Xena icon Lucy Lawless returns to Spartacus role for 'history-altering' spin-off

The story appeared to have ended after season 3, which depicted the death of Batiatus's henchman, Ashur (Nick E Tarabay), during a chaotic and bloody slave uprising.

Spartacus: House of Ashur will depict an alternate version of events in which the character survives, with Starz promising an "erotic, thrilling, roller-coaster experience that builds on everything that made the original series a colossal hit".

The synopsis explains: "The series poses the question: what if Ashur, played by fan favorite Nick Tarabay, hadn’t died on Mount Vesuvius at the end of Spartacus: Vengeance?

"And what if he 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?"

Lawless will be back as a guest star, rather than a member of the main cast, but Deadline reports that her role will be "instrumental" in setting up this alternate version of events.

Previously, the Xena: Warrior Princess and Battlestar Galactica star has described Lucretia as both her "scariest" role as well as her "best" to date.

"[Lucretia] was pretty damn scary," she told Collider. "Xena was scary on that physical level because it was just relentless and I hated the action. I just hate fighting. But again, I didn’t have an option to hate it so I didn’t indulge that.

"But Spartacus was very difficult for – you know, that whole nudity thing is quite counter to one’s nature and to our culture."

She added: "I was just watching Gods of the Arena the other night. My husband had it on because we’ve been through everything else online... so we went back and watched our old show and, my goodness, that was really hardcore, very rich storytelling, so that was probably the scariest. And the best role."

Spartacus creator Steven S DeKnight will serve as showrunner on House of Ashur, which also stars Tarabay, Graham McTavish, Tenika Davis, Jamaica Vaughan, Ivana Baquero, Jordi Webber, Claudia Black, India Shaw-Smith and Leigh Gill.

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