MBTI Type: INFJ

Lucilla’s father laments that she was not born a man, for what a Caesar she would have made; it’s true, she is a strategic thinker, always focused on the future. When her brother arranges the gladiator games in order to “win over the mob,” Lucilla laments that he is using up their grain reserves to pay for them – in the future months, the people will starve. She knows instantly Commodus has killed their father. She sees the potential in Maximus, both as a leader of men and a figurehead of Rome. She helps devise a scheme against her brother with each step carefully fixed in place. Lucilla is a diplomat who knows how to calm her brother down, remain in his good favor, smooth over his ruffling of feathers in the senate, and recruit others to stand against him. She reacts emotionally to her father’s death by slapping her brother, then quickly appeases him and secures her safe place at his side. On more than one occasion, she tries to appeal to Maximus on emotional terms. She also thinks of the greater good of the citizens of Rome, to the extent where she places her own life in peril for their sake. Her skill in appeasement helps keep her alive, because she is able to convince her brother that she is on his side. Lucilla’s intensity of thought and ability to think around problems to find new solutions proves her intellectual flexibility. She ponders everything from her brother’s true motivations and methods to her relationship with Maximus and what it might mean for them. She is careful to define her words in clear terms and often quickly rethinks her position, in order to stay on her brother’s good side.Clearly at home in the pleasures of the palace, Lucilla shows a hint of recklessness in her schemes against her brother, as well as an ability to be opportunistic and take advantage of situations as they come to her, but she neither actively pursues physical pleasures nor seems impulsive. She tries to pull strings behind the scenes without ever putting herself at risk.

Enneagram: 6w5

She admits that she has been in fear every day since her father has died, because she is mother to the heir to the throne. This makes her cautious around her brother, and even when she is reactive and loses her temper, she quickly returns to subservience and trying to convince him that she is on his side. Lucilla is highly skilled at soothing him, collaborating with him, and rebuffing his sexual advances without offending him, using a 6ish skill of turning enemies into friends by being close to them and making them her protector. But she rapidly turns to others for help, advice, and assistance in bringing about his death, even though technically she could assert herself by poisoning him in the palace through his sleeping tonics. Lucilla needs to feel supported and as if others have her back, but also feels guilty about getting the others into trouble when her brother threatens to hurt her son unless she exposes their scheme. She is quite private, able to play her cards close to her chest, and lets no one know what is going on in her mind until she’s sure it is safe.