On the entrance of the guards, Phasarius gives a shout, and the confederate gladiators also plunge in, and a general conflict begins. In this scene the acting of Forrest absorbed his whole heart. He was so thoroughly imbued with the spirit of it that everything he did was perfectly natural, full of that genuine fire which is so much beyond all exertion by rule. It was universally agreed that more spirited and admirable fighting was hardly to be conceived, the varied postures into which he threw his massive form being worthy to be taken as studies for the sculptor. The rebellion grows apace in success and numbers. Spartacus rescues his wife and child from the Roman camp, and seizes the niece of the prætor. Phasarius falls in love with this young woman, and demands her of his brother. Being refused because she is affianced to a youth in Rome, he insists on his demand. In the altercation occurs one of the finest and loftiest passages in the play, and it was rendered with a sublime eloquence: "_Spartacus._ Come, look me in the face, And let me see how bad desires have changed thee. _Phasarius._ I claim the captive. _Spar._ Set thine eye on her: Lo, you! she weeps, and she is fatherless. Thou couldst not harm an orphan? What, I say, Art thou, whom I have carried in my arms To mountain-tops to worship the great God, Art thou a man to plot a wrong and sorrow 'Gainst such as have no father left but Him?" Phasarius revolts, and takes off more than half the army. Disastrously defeated by Crassus, he returns with a broken fragment of his forces, and is generously forgiven and restored to favor by Spartacus, who intrusts him with an important separate command, and confides Senona and her boy to his keeping, with the solemn charge that he shall avoid all collision with the enemy. Phasarius, however, thirsting for Roman blood, seeks an engagement, and is totally routed, his force cut in pieces, and the mother and child both slain. The unhappy man, then, mortally wounded, presents himself before his brother, tells his fearful tale, and expires at his feet. In this interview the emotions of anxiety, deprecation, grief, wrath, and horror, were depicted in all their most forcible language in the person of Spartacus. One action in particular was effective in the highest degree. Phasarius described the crucifixion by the Romans of six thousand of their Thracian captives. The highway on both sides, he said, was lined with crosses, and on each cross was nailed a gladiator. "I crept Thro' the trenched army to that road, and saw The executed multitude uplifted Upon the horrid engines. Many lived: Some moaned and writhed in stupid agony; Some howled and prayed for death, and cursed the gods; Some turned to lunatics, and laughed at horror; And some with fierce and hellish strength had torn Their arms free from the beams, and so had died Grasping headlong the air."