With his master Batiatus dead, the ever devious Ashur seeks a powerful new patron who will appreciate his cunning gifts. He offers the experience gained from his years among the gladiators before they escaped from the House of Batiatus, which makes him an essential link between the mutinous Spartacus and the powerful Romans who seek his destruction. Beholden only to his own desire for enrichment and power, Ashur reveals a new layer of treachery that any who cross him will have to contend with.
Crixus is the former champion gladiator ousted by Spartacus who at a crucial moment came to his rival’s aid and facilitated the escape from Batiatus’s ludus. Crixus is looked up to by his fellow Gauls and is thus a crucial figure in Spartacus’ attempts to hold together the ethnically diverse group of rebels he commands. But Crixus burns for no higher cause than finding his lost love Naevia. If he can’t find and save the woman that was taken from him he’ll lose his reason for living and the rebellion will lose one of its fiercest fighters.
Gaius Claudius Glaber is the Roman commander who condemned Spartacus and his wife to slavery. Now holding the high rank of praetor within the senate, Glaber must hunt down his former prisoner to put an end to the budding rebellion, to defuse the threat to the Republic and fend off the political rivals that stand to outmaneuver him. It’s an objective he’d rather not leave Rome to carry out but if he can successfully put his capacity for ruthlessness and hatred for Spartacus to work he might win the glory and fame he’s always craved.
Ilithyia is the alluring and cunning wife of Glaber. Wanting nothing more than a life of comfort and upward mobility in Rome, she is dismayed to be bound to her husband’s unfortunate burden of extinguishing the rebellion in Capua. Returning to the city where she witnessed, and caused, so much bloody intrigue threatens to destroy the standing she has long thought rightfully hers.
Lucretia is the Roman widow found alive in her ruined villa, having survived the bloody gladiator revolt that took the life of her husband, the gladiator owner Batiatus. The traumatic devastation that was visited upon her has upended her world and her mind struggles to adjust to a new reality. Where once she and her husband maneuvered to ascend the social ranks of the Roman hierarchy, Lucretia is now left alone to hang on and merely survive.
Mira is a freed slave who played a vital part in helping Spartacus plot and execute the escape from Batiatus’ ludus and thus helped to trigger the uprising that now grows in strength. Mira is profoundly dedicated to Spartacus and the larger cause that inflames them both, proving herself a fierce champion for freedom and justice for those they fight alongside and those yet to be liberated. She is deeply devoted to the cause, and even more so to Spartacus himself.
The man once known as Doctore and proud of the mantle, Oenomaus is no longer a trainer of gladiators but a man now searching for his place in the world. Bereft of a wife and an occupation, he finds himself caught in the middle between his former loyalties to the Roman way of things and the rebellion against that way by the men he used to command. Oenomaus is a man with nothing left to lose; whose ferocious talent for fighting and teaching could potentially be a powerful gain for Spartacus’ cause.
Seppia is the fetching younger sister of Seppius who longs to ply her flirtatious charms on the elite Roman men that have come to Capua to pursue Spartacus. Her apparent carefree attitude sets her apart from her dour, disapproving brother but she shares with him a stubborn desire to have her way. Seppia will find, however, that she may lack the experience needed in matters of power and persuasion to satisfy her desires in the midst of the bloody affairs playing out in Capua.
Seppius is a young, headstrong Roman who leads his own band of mercenaries in the hunt to destroy Spartacus and his fledgling army. Seppius stubbornly refuses to cooperate with Glaber upon his arrival in Capua, establishing a tense competition to secure the honor that will come to the man who finds Spartacus first. Though severe in method and ruthless in character, Seppius will find that it is no small task to spurn the power of Rome.
A fierce warrior trained in the deadly arts of a gladiator. His loyalty to Spartacus and the rebellion is driven by his own need for vengeance for the death that befell his brother in the escape from Batiatus’ ludus. His volatility and quick temper stokes the antagonism that already exists between himself and Crixus.
From his distant days as a Thracian warrior fighting for Rome to his time as the slave who became the champion gladiator of Capua, Spartacus is now the unlikely but fated leader of one of history’s first revolts for freedom. With his nemesis Gaius Claudius Glaber dispatched from Rome to hunt him down, Spartacus fights to keep the bonds of his fractured band of former gladiators and slaves from fraying. To do this, he must strike a balance between the rigorous sacrifices required of a leader of a just cause and his personal thirst for bloody vengeance against the Romans who robbed him of his former life.
