Spartacus

Prologue
"...some are marked out for subjection... he, who is by nature not his own but another's man, is by nature a slave; and he may be said to be another's man who, being a human being, is also a possession."
Aristotle, Politics, 1254b1-21.

Year 73 B.C.
Nothing foretold an uprising when a small group of gladiators managed their escape from the school in Capua.Rapidly develops a wildfire, spreading across the entire land.
Under the leadership of the Thracian Spartacus, they defeated the Roman legions time and time again, - forces renowned for their victories across the known world.
Advanced as far as the Alps they did, before turning south once more in a bid to escape the peninsula

Spartacus, a Thracian, not really tangible from the mists of history, - compared to Hannibal or Alexander, there are hardly any written records about him.
Hannibal is, above all, the battle of Cannae. Spartacus has no recorded battle that eclipses all others, no crossing of the Alps, only a tale told in familiar strains, shaped more by legend than by history.
This novel attempts to portray the uprising as, -»The Attempt Of The Impossible«.

The film Blade-Runner (despite a completely different genre) has been a blueprint for the form of making the impossible, subtly, visible. There is no similarity to the plot, or the characters, it is the form/idea of depicting the impossibility of an undertaking.