Lucius

Family: Andronicus · Role: son of Titus · First appears: Titus Andronicus · Act I, Scene I

As a son of Titus Andronicus, Lucius calls him the family’s soul and substance. In Act I, Titus Andronicus gives Alarbus to Lucius, who sacrifices and dismembers him for the dead Romans. When Lucius’s brothers Quintus and Martius are threatened, he tries to rescue them; after the judges sentence him to everlasting banishment, he also shows brotherly love to Marcus and bids farewell to Lavinia, mourning that she is no longer as she was.

Lucius leaves for the Goths, declaring, “Now will I to the Goths, and raise a power / To be revenged on Rome and Saturnine.” He becomes general of a powerful Gothic army marching against Rome, while Saturninus learns that the citizens favour Lucius and may revolt to support him. Tamora seeks to draw Titus Andronicus away from the war, and later proposes a feast at which Lucius’s enemies will be delivered to him; Lucius is also identified as the parent of Young Lucius.

In Act V, Lucius leads the Goths into Rome, receives Aaron and Aaron’s child, and swears to spare and raise the child in return for Aaron’s revelations. He agrees to meet the emperor after securing pledges to Titus Andronicus and Marcus, then orders Aaron fettered and deprived of food until he testifies against Tamora. He identifies Chiron and Demetrius as the murderers of the emperor’s brother and the ravishers of Lavinia, calls Aaron the devil who robbed Andronicus of his hand, and kills Saturninus in revenge for his father’s death. The Romans acclaim him emperor—“Lucius, all hail, Rome’s royal emperor!”—and he sentences Aaron to be buried breast-deep and starved.