Spartacus by Howard Fast

the essential secret of slaves. It is a desire—not for pleasure, comfort, food, music, laughter, love, warmth, women or wine, not for any of those things—it is a desire to endure, to survive, simply that and no more, to survive.

    He does not know why. There is no reason to this survival, no logic to this survival; but neither is the knowledge an instinct. It is more than an instinct. No animal could survive this way; the pattern for survival is not simple; it is not an easy thing; it is far more complex and thoughtful and difficult than all of the problems faced by people who never confront this one. And there is a reason for it too. It is just that Spartacus does not know the reason.

    Now he will survive. He is adapting, flexing, conditioning, acclimatizing, sensitizing; he is a mechanism of profound fluidity and flexibility. His body conserves strength from the freedom of release from the chain. How long he and his comrades carried that chain, across the sea, up the River Nile, across the desert! Weeks and weeks of the chain, and now he is free of it! He is light as a feather, but that found strength must not be wasted. He accepts his water—more water than he has seen in weeks. He will not gulp it and piss it out in waste. He will guard it and sip at it for hours, so that every possible drop of it may sink into the tissues of his body. He takes his food, wheat and barley gruel cooked with dry locusts. Well, there is strength and life in dry locusts, and wheat and barley are the fabric of his flesh. He has eaten worse, and all food must be honored; those who dishonor food, even in thought, become enemies of food, and soon they die.

    He walks into the darkness of the barracks, and the fetid wave of rotten smell claws at his senses. But no man dies of a smell, and only fools or free men can afford the luxury of vomiting. He will not waste an ounce of the contents of his stomach in such a fashion. He will not fight this smell; such things cannot be fought. Instead, he will embrace this smell; he will welcome it and let it seep into him and soon it will have no terrors for him.

    He walks in the dark, and his feet guide him. His feet are like eyes. He must not trip or fall, for in one hand he carries food and in the other, water. Now he guides over to the stone wall and sits down with his back against it. It is not so bad here. The stone is cool and he has support for his back. He eats and drinks. And all around him are the movements and breathing and chewing of other men and children who do exactly as he does, and within him the expert organs of his body help him and expertly extract what they need from the little food and little water. He picks the last grain of food from his bowl, drinks down what is left, and licks the inside of the wood. He is not conditioned by appetite; food is survival; every small speck and stain of food is survival.

    Now the food is eaten, and some of those who have eaten are more content and others give way to despair. Not all despair has vanished from this place; hope may go, but despair clings more stubbornly, and there are groans and tears and sighs, and somewhere there is a wavering scream. And there is even a little talk, and a broken voice which calls,

    “Spartacus—where are you?”

    “Here, I am here, Thracian,” he answers.

    “Here is the Thracian,” another voice says. “Thracian, Thracian.” They are his people, and they gather around him. He feels their hands as they press close to him. Perhaps the other slaves listen, and in any case, they are deeply silent. It is only the due of newcomers in hell. Perhaps those who came here earlier are remembering now what mostly they fear to remember. Some understand the words of the Attic tongue and others don’t. Perhaps somewhere, even, there is a memory of the snow-topped mountains of Thrace, the blessed, blessed coolness, the brooks running through the pine forests and the black goats leaping among the rocks. Who knows what