Cicero a soldier...

You should start with Gods of the Arena and then Blood and Sand ( I wish I would have seen it in this order)

I liked both (also the sex scenes ;) ) and they were already on air in Germany. 

Holy shit! :-O

OP: You need to see Spartacus, its easily among my top five of all time TV shows. It starts out slow and then explodes, in every sense of the word. It blew me away. Gods of the Arena (prelude season) is also great in my opinion, you get to see the rise of Crixus!

YES. It is loaded with awesome!

And I would agree with Montana that it takes a little while to get going, but around episode 4 you will be completely hooked and wanting to burn through all of Blood and Sand + Gods of the Arena in one day, or at least I did :/

If sex scenes put you off then be prepared to fast forward Spartacus...A LOT! They are very well done though and some of them are even relevant to story development...

The first half of Spartacus was good but at the halfway mark there was a dramatic increase in quality which built to a phenomenal ending. Avoid the prequel series(Gods of the arena)-It was bad. Unfortunately Spartacus himself Andy Whitfield, died fom cancer last year. A terrible shame really as he had a very promising hollywood career ahead of him...

Got me convinced now.  I'll move it to top spot on my Netflix instant que.

I watched both Rome and Spartacus and although I prefered Rome, I must say that Spartacus was surprisingly great. I really liked the different relationships between the characters and of course the action scenes were thrilling. Also the show gets better with every new episode. The first episode is actually the worst.

Btw I have no idea why someone would suggest to watch Gods of the Arena before Blood and Sand. You must absolutely watch Blood and Sand before as it was intented by the producers in the first place.

Its Spartacus: Blood and Sand followed by Spartacus: Gods of the Arena.

Spartacus Season 2 is premiering on January 27th, so get to watching it now!

Overall, its in my top 3 TV shows of all time with Battlestar Galactica and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Another poster said its 30% sex and 70% violence, and that is probably about right in terms of X-rated content (the sex almost invariably has a reason for existing in the show - either to show the debauchery of the time period, or to further a plot point). But its 100% story and character development. Absolutely phenomenal series. John Hannah (Battiatus) gives one of the best performances in TV history, IMO. And his father Titus (Jeffrey Thomas) may be even better in Gods of the arena.

There is so much deception, backstabbing, and one-upmanship in the show, its great. Both season ending episodes are right up there with the 5 best TV episodes I've ever seen in my life. Starz did an incredible job with the series, there's a reason they renewed it before the first episode even aired.

Its not a show for kids. You absolutely must be 18+ to watch it. It doesn't go as far as to show cock-n-balls, but its just a step down from it. The foul language is hilarious, and they constantly come up with new phrases that are unmatched in hilarity (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruyWq7URlN0).

Overall, its the best series still on TV by a country mile. Nothing is close. Since we know the historicity of the source text, I don't see how they are going to wind up with a massive failure at the end like BSG was, so I'm very excited about where it goes.

As others have said, the first two or three episodes are kind of slow, as they introduce all the main characters (Sparatcus: Blood and Sand, mind you). Once thats over with, the rest of the series is sheer brilliance. There should be enough killing, boobs and vagina in the first three episodes to keep you satiated until the plot thickens, though.

Dang it, I'm gonna go watch it again right now to get revved up for Vengeance.

Rome and Spartacus are both amazing tv shows. Spartacus has much more blood and gore action while Rome is more of a drama.
Spartacus is really worth it, there are two seasons out (the 2nd being a prequel) and the 3rd will be out later this month i think.

And lol do not watch the prequel first, it shows very key elements of the story that would spoil the plot.

Its pretty much porn with violence. So yeah its fuckin awesome.

My girlfriend and I started watching it and really enjoyed, but never finished due to us losing access to Starz :(