Episode 13.2.a
>The Praetorium of the Societas Potentium, Aegyptus, 80 CE<
"Good!" the voice calls. "The second trial is finished. Now you must enter the peristyle."
A section of wall on the far side of the atrium slides aside and opens a new way. You go through with care, and soon you are standing in a peristyle, a colonnaded court, but a court built under the ground. Where the sky ought to be, there is only empty blackness. The space above you goes up so far that your head swims when you look. The columns climb into that dark and are lost beyond the reach of the light. In front of each column burns a single lamp.
In the middle, where the garden of a peristyle would be, stands a wooden platform, high and square, like the speakers' stand in a forum.
From a doorway at the far end of the court a man comes toward you. He is in the middle of his life, and he wears the bordered toga of a magistrate, the toga praetexta. His face is hard, and everything in his bearing is hard. When he speaks, you know at once whose voice you have been hearing. His ordinary speaking voice is not so loud, but even so it rolls back off the walls like thunder.
"Greetings, Recentii!" says the man. "The third trial now awaits you. I am the probator of the Potentes.
"We Potentes know your opinions, and we set a trial that puts opinions to the test. I divide you into two companies, two manus. One manus, stand at my right hand. The other, at my left."
When you have taken your places, he gives one company a tablet, and the other company a second tablet.
"Now prepare a speech. Defend the man whose name stands first on your tablet. We have given you men you would not easily praise. In this way you will learn to understand an enemy, and to hold power over him. For only those who can seize power and keep it may learn about the Lapis."
You open your tablet.
manus prima: Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, Gaius Marius, Marcus Tullius Cicero
manus secunda: Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus Numantinus, Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix, Gaius Julius Caesar
"After the first two speeches I will award honors of power for the speeches that deserve them. With those honors come prizes: weapons that will serve you in the missions ahead. Then we proceed to the next names."
Prompt: Confer with your team. (You will compose and deliver the speech in the next session; this prompt is for preparation.)
