ON THE SPARTACUS ROAD: A SPECTACULAR JOURNEY THROUGH ANCIENT ITALY. de Stothard, Peter - 2010

London: HarperPress, 2010. 353 pp, 8 3/4" H. B&w maps, photographs, reproductions. "In the final century of the first Roman Republic an army of slaves brought a peculiar terror to the people of Italy. Its leaders were gladiators. Its purpose was incomprehensible. Its success was something no one before had ever known. The Spartacus Road is the route along which this rebel army outfought the world's finest military forces between 73 and 71 BC, bringing both fears and hopes that have never wholly left the modern mind. It is a road that stretches through 2,000 miles of Italian countryside and out into 2,000 years of world history. In this inspiring and original memoir, (the author) takes us on an extraordinary journey - at once a journalist's notebook, a classicist's celebration, a survivor's record of a near fatal cancer and the history of a unique and brutal war. As he travels through the ruins of Capua to Vesuvius and the lost Greek cities of the Italian south - his prose illuminates conflicting memories of times ancient and modern, the simultaneously foreign and familiar and one of the greatest stories of all ages." Small bump at the bottom of the spine. Dust jacket has very light edge wear, very light edge wrinkling - mostly at the tio/bottom of the spine and flap-folds, very small taped tear at the bottom of the front flap-fold. . Hard Cover. Very Good/Very Good.