«A man must accept his fate, or be destroyed by it.»

***

«What is beneath your feet?»
«Sacred ground, Doctore. Watered with the tears of blood.»
«Your tears! Your blood! Your pathetic lives
forged into something of worth. Listen! Learn!
And, perhaps, live - As Gladiators!»

***

«A Gladiator does not fear death. He embraces it.
Caresses it. Fucks it. Each time he enters the arena,
he slips his cock in the mouth of the beast, and prays
to thrust home be fore the jaws snap shut.»

***

«Perhaps one day you will find reason closer to heart to
assume deserved mantle.»
«Perhaps I will fall this very night and leave you to weep
with the other women.»

***

«I do not deserve a woman such as you.»
«You are the only man who truly does.»

***

«I would have us free. Truly free. Do you really believe
that Crassus will stop once you crest the mountains?
That the Republic will let us quietly slip away?
We have shown them vulnerable.
We have shown them that a trembling hand can become a fist.
We have challenged the idea that a slave must always
know his place, accepting rod and
lash because he was taught to accept it.
We built their mighty Republic.
With our hands and our blood and our lives.
And we can see it fall, at equal cost.
You opened my eyes to this, Spartacus.
Do not ask me now to close them.»

***

«Would that we could reverse the years, towards better footing.»
«I would not see it different. We have done the impossible.
Seen the House of Batiatus to ruin.
Laid waste to the arena of Capua.
Defeated Glaber and all of the Roman hordes who followed.
Restored heart torn from chest.
If you and I had taken to loving arms,
fate may have led us on a less glorious path.»

***

«Spartacus... When we were yet of Batiatus' ludus,
I spoke of how we may have been as brothers, in another life.
Yet not in this one. Know that I was wrong.
And will always hold you as such.»
«As I will hold you.»

***