| Diona | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
| First appearance | S0E01: Past Transgressions | |
| Last appearance | S0E06: The Bitter End | |
| Profession | Servant | |
| Race | Celt | |
| Relationships | Quintus Lentulus Batiatus (Dominus, deceased) Lucretia (Domina, deceased) Naevia (Friend, deceased) Melitta (Friend, deceased) Rhaskos (Rapist, deceased) Cossutius (Rapist, deceased) | |
| Status | Deceased (Executed as a fugitive by Caburus, during the opening ceremony of the new arena games) | |
| Actor/Actress | Jessica Grace Smith | |
Diona is one of many slaves who serve Batiatus and Lucretia and a close friend of Naevia. She appears exclusively in Spartacus: Gods of the Arena.
Appearance[]
Diona is a very beautiful young girl, green-eyed and light-skinned. She usually wears unassuming garments such as a small grey dress which is cut above the knees and the top-front is exposed from the neckline down to the chest, as do most other female slaves. And like other household slaves, including her friend Naevia and Melitta, Lucretia's body-slave, she often walks barefoot.
Personality[]
Diona's personality was cheerful and carefree until she is raped at the hands of Cossutius after Lucretia grudgingly offers her (along with Naevia, though Cossutius does not want her) as a sex slave. Her temper sours and she is ashamed to even look at, much less speak with, her friend Naevia. Her mood becomes increasingly darker as things progress, and as she is forced to lay with other men, and she is but a shell of her former self. Seeing her deterioration, Naevia finds a way to help her friend, although with unfortunate consequences.
Gods of the Arena[]
Little is known about Diona except that she appears to be a dutiful and obedient slave, and close friend of Naevia.
Diona & Naevia as friends.
As her masters scheme to gain influence, Diona is caught in the crossfire and becomes an unwillingly pawn in their games. As word spreads
Cossutius picking Diona.
that the House of Batiatus offers great pleasures, a high-ranking Roman man who was able to "sample" such pleasure before comes with a friend. Lucretia unwillingly offers the men two of her slaves - Naevia and Diona. Diona is chosen by the sadistic Roman due to her appearent tighter vaginal opening. She is then raped vaginally by a gladiator, Rhaskos, picked by Cossutius, while Cossutius himself grabs around her breast while explaining his viewpoint of how grotesque and divine are two parts of the same coin. He proves his point by grabbing her buttocks and rapes her anally. They then leave her disturbed and horrified. She becomes but a shell of her former self and even lashes out at her friend, Naevia.
After watching her friend forced to lay with other men, having to subdue endless sex and and serve as amusement for Roman pleasure, and seeing how miserable she is, Naevia helps Diona escape the villa. They are not suspected as the gladiators are fighting to gain rank in the Batiatus' Ludus, watched by Batiatus and his father, Titus.
Her escape is brief, however; unbeknown to Batiatus, Lucretia or Naevia, Diona is soon captured by authorities and sentenced to be executed in the arena along with three other runaway slaves, by the gladiator Caburus. When Batiatus learns of this, he is given the opportunity to stay her execution and have her returned to him. In a foul mood over Solonius recent "betrayal", he refuses and claims her death will serve as example to all who defy him. Diona shares a sad smile with Naevia standing on the balcony above. Then she is swiftly killed with a single sword-thrust to the back of the neck by Caburus, as ordered.
Years later, Diona receives some posthumous vengeance when in "Libertus" her two rapists Rhaskos and Cossutius are slain by Mycter and Spartacus respectively, in the same arena where she was executed.
Diona is executed by Caburus.
Trivia[]
- Diona is executed with the same type of sword strike, a downward thrust through her neck, that her childhood friend Naevia would eventually be killed by.
- Diona's two known rapists (Rhaskos and Cossutius) were slain on the same day in the same arena where she died.
- Diona may have been a Verna, or a house-reared slave. Vernae were slaves born in their master's household. The abundance of slaves from the time of the late Republican period of Roman history may have meant that as much of a third of slave population in Italy were Vernae.
- Female body-slaves in Roman society were known Ancillae, or "hand-maidens".
- A literal rendering of a female body slave in Latin is Serva Corporis.
- Diona shares her name with the female Titan who was the mother of the Goddess Aphrodite (the Roman Venus). The Oracle of Dodona in Epirus (Greece) was named for the goddess.