How did it happen that in the theater of Ancient Armenia, instead of a prop head, the real head of the defeated victor Spartacus, Mark Crassus, was shown? It has been 2074 years since the day when this unusual act occurred during a performance in Artashat, about which ancient historians wrote. The Romans called Artashat the “Carthage of Armenia” and believed that the famous Carthaginian commander, the terror of Rome – Hannibal, took a direct part in the planning and construction of the city. As the ancient Greek writer, historian and philosopher of the Roman era, Plutarch writes, in 53 BC. e., when the Roman commander Mark Licinius Crassus died in a battle with the Parthian commander Suren at Carrhae in Mesopotamia (modern Harran in the Turkish province of Şanlıurfa), Suren sent his head to the king of Parthia, Orodes II. At that time, he was in Artashat at the wedding of his heir Pakora I with the daughter of Artavazd II (the son of Tigran the Great).
Both kings attended the performance of Euripides’ tragedy “The Bacchae”. That day, a troupe led by the tragedian Jason was performing. And the actor who played Agave – the mother of Pentheus (the king of the city of Thebes), madly parading with the head of her own son killed by her, brought out the real head of Crassus instead of the prop head usually used in the theater, with the words: “here are the antlers of a deer, killed by us on a lucky hunt”. The head was impaled on a thyrsus – a wooden staff. (Plutarch, “Crassus”, ch. 30—33.) Dion Cassius – Roman consul and historian also describes the death of Mark Licinius. He reports that after the battle, the Parthians poured molten gold into the mouth of the dead Crassus, mocking his greed. (Dion Cassius, XL, 27).
Actually, this is the only case when Spartacus, if not directly, but indirectly through his enemy Crassus, was somehow connected with the history of Armenia. However, the 20th century, together with NTR and the development of education, became a century of the birth of a huge mass of new false myths.
Who “betrayed” Spartacus, and who were the Cilician pirates?
Today on the Internet you can come across many absolutely false “stories” that have no, even the slightest historical basis. Anti-Armenian propaganda has long exploited them, although they can only cause laughter among those who know history. One of them, particularly promoted by Azerbaijani propaganda, is called – “How the Armenians betrayed Spartacus”.
It’s no surprise that for ignorant readers it is perceived as something truthful, but sometimes even Armenians, who don’t know their history well, take it seriously. For illustration, photographs and even excerpts from the famous Hollywood movie “Spartacus” (director Stanley Kubrick, 1960) based on the novel by Howard Fast are provided. The film became a big event in the world of cinema at its time and is considered a classic today. But since it was a piece of fiction, many details were made up because there were no details in ancient sources. Even the name of Spartacus’ wife was not known for sure, as they say, history did not preserve it, so everyone had to invent, and not only in the cinema. In the film – Varinia, in the novel by Raffaello Giovagnoli “Spartacus” (1874) his beloved is Valeria, moreover, this is a patrician, the wife of the dictator Sulla, in the ballet by Aram Khachaturian (1956) – Phrygia, etc. And especially the names of pirates. The plot of the film unfolds like this.
The rebel army marches to Brindisi, but despite preliminary agreement, the pirate emissary refuses to transport the rebels. Spartacus beats a confession out of him that Crassus has bought the pirates. Pompey’s army approaches from the west, Lucullus’ army sails to Brindisi from Asia by sea. The rebels have nowhere to retreat.
In this part, there is an episode with the Cilician pirates, which may have actually happened, according to some ancient historians. Here is Plutarch’s story:
“… and Spartacus in the meantime retreated through Lucania and came out to the sea. Meeting Cilician pirates in the strait, he decided to cross with their help to Sicily, land two thousand men on the island and reignite the Sicilian slave uprising, which had barely died down shortly before, a spark would be enough for it to flare up with new force. But the Cilicians, having agreed with Spartacus about the crossing and having received gifts, deceived him and left the strait. Forced to retreat from the coast, Spartacus set up camp with his army on the Regium peninsula. Crassus also approached here.” (Plutarch, “Crassus”, ch. 10).
However, Plutarch doesn’t mention the nationality of the pirates, nor does he name any of their leaders.
Their role doesn’t quite correspond to the facts that have come down to us: in the film, they were supposed to deliver the rebelling slaves back to their homelands, but they were bribed by the Roman military leader Marcus Licinius Crassus, and thus, they abandoned the slaves in the encirclement. According to Plutarch, Spartacus indeed negotiated with Cilician pirates. But they were supposed to not return the rebels home, but to transport 2,000 of his fighters to Sicily, where he intended to incite a new uprising among the local slaves, thereby increasing the problems of the Romans. The Cilicians accepted his gifts but did not fulfill the agreement.
There is nothing like this in Howard Fast’s novel itself. The episode was invented later when the screenplay was being written. The film production turned out to be complicated, primarily due to censorship revisions and difficulties with the screenplay, which was completely rewritten several times. It was directed by two directors, it started with Anthony Mann, and was continued and finished by Stanley Kubrick, who later confessed that this was the only film he didn’t like among his own, although it brought him fame. Producer and lead actor Kirk Douglas joked sadly that working on “Spartacus” took more time than the rebellion itself and lasted more than two years, which, by the standards of the American film industry, is far beyond the norm.
Douglas initially wanted the author of the book to be the screenwriter. However, Howard Fast didn’t have experience in scriptwriting, and moreover, he was a communist, which could easily cause problems with censorship. After reading the first 60 pages of Fast’s screenplay based on his own novel, Douglas called them a “disaster”. A replacement had to be found urgently. Douglas turned to Dalton Trumbo, another writer with left-wing views, who spent eleven months in jail in 1950.
It was Trumbo who wrote the script, and he also repeatedly revised it at the producers’ request. Apparently, he was the one who came up with the name Tigran and even a semblance of a surname – Levant, for the emissary of the Cilician pirates, who was played by British actor of Czech origin, Herbert Lom.
It is clear that Dalton Trumbo did not have time to delve into history. He looked up the name in the encyclopedia and read about the Armenian state in Cilicia. Then in the history of Armenia, he found the most resounding name of the Armenian king, Tigranes the Great. And since dynastic surnames like Yervanduni, Arshakuni, or Artashesian would clearly not be appropriate here, he used the ancient name of the country closest to Cilicia – Levant. In ancient times, it was common to consider the place of birth as a surname. There are many examples: the ancient Greek athlete Milon of Croton, philosophers Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (500–428 BC), Diogenes of Sinope (412 BC – 323 BC), Diogenes Laertius, etc. As well as our famous medieval thinkers: Narekatsi, Shirakatsi, Taronatsi, and so on.
Of course, the medieval Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, which existed from 1080 to 1375 (Mountainous Cilicia – until 1424), had no relation to the pirates who operated at sea more than a thousand years before it, not only in time but also in population. The mass migration of Armenians to the territory of Cilicia occurred only at the end of the 1st and the beginning of the 2nd millennium AD, after the loss of independence of the ancient Armenian states in the Armenian Highlands. In fact, in this age of the internet, anyone can verify this; just look up information about the Cilician pirates. It is now known that ethnically they were mainly composed of the Isaurian tribe of belligerent robbers and pirates who inhabited the mountainous area in the south of Asia Minor – Isauria.
In the war of the Cilician pirates against Rome, the Isaurians played such an active part that Proconsul Publius Servilius was forced to pursue them on land, in their fortified strongholds, subduing the entire people, for which he received the nickname Isauricus.
Essentially, this is where the whole “history of Armenian piracy” ends, without ever really starting.
The ancient Armenian theater, like the Greek and Roman ones, is considered one of the oldest theaters in the world. But after the adoption of Christianity, the church began to oppose theatrical art. Despite this, theater remained popular among the people. Performances of ancient drama and Armenian authors were given. In the modern era, the theatrical art of Armenia began to develop particularly intensively, and even the church’s attitude towards it changed, which was beautifully expressed by Catholicos Khrimyan Hayrik (1820–1907) in his wise definition: “The theater is the second church. There the soul is nurtured.”
by Armen Petrosyan
Translation by Vigen Avetisyan
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