I Am Spartacus

I Am Spartacus

Last night I was watching a Tom Hanks movie titled That Thing You Do. The lead character Gus kept saying “I am Spartacus” every time he achieved something new. I thought about that phrase as it brought back some memories. It was around 25 years ago when I first watched the 1960 Stanley Kubrick production of Spartacus with Kurt Douglas and Lawrence Olivier in the lead roles. The most memorable scene in that movie was when the Romans had captured Spartacus’s militia and the captain of the Roman army wanted to know who was Spatacus. What happened next was not an awkward silence, nor finger pointing, not even an investigation to discover whom Spatacus was but instead every person who fought beside the man stood up and said “I am Spartacus”. Around 6000 slaves were crucified naked from Capua to Rome.

Why would someone want to take the place of a condemned man? How did a slave who turned into a gladiator gain more respect and loyalty than the Emperor of Rome did from his nation? Why did he have so much respect and loyalty?

I believe that each of us have a God given gift that makes us who we are. Each of us have the capacity to do great things and yet, so many do not. We’d each like to think of ourselves as individuals but when I looked at my life and those around me, I truly wonder if that were so. Everyone wakes up in the mornings to go to work. Everyone fights the traffic daily. Everyone fears their boss, dislikes their colleagues, hates their work environment and would like to strangle their clients. Everyone is frustrated with their own lives and yet nobody does anything about it. All we do is gather at the local pub or coffee shop and collectively complain about each other’s lives. We do the same thing over and over and we expect different results.

Insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.

In the Disney animation Mulan, Captain Li Shang who was training new recruits gave them a challenge that would determined when the recruits would be ready for war. They were given two heavy discs which had cloth running through the discs. The task was to climb to the top of a 30 feet pole with the weights. The recruits trained very had everyday to build strength so that they could complete this challenge but no one could. Everyday someone would take the weights tie them to their bodies and attempt to climb the pole. Everyday they were disappointed. The recruits grew weary and tired as training got tougher and morale was being destroyed with each attempt at the pole. Everyone hated the General who was really tough. Everyday they would sit and complain that the General had asked them to do the impossible. How can you add another fifty kilos of weight and climb a pole? Finally, Mulan changed her perspective and instead of tying the weights to her own body she looped the weights to each other to form a tight rope that supported her climb up the pole instead of weighing her down. She took the problem and made it and opportunity. You see, the general wanted to produce the best unit in the military and he knew that physical training alone was not sufficient. He wanted his troops to be able to think differently and try new things. He wanted a team of problem solvers instead of whiners. I once read that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. I think that makes perfect sense.

During 73BC through 71BC Spartacus did what every gladiator did not believe in. Spartacus was unlike every other gladiator, he was a great leader and a great warrior. He valued and respected his fellow gladiators even though he knew that one day they would fight him to the death. As Gladiators and slaves they were all doomed to die for the amusement of Roman aristocrats. Spartacus started to wonder why was it that with more well trained gladiators than the number of guards their master had, nobody ever thought of breaking out. Most of the Gladiators were stronger, taller and more experienced in combat than the men who ruled them. When he first spoke of this, his friends told him not to think that way for it could get them killed, however, Spartacus eventually lead thousands of slaves and their families toward freedom. He dreamt of it and wanted to leave Rome for France. He wanted a future with no slaves and no masters, simply people with equal rights and opportunities. He had big dreams and he did not let anyone take them from him.

His ethics and principals gained him loyal men who were willing to take his place on death-row. In the movie when the slave army was captured, everyone knew that if the Romans found Spartacus they would torture and humiliate him in public and that would destroy everything he represents. The Romans wanted to persecute Spartacus without making him a hero but rather an example of what would happen to those who would even think of rebelling against the Roman Empire again. The slave army did not give him up nor did they allow him to surrender instead they stood up one by one saying, “I am Spartacus”.

What Spartacus did was above and beyond the call of duty. He could have just saved himself and lived a freeman. Instead he allegedly took with him more than ninety thousand slaves and had the Roman Empire hunting him across the country. Spartacus had done what most people would not – he stopped thinking about himself and made a difference. Many of us would shy from extraordinary and settle for comfortable because we are too afraid of change. So we go on each and everyday of our lives repeating what we do and praying for a break.

Extraordinary people do what common people won’t do. Doing uncommon things brings uncommon results. Think about that.

Personally, I don’t want to be common. I don’t want to be like everybody. I want to be Lance Amstrong who won seven Tour de France Championships in a row even when doctors said that he can never cycle professionally again. I want to be Sir Edmund Hillary who climbed the highest mountain when the world said he wanted to do the impossible. I want to be Mulan, a woman in a man’s army who saved an empire. I want to be Spartacus and take on a tyrant emperor and lead thousands of slaves to freedom. I want to make a difference not only in my life but in the lives of people around me. I want to achieve things that people say is out of my league. I want to do the impossible and look into the eyes of those who mock and laugh at my dreams and say, “I AM SPARTACUS”.

A single grain of rice can tip the scale. One man may be the difference between victory and defeat.

FYI

Spartacus was a Roman slave, who led a large slave uprising in what is now Italy, (then the Italian Peninsula), during 73 BC-71 BC. His army of escaped gladiators and slaves defeated many Roman legions, in what is known as the Third Servile War, one of the three slave rebellions of ancient Rome. This war was also known as the "Gladiator War".

The Disney movie “Mulan” is based on the Chinese legend of Hua Mulan. The earliest accounts of the legend state that she lived sometime around 386AD and 534AD. The story can be traced back to The Ballad of Mulan. One myth had Yang, the second Sui Dynasty Emperor, repeatedly requesting Mulan to be a concubine after he found out his prized general was a woman. She refused and committed suicide. The Emperor held a funeral with honours for Hua Mulan. The story was expanded into a novel during the late Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

Lance Armstrong is most famous for recovering from cancer to subsequently win the Tour de France a record seven consecutive times—1999 to 2005. Armstrong was diagnosed with testicular cancer that had metastasized, spreading to his lungs and brain. His doctors told him that he had about a 50 percent chance of survival. After his recovery, one of his doctors told him that his actual odds of survival had been considerably smaller (one even went as far as to say three percent), and that he had been given the estimate primarily to give him hope.

Edmund Percival Hillary was born on July 20, 1919 in New Zealand. He and Tenzing Norgay reached the 29,035 foot (8850m) summit on May 29, 1953 at 11:30 a.m. local time.

For more information visit http://en.wikipedia.org