Travis Starnes
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The Sword of Jupiter (Imperium #1) - Chapter 13
🕑 Added 2019-11-26 15:17:12 +0000 UTC
The next morning Ky was led to the Emperor, who had set up a meeting for Ky to lay out the groundwork of what needed to be done before the Carthaginians descended on the Romans again. The guard led him into what he was beginning to think of as the ‘governmental’ part of the main palace, which was the western half of the largest building that made up the imperial complex.
After his talk with Lucilla and her father the afternoon before, Ky had allowed her to take him on a tour of the imperial complex. Considering he would be based out of these buildings for the foreseeable future, a tour seemed like a good idea. Besides distracting himself from the less than charitable emotions he still felt towards the Romans and their choices of entertainment, the tour allowed him to spend more time with Lucilla, an activity he found strangely pleasing.
Directly facing the central city square sat the entrance to the imperial palace itself, where Ky had spent most of his time. On the very far end of the extended block that made up the complex, opposite the palace was the Roman forum, which was used by the Senate as both its main chambers and which housed offices for the most important senators. The buildings that made up the rest of the block included additional senatorial offices, a building housing the imperial treasure, a governmental records building, and a long barracks which held the Praetorian Guard.
The barracks had at first confused Ky. The building was much too large for a police force but smaller than a legion would need, and was virtually empty. The barracks themselves struck Ky more as designed for military use rather than something used by a police force, at least based on what he had seen in use by the legions. He also could not help but wonder where the hundreds of men that would fill up these barracks were during the battle itself when trained soldiers were in such short supply.
Lucilla cleared up much of that when he voiced his question aloud.
The barracks were assigned to the Praetorian Guard, a combination of an elite military unit and police force that answered directly to the emperor. The guard had a larger complex of barracks that could hold nearly an entire legion on the other side of town. The buildings here were for a detachment of the overall guard assigned to protect the Emperor and members of the Roman government. The city guards he had seen up to this point were, in fact, members of the Praetorian Guard. Apparently, the Emperor had dispatched the bulk of the Guard along with the other legions to deal with the northern tribe’s incursions.
He pushed the pleasant memories of his afternoon with Lucilla aside as he entered the room assigned for their meeting. Ky was surprised to find that the room was not that different than what he would have encountered in his own time. The room was wide open, with a long table stretching down the center. Although his people would have cushioned chairs instead of hard stools, and there would definitely not have been servants lining the walls waiting for commands, the scene felt familiar all the same.
Neither the Emperor nor his daughter had arrived yet, but Ky could see several familiar, and by now friendly, faces already seated around the table. Velius and Aelius were there along with a few others Ky recognized such as Gordianus, Velius’s second in command, and Ramirus, the Emperor’s chief spy.
“Consul. Welcome,” Velius said, standing and walking to greet Ky in what he was coming to recognize as the ‘Roman’ fashion, where each person would grip the other’s forearm near the elbow in an extended handshake.
“Velius. Aelius. How are the men?”
“Joyous of the victory but still suffering the loss of so many of their brothers,” Aelius said, greeting Ky in turn.
“We are going to have difficulty getting together enough men to replace all of our losses,” Velius said.
“That’s one of the things I want to cover today.”
Ky eyed the man who stood slightly behind Aelius. The giant stood several inches taller than Ky and must have outweighed him by a hundred pounds of pure muscle. A long line traced from his right cheek to right ear, a woolen thread still holding the two sides in place.
“This is Cossus Valerius Hirrus. My second in command,” Aelius, noticing Ky’s glances, said in introduction.
“Newly promoted,” Velius added. “Right after Aelius here was officially made Legate of the ninth.
“Congratulations,” Ky said.
“Thank you, Consul.”
The man’s voice was oddly gentle, considering his massive size.
Before their conversation could continue any further, the door leading into the meeting room swung open, admitting the Emperor and his daughter.
“Good, everyone’s here,” the Emperor said.
Ky could not help but notice the looks the men gave each other as the Emperor’s daughter took a seat at the table, sitting at her father’s left-hand side.
Once everyone was seated, the Emperor pushed himself up and stood straight-backed, looking across all the faces turned towards him
“Before I begin, I wanted to once again congratulate our legates and their subordinates on their hard-won victory. Thanks to your brave stand we can look forward to what comes next. A job well done.”
The Emperor paused, and everyone joined him in giving their congratulations to the two legates, both of whom looked discomforted by the attention.
“I believe you all know my new Consul. Ky, I don’t believe you’ve met Appius Dossenius Marcipor, Oppius Volusius Lurio, or Flavius Pedius Hortensius. Marcipor is one of the leading minds in Rome as well as being both my and later my daughter’s tutor. Lurio oversees the royal treasuries and tax collectors, and Hortensius is one of Devnum’s leading merchants, as well as owning the foundries that produce the bulk of our military supplies. Besides my daughter and Ramirus, these three men are my closest counselors.”
“Now, however, we must begin that task and decide how we are to face tomorrow. We all know the Carthaginians will not give up after a single defeat, no matter how lopsided. I spoke with Ramirus yesterday about this. I would like for him to give us his thoughts on what they will most likely do next. Ramirus?”
“Thank you, Imperator,” Ramirus said, standing. “My sources are limited, but I still stand by my estimate that this attack was made up of the bulk of available forces they had in Britannia. With winter setting in, the Carthaginians will have trouble getting reinforcements quickly. While I’m sure they will begin moving men from the continent right away, they will not be able to get enough men here, before foraging their armies becomes problematic. My best guess is we will see them by Maius at the earliest, although I don’t believe they will be much later than that either. The governor will be feeling pressure after losing an entire field army and will be impatient to prove himself to their leader, who is not generally known for accepting defeat lightly. I would bet on the Carthaginians starting their march as soon as they possibly can, even if the early start puts their men under hardship.”
“While I do not have access to the types of intelligence Ramirus has,” Velius said. “I would agree with that assessment. Our issue is that we won’t get the recalled Legions for several more days at least, and then we will only have three more since one Legion has to stay on the border with the Picts for security. The additional Legions wouldn’t even bring us to the size of the force we just faced, let alone an almost certainly larger army the Carthaginians will send next time.”
“That is one of the reasons I called this meeting,” the Emperor said. “After the battle, I spoke with Ky, and he believes he can help us. He pointed out that, while he had ideas on how to make us stronger, he is a stranger in our society and wasn’t sure of the best way to make those ideas happen. He asked if I could put together a meeting of my most trusted advisers to help him determine how to put his plans into effect. He also requested I include Aelius and Velius as well as my daughter in this meeting. Ky?”
Ky stood, giving a slight bow to the Emperor.
“As the Emperor said, I do have thoughts on ways to strengthen Rome, but I wanted to start with why I’m offering to help. My goal isn’t just to help Rome fend off the Carthaginians, although that certainly is a notable part of it. My goal is to make Rome stronger in everything, both by introducing new technologies and new ways of doing things and new ways of thinking. I know some of you have heard the proclamations about me being this Sword person, and I want to say up front what I have said to the Emperor. I am here by accident, and, as far as I can tell, I am not able to go back to my homeland. I am not offering to help you because of some mission handed down to me by the gods, but because if I am to live in your society, I want the best chance of my own survival. My motives are, mostly, purely selfish in nature.”
“You’re clearly no politician,” Velius said. “They would never admit that.”
“Which is why we like him,” Aelius said.
“I’m fairly certain that will be the last thing I’m going to say that you’ll like. I am fairly certain what you thought of when I said I had new technologies and ways of doing things was weapons and military strategies. While those are some of the things I have to offer, they are a small portion of the changes I’m going to suggest. A new weapon or a new tactic isn’t going to help you stand up against the Carthaginians and their hordes, and one battle isn’t going to force them to leave Rome alone. Rome needs long term changes if it’s going to survive. New technologies in your industries and farming will require new ways of taxing, new ways of mining, and new forms of businesses. To increase your manpower to the point that you can take the Carthaginians in a straight-up fight you’ll need new ways of thinking about science, about medicine and sickness, and a new understanding of how your people exist in your society, including your slaves. The changes I’m going to try and put in place will ripple out and change other things, which will ripple from there. You will find almost every aspect of your society, and probably those of your neighbors’ changed.”
Ky stopped and looked at each person around the table before continuing.
“I know you’re going to have a lot of questions about what I mean, and we can get into those. I know you’re going to have concerns about how these things will actually happen, and I’ll need your help in figuring out how to deal with that. The Emperor trusts all of you to have the best interests of Rome at heart, and I hope that’s true. What I am offering is to teach you how to make Rome far more powerful than it has ever been. What I require is your willing help in changing Rome, down to its very foundations, to make that change possible.”
“Before I get into specific areas, I’m sure you have questions.”
“You said you could introduce technologies to make Rome stronger than it ever was before,” the man called Marcipor said. “I have studied natural philosophy my entire life and made my career learning. Yet there is nothing I know, or even could imagine, that could do what you suggest.”
Ky reached into his pocket and pulled out his drone. Activating it, he set it to hover over the center of the table.
“I come from a place with technology advanced to the point that it would seem like magic to you,” Ky said, pausing as he ordered the drone to slowly move in front of each man, ending with a quick circle around Marcipor’s head before stopping in the center of the table. “This is a machine, no different than your onagers or water wheels. The drone was designed by human minds and used by human soldiers such as myself.”
“You can teach us to make something like that?” Marcipor asked.
“No, there are a multitude of steps between your current level of technology and the level needed to create something like my drone. I can, however, teach you how to grow ten times the crops with a fraction of the manpower. I can teach you to conquer many of the sicknesses that kill your people. I can teach you to make a weapon that can pierce any shield and kill an enemy at one and a half mille passus, and how to put one of those weapons into the hands of all of your legionaries. To teach you these things I have to make you understand how to make new forms of steel, how to mix new chemicals, how to change your manufacturing to produce vast quantities of identical goods, how to change your financial system to keep up with the changes and afford the weapons and tools you will need, and to understand what causes people to get sick.”
“I showed you my machine here,” Ky said, ordering the drone back into his hand and deactivating it, “for you to understand what I mean when I say I have knowledge you do not.”
“What do you need from us?” the Emperor asked.
“I need your advice on who we need to talk to and how to convince your people to go along with these changes. First, let me give a quick description of the first stages of changes I want to introduce. I will try and keep each area separate to make things clear, but many of these will be tied together. I apologize in advance if this gets confusing.”
“You said this was the first stage?” Lucilla asked.
“Yes. No matter how focused Rome works on the projects, not all of these new technologies can be developed right away. Partly this is because some of the things I have to show you, such as the weapons I just mentioned, require you to learn about other new technologies to be able to make them. If we had all the time we wanted, I would teach you those things and then how to make the weapons all in one set. Given the timeline Ramirus gave us, however, we don’t have that luxury. Instead, I will start with teaching you weapons and tactics that can be put into effect over the winter while working with others to get the foundations needed to go to the next stage. Should we survive the next clash with the Carthaginians, we can then build on those foundations to go to the next stage.”
“That was going to be my question,” Ramirus said. “I was concerned we wouldn’t be able to make the changes you are hinting at in the few months available to us. You seem to have considered that.”
“I have. Before I get into specific technologies, I want to address how we will go about handling these new technologies. The treasury is going to be responsible for very large outlays of cash, more than you probably even suspect when I get to explaining some of the organizational changes. Right now Rome is funded by taxes on the amount of land a person owns. This is a good method when the primary form of business, and where most of your people are employed in the growing of food. As we make changes to farming, the number of people needed to grow food and the cost of the food will go down. Less of your people will be landowners, and more will start to drift into cities to take advantage of the new ways of creating and selling goods, which will, in turn, drive down your tax revenue from land.”
“I am suggesting two changes for a start. While taxing land is all well and good, we will need a tax for those without land holdings, especially those who will be making money off creating goods rather than growing foods. The other is that each business that wants to create the new technologies I will be providing will need to pay the government a fee for the use of the designs and ideas. Paying for the right to use an idea is, in fact, one of the new ideas I want to implement. Called a patent, it is the right of a person to profit off of the thing they invent when it’s used by other people. I can go into more detail about that later with your clerks, but the patent would be a legal protection, where the holder of the patent could go to the courts if someone is using their technique without paying for the right, or at least their approval.”
“How would you prove that the person invented this?” Lurio asked.
“We will have to set up a clerk and a new office much like your tax collectors, where the inventor submits his idea and, if approved, a record of that idea is held in the patent office as an official record. Since no office will be available until your Senators create and pass a law starting that system, we will have to rely on contracts for the first several inventions, which need to be started soon if enough of the weapons and tools are to be available when we need them.”
“You said you wanted every business that could participate to have a chance to,” Hortensius asked.
“Yes. First, because we will ultimately need multiple businesses working on the new inventions. Second, because that type of competition will lead to better end results. Lastly, because the businesses involved in creating these new weapons will be making large sums of money off of them and limiting that to just the imperial favorites will breed resentment, making later changes harder.”
“I will arrange for you to sit with Lurio and some of our more … friendly Senators,” the Emperor said. “Getting something like that through the Senate requires more than simply my agreement.”
“That’s fine. As I was saying, the first thing we’ll need to start work on, are four new weapons. One is an updated version of your arcuballista called a crossbow that will fire significantly farther with a far greater penetrating power. Some shields and armor will stop the bolts, but the Carthaginians are less armored than your legionaries making them susceptible to the weapon. This will not be a replacement for your archers but an addition to the front line infantry. Coupled with a new tactic called volley fire, your front line troops should be able to do a lot of damage to the enemy before you ever get into contact.”
“The next weapon is also a bow, but this one a replacement for the bows your archers use. The good thing is the design is not a radical departure from the bows you use now, which means you shouldn’t have difficulty producing them. The harder part will be to train your archers in the new weapon, which handles very differently. The people who used to use this weapon in my society’s past spent their lifetime training. I’m honestly not sure we’ll be able to train your archers to adjust to using them in such a short amount of time. If we can, the range advantage they give us will be significant.”
“Next is a new type of ballista called a trebuchet, which would be more useful in a siege rather than the open field battle we will almost certainly end up with, but they will still offer some advantages. The main difference between the mangonels or onagers you currently use and the trebuchet is the weight it can throw. The trebuchet should have the same range as your onagers, perhaps a little further, but you won’t have to rely on twisting ropes keeping their tension, causing the results to be more predictable and lessening how often you need to change parts. Like I said, this is a minor update and the least important of the four weapons.”
“The last weapon isn’t a weapon in the strictest sense, but two changes to your saddle. These changes will be easier to show your men in practice, but together they will allow you to replace the lances you currently use with a much longer one that you can impact harder without dismounting the rider and allow the riders to stay mounted on sharper maneuvers. This is the easiest change to make, and I’m certain your cavalry commanders will see the benefits fairly quickly.”
“This sounds like a lot of new equipment,” Hortensius said when Ky came to a stop.
“It is! Hence, the need for every manufacturer we can get to be participating, which mandates the need for the new financial methods to pay for everything. Beyond having to learn new designs, some of these parts will need to be made with stronger materials than you currently use, especially in the crossbows, requiring changing to a new steel, which in turn will require a redesign to the forges you currently use. While that may seem like too much to get done and still create all the equipment we need; beyond the new forge works, I will show you a new process of manufacturing that will not only increase how quickly you can produce goods, but will also make them more uniform.”
“I am guessing you will need to sit with me and whichever of the factories we can get to join me before you take the changes to the legions?” Hortensius asked.
“The saddle changes the legions should be able to do themselves. I’m not sure about either the siege weapons or the longbow, if the legions can do that or if they need your factories.”
“Siege weapons require some smithed items, although the bodies are usually cut and assembled by the legions engineers. The bows are usually assembled by the archers themselves. You do understand that most of the equipment used by legionnaires they buy for themselves?” Hortensius said.
“I do, which is one of the things we are going to have to change. For now, I will talk to the legions about the changes to their bows and siege equipment.”
“You sounded like you have more than just weapons to offer,” the emperor prompted when the conversation started to wind down.
“Yes. The thing I’ve noticed many of your past commanders commenting on most often, is how disease is the biggest problem for your armies.”
“This is true. We lose more men to sickness than nearly any battle we’ve ever fought,” Velius said.
“I want to sit with your doctors and learned men and talk about disease. This will be difficult for many, if not most, of them to believe in right away since, unlike the weapons, much of what I have to say will not be readily observable. If I can get them to believe me, though, this will be the greatest thing I can do for Rome. You will end up losing far fewer of your people, especially your children, to disease.”
“I will talk to those I know and arrange a time for you to describe this new world to us,” Marcipor said.
“Good. I will also talk to you two,” Ky said, pointing at Velius and Aelius, “about your camps. We can make some changes that will greatly reduce the number of men that become ill.”
“We are at your service,” Aelius said.
“The next major piece is the owners of your largest farms. I will be able to show them new tools and methods of planting that will allow two men to do the work of a dozen. Some of these will require the smiths to create new implements, but that will take second priority to the parts needed for weapons.”
“The last person I need to talk to is someone who knows how to work fabric and wood. I will show them how to create an alternative to sheepskin or the reed papyrus, which will be cheaper and easier to produce in large quantities. This won’t have immediate changes, but will be needed for later stages as we make changes to the way clerks keep track of assets and information.”
“Is that everything?” the Emperor asked as Ky paused.
“No, the last part is going to be the hardest for you to accept. You need to stop using slaves.”
“Hold on …” Hortensius said.
“I’m not sure …” Ramirus began.
“The Carthaginians …” Velius said.
“Stop,” the Emperor said, interrupting the men who started to speak at once. “Let him finish.”
This was the part that Ky had thought about the most. He was not going to get anywhere arguing on moral grounds. This was a very different time, when the whole world participated in the practice, and almost no one had moral objections. He knew he would need another tactic if he was going to get Romans to turn their back on slavery.
“I know this will not happen quickly, and many of your wealthiest Romans use slaves as the bulk of their workforce. You have a manpower problem. First, you have a manpower problem in your Legions. Even if every free Roman signed up for the Legion tomorrow, you still wouldn’t have enough soldiers to see this war with the Carthaginians through to the end. There aren’t enough of you. Second, you have a manpower problem in your industry.”
“I thought you just said you’re biggest obstacle was going to be wealthy businessmen who use slaves for most of their labor. How does removing slaves help a manpower problem in our industry?” Hortensius asked.
“Do you use slaves in more complicated tasks that require years of apprenticeship to be able to perform successfully?”
“No.”
“Exactly. Except for your gladiators, you use slaves for menial labor. In the fields, as servants, in warehouses. The only really skilled group of slaves you seem to employ as a society, are your gladiators. This system seems to work only because owning a gladiator is seen as a form of prestige, rather than as a business deal. As your level of industry improves, especially in some of the later stages, your workforce will become more specialized. Slavery will become economically unfeasible. There is a solution, however.”
“Which is?” The Emperor asked.
“A path out of slavery. Allow slaves a path to become citizens after a set amount of work or level of performance. Some will choose to return to their homeland but, if treated properly, many will have assimilated into Roman culture and will choose to stay. They will build up your population base and help make Rome stronger. I have specifics that we can get into later, especially how they can be used to immediately bolster the military, which I’ll talk to your Legates about, once the missing legions return.”
“I understand I’m asking for a lot, and there is going to be a large push back. I’m not looking to change your society at once. I do think that, once your people experience the difference offered by these changes, you’ll see the benefit of them and embrace the changes that come after. The Emperor said you were his most trusted advisers and I hope you will be able to advise me on how to get our fellow citizen to accept the changes that need to happen.”
“I think Ky has given us all much to think about,” the Emperor said. “Ky, if you’ll excuse us, I would like to talk with my advisers about how to make this all happen. I’ll have the person best suited for each area you outlined take charge, and bring together everyone that needs to be involved. From there you should be able to give specific instructions and work with them to make the changes happen. I also have two things I need to discuss with you. I’ll send a guard for you once we finish here.”
“I am at your service, Princeps.”
