This was the first film to use a dolly-track system, the effects of which were pegged "Cabiria movements" in the industry.
According to Martin Scorsese, in this work, Pastrone invented the epic movie, and deserves credit for many of the innovations often attributed to D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille.
This was the first feature to be shown on White House grounds.
Created for this film, the character Maciste would become recurrent, appearing in several later films until the mid-sixties, always as a hero full of physical strength similar to Hercules.