Written when Fast was a victim of the blacklist and America itself in the grips of what David Caute has called the "Great Fear" of McCarthyism and the Cold War, this historical elegy uses Roman history to reflect contemporary social concerns. As in all his historical writing, Fast explores the contradiction between republican ideals and repressive institutions, using the Servile Wars, the uprising of Spartacus, his gladiators, and their slave followers against their Roman overlords, as a model for resistance to oppression throughout history.

The sight of over six thousand slaves crucified along the Appian Way becomes a motif for human suffering in the struggle for freedom, and as the author's epilogue to the self-published first edition: "It is a story of brave men and women who lived long ago, and whose names have never been forgotten. The heroes of this story cherished freedom and human...