Super Striker

Spartacus

Perhaps the most famous gladiator of all though was Spartacus. The legend of this Thracian soldier-turned-gladiator-turned-fugitive has been told for millennia, and indelibly imprinted into western popular culture by the eponymous 1960 film directed by Stanley Kubrick. Along with Crixus and around 70 other gladiators, Spartacus masterminded and lead an escape from their gladiator training school, and was pursued across the span of southern Italy by the Roman army.

Spartacus and his merry band of professional fighters marched all the way to the calm safe refuge of Mount Vesuvius, freeing other slaves and swelling their numbers as they went. Legions of Roman soldiers were sent to recapture the outlaws, and many died trying. Eventually, the odds and might of the Roman Empire caught up with Spartacus, and a force of many thousands of Romans eventually ambushed and overwhelmed the slave army. Spartacus died as he lived, a warrior until the bloody end. But his name has gone down in history as the most famous of all famous Colosseum gladiators, thousands of years later.

With that kind internal glory, it’s no wonder everybody claimed to be Spartacus!