Plot summary

In the last century before Christ, Spartacus (Kirk Douglas), a Thracian, is born into slavery, and thus being a slave is the only life he has ever known. Within his lot in life, he is a proud and principled man. He is among those slaves doing hard labor for the decaying Roman empire, before he is purchased by Lentulus Batiatus (Sir Peter Ustinov), a slave trader. At Batiatus' school, Spartacus and Batiatus' other slaves are brutally taught to fight as gladiators, purely for show, before they will be sold for a higher price. It is within this environment that Spartacus witnesses the potential kill or be killed situation of the school, those he is asked to kill or be killed by being other slaves, some like Crixus (John Ireland), who he considers friends. He vows that he will never kill a slave if he ever gets out of this situation. There, he also witnesses the depravity of those at the higher echelons of the Roman empire. Within the Roman Senate, there is a battle of philosophies between Marcus Licinius Crassus (Sir Laurence Olivier), who wants ultimate control, and more populist Gracchus (Charles Laughton). Spartacus' ultimate drive is to free all the slaves and be able to return to their respective homelands. Spartacus, as the de facto albeit reluctant leader of the slaves, is able to enact a plan to get within seventy days to the southern coast of Italy, where they can hire pirate ships to take them home. The slaves will have to fight any Roman armies along the way. Both Crassus and Gracchus know they must defeat Spartacus solely as a symbolic measure. What ultimately happens is affected by the philosophical differences between the two Senators, and Crassus' infatuation with a slave girl named Varinia (Jean Simmons), who is mutually in love with Spartacus.—Huggo