Spartacus (1960)

Peter Ustinov: Batiatus

Photos 

Quotes 

• 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.

• Batiatus : Come with us. See to it I don't misuse the money.

  Gracchus : Don't be ridiculous. I'm a Senator.

• Batiatus : Good luck, and may fortune smile upon... most of 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.

• Lentulus Batiatus : But I'm a civilian. I'm more of a civilian than most civilians.

• 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.

• Lentulus Biatatus : [reacting to a slow servant]  The sun's over there! I have to pay these people!

• Batiatus : Great Gracchus, I find it very difficult to hate, but there's one man I can't think of without fuming.

  Gracchus : Who's that?

  Batiatus : Crassus.

  Gracchus : You have grown very ambitious in your hatred.

• Crassus : I understand - I'm informed that Spartacus once trained under your auspices.

  Batiatus : Yes. In fact, if it isn't too subversive to say so, I made him what he is today.

• 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 : But, my dear, great, all-conquering Marcus Licinius Crassus... what if it is Spartacus who crosses the battlefield, looking for you?

  Crassus : In such circumstances, I have no doubt you will be helping him.

• Batiatus : Anyone who believes I'll turn informer for nothing is a fool. I bore the whip without complaint.

  Gracchus : Indeed, that sounds like a bad attack of dignity.

• 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.

• Batiatus : Oh, I don't like Gauls. Hairy.

• Guard Captain : Open your mouth, Spartacus.

  Batiatus : You smell like a rhinoceros.

• Batiatus : As the teeth go, so go the bones.

• 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.

• Batiatus : A gladiator's like a stallion, he must be pampered. You'll be oiled, bathed, shaved, massaged, taught to use your heads. A good body with a dull brain is as cheap as life itself.

• Helena Glabrus : Of course, we shall want to choose them ourselves. You do have a certain - variety, don't you?

  Batiatus : Yes, inexhaustible.

• Helena Glabrus : If both men are down and refuse to continue to fight your trainer will slit their throats like chickens. We want no tricks.

  Batiatus : Tricks, madam? At the school of Batiatus?

• Claudia Marius : Oh, they're magnificent.

  Batiatus : For you, Lady Helena, may I suggest Praxus? A veritable tiger.

  Helena Glabrus : I don't like him. I prefer that one.

• Claudia Marius : I feel so sorry for the poor things in all this heat. Don't put them in those suffocating tunics. Let them wear just enough for modesty.

  Batiatus : Whatever they wear, Lady, they'll bless your name.

• Batiatus : In spite of your vices, you are the most generous Roman of our time.

  Gracchus : Vices?

  Batiatus : Ladies.

  Gracchus : Ladies? Since when are they a vice?

  Batiatus : Perhaps I used the wrong word. An eccentricity, a foible. I hope I pronounced that word. It's well-known that even your groom and butler are women.

  Gracchus : I'm the most virtuous man in Rome. I keep these women out of my respect for Roman morality. That morality which has made Rome strong enough to steal two-thirds of the world from its rightful owners, founded on the sanctity of Roman marriage and Roman family. I happen to like women. I have a promiscuous nature and unlike these aristocrats, I will not take a marriage vow which my nature will prevent me from keeping it..

  Batiatus : You have too great a respect for the purity of womankind.

  Gracchus : Exactly.

  Batiatus : It must be tantalizing to be surrounded by so much purity.

  Gracchus : [chuckles]  It is.

• Batiatus : Zenobia's put on weight since I last saw her.

  Gracchus : Yes. Hasn't she? I like it.

  Batiatus : So do I.

• Crassus : You may sell all the others but not this woman.

  Batiatus : But you haven't seen the others, Your Magnitude. They're of surpassing ugliness! A genius wouldn't be able to sell them.

• Batiatus : I've more stripes on my back than a zebra. Every time I touch my wounds, they sing like larks. But in spite of that, I think I've found something that I never had before, with all my wealth.

  Gracchus : What is that?

  Batiatus : Don't laugh at me, but I believe it to be dignity.

  Gracchus : In Rome, dignity shortens life even more surely than disease. The gods must be saving you for some great enterprise.

  Batiatus : You think so? Anyone who believes I'll turn informer for nothing is a fool. I bore the whip without complaint.

  Gracchus : Yes, indeed. That sounds like a *bad* attack of dignity.

• Batiatus : Beautiful. The more chains you put on her, the less like a slave she looks.

• Gracchus : Will you please leave me?

  Batiatus : Come with us. See to it that I don't misuse the money.

  Gracchus : Don't be ridiculous. I'm a Senator.

• Crassus : I'm informed Spartacus once trained under your auspices.

  Batiatus : Yes! In fact, if it isn't too subversive to say so, I made him what he is today.

  Crassus : You're to be congratulated indeed. I too, as it happens. Since you're so admirably qualified to give me what up to now I've not been able to obtain, a physical description of Spartacus.

  Batiatus : Oh, yes! But, you saw him.

  Crassus : What?

  Batiatus : In the ring.

  Crassus : When?

  Batiatus : When you visited my school with those two charming ladies.

  Crassus : [rolls his eyes]  Wow!

  Batiatus : I trust they're both in good health. They selected him to fight against Draba, the negro.

  Crassus : I remember the negro.

  Batiatus : Oh, you had good cause to. If I - if I may say so, Your Excellency. A brilliant dagger thrust, difficult angle.

  Crassus : Spartacus was the opponent?

  Batiatus : Yes.