Lysandra

Age: 26

Birthplace: Sparta

Fighting style: Dimachaearia/Thraex

History: Four years have passed since Lysandra's epic but inconclusive battle with her hated rival Sorina.

Now recognised as Gladiatrix Prima of the eastern empire, Lysandra builds a temple her beloved Athene and the other Hellenic gods. The Deiopolis becomes the most popular pilgrimage site in the region, at once religious centre, women's sanctuary and centre of industry, the priestesses therein producing any number of goods for export across the empire.

But life of temple management and prayer makes her soft and she increasingly finds herself drawn to and controlled by wine. Her propensity to dabble in the Dionysian propels Lysandra down a path where she finds herself literally and figuratively lost.

But now the Emperor Domitian has called for a command performance at Rome's newly built Flavian Amphitheatre known to history as the Colosseum. Lysandra is invited to fight Rome's adored Gladiatrix Prima, the beautiful and deadly Illeana known as Aesalon Nocturna, the Midnight Falcon. Her record is devastating: thirty bouts; thirty wins- no draws or losses. Lysandra has to face up to all that she is and all that she must become as all roads lead to Rome.