"Spartacus" provides the film's gladiatorial motif, as well as the character of Senator Gracchus, a fictitious senator (bearing the name of a pair of revolutionary Tribunes from the 2nd century BC) who in both films is an elder statesman of ancient Rome attempting to preserve the ancient rights of the Roman Senate in the face of an ambitious autocrat – Marcus Licinius Crassus in "Spartacus" and Commodus in "Gladiator." Both actors who played Gracchus (in "Spartacus" and "Gladiator"), played Claudius in previous films – Charles Laughton of "Spartacus" played Claudius in the unfinished 1937 film "I, Claudius" and Sir Derek Jacobi of "Gladiator", played Claudius in the 1976 BBC adaptation. Both films also share a specific set piece, wherein a gladiator (Maximus here, Woody Strode's Draba in "Spartacus") throws his weapon into a spectator box at the end of a match, as well as at least one line of dialogue: "Rome is the mob", said here by Gracchus and by Julius Caesar (John Gavin) in "Spartacus".