William Shatner credited as playing...
Captain James T. Kirk
- [last lines]
- Spock: [referring to Flavius] I wish we could've examined that belief of his more closely. It seems illogical for a sun worshiper to develop a philosophy of total brotherhood. Sun worship is usually a primitive superstition religion.
- Uhura: I'm afraid you have it all wrong, Mister Spock, all of you. I've been monitoring some of their old-style radio waves, the empire spokesman trying to ridicule their religion. But he couldn't. Don't you understand? It's not the sun up in the sky. It's the Son of God.
- Capt. Kirk: Caesar - and Christ. They had them both. And the word is spreading... only now.
- Dr. McCoy: A philosophy of total love and total brotherhood.
- Spock: It will replace their imperial Rome; but it will happen in their twentieth century.
- Capt. Kirk: Wouldn't it be something to watch, to be a part of? To see it happen all over again? Mister Chekov, take us out of orbit. Ahead warp factor one.
- Chekov: Aye, sir.
- Flavius: The message of the Son, that all men are brothers, was kept from us. Perhaps I'm a fool to believe it. It does often seem that men must fight to live.
- Capt. Kirk: You go on believing it, Flavius. All men are brothers.
- Claudius Marcus: Guards. Take him to the arena. Oh, we've pre-empted fifteen minutes on the early show for you. In full colour. We guarantee you a splendid audience. Er, you may not understand, because you're centuries beyond anything as crude as television.
- Capt. Kirk: I've heard it was... similar.
- Claudius Marcus: So, this is a Vulcan. Interesting. From what I have heard I wish I had fifty of you for the arena.
- Merik: This other is your ship's surgeon?
- Capt. Kirk: McCoy.
- Merik: It's a pity we can't let him loose in our hospitals. Our level of medicine would improve immeasurably, I'm sure.
- Claudius Marcus: Admit it, you find these games frightening, revolting.
- Capt. Kirk: Proconsul, in some parts of the galaxy, I have seen forms of entertainment that makes this look like a folk dance.
- Claudius Marcus: And you, Captain, er, which world do you prefer?
- Capt. Kirk: My world, Proconsul, is my vessel, my oath, my crew.
- Claudius Marcus: Now, Captain, what are you going to order your men to do?
- Capt. Kirk: If I brought down a hundred of them armed with phasers...
- Claudius Marcus: ...you could probably defeat the combined armies of our entire empire - and violate your oath regarding non-interference with other societies. I believe you all swear you'll die, before you'd violate that directive. Am I right?
- Spock: Quite correct.
- Dr. McCoy: Must you always be so blasted honest?
- [Drusilla is serving Kirk, making him very comfortable]
- Drusilla: I was concerned. I am ordered to please you.
- Capt. Kirk: I have been in some strange worlds, strange customs. Perhaps this is considered torture here.
- Uhura: [Kirk and Spock are assessing Planet 892-IV] Captain, both amplitude and frequency modulation being used. I think I can pick up something visual. It's a news broadcast using a system I think they once called video.
- Mr. Spock: "Television" was the colloquial term.
- Capt. Kirk: Put it on the screen.
- Uhura: Aye.
- Announcer: [static clears] ... Today, police rounded up still another group of dissidents. Authorities are as yet unable to explain these fresh outbreaks of treasonable disobedience by well-treated, well-protected, intelligent slaves. Now turning to the world of sports, and bringing you the taped results of the arena games last night: The first heat involved amateurs. They're petty thieves from the city prison - conducted, however, with traditional weapons, it provided some amusement...
- [one contestant kills the other]
- Announcer: ...for a few moments. In the second heat, a slightly more professional display, in the spirit of our splendid past, when gladiator Claudius Marcus killed the last of the Barbarians, William B. Harrison, in an excellent example of...
- [the picture fades]
- Uhura: Transmission lost, sir. Shall I try to get it back?
- Capt. Kirk: [Spock returns to his scanner] Slaves and gladiators... What are we seeing, a 20th-Century Rome?
- Mr. Spock: Captain, the one described as the barbarian is also listed here: Flight Officer William B. Harrison, of the S.S. Beagle. At least there WERE some survivors down there.
- Capt. Kirk: Captain's log, stardate 4040.7. On the surface of Planet IV, System 892, the landing party has won the confidence of what obviously is a group of runaway slaves. They dwell in caves not far from a large city, wear rags, live under primitive conditions; but they are creatures of a heavily industrialized 20th-century type planet, very much like Earth - an amazing example of Hodgkin's law of Parallel Planet Development. But on this Earth, Rome never fell. A world ruled by emperors who can trace their line back two thousand years, to their own Julius and Augustus Caesars.
- Dr. McCoy: [upon being released from their cell by Kirk] What happened, Jim?
- Spock: What did they do to you, Captain?
- Capt. Kirk: [reflecting on his night with the slave Drusilla] They... threw me a few curves...
