Editing Liberalis Circulum

{{Era|AC2|ACB|PL|FC|Assassins}}
{{Youmay|the '''Roman-era branch of the Assassins'''|the '''[[Italian Brotherhood of Assassins|Italian Brotherhood]] operating during the Renaissance'''}}
{{Conjecture}}
{{Quote|Bayek, Caesar has been assassinated. Septimius is also dead. I have founded a bureau in the middle of Rome, yet no one knows of our existence. Like Amun, we are... the Hidden Ones.|Aya detailing the successful formation of the Roman bureau in her letter to Bayek, 43 BCE.|Assassin's Creed: Origins}}
{{Faction infobox
|name =
|image = Insignia 1.png
|founder = [[Aya]]<br>[[Lugos]]
|leader = 
|headquarters = [[Rome]]
|locations = [[Roman Republic]]<br>[[Roman Empire]]
|related = [[Assassins]]
|religion =
|hideh = yes
|formed = 46 BCE
|reorganized =
|collapsed = 
|notable = [[Marcus Junius Brutus]]<br>[[Leonius]]<br>[[Aquilus]]<br>[[Accipiter]]}}
The '''Roman Brotherhood of Assassins''', also known at the time as the '''[[Hidden Ones]]''', was the branch of [[Assassins]] which operated throughout the territory controlled by [[Rome]] during the era of the [[Roman Republic]] and the [[Roman Empire]].

It was one of the first branches of the [[Hidden Ones]], who would later become the Assassin Brotherhood, and was founded by the [[Greece|Greco]]-[[Egypt]]ian Hidden One [[Aya]], shortly after she had founded the organization in Egypt alongside her husband, the [[Medjay]] [[Bayek]]. Centuries later, the branch was revived as the [[Italian Brotherhood of Assassins]].

==History==
===Foundation as the Hidden Ones===
{{Dialogue|Aya|I have assembled a group. This is Brutus and Cassius. Our Roman brothers.|Phoxidas|We're going to cut these bastards down from across the seas. Septimius and Caesar.|Aya and Phoxidas introducing Bayek to their Roman recruits, 47 BCE.|Assassin's Creed: Origins}}
In 47 BCE, the Medjay Bayek and his wife, Aya, who were on a quest of vengeance against the [[Order of the Ancients]] for the death of their son [[Khemu]] and had formed a network of people opposing the Ancients and supporting the Egyptian Queen [[Cleopatra]], were betrayed by the Roman general [[Julius Caesar]] and Cleopatra, who were influenced by the Order. While Bayek tracked down and killed the Order's leader, [[Flavius Metellus]], Aya recruited the Roman Senators [[Marcus Junius Brutus]] and [[Gaius Cassius Longinus]], enemies of Caesar, to their cause, determined to leave for Rome to combat the Order there. Before leaving, Bayek and Aya named their new brotherhood the Hidden Ones, laying out the foundation of the Creed and their customs.<ref name="ACO">''[[Assassin's Creed: Origins]]''</ref>

While Bayek established a bureau in [[Memphis]], Aya set sail across the [[Tyrrhenian Sea]] towards Rome, accompanied by [[Damastes]] and [[Phoxidas]]. In 46 BCE, their ship was attacked by a Roman fleet, but they successfully managed to sink the ships and made port in [[Antium]] shortly afterwards. From there, Aya made her way to Rome and established a bureau there.<ref name="ACO"/>

Aya founded the Roman branch of the Hidden Ones, and aside from Brutus and Cassius, also recruited several other Roman Senators, as well as the Roman philosopher [[Publius Volumnius]].<ref name="ACO"/><ref>''[[Assassin's Creed: Syndicate]]'' – [[Database: Reconstructed Data 011]]</ref> The Roman Senators that would take part in the conspiracy against Caesar referred to themselves as ''Liberatores''.<ref name="ACPL - Giovanni Borgia">''[[Assassin's Creed: Project Legacy]]'' - [[Rome: Chapter 2 - Giovanni Borgia]]</ref>

Later on, [[Lugos]], who would create a group of Roman Assassins known as the ''Liberalis Circulum'', traveled to Egypt to recover two [[Pieces of Eden]], the [[Ankh]] and the [[Scepter of Aset]], which had been found in a pyramid by Roman plunderers. However, while carrying the two artefacts aboard his ship back to Rome across the [[Mediterranean Sea]], a terrible storm opened an enormous waterway within the ship, causing it to sink. Before his demise, Lugos recorded a message with the Ankh, detailing the ongoing events and lamenting the failure of his mission.<ref name="AC3A">''[[Assassin's Creed 3: Accipiter]]''</ref>

===Early activities===
====Assassination of Julius Caesar====
{{Quote|[Caesar] has created his own private senate, filled with deceivers, manipulators, people who have no business in Roman affairs. My brothers are eager for blood, but I am not certain I can spill it.|Marcus Junius Brutus on Julius Caesar, c. 44 BCE.|Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood}}
[[File:Assassination of Julius Caesar.jpg|thumb|250px|The Hidden Ones killing Julius Caesar]]
By 44 BCE, Julius Caesar had become the new head of the Order of the Ancients, with [[Lucius Septimius]] as his right hand, and even considering him the '''[[Father of Understanding]]'''. With Aya as their leader,<ref name="ACO"/> Brutus and Cassius spearheaded a conspiracy with thirty-eight other Roman Senators, who were also all secretly Hidden Ones and opposed Caesar's imperialist ideals after he was appointed dictator for life. After being assigned by Cassius as the one to come up with the plan of [[Assassination of Julius Caesar|assassinating Caesar]], Brutus designated a [[Temples|temple]] preceding a sealed [[Isu|First Civilization]] [[Colosseum Vault|vault]] hidden beneath what would eventually become the [[Santa Maria in Aracoeli|Santa Maria Aracoeli]] as a meeting place for his co-conspirators.<ref name="ACB">''[[Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood]]''</ref><ref name="ACPL - Giovanni Borgia"/> Having received visions of Caesar's future assassination within the vault, Brutus was further motivated and scheduled their attack for the Ides of March.<ref name="ACB"/>

On 15 March 44 BCE, Aya, Brutus and Cassius went to the [[Theatre of Pompey]] where the Roman Senate was to convene. While Brutus and Cassius went to the curia, Aya fought and killed Septimius, before joining her brothers in the Senate. Aya was the first one to strike at Caesar, followed by the Roman Senators. Caesar resisted at first, but resigned himself to his fate upon recognizing Brutus.<ref name="ACO"/><ref name="ACB"/> Shortly after, Aya adopted the name Amunet.<ref name="ACO"/>

Driven to severe guilt from his actions, Brutus later returned to the [[Colosseum]], and abandoned the [[Dagger of Brutus|dagger]] he had used to strike down Caesar within the vault, along with his [[Armor of Brutus|heirloom armor]] and the [[Scrolls of Romulus|scrolls]] describing his dreams and discovery of the vault, as well as include drawings of the chamber and [[Vault pedestal|its pedestal]].<ref name="ACB"/>

====Attempted resurrection of Brutus====
{{Quote|Whatever power lies within this artifact, it has not returned our Brother to us.|Publius Volumnius commenting on the failed resurrection of Brutus.|Assassin's Creed: Project Legacy}}
[[File:Philippi, Macedonia.png|thumb|left|250px|The Shroud covering Brutus]]
After the assassination, the Senate passed an amnesty on the Hidden Ones, which was proposed by Caesar's friend and co-consul [[Marcus Antonius]]. Nonetheless, uproar among the population forced Brutus and Cassius to flee from Rome, and a civil war ensued.<ref name="ACPL - Ghosts of Christmas Past">''Assassin's Creed: Project Legacy'' - [[Holidays: Chapter 1 - Ghosts of Christmas Past]]</ref>

In 42 BCE, armies under the command of Marcus Antonius and [[Augustus|Octavian]] clashed with those of Brutus and Cassius at the {{Wiki|Battle of Philippi}} in [[Macedonia]], and Cassius was killed in the ensuing battle. Faced with inevitable defeat, Brutus fled and committed suicide shortly thereafter.<ref name="ACPL - Ghosts of Christmas Past"/>

After Brutus' death, his fellow Hidden Ones gathered in Philippi, Macedonia and tried to reanimate him using a [[Shroud of Eden 1|Shroud of Eden]]. Since they had never used it before, the Hidden Ones feared its effects, but nevertheless wrapped Brutus in the cloth. Though the corpse opened its eyes and moved its arms, it neither breathed nor reacted to any touch, and eventually fell still in a seeming "second death".<ref name="ACPL - Ghosts of Christmas Past"/>

As some of the Hidden Ones wept, Brutus was wrapped instead in a burial mantle, and the Shroud was returned to its wooden storage box.<ref name="ACPL - Ghosts of Christmas Past"/>

===Activities in the Roman Empire===
{{Quote|The power of this artifact has yet to be uncovered, but the object itself possesses a strong symbolic value for our circle...|Lucius to his son Aquilus about the Ankh, in a message recorded by the artifact, 259.|Assassin's Creed 3: Accipiter}}
In 27 BCE, the Roman Republic had been transformed into the [[Roman Empire]] by Octavian. The third Emperor who reigned over this new empire, [[Caligula]], was influenced by the Ancients. This turned him into a target for the Hidden One [[Leonius]], who stabbed him in 41 AD.<ref name="AC2">''[[Assassin's Creed II]]''</ref>

[[File:AC1D Aquilus Gracchus.png|thumb|250px|Aquilus in General Gracchus' tent]]
By 259 AD, a group of Hidden Ones operated as the Liberalis Circulum (''Circle of Liberals'') from the city of [[Lugdunum]]. The Roman proto-Assassin [[Lucius]] tasked the [[Alemanni|Aleman]] [[Accipiter]] with obtaining a Precursor artifact known as the [[Ankh]]. Lucius' son [[Aquilus]], who was also a cousin of Accipiter, was tasked with assassinating two Generals and a Senator, and then ordered to retrieve the artifact in Accipiter's possession.<ref name="AC2A">''[[Assassin's Creed 2: Aquilus]]''</ref> However, as Aquilus reached his third target, the General [[Gracchus]], his intent was discovered and he was stabbed by his own target.<ref>''[[Assassin's Creed 1: Desmond]]''</ref> Fortunately for the Hidden One, Aquilus was saved by his cousin, who gave him the Ankh, which had been finally recovered, centuries after Lugos' death. The Gaul took back the artifact to his father in Lugdunum, but it was then stolen by the Hidden Ones' ancestral enemies, with [[Caïus Fulvus Vultur]] killing Aquilus' father, Lucius.<ref name="AC2A"/>

Aquilus tracked Vultur to Rome, where he eliminated him and his fellow conspirators, and retrieved the artifact. Later, the arrest and execution of Aquilus was ordered by the [[Prefect of Lugdunum|prefect of his home city]], but even after Aquilus' death, the artifact was successfully hidden. It was this same Prefect with whom [[Cuervo]], an Iberian Hidden One sent to preserve the Circle's interests in Lugdunum from the Germanic armies raiding the Empire, and Accipiter were negotiating the spare of the Roman city in exchange for a significant tribute to the Alemanni.<ref name="AC3A"/>

After Accipiter negotiated a truce with the Prefect of Lugdunum on behalf of the Alemanni, he attempted to rescue Aquilus, who was killed by Roman guards during Accipiter's ambush. Accipiter left the Ankh in the care of Aquilus' wife [[Valeria]].<ref name="AC3A"/>

In the 4th century, an unidentified [[Roman Assassin|Roman Hidden One]] operated in the Roman Empire during the rise of [[Constantine I]] as emperor, witnessing the foundation of [[Constantinople]].<ref>[https://twitter.com/DarbyMcDevitt/status/694275921604407296 Darby McDevitt's Twitter]</ref><ref>''[[Assassin's Creed Unity: Abstergo Entertainment - Employee Handbook]]''</ref>

==Members==
*[[Aya]] <small>{{c|[[Egyptian Brotherhood of Assassins|Egyptian Brotherhood]]}}</small>
*[[Lugos]]
*[[Gaius Cassius Longinus]]
*[[Marcus Junius Brutus]]
*[[Publius Volumnius]]
*38 other senators involved in Caesar's assassination
*[[Leonius]]
*[[Lucius]] {{C|Gaul}}
*[[Aquilus]] {{C|Gaul}}
*[[Accipiter]] {{C|German}}
*[[Cuervo]] {{C|Iberian}}
*[[Roman Assassin]]
{{-}}
'''Allies'''
*[[Valeria]]
*[[Weke]]

==Trivia==
*The Roman branch of the Assassins was first introduced in the [[Assassin's Creed (Les Deux Royaumes comics)|''Assassin's Creed'' comic series]] published by [[Les Deux Royaumes]] with the {{wiki|Latin}} name ''Liberalis Circulum''. Presented in the {{wiki|accusative case}}, this is grammatically incorrect because the {{wiki|nominative case|nominative form}} of ''Liberalis Circulus'' should have been used.

==Appearances==
*''[[Assassin's Creed – The Ankh of Isis Trilogy]]'' {{c|ambiguously canonical appearance}}
*''[[Assassin's Creed: Project Legacy]]''
*''[[Assassin's Creed: Origins]]''

==References==
{{Reflist}}
{{Assassins nav}}
{{ACPL}}
{{ACFC}}
[[Category:Assassin branches]]