Titus Balventius Marcianus

• Face Claim

  Joe Alwyn

• Location

  Rome

Recent Posts

1. 

   We Didn't Start The Fire...

   10 hours ago

   Mercifully the fire was still confined to the upper stories of the insula but the smoke and the haze had drifted its way down into the lower levels. Titus tugged up the scrap of material he wore knotted around his neck to cover  his nose and his mouth, eyes already burning. He heard a voice behind him and stopped. Of course. Not only would he be in trouble for charging in here without permission, but he was now about to get a citizen wounded or worse. He fought the urge to snap and tell the man to fuck off back outside with the rest of the people gawking, but time was running out and with two of them they might be able to get twice as many people out. 
   Thrusting his fire pole at the man, he glared - "Stay close to me, and use that," He jerked his head at the pole, "To test the floor before you walk on it - the fire eats  through the beams, you'll fall right th-through if you're not careful." The smoke was already making it hard to breathe, let alone speak and Titus hurriedly turned around and continued down the corridor. Most from this level would have been evacuated, but they needed to reach the top floors. Buckets of water - full - lay abandoned on the stairs from where the vigiles had abandoned them when recalled from the insula. Hoisting one up, he began to trudge up the stairs to the sound of crying and the heat of the fire. 
    
   TAG: @Chevi
   
2. 

   We Didn't Start The Fire...

   11 hours ago

   "Because they're going to let it burn." Titus spat back, his own chest heaving and burning. He glanced up again at the insula. Nobody was coming out anymore - no civilians and certainly no vigiles who merely stood around with their firesticks looking confused or worse, bored. Titus ground his teeth and glanced to the youth next to him who looked ashen faced and terrified. It was likely the first big fire he'd seen. "You'll be fine." He clapped the lad on the back which made him jump with a start. Titus saw the flicker of fear in his eyes and wondered if the boy would bolt. He didn't, but he did glance sideways to the centurion. 
   He'd be useless in there, Titus thought. The only  thing worse than having no help was having somebody who was so shit-scared that they'd make stupid mistakes. Suppressing a frustrated groan, he grabbed the front of the boy's tunic and shook him to get his attention. "You're not going up, but I want you to stand here and wait for me and anybody else that I bring down, alright? If the centurion asks, you tell him you don't know where I am, alright?" The youth nodded dumbly, and then, without a second thought, Titus slipped past him and into the haze and the smoke of the building...
    
   TAG: @Chevi
   
3. 

   We Didn't Start The Fire...

   Sunday at 03:26 PM

   The centurion guffawed and shot Lucius an exasperated look, only thinly disguising his indifference. "We'll get them out when it cools a bit." The man looked Lucius up and down with narrowed, beady eyes; "Sir." 
   Then he turned his back and stalked away, barking orders at his men as they streamed out of the building and milled about in the courtyard - catching their breath or impassively looking up at the billowing smoke coming out of the insula. Titus, however, was doing neither. Gaius was still barely able to stand and his breathing was becoming more laboured by the minute. He'd managed to grab the neck of a gangly youth who'd been with them only a few weeks and convinced him to go back up, but beyond that, his unit seemed utterly disinterested in saving those still in the block. Time was running out, even an idiot could see that. 
   Glancing around he barked at Lucius - a little way off, "You, get over here." The vigiles didn't have a great deal of power over the populace of Rome but Titus was never much one for propriety, "I need you to take him to the medicus whilst we go up." He jerked his head at Gaius, panting at his feet, and then back up at the burning building. He could do with more men to go in with, but there was nobody in earshot or not under the sway of their indifferent centurion. 
    
   TAG: @Chevi
   
4. 

   We Didn't Start The Fire...

   August 18

   Titus whipped his head around at the other man, tempted - sorely tempted - to just shove him back into the melee of onlookers, gawping, crying and laughing around them. He restrained himself just in time. There were enough injured people here already, he didn't need to add to the medicus' workload from a brawl. 
   "Go and ask the centurion, I don't have time for you." He jerked his head at the balding, rotund little man who was stood about chatting to one of the evacuees from the lower levels of the block. Titus weaved through the crowd until he reached Gaius at the steps. The man was wheezing and has his hand outstretched to support himself. Titus' jaw worked, the muscles of his neck tensing as his eyes flicked between the building and his friend. The screams were getting louder, were louder here by the stairs. Some people must be lost in the smoke. 
   "Can you make it up?" Titus asked and pulled the man, his friend, to stand. Gaius nodded but his red rimmed eyes and panting breath told a different story. More of his colleagues were streaming out of the building but with fewer and fewer residents each time. "Do we know anybody else still in there?" Gaius looked as if he might pass out at any moment. 
    
   TAG: @Chevi
   
5. 

   We Didn't Start The Fire...

   August 17

   Marcianus didn't have a great deal of patience at the best of times, and right now his good manners were hanging by a rapidly fraying thread. He followed the other man's gaze up to the top floor of the building, his jaw set into a hard line as he surveyed the scene. 
   "Yes, there are." He commented and then made to move again but as he did a cough echoed up from his lungs and seized his breath. It burned and ached his chest, but he had the sense to duck down as he did to hide himself despite the pain, lest his centurion glance over and see him approaching the building again. When he'd shaken off the worst of it he popped his head up - eyes darting back to the steps where Gaius stood, similarly racked with a cough. No wonder the vigiles' ranks were full of freedman, they were the perfect, cheap, dispensable fodder. 
   He made no more move to talk to the man who had gotten in his way and slipped past him to try and reach Gaius and the fire sticks, eyes still trained on the building and unaware he wasn't alone moving through the crowd. 
    
   TAG: @Chevi
   
6. 

   We Didn't Start The Fire...

   August 17

   August, 76AD
   Mercifully - and Marcianus thanked all of the Gods - the insula looked like it would hold. The fire was confined to the upper stories which meant the foundations - decrepit and decaying though they were - should hold. That fact, however, did not help those people - his sort of people - trapped on the upper floor, just above the fire line. As always in these situations a crowd had gathered outside the building, the richer (although this was the subura, so how rich could they be?) dwellers in the building had evacuating and barked orders at the freedmen Vigiles that were trying to salvage the building, whilst on-lookers from the nearby poppina's and taverna's came out, drinks in their hands and grins on their faces as if they were viewing some twisted form of entertainment as the poorer citizens of the block lost everything in a cloud of ash and smoke. 
   The muscles in his jaw worked as he watched them, tensing and flexing with hard eyes and a grim look on his ash smeared face. His hair - usually an unusual blonde - was almost black with smoke and dust and rivulets of sweat streaked down his face and neck. He'd been forced outside by his centurion, a humourless, useless man in his fifties who took as much pleasure in helping people as he did in socialising, which was to say, none at all. He'd had to have been yanked out by the back of his tunic and forcibly moved down the stairs, even as residents streamed past them. He'd been in the building too long - apparently - and the cough that rattled his lungs was testament to that, but as he eyed the building - the smoke billowing upwards into the night sky, he knew he couldn't sit idly by. The old and frail, the young and poor were still up there on the floors immediately above and below the fire, trying to find their way down in the smoke. He swallowed and felt as if his teeth might splinter from the set of his jaw. 
   Pushing himself up nimbly, he ducked down behind the crowd to avoid the glances of his superiors. His eyes caught Gaius' - a friend and a follower to the hilt - who judging by his grim expression and itching fingers, wanted back in as much as Marcianus himself. He jerked his head towards the south stairs and then the fire hooks which had been deposited there by the last of their century to leave the building for rest. He knew his friends, colleagues were in there still and surely the Centurion wouldn't notice his absence? He moved to reach Gaius and slip unseen back into the building but before he did, his shoulder collided with anothers and he glanced up - his face painting a picture of displeasure. "Go and gawk somewhere else, it isn't safe here." The building might not come down onto the crowd, but the people jumping from it might.
    
   TAG: @Chevi
   
7. 

   Titus Balventius Marcianus

   August 14

   TITUS BALVENTIUS MARCIANUS
   26 | 16th May 50AD | Freedman | Vigiles Urbani | Heterosexual | Original | Joe Alwyn
    
   
    
   Personality.
   Marcianus struggles with conflict most days of his life. On one hand he wants to do the best job he can for the people of Rome now he has the chance to do so but on the other he knows the vigiles are ineffective, complacent and at worst - complicit in the crime that spreads throughout the city. 
   He thinks emotionally rather than analytically, and whilst he has a keen eye for his work, nobody would call Marcianus an intellectual. He is headstrong and is frequently disciplined for stepping over the mark, or doing something without the permission of his senior officers because he follows his gut, including placing himself first into the fire or brawl and last back out. Naturally a leader but displaced because of his position as a foreigner and a freedman and a young one at that, and therefore not eligible to take a leadership position within the vigiles, he struggles with authority but gains the trust of his peers (if not the officers) easily. His ambition is to enter the Cohortes urbanae to actually create impactful change, but given he needs to complete his six years of service to receive citizenship, he has a while to wait.
   He has been wounded by his past and what he endured in his time as a slave and this colours his view of the aristocracy in the city. Because of all of this he can - to some - seem serious, and uncomfortable with intimacy beyond a few very close friends. He trusts precious few and those he does trust have to earn it; only then will they see a slightly lighter side to his personality. He has a dry sense of humour and will crack a wry smile when warranted but would prefer to keep his head down and do his job.
    
   Appearance
   Marcianus is blonde like many of his people from his corner of the empire and keeps it slightly longer than the close crop of many citizens. He has pale blue eyes and pale skin like his family, and keeps clean shaven for the most part. He is tall and athletically built from his work both as a slave and now in the vigiles, and prefers to take his exercise on the job or via spars with friends rather than showing off at the palestra. Given the nature of his work and his desire to get into the thick of it, he can often be seen sporting a black eye, cut lip or assortment of other minor wounds. He has scars from the more serious, including one that curls beneath his collarbone from the knife of a pickpocket. From his time as a slave he picked up more to add to his collection including a series of whip marks that have now faded to a silvery white across his back. 
    
   Family
   Father: Brennos 
   Mother: Coria 
   Siblings: Toccus (brother - born 47AD), Titus Balventius Caius (brother - born 57AD)
   Spouse: N/A
   Children: N/A
   Extended family: N/A
   Other: Titus Balventius Venustus and Antonia Siricius (former owners).
    
   History
   50AD (0 years old) - Marcianus is born and named Acco, to a family of meagre means in Gallia. His parents earned their way through life with a series of odd-jobs including his mother lending services to billeted Roman soldiers in nearby settlements and encampments. The second of his parents' children, Acco is immediately considered a spare part.
   57AD (7 years old) - Marcianus’ younger brother Carantus is born and much like him, treated as an extra mouth to feed. 
   64AD (14 years old) - As was the way with many people in his parents position, time and harsh winters were not on their side. Desperate for money and with failing businesses they did what many would think was inconceivable; they sold their sons. Two of them, at least, keeping Toccus back for support and earning potential. Acco (now Marcus) and his brother were fortunate though, in a manner of speaking. They were sold as a pair to their first owner - a farmer on the border in Raetia. Even when the farm folded and he was sold again - Fortuna smiled on him and his brother as half the work force were sold to the farm of Titus Balventius Venustus, a cousin of his former owner, over the border in Italia. 
   65AD - 75AD (15 - 25 years old) - Life passes by with little note for Marcus. He works the fields and watches his brother grow. His Latin becomes fluent and the accent of his youth slowly disappears (although after a drink or three it comes out again in force). He longed for adventure though and found living under the authority of another more challenging as he grew. He took to excursions; hunting in the summer to provide more sustenance for his brother, visiting a girl a few miles over, even embroiling himself in notions of a coup...earning him whippings for the former, and mercifully nothing on the latter as his owner died before any of his plans came to fruition. 
   75AD (25 years old) - His owner dead Marcus fully expected himself and his brother to be sold on again but Fortuna had one more surprise for him. Written into his owners will was a condition wherein any slave who had served the family for longer than a decade was manumitted. Marcus and his brother had been there for 10 years, 3 weeks and 1 day. They were freed and with a bag of gold and a cold shoulder from his childless mistress (who - despite tradition - wanted nothing to do with twenty freed slaves in her familia) Marcus - now styled Marcianus - headed for the only place he could think to find adventure; Rome.
   76AD (26 years old) - He was sure some his kin would scoff at the notion of a man previously enslaved joining the vigiles after all he had suffered, but for Marcianus it was perfect. He needed a steady paycheck for his brother, and he wanted excitement and the opportunity to do better, to lead. The vigiles opened a door for him and he threw himself into it. He’s been with them now for a little over six months and has big plans for the future. 
    
    
   Sara | GMT | Discord
   

Topics I Participated In

1. 

   We Didn't Start The Fire...

   Started by Titus Balventius Marcianus · August 17

   August, 76AD
   Mercifully - and Marcianus thanked all of the Gods - the insula looked like it would hold. The fire was confined to the upper stories which meant the foundations - decrepit and decaying though they were - should hold. That fact, however, did not help those people - his sort of people - trapped on the upper floor, just above the fire line. As always in these situations a crowd had gathered outside the building, the richer (although this was the subura, so how rich could they be?) dwellers in the building had evacuating and barked orders at the freedmen Vigiles that were trying to salvage the building, whilst on-lookers from the nearby poppina's and taverna's came out, drinks in their hands and grins on their faces as if they were viewing some twisted form of entertainment as the poorer citizens of the block lost everything in a cloud of ash and smoke. 
   The muscles in his jaw worked as he watched them, tensing and flexing with hard eyes and a grim look on his ash smeared face. His hair - usually an unusual blonde - was almost black with smoke and dust and rivulets of sweat streaked down his face and neck. He'd been forced outside by his centurion, a humourless, useless man in his fifties who took as much pleasure in helping people as he did in socialising, which was to say, none at all. He'd had to have been yanked out by the back of his tunic and forcibly moved down the stairs, even as residents streamed past them. He'd been in the building too long - apparently - and the cough that rattled his lungs was testament to that, but as he eyed the building - the smoke billowing upwards into the night sky, he knew he couldn't sit idly by. The old and frail, the young and poor were still up there on the floors immediately above and below the fire, trying to find their way down in the smoke. He swallowed and felt as if his teeth might splinter from the set of his jaw. 
   Pushing himself up nimbly, he ducked down behind the crowd to avoid the glances of his superiors. His eyes caught Gaius' - a friend and a follower to the hilt - who judging by his grim expression and itching fingers, wanted back in as much as Marcianus himself. He jerked his head towards the south stairs and then the fire hooks which had been deposited there by the last of their century to leave the building for rest. He knew his friends, colleagues were in there still and surely the Centurion wouldn't notice his absence? He moved to reach Gaius and slip unseen back into the building but before he did, his shoulder collided with anothers and he glanced up - his face painting a picture of displeasure. "Go and gawk somewhere else, it isn't safe here." The building might not come down onto the crowd, but the people jumping from it might.
    
   TAG: @Chevi
   
2. 

   Titus Balventius Marcianus

   Started by Titus Balventius Marcianus · August 14

   TITUS BALVENTIUS MARCIANUS
   26 | 16th May 50AD | Freedman | Vigiles Urbani | Heterosexual | Original | Joe Alwyn
    
   
    
   Personality.
   Marcianus struggles with conflict most days of his life. On one hand he wants to do the best job he can for the people of Rome now he has the chance to do so but on the other he knows the vigiles are ineffective, complacent and at worst - complicit in the crime that spreads throughout the city. 
   He thinks emotionally rather than analytically, and whilst he has a keen eye for his work, nobody would call Marcianus an intellectual. He is headstrong and is frequently disciplined for stepping over the mark, or doing something without the permission of his senior officers because he follows his gut, including placing himself first into the fire or brawl and last back out. Naturally a leader but displaced because of his position as a foreigner and a freedman and a young one at that, and therefore not eligible to take a leadership position within the vigiles, he struggles with authority but gains the trust of his peers (if not the officers) easily. His ambition is to enter the Cohortes urbanae to actually create impactful change, but given he needs to complete his six years of service to receive citizenship, he has a while to wait.
   He has been wounded by his past and what he endured in his time as a slave and this colours his view of the aristocracy in the city. Because of all of this he can - to some - seem serious, and uncomfortable with intimacy beyond a few very close friends. He trusts precious few and those he does trust have to earn it; only then will they see a slightly lighter side to his personality. He has a dry sense of humour and will crack a wry smile when warranted but would prefer to keep his head down and do his job.
    
   Appearance
   Marcianus is blonde like many of his people from his corner of the empire and keeps it slightly longer than the close crop of many citizens. He has pale blue eyes and pale skin like his family, and keeps clean shaven for the most part. He is tall and athletically built from his work both as a slave and now in the vigiles, and prefers to take his exercise on the job or via spars with friends rather than showing off at the palestra. Given the nature of his work and his desire to get into the thick of it, he can often be seen sporting a black eye, cut lip or assortment of other minor wounds. He has scars from the more serious, including one that curls beneath his collarbone from the knife of a pickpocket. From his time as a slave he picked up more to add to his collection including a series of whip marks that have now faded to a silvery white across his back. 
    
   Family
   Father: Brennos 
   Mother: Coria 
   Siblings: Toccus (brother - born 47AD), Titus Balventius Caius (brother - born 57AD)
   Spouse: N/A
   Children: N/A
   Extended family: N/A
   Other: Titus Balventius Venustus and Antonia Siricius (former owners).
    
   History
   50AD (0 years old) - Marcianus is born and named Acco, to a family of meagre means in Gallia. His parents earned their way through life with a series of odd-jobs including his mother lending services to billeted Roman soldiers in nearby settlements and encampments. The second of his parents' children, Acco is immediately considered a spare part.
   57AD (7 years old) - Marcianus’ younger brother Carantus is born and much like him, treated as an extra mouth to feed. 
   64AD (14 years old) - As was the way with many people in his parents position, time and harsh winters were not on their side. Desperate for money and with failing businesses they did what many would think was inconceivable; they sold their sons. Two of them, at least, keeping Toccus back for support and earning potential. Acco (now Marcus) and his brother were fortunate though, in a manner of speaking. They were sold as a pair to their first owner - a farmer on the border in Raetia. Even when the farm folded and he was sold again - Fortuna smiled on him and his brother as half the work force were sold to the farm of Titus Balventius Venustus, a cousin of his former owner, over the border in Italia. 
   65AD - 75AD (15 - 25 years old) - Life passes by with little note for Marcus. He works the fields and watches his brother grow. His Latin becomes fluent and the accent of his youth slowly disappears (although after a drink or three it comes out again in force). He longed for adventure though and found living under the authority of another more challenging as he grew. He took to excursions; hunting in the summer to provide more sustenance for his brother, visiting a girl a few miles over, even embroiling himself in notions of a coup...earning him whippings for the former, and mercifully nothing on the latter as his owner died before any of his plans came to fruition. 
   75AD (25 years old) - His owner dead Marcus fully expected himself and his brother to be sold on again but Fortuna had one more surprise for him. Written into his owners will was a condition wherein any slave who had served the family for longer than a decade was manumitted. Marcus and his brother had been there for 10 years, 3 weeks and 1 day. They were freed and with a bag of gold and a cold shoulder from his childless mistress (who - despite tradition - wanted nothing to do with twenty freed slaves in her familia) Marcus - now styled Marcianus - headed for the only place he could think to find adventure; Rome.
   76AD (26 years old) - He was sure some his kin would scoff at the notion of a man previously enslaved joining the vigiles after all he had suffered, but for Marcianus it was perfect. He needed a steady paycheck for his brother, and he wanted excitement and the opportunity to do better, to lead. The vigiles opened a door for him and he threw himself into it. He’s been with them now for a little over six months and has big plans for the future. 
    
    
   Sara | GMT | Discord
   

Other Characters by this Player