Valentina

Valentina's Origins

Valentina is a girl who lives in Rome. She is the daughter of the Roman Goddess Venus but grow up with two mortal parents. She is half Greek on her father side. Her father's name is Valentin and he was born in Greece on the island of Cyprus, then moved to Rome where he met and then married Valentina's mother. They only had one daughter. The place where Valentina and her family are from is known as a Pagus which is where the word Pagan came from.

Her father had gotten citizenship of Rome and then went on to be a part of the senate. He also owned slaves. As a child Valentina would get tutors and nice clothes. She would eat with her parents and her father would have his meetings with important people as a senator. They would make the slaves do what ever they would want them to do which Valentina didn't like and felt a sense of empathy towards the slaves for a reason she couldn't understand. How could she be empathetic towards people of lower class when she is supposed to be a daughter of an important man? She would go to bed every night staying up a little late just thinking about the slaves and how it isn't right that some people are treated as such.

There would be somedays when she would sneak food out and give it to the slaves so they can eat normal food. She feels a connection with them that draws her into wanting to help them. By the time she was around 16 or 17, she has heard of a woman by the name of Aphrodisa that lived in Greece and was sentenced to death for killing Alexander the Great 23 years ago. It is now the year 300 BCE.

She has read about her in her father's library. There where books about her starting from when she was a slave to when she saved money to buy her own freedom and her friends and family freedoms. These books also mention how she married an Egyptian Spartan solider but had continued her work on freeing slaves and showed empathy on other city states up until she was accused for the suspected death of Alexander the Great.

With all this reading she had started to see similarities between herself and Aphrodisa. By her image she looked like her and she has the same kind of empathy as Aphrodisa did. She had decided to consult with the sibylline books which where a collection of oracular utterances, set out in Greek hexameters, that according to tradition were purchased from a sibyl by the last king of Rome. It told her that she is the reincarnation of Aphrodisa. She couldn't believe this and now understand why she has so much empathy for the slaves. It was because in her past life she was a slave.

Now that Valentina is reaching adulthood, she grew angry on how some people treats other people like property and would often get into fights with her father from time to time since they share different viewpoints. Her hope is to one day be like Aphrodisa and continued her work she started. She dreams of one day finding someone who she would want to marry but not like Aphrodisa's Mantu since they were so different. Not that Mantu was a bad husband but because he was a Spartan and loves to fight, he never understood why Aphrodisa cared so much for other city states that are not Sparta. Valentina wants to find someone who understand and accept what she is doing and not always fight with her over it like she does with her father who will never understand. She is afraid though that history will repeat itself and she will end up being with someone like Mantu and will suffer the same fate as Aphrodisa.