Headscratchers / Spartacus: Blood and Sand

• Why do the non-Roman characters defer to Roman gods? "Jupiter" could just be a generic Common Tongue name for "God", but they often mention Apollo and others as well. Presumably, non-Romans (Thracians, Gauls, Germanic peoples, Syrians) living in Rome have their own religious figures, and being attached to their heritage in other ways (Agron especially attracts notice for this, continuing to speak his own language and prefer his own countrymen), why, even without Roman masters overseeing them, do they continue to refer to Apollo, Diana and the like?
  • Small Reference Pools meets Translation Convention? People are more likely to have a general sense of what Apollo, Minerva, Diana, etc. represent than the much more obscure Germanic and other pagan gods, just because they get wider exposure in pop culture and education.
  • There's also some slaves who may have been taken much earlier in life, as Crixus implies in Gods of the Arena. They may not be aware of what their people's gods are.
  • That is basically what slavery does. The slaves are conditioned to forget their old lives and assimilate to their masters' culture and religion. It is better for their safety to start referring to the Roman gods, and lessons like that aren't easy to unlearn.
  • Many ancient religions are not well-documented. For example, the most well-known Germanic deities are actually those from Norse Mythology, all based on sources that were still a long way into the future from the period depicted in the show. So it would have been easier to reference deities that have a lot of original sources describing them and which are well-known in the modern world.

• Why does Iliythia not notice that 'Crixus' doesn't have the scars from Theokeles? We can see that the gold isn't enough to cover scars, you'd think it would be easy enough to notice. She was also close enough to Spartacus to see that y-scar on his collarbone when she was taunting him with the knife.
  • Lucretia does tell Naevia to get plenty of wine and make sure "our guest is well plied", and we see Iliythia with a goblet in her hand once Spartacus is presented, so she's likely been drinking quite a lot. And she is blissfully unaware of Lucretia's hate for her, so she wouldn't believe that she would be tricked into sleeping with anyone other than Crixus. So a combination of beer goggles and not expecting a different person meant she got caught up in the moment. Judging from her flashbacks in Vengeance, she appears to have quite enjoyed the tryst, so if she did suspect something then she probably ignored it because she was having really good sex.