Arthur Koestler's first novel, set in the late Roman Republic, tells the story of the revolt of Spartacus and man's search for Utopia. The first of three novels concerned with the 'ethics of revolution', it addresses the age-old debate of whether the end justifies the means, an argument continued in his classic novelsDarkness at NoonandArrival and Departure.

SALES POINTS: *-'THE GLADIATORS is a philosophical novel dealing with the -nature of revolution; a melancholy commentary on the failure -of politics to respond to men's inner needs. Mr Koestler is more -concerned with ideas than people. He is revealing to us the -dialectic of history, with a moral, if we choose to take it, for our -own times. But he is never didactic and his story, is vivid in action -as in argument' Sunday Times*-'In THE GLADIATORS this episode in Roman history is lifted -out of the mustiness of the textbooks by a novelist of unusual -sympathy and understanding' Sean O'Faolain*-'A book which anyone who is wondering what will happen to -us will do well to read' New Statesman

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