Peter Ustinov credited as playing...
Batiatus
- Ramon: We have visitors. Tremendous visitors! Two simply enormous Roman lords on the hill.
- Batiatus: How easily impressed you are, Ramon. Just 'cause they're Romans, I suppose they're enormous. Tell them to wait for me when they arrive.
- Ramon: Master, you don't understand!
- Batiatus: How enormous do these Roman lords get?
- Ramon: One of them is Marcus Licinius Crassus.
- Batiatus: What? Wait a minute. Crassus here? Varinia, my red toga with the acorns. And some chairs in the atrium. Second-best wine. No, the best, but small goblets.
- [Notices a head-bust]
- Batiatus: Gracchus! You know how Crassus loathes him. Take him away.
- Ramon: I can't lift it.
- Batiatus: Use your imagination! Cover him. Tell Marcellus to get the men ready. Crassus has expensive taste. He'll want a show of some sort.
- [to the head-bust]
- Batiatus: Forgive me, Gracchus.
- Batiatus: There I was, better than a millionaire in the morning and a penniless refugee by nightfall with nothing but these rags and my poor flesh to call of my own. All because Crassus decides to break his journey at Capua with a couple of capricious, over-painted nymphs! These two daughters of Venus had to taunt the gladiators, force them to fight to the death and before I knew what had happened, revolution on my hands!
- Gracchus: What revenge have you in mind?
- Batiatus: I sold Crassus this woman, Varinia. May the gods give her wings. There was no contract, but she was clearly his slave as soon as the deal was made. Now she's off with Spartacus killing people in their beds. And Crassus, no mention of money, no!
- Gracchus: You never offered me this woman. Why not?
- Batiatus: Well, she's not remotely your type, Gracchus. She is very thin and...
- Gracchus: Look around you. You'll see women of all sizes. 500 sesterces deposit on Varinia. Since he hasn't paid for her, this gives me first call over Crassus when she's caught and auctioned..
- Batiatus: May the Gods adore you! Why would you buy a woman that you have never even seen?
- Gracchus: To annoy Crassus, of course, and to help you.
- Helena Glabrus: [after she has selected the best gladiators to fight to the death] Our choosing has bored you?
- Batiatus: No, no. No, most exciting. I tingle.
- Batiatus: Marcus Licinius Crassus. Most noble radiance, first general of the Republic, father and defender of Rome, honour my house. Bless it with your presence. Wine! Sweetmeats! Can't you see that Their Honours are exhausted? Have the goodness to sit. Is anything wrong, Your Nobility?
- Marcus Licinius Crassus: No.
- Batiatus: Welcome to the Lady Claudia Maria, former wife of Lucius Caius Marius, whose recent execution touched us all so deeply. Honour to the Lady Helena, daughter of the late Septimus Optimus Glabrus, whose fame shall live on forever in the person of his son, your brother, Marcus Publius Glabrus, hero of the Eastern Wars.
- Helena Glabrus: How very much he knows. Allow me to bring you up to date. We're here to celebrate the marriage of my brother to the Lady Claudia.
- Batiatus: A mating of eagles, Your Sanctity! Fan His Magnitude. He sweats.
- Gracchus: Let's add courage to your new found virtues. Would half a million sesterces make you brave?
- Batiatus: Half a million? Mmm-hmm, well, Crassus does seem to dwindle in the mind, but...
- Gracchus: Let's reduce him further. A round million!
- Batiatus: A million. For such a sum I could bribe Jupiter himself!
- Gracchus: With a lesser sum I have.
- Batiatus: Captain, the teeth. You asked him to open his mouth. He doesn't obey you?
- Guard Captain: His teeth are the best thing about him. He hamstrung a guard with them not more than an hour ago.
- Batiatus: Hamstrung? How marvelous. I wish I'd been here. I'll take him.
- Batiatus: Slaves, you have arrived at the gladiatorial school of Lentulus Batiatus. Here, you will be trained by experts to fight in pairs to the death. Obviously, you won't be required to fight to the death here. That will be after you've been sold and then for ladies and gentlemen of quality, those who appreciate a fine kill.
- Marcus Licinius Crassus: My young friends desire a private showing of two pairs.
- Batiatus: Two pairs? Oh yes. I think I have something that would - please them.
- Helena Glabrus: Two pairs to the death.
- Batiatus: To the death, Your Ladyship?
- Helena Glabrus: Well, surely you don't think we came all the way to Capua - for gymnastics?
- Spartacus: I've never had a woman.
- [Varinia disrobes]
- Batiatus: [laughs as he observes through a barred hole in ceiling] You have one now, Spartacus. You must take her.
- Spartacus: Go away.
- Batiatus: What will she think of you? Indeed, what will I think of you?
- Spartacus: Go away.
- Batiatus: Come, come. Be generous. We must learn to share our pleasures.