Latest news with #gladiator
Geek Culture
27-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Culture
'Spartacus: House of Ashur' Is A "What If" Sequel Where The Romans Won, Coming This Winter
What if Ashur (Nick Emad Tarabay), hadn't died on Mount Vesuvius at the end of 2012's Spartacus: Vengeance and had been gifted the gladiator school once owned by Batiatus in return for aiding the Romans in killing Spartacus and putting an end to the slave rebellion? We end up with a history-bending, erotic, thrilling, 10-episode sequel series, Spartacus: House of Ashur , that builds on everything that made the original series a colossal hit. Based on the teaser trailer above, the sequel series will introduce Tenika Davis ( Wrong Turn ) as a formidable new gladiatrix (female gladiator), Achillia, whom Ashur introduces as 'a sight never before witnessed in the arena'. The only other cast member returning from the original series seems to be Lucy Lawless, who will reprise her role as Lucretia, who will also be resurrected in this upcoming alternate reality take on the franchise, where the Romans won. Spartacus: The House of Ashur arrives this winter, exclusively on Starz. Yonk is a geek who is fortunate enough to have an equally geeky Star Wars fan for a wife, who owns a LEGO Millennium Falcon encased in a glass coffee table as their home's centre-piece. Gladiator Spartacus starz
Times
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Feasts, board games and brawls — life as a Colosseum spectator
For every Flamma, a Syrian gladiator who fought during the reign of Hadrian (34 matches, with 21 wins, nine draws and four reprieves) there was a flop. And when the answer to the question 'are you not entertained?' was 'no, not really', the Colosseum took matters into its own hands. A new exhibition in the underground tunnels of ancient Rome's great bear pit turns our gaze away from the gladiators and wild animals to focus on the spectators who spent hours in the amphitheatre, not just enjoying the bloodshed but munching on elaborate meals, playing board games, and carving graffiti of what they had seen. Among the highlights of the display, which completes the renovation of the underground area of the arena, is a lead tablet, the tabulae defixionis, bearing curses thought to be aimed at an unloved gladiator. The 50,000 spectators who filled the seats of the world's largest amphitheatre — the construction of which was ordered by the Emperor Vespasian in 72 AD and completed by his son and successor, Titus, eight years later — were known for the ferocity of their cheering, for betting on the outcome of fights and embracing the heroes that emerged, as slaves fought to the death for glory and, possibly, their freedom. However, for every rock star of the arena — Flamma turned down his freedom four times, beholden to the adulation — there were gladiators who cost the crowd money. A surviving example of the tablet ended up in the sewers and has been recovered two millennia later by archaeologists. Researchers strained to work out the content, which appears to contain an image of a shield, an abbreviation of a Latin word for pig and lightning bolts around a dried up tree. Undoubtedly, researchers concluded, an unfriendly message dating from the 3rd or 4th century AD and directed at a particular gladiator. The exhibition, which is open to the public in the eastern underground section of the Colosseum, complements a display on the life and equipment of the gladiators which opened in 2023 under the western side of the arena. The clues to the lives of ordinary Romans were recovered from 70 metres of drain excavated by archaeologists and speleologists working together in challenging conditions in 2022 and are now on display for the first time. 'We filtered the archaeological earth for every kind of refuse, even the smallest and apparently least significant,' said Federica Rinaldi, the director of the Colosseum site. The record of the daily pursuits of the Roman public was preserved in part because of declining standards of sewer maintenance in later years and by damage to underground structures from earthquakes in the 5th and 6th centuries. With games lasting for hours and sometimes for several days in a row, objects filtered from the earth reveal that women passed the time by weaving, sewing and attending to their personal appearance. A wooden loom shuttle, needles, hairpins and wooden combs were among the items found. Men devoted themselves to board games, carved on to the marble of the cavea — the semi-circular seating area — with lost dice and coins believed to have bounced off the stone and found their way into the nether regions of the amphitheatre. The smaller coins that were common in the last years of the empire, when inflation was rampant, were particularly easy to lose. In contrast, a larger gold-like orichalcum coin, an amalgam of copper and zinc, testifies to the munificence of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, struck to celebrate the tenth anniversary of his reign, which lasted from 161 AD until his death in 180 AD. The writer Suetonius recounts that Domitian, the emperor from 81 AD to 96 AD, had baskets of food distributed to the public between performances, while the poet Martial described the plebs consuming pork, chicken, pigeon, bass and moray eel on the steps of the amphitheatre. On display are oyster and clam shells, small animal bones, fruit pips and melon seeds, confirming that anything from a snack to a full meal was part of the games experience. Barbara Nazzaro, the technical director of the Colosseum, said a day out at the games was not unlike modern families going for a picnic. It was likely that people took food from home as well as consuming street food bought near the amphitheatre. But a family outing to watch the bloodsports didn't mean it was always a family-friendly affair. Fans could be agitated in support of their chosen gladiator school and public order at times a problem. 'There were certainly brawls from time to time. The amphitheatres were generally built outside the city walls, as a security precaution,' Nazzaro said.
Geek Tyrant
02-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Tyrant
SPARTACUS: HOUSE OF ASHUR – First Look Photos with Story and Character Details — GeekTyrant
Twelve years after the original Spartacus series signed off in a blaze of rebellion and carnage, Spartacus is officially back—and this time, it's Ashur's story. Spartacus: House of Ashur reimagines a world where the scheming ex-slave didn't meet his brutal end at the hands of Naevia. Instead, he survived, thrived, and is now master of his own gladiator school. Starz just dropped the first look via Entertainment Weekly, and Nick Tarabay is back. The series, created by returning showrunner Steven S. DeKnight, is an alternate-history sequel that picks up six months after War of the Damned . The rebellion is over, Spartacus is still dead, and Ashur has been handsomely rewarded by the Roman Republic for his betrayal. He's now in charge of the ludus once run by Batiatus, but holding onto power, especially as a former slave, proves far more treacherous than earning it. 'The only difference is Ashur didn't die,' DeKnight explained. 'Everybody else who died, I hate to tell the fans, they're still dead. I don't want anybody to think that we're digging up Liam McIntyre, as much as I would love to. But the war is over. The rebellion has been crushed.' That grim tone shouldn't surprise fans. The original Spartacus series was brutal, operatic, and soaked in betrayal, and this follow-up doesn't seem interested in softening things, least of all its lead. Ashur isn't getting a redemption arc. He's still 'scheming, murderous Ashur,' DeKnight confirms. But this time, he's a 'hero of the Republic' walking a tightrope in a society that mistrusts him just as much as it celebrates him. 'On the one hand, he's a hero of the Republic for helping quell the rebellion, but on the other hand, he's an ex-slave, which they don't care for,' DeKnight said. 'He's an ex-gladiator, which they care less for. And he turned on his brothers. Nobody trusts him because he, obviously, can't be trusted. So he's in this odd position where he has everything he ever dreamed of and is discovering it's really difficult to hang onto it.' Don't expect Ashur to suddenly grow a conscience. This is still the same venomous opportunist, just in a deadlier game. 'He is Ashur,' DeKnight said. 'He's the same guy, but in this position he's in now, he has to maneuver in a different way. Is he a good guy now? 'No, he's Ashur. He's scheming, murderous Ashur, but the best way to get an audience behind a character like that is roll out the people who are worse. The Romans, the elites are much worse than he is.' New cast members include Dan Hamill as Celadus, Evander Brown as Ephesius, Jordi Webber as Tarchon, Graham McTavish as Korris, and Tenika Davis as Achillia, the show's first gladiatrice. Ashur introduces female gladiators to Rome. 'We wanted to bring in the female gladiators, but historically they didn't appear in ancient Rome until about 100 years later,' DeKnight said. 'This time around, Ashur upsets history and introduces the female gladiator 100 years early. 'She's just as driven, just as dangerous as the men... One of the things we wanted to do on this show is, of course, have all those great staples of the original — the sex, the intrigue, the violence, the complicated twists and turns — but also offering something new. One of those main pillars were the gladiatrices.' DeKnight also addressed why he waited so long to return to this world. 'The reason I kept saying no year after year was that the show was incredibly difficult to do,' he said. 'And then, of course, we lost our star to cancer, Andy Whitfield, which really took the wind out of everybody's sails… I think I needed a decade to recuperate from the original experience, which was wonderful, but just grueling and emotionally gut-wrenching.' Spartacus: House of Ashur premieres this fall on Starz.
