Spartacus (1960)

Tony Curtis: Antoninus

Photos 

Quotes 

• Herald : I bring a message from your master, Marcus Licinius Crassus, Commander of Italy. By command of His Most Merciful Excellency, your lives are to be spared. Slaves you were and slaves you remain. But the terrible penalty of crucifixion has been set aside on the single condition that you identify the body or the living person of the slave called Spartacus.

  Antoninus : [stands up]  I'm Spartacus!

  [everyone around Antoninus and Spartacus stands up and shouts "I'm Spartacus!"] 

• Antoninus : Are you afraid to die, Spartacus?

  Spartacus : No more than I was to be born.

• Crassus : Do you eat oysters?

  Antoninus : When I have them, master.

  Crassus : Do you eat snails?

  Antoninus : No, master.

  Crassus : Do you consider the eating of oysters to be moral and the eating of snails to be immoral?

  Antoninus : No, master.

  Crassus : Of course not. It is all a matter of taste, isn't it?

  Antoninus : Yes, master.

  Crassus : And taste is not the same as appetite, and therefore not a question of morals.

  Antoninus : It could be argued so, master.

  Crassus : My robe, Antoninus. My taste includes both snails and oysters.

• [being forced to fight] 

  Spartacus : Don't give them the pleasure of a contest. Lower your guard, I'll kill you on the first rush.

  Antoninus : I won't let them crucify you!

  Spartacus : It's my last order, obey it!

• [fighting] 

  Spartacus : Do you realize how long it takes to die on a cross?

  Antoninus : I don't care!

• Antoninus : I came here to fight.

  Spartacus : Anyone can learn to fight.

  Antoninus : I joined to fight.

  Spartacus : What's your name?

  Antoninus : Antoninus.

  Spartacus : There's a time for fighting and there's is a time for singing. Now you teach us to sing. Sing, Antoninus.

• Spartacus : What did you do?

  Antoninus : Singer of songs.

  Spartacus : Singer of songs? But what work did you do?

  Antoninus : That's my work. I also juggle.

  Spartacus : Juggle. What else do you do?

  Antoninus : I can do feats of magic.

  Spartacus : Magic? Maybe he can make the Romans disappear.

• Antoninus : When the blazing sun hangs low in the western sky, when the wind dies away on the mountain, when the song of the meadowlark turns still, when the field locust clicks no more in the field, and the sea foam sleeps like a maiden at rest, and twilight touches the shape of the wondering earth, I turn home. Through blue shadows and purple woods, I turn home. I turn to the place that I was born, to the mother who bore me and the father who taught me, long ago, long ago, long ago. Alone am I now, lost and alone in a far, wide, wondering world. Yet still when the blazing sun hangs low, when the wind dies away and the sea foam sleeps, and twilight touches the wondering earth, I turn home.

• Spartacus : Who are Isis and Serapis?

  Antoninus : Gods of the East.

  Spartacus : Why should they want us to win?

  Tigranes Levantus : Because they favor Cilicia and Cilicia, like you, fights against the Romans.

• Antoninus : Could we have won, Spartacus? Could we ever have won?

  Spartacus : Just by fighting them, we won something. When just one man says "No, I won't," Rome begins to fear. We were tens of thousands who said no. That was the wonder of it. To have seen slaves lift their heads from the dust, to see them rise from their knees, stand tall with a song on their lips, to hear them storm through the mountains shouting, to hear them sing along the plains.