CHARACTER DESCRIPTIONS QUINTUS BATIATUS [kwinn ... - Starz

CHARACTER DESCRIPTIONS
QUINTUS BATIATUS
[kwinn-tus/BAH-tee-ah-tus]
Batiatus is one in a long line of gladiator owners in his family, and at the time of the
prequel, with his father away attempting to regain his health, has newly come to inhabit
the role. Bold and impulsive where his father is restrained and conventional, Batiatus
wishes to seize more for himself, to rise beyond his father’s station. With his wife
Lucretia ever by his side fueling his ambitions, Batiatus schemes beyond his reach.
LUCRETIA
[lu-cree-shuh]
The beautiful and self-possessed wife of Batiatus, Lucretia is her husband’s foundation,
always supportive of his dreams, however wild the direction they threaten to grow.
Though conscious of the role she’s expected to play as a proper Roman woman, the ideas
she and her husband cultivate and the company they are prone to keep means Lucretia
continually stretches the bonds of propriety. Though initially reluctant to carry some of
their schemes through to the end, Lucretia will discover that when the moment most
needs it, she has a true talent for maneuvering the levers of power.
TITUS BATIATUS
[tite-us/BAH-tee-ah-tus]
Father to Batiatus, Titus is frail and ill of health yet still looms large as a commanding,
paternalistic voice of discretion in his son’s life. Titus is a man of tradition, a proud
master of gladiators who is devoted to the old ways and disapproving of his son’s
departure from them. His conservative instincts are triggered by the audacious initiatives
of Batiatus and Lucretia, throwing them all into greater and greater conflict, which
threatens the house he’s given everything to build.

OENOMAUS
[en-uh-may-us]
Oenomaus is who we already know as Doctore. But at this time he is not yet the rigid
disciplinarian who will come to reign over the ludus as the gladiator trainer. He is not far
removed from the status of top gladiator at the House of Batiatus, having only recently
survived his fight with the legendary Theokoles. He longs to return to the sands of the
arena and reclimb the peak he feels is rightfully his, but he is yet a slave like so many
others and bound to the notions of his masters. He finds himself caught in the middle of
much turmoil, his status seized between the generational conflict within the house,
between old loyalties and new responsibilities.
GANNICUS
[gan-uh-cuss]
A true physical specimen, fearless in the arena and possessed of a thirst for the fleeting
pleasures of life, Gannicus is the gladiator a girl’s mother doesn’t want her to bring
home. Newly promoted to the top position at Batiatus’s ludus, Gannicus is best friend to
Oenomaus and his wife Melitta, forming an unlikely triangle of loyal friendship.
MELITTA
[muh-lee-tuh]
Personal slave to Lucretia and wife to Oenomaus, the lovely and dedicated Melitta
struggles to balance the small portion of freedom she's attained within the confines of the
villa with the cold reality of her very real status as a slave. She is subjected to the
careless whims of her masters and their debauched Roman friends and finds herself
caught up in a web of desire and betrayal that threatens to tear apart her fragile place in
the world.
CRIXUS
[cricks-us]
The future Champion of Capua is at this time a newly purchased recruit enlisted into
Batiatus’s gladiator school. Crixus revels in the opportunity put before him, to become a
gladiator, to reap the glory that he’s always longed for. But to attain it, he’ll have to start
at the bottom of the gladiator food chain and fight the titans above him.

ASHUR
[ash-ur]
Having just arrived with the new batch of recruits, along with Crixus, Ashur is swept up
in the grueling fight to survive and prove himself worthy enough to secure standing as a
gladiator. When it quickly proves difficult for him to advance on pure physical ability
alone, he must call on his more devious gifts in order to assure his place.
SOLONIUS
[so-low-nee-us]
The future rival of Batiatus, Solonius is at this time a friend, trying to do what he thinks
best in attempting to navigate a path between Batiatus’s bold enterprises and his own
position at the foot of Capua's elite powerbrokers.
TULLIUS
[TUL-ee-us]
Tullius is the man that Batiatus would like to be. He sits at the head of Capua’s elite
class, steeped in money and rank and fearing no other’s ambition. This is the man who
holds the proverbial keys to the kingdom and he has no interest in loosening them from
his grip without extracting a painful cost from those beneath him.
GAIA
[guy-uh]
A long time friend of Lucretia, Gaia arrives unannounced in Capua, bringing along her
taste for certain vices. On the prowl for a new husband, endowed with beauty, sexual
adventurousness and an artful mind, she lends her assets to the cause of her friends,
stoking their schemes.
NAEVIA
[Nay-via]
Naevia is new to Batiatus’ villa, and soon learns that the position of female slave is vulnerable
to both her masters’ bidding and the random turn of fate.
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