lucan's pharsalia, trans. jane wilson joyce &

appian civil wars 1.120, trans john carter

a million (several) years ago I said that in my ideal world, spartacus would have gotten the chance to gut crassus like a fish and read the fate of rome in his entrails. I also said something about spartacus' sacrifice at crixus' funeral games is like a foundational sacrifice/curse on rome. continuing that thought, there's something about how there's a narrative echo of crassus' fate in the fate that falls on spartacus (bodies unburied) and how crassus' death was a sort of death knell for that iteration of rome which was already something of a bloated corpse.

it's good to be back and thinking about spartacus, I took a brief detour a year and a half ago to get through an absolute brick of a book on sparta/lakonia and then picked up the broad topic of athens to pin down some thoughts on thrace, especially around how greece/rome perceived thracians and it's been. well. hm. so! speaking of thracians, pentheus!

The Allure and Repulsion of Thracians, Despoina Tsaifakis

which of course can bring us back to crassus

Dionysiac Tragedy in Plutarch, Crassus, David Braund