The well-known historical event - the slave uprising led by Spartacus in Arthur Koestler's novel takes on a completely different, unusual sound. For four long years, studying historical materials, he analyzed and tried to understand how a gang of seventy circus wrestlers managed to grow into a real army and take over half of Italy. Spartacus did not take the decisive step - he refrained from purging the apostate Celts, did not crucify them, and did not establish an merciless tyranny. By this, he doomed his revolution to defeat - this is the author’s conclusion. You can accept or reject such a reading of long-past events, but you cannot deny the writer the originality and freshness of his perception of history.