ABSTRACT
While Spartacus may not have been subjected to wide disciplinary and methodological scrutiny within the context of Kubrick’s cinematic oeuvre (he essentially disowned it), the film has been widely scrutinized from a classical reception studies perspective. Indeed, it is canonical in terms of ancient world films and has been widely imitated. Furthermore, given that Spartacus is arguably the most famous slave in world history, his name is a byword for rebellion against the inhumanity and injustices of all slave systems, the topic of slavery is a major concern of Spartacus and its receptions, both classical and nonclassical. This chapter examines how the screen tradition contributes to the ongoing discourse on ancient slavery specifically through the figure of the black gladiator Draba—widely interpreted as a symbol of contemporary American racial injustice and the nascent civil rights movement—and the different ways this pivotal character connects the 1960 film with later receptions, notably the TV series Spartacus (Starz, 2010–13) and films such as Gladiator (2000) and Pompeii (2014).
