| The Egyptian | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
| First appearance | S2E06: Chosen Path | |
| Last appearance | S2E10: Wrath of the Gods | |
| Profession | Assassin | |
| Race | Egyptian | |
| Relationships | Glaber (Employer, deceased) Ashur (Leader, deceased) Abrax (Ally, deceased) Fimbria (Ally, deceased) Danus (Ally, deceased) Nileus (Ally, deceased) | |
| Status | Deceased (Killed by Gannicus) | |
| Actor/Actress | Stephen Dunlevy | |
The Egyptian is a mysterious character who works as a member of Ashur's Group. He is a prominent antagonist throughout Vengeance.
Character Outline[]
A tall man with a muscular build, the Egyptian is a silent and dangerous man who rarely speaks. He serves on Ashur's team of mercenaries after being liberated from imprisonment.
Combat Prowess[]
The Egyptian is brutal in his fighting, preferring to use two daggers to slice and gut his opponents, as they are swifter weapons. He would also use a khopesh—an Egyptian sickle-like sword. He is a dangerous fighter and covered in scars from shoulder to shoulder, one for each life he takes then carved into his flesh.
In terms of strength, skill, stamina, and durability, The Egyptian stands as one of the greatest fighters portrayed in the show, his abilities above combatant levels of most rebels. This can be seen when he fights some of the more battle hardened gladiators such as Crixus, Oenomaus, Gannicus and Spartacus and holds his ground. The Egyptian is also incredibly strong and seems highly resilient to pain, as he is able to unflinchingly take arrows to his body and still manage to fight.
Vengeance[]
After successfully convincing Glaber that a type of fighter different from Roman soldiers were needed to defeat the rebels, Ashur begins recruiting the most bestial of men in Capua. His search leads him to recruit mercenaries and criminals, and eventually he comes to the Capuan prison to recruit the Egyptian, having heard of his fighting prowess. Due to the Egyptian's extreme violence, he had been forcibly separated from the other inmates and the
The Egyptian emerges from the well.
guards, and placed in a deep pit within the prison walls. Ashur threatens the guards into releasing him, and throws a rope down to the Egyptian so that he might climb out of the pit. As a test of his new group's fighting ability, Glaber leads them to massacre the House of Seppius, where the Egyptian slaughters a number of slaves and guards of the house with his twin daggers.
The Egyptian, easily besting his opponents.
Following Seppius' slaughter, The Egyptian and his fellow mercenaries are ordered by Glaber to crucify Illithyia's personal body slave, partly as a warning against Spartacus, and also as a measure of revenge against Ilithyia. The Egyptian strikes the body slave across the face, before Ashur's group nail her to a wooden post.
After Gannicus kidnaps Ilithyia, Glaber leads the mercenaries to a brothel that Gannicus had frequented in order to interrogate the residents and customers. There the Egyptian displays immense strength when he snaps the neck of a drunkard who dared to comment on Glaber's appearance in the brothel, twisting the neck backwards with ease. The locals are visibly horrified by such a feat. Despite the intrusion and the violent questioning, it turns out the only person there who knew Gannicus, Marcia, had been crucified previously, leaving Glaber with no one to question. Despite this, Glaber orders the Egyptian and the other mercenaries to interrogate the brothel-goers, resulting in all of the residents being mercilessly tortured and slaughtered. The mercenaries continue from brothel to brothel, searching for information and violently killing all who have none to give, only to return empty-handed.
The Egyptian's face.
When Lucius comes to negotiate with Glaber for Ilithyia's return, he is threatened by the Egyptian, but does not turn away from him in fear, and Glaber orders for him to not be harmed. Glaber later prepares an ambush for Spartacus and the rebels by filling the closed wagon, which was supposed to contain weapons as payment for Ilithyia's return, with his most fearsome fighters, the Egyptian among them. When Agron attempts to open the wagon during the trade to inspect the contents, he is attacked by the mercenaries within. Crixus engages the Egyptian in combat but greatly underestimates his opponent, and is caught off guard by the Egyptian's strength, unexpected skill, and apparent immunity to pain. The Egyptian nearly kills Crixus in the fight, but the Gaul is rescued by Mira and Lucius, who shoot the Egyptian with arrows. However, he shrugs off the arrows and attempts to pursue the rebels as they make their escape. Lucius stays behind to cover the escape in a final stand, and again attempts to kill the Egyptian with arrows, but his opponent continues his advance and beheads the Roman, despite being filled with arrows.
The Egyptian taking Lucius' arrows.
He would later use the head of Lucius to interrogate those who knew of the man and after finding valuable information he reports to Ashur who deduces Spartacus' location. For this the Egyptian is rewarded with food and wine.
Later during the attack on the temple, the Egyptian once again demonstrates considerable skill, taking on Oenomaus in the midst of the Roman siege. Although Oenomaus was still recovering from his injuries in the arena, they fight with rivaling prowess until the Egyptian stabs one of his blades through Oenomaus's left hand and into his eye, sadistically twisting it. He is knocked down the steps of the temple by Gannicus moments before he can finish Oenomaus off.
When a splinter group of Spartacus' rebels attempt to breach the Roman contain, he and Ashur are present with orders from Glaber. They help subdue their German assailants and defeat the entire group (which probably would not have been possible had they not been there), until Spartacus and the other warriors come to their allies' aid. Spartacus very briefly engages the Egyptian, and quickly overpowers him, kicking The Egyptian onto the floor just as the Romans begin to arrive, forcing him to then retreat.
The Egyptian is the first to turn on Ashur when Glaber is tricked into thinking he is a traitor, which was perhaps what spurred the rest of Ashur's group to mutiny. The Egyptian easily able to evade Ashur's enraged strike attack and disarm him, leaving Ashur defenseless.
The Egyptian kills Oenomaus.
In the final battle against the rebels after Ashur's banishment from their ranks, the Egyptian bests many of his opponents with ease. Gannicus spots him and the two clash, although Gannicus is quickly overwhelmed and knocked to the ground. Before the Egyptian can deliver a killing blow, Oenomaus parries his strike and proceeds to knock the man down remarking "I owe you pain". He then fights the Egyptian alongside Gannicus but The Egyptian, after receiving a flurry of blows, knocks Gannicus aside and catches Oenomaus by surprise driving his blade through his abdomen (a wound which he later dies from).
In retaliation, Gannicus kills the Egyptian.
Enraged, Gannicus calls out to the Egyptian and attacks him, disarming him after a few parried attacks and knocking him to the ground. The wounded Egyptian attempts to roll away, but a powerful overhead strike to the head from Gannicus destroys his skull, finally killing the mercenary instantly.
Killed Victims[]
- 2 Seppius Guards – Throats Slice. (Chosen Path)
- Drunkard – Neck broken. (Balance)
- Brothel Customer – Tortured to Death. (Balance)
- Lucius Caelius – Decapitated. (Balance)
- 2 Rebels. In final battle on Vesuvius. (Wrath of the Gods)
- Oenomaus. Stabbed. (Wrath of the Gods)
Trivia[]
- Stephen Dunlevy, the actor who plays the Egyptian, is 192cm tall.
- The Egyptian is the only antagonist in the series who fought against four (former) champions of the arena - Spartacus, Crixus, Gannicus, and Oenomaus.
- Gaius Julius Caesar had only faced two: Gannicus and Crixus.
- The Egyptian never speaks in any of his appearances with the exception of one occasion, when he delivers Lucius Caelius' head to Ashur.
- The Egyptian may have been part of a section of Egyptian society known during the Ptolemaic era (3rd-1st centuries BCE) as the Epigovoi. Epigovoi were the mixed-race offspring or descendants of native Egyptian mothers and Katoikoi (military settlers) fathers, who were often of Greek, Celtic or Thracian origin.
- If the Egyptian was an Epigovos (foreign halfbreed), it might partly explain his chosen profession as a mercenary, because contemporary Egyptian religious beliefs involved a great fear of dying abroad, as the proper funerary rites would be unknown to foreigners.
- A mercenary in Latin was Mercennarius, meaning "hireling".
- The Latin word for an assassin would be Sicarius, which literally means "dagger man".
Quotes[]
"It is a Roman, Lucius Caelius." ―The Egyptian to Ashur