Character guide

Titus Andronicus

major

Also known as Titus, old Titus, noble Titus, Andronicus, old Andronicus, good Andronicus, Lord Titus, Titus So

Titus Andronicus enters Rome as its most celebrated soldier, a man whose piety and discipline have cost him twenty-one sons and earned him the people's nomination for emperor. He declines the throne, but his rigid devotion to Roman order—sacrificing a Goth prince, endorsing Saturninus, killing his own son for disobedience—hands power to his enemies and turns his family into targets. His transformation from unbending patriarch to a man who matches atrocity with atrocity drives the play's escalating logic of revenge.

Tamora

major

Also known as Tamora Olympus, mighty Tamora, Tamora Rapine, Rapine, Tamora King

Tamora enters Rome as Titus's prisoner, watching her eldest son butchered as a ritual offering before the city she has fought for years. Elevated to empress by Saturninus's impulsive choice, she becomes the play's most dangerous figure: patient, charming, and utterly without mercy. Her grievance against Titus is personal and precise, and her willingness to weaponize her sons, her lover Aaron, and her own imperial position sets the machinery of the tragedy in motion.

Aaron

major

Also known as Aaron the Moor, the Moor, Aaron Ay, Aaron Villain, Aaron Madam

Aaron operates in Rome's shadows as Tamora's secret consort and chief strategist, orchestrating murders, framing Titus's sons, and arranging Lavinia's assault with cold precision. What distinguishes him from the play's other schemers is his honesty about his motives—he does evil not for power or grief but because he finds it delicious. His unapologetic malice and his fierce, unexpected tenderness toward his infant son make him the play's most unsettling and strangely compelling figure.

Lavinia

major

Also known as Gracious Lavinia, sweet Lavinia, Gentle Lavinia, Seizing Lavinia, Lavinia Ay, Lavinia Sweet lords

Lavinia stands at the center of Rome's succession crisis as the woman Bassianus claims against Saturninus's imperial will, a choice that makes her a target for Tamora's household. Proud, articulate, and quick to name tyranny when she sees it, she is reduced to a body that can only gesture and a mouth that cannot speak. Her suffering transforms her father's grief into something monstrous, and her presence—bleeding, silent, unavenged—drives the play's middle act toward its terrible resolution.

Saturninus

major

Also known as Saturnine, Proud Saturnine, Lord Saturnine, Saturninus Traitor, Saturninus Ay, Saturninus Friends, Saturninus Romans, Saturninus Aemilius

Saturninus claims the throne by primogeniture and immediately finds his title contested by Bassianus, the people's preference for Titus, and his own gnawing sense of inadequacy. He marries Tamora on impulse, elevating a captive queen to empress and binding his fate to hers. His willingness to believe the worst of Titus's family, and his eagerness to authorize their destruction, makes him less a villain than a weak man whose wounded pride becomes lethal.

Marcus Andronicus

major

Also known as Marcus, gentle Marcus, Marcus Titus, Marcus O Titus, Marcus Alas, Marcus Kinsmen, Marcus Rome, Marcus Ay, Marcus Fie, Marcus O Publius

Marcus Andronicus opens the play by nominating his brother for emperor and closes it by trying to make sense of the wreckage. As tribune, he represents Rome's institutional conscience—reasonable, eloquent, and tragically ineffectual against the forces Titus's return has unleashed. His discovery of the mutilated Lavinia and his attempts to govern his brother's grief mark him as the play's witness, a man whose virtue offers no protection against the violence consuming his house.

Lucius

major

Also known as Lucius O worthy Goth, Lucius Proud Saturnine, Lucius Sweet father, Lucius O, Lucius Farewell Andronicus, Lucius Sirs, Lucius Uncle Marcus, Lucius Away

Lucius begins as the Andronici heir, banished for defending his brothers and driven to seek shelter among Rome's old enemies. His father's ruin makes him both avenger and reluctant claimant, torn between filial obedience and the demands of a broken state. He matters because the play's middle keeps asking whether Rome can be saved by the same violence that corrupted it.

Demetrius

supporting

Also known as Demetrius Chiron, Demetrius Youngling, Demetrius Ay, Demetrius Aaron, Demetrius Gramercy, Demetrius Villain, Lord Demetrius

Demetrius moves through Rome with the swagger of a Goth made consort, certain that rank and appetite entitle him to whatever he desires. He competes openly with his brother Chiron for Lavinia, and Aaron's quiet steering turns that rivalry into a shared crime. His cruelty is not merely personal; it is the visible face of a court where power has replaced law.

Chiron

supporting

Also known as Chiron Demetrius, Chiron Aaron, Chiron Rome

Chiron bristles at Demetrius's seniority even as he imitates his appetites, and the two brothers' brawl over Lavinia exposes how little either understands the danger they are courting. Under Aaron's direction their rivalry hardens into conspiracy, and their mother's elevation shields them from consequence. They matter because their violence against Lavinia becomes the wound around which the play's revenge turns.

Bassianus

supporting

Also known as Bassianus Lavinia, Bassianus Andronicus, poor Bassianus, Prince Bassianus, Bassianus Romans, Lord Titus Bassianus

Bassianus enters the play pleading for election by desert rather than birth, and his betrothal to Lavinia sets him against both his brother and Tamora's house. He is generous, outspoken, and dangerously confident that Roman law will shield him. His early death transforms a political rivalry into an intimate blood feud and gives Titus his first unbearable loss.

Young Lucius

supporting

Also known as Young Lucius Good grandsire, Young Lucius Ay, Exeunt Young Lucius, proud Lucius

Young Lucius appears as the family's next generation, sent on errands by a grandfather whose sorrow has already outrun any child's understanding. He speaks of daggers and revenge with the earnestness of a boy who has heard too much war at the table, yet he still moves through scenes with a servant at his side. He matters because he shows what Titus's household is passing on, and what Rome may yet inherit.

Aemilius

supporting

Also known as Aemilius Lord Lucius, Aemilius Arm, Saturninus Aemilius

Aemilius functions as Rome's voice when the court needs a message delivered or a threat named aloud. He arrives at Saturninus's side just as Titus's arrows and the Gothic march force the emperor to confront what his rule has cost. His presence marks the point where private vengeance and public crisis can no longer be kept apart.

Publius

supporting

Also known as Titus Publius, gentle Publius, Marcus O Publius

Publius belongs to the Andronici circle that gathers around Titus in his feigned madness, one of the trusted men summoned when the old general needs bodies to seize Chiron and Demetrius. His defining moment is quiet obedience: told to bind the men he recognizes as the empress's sons, he answers only that they do what they are commanded, then makes sure the knots hold and the mouths stay stopped. He matters because the revenge plot needs hands as well as fury, and Publius supplies the unhesitating execution that turns Titus's theatrical scheme into blood.

Quintus

supporting

Also known as Quintus Aaron, Quintus Martius

Quintus returns from the wars with his brothers to a Rome already tilting toward Saturninus, and his father's refusal of the crown sets the family on a collision course with the new emperor. When Bassianus is murdered in the forest, Quintus and Martius are found beside the body and dragged off as the obvious culprits, their innocence worth nothing against a court that wants Andronicus blood. His fate shows how quickly the play converts military honor into legal prey, and it gives Titus the first of the losses that will hollow him out.

Martius

supporting

Also known as Martius Lord Bassianus, Martius Quintus

Martius stands with Quintus in the fatal forest scene, and the two brothers are arrested together for a killing committed by Tamora's sons. Their trial is a formality; the emperor's grief for his brother and the Andronici name are enough to seal the sentence. Martius matters because his death, paired with Quintus's, is the hinge that turns Titus from grieving general into something far more dangerous, and it exposes how thin Roman justice has become once Saturninus wears the crown.

Mutius

supporting

Also known as Mutius Help, young Mutius, sweet Mutius, noble Mutius, Mutius Brothers

When Titus tries to stop Bassianus from carrying Lavinia away, Mutius stands in the way, and his father kills him on the spot for the disobedience. The family buries him in the tomb anyway, over Titus's protests, and the wound of that killing never quite closes. Mutius matters because he is the first Andronicus to die by Andronicus hands, a preview of how thoroughly the play will collapse the line between kin and enemy once honor is at stake.

Nurse

supporting

Also known as Nurse O gentle Aaron, Nurse Aaron, Nurse Cornelia

The Nurse arrives at Aaron's side carrying the empress's blackamoor baby, calling it the empress's shame and Rome's disgrace, and relaying Tamora's order that Aaron christen it with his dagger's point. She is a go-between in the worst sense, a servant who has seen too much of her mistress's secret and expects Aaron to solve it. Aaron takes the child instead, and her usefulness ends there; she matters because she is the first to name the scandal aloud and the first to pay for it.

Clown

minor

Also known as Clown Yea, Clown Ay

A rustic messenger who delivers Titus's letter to Saturninus and is hanged.

Goths

minor

Also known as the Goths

Gothic army that follows Lucius and later invades Rome.

Alarbus

minor

Eldest son of Tamora, sacrificed by Titus's order at the play's opening.

Sempronius

minor

A kinsman of Titus, helps in the revenge plot.

Caius

minor

A kinsman of Titus, participates in the revenge scheme.

Valentine

minor

A kinsman of Titus, involved in the final revenge plot.

Messenger

minor

Also known as Messenger Worthy Andronicus

A messenger who brings news to Titus and others.