Political Disillusionment in Arthur Koestler's The Gladiators

Abstract

The novel deals with the political disillusionment of Arthur Koestler by bringing to light the drawbacks of politics.The Gladiators was Koestler’s first published novel, an historical novel set in the ancient Rome and narrating the revolt of Spartacus, a slave gladiator that escaped, succeeded in collecting several thousands of fellows and building up an independents state in the south of Italy that was able to survive of a few years. Apart from the historical character of Spartacus, that Koestler studied at length, the book was largely inspired by the reflections that he was varying on about the ethics of revolution, thoughts that lead in the very same period Koestler quitting the communist party.