Villa Valerii L.
Name: Lucius Valerius Poplicola
Age: 30(34)
Personality Traits: Determined, ambitious and caring for everything Roman. A very complex thinker and mathematician which gives him quite a reputation as an expert logistical leader and a veteran soldier, as well as an excellent orator.
Background: Lucius is rumoured to be born from a family that was recently given Patrician class, he has told many a Plebeian stories of his ancestor being a consul of Rome and the censor's granting the rank of noble to his family, of course with none of this being possible in the current bloodline, it is all a sham, after a fashion. Lucius was at the age of 10 when he took his new status and has since used it to further his position, a position through research of his family lines in the books his 'plebeian' father left around proved that his bloodline were the first of the Valerii, the true bloodline, cast off through the greed of their relatives when they had the control of censorship and praetorian law and not some plebs to be left on the streets. He gained the position through a mix of Patricide, revenge against his father for never telling him, so he could disappear but mainly as a mercy as his father was sick with the fever at the age of sixty-eight. To Lucius, the family is everything, when a Valerii dies another will take his place but the name is eternal. He was then adopted into a Patrician family, another line of the Valerii and he gave himself the cognomen Poplicola, to solidify his bloodline over the other. The family he joined was not as well-off as other Patricians however, when it came to matters of money. The Valerii family having long been on the road to a complete lack of funds but this made learning about saving and spending necessary, making him excellent at recognizing profitable opportunities and elevating his family rank and treasury in a short period of time, in no short part to a generous loan by the Geminii. With the death of the true head of the Valerii family, all evidence of his true plebeian lineage is lost, leaving Lucius and his Plebeian family patricians in the eyes of the world with wealth to match their generosity.
He is fairly lean, mainly due to his time in the army and he never truly got back into the diet that Patricians usually have but he is known for throwing extravagant parties that include large feasts to show his closet love of food.
He is handsome, with a well-kept beard of about 1-2 inches in length that symbolizes his time spent in the army, which infers that he was intrigued by stories of the Macedonians, particularly the Argyraspides which also held the same tradition. He has hair of about 5-6 inches in length, it is a very dark brown and brown eyes.
He dresses in a lavish manner. Wearing extravagant togas with dark blues and purples. His Villa is even more exquisite, stretching across a fair bit of land which contains fruticetums, an arboretum and his own personal viticetum. He also has three sisters, Sexta, Livia and Appia, A younger brother, Decimus and a pitch-black horse named Amyntas. This number turned to four in the year 484, when Lucius' patrician father 'adopted' posthumously, though the records would show it at her date of birth, a slave girl from the domus of gens Licinia and was renamed Tiberia Valeriana.
He spent most of his time in the army in the Triarii, having been added to the rolls as a pleb, by accident of paperwork or possibly bribery or lies on his part, he had to climb the military ladder as one. He was put in this line by a centurion of the line when he was in the Principes, he paid for his armor and weapons and acted as a patron due to Lucius' exceptional leadership and combat skill shown at Heraklea. From there he climbed through the ranks reaching the rank of Praefectus Castrorum for various actions in the battle of Asculum and was forced to command his legion when his commanding legate was killed at Maleventum before entering the world of politics. Since Lucius also wanted to put his economical skills as well as his new ideas for the legions to some use.
Politics: Lucius loves the common people. Every day he heads out to the markets and find out what the new gossip is, what the needs of the people are and to gather intelligence. This open-mindedness has also made him a fairly determined reformist. His policies for reform however, while for the good of the Roman people, the economy, and the army, might not sit well with most senators. Lucius is as selfless with his politics as he is with his money, often supporting bills that would lower his income as a patrician while lending out large sums of money to those he knows will never pay him back. He supports the republic system with all of his heart but often he questions the motives of the senators themselves and the pompousness of most of the nobles, leading many to believe him a populist.
Aspirations: Lucius wishes to become a high magistrate and from there gain auctoritas, to be able to influence the senate without holding a high office and make his will a reality, to become the hegemon of the senate, to prove that the late censor's decision to elevate his family's status was not a mistake but the will of the gods themselves. He will not, however, take power by force of arms or deal in the absolute. He firmly believes in the republican system at its best and he will not, under any circumstances betray that belief. However, he is not above taking advantage of it to its utmost extreme.
Term Summaries:
Year One:
Lucius entered the senate in a very strange manner. If one were to get inside his head they would find a harsh disdain for everything that the senators themselves stood for. When he entered the center of the halls he acted as if he were in a play and the Curia was his stage. He gave off an aura of confidence and insanity in equal measure and traded insults with many of the senators there, Aulus Licinius Caldius in particular. He was sent South to defeat the Epeirotes and the Rebel garrison in Rhegion in turn. His consul was supposed to help him in the campaign but he fell ill and fell from his horse, dying from fever. Once they were besieged, the Tribune at the time, Caldius, asked Lucius to burn both cities for the people of Rome. Lucius accepted his offer and kept the letter he sent in a safe place leading to the Tribune vetoing all the proposals that were going to allow the settlements a peaceful transition. Little did he know Lucius did it to betray him and in a single day took both cities after putting down a Samnite rebellion in Arpi, returning to Rome victorious and the most veteran soldier in the republic at that point in time and in a final insult to Caldius, spared both cities and pushed for reduced taxes while also denying any glory for Lurco in battle. Lucius then began his work for military reform and organization as the term came to a close.
Year Two:
Lucius spent the majority of the term battling his co-consul and apparent new enemy Flavius Julius Corvenus over matters of the military bill Lucius proposed the term before and the tax burden on the allies of Rome. He was also forced to trade words with Lucius Aurelius Lepidus over the latter proposal and in the process of doing so, he might have insulted the man. He was also forced to combat Corvenus over breaking Roman doctrine to attack Boii vassals in a war of aggression, a war that is against many Roman principles. After these debates a scandal hit Corvenus, one that would shroud his career until the following term. Lucius had found it impossible to stop the Hawks from attacking the Boii vassals so he made successful attempts to limit the damage to only the settlement of Bononia and allowed Corvenus to go alone. When he returned it was apparent that he violated his mandate to assault the city, instead having been waiting cowardly outside of the walls and that he had more troops than the senate had allotted him, suggesting he was funding a private force which was worthy of charges of treason. From then on he also showed disdain for the man for his command style or rather, the lack of command. To Lucius, it seemed that he spent more time fighting than doing his job and protecting his men, to Lucius, that made him dangerous. Rumors had also reached Roman ears about trouble in Sicily.
Year Three:
This was a very eventful year for Lucius. He had to investigate the matter of the illegal recruitment of soldiers by Corvenus already when another issue came up from senator Spurius Geminius Scaeva regarding a theft from the treasury of the amount of over 17,000 Mnai, 100 talents or 9 tons of gold had been stolen from the treasury and senator Marcus Sempronius Sophus was who he accused of the deed. Lucius was forced to interview each in turn and once Scaeva was interviewed a man broke into Villa Sempronii and Lucius searched the entire Villa, one of his lictors without Lucius' knowledge broke a bust of Sophus' recently deceased son in the process but Lucius found a shred of proof, a letter apparently from Corvenus to Sophus on the matter of money sent between them in the amounts he was looking for. When Corvenus was questioned, it turned out to be a dead-end, the writing didn't even match Corvenus' own. It was later that Lucius turned his attention to men in Scaeva's office and found an old accomplice, Publius Gratius. He was a con artist and a rake, not much unlike Lucius was before his time in the army. Lucius snuck into his house after he was convinced that he was behind the illegal recruitment during a meeting the same night and made a temporary alliance with the man instead. The next night did not go as planned however, as the shipping company that Publius worked with was transporting over one hundred talents overseas to Greece and Publius no doubt wanted his share when he helped his 'old friend'. In an unexpected move he revealed that his small caravan, supposedly carrying gold was carrying weapons and he slaughtered the men of the shipping company, leaving Lucius with the mess and a mind in shock. Lucius could do nothing but agree to his demands and after Publius took ten talents from the ships Lucius had it shipped back to his villa, where a strange man came to visit him in the morning.
Consulships
Valerian Legion Compositions
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