (1996): 74– 77. Print. Morgan, Thais. “A Whip of One’s Own: Dominatrix Pornography and the Construction of a Post-Modern (female) Subjectivity.” The American Journal of Semiotics 6.4 (1984): 109–37. Print. “Paterfamilias.” Spartacus: Gods of the Arena. Writ. Aaron Helbing and Todd Helbing. Dir. Michael Hurst. Starz. 4 Feb 2011. Television. Pierce, Jerry. “To Do or Die Manfully: Performing Heteronormativity in Recent Epic Films.” In Cornelius, 40–57. Print. Ragalie, Maureen “Sex and Scandal with Sword and Sandals: A Study of the Female Characters in HBO’s Rome.” Studies in Mediterranean Antiquity and Classics 1.1 (2006). n.p. Web. Renger, Almut-Barbara, and Solomon Jon. Ancient Worlds in Film and Television: Gender and Politics. Leiden: Brill, 2012. Print. Storey, John. Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A Reader. New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2006. Print. Knorr, Cetina. Karin, Schatzki, Theodore R., and Von Savigny, Eike. The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory. London and New York: Routledge, 2000. Print. Schubart, Rikke. Super Bitches and Action Babes: The Female Hero in Popular Cinema, 1970–2006. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2007. Print. Solomon, Jon. The Ancient World in the Cinema. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. Print. Simmons, David. “By Jupiter’s Cock! Spartacus, Videogames and Camp Excess.” In Cornelius. 144–53. Print. Skinner, Marilyn B. Sexuality in Greek and Roman Culture. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2013. Print. Tyrell, Blake. Amazons: A Study in Athenian Mythmaking. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1984. Print. Winkler, Martin M. Spartacus: Film and History. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008. Print.

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About the Contributors Michael G. Cornelius is the chair of the Department of English and Communications at Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. He is the author, editor and coeditor of fourteen previous books and has published numerous scholarly articles in a diverse array of journals. Robert K. Dickson is an associate professor of fine art at Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. While teaching art history he connects style and representation, particularly of gender roles, across periods and places. Pop culture provides many of his best metaphors. Primarily a studio artist, he explores Renaissance art through contemporary abstraction. Anna Foka is an associate senior lecturer in digital history and culture at Umeå University, Sweden. She has a Ph.D. in classics from the University of Liverpool and has published in the fields of gender and humor in antiquity, digital humanities, and the reception of antiquity in popular culture. She is writing a book, Zoomorphism and Humor in Greek Culture. Ariel Gómez Ponce is a professor of Spanish at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (Argentina). He is developing his Ph.D. thesis in semiotics around the modeling of the tension between man and animal, from the category of predation and its relationship to cultural practices and forms of behavior in the light of the semiotics of culture and the emerging field of ecosemiotics. James Klima is a Los Angeles attorney specializing in intellectual property transactions and corporate finance. He holds a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a Certificate in Management from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He received two bachelor’s degrees in economics and marketing from the University of Pittsburgh. Dragoş Manea is a graduate student at the University of Bucharest, where he teaches seminars in British and American literature, translation, and academic writing. His main research interests include adaptation theory, narratology, film theory, and cultural memory. He is pursuing a Ph.D. on the adaptation of historical narratives and the poetics of historical fantasy.

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About the Contributors Rachel S. McCoppin is an associate professor of literature at the University of Minnesota Crookston. She has published articles in the areas of comparative literature and multicultural pedagogy. She has published essays in a variety of journals as well as articles in many scholarly books. Larry T. Shillock is a professor of English and an assistant academic dean at Wilson College. His research interests include critical theory, the history of affect, the modern novel, and classical Hollywood cinema. He writes frequently for The Bloomsbury Review and his scholarship has appeared in several books. Jason Smith is a Ph.D. candidate in the Public Sociology program at George Mason University. His research revolves primarily around issues pertaining to race and the media, with an emphasis on media diversity and access. His dissertation work will look at the Federal Communications Commission as a site for implementing policies to promote diversity in the media. Lorenzo Sorbo graduated with a degree in violin from the Conservatory in Salerno and studied composition at the Conservatory San Pietro a Majella in Naples. He also graduated from the University Federico II in Naples with a degree in modern literature, and is currently attending a Ph.D. program in musicology at the University of Milan.

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Index Achilles 77, 107 Aegeus 106 Aeneid 70 Agron 183, 192, 194 Albinius 67, 68 Appian 7, 12, 33, 34 Ariadne 106 Ashur 37, 52–57, 193, 199 Atia 197, 198 Attius 43, 49 Auctus 146, 192, 194 Aurelia 126

Buddha 98, 113, 114 Buffy, the Vampire Slayer 199 Burton, Margaret 3, 14, 19 Caesar 13, 37, 49, 50, 60, 61, 194 Camelot (2011) 38 Campbell, Joseph 97, 98, 99, 102, 103, 104, 11, 114, 161 Castus 42, 59 Cellini 178 Cerberus 99 Cerulo, Karen A. 20 Chapman, David 16, 170, 174, 180 Charmed 150 Chick, Garry 145 “Chosen Path” 54 Chosky, Jamsheed K. 132, 134 Cicero 15, 142, 143 Clark, Kenneth 183 Clash of the Titans (2010) 41 Claudius the God 197 Clingerman, Forrest 133, 138 Clover, Carol 78 Cohan, Steven 173 Commodus 6 Conan 18, 140, 145, 175 Conan the Barbarian (1982) 18, 140, 175 Conan the Destroyer (1984) 198, 200 Connell, R.W. 14, 16 Corbucci, Sergio 3 Cossutius 193 Cover, Rob 183 Crassus 8, 10, 13, 16, 34, 37, 42, 43, 49, 56, 58, 130, 188, 194, 200 Crixus 7, 17, 20, 32, 34, 52, 54, 59, 73, 81, 87–92, 94, 115, 116, 119, 121–128, 130, 139, 141, 144, 146, 147, 148, 153, 155, 159, 164–166, 180, 181, 182, 183, 192, 193, 198

“Balance” 192 Barca 54, 81, 122, 146, 153, 166, 192, 194 Barthes, Roland 162 Bataille, George 163 Batiatus 7, 13, 16, 18, 20, 43, 52, 53, 55, 56, 67, 69, 70, 73, 79, 80, 81, 84, 85, 87–94, 107, 112, 115, 122, 123, 125–128, 130, 131, 137, 140, 141, 143, 144, 146– 149, 156–159, 161, 166, 167, 181, 188, 192, 198 Bell, Michael 140 Bergmann, Sigurd 132 Bird, Robert Montgomery 35 “The Bitter End” 55, 57 “Black Spartacus” 2 “Blood Brothers” 38, 40 Bodnar, John 9, 12 Bondanella, Peter 170 Bonfante, Larissa 177, 179, 183 Boyle, Roger 34 Brecht, Bertolt 40 Brittain-Powell, Chris 145, 146 Brooks, Peter 94 Browne, Stephen 9 Bucholtz, Mary 135

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Index Dagan 57, 58 “The Dead and the Dying” 54, 131 “Decimation” 43 DeKnight, Steven S. 4, 12, 29, 31, 37, 47 de Lavaux, Comte 2 “Delicate Things” 166 Demeter 98, 99 Dio Cassius 197 Diona 193 Discobolus 177, 179 Doctore see Oenomaus Donar 60, 61 Doryphoros 177, 178 Douglas, Kirk 1, 3, 190 Dyer, Richard 203

Gunderson, Erik 15 Günsberg, Maggie 16, 172 Hades 99, 112 Hall, Kira 135 Hammer-Tugendhat, Daniela 176 Hector 77 Hercules 98, 99, 101, 108, 115, 145 Hilarus 42 Hoffman, Carl 8, 9, 145 Homer 77, 107 HUAC 3 Humbaba 109, 115 Hutcheon, Linda 8, 28, 51, 56, 58 I, Claudius 197 Iliad 107 Ilithyia 81, 141, 143, 144, 162, 182, 192, 196–199 Immortals (2011) 41, 190 Inglourious Basterds 9, 31 Ishtar 98, 104, 105 Izanagi 98, 109, 114 Izanami 98, 109

Elia, John 140, 142 Eliade, Mircea 134 “Enemies of Rome” 42 Enkidu 109 Ennius 74 Epitome (Florus) 7 Ereshkigal 98, 104, 105 Erll, Astrid 29, 30 Eurydice 98, 105, 112, 114 Eurystheus 99

Julius Caesar see Caesar Jung, Carl 100, 101, 109

Fast, Howard 2, 3, 8, 10, 144 Feeney, Matt 39 Il figioli di Spartacus see The Slave: The Son of Spartacus Flavius Vegetius 74 Florus 7, 12, 33 Foreman, Peter 134 Foucault, Michel 84, 158, 167, 202

“Kill Them All” 20, 73, 115, 126, 127, 128, 144, 148, 155 King Arthur (2004) 38 Koehler, Sezin 183 Kore 42, 43, 194 Krom 140 Kubrick, Stanley 1, 3

Gaia 196–198 Gaius Claudius Glaber see Glaber Gannicus 20, 42, 48, 49, 50, 54, 57, 59, 60, 130, 131, 149, 183, 192, 200 Gargan Twins 155 Gawain 108, 109 Geertz, Clifford 143 Gilgamesh 109, 114, 115 Giovagnoli, Raffaello 35 Glaber 7, 13, 43, 51, 53–56, 59, 79, 80, 81, 85, 87, 88, 125, 156, 160, 180, 193, 198 The Gladiator 35 Gladiator (2000) 6, 18, 36, 64, 190 Gnaeus 125, 175 Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Clodianus 7 Graves, Robert 197 “Great and Unfortunate Things” 158

Lacan, Jacques 172, 173, 177, 181 Laeta 43, 51, 52 Latham, Jacob 13 Law, Katrina 184 The Legend of Hercules (2014) 41 “Legends” 110, 123, 155, 160, 162 Leitch, Thomas 28 Lejeune, Phillippe 30 Leonidas 2, 5, 145 Leopold, Elisabeth 176 Licinia 198 Lipovetsky, Gilles 163 LoDuca, Joseph 63–65 Lorenz, Konrad 158 Lotman, Yuri 156, 159, 160, 161, 162, 165, 168 L’Ouverture, Toussaint 2, 35

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Index Loy, John W. 145 Lucius Caelius 51, 61 Lucius Gellius Publicola 7 Lucretia 54, 81, 94, 123, 125, 127, 162, 163, 187, 193, 196–199 Lugo 42 Luxembourg, Rosa 3

Paglia, Camille 13 Paris 77 Parthenissa 34 “Party Favors” 19, 157 “Past Transgressions” 52, 60 “Paterfamilias” 193 Peirce, Charles Sanders 84, 95 Pérez, Elena 157 Persephone 98, 99, 112 Pewny, Katharina 180 Phelan, James 36 Pierce, Jerry B. 5 Pietros 125, 166, 175, 192 Plautus 67 Plutarch 7, 33, 34

Maffesoli, Michael 160 Mann, Anthony 4 Marcus Licinius Crassus see Crassus “Mark of the Brotherhood” 11, 144, 163, 164, 182 Marx, Karl 2, 35, 187 Maximus 6, 18 McDowell, Linda 147, 148 McFague, Sallie 139 McFarlane, Brian 10, 11 Melitta 49, 57, 199 Menelaus 77 Mercato 125 Messalina 197 Michelangelo 177, 178, 184 Milius, John 18 Mills, C. Wright 118–121, 124, 127 the Minotaur 106, 113 Mira 20, 125, 126, 184, 192, 196, 199, 200 Morin, Edgar 167 Morley, David 14 “Mors Indecepta” 38 Muhtesem Yüzyil (2013) 41 Mulvey, Laura 181 Munslow, Alun 46, 47, 48, 56, 58, 59, 60

Quintus Lentulus Batiatus see Batitaus Randus 3 “Reckoning” 57 “The Red Serpent” 16, 39, 68, 78–82, 102, 103, 104, 148, 155, 160 Red Sonja (1985) 200 Rehman-Sutter, Christoph 133 “Revelations” 11, 53, 159 Rhaskos 193 Rigney, Ann 30 Robin Hood (2010) 38 Robins, Kevin 14 Rome (2005–2007) 36, 197, 198, 203 Rosa, Nicolás 167 “Sacramentum” 54 “Sacramentum Gladiatorum” 19, 87–90, 107, 108, 122, 123, 130, 140, 141, 143, 147, 157, 159 Sanus 40 Sasson-Levy, Orna 19 Saxa 42, 196, 200 Schmale, Wolfgang 23 Schor, Naomi 172, 173 Schramm, Katharina 20, 133, 149 Scimecca, Joseph 119, 120 Scott, Ridley 6 Sebeok, Thomas 161 Segal, Lynne 6 Segovax 144, 147, 163, 182, 198 Seppia 199 Serroy, Jean 163 Servilia 197 “Shadow Games” 124, 141 Shaw, Brent 38 Sibyl 130

Naevia 20, 42, 54, 60, 61, 123, 124, 127, 144, 165, 193, 196, 199, 200 Nasir 20, 42, 192, 194 Natter, Tobias G. 12, 179, 180 Neale, Steve 20, 174 Nora, Pierre 29 North, John 132, 136 North, Philip 132, 136 Numerius 198 Octavia 197 Odysseus 107, 108 Odyssey 107 Oenomaus 7, 54, 57, 58, 84, 88, 90, 91, 122, 123, 130, 143, 149 “Old Wounds” 53, 148 Orpheus 98, 105, 106, 108, 112–114 Ortega y Gasset, José 158 Ovid 70, 72

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Index Simmons, David 118 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 108, 109 The Slave: The Son of Spartacus (1962) 3 Smith, Martyn 133, 139 Smith, Paul 14 Solomon-Godeau, Abigail 177, 178 Solonius 79, 81, 84, 159 Spartaco 35 Spartacus (1960) 1, 19, 36, 64, 190 Spartacus (2004) 4, 188, 203 Spartacus (historical) 32–34 Spartacus (novel) 2, 8 “Spoils of War” 58, 60 Subotai 140 Suetonius 197 Sura 53, 79, 81, 87, 88, 90, 92, 96, 100– 103, 107, 108, 111, 112, 125, 148, 152, 158, 159, 160, 166 Swords and Ashes 141, 142 Symmachus 32, 33 Synesius 32, 33

Thulsa Doom 18, 140 Tiberius 16, 42, 43, 193, 194 Tinbergen, Niko 158 Troy (2004) 64, 190 Trumbo, Dalton 3, 119 Tullius 49, 55, 56, 198 Tusculan Disputations 15 Urbainczyk, Theresa 33, 34, 119 van den Heever, Gerhard 137 Varinia 3 Varro 92, 112, 125, 126, 148, 162, 166, 192 Varus 193, 198 “Victory” 16, 41, 43, 50, 51, 159, Villegas, Juan 161 Virgil 70, 74 Vitale, Christopher 172, 173, 181 Wade, Jay C. 145, 146 Watson, Alexander 20 Weinberg, Jonathan 16 Whedon, Joss 199 Whetten, David A. 134 White, Morton 8 Wicca 140 Wilkinson, Iain 120 Williams, Linda 78 Winkler, Martin M. 38 Wolfe, George 133, 140, 142 “Wolves at the Gate” 42 “Wrath of the Gods” 56, 57 Wrath of the Titans (2012) 190 Wyke, Maria 10

Tacitus 197 Tapert, Rob 196 Tarantino, Quentin 9, 31 Tavinor, Michael 148 Terence 67 Theokoles 16, 92, 94, 112, 123, 125, 148, 164 Theseus 106, 113 “The Thing in the Pit” 91, 92, 110, 111, 161 Third Macedonian War 61 Third Punic War 34 Third Servile War 4, 28, 29, 32, 33, 34, 35, 46, 47, 48, 49, 57, 58, 155 300 (2006) 2, 5, 36, 40, 41, 64, 190

Xena 196 Xerxes 5

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