In the intense sincerity and elaborate as well as spontaneous truth of his performance, it was not a play that the spectators saw, but a history; not a history, but a resurrection. Entering in the garb of a slave, bound and whipped, his mighty frame and terrible aspect made the abuse seem more awful. Tortured with insulting questions, his proud spirit stung by wrong on wrong, he broke forth in desperation, and carried the passions of the audience by storm, as with clenched hands, and half erect from their seats, while the blood ran quicker through their veins, they saw him rush into combat with his enemies and chase them from the stage. They delighted to see the cruel subduer of the world humbled by her own captive, who held her haughty prætors by the heart and called on Thrace, on Africa, on the oppressed of all nations, to pour the flood of their united hates on the detested city. They rejoiced to hear him recite with bitter eloquence the story of her degradation, and heap on her with hot scorn the recollection of the time when Tiber ran blood and Hannibal hung over her like a cloud charged with ruin. Every step, every word, vibrated on their feelings, and when he fell their hearts swelled with a pang. For the actor had been lost in the slave, the insurgent, the conqueror, the victim. His first appearance as a captive in imperial Rome was deeply affecting. "Is it a thousand leagues to Thrace?" he said, with a whispered agony, the deadly lament of hopeless exile. He has been purchased by Lentulus, an exhibitor of gladiators, on the strength of the report that he was the most desperate, skilful, and unconquerable fighter in the province. Bracchius, another proprietor of gladiators, owns one Phasarius, a Thracian, who has always been victorious in his combats. Phasarius was a younger and favorite brother of Spartacus, supposed to have been killed in battle years before, but really taken captive and brought to Rome. Now Bracchius and Lentulus propose a combat between their two slaves. Spartacus, chained, is ordered in. He asks, "Is not this Rome, the great city?" Bracchius replies, "Ay, and thou shouldst thank the gods that they have suffered thee to see it. What think'st thou of it?" "_Spartacus._ That if the Romans had not been fiends, Rome had never been great. Whence came this greatness but from the miseries of subjugated nations? How many myriads of happy people that had not wronged Rome, for they knew not Rome,--how many myriads of these were slain, like the beasts of the field, that Rome might fatten upon their blood, and become great? Look ye, Roman, there is not a palace upon these hills that cost not the lives of a thousand innocent men; there is no deed of greatness ye can boast, but it was achieved by the ruin of a nation; there is no joy ye can feel, but its ingredients are blood and tears." Lentulus breaks in, "Now, marry, villain, thou wert bought not to prate, but to fight."