Life absent choice

Watching the series Spartacus is one of my guilty pleasures.  This show  is chock full of gratuitous violence, over the top acting, shocking story lines, unnecessary nudity and graphic sex.  The ultra violent part of this series turned me off at the beginning, but I have learned to ignore it somehow.  It is a show I look forward to watching on my own, no kids or wife around. 

Man cave time.

Since this series is about the life of slaves in a truly cruel period in history, the story lines lead to the most incredibly dramatic moments. 
A gladiator has to kill his best friend just because one of the honorable house guests is drunk and he wants to see blood flow to enhance his entertainment experience. 

In another episode, Gannicus,  the lead gladiator is asked to have sex in public to entertain the guests.  The female slave chosen as his partner is Gannicus' best friend's wife.  The whole scene is emotionally painful to watch.  Over and over, these slaves find themselves in the most precarious situations because their master has some kind of sick craving at the time. 

Since slaves were traded like property, they were uprooted from their place of origin, family units if established in slavery would be broken, children sold, wives used for other purposes and traded by their masters.  Life absent choice, as the female slave reminds Gannicus before she returns to her husband, not faulting Gannicus for what he had to do.

This show is the story of the lives of the have not's.  But not in the modern, material sense of the word.  Gladiators were very much the rock stars of the ancient world.  They did well in terms of material possessions and access to booze, drugs (yes, opium) and sexual recreations.   Nevertheless they were still slaves and did not have the right to choose how to live their lives.

Very seldom a gladiator could earn his freedom after a long series of feats of extraordinary bravery in the arena.  Not common, since the public wanted to watch a good performer yet again.

The life of a slave was indescribably difficult, but their death was worse. The death of a slave was completely inconsequential for everyone. No grieving from others, no memories. Not a single trace of their existence would ever resonate into the future.  The death of a slave was a jump into the absolute void of nothingness.

Spartacus  gave thousands of slaves the chance to make their own choices.  The most basic, fundamental human choices of all, how to live their lives and who to live it with. By allowing themselves to make these choices, the slaves regained their humanity and became whole people once more.  They found their value and their courage and for a brief moment, their existence was meaningful.

We will never know the mind of Spartacus.  Given how successful he was at fighting the Romans, he must have been a military genius, not just a good gladiator.  Was revenge his only motive?  I believe he faulted the Romans for taking the most fundamental choices away from people.  He must have thought that the cause of freedom and equality was worth living and dying for. 

Even though he lost the fight, for a brief moment, a thought centuries ahead of its time had a chance to express itself.  The impact of this moment in time is still with us today, one hundred generations later.

How you live your life, who you chose to live it with.  It is the fundamental basis of your humanity.

Don't deny those choices to yourself don't deny it to others.

Equality matters.