Books: Utopia Under Arms

THE GLADIATORS—Arthur Koestler—Macmillan ($2.50).

Led by a tall Thracian named Spartacus, 70 Roman gladiators ran off from their master one night in 73 B. C. Times were restless; a year later Spartacus had a guerrilla army of 100,000, armed with clubs, spears, the tridents of the gladiators' trade.

The Gladiators' War which followed ranks high among history's forlorner hopes. For this mob of desperate men overran southern Italy for two years, trounced three Roman armies. Not the least of their achievements was the founding of Sun City, a Utopia as fantastic as the Transcendentalists' Brook Farm or Robert Owen's New Harmony.

Arthur Koestler, expatriate...