Decius Metellus - Character History

Character History

Born in 95 BC into the prominent Caecilii Metelli family, a (fictional) nephew of Metellus Pius, Decius began his career serving as a military legate and scout commander, in the civil war against Quintus Sertorius, during which he received a scar from an Iberian spear.

He held several political and judicial offices in the turbulent days leading up to the Roman Civil War. He became an ally of Cicero, a reluctant ally of Cato the Younger, a close friend of Titus Annius Milo, and a mortal enemy of Publius Clodius Pulcher. He later married Julia, the (fictional) niece of Julius Caesar (by a lucky accident, the political marriage desired by his family coincided with his and Julia's own wishes).

Immediately before the Civil War, he is touring southern Italy as praetor peregrinus (a sort of roving magistrate who adjudicates cases related to resident foreigners).

The volume most recently published in English, The Year of Confusion, takes place the year before Caesar's assassination, while Caesar is exercising his dictatorship in Rome. Decius is the sole surviving member of his family (or at least the only member still in the Senate), since his family connection with Caesar has separated him from the rest of his family, who were disgraced and destroyed for their support of Pompey. Decius's activities between the previous novel, Oracle of the Dead and the events of Confusion are not detailed in the novels (except for a reference at the end of the fourth, The Temple of the Muses, that he was in Egypt with Caesar during his famous mediation between Ptolemy XIII and Cleopatra).

By the time of his memoirs' writing, he is an elderly senator during the reign of Augustus, whom he despises so much that he refuses to refer to him except as "The First Citizen," one of his more innocuous titles. Augustus leaves Decius alone, knowing him to be powerless, and even occasionally calls on him to solve a mystery (the subject matter of some of the short stories).

It is confirmed in Oracle that Julia, his wife, predeceased him. Their inability to conceive a child is a source of tension in their marriage during the novels, but, according to one of the short stories, he has at least one grandson, indicating that he and Julia had at least one child before she died.

After Decius solves the murder of Julia the Elder's lover in 22 BC, clearing Julia of all suspicion, Augustus offers him the position of Rex Sacrorum. Decius declines, declaring that he views exile on an unknown island as being preferable. His exploits after that are unknown.