"Gladiator" was based on an original pitch by David Franzoni, who wrote the first draft. Franzoni was given a three-picture deal with DreamWorks as writer and co-producer on the strength of his previous work, Steven Spielberg's "Amistad", which helped establish the reputation of DreamWorks. Not a classical scholar, Franzoni was inspired by Daniel P. Mannix's 1958 novel "Those About to Die", and he chose to base his story on Commodus after reading the "Augustan History". In Franzoni's first draft, dated April 4, 1998, he named his protagonist Narcissus, a wrestler who, according to the ancient sources Herodian and Cassius Dio, strangled Emperor Commodus to death.