Folk Hero – Spartacus
by Spartacus was a famous leader of the war slaves in the Third Servile War, a major slave rebellion of the Roman Republic. Little is known about Spartacus beyond the war, and the surviving historical accounts are sometimes contradictory and not always reliable. He was a leader with the military skills.
Spartacus’s struggle, often seen as oppressed people fighting for their freedom against a slave-owning aristocracy, has found a new meaning for modern writers since the 19th century. The revolt of Spartacus has been a source of inspiration for many modern literary and political writers, making a popular hero Spartacus between ancient and modern cultures.
The ancient sources agree that Spartacus was a Thracian. Plutarch describes him as “a Thracian of nomadic stock”. Appian says he was “a Thracian by birth, who had served as a soldier with the Romans, but had since been a prisoner and sold to a gladiator”. Floro (2.8.8) described as “a Thracian mercenaries, had become a Roman soldier a deserter and a thief, and then considering their strength, a gladiator”. Some authors refer to the Thracian tribe of Maedi, which in historic times occupied the south-west on the border of Thrace (now southwestern Bulgaria). Plutarch writes that the wife of Spartacus, a Maedi prophetess of the tribe, was enslaved with him.
Spartacus’s name is also attested in the Black Sea region: kings of the dynasty of the Cimmerian Bosporus and Pontus Thracians were known to have spent a Thracian and “Sparta” “Spardacus” or “Sparadokos” father of Seuthes I Odrysae , is also known.
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