Domus of the Rutilanus

[Iron Aquilifer]

Gnaeus Aquilius Rutilanus
Age: 45
Class: Plebeian
Patrician Points: 0
Plebeian Points: 18
Gravitas: 20 (Tribune)
Traits:
Farmer (lvl 3)

Family:
-Wife: Calpurnia (28)

- Son: Sextus Aquilius Rutilanus
Age: 20
Class: Plebeian
Patrician Points: N/A
Plebeian Points: N/A
Gravitas: N/A
Traits: N/A

- Daughter: Atia (11)

- Son: Agrippa (8)


Friends, Connections and Workers
- 50 Farmhands
- 20 Armed Guards
- Octavus, a blacksmith, has his own connections

[Iron Aquilifer]

Assets:
Farms -
Fruit (2 years= +10%) x 2
Mines -
Stone Quarry
Iron Mine
Resources -
1 talent of stone
1.5 modius of Fruits

Finances:
(343BC)
Starting: 5,000

Income:
Senate: 2,500

Expenses:
Farmland: 5,000
Workers: 875

Remaining: 1,625
7,500 (Starting)
-5,000 (farmland)
-875 (wages)

(342)
Starting: 1,625

Income: 5,250
Senate: 2,500
Farmland: 3,750 (1875 x 2)

Expenses: 6,750
Farmland: 5,000
Workers: 1,750

Remaining: 425

(341)
Starting: 425

Income:
Senate: 2,500
Farmland: 6200 (1875×2×1.35 + 1875×2×0.65)
Mines: 422

Expenses:
Workers: 1,750
Mines: 2,500
Gift: 2,000
Trade: 500

Remaining: 2,372

(340)
Starting: 2,372

Income:
Senate: 2,500
Farmland: 10,125 (1875×4×1.35)
Mines: 433

Expenses:
Workers: 1,750
Mine: 5,000

Remaining: 8,680

[Dirty Chai]

To the Aquilian family,

You are invited to attend a formal dinner at the Aurelian villa under the auspices of Quintus Aurelius Orestes Minor on the eve of war.

[Iron Aquilifer]

Gnaeus sagged on the stone bench, the weight of the world on his shoulders. Pressed against the cold, bare wall, he kept his eyes closed as his wife praised his work.

"You are doing it! In one year you have achieved more than most men in your position."

Sextus was out in the courtyard, practising his swordplay against two of Gnaeus' distant relatives. The sound of blunt iron clashing again and again brought forth vivid memories of battle. They caused Gnaeus to squeeze his eyes shut even harder.

"Backed by the power of the Patricians, Gnaeus! This is most wonderful news indeed! I will never know you were able to do it!"

Atia entered the room for only a brief moment, chased by a laughing Agrippa. The young boy had his arms outstretched, attempting to grab a wooden horse from Atia's waving hands.

Calpurnia stopped to watch her children race around the villa, happy in their youth. As soon as the screaming giggles died away towards the kitchen, the senator's young wife returned her attention to him.

"You do not know how happy I am to see you doing so well! And with the profits from the crops we will surely be able to expand the land we own. Perhaps even double it!"

Her enthusiasm did not relent for an instant. When the elections had seen Gnaeus fail to achieve the position of Tribune, Calpurnia had sworn that it was only the first step in rising. Now she seemed to think that the senate was falling before him.

"Calpurnia, my love, please. It has been a long day, and I have yet to speak to the Consul about going with the Legion as a tribune."

As he dragged the words out of his mouth, the senator remembered that he had not told her about his plans to face the Samnites.

"The war needs to be won, for Rome and for us."

She had been momentarily stunned in to silence, giving Gnaeus time to speak without interruption.

"To advance in the senate I need two things: the support of the Patricians and a successful military career. I will be the Plebeian senator who sees us have victory. It would propel me to heights we only ever dreamed of."

Would she believe him? She would want to. She did not want to think of her elder husband as being driven by such things as vengeance and Roman glory. Yet those were the reasons, and it was what forced him to go with the legion.

"But Gaius and Lucius went with the Legion! We need not send a third Aquilius if we do not have to!"

Gnaeus opened his eyes then. He had thrown himself at the feet of the Patricians to recieve their blessings. He had given himself over to a man nearly half his age so that Calpurnia would see him rise. And now that he was to fight for Rome; for glory; for vengeance for a past insult, she was to try and stop him?

"When the legion marches against the Samnites, I will be with them. Sextus will run the affairs of the household while I am gone. Your brother will be my voice in the senate, should something arise. We will speak when I return."

With that, Gnaeus rose to his feet. Before his wife could say something, he was gone, already seeing the battlefields to come.

[Okmin]

Consul Gaius Marius Aquila comes, hoping to see the tribune.

[Iron Aquilifer]

Gnaeus was sparring with his son Sextus when the Consul came to see him. Leaving his young heir at the tender mercies of his elder kin, Gnaeus made his way to see Gaius.

Dripping of sweat, wearing no more than tunic and leather vambraces, the new tribune was in no true shape to greet the consul.

"Welcome Consul Gaius! I will say it plain, I was disappointed when you stood down from the consulship at the last elections."

[Okmin]

"I am sorry to have disappointed you, Gnaeus, but I hope I have made it up by winning this year."

Aquila smiles.

"Perhaps you could indulge my ego... Why were you disappointed?"

[Iron Aquilifer]

"Of the three, you were the only I could put my trust in. Lucius is no great lover of the plebeians, not even of ones who support him. Agrippa, well, our defeat speaks volumes. He has been weakened by those Greeks, and as such should not be a consul of Rome."

Gnaeus gestured towards a small table, complete with drinks and small bowls of a variety of food.

"You, on the other hand, have no such weakness. A patrician yes, but no so blinded by your blood to no see the strength plebeian support gives. You are proud and ambitious, traits some would consider bad. They are dangerous, but what would Rome be if not for their wolves?"

Was it becoming easier? To grovel at the feets of these young men who had more power than he would ever see. It had worked for the republicans, and now he was tribune. Gaius was a patrician, but maybe not as blinded by that fact than the Dictator and the republicans.

[Okmin]

Aquila selected a cup of wine and began inspecting the fruit.

"I do not have that weakness? True. But I have other weaknesses, of course. If I thought I didn't, well, wouldn't that itself be a weakness - arrogance?"

He chose a pear, as ripe as he'd ever seen.

"But why me? Why not a plebeian? And I hear whispers of this faction of Silanus' and his 'republicans'. A simple man would call you lost. I am not simple; I suspect you have found your way. You are one of Rome's wolves - am I wrong? - though perhaps not as feral as the others. The patricians have old power, yes, but what many others fail to recognize is the plebeians cannot be ignored. I will be blunt, Gnaeus, why Silanus?"

[Iron Aquilifer]

"Arrogance is a weakness we all suffer from consul: We are romans after all."

Feeling his breathing return to normal, Gnaeus noticed how fast his heart beat. He wanted to put it down to the excerise, but knew that that was a lie.

"Bluntness it is: His self-belief. His view of the world which has your people as the only ones who have the ability to lead this city to greatness. Act as he wants you to act, and he will give you what you want, as if it was his decision to give it."

The consul said he spoke blunt. He wanted truth, Gnaeus knew that. He wanted to know if Gnaeus Aquilius Rutilanus was just a slave to a boy who wished to take a whip to all those not on the same level as him.

"You ask why not support a plebeian for consul, but how would that help? We are the minority of the senate, whatever growing power we have. And if it had been one of us in place of Agrippa? Never again would Rome see a senate allowing us to claim that fabled title."

When had he started to pace?

"Time will give us the power to contend with the patricians, Consul Gaius. It will not be in my lifetime most likely, not the way I envisage it. Silanus is blind to everything that cannot trace its ancestry back a dozen fathers. Yet some feel the same, and this means that he has influence, however fleeting. I am tribune now when last year I was not, and that was in most due to him."

He needed to wash. He needed to fight. There was energy where none should have been. Was it passion? Was it enthusiasm? He was no philosopher and not well-read, so the answer did not come to him.

"I am a wolf? To make that claim would be to dishonour such a predator. If I am any beast it is a dog, flea-ridden and shaggy. Yet I have teeth like all animals which feast on the flesh of others. Ambition drives me, and Silanus was the quickest way for me to achieve a little of it. Yet that was only a mouthful of the feast that I wish to gorge on."

What drove him? What did he tell himself which would make everything that he did worth it?

"I want my son to step in to the senate chambers and be able to change Rome for the better. He shall be the savior the people never had. To make that so, I will rise until I can go no further. Then I will die, and Sextus will take my place."

Had he said too much? Had he said too little?

"Make no mistake Consul, I have no reason to wish death and destruction upon the patrician families who would have me hungry and homeless instead of sitting in the senate chambers. Not while they are of use to those who can swallow their pride. Not while they take me higher."

He smiled then, to take the edge off of whatever threat or boast he might have hinted at. Then he sat, the energy seeping away.

[Okmin]

Aquila sat quietly, listening and thinking.

"Dear tribune, you demean yourself. All men are wolves who seek more than to blindly serve. You seek betterment for your son - for your family - for your people. Yes, you may put yourself beneath men like Silanus, but does not a wolf submit to his pack's chief? Yet he is still a wolf, and the pack still his pack, and all that changes is the ordering of it all."

The consul set aside his cup, now dry, and appeared calm.

"But then we are men, and Romans, and, despite all our metaphors, not actually wolves. The thing about a wolf is that all he knows of power is that it depends on who gets his teeth on his opponent's neck first. Men like this, men who are barely men, know only how to succeed through brute force. But in politics there must be subtlety also."

Aquila leaned forward slightly, elbows on the table. He hoped Gnaeus could see his intent.

"Silanus is praetor. You are tribune. Yes, he has gotten quite far for a young man. And you, in the great plebeian office, thanks to him, I suppose."

He wondered if Gnaeus had included him in that group of families who would have him homeless.

"How far can Silanus go? How far can he bring his pack? You say I am a wolf. How far can I go? How far will my pack go? Am I, as Silanus, blinded by ancestry?"

[Iron Aquilifer]

"Silanus will go no further, not as he makes such outrageous moves to assert his dominance. Still, he has his support. And as to how far you will go? That remains to be seen. What you are willing to do to get there, is the question all should be asking."

[Okmin]

"I intend to go as far as I can. It seems I may have achieved that to an extent, with the recent elections. Now, I think, I am like you - I seek to advance farther, wherever 'farther' is, in the hope that my son may take my place and find it a good one. As for what I am willing to do, I rather like keeping those secrets guarded. But know that I do not share in Silanus' views on plebeians. I was hoping, and now I will be blunt again, tribune - I was hoping you would join me in finding out exactly what it is I'm willing to do."

[Iron Aquilifer]

But did he truly want to know what the consul wanted to do? He was a patrician, and while he may know that the plebeians had power, that did not mean that the consul supported them. They would be used to further his pursuit, and when it suited him, destroyed.

"You have my support then, consul."

[Okmin]

Aquila smiled.

"Thank you, Gnaeus. I hope you will find our friendship mutually beneficial."

[Dirty Chai]

Salve Rutilanus,

You are invited to visit at the Villa of the Aurelian Orestides on the morrow.

- seal of Unimanus (a hand) -

[JamesTruwood]

A small group of people on horse ride near the Domus Rutilanus. A manservant approachs the door, announcing Senator Fortunas wishes to see the Senator Rutilanus.

[Iron Aquilifer]

Senator Fortunas is invited in to Gnaeus' home. The Tribune is sitting with his wife and children, who promptly vacate to allow the men to speak.

[JamesTruwood]

"Tribune Gnaeus, thank you for seeing me on such short notice. I wish to discuss some of my plans while as Aedile, and my strategy for Corsica, and hear the feedback of such an esteemed Senator and twice Tribune of the people."

[Iron Aquilifer]

Gnaeus laughed softly at the praise.

"Of course my friend, I have the time to lend you."