I was reading Oswald Mosley’s essay The Philosophy of Fascism (as you do) when one particular snippet stood out to me. He was meeting accusations of Fascism just being a form of Caesarism when he hit on something surprisingly insightful.
“Nevertheless, this collective Caesarism, armed with the weapons of modern science, stands in the same historic relationship as ancient Caesarism to reaction on the one hand and to anarchy on the other. Caesarism stood against Spartacism on the one hand and the Patrician Senate on the other. That position is as old as the history of the last two thousand years.”
“[…]the only lesson that we can derive from the previous evidence of this doctrine is simply this, that whenever the world, under the influence of Spartacus drifted to complete collapse and chaos, it was always what Spengler called the “great fact-men” who extracted the world from the resultant chaos and gave mankind very often centuries of peace and of order in a new system and a new stability.”
What I find so fascinating about this, is when matching this quote against a letter Marx wrote to Engels in 1861:
“As a relaxation in the evenings I have been reading Appian on the Roman Civil Wars, in the original Greek text. A very valuable book. The chap is an Egyptian by birth. Schlosser says he has "no soul," probably because he goes to the roots of the material basis for these civil wars. Spartacus is revealed as the most splendid fellow in the whole of ancient history. Great general (no Garibaldi), noble character, real representative of the ancient proletariat.
Pompeius, reiner Scheisskerl [an utter rotter]; got his undeserved fame by snatching the credit, first for the successes of Lucullus (against Mithridates), then for the successes of Sertorius (Spain), etc., and as Sulla's "young man," etc. As a general he was the Roman Odilon Barrot. As soon as he had to show what he was made of—against Caesar—a lousy good-for-nothing. Caesar made the greatest possible military mistakes —deliberately mad—in order to bewilder the philistine who was opposing him. An ordinary Roman general—say Crassus —would have wiped him out six times over during the struggle in Epirus. But with Pompeius everything was possible. Shakespeare, in his Love's Labour Lost, seems to have had an inkling of what Pompey really was.”
Spartacus and Caesar! The Slave and The Dictator! You’d be hard-pressed to find a more perfect historical parallel. That the two men lived within the same civilization at the same point in time creates a sublime foundation to analyze them; not as men, but as archetypes of a society in its death-throes.
If we look beyond the particulars of policy and try to glean the “soul” of these respective ideologies, Communism and Fascism, we’ll find the figure of Spartacus on the Left and Caesar on the right. Mussolini and his Fascists emulated Roman customs and sought the creation of a Novum Imperium Romanum in modernity. Communists from Marx to Lenin admired Spartacus, such that Rosa Luxemburg’s doomed struggle was known as the Spartacist Uprising.
What I want to do with this essay is not to analyze history in some academic or scientific way, but rather adopt an approach that I’d term “history as poetry”. I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that perhaps by occluding a rote checklist of facts, or thinking of a subject esoterically, you can come up with new and more novel ways of understanding it. And when Mosley’s statement and the later Spartacist-Caesar dialectic came to me, I felt as though I’d put my fingers on the pulse of some primal truth of Western Civilization; I may not see the veins or the heart, but just beneath a layer of skin I can feel a deliberate thumping and sense some design or purpose behind it.
Perhaps I’m unable to articulate exactly what I’m getting at. If I am, I chalk it up to my own failure as a writer. However, I’m convinced there is something here, which warrants an essay.
Spartacus, The Slave
I start with Spartacus for two reasons: the first being that we know little of the man himself—providing some distance from writing solely historical fact. The second, is that as a figure his actions or motives are frankly simple: the overturning of the Roman Slave Society.
What we know of Spartacus is a few facts: he was probably from Thrace, most likely served as a Roman ally before his enslavement, was made into a gladiator, and led perhaps the greatest slave revolt in Roman history—the Third Servile War of 73-71 B.C.
It’s natural and normal for an enslaved man to make a desperate escape for freedom. What separates Spartacus from normal men is that after his escape, he waged a great war on his Roman captors; freeing slaves wherever he went and creating an army that struck fear into the pre-eminent power of the Western world. As an icon of freedom, few men can be said to have risen to such heights from such dismal lows. Though a gladiator may be more privileged than, say, res mancipi doomed to scrape and toil in the fields, he is still ultimately a slave. We know plenty of Gladiators accepted their lot as celebrities and enjoyed luxuries unobtainable even to some freedmen, yet Spartacus wasn’t a personality that could be bought off with wine and women.
For two years, Spartacus and his army freed slaves and taught the Romans to fear. Is it any wonder that Marx loved him? Within him you see a defiant spirit—a torch of liberty that burned bright enough to melt the chains of the enslaved. Spartacus was an existential threat to Roman slave society, and his victory could have led to its complete abolition.
When considering the Archetypal Spartacus we have to understand a few things—the enslaved existed as the lowest rung of Roman society. Roman morals didn’t recognize any innate humanness or “rights” conferred onto the slave, they were relegated to whatever task their “master” deemed befitting them; their lives reduced to that of mere tools.
“I shall pass over other cruel and inhuman conduct towards [the Slaves]; for we maltreat them, not as if they were men, but as if they were beasts of burden. When we recline at a banquet, one slave mops up the disgorged food, another crouches beneath the table and gathers up the left-overs of the tipsy guests. Another carves the priceless game birds; with unerring strokes and skilled hand he cuts choice morsels along the breast or the rump. Hapless fellow, to live only for the purpose of cutting fat capons correctly, – unless, indeed, the other man is still more unhappy than he, who teaches this art for pleasure's sake, rather than he who learns it because he must.”
Letter 47, Seneca the Younger, Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium
While slave society itself can only hope to achieve an equilibrium of “good” masters and “good” slaves, the spirit of Spartacus rejects slavery whole cloth. From the shared trauma of enslavement, Spartacus forges a nation of the dispossessed. He rallies an army for one express purpose: the violent annihilation of injustice. He is not “Roman” the slave was forever under Roman society, not within it. While a slave could hope to earn an elevated position depending on his master’s constitution he’s defined by being a property of the social body, not a member within it.
And it’s here we see the disconnect between a slave and a mere commoner. The lowest commoner at least has a few rights and is embraced by society, the slave is someone commanded by society. Particularly cruel Romans would torture their slaves publicly for entertainment, one cannot treat a freedman with such casual sadism. The lowest freedman can still imagine himself above the highest slave; it’s no small wonder that Spartacus’ revolt wasn’t joined by plebians angered at their own mistreatment by the patrician classes. It’s a dark irony that a full decade before Spartacus’ revolt, the Romans would face a different uprising in the Social War. An uprising not of slaves, but of allies to the slavers who merely wished to become full members of Roman society.
That’s the difference between the slave and the freedman. A man who sees himself as genuinely free will fight a society only for a more just allotment of duties and privileges within that society. A man who sees himself as enslaved or otherwise outside of a society will fight to wholly upturn that society. Which leads us to our next figure…
Caesar, the Dictator
Few men can hope to be as great as Gaius Julius Caesar. For any Western ruler, he is what they’re measured against. The German Kaiser, the Russian Tzar, and countless others all incorporated his name into their titles, as though hoping a single ray of Caesar’s greatness would crown them by invoking his name. Perhaps only Napoleon Bonaparte could ever honestly stand before him and declare, “We are equals.”
As I said earlier, I’m not attempting to offer a dry recitation of historical facts. Do I even need to explain who Julius Caesar was? I want to analyze the shadow he casts, not his carcass.
Caesar emerged at a time when the Roman Republic was in its death throes. The bloody reign of Sulla and the civil wars that preceded him were proof enough that the Republic was dying. If there could be any political solution, it was stubbornly rebuked by conservative factions in the Roman Senate (the Optimates) who, through their immense greed impoverished the average Roman.
Let me break my rule here to discuss the facts about the Roman Senate at the time. It was controlled almost entirely by the wealthiest Romans. While, in theory, lands conquered by the Romans were to be distributed to the veterans who conquered them (encouraging further expansion, rewarding professional soldiers, and enriching the Republic all at once) these smallholding veterans couldn’t compete with the rich patricians and their massive slave plantations. Often, Roman veterans would sell their land directly to the slave owners in order to put food on their table. Failing that, rich senators could bribe or “rent” public land in order to force out the competition.
Poor Romans moved to the cities. Crime skyrocketed. And amidst it all, the rich Senators fought any infringement on their power with tooth and nail.
Enter Caesar. He was a Populare, a reformist political faction which sought (if only for power) to improve the lot of the Roman people. Here our conflict is set: at once you have rich Conservative senators whose faction’s name literally translates to “The Best Ones” and on the other, you have a faction which calls itself “Supporters of The People.”
Merely reforming the system was impossible. The Gracchi brothers attempted that, and for their trouble they were murdered. The Republic entered a state of political gridlock which made genuine and lasting reform a near-impossibility. Caesar knew this, and so he took unprecedented action—whether it was for his own power or for the Roman people, or both, is a matter of opinion.
Caesar first won the loyalty of his army through acts of courage and conquest. He was a true frontline general; not content to sit in the back of the line and let others do the fighting and dying for him. To the people, he won their love through immense acts of generosity—through most of his career, Caesar heavily indebted himself both to fund his army as well as provide charity to the common people. When the time came to cross the Rubicon, Caesar’s men followed. When he was murdered, the Roman people sought to avenge him.
Yet within the archetype of Caesar there are two interpretations. The first is that of the triumphant dictator; a man of singular talent who brought peace and prosperity to Rome before his murder. The second became popular with the advent of liberalism and nostalgia for the old days of the Roman Republic; Caesar the tyrant. Caesar’s rapacious greed and soaring ambition doomed the Republic in the second interpretation, and his wise stewardship and benevolent rule saved the Nation in the first.
History has often been made by men with a strong opinion on Caesar. When John Wilkes Boothe murdered Lincoln, he shouted “Sic Semper Tyrannis!” a phrase he’d likely attribute to Lucius Junius Brutus upon the assassination of Caesar. In Boothe and Brutus’ mind both, they thought they were slaying a tyrant and protecting Republican rule. And much like in historical reality, they were murdering a progressive reformer to protect the privileges of a slave-owning elite.
It makes Karl Marx’s praise for Lincoln a little ironic, in context. Marx likely had a romanticized view of Caesar as a “tyrant” based off romantic Liberal interpretations of the Roman Republic during the French Revolution. Perhaps if Marx had been sent back in time, he would be cheering on Caesar’s opposition to the elitist Senate. Though more likely than not, he’d probably be stirring up revolution among the slaves and plebs—to Hell with Caesar and his schemes.
Whether one thinks him a tyrant or an enlightened despot a few things can be said of the archetypal Caesar. First: they emerge from within a specific society and recognize a need to reform. Secondly: when they take power, it’s not for the destruction of said society, but to ensure its continued stability and unity even at the cost of a profound shift in the organization of society.
And it’s here, at last, we come to a convergence of these two historical archetypes. They meet amidst a vortex of chaos, and by claiming victory either of the two can profoundly shape history.
The Caesar-Spartacus Dialectic
I believe the archetypal Caesar and Spartacus are inevitably slotted into a struggle when the manifold crises of a political system become too much for the system to survive. I don’t, however, want readers to believe that a man who plays Caesar or a man who plays Spartacus fall into neat categories of “good” or “evil” (or as interpreted by some more vulgar Marxists: “progressive” or “reactionary”). What these archetypes are is fundamentally a response to crisis. “Good” or “Evil” is more or less just a matter of perspectives.
A Spartacus, I think, can emerge at any time or any point in history, although it appears some truly great ones usually signal the end of an established political order. One can measure the order’s stability by the degree of chaos he leaves in his wake. Nat Turner and John Brown were both, whether they realized it or not, facilitating and signaling the utter collapse of Slave Power in the South. The emergence of a Spartacus-like figure is a natural result of the hyper-exploitation and repression of a group of people—so much so that the repression itself reconstitutes them into a new nation. Spartacus’ army likely possessed many tongues and were descended from many lands, but the experience of enslavement—as traumatic as an infant experiencing its birth—gave them a new context that bound them into a new social grouping.
In America we can see firsthand how a shared trauma can recontextualize a people. “African-Americans” are not entirely African nor are they “White Americans” but form their own unique culture with origins in the vicious slave system and later stratification of America’s economy. While White Americans from Portugal to Russia can have their origins liquified in the great melting pot of Whiteness and emerge as a group distinct from African-Americans as well as their European origins.
I believe it can be argued that the people of Gaza form a unique subject only slightly different from the wider Palestinian community—whereas those on the West Bank must deal with Settlers, life in Gaza is akin to a concentration camp. Both are ultimately the “out” group to Israel’s “in” group but in the Gazans it hardened into a particularly courageous and dedicated resistance in the form of Hamas. Each member of Hamas carries a torch for the wider Spartacist spirit. Zionist defenders will guffaw about how “Hamas wants to destroy Israel” without ever perhaps realizing the Romans could say the same for Spartacus.
When you have a system of government predicated on the repression of an underclass, the shared trauma of that underclass will result in them forming a new nation that must necessarily destroy the old one. A slave can’t be free if the Romans continue to assert their ownership of him. They cannot fight for “reform” because the context forced on them requires them to forever remain the “outs” to wider society’s “ins”.
“But to kill men leads to nothing but killing more men. For one principle to triumph, another principle must be overthrown. The city of light of which Spartacus dreamed could only have been built on the ruins of eternal Rome, of its institutions and of its gods. Spartacus’ army marches to lay siege to a Rome paralyzed with fear at the prospect of having to pay for its crimes. At the decisive moment, however, within sight of the sacred walls, the army halts and wavers, as if it were retreating before the principles, the institutions, the city of the gods. When these had been destroyed, what could be put in their place except the brutal desire for justice, the wounded and exacerbated love that until this moment had kept these wretches on their feet.”
[…]
“During the battle, Spartacus himself tried with frenzied determination, the symbolism of which is obvious, to reach Crassus, who was commanding the Roman legions. He wanted to perish, but in single combat with the man who symbolized, at that moment, every Roman master; it was his dearest wish to die, but in absolute equality. He did not reach Crassus: principles wage war at a distance and the Roman general kept himself apart.”
—Albert Camus, The Rebel
Let’s return to Caesar. An archetypal Caesar is almost never a member of the “out” group. He can be, for example, on the periphery of power—but there’s a world of distance between being provincial and being a slave. Hitler was from Austria but he still was “German” in some nebulous sense. Napoleon was ethnically Italian, but his homeland had been annexed by the French, he was a subject of French Kings, and a later citizen of the French Republic. For however much these men were pushed to the corner of the ballroom, they were still in the room.
But it’s important to remember that a Caesar is made, not born. Should a man be born at the paramount of prestige and power in a given society he likely won’t recognize the need for reform or have the energy for it until it’s too late. While it’s easy to think of Louis XVI as an uncaring or naive Monarch, he made limited attempts at reform and public charity to salvage France; he simply didn’t have the constitution to go beyond mere charity.
The French Revolution didn’t start with a demand to kill the king. In fact most of the early mobs revolting against the Ancien Régime would greet King Louis with the title “Father of the French and King of a Free People.” One couldn’t imagine Spartacus welcoming Varinius as “Proconsul of a Free People”. The early French people still saw themselves as existing under a familiar French civilization—just with what was noxious to them removed. For three whole years between the storming of the Bastille and Louis getting decapitated, France existed as a Constitutional Monarchy.
This is the primary difference between a revolution of the ins versus one of the outs. What the ins want is a restructured society; the outs want a new one entirely. What they share in common is opposition to an extremely conservative elite that they can recognize as the source of their immiseration. Jon Stewart, approached this sort of in-group thinking during a dinner between himself, Barack Obama, and Jeff Bezos:
“Jeff Bezos was describing ‘the economy of the future’ and it was all about, like, ‘Billionaires are going to need services.’ […] and I was trying to explain to him that a lot of people want to be proud of their work, and society isn’t about running errands for people that have more than you. Often times there’s a fulfillment aspect for them. I think he views everybody as part of a ‘fulfillment center’ […] I think that’s a recipe for revolution.”
Bezos can only imagine a world where it’s the current model of society, but even more advanced—some may say “metastasized”. There’s an actual historical parallel there—prior to the Civil War, there was actual speculative fiction wherein slavery had expanded to every state within the U.S. and America was a minority of freedmen whose every needs were met by a majority of slaves. It’s genuinely stunning how unfeasible the long-term vision of our ruling elite is and, worse yet, how truly unimaginative it can be. They see themselves living as god-kings above the rest of mankind, with us toiling to meet their needs—it’s a trend that seems to rest on the idea of doing away with the last of their restrictions; reducing Roman plebians and maybe even citizens to the status of mere slaves.
It’s here that a Caesar comes in. Unlike Spartacus, who wishes to destroy an unjust society, Caesar seeks to destroy a political system in order to save a society. Lincoln made countless remarks that he was only fighting the Civil War to “save the Union” and not necessarily abolish slavery, but he recognized (correctly) that the abolition of slavery would be an inevitable result of saving the Union. While Caesar made himself dictator-for-life, Lincoln merely suspended Habeus Corpus and could essentially govern unopposed given most opposition in America’s institutions were now in open revolt (and hence abandoned their voting rights).
For added historical irony, John Wilkes Booth’s favorite role was as Brutus in Shakespeare’s Julius Caeser and his family were so obsessed with the play that his father and brother were named “Junius Brutus Booth”
Where do Spartacus and Caesar fit in contrast to each other? Beyond just having the same enemies? Spartacus starts with a more total revolution, though often enough dies in the conflict sparked by their dream—Rosa Luxemburg, Che Guevara, Zhang Jue, Toussaint L'Ouverture all shared in his fate. There’s a kind of idealism or honesty in the Spartacus figure: they walk a straight path to their goals, marching over thorns, in pursuit of a noble end.
Caesar, however, is clever and diligent in his approach. He achieves progressive ends, perhaps not out of any genuine belief in them, but in recognizing their utility. A Caesar usually gets much farther than a Spartacus, both by holding their cards close to their chest as well as beginning from a semi-privileged position. Both of these archetypes are born from their respective material contexts—Caesar is invested in preserving Rome, and Spartacus has nothing to lose but his chains.
Caesar forgave his enemies where Spartacus slew them. Caesar made himself loved by the Roman people whereas Spartacus made himself feared. Caesar would reduce the number of slaves, Spartacus would liberate them. Spartacus died in an honorable final stand—dying as a man, not a slave—while Caesar would be the victim of treachery and murdered on the sacred ground of the senate.
There’s a kind of poetry there. The slave dies in battle and his body disappears into the air. The dictator dies to treachery and his carcass is dumped upon the senate floor. One died a free man while the other was put down like a wild animal.
Yet that doesn’t mean that there is a perfect opposition there. We’re discussing Caesar Contra Spartacus, not Crassus. Che Guevara and Fidel Castro would express some affinity with Juan Peron and Francisco Franco, Mussolini and Hirohito employed Communists in their various Imperial Projects. Marx may have thought of Napoleon as a tragedy, but Marxists are increasingly accepting that he played a major role in the destruction of Feudalism. Ironically enough, Michael Parenti wrote a book on Caesar offering praise for his progressive reforms. It’s not a clear Black and White delimitation.
What can we draw from this?
Karl Marx famously said, “The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles.” The question is: does that class struggle transcend existing societies? While Marx was perhaps influenced by a kind of Universalism that emerged with Liberalism, I’m certain he would acknowledge the powerful effect things like nationalism or a kind of in-group preference would have on people.
In one of my earlier essays, I remarked on the frustration of being “between worlds” as a Leftist in the developing world. In the fame and romanticism of Caesar and Spartacus I find a poetic expression for that inner conflict. Many people will watch Kubrick’s Spartacus or HBO’s Rome and come away with an affinity for both men. It’s not hard to understand why. Were you a poor Roman plebian, the chances are you would rally to Caesar as he seemed the only figure willing and capable enough to make a lasting change in your circumstances. Were you a Slave under the heel of the Romans, your hero is Spartacus because he’s the only figure willing and capable enough to fight for your freedom.
There wasn’t an overlap in their support base, just their enemies. It wasn’t the plebians Spartacus rallied—they were probably marching with the Legions. It wasn’t the slaves that called out for Caesar—he took a million of them in Gaul. The two men are both sympathetic, yet are inexorably opposed to one another. Mosley and his Fascists saw in Spartacus pure chaos and anarchy, Marx saw in Caesar a greedy tyrant. While the reality is that wherever we stand, wherever fortune puts us, will ultimately determine who our heroes are. A slave with any dignity would adore Spartacus, while a plebian would hail Caesar.
I suppose in determining the shape and form of progressive politics in the developed world, we should first come to an understanding: do the people of our countries see themselves as slaves or plebians? While Marx saw Spartacus as the leader of an ancient proletariat the proles of modernity, at least in the western world, are entitled to certain rights that didn’t exist in Marx’s day. A slave is differentiated from a pleb by having no rights and no representation. Can we expect a Spartacus-style revolution in our own societies, when the plebs of Rome would always stop short of a dramatic overthrow of Roman society as it was constituted?
If you’re a plebian and not a slave, what are you to do? Some might suggest the difficult task of overcoming your class to rally to the enslaved; but you could never truly fight as viciously or as long as a man who’s escaped the sting of the lash. Should a man, by the circumstances of his birth, try to elevate himself to the best and truest expression of himself? Or should he try to change himself in pursuit of a moral good? Can a pleb ever be Spartacus or a slave a Caesar? Would their subconscious not revolt against something so alien to who they are?
It’s a long and difficult road ahead of us, and those of us on the Western Left may have to answer some tough questions: are we waiting on our Caesar, or on our Spartacus?