Spartacus (film) eclipse him. Gracchus, having seen Rome fall into tyranny, commits suicide. Before doing so, he bribes his friend Batiatus to rescue Spartacus's family from Crassus and carry them away to freedom. On the way out of Rome, the group passes under Spartacus's cross. Varinia is able to comfort him in his dying moments by showing him his little son, who will grow up free and knowing who his father was. The development of "Spartacus" was partly instigated by Kirk Douglas's failure to win the title role in William Wyler's "Ben-Hur". Douglas had worked with Wyler before on "Detective Story", and
Spartacus (Gibbon novel) Spartacus (Gibbon novel) Spartacus is a historical novel by the Scottish writer Lewis Grassic Gibbon, first published in 1933 under his real name of James Leslie Mitchell. Although Gibbon is mainly known for his trilogy "A Scots Quair", this is his best-known full-length work outside that trilogy. As its name suggests, it is an account of the great slave revolt in Ancient Rome, led by Spartacus. The central character is not Spartacus himself, but Kleon, a fictional Greek educated slave and eunuch who joins the revolt. In the first chapter we are told how he was sold into slavery as