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.
