“Mes­sala forged ahead, and as [he] neared the west­ern goal he began to draw in his left-hand hors­es for the turn. Ben-Hur leant for­ward over his Arabs…. They answered with
a bound that land­ed them along­side the Roman car.” —Churchill retelling “Ben-Hur,” 29 Jan­u­ary 1933. (The­atri­cal poster for a pro­duc­tion of William Young's adap­ta­tion, 1901, Library of
Congress)