The following is a very lengthy article about Spartacus Blood and Sand from The Times Online
in preparation for the show's premiere on UK Bravo on 25 May at 10 pm
The historical mini-series just got sexier
Times Online 9 May 2010
Here’s what we know about Spartacus. He was an escaped Thracian gladiator. He recruited an army of slaves. He defeated the Romans several times in a two-year campaign. Eventually, he was killed on the battlefield as Marcus Licinius Crassus routed his army. And little of that is absolutely certain. Our two main sources — the historians Plutarch and Appian — wrote at least 100 years after his death, and their accounts differ. Yet that hasn’t stopped Spartacus entering the cultural canon as a timeless symbol of rebellion, appearing everywhere from The Goon Show to punk songs, at least 10 novels, the classic Kubrick film, a cartoon series, the movie Clueless, a ballet and — almost inevitably — a concept album by Jeff Wayne.
