Teutus

[Sharpie]

Teutus

23 | April 50 | Slave | House-slave/Secretary | Bisexual | Wanted | Alex Wyndham

 

 

Personality.

Teutus has known almost since he can remember that he is his master's son, yet because he was not taken up in the tollere liberos when presented to his father, he has been condemned to a life of slavery just because his mother was a slave. This has led to some deep-seated resentment, especially now, when he is being groomed to become his father's son after he is freed, by legal adoption. That his father seems to be taking his sweet time over freeing him isn't helping.

He is also aware of the fact that his father sold another slave, called Anteros, when he (Teutus) was about thirteen. He was never informed of the precise reason for this, but has begun to suspect that it was because his father had developed an attachment for him.

To other people, Teutus (his name refers to the time his father spent in Germania) is the perfect slave, obedient, intelligent when required to be, offering opinions respectfully when asked. To the other slaves in the household, he is polite, and businesslike, trying to learn to keep his distance although it is hard and means he doesn't really have anyone he can share things with, which is yet another thing he resents his father for.

He has become quite a serious, slightly withdrawn young man as he has grown older and learned what he has been cheated of - his mother was sold when he was fifteen, at the same time as he was informed that he would begin learning what it meant to be a citizen and that he would be given his freedom and formally adopted as his master's son, which he was. He resents his father for so much, it would be hard to begin listing everything.

He enjoys learning new things, something he has not always had the opportunity to do before, and understands the value of an education, even though a lot of what he is learning has limited value to him right now.

 

Appearance

With the same dark hair and blue eyes, it would be hard not to notice the familial similarity between Teutus and his master, Tertius Quinctilius Varus, who just happens to be his biological father. Teutus is taller than his father and more willowy, traits from his slave mother. He dresses neatly but unobtrusively, as befits a slave dancing personal attendance on a citizen in public.

 

Family

Father: Tertius Quinctilius Varus (senator)

Mother: Varinia  (slave)

Step-mother: Antonia Justa (dead 65 AD) (Tertius' wife, Teutus' mistress)

Siblings: Antonia Varia (b. 64 AD, 9 years old) (half-sister)

Spouse: None

Children:

Extended family:

--Uncle: Secundus Quintilicus Varus, 45
--Aunt: Quintilia Varia, 40, Widow

--Cousins: Lucilla Auletia, 18;  Marcus Lucius Auletius, 15

Other:

Hector (21) (Tertius' body-slave, Teutus' fellow slave)

 

History

Born in April 50 to a senator and his slave, Teutus is verna, a homeborn slave. He does not know when he first learned that his master is his actual father, but a combination of things have led to this situation being somewhat abnormal in Teutus' case: his master was not married at the time, and so, theoretically, Teutus could have been declared a citizen at birth - if only his master (or his master's paterfamilias) had picked him up when he was presented as a newborn member of the household.

His childhood was spent learning all the things that those born in slavery learn young: how to lace and unlace visitors' shoes and wash their feet, how to serve unobtrusively at dinner, how to help around the house with odd jobs that kids can do - the dusting, fetching and carrying small items... As he grew, he also learned how to care for his master, how to help him dress, including helping him with his toga on the occasions he needed to wear it, how to attend him in public.

His master married when Teutus was 12, and a new household meant new duties and responsibilities, and new people to adjust to. He found that he got on well with the others in the house, and when the mistress was found to be pregnant, he merely shrugged. Life would carry on, after all. Teutus didn't really have much to do with the baby, whose care fell to her mother and the female slaves of the household. A year after the master's marriage, he sold his body-slave Anteros, who had been a good friend of Teutus.

Life changed properly for Teutus in 65CE, when Teutus was fifteen, the age at which free-born citizens become adult men. Teutus' mistress died without giving the master an heir, and Teutus was informed properly of his lineage and that he was to be Tertius' heir, although he wouldn't be freed just yet. He was replaced as his master (and father)#s body slave by Hector, a youth just a little younger than Teutus himself, and Teutus began learning all the sort of things that a young man should learn. If the young man were a citizen, rather than the slave Teutus is.

This twilight life, neither slave (yet one in every respect according to law) nor a citizen (despite his father's best efforts in teaching him everything he would have learned had he been declared free as a baby) is all Teutus has known for the last eight years. He has had no firm date given to when he will be freed, beyond, "Soon, soon!" and finds himself half jealous of Hector, with his clearly defined role and boundaries, and half-jealous of the young men of his own age that he sees beginning their cursus honorum, a thing that is denied to him for no reason other than his father's procrastination and prevaricating.

 

 

Sharpie | GMT | PM or Discord (#4424)

@Gothic

Edited April 29, 2019 by Sharpie

[Gothic]

Your application has been accepted.

Please make sure to update your necessary claims and feel free to make your plotter.