Ahhay and welcome to Emperor of Rome, a Roman history podcast from Latrobe University.

I'm your host Matt Smith and with me today is Dr.

Rianna Evans, Associate Professor in Classics and Ancient History at Latrobe University.

This is episode CXXVI.

Spartacus, brackets 1960, close brackets.

Spartacus is an epic historical film based on the life of a Roman gladiator who led a slave

rebellion against Rome in the first century b c.

In this episode we'll take a fond look at this cinematic classic in memory of its leading man, Kirk Douglas.

Here's Rianna Evans.

From a classicist's point of view, from somebody who researches Roman history and teaches

it, what does this movie mean to Roman historians and to the genre?

And tell me about that perspective of the movie.

I think it's one of the important epics from that period and there were quite a few in the,

there were a lot in the 50s and still some in the 60s that we sort of look back to as

encompassing modern versions of Roman history and there's recently been a lot

published on what the films do with that Roman history how they package it up

how they're dealing with contemporary concerns and Spartacus what's often said about it and I

think quite rightly is it appears in 1960 it's very clearly right in the middle of

the American Civil Rights Movement and various other kind of movements for change and a more

progressive society and here we have a film about a character who led a slave

rebellion, so his slave rebellion obviously an important analog for the civil rights fight, written by somebody who'd been

blacklisted by the Committee Against Un-American activities, isn't it?

...