The name of a man who died in 71 BC. He was a gladiator — a trained fighter forced to fight other men, or wild animals, in front of a Roman crowd for entertainment. In 73 BC he escaped from a gladiator school with a small group and started a rebellion. Enslaved people joined him in huge numbers, and for two years his army beat Roman force after Roman force before Rome finally crushed them. Thousands of the survivors were crucified — nailed to wooden crosses and left to die along the road from Capua to Rome, as a warning. The name lives on far beyond the history. Spartacus has become a symbol of a slave who refused to stay a slave, and the name gets used for any leader of the powerless against the powerful. The 1960 film 'Spartacus' gave English one of its most quoted scenes: the Romans offer to spare the captured men if they identify their leader, and one after another every man stands up and says 'I am Spartacus' so that none of them can be picked out. To this day, when many people all claim the same identity to protect one person, English speakers call it an 'I am Spartacus' moment. That scene, worth knowing, was written for the film, not recorded by history.