Uh Oh

[przed]

So one thing that happened at MediaWest this year was a little conversation I had with m. butterfly, one of my best friends, fannish and otherwise. She'd been trying to pimp everyone we talked to into the Spartacus fandom, and was bemoaning the fact that while I'd managed to suck her into a few of my fandoms (Pros and TT chief among them), she'd never successfully managed to get me into any of hers.

As a joke, I said "Well, I could write you a Take That/Spartacus crossover."

Except apparently my muse didn't realize I was joking and immediately started pointing out how awesome Howard would be as a gladiator, and how great a Roman Jason would be, and wouldn't Markie make a cute little slave boy.

Then yesterday I wrote the first scene.

I now have 650 words of TT/Spartacus slash, and need to find time to watch all of Spartacus, and do extra research on Spartacus' rebellion and the era of Roman life in general so I can write the rest of what will no doubt turn out to be another fucking epic.

And if anyone has any brilliant ideas about how I can turn Howard into a Roman gladiator name, I'd appreciate it. (I don't think Howardus is going to cut it. *g*)

::headdesk::

Comments

[sineala.livejournal.com]

Points you might want to be aware of: a freed slave (who has to be over 30, if this is an issue) is almost but not exactly identical to a freeborn citizen, in terms of rights -- they can't hold political office, and they can't join the army. So if you want him spying, he can't actually be doing it in affiliation with the Roman military. I don't know if this presents a problem, but I thought I would mention.

If it helps, also, his master (assuming he's a senator/equestrian) would be at least bilingual in Greek (it was a prestige language for the Roman elite; they liked to have Greeks as secretaries and whatnot), and it looks like, judging by the war maps, that a lot of the fighting was in the south (IIRC, the south was definitely part of Magna Graecia) and Campania (has a lot of cities that were formerly Greek colonies, like Neapolis/Naples, which is why its name is Greek).

[przed.livejournal.com]

I'd intended to make Jason in his 30s, so that will work out. And I think I'll have him spying on behalf of his former senator/equestrian owner and friends of his who are concerned about the rising power of Pompey, Crassus and the military, so not having him able to serve in the army will also not be a problem.

I'd like to have had his former owner be a provincial governor or high official in several far flung areas of the republic. Would that make sense? That would give Jason the opportunity to pick up more languages along the way.

[sineala.livejournal.com]

Sure -- though if you actually want to make the senator former-owner a governor (proconsul) he will possibly have had to be consul first (I think it depends on the province). And that means you can actually make him a real person if you want since we know who all the consuls (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_consuls) were.)

Even if he stays in Italy he can pick up Latin, Greek, probably Oscan and Umbrian, Etruscan if it's not dead yet (and I don't think it is). Not sure about the prevalence of Gaulish outside Gaul. You probably can't appoint the owner governor of Egypt, because Egypt had special rules (and was not a province until Augustus, I don't think)... so Egyptian's out...