The Gladiator

This novel began life on a trip to Crete a few years back. Having exhausted the obvious list of ancient Greek sites, I took the opportunity to explore the remains of the Roman city of Gortyna, destroyed by a great earthquake in the middle of the first century.

Only a small portion is contained within the official site at the foot of the acropolis. The rest is spread out across the fields on the other side of the main road, and it is only by wandering through the olive groves that one can get an impression of just how large and impressive a city the provincial capital was.

As I strolled through the ruins it occurred to me that the timing of the earthquake coincided rather nicely with Macro and Cato returning from their adventures in Judaea and Syria. What if they were to be come embroiled in the chaos that followed from the earthquake? What effects would such an event have on a province like Crete? As I thought through the possibilities I realised that one of the main casualties of a natural disaster is social order. Besides the usual scrabbling for resources and breakdown of law and order there was the question of how the slave population of the island would respond to the opportunity to escape from their condition. So I conceived the idea of a slave rebellion. If the slaves were going to get anywhere they would need a charismatic leader - a warrior of some kind. Naturally, this suggested a gladiator. But I wanted a man who was driven to hate Rome in general, and Macro and Cato in particular. It took a few weeks before I found my villain. As ever when I get stuck on a plot point, I take the dog for a walk round the remains of the Roman town of Venta Icenorum, a mile or so from my home. Halfway round the walls, I remembered Ajax, and his anguish at the execution of his father, and the dreadful fate that awaited him as he was condemned to slavery at the end of The Eagle's Prophecy. Now there was a man in whose breast the dark flames of revenge would be burning very fiercely indeed.

The institution of slavery played a major role in the society and economy of the Roman Empire, and the earlier republic. The massive expansion of Roman power across the Mediterranean that commenced in the third century BC led to the enslavement of vast numbers of men, women and children from the subjugated populations. By the end of the century up to a third of the population of Italy was made up of slaves. Many were herded on to the vast farming estates that were increasingly a feature of the rural landscape as the rich bought up the small farms that had fallen into neglect while their owners were away for years at a time on campaign.

Existence under slavery was often oppressive. The vast majority of slaves were condemned to a life of labour under harsh conditions and subjected to brutal discipline. This was especially the case for those who worked in mines, building sites or in the fields - often chained together. There were two categories of slaves: those owned privately and those owned by the state. The latter tended to be the more fortunate in that they were less likely to be sold on, and were permitted limited property-owning rights. Privately owned slaves were referred to as being part of the owner's 'familia'; if they served in the household they were part of the 'familia urbana', whereas if they worked in the fields they came under the label 'familia rustica'.

For all slaves, living conditions could be hellish. One wealthy Roman, Publius Vedius Pollio, had a favourite party trick of throwing slaves into a pool filled with man-eating eels for the 'entertainment'

of his guests. Clearly Pollio was something of a sadist. A more representative example of a slave owner is provided by the Roman historian Plutarch who describes a man who routinely flogged his slaves for every small failing and endeavoured to create an atmosphere of brooding jealousy and mistrust amongst his slaves.

It is hardly surprising then that from the earliest days slaves resisted their enslavement with petty acts of defiance, escape attempts (many of which were successful) and occasional uprisings, some posing the gravest of dangers to Rome, notably those that took place in Sicily and that led by Spartacus on the Italian peninsula. It would be wrong, however, to assume that there was any universal sense of resistance within the slave population. Any tendency towards a kind of class-consciousness was undermined by a number of factors.