Deirdre

Another of the four girls purchased by Priscium in the early film is Deirdre, played by the alliteratively named Lucretia Love. Her role is basically that of comic relief since she is a drunkard who has been stealing the master’s wine since her arrival. She is the one chosen to fight in the first gladiatorial contest, against Bodicia, where she is too inebriated to even hold her sword, finally collapsing on the ground in a drunken stupor, to the delight of the crowd which takes it all as a joke, and cheer spectacularly. Even when she does suffer a beating, for screaming at Cornelia that Timarchis is a swine, and wishing him dead, we hear no screams and it seems that she is almost too drunk even to feel Cornelia’s whip! Certainly she seems to have suffered no ill effects the next day and, sober, it is she who pushes Timarchus down into the arena. She fights with the other women in the battle scene, but even then her part has a comic feel; she is a rather inept fighter who has to be saved by Mamawi at one point when Cornelia attacks her, and in their escape, where Boadicea and Mamawi spring up onto horses, she has to be dragged up by a male gladiator and is carried over his saddle like a sack of potatoes, with much flashing of almost bare buttocks. On dismounting, she pauses in mid-battle with Roman centurions to swig from a wine flask she finds, and then disables an attacker by smashing the flask over his head. It is true that her death in the catacombs, when it comes, is rather pitiful but its purpose is to heighten the suspense surrounding the fate of the two heroines, and she is almost an inevitable casualty as the weak member of the trio in the climactic escape through the catacombs

The figure of Deirdre in the later film is a very different character altogether. Firstly, she is not one of Priscium’s new purchases but is already a slave at Durostorum when the new girls arrive, and she is not a drunk, but mentally unhinged in some way. On the girls’ arrival she has long hair dressed with celtic beads, and she witnesses the new arrivals being stripped by the two gladiators, and is clearly disturbed and traumatised by the scene. The next time she appears after the first gladiatorial fight, she is shaven headed and her behaviour grows increasingly erratic from that point on. Although she is quoted as saying of the Romans that "if they slap you on one cheek have to learn to turn other", a statement that seems inherently and famously Christian, there are no other signs of her being a Christian, and despite this pacifist policy, when the fight breaks out during the women, she joins in. Her participation only serves to demonstrate the state of her mental health, however, for she screams, chopping madly, and overturns the table but does not physically attack anyone. It is clear that her career as a gladiator is doomed from the start, and she is a figure of helpless ridicule in these scenes. At one point she arrives for training caged in a framework of twigs whichs she claims is her armour, provoking Septimus to rage and causing him to throw her forcibly from the arena. Like the Deirdre of the first film, she is picked to fight first, but where the earlier figure was a comic turn, unable to fight because of her inebriety, this Deirdre is mad, and lunges round, demanding a sword crazily, in a show that is pathetic and disturbing rather than amusing.

It is this performance that leads Timarchus in this version to select Lusinia for the fight in which she is killed by Jessemina, giving the plot a new twist as Deirdre feels responsible for Lusinia’s death and sits with the corpse, blaming herself, and pouring out her heart to the dead girl:

"I’m sorry. I should have been here instead of you. Think I’m crazy? No…People pretend they’re crazy because they scared of this life. They fear this life. You died because of my fear. I always fear something. Look at you, you’re so peaceful now. You’re not scared of anything. I wish you could tell me how it feels. No pain, no fear, no worries. Just silence. Silence".

These are the last words spoken by Deirdre; inevitably, she commits suicide, and is next seen hanging and at peace at last, while the Romans celebrate and revel in their own quarters. While it is true that Deirdre in the first movie also dies, her death lacks the power of the later Deirdre’s suicide. Despite the fact that the earlier woman is actually killed by Roman soldiers, the atmosphere surrounding the suicide is even more tragic, and paradoxically creates a more anti-Roman feeling than the first death, which takes place within the format of a standard chase scene.