Gaius Caius Picolus

Rich, heavily guarded, impressive in person, and genuinely charismatic. His house turns away a cook at the gate laughing.

He wants a male heir more than anything, and four wives have given him four daughters. So he sent a knight of the equestrian order to buy a prophecy from the cyclops of Zurion, and paid for it in his own children—two daughters for two sons, the first of them delivered on his eighteenth birthday.

He then decided the terms were unacceptable and had no time to waste renegotiating. The knight carried a sealed letter he was to open only after the exchange: his men were to fight the cyclops and lose, satisfying its appetite, while the senator kept his prophecy, his sons, his daughters, and his gold. Two of Sylla's officers were sent along to make sure of it.

His own summary of his method: an honest man is worth gold. He meant it as a valuation.