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.
Celebrity writer Gabriele D'Annunzio was originally hired by Pastrone to write the screenplay. After long delays Pastrone and his assistant went to Paris, where D'Annunzio lived at the time, to excite him into action. More time passed, and the director's patience grew thinner and thinner, and in the end D'Annunzio merely rewrote in poetic prose the titles Pastrone prepared.