All that is needed is pink lemonade sold in the audience.
The famous Cabiria, a tale of war between Rome and Carthage, by D'Annunzio, is a prime example of a success, where Antony and Cleopatra and many European films founded upon the classics have been failures.
With obvious defects as a producer, D'Annunzio appreciates spectacular symbolism.

He has an instinct for the strange and the beautifully infernal, as they are related to decorative design.

Therefore he is able to show us Carthage indeed.

He has an Italian patriotism that amounts to frenzy.

So Rome emerges body and soul from the past, in this spectacle.
He gives us the cruelty of Baal, the intrepidity of the Roman legions.
Everything Punic or Italian in the middle distance or massed background speaks of the very genius of the people concerned and actively generates their kind of lightning.
The principals do not carry out the momentum of this immense resource.
The half a score of leading characters, with the costumes, gestures, and aspects of gods, are after all works of the taxidermist.