Contents
This book is for my daughter, Rachel, and for my son, Jonathan. It is a story of brave men and women who lived long ago, and whose names have never been forgotten. The heroes of this story cherished freedom and human dignity, and lived nobly and well. I wrote it so that those who read it, my children and others, may take strength for our own troubled future and that they may struggle against oppression and wrong—so that the dream of Spartacus may come to be in our own time.
Spartacus
and the Blacklist
When I sat down to begin the long and difficult task of writing the first draft of
Spartacus
—it was well over forty years ago—I had just been released from prison. I had worked out some of the book in my mind while still in prison, which was an excellent environment for the task. My crime then was that I had refused to turn over to the House Committee on Un-American Activities a list of supporters of the Joint Antifascist Refugee Committee.
With Francisco Franco’s victory over the legally constituted Spanish Republic, thousands of Republican soldiers, supporters, and their families had fled across the Pyrenees to France, and many of them had settled in Toulouse, a large number of them sick or wounded. Their condition was desperate. A group of antifascists found the money to buy an old convent and turn it into a hospital. The Quakers’ Relief agreed to operate the hospital, if we would raise the money for the continuing function of the hospital. At that time, there was tremendous support for the cause of Republican Spain among people of good will, many of them very prominent. It was the list of these people that we refused to turn over to the House Committee, and thereby, all the members of the group were found in contempt and sent to prison.
It was a bad time, the worst time that I and my good wife had ever lived through. The country was as close to a police state as it had ever been. J. Edgar Hoover, the chief of the FBI, took on the role of a petty dictator. The fear of Hoover and his file on thousands of liberals permeated the country. No one dared to vote and speak against our imprisonment. As I said, it was not the worst time to write a book like
Spartacus
.
When the manuscript was finished, I sent it to Angus Cameron, then my publisher at Little, Brown and Company. He loved the book, and wrote that he would publish it with pride and pleasure. Then J. Edgar Hoover sent word to Little, Brown, that they were not to publish the book. Angus Cameron resigned in protest, and after that, the manuscript went to seven other leading publishers. All of them refused to publish it. The last of the seven was Doubleday, and after a meeting of the editorial board, George Hecht, head of the Doubleday chain of bookstores, walked out of the room in anger and disgust. He then telephoned me, saying that he had never seen such a display of cowardice as among the Doubleday editorial board, and he said that if I published the book myself, he would give me an order for 600 copies. I had never published a book myself, but there was support from the liberal community and I went ahead, poured the little money we had into the job, and somehow it got done.
To my amazement, it sold over 40,000 copies in hardcover, and several million more years later when the terror was over. It was translated into 56 languages, and finally, ten years after I had written it, Kirk Douglas persuaded Universal Studios to turn it into a film. Through the years, the film has been enormously successful, still being played as I write this.
I suppose that I owe something for its coming into being to my prison term. War and prison are difficult for a writer to approach without seeing something of it himself. I knew no Latin, so learning a good deal of Latin, most of which I have forgotten, was also a part of the writing process. I never regret the past, and if my own ordeal helped me to write
Spartacus,
I think it was well worth it.
The time of the beginning of this story is 71
B.C.
PART ONE.
How Caius Crassus journeyed along the highroad from Rome to Capua, in the month of May.
It is recorded that as early as the middle of the month of March, the highroad from the Eternal City, Rome, to the somewhat smaller but hardly less lovely town of Capua, was opened to public travel once again; but this is not to say that traffic upon this road immediately reverted to normal. For that matter, during the past four years no road in the Republic had known the peaceful and prosperous flow of commerce and person which was to be expected of a Roman road. More or less of disturbance had been encountered everywhere, and it would not be incorrect to say that the road between Rome and Capua had become symbolic of this disturbance. It was well said that as the roads go, so does Rome go; if the roads know peace and prosperity, so does the city know it.
The news was posted around the city that any free citizen having business in Capua might travel there to transact it, but for the time being travel for pleasure to that lovely resort was not encouraged. However, as time passed and sweet and gentle springtime settled down over the land of Italy, restrictions were lifted, and once again the fine buildings and splendid scenery of Capua called to the Romans.
In addition to the natural attractions of the Campania countryside, those who enjoyed fine perfume yet balked at inflated prices, found profit as well as pleasure in Capua. There were situated the great perfume factories, unequaled in the whole world; and to Capua were shipped the rare essences and oils from all over the earth, exotic and exquisite scents, Egyptian oil of roses, the essence of the lilies of Sheba, the poppies of Galilee, the oil of ambergris and of the rind of lemon and orange, the leaf of sage and mint, rose-wood and sandal-wood, and so forth and so on almost without end. Perfume at Capua could be purchased at less than half the price asked in Rome, and when one considers the growing popularity of scents in that time, for men as well as for women—and the necessity for them as well—one can understand that a trip to Capua for that, if for no other reason, might well be undertaken.
II
The road was opened in March, and two months later, in the middle of May, Caius Crassus and his sister, Helena, and her friend, Claudia Marius, set off to spend a week with relatives in Capua. They left Rome on the morning of a bright, clear and cool day, a perfect day for travel, all of them young and bright-eyed and full of delight in the trip and in the adventures which would certainly befall them. Caius Crassus, a young man of twenty-five, whose dark hair fell in abundant and soft ringlets and whose regular features had given him a reputation for good looks as well as good birth, rode a beautiful white Arabian horse, a birthday present from his father the year before, and the two girls travelled in open litters. Each litter was carried by four slaves who were road-broken and who could do ten miles at a smooth run without resting. They planned to spend five days on the road, putting up each evening at the country villa of a friend or relative, and this way, by easy and pleasant stages, to come to Capua. They knew before they started that the road was tokened with punishment, but they didn’t think it would be enough to disturb them. As a matter of fact, the girls were quite excited by the descriptions they had heard, and as for Caius, he always had a pleasant and somewhat sensuous reaction to such things, and he was also proud of his stomach and of the fact that such sights did not inordinately disturb him.
“After all,” he reasoned with the girls, “it is better to look at a crucifix than to be on one.”
“We shall look straight ahead,” Helena said.
She was better looking than Claudia who was blond but listless, pale skin and pale eyes and an air of fatigue which she nurtured. Her body was full and attractive, but Caius found her rather stupid and wondered what his sister saw in her—a problem he was determined to solve on this trip. He had several times before resolved to seduce his sister’s friend, and always the resolution had broken down before her listless disinterest, a disinterest not specific in terms of himself, but general. She was bored, and Caius was certain that only her boredom prevented her from being utterly boring. His sister was something else. His sister excited him in a fashion that troubled him; she was as tall as he, very similar to him in appearance—better looking if anything, and considered beautiful by men who were not fended away by her purpose and strength. His sister excited him, and he was conscious that in planning this trip to Capua, he hoped for some resolution of this excitement. His sister and Claudia made an odd but satisfying combination, and Caius looked forward to rewarding incidents on the journey.
