Episode 5.2.b
>The Forum of Herculaneum, Italy, 79 CE<
A door, in a square that has no shortage of things to look at. You work your way along the colonnades, past the statues on their pedestals and the bronze plaques bolted to the marble, and at first every wall is just a wall.
Then, low down near one corner, half in shadow, you find it: not a door but the carving of one, a gateway cut into the stone in shallow relief. Beneath it, so small you almost miss it, runs a line of letters, older than anything else in the forum and worn nearly smooth.
You crouch and read:
I am the door. I give people roads to the Lapis. I see the place, and in the place is the Lapis. I see the plaques too. The plaques have letters. The letters speak roads, and the roads lead writers to the Lapis. We are slaves. We keep Rome, and we serve Rome. We give people letters, and the letters hold a road to power.
Prompt: Read and interpret the inscription. (Do not expect to solve it fully; some of its meaning will only become clear later.)
