| Danus | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
| First appearance | S2E06: Chosen Path | |
| Last appearance | S2E10: Wrath of the Gods | |
| Profession | Assassin | |
| Race | Roman | |
| Relationships | Glaber (Employer, deceased) Ashur (Leader, deceased) Abrax (Ally, deceased) The Egyptian (Ally, deceased) Fimbria (Ally, deceased) Nileus (Ally, deceased) | |
| Status | Deceased (Killed by Gannicus) | |
| Actor/Actress | Shaughan Campbell | |
Danus is a member of Ashur's Group of mercenaries. He is a minor antagonist throughout Vengeance.
Character Outline[]
Danus is a lean, untidy bearded man with Hemangioma on half of his face.
Danus' Face.
He favors a sword in battle and, like the rest of Ashur's Group, has great skill in combat. Danus also shows no mercy or remorse to whoever he is pitted against, even if they are innocents and slaves.
Vengeance[]
Danus is first seen with Ashur and his group of mercenaries and murderers, liberating The Egyptian from the Capuan Prison. He is later seen at the slaughter of Seppius's house, brutally snapping the neck of a struggling Slave girl. Danus takes part in killing the remaining slaves in the house as Glaber personally finishes off Seppius.
He is next seen crucifying Ilithyia's body slave, nailing the hand of the girl to the cross while The Egyptian holds her arm down. Danus then shows up in the Capuan brothel alongside Ashur's group, preparing to question people of Gannicus's location. In Ashur's flashback of the brothel torture, Danus pushes his sword through a whore's head.
During the wagon trade-off between Glaber and Spartacus, Danus waits with the group inside the wagon before they reveal themselves. He is shown fighting Gannicus, dodging several of his attacks, yet he is still sliced across the shoulder and punched in the face. Fimbria then aids him and together they knock Gannicus back and have the upper hand. However, they then take cover from the rebels' arrow fire.
He is seen briefly in the taking of the temple, attacking Spartacus quickly before the rebels escape by preventing the Roman's follow with fire. Danus awaits with the group at the temple, before they spring up to aid Ashur in confronting Glaber and the Roman soldiers. When Glaber offers the group 1000 denarii each, Danus quickly changes his side with the rest of the group, and turns against Ashur.
Danus is finally shown in the fight at the end in the forest, again fighting Gannicus. This time, he is skillfully disarmed of his weapon and slashed across the throat, killed off once and for all.
Trivia[]
- Danus is played by stuntman Shaughan "Shogun" Campbell
- Campbell can first be seen as a background gladiator in Spartacus: Blood and Sand as well as in Spartacus: Gods of the Arena. In Spartacus: War of the Damned he can be seen as Tiberius's Mercenary. He aids Mettius in holding down Caesar when Tiberius rapes him. He meets his demise at the end of Gannicus swords, having his head thrown to the rebels sitting by the arena. This is the second time one of Campbell's characters is killed by Gannicus, as Danus was slain by the same in the season finale for Vengeance.
- He is seen fighting Gannicus at both the wagon exchange and in the final fight in the forest, both times proving to be no match for the former champion.
- He is the second member of Ashur's Group to be killed by Gannicus.
- A mercenary in Latin was Mercennarius, meaning "hireling".
- The Latin term for an assassin is Sicarius, which literally means "dagger man".
- Danus' forward-curving sword is a falcata, a short sword of Iberian origin, which means he could be an ethnic Spaniard.
- The name Danus appears to be the Latin language rendering of 'Dane', which may give a clue to Danus' actual origins. It should be noted the Danes were first explicitly noted in literature by Jordanes, a Roman historian of Gothic-descent whom lived in the 6th century CE. So the Danes may have been a very small Germanic tribe during the First Century BCE, and were related to the Cimbri, who came from the Jutland Peninsula in Denmark. Danus may perhaps have been a survivor of the Cimbrian War which lasted between 113-101 BCE.