Florentus Telus

Grandson of the censor Markus Telus, a man of ideas, dialogue, and duty, and a confirmed bachelor who had never known a woman because he had never allowed himself to stop working long enough to be unworthy of the name.

His land bill would have dispossessed the greatest landowners so that veteran legionaries finally received the plots they were promised on enlistment. Gérard Alois chose it as the crowbar for the whole war: get it voted, and the consul is under pressure while Censor Titus Lartius loses land and his temper. The next step was to have Florentus murdered so that his grandfather would go to war over it.

The agents sent to arrange his death got him his bill instead, then his censor's backing, then two of Senator Picolus's daughters, and made themselves indispensable to him. He never learned any of it.

He stayed neutral through the war, and his island was the only one spared. He does not pretend otherwise: he backed the winning horse.