#&. quintus lentulus batiatus : general

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batiatus really down plays just how goddamn clever he really is and i love it. like he and lucretia have that whole argument about what's going to happen when sura gets there. and batiatus is like don't worry about it, i got it covered. and then just as she does get there, she dies in sparty's arms and batiatus turns to lucretia with this look and says "my word is kept, they are reunited." all but saying that this had more or less been the plan from the start LIKE SIR THAT IS SO COLD and despicable but also absolutely brilliant

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also when batiatus chooses numerius choice over varro’s life, that is the exact moment the tide shifts as he losses any and all of spartacus’ loyalty, and he begins to question everything. that’s the moment where batiatus sealed his own fate

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the entire thing is very complicated. and terrible as a person that batiatus is, he’s not without heart or empathy. again this absolves him of nothing when it comes to his actions. but i do think beyond just like the very most basic needs being met, batiatus did care about his gladiators. this really doesn’t earn him any brownie points, because a lot of it ties into batiatus knowing and seeing potential. however we know both both oenomaus and crixus were nearly killed by theokoles. there’s a lot less detail when it comes to oenomaus but with crixus, a ton of time, care effort was put into his recovery. crixus was losing batiatus money and yet, even tho the idea was bounced around, the effort put into his recovery was never pulled. yes this does tie into a lot of the potential batiatus has a keen eye for. but he in fact did not have to do any of that. he does sort of have this bleeding heart in a sense, and he is seen as kinda an outlier for it and there’s a lot of manipulation at play when it comes to winning the loyalty of his men. we see it with spartacus, we see it with ashur, we see it with barca (whose death is one of the most painful because of it. and barca's death deserves it's own post tbh), we see it with oenomaus. and i really don’t think it’s entirely faked. batiatus’ reaction to barca possibly disobeying him, and the way ashur plays on that to his own advantage says as much. and later spartacus does this too. and as much as it works in his favor, the weird sense of compassion batiatus has ends up working against him.

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i have some real bad batiatus brain rot rn. he’s just so goddamn clever and charismatic while also being incredibly empathetic to the point where you start to believe he’s being genuine

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while batiatus certain never sees sparty as his equal, i do think there is a small bit of genuine respect for him. at least more so than batiatus holds for say crixus and probably even ashur or onemaous. batiatus isn’t stupid (most of the time) and he’s aware most people aren’t aware of how smart he actually is. unlike crixus he sees spartacus being more than just a gladiator, just the champion of capua, and it’s something he can relate to. 

i also think it’s very interesting that i say that but then at the same has this blind faith that he has sparty’s complete loyalty and trust (which for a hot second there he did), which ends up back firing horribly. 

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the fucking audacity of numerius. i forgot that the demonstration in ep 1.09 was supposed to be between spartacus and crixus but at the very last second numerius changes it to be between spartacus and varro. and you can see batiatus pause and is just like ‘this fucking kid is telling me what to do in my own house.’ but he allows it. and then numerius is like um no actually this IS a fight to the death

and im not excusing batiatus here but you could tell he did not want to do what this kid wanted, yet he felt backed into a corner. now had he said no, or attempted to make some other deal or something his down fall would have happened much later, because it is varro’s death that gets the ball rolling. and maybe he would have had the room not been full of influential romans batiatus was trying to gain the favor of. it should have been calavius who put his foot down and told his son no, and you know i do give batiatus props for you know later killing calavius and successfully blaming solonius that was so smart. he’s a terrible person but he’s fucking brilliant 

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anyways i have a lot of thoughts about how sometimes batiatus plays himself dumber than he actually is