Drusus

Sorry, for the delay! PMs all round!

Hi all, just thought I would set up a plotter (to be updated over time) to set out my current character(s) and to see whether anyone has any ideas for RPing/plot development! Feel free to PM me with any ideas

Lucius Licinius Macer

Recently widowed senator with two small children. Until now, he has been too busy engaging in personal hobbies and leisure to devote himself to business and so has never risen higher than Quaestor. However, he is now bent on improving the lot of himself and his family, in whatever means he can. He comes from a family with a noble name (although not the richest in the world!). A devotee of the Games, theatre and literature he is open for both business and pleasure plots!

List of Threads

• A Rose By Any Other Name - Jan/March 74CE - Rome (Gardens of Sallust) - with Oriana Laecania
• East & West, Rome Knows Best - January 74CE - Rome (Temple of Isis & Serapis) with Quintus Sulpicius Rufus
• Horses and Fools - March 74 CE - Rome (Circus Maximus) - with Lucius Caecilius Metellus
• A Morning's Business - March 74CE - Rome (Domus Licinius Macer) - with Faventius

LUCIUS LICINIUS MACER

40 | 4 August 33CE | Senator | Landowner/Politician | Heterosexual | Original | David Morrissey

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Personality.

Lucius appears to be quite a relaxed man although appearances can be deceiving. From youth accustomed to the finer things in life, he is not happy when around hard work and prefers to manage matters loosely rather than engage in them too much. A keen reader and a devotee of the Games, he enjoys socialising, networking and engaging in the scrambles for petty power amongst the senatorial class. Although from the highest rank in society, his family is not amongst the most wealthy and has a better pedigree (from the ancient gens Licinia) rather than a healthy bank balance. Still, his ancestry opens doors to parties and possibilities and he has made a career out of trading off that. Interested in culture, he has tried his hand at writing scurrilous poetry and epigrams. He has spent too much time in enjoying the fruits of his position without actually pushing himself further. Now, following the death of his wife, he intends to try and progress his senatorial career and better the prospects of his childrens’ future.

Appearance

Lucius is on the tall end of the spectrum for a Roman, being a little over six foot. He has brown hair, cropped in a short manner in keeping with contemporary style. From spending large amounts of time engaging in his various indulgences his body tends slightly towards plumpness although this is kept in check, to a degree, by an active health regime at the baths and public gymnasia. A lack of military training, beyond the rudiments given in youth, shows. In terms of dress, he enjoys the visual display of status and is one for overly ostentatious outfits, including the wearing of gaudy jewelry. A personal favourite, despite his penchant for all things eastern, is the wearing of heavy, gold Germanic wrist torques.

Family

Father: Lucius Licinius Macer Valentinianus (d. 59CE)

Mother: Vibia (d.33CE in childbirth)

Siblings: N/A

Spouse: Sempronia Galla (d. 72CE)

Children: Lucius Licinius Gallus (b. 65CE) and Licinia (b. 69CE)

Extended family:

Other:

History

Lucius was born to a senatorial family in 33CE. His father, also called Lucius, was born Lucius Vibius Valentinus but was adopted by the elderly, childless senator Lucius Licinus Macer (the first) and carried across Valentinianus into his new adoptive name to display his heritage. A scion of the large Republican family, the Licinia, he could boast such grand names as the great general Lucius Licinius Lucullus and the triumvir Marcus Licinius Crassus, amongst the ancestors of his new family. Our current Lucius’ father had a thoroughly pedestrian career and, whilst engaging in general senatorial politics, never pushed himself beyond the low rank of Quaestor out of both personal and financial reasons. His wife, our Lucius’ mother had very little impact on her son’s life as she died in giving birth to him. His father, devoted to his wife, never remarried.

Devoid of a maternal influence in his early life and overly indulged by his doting father, Lucius had a riotous childhood in which he was, essentially, allowed to rule the roost. A series of private tutors came and went, mostly driven to resignation by their ward’s wild and wayward behaviour. However, they did instil in him a love of literature which he has kept throughout his life, being both a keen reader and writer. Much of his childhood was spent in escaping from his tutors and running wild through the streets of Rome, slipping into theatres and the Games to watch the spectacles which he soon fell in love with.

Although his father was lenient, he did have concerns over his son’s behaviour and so, at the age of 16, he arranged for Lucius to travel to Athens and there attend a number of finishing schools, designed to give him a full compliment of classical educational attributes. Much of his time here was spent attending lectures and alternating between sight-seeing tours of Greece, bingey afternoons in local taverns and chasing local women. Generally getting up to no good. After two years in Athens, he travelled on to Rhodes and there spent a further year studying rhetoric and oratory in the local schools. Freed from full time education at the age of 19 he was given permission by his father to engage in an extended tour of the eastern provinces. For the next six years (for the tour lasted far longer than initially expected) Lucius travelled in the east and became fascinated with Hellenistic culture. His travels took him to the great cities of Alexandria and Antioch but also to the rugged wilds of the Armenian mountains, the barren sand flats of Arabia and along the ancient, temple-lined artery of the Nile.

It was only news of his father’s progressively declining health that brought him back to Rome in 58CE. He managed to return in time to spend his father’s final months with him before the latter passed away in 59CE. Finding his father’s affairs in some disarray, the immediate next years were spent in settling his legacy, paying off any existing debts and touring his family’s property holdings with professional estate managers from Rome to review the means of maximising these properties for financial effect. Along with numerous properties in the city of Rome, he inherited a large number of farms in northern Italia, a seaside villa near Capri and a number of mines and arable farms stretching from Hispania through in an arc across the lower Gaulish provinces. As his agents recommended that an immediate injection of capital would assist in funding investment to bolster the productivity of these estates, Lucius took a rich wife, Sempronia Galla, whose father was a wealthy equestrian, active in high finance across the Empire and who was tangentarily related to the great, old Republican Sempronian family. Sempronia brought with her a substantial dowry which (with hr consent) the couple invested in the improvements suggested. This has, over time, worked particularly well and the profits from several properties, particularly the Spanish mines, have increased – although this is done on the dubious basis of heavy slave labour and very poor conditions.

Lucius kept a low profile during the disturbances which came prior to the succession of Alexander. In such a way he managed to weather the storms of civil war and proscription and survived unscathed. It was only in the wake of the return of peace that he finally felt confident enough to stand for the rank of Quaestor in 65CE and thereby enter the Senate.

His wife delivered a son, Lucius Licinius Gallus (“Lucius Minor”) in the same year as his entry to the Senate which Lucius took as a favourable omen for his political career. A natural member of the “blue bloods” his main use at present comes from the gravitas of having a Licinius on one’s side. Not that it counts for a huge amount in the Principate! A daughter followed in 69CE although Sempronia never fully recovered from the birth and became progressively more frail until she passed away in 72CE. The blow was a hard one to Lucius for, although the marriage had been for financial reasons, love had grown between the two and they had built a family. Her death was a wake up call for him as he was now responsible for the upbringing of his children. Whilst he has no intention of setting aside the finer things in life that he enjoys, he is now determined to manipulate, schmooze and do whatever else is needed to further his political career for the benefit and advancement of his family.

In his leisure, he is a devotee of the Games – being a particular enthusiast for the Races (go Greens!) as well as the theatre. He enjoys attending and hosting literary evenings, having a great passion for poetry, particularly humorous “attack” poetry, such as that of Catullus.

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