Pandora was born with the name Lydia in the Roman Republic in the year 15 BC to a Senatorial family. She is tall, with rippling brown hair and gold-brown eyes. Like many Patrician Roman females of the time Pandora was taught how to read and write and is well versed in epic poems, especially Ovid's works. She meets Marius for the first time when he is twenty-five and she is ten. Marius asks for Lydia's hand in marriage, but her father rejects Marius' offer. Five years later, Lydia sees Marius at a festival and begs her father to allow her to marry Marius. Her father again refuses.