Character guide

Beric

major

Also known as Beric the Briton, the Briton Beric, Scopus Beric

A British chief's son held hostage in Rome, Beric learns the legions' ways and the arena's savagery before turning both against his captors.

Boduoc

supporting

Boduoc waits at the forest's edge for Beric and shares his exile, his woad-stained body a walking rebuke to Roman softness. He is fiercely protective and fiercely anti-Roman, and Parta blames him for letting Beric stray into the wolves' reach. His loyalty gives Beric a countryman's anchor as Rome's glitter threatens to swallow him.

Norbanus

supporting

Norbanus runs the ludus where Beric trains, and his household becomes the Briton's refuge from palace intrigue. When Lesbia pushes a marriage to the profligate Rufinus Sulla, Norbanus quietly offers Aemilia to Beric instead, weighing obligation against affection. His steady pragmatism forces Beric to name his love and confront how little a captive's future can promise.

Pollio

supporting

Pollio drills recruits in the ludus, a hard hand whose discipline Beric must survive before he can command anyone. His harshness embodies the Roman machine that turns captives into spectacle, and every bruise he deals teaches Beric what he is fighting against. The trainer's petty tyranny is the first Roman authority Beric learns to outlast without breaking.

Berenice

supporting

Berenice moves in Rome's elite circles and counts Beric a close friend, but her feelings run warmer than she admits. When he speaks calmly of her possible return home, she storms off hurt, then confesses the quarrel to her father. Her jealousy and vulnerability expose the emotional stakes of Beric's divided life between two worlds and two women.

Aemilia

supporting

Also known as the Lady Aemilia

Aemilia keeps her father's household and shuns the court's debauchery, which is precisely why Nero covets her presence at his revels. Betrothed to Beric at Norbanus's urging, she becomes the line he will not let the emperor cross. Her dignity forces the novel's central collision between a Briton's honour and a tyrant's whim, and her safety is the price of Beric's defiance.

Nero

supporting

Nero rules a court of carousals, confiscation, and assassination plots, and after the Piso conspiracy he surrounds himself with guards he can trust — including the straightforward Beric, whose honesty he comes to rely on. His lavish building projects and public profligacy scandalize even Rome, and the provinces are bled to fund his pleasures. To the captive Britons, he embodies a civilization that has lost all sense of virtue, and his growing dependence on Beric tightens the trap around his foreign guard.

Suetonius

supporting

Suetonius has subdued the British revolt but returns to Rome under a cloud, his victories overshadowed by court politics. Rather than grant terms to the rebels, he pursued them to destruction, a decision Beric recalls with bitterness when the captives are marched to Nero's palace. His fall from favor shapes the prisoners' fate: no public triumph, only the gladiator school or labor on the emperor's palaces. He is the hard hand of Rome that made Beric a fugitive and then a captive.

Boadicea

supporting

Also known as Queen Boadicea

Boadicea commands the loyalty of fifteen hundred tribesmen who gather at her village for the wolf hunt, and she rules her household with the same stern authority she brings to war. When Beric arrives late, she rebukes him sharply, weighing his safety against the lives of the women who died in the forest. Her decision to rise against Rome sets the whole tragedy in motion, and her fierce, unyielding leadership defines the British cause that Beric must later carry as a fugitive.

Caius Muro

minor

Also known as Caius, Muro

A Roman centurion and early antagonist to Beric.

Aska

minor

An old British chief who first speaks to Beric at the sacred oak.

Lupus

minor

Also known as the Briton Lupus

A Briton companion of Beric, later a gladiator.

Porus

minor

A gladiator and friend of Beric in the ludus.

Ennia

minor

Also known as the Lady Ennia

A Roman lady involved in court intrigues.

Cneius Nepo

minor

Also known as Cneius, Nepo

A Roman officer and friend to Beric.

Lesbia

minor

A Roman woman, possibly a courtesan, associated with Nero's court.

Philo

minor

A Christian in Rome who aids Beric.

Parta

minor

A female slave or attendant in the story.

Petronius Turpillianus

minor

Also known as Petronius

A Roman governor or official in Britain.

Phaon

minor

A freedman of Nero who assists the emperor.

Catus Decianus

minor

Also known as Decianus, Catus

Roman procurator in Britain whose actions spark rebellion.

Galba

minor

Roman general who becomes emperor after Nero.

Prasutagus

minor

King of the Iceni, husband of Boadicea.

Rufinus Sulla

minor

Also known as Rufinus

A Roman patrician and rival to Beric.

Cerealis

minor

A Roman commander in Britain.

Caractacus

minor

A British chieftain who resisted the Romans.

Gatho

minor

A British warrior and follower of Beric.

Unser

minor

A German auxiliary soldier in Roman service.

Celsius

minor

A Roman officer or gladiator.

Julia

minor

A Roman woman, possibly a relative of Aemilia.

Lucius

minor

A Roman citizen or soldier.

Chiton

minor

A Greek slave or attendant.

Varo

minor

A Roman soldier or gladiator.

Rufus

minor

A Roman citizen or soldier.

Lycoris

minor

A female slave or performer.

Seneca

minor

Roman philosopher and advisor to Nero.

Claudius

minor

Roman emperor who conquered Britain.

Vespasian

minor

Roman general, later emperor, who fought in Britain.

Ostorius Scapula

minor

Also known as Ostorius

Roman governor of Britain who fought Caractacus.

Plautius

minor

Roman general who led the invasion of Britain.

Milo

minor

A gladiator or trainer in the ludus.

Borgon

minor

A British warrior in Beric's band.

Cassivelaunus

minor

Ancient British chieftain who fought Julius Caesar.

Veric

minor

A Briton, possibly a variant of Beric's name.

Lucinus

minor

A Roman soldier or gladiator.

Balbus

minor

A Roman citizen or soldier.

Cornelius

minor

A Roman citizen, possibly a friend of Beric.