Episode 3.1.b
>Caecilius's Villa, Pompeii, Italy, 79 CE<
Caecilius gets to his feet and moves to the small painted map on the wall: the whole empire laid out in faded ochre and red, the roads running like veins from the city at the center of everything. He does not point at anything. He just looks at it for a moment.
"Most people have no idea how this happened," he says. "Rome did not always have emperors. There was a time when the Senate governed, when consuls were elected, when the Roman people chose who held power. That was the rēs pūblica." He turns away from the map. "It was also a time when Romans killed each other in the streets over who should be in charge. Civil war. You cannot run a business in a civil war. You cannot run anything."
He crosses back to his desk and leans against it, arms folded.
"Then Augustus came. He ended it. He gathered the power into one pair of hands, his own, and he kept it there, and the wars stopped." Something in his expression settles, the way a ledger settles when the columns finally balance. "I know what people say about that. Tyranny. The death of the Republic. I have heard all of it. But I am an argentārius, and I will tell you what Augustus actually gave Rome: he gave it peace. And peace means the ships come in. The grain moves. The money flows. Without peace, none of that exists."
He picks up his stylus, looks at it, sets it down again. "Augustus understood that. So far, every emperor since has understood it. That is what I am watching Titus to find out."
Prompt: The Demiurge wants to understand the full shape of Caecilius's political views. Find out why Caecilius thinks so highly of Augustus. What does he believe Augustus actually did for Rome?
