1st Update: Should have been done awhile ago

I've spent the first few weeks looking over the assessment task trying to decide what I should use as a topic and how I would go about setting myself a question.

At first I was interested in researching Rome's Ninth legion and its mysterious disappearance, I started by researching what I knew about the legion which was a movie called The Eagle directed by directed by Kevin Macdonald,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eagle_%282011_film%29

This proved very useful in finding the children's historical novel The Eagle of Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff, upon which the movie is based. Both the movie and the book both have little historical basis in fact but in myth and legend, this disturbed me as the story of The Eagle of Ninth seemed highly possible. This roused my curiosity, I researched some more and came across The Massacre of the ninth legion against British tribes in Roman controlled Britain. However it was Wikipedia so I questioned it, the Wikipedia page however did lead me to references to the Ninth in the Annals of Tacitus. This proved surprisingly hopeful, however further research revealed the lack of reliable sources with an appropriate historical basis. Thus my research sadly ended and I was struggling to find a topic.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eagle_of_the_Ninth
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_the_Ninth_Legion
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annals_%28Tacitus%29
 http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Tacitus/home.html
 http://classics.mit.edu/Tacitus/annals.1.i.html

 As I struggled to find a topic I was flicking through my Ancient History textbook and I saw the words Sparta. This caused me to have a brainstorm on the historical figure Spartacus, thus I started researching again on Spartacus.

I immediately jumped to media representations of Spartacus, but as I researched I started thinking of him as a historical figure and his influence on the world. Keeping both these possible areas of further research in mind I pressed on.

The first thing I came across in my Spartacus research was this timeline.

http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/spartacus.html

This time provided me with important events before the revolt of Spartacus and slaves of Ancient Rome. Events such as the violence entering Roman politics in 133BC -121BC, this prove highly valuable with the division of the senate into the populares and the optimates as well as the backgrounds of both groups. The timeline also provided me with a map depicting the  movements of Spartacus and his army during the revolt. I was also granted various names of other historical figures in the time leading up to the revolt and those who fought against Spartacus. Names such as Crassus and Pompeius, which is two thirds of the First Triumvirate and this sparked my interest and I started to think of further research into Spartacus and the Triumvirate.

http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/populares.html
http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/optimates.htm
http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/spartacusmap.jpg

Next I came across a summary of Spartacus and the slave rebellion

http://www.historynet.com/ancient-history-spartacus-and-the-slave-rebellion.htm

This summary confirmed the dates and provide more detail upon the events described in the previously mentioned timeline. It also provided me with more names to my list of historical figures and significant people prior and during the revolt of Spartacus. Although the use of the English language had little grammatical hic-cups, I still hold the source to some reliability as it provides me with more details of events which I can confirm with further research myself. This source also provided me with better time periods and possible accurate seasons in which the army of Spartcus fought and traveled through. Although the source starts to get a bit fictionish towards the end I still hold some credit to the source.

Lastly in my initial research is a BBC profile of Spartacus.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/spartacus.shtml

Although this only a small profile it provide me with insight into the influence of Spartacus today with the Spartacist League in 1919 Germany an their failed attempt to over throw the government.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartacus_League

I also have a book called Spartacus Film and history which I begin to read tonight.

Nigel
AKA:Wannabe Spartacus