Apollonius – Character Bio

Sertorius purchases him in Massilia

To find his niece, who was also enslaved 

loud, quiet, harsh, etc.

• He is a natural listener, and enjoys quiet speech about important things.
• Even at his age, with a lifetime of knowledge already acquired, he has never lost his natural desire to learn. His curiosity knows no bounds.
• He is caring and nurturing, and attributes this to the fact that he cared for four younger siblings and all of their children. He is excellent with children, and this shows as he both educates and nurtures young Gavius

• He asks Sertorius permission to fast on Saturdays, a custom he learned from his mother, who was a Jew.
• Along with his philosophical texts, he keeps a copy of the notes he made while studying the Talmud.

• He has a brilliant mind and a well-rounded understanding of common ethics (right and wrong). He tries to be fair at all times.
• He speaks eloquently, and in such a way that others are bound to take notice, even though he is a slave.
• He has a strong set of principles.
• He is very good at speaking others down when they are angry or reckless. Although he has never been a parent, he says he has “spent so many years taking care of my father in one of his usual Opiate induced comas and his mother’s rare and momentary lapses of judgement,” that he often parented to his parents.

• Physically weak
• Very squeamish at the sight of blood or violence
• he holds women up on a pedestal, considering himself unworthy to be in the presence of beauty.

• He likes to have a copy of Plato, Socrates and Aristotle close by at all times, and has compiled his own commentary on their collective work, which he is constantly revising and updating.

• He would like to visit the Holy Land, at least once, before he dies. This would require his freedom.

• To be killed by the sword. He has always desired to die peacefully, at the time of his own choosing- as Socrates once did.

• He has a strong desire for women, but stifles this not only because of his station, but also his religion.

• He is naturally a submissive person, who seeks to avoid conflict at all costs, and therefore operates well as a slave. That being said, he is adverse to kneeling before another man, and refuses to pay homage to the Roman gods. While in captivity, the beatings he received do not deter his moral fortitude.

• In small confined spaces with someone he trusts. He is made uncomfortable by the use of strong wine.

• He believes strongly in the forces of fate, and that the Hebrew God is in control of all.
• He believes that a man can never be free unless he is free within himself, and therefore says he cannot really be a slave.
• Believes that the sun shines on the good and that bad, and that the rains will pour on both as well, but that righteous judgement awaits all.

• At his inability to converse with the opposite gender. His intellect is stunted around pretty women.

• He carries a natural tendency to dislike those who drink too often or in excess.
• He dislikes Jews who have abandoned their faith and been “Romanized”

• He doesn’t care for offering political opinions, although he doesn’t deny having them. He says that his father Abraham would have stated the proper political positioning if he placed real importance on them, but rather believes it is his role as a Jew and a man to live morally and upright, not to quarrel in conflicts above his station.

• He is Jewish, and firm in his faith. He does believe that God will speak to man if he listens, and sometimes interprets signs from God.

• He reacts poorly to negative stimuli. It seems that the more serious stressors become, the better he can handle them. He bares his slavery with nobility and courage, but small and trivial things that go wrong, such as an ink well spelling on his parchment, can ruin his day.

• crossing his legs, shaking his hands when he speaks, and touching a finger to his lips. He draws out his stories, and knows when he has the attention of others, and takes advantage of this situation for all it’s worth.

• To find his niece

• To return to the Holy Land before he dies.

• He was actually born in a caravan near the red sea, where his father was a merchant. His father, a Greek, relocated to his native city, Athens, before Apollonius was old enough to walk.

• His father was injured while working as a traveling merchant. A camel kicked him in the face and shattered several bones. He afterwards self medicated with Egyptian opiates, which he received through connections he made during his time there. This is a constant source of conflict throughout Apollonius’ upbringing.

• His father was a traveling merchant in a caravan, it’s route traveling from Egypt, through the Sinai Desert, through Judea, and into Asia Minor. While in Jerusalem, he impregnanted a young girl, who was naive and swayed by his charm and good looks.
• She was shunned and disowned by her family, and left with the merchant.
• Apollonius’ father had always wanted children, but something changed in him when he had his accident. When he finally received his child, he seemed to be disappointed in it, something that would never change.
• They moved to Athens, where his father worked day jobs, and his mother took care of her broken husband as a way to repent of her sins.
• As Apollonius aged, he took an interest in learning, and spent as much time reading and listening to intellectuals- something that his father despised.
• When he eventually receives a job at the library of Athens, his father beats him horribly.
• Later his father dies, and as his firstborn, Apollonius inherits his massive debts, both to legitimate institutions and to drug dealers.
• He is unable to pay on such a meager wage, and is eventually enslaved and sold for the sum of what he owed.

• He was very sheltered in his youth, being asked to take on large burdens uncommon for a young man, such as taking care of his father. Therefore, he wasn’t much socialized with the other boys. His best friends became the clerks at the library, where he spent his time reading after he taught himself how.
• He was naturally close with his younger brothers and sisters, but his brothers were far more like their father than he. They were tough individuals who took great interest in Greco wrestling and personal toughness. They all disavowed the mother’s God and worshipped the Greeks. Before their father passed, all the other children hated him, and moved away. He doesn’t even know where they are now. He was left with the daughter (born out of wedlock) of his brother, who did not want her.

• Teaching himself to read by comparing texts and listening to others read them aloud.

• His father, intoxicated, falling asleep and knocking over a candelabrum. His mother and he hastily put out the fire, but his mother lost her senses. She picked up her father’s dagger and placed it to her wrists. Apollonius calmly tries to talk her into submission, but she can hardly hear him. He eventually pries the dagger away from her and holds her as she weeps.

• After he received his position as a scribe at the Athens library, he was sitting in a dim lit room with nothing but scrolls around him. He remembers the feeling of confinement and safety, but also the intellectual intensity of boundless knowledge at his disposal. The air seemed crisper then, everything seemed brighter.

• Self-educated, but more intellectually developed than the most educated politicians in Rome.

• Translating free-hand the entire Nichomocean Ethics.

• Before he was a slave, he was a librarian.
• Before he was a librarian, he swept the streets and cleaned out the local latrines on feast days and after festivals, which he says was not much preferable to slavery.