Horatia Justina

[Sara]

Horatia Justina

32 | 29 October 42CE | Senatore | Matron | Heterosexual | Wanted | Lotte Verbeek

 

 

Personality.

Horatia has grown up understanding what is expected of her. As a wife and a mother she is dutiful and respectful, never knowingly stepping over the boundaries of her gender or role, in public or with those she does not know. In a world of beautiful, talented, vivacious women Horatia considers herself somewhat of a wallflower by comparison, although plays the part of a socialite when she needs to, as all good Roman matrons must. She doesn't possess the love of fame or infamy that some of her contemporaries do, nor does she enjoy gossip. However, in private with close female friends she warms up and can chatter with the best of them.

Beneath her public quietness she has a core of iron. Steadfast to her husband and her family, she would walk through fire or swim to the deepest depths for them. In private with her family or her close friends - of which she has few - she can be witty, shrewd and intelligent. An educated woman, she is well-read and well-versed in politics from conversation with her father and brothers and her own observations. When her husband asks her opinion, even after all of these years, she is secretly thrilled; she doesn't often rely on the validation of others being very much at peace with herself, but she has to admit it is a genuine pleasure to be considered useful and bright! 

She is not overly demanding of her children or her slaves, but expects others to adhere to the social hierarchies she herself conforms to. She loves Titus and Calpurnia with every fibre of her being and has settled into the role of a mother with ease, although she is secretly pleased she hasn't fallen pregnant again - the last birth was trying on her. On very rare occasions she can find herself frustrated at her lot in life - daydreaming about days spent in the senate or in political schemes, but she quickly quashes such notions. She does what she can to influence things, but tries her best to do this plainly and honestly through conversation with her brothers and family when they indulge her, rather than through duplicity. Overall, she's a woman at ease with herself and her lot in her life.

 

Appearance

Statuesque for a woman at 5'6, Horatia carries herself with grace and dignity - an arrow straight posture and shoulders pulled back, she has an elegance born to somebody of her station. Whilst not a frivolous woman, now she's back in Rome from Raetia she indulges the latest fashions but conscious she's not a teenager anymore, she keeps her styles and the cut of her clothes mature.  She has a penchant for fine jewellery, particularly bracelets, and indulges this when Aulus allows her to as her one vice. Her most striking features are her naturally bright red hair, its provenance unknown given her parents were blondes and brunettes, and her bright blue eyes. Whilst not vain, she has put effort into keeping her appearance as youthful as possible and fastidiously avoids the bright sun to keep her complexion pale and line free in attempt to keep herself feeling her best. Naturally slender, two children have given her curves in her hips that she didn't possess in her youth but she is comfortable with her figure and has confidence born of age and being at peace with oneself.

 

Family

Father: Marcus Horatius Justinus (alive, born 12AD - 63)

Mother: Livia Calavia (deceased in the Civil War)

Siblings:

Publius Horatius Justinus (alive, born 35AD - 40)
Lucius Horatius Justinus (alive, born in 48AD - 27  - twin of Livia)
Livia Justina (alive, born in 48AD - 27   - twin of Lucius)

Spouse: Aulus Calpurnius Praetextatus

Children:

Titus Calpurnius Praetextatus (alive, born Aug 61AD - 13)
Calpurnia Horatia (alive, born July 63AD - 11)
Early miscarriage (in 71AD)

Extended family: 

Tiberius Calpurnius Praetextatus - father in law (alive)
Aurelia Faustina  - mother in law (alive)
Calpurnia Praetextata - sister in law (alive)
 

Other: N/A

 

History

CHILDHOOD [42 - 54AD]

Horatia was born the first daughter and second child of the Senator Marcus Horatius Justinus and his young wife Livia. With a strong and healthy son already in the family, her father was delighted at the birth of a daughter. Her very early childhood - not that she remembers much of it - was spent between Rome and Germania where her father was stationed as a legatus. Whilst stationed in a villa suitably far away from the fighting, she does distinctly remember her mothers relief as they returned to Rome after she fell pregnant with Horatia's siblings Lucius and Livia. Born in 48AD, when Horatia was five, the twins were born ruddy faced and squalling but healthy. Her mother, to everybody's relief, survived the birth but was ill for a time after. She later learnt there had been a fever of some sort that had rendered her mother unable to carry any further children and her health was never quite been the same again.

Nonetheless, Horatia's childhood was a happy one and despite a move again when she was nine to Hispania to follow her father, largely uneventful. She spent her days with her siblings and being indulged by her parents; becoming literate and finding a particular fascination with reading. She could often be found, upon an evening, curled up in her fathers disused study when he was away on campaign, parchments littering the floor as she slept soundly. She found reading an escape from the energetic personalities of her older brother and younger twin siblings. A quiet child, she find solace in words and her lessons as well as her relationship with her mother which flourished as she grew older.

 

TEENAGE YEARS [54 - 61AD]

The family returned from Hispania, where her father had once again served as legatus when Horatia was 12. Around her fourteenth birthday in 56AD, she spent her teenage years dutifully entering Roman society as an eligible young woman. Never a particularly vivacious child - reserving her witticisms and intelligence for those she knew best and trusted - the shy Horatia was somewhat passed over by eligible bachelors seeking a spouse. A little deflated, and unconvinced by her families insistence there was a man that would want her as she was, she attempted to ingratiate herself with the women of respectable society with the use of cosmetics, flash dress and jewellery. This faux confidence worked for a time, as did her families excellent connections and Horatia found herself at sixteen engaged to marry a man only a few years older than herself; a Lucius Ranius Latus, the second son of a Senator her father was acquainted with. 

The engagement, however, was not to last and a disagreement over the terms of the wedding as well as the families pedigree led to the dissolution of the match. Frustrated and embarrassed by her complete lack of success with men, Horatia shut herself away for a time. Her friends were moving on and she felt...stationary. It was only when her mother suggested a turn to Greece to visit her brother, who was based in in the province at the start of his military career that she felt a flicker of happiness.

Begrudingly agreeing to the journey, Horatia set off for Greece with her father at the end of 59AD. The Fates, however, had a fortuitous plan for Horatia. Upon her arrival, her brother introduced the seventeen year old to his peer, the twenty-seven year old Aulus Calpurnius Praetextatus. Smitten with a man who didn't seem to want her dressed up to the nines in garish clothes, or giggling girlishly, she was delighted at the offer of marriage. Her father accepted after some negotiation and the couple married in Greece in 60AD just after Horatia turned eighteen. She has never quite forgotten the debt of gratitude she owes to her eldest brother, not that he ceases to remind the happy couple at every available opportunity. Following the wedding, Horatia remained in Greece with her father and brother whilst Aulus completed his service before eventually returning to Rome, heavily pregnant, in 61AD with only a few weeks to spare before she gave birth to a healthy baby boy, Titus Calpurnius Praetextatus in August 61AD.

 

ADULTHOOD [62AD - PRESENT]

Now a mother, any nerves that Horatia had about returning to Roman society after a hasty wedding and with a new child were quickly forgotten in both her love for her son and the tumultuous violence of the Civil War. Fearing for her husband's life, and knowing her relative anonymity as a woman only very recently returned to Rome (and as one who had never spent much time in the city itself) lended her cover, she watched him and their house slave Felix flee into the night in December 62AD. Gathering strength she never knew she possessed, she herself prepared to leave. Finding a trick buried in one of her stories devoured in her youth, she donned the garments of her slave and at dawn the two days later, accompanied by an anonymous household slave, prepared to leave the city. With her simple tunica and lack of any perceivable wealth (her gold buried in the baby's swaddling), the twenty year old Horatia fled the city. 

Before his departure, her husband had left her instruction to head to his parents villa near Baiae and so armed with only a rudimentary knowledge of geography and exhausted with a new child, when Horatia did turn up on their doorstep the couple are loathed to believe it is their new daughter in law standing before them. After confirming her identity (a handily swiped letter bearing her husbands mark was incredibly useful!) she was welcomed and waited out the rest of the violence in seclusion there. She has never spoken candidly to her husband about her walk to Baiae, nor what happened en route and why his slave did not survive the trip, and is unlikely ever to. When asked, she merely says she slipped out of Rome. She also did not realise it at the time, but she was but a few weeks pregnant. 

After Caesar's victory Horatia likewise returned to Rome where her pregnancy became apparent. Horatia, later that year, barely survives the difficult birth of her daughter Caplurnia in July 63AD. She is adamant that no medicus or slave is to write to Aulus and tell him the truth of her condition, only that he has a daughter and she spends the next few months recovering. However, her husbands absence affords her the opportunity to try and grow her circle of friends. Whilst it is not large, she becomes ingratiated with a few of the women of the Roman social scene and quickly becomes firm friends with two - finding their counsel and company wonderful for those lonely evenings with only her son and daughter for company. 

When her husband does return to Rome, in 68AD she proudly greets him with her handsome, exuberant 7 year old son, and 5 year old daughter. After a period of difficulty as they try to reconnect after almost six years apart, Horatia relaxes into married life once more - content to have her husband back by her side. She supports his run for Praetor from the sidelines, and as their marriage - so broken up by periods of absence - settles down, she finds herself more invested and more hopeful her advice is taken on board. When her husband is called to Raetia, she is delighted to join him. The years spent there - in the quiet of the place were a balm for her soul after the loneliness of Rome, the terror of the purges and the difficulties with Calpurnia. Now returned after four years there, she is finally a woman content.

 

 

Sara | GMT | Discord: Sara#2296

 

@Gothic

Edited September 14, 2020 by Sara

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