House Lucretia
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House Lucretia, or the gens Lucretia, is a patrician house from The Fall of the Republic. Rooted in merchantry, members of the family also deal in all walks of life, ranging from the arts, the Roman Clergy, military honor, policies and legislations, and even media and news.
Initially known for their staunch pro-plebeian stance in the Senate, the exorbitant wage paid to their plebeian estate staff, and their charity work during the bread shortage, their mater familias Aemilia Lucretia Tricipinus would eventually drastically shift the public opinion towards their family following her demotion from the senate, and leave the once-noble house in a position of uncertainty and disgrace.
Their current matriarch is Octavia Lucretia Verus Helvia, the eldest daughter of the late matriarch.
Origins
House Lucretia is a long-standing patrician family with a lengthy history and generations of honor to uphold. Historically, they have been present since the Kingdom of Rome, and played a pivotal role in overthrowing the Etruscan Kings.
In the present days, they focus on mercantile institutions— markets, guilds, and trade— and desire to uphold personal justice and fairness in their operations. As such, private wealth and resources have never been a particular concern to them, and they seek to spread welfare to those who deserve it. Public interest and the preservation of a republic serve them best in continuing their operations. Those who ally and work with them fondly will be met with generous reparations, while those who act against the interests of the people and impede on the preservation of prosperity will also be met with a suitable degree of recompense.
They also piously worship the goddess Minerva and lord Mercury, as part of their investment in trade and merchantry, of whom they make regular sacrifices and offerings to.
Notable Figures
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Aemilia Lucretia Tricipinus
Aemilia was the late matriarch (mater familias) of the Lucretia family. Raised as a loyalist to Rome, she worked tirelessly both for the management of the household and for the management of the nation.
During her work as a senator, she passed multiple notable bills, including the Civil Business bill, the bill dictating the formation of a judiciary branch and the civilian right to trial. While controversial to the optimates, the matriarch was also deeply sympathetic to the plebeian class, passing and proposing open senate floor meetings, civilian governor elections, tax restructuring policies, worker food stipends, plebeian grain rights, and more. Her policies led to her friendship with the Tribune Marcus Verus Sol and Lucius Aurelion prior to her demotion.
In her later life, after many decades had passed after the former matriarch consort’s death, she solicited a relationship with Aesta Vilica, the plebeian Lucretia estate manager. The two were given blessings by the other estate staff for the relationship in spite of its controversy, before Aesta was then outed for practising heresy and worshipping the Greek goddess Athena on the estate grounds. She was seized by senator Lucius Aurelion, judge Rubricus Fulgens, Chief Priest Cinna Lucretia Cento, as well as other members of their party both from the clergy and House Aurelion. After her apprehension at the Lucretia estate, she was escorted to the Temple of Jupiter to be tried for heresy, but after being possessed by the heretic god Mithras, Aesta received a fatal wound and died in the arms of the Lucretia matriarch.
After this, Aemilia was tried due to initially resisting Aesta’s arrest and for housing, marrying, and giving a plebeian the resources to become a heretic. Here, she was demoted and sentenced to house arrest, as well as duties serving the temple under the then Pontifex Maximus, Beneminius Fulminii.
However, due to his neglect and dereliction of his duties at the time, Aemilia escaped monitoring and staged a plot to ‘restore the balance of the Republic’, leading the ignorant staff of the Lucretia estate to carry out seizure of the Treasury with her uncle’s help, as well as fall prey to and worship in The Cult of Mithras. After slaying multiple legionnaires and two consuls, she was finally apprehended by Flavius Zekor Gracchus and Legio IV, killed during arrest after refusing to comply in time with their demands to drop her weapons.
Publius Lucretia Favonius
Acting as the uncle of the late Lucretia matriarch, Publius was raised in Rome and took up residence in the Lucretia estate in the capital due to his position as the Governor of Mining. After having served Rome loyally for many years, in his later tenure, he began pocketing funds from the state-owned mining facilities through his decades of built-up relationships with many of the officials involved.
Prioritising money and power above all else, his friendship with members of Legio V allowed him to carry out the heist of the Treasury as per Aemilia’s plans with their aid, first changing the locks on the entrance to the Treasury and preventing legionnaire wages from being paid, leading to a revolt, and later stealing millions of denarii and disappearing with them by dispersing the liquidised assets among trusted accomplices. He was executed in custody following his arrest, the stolen denarius never recovered.
Octavia Lucretia Verus Helvia
Formerly known as Octavia Lucretia Tricipinus, she is the eldest of the three daughters of Aemilia Lucretia Tricipinus. Known as a graceful and friendly socialite in her youth, she is the current matriarch of the Lucretia family following her mother’s death. Because of the Lucretia sisters’ standing with the clergy, their patrician title was never revoked in spite of the late matriarch’s fall from grace.
In her personal life, Octavia is close friends with Chief Priest Nefarius Umbrum Porpus, Finn, and Octavia Verus Helvia, before later falling in love and marrying Octavia Verus Helvia in spite of their difference in status due to their shared history and propensity for the arts. She was friendly and well-loved by the servants of the Lucretia estate, with Octavia treating many of them like family.
During her mother’s revolt, she took part unwillingly and was not aware of the true extent of Aemilia’s crimes, later focusing on sheltering the other unwillingly implicated members of the estate from execution after her mother’s death. She would inherit the estate after the trials of all estate members and participants in the revolt were completed, and she would re-hire and take in many of those still remaining from the original estate staff.
Sinis Lucretia Tricipinus
The second daughter of Aemilia Lucretia Tricipinus. While not as pious as her sisters, Sinus served as a legionnaire in Legio III, and was tried and interrogated as part of the seizure of Legio III prior to her mother’s demotion in senate.
She was previously engaged and married to Nicus Cato, before breaking off their arrangement after her mother’s removal from senate following Aesta’s death. During Aemilia’s revolt, she took part in slaying two consuls, multiple legionnaires, and hiding her mother from the search party seeking to apprehend her while also worshipping the heretic god Mithras. Later, she would lure Metella Cento, the chief blacksmith of the Lucretia estate, to the amphitheatre before murdering her and putting her head on a pike.
She would be arrested for her participation in Aemilia’s revolt, but spared of execution due to her status. Because of the lack of witnesses tying her to Metella’s death, it would be pinned on Pancakeus Umbra who murdered another Roman in a similar manner, and was currently being tried for heresy. Sinus would walk free, though both her sisters urged her to leave Rome due to the public sentiment towards her.
Before Sinis fled Rome, Jestius Cento, Metella’s adoptive brother, would force her to cut off her right arm after discovering her involvement in his sister’s murder.
Cinna Lucretia Cento
Formerly known as Cinna Lucretia Tricipinus, she was the youngest daughter of Aemilia Lucretia Tricipinus. Raised originally as her mother’s heir, she was pushed to enter the Roman Clergy and rose to a position of Chief Priest as the Pontifex Caeli, heading her own group of augurs responsible for interpreting the signs of the gods. Later, due to the Pontifices going missing after the massacre of House Verus, she rose to power alongside Nefarius Umbrum Porpus and Jianna.
From childhood, she was a close confidant and associate in her mother’s machinations behind the scenes, acting as an anonymous chief writer in the Res Publica and dealing and gathering intel for her mother’s plans. She is also a director in the Servi Dramatis for much of the same reason; her mother’s emphasis on controlling media sentiment.
Alongside Octavia and Niveus, she took part in assisting her mother with her senatorial duties, drafting and working on bills with Aemilia in her later life, such as the Stability Act, the Courtesy Act, and Aemilia’s push for judiciary powers. With Niveus and her uncle Publius, both assisted him in his embezzlement from the treasury.
Within the clergy, Cinna was inserted as part of her mother’s hopes to monitor the unrest in the Republic, and while pious, was not especially devout prior to entering the temple. As time passed, she grew close to members of the clergy, such as judge Rubricus Fulgens, Eugenia, and Lucius Aurelion. The four would eventually band together to form the Heretic Hunters unofficially, as they were designated the responsibility of investigating the activities of heretics in Rome, specifically The Cult of Mithras, because of their overwhelming achievement alongside Legion II in apprehending cultists.
Due to her friendship with these three, she would eventually choose to betray her mother during her revolt, choosing to side with those seeking to apprehend and trial her. Her participation in aiding in her mother’s capture, as well as her being the initial informant of Aemilia’s plans, would exclude her guilt in the subsequent Lucretia trials.
Months after her mother’s death and after the trials conclude, she would be wedded to Jestius Cento.
Nahri Lucretia Argentarius
An illegitimate daughter from a branch family of the main house, she is the plebeian half-sister of Niveus Lucretia Argentarius. Nahri moved to the capital as an aide and servant of her half-brother, and worked as an administrator in the Treasury.
Eventually, her care for Niveus, his desperate urge to prove himself to the Lucretia matriarch, and her position in the Treasury would lead to her being a key figure in Publius Lucretia Favonius’ Treasury heist, with Nahri being responsible for entering and changing the combination lock. She would flee Rome with the new keys, her fate unknown to even her brother.
Niveus Lucretia Argentarius
The eldest son of a branch family of the Lucretia family. He was handpicked by the Lucretia matriarch after observing his promising business acumen from a young age during visits to the capital with his parents, and later sponsored and brought into the capital for the same reason.
As opposed to the three direct descendants of the main house, Niveus was staunchly dedicated to the mercantile work of Lucretia, and was the reason the Lucretia Market gained the position it did during The Fall of the Republic.
Though not necessarily upstanding at all times, Niveus’ unconventional but devoted business methods allowed him to thoroughly eliminate competition in the long run, sabotaging other organisations such as BreadCorp, guiding their late leader’s ambitions that would eventually drive him to death and the group’s decline. He would also conspire with his accomplices to poison supplies of bread supplied in the group’s later days to charity groups, decreasing their credibility while handing out his own supplies to gain favorability. The ludicrous benefits of secure transactions and customers brought about by the Lucretia market under his jurisdiction led to many independent vendors associating or establishing stalls and branches in its vicinity, and Niveus would make profits of tens of thousands of denarii per day.
His bold success as a merchant was instrumental to Lucretia’s financing of their generous staff wages, which ensured part of the loyalty their estate workers had that prevented an earlier usurpal in the matriarch’s plans, as well as the later return of many of them to their positions after Octavia rose to the position of mater familias.
Niveus’ dedication to merchant work was partly due to his relationship with his half-sister, Nahri, whom he takes care of and feels deeply responsible for. His fixation on commerce as a means to surpass the typical gap between patrician and plebeian was born about by their different treatments in childhood in spite of being nominal siblings, and his devotion to the Lucretia matriarch both before and after her death was due to her insistence on retaining equal opportunities and rights for patricians and plebeians.
Like many of the other Lucretia children, Niveus would also be romantically involved with a man of plebeian birth by the name of Atticus Eirena, and Niveus would later attempt to take his own life in the Temple of Jupiter upon hearing news of his passing during the Optimates Rebellion on the battlefield. Comforted by another plebeian bearing the same pink hair as his lover, said plebeian would then murder Niveus in his home, though his body and death would never be discovered, and Niveus is still presumed missing to this day by the remaining members of House Lucretia.
House Culture
General Information
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Family Traditions, Practices and Teachings
- Family Values & Teachings
House Lucretia strongly values family honour, so trust in other members of the family is a crucial teaching engrained in each member of the house. Even if their stances appear fragmented to the public, their ties to each other are absolute.
As part of their general goals, they want to establish their own mercantile monopolies, alongside maintaining the republic by placating the plebeians and setting up charitable frameworks, for the sake of preventing total optimate power against the plebeians. They believe the then-current structure of the republic, though flawed, is far preferable to an empire or any alternatives, both for their interests as a house and for the common people. Children of the house are raised to handle some degree of commerce, business, and trade at a young age through proximity with the Lucretia market, though there is no obligation to commit themselves to merchantry.
Direct descendents of the main house are often encouraged to dabble in their individual talents once discovered, whether that be in the sword, arts, or any other area of interest. Lucretia traditionally believes in the capacity to use any personal skill for the profit of the family and the people, even if they appear more traditionally dangerous or unfavorable.
- Rites of Floridus (Coming-of-Age Ceremony)
Prior to one's Tirocinium, House Lucretia typically hosts a private, family-only ceremony for all legitimate descendants of the family, including branch families. At this occasion, the mater familias will pray to Mercury and Minerva to guide the recipient of the ceremony in their adulthood, and grant a relic (typically in the form of jewelry or an artifact) from an older or deceased relative relevant to the recipient's career prospects or talents.
A descendant skilled with the sword may receive a carved pommel, while one with administrative or accounting gifts would receive an ivory stylus. Family present at the Floridus will offer their blessings as well, and the ceremony concludes with the recipient presenting their first private, ceremonial offering to the lares and penates of the house.
- Political Stance
Though they hold their standing as a patrician house, their family business and values generally lead members of the house to be open to plebeians. Regardless of class, those who do business with House Lucretia fairly will be rewarded charitably, sometimes to an ostentatious degree. During The Fall of the Republic, their staff and associates would be compensated with daily wages up to thousands of denarii, while the average patrician children of other houses may have less than that for their monthly allowances.
Additionally, the stability and prosperity of the republic is necessary for the continuity of their traditional family practises, so affluence for the general populace will only ever be in their best interests. While virtue and prestige are still always considered as per their attendance in aristocratic functions publicly, House Lucretia's private feelings are much more liberal within.
- Family Relations
The main family is often connected closely to branch families for matters of business and trade, and it is extremely common for the head of house to sponsor one or two promising children from lesser clans to pursue a career in the capital. General communication between the families are frequent, and the whole house will gather for major Roman ceremonies and celebration.
History
Pre-FOTR
- The Origin of Lucretia
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- The Poisoning of the Matriarch Consort
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- Illegitimates Scandal
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Fall of the Republic
- Heresy Trials
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- Aemilia's Revolt
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Family-Owned Businesses/Organisations
Lucretia Market
Founded by a head of house a few generations back, the Lucretia market is run traditionally by the legitimate relatives of the family. Located in the capital. The status of the market and the degree of prosperity it currently has are a good reflection of the status of the family's wealth and standing. Amalgamating of contacts from branch families, relatives, and current partners in the capital, the Lucretia market is intentioned to be a controlled competitor to independently-owned businesses, both patrician and plebeian, to prevent inaccessible resources and goods in times of economic strife or personal struggle.
Though House Lucretia has a vast collection of wealth throughout their long history, the primary source of their flow of commerce in the current day exists through Lucretia market.
It was run almost successfully by Niveus Lucretia Argentarius during the events of FOTR.
Res Publica
One of Rome's premier newspapers, the Res Publica was penned by Cinna Lucretia Cento, Octavia Lucretia Verus Helvia, Kavaria Catia, and Aemilia Lucretia Tricipinus at varying periods of time. Its creation was spearheaded by the late matriarch of the Lucretia family after the Illegitimates Scandal, fearing that a certain influence among the general populace would be necessary to combat her political rivals.
As the matriarch grew more preoccupied with her duties in the senate, Cinna, Octavia, and Kavaria were all inducted into its anonymous workforce due to their proximity to precarious intelligence in the republic and their acumen with the pen. For the majority of its tenure, beyond simply monitoring and inciting distrust against rival politicians and patrician houses, Res Publica sought also to educate the common Roman people of happenings that the higher nobility attempted to restrict, and promote both the free-flowing of plebeian endeavours and opportunities and persecute patrician wrongdoing for accountability.
Eventually, the publication would go on extended hiatus following Aemilia's revolt.
General Traits
Appearance
- Warm-toned / Cream Hair: Traditionally, the main and branch families of House Lucretia have light-pink or cream-coloured hair. Most legitimate and illegitimate children will carry this trait in their appearance, and among the patricians of Rome, this is a trait almost exclusive to House Lucretia. The current matriarch of the Lucretia family, Octavia Lucretia Verus Helvia, takes after the late matriarch consort with her lighter brown hair, and some relatives from branch families had contested to her being the heir-apparent to the matriarch in her childhood just because of this fact.
- Pale Complexion: Due to the nature of Lucretia family teachings and the typical paths a child of the house goes down, most members of House Lucretia have fairly, sometimes astutely, pale complexions and do not tan easily even if consistently under the sun.
- Pink-hued Eyes: Another trait shared by almost all direct descendants of the main branch of the Lucretia family. Though cousins and distant relatives, such as the Argentarius or Favonius branch, may not have their trademark pink eyes, all of the late matriarch's children take after her in this regard. This leaves them somewhat weak to the navigating under bright light and the sun, and the late matriarch is theorised posthumously to have struggled with her vision in the later age.
Personality
- Devoted: Engrained in them from an early age, the Lucretia upbringing, or perhaps nature, results in members of the household being highly devoted in their day-to-day lives. This manifests differently in varying circumstances, with positive instances being a devotion to training, their hobbies, or interests, and less positive instances being almost-stifling obsessions with maintaining their values at all costs, or infatuation with specific individuals driving them to crimes of passion.
- Loyal: Both to the Republic and to their house itself, members of House Lucretia are deeply tied to their family and values. Cases of in-fighting for succession or betrayal are almost obsolete in the family history, and the only instances of internal fragmentation have occurred when members of the family betray the core values of the house itself, with cases of individuals having to be apprehended due to threatening sentiments that may be defined as treasonous or highly detrimental.
- Resourceful: Whether they are in an optimal, peaceful environment or when backed into a corner, a Lucretia is taught to survive and to push forth their goals by any means possible. Outsiders may consider their behaviour lacking in morals or underhanded, but a true member of the house never wavers or hesitates when making a choice that allows them to succeed in the end.
- Deceptive: Sociable and amicable to all on the avenue of appearances, a Lucretia is taught to never fail in being cunning and masking their true intentions for the sake of their motives. True friendship is rare and far in between, and family is one of the only instances where honesty and naïvete can be tolerated.
- Erudite: Though more prevalent in recent descendants rather than their ancestors of yore, the matriarch consort's family's propensity for the arts and theatre influenced many of his children and the other Lucretia heir-candidates of similar age to be drawn to the dramatic arts. A member of the house will always be witty, well-read, and well-written.
- Avaricious: While not to a disconcerting degree, and not always typically entangled with material wealth, members of House Lucretia value gain and profit to a significant degree. Whether this be in the terms of hoarding social standing, favor of the gods, or denarii, it is typical for them to heavily weigh the costs and benefits of a situation before engaging in it themselves.