In just a few short months (it has been way too long) and Gods of the Arena will start (21 January 2010).
IMDB has now put up their GotA page which also includes the name of the first episode (there will be 6 episodes in the prequel) and the cast list. I've added the official Starz cast descriptions since they are not the same characters we have come to love from Blood and Sand but younger versions and also new characters.
Episode 1 - Beneath The Mask
I think we are missing some of the cast from the IMDB listing but here is what they have:
Manu Bennett ... Crixus
The future Champion of Capua is at this time a newly purchased recruit enlisted into Batiatus’s gladiator school. Crixus revels in the opportunity put before him, to become a gladiator, to reap the glory that he’s always longed for. But to attain it, he’ll have to start
at the bottom of the gladiator food chain and fight the titans above him.
Dustin Clare ... Gannicus
A true physical specimen, fearless in the arena and possessed of a thirst for the fleeting pleasures of life, Gannicus is the gladiator a girl’s mother doesn’t want her to bring home. Newly promoted to the top position at Batiatus’s ludus, Gannicus is best friend to Oenomaus and his wife Melitta, forming an unlikely triangle of loyal friendship.
John Hannah ... Quintus Batiatus
Quintus is back and looking younger than ever and minus that awful shaving cut from Kill Them All. Batiatus is one in a long line of gladiator owners in his family, and at the time of the prequel, with his father away attempting to regain his health, has newly come to inhabit the role. Bold and impulsive where his father is restrained and conventional, Batiatus wishes to seize more for himself, to rise beyond his father’s station. With his wife Lucretia ever by his side fueling his ambitions, Batiatus schemes beyond his reach.
Lucy Lawless ... Lucretia
The beautiful and self-possessed wife of Batiatus, Lucretia is her husband’s foundation, always supportive of his dreams, however wild the direction they threaten to grow. Though conscious of the role she’s expected to play as a proper Roman woman, the ideas she and her husband cultivate and the company they are prone to keep means Lucretia continually stretches the bonds of propriety. Though initially reluctant to carry some of their schemes through to the end, Lucretia will discover that when the moment most needs it, she has a true talent for manoeuvring the levers of power.
Peter Mensah ... Oenomaus
Before he became Doctore...hunky Oenomaus (excuse me while I get my smelling salts...) Oenomaus is who we already know as Doctore. But at this time he is not yet the rigid disciplinarian who will come to reign over the ludus as the gladiator trainer. He is not far removed from the status of top gladiator at the House of Batiatus, having only recently survived his fight with the legendary Theokoles. He longs to return to the sands of the arena and reclimb the peak he feels is rightfully his, but he is yet a slave like so many others and bound to the notions of his masters. He finds himself caught in the middle of much turmoil, his status seized between the generational conflict within the house, between old loyalties and new responsibilities.
Lesley-Ann Brandt ... Naevia
Naevia is new to Batiatus’ villa, and soon learns that the position of female slave is vulnerable to both her masters’ bidding and the random turn of fate.
Nick Tarabay ... Ashur
Having just arrived with the new batch of recruits, along with Crixus, Ashur is swept up in the grueling fight to survive and prove himself worthy enough to secure standing as a gladiator. When it quickly proves difficult for him to advance on pure physical ability
alone, he must call on his more devious gifts in order to assure his place.
Jaime Murray ... Gaia
A long time friend of Lucretia, Gaia arrives unannounced in Capua, bringing along her taste for certain vices. On the prowl for a new husband, endowed with beauty, sexual adventurousness and an artful mind, she lends her assets to the cause of her friends, stoking their schemes.
Marisa Ramirez ... Melitta
Melitta is Lucretia's body slave and Oenomaus's wife.
Jeffrey Thomas ... Titus
Father to Batiatus, Titus is frail and ill of health yet still looms large as a commanding, paternalistic voice of discretion in his son’s life. Titus is a man of tradition, a proud master of gladiators who is devoted to the old ways and disapproving of his son’s departure from them. His conservative instincts are triggered by the audacious initiatives of Batiatus and Lucretia, throwing them all into greater and greater conflict, which threatens the house he’s given everything to build.
David E. Woodley ... Petronius
Starz has not released any info about this character as yet