Chương 178: The Game Was Rigged From The Start

As the festival celebrating the construction of Nova Troia expanded far beyond the original plans, a variety of events were added. Letters from poets submitting their work to the literary contest poured in from all across Italy, and the gridiron tournament drew just as much interest.

"Throw it! Don't stop, keep running!"

"Block them, whatever it takes!"

"Run! Silva! Run!" Gridiron, first introduced during the Troy Game, had already spread throughout Italy. The Gridiron Committee, headed by Pompey, created official rules for the matches and provided support so that each city could form its own team. The teams that had emerged victorious in their respective cities' tournaments were now making their final preparations for the championship matches in Rome.

"I hear Pompey spends all day supervising the arena construction these days."

"I truly cannot fathom just how much that man loves gridiron." But that wasn't the only thing drawing the citizens' attention. The first-ever book fair, scheduled to be held alongside the literary contest, also garnered massive interest.

"Pamphlets have been a big trend lately, but you're saying they're setting up an entire market dedicated just to them?"

"I heard a lot of publishers are planning to release new books in time for this festival. Word is, they're all going to gather there."

"They say book merchants from other cities are coming too. If we sell books to them, wouldn't that be quite a profitable business?"

"How about we make a catalog of new releases?"

"A catalog of new releases? What do you mean?"

"We make a list of the books we're going to sell and distribute it. Couldn't people in other cities look at that catalog and place orders?"

"Right, if we use the postal service, people in other cities could check the list too. They could place their orders based on that." Over fifty print shops and bookstores applied to participate in the book fair alone. Even before the festival officially began, hundreds of pre-orders flooded in from various cities, including Capua and Neapolis. While the printing presses ran non-stop, rumors began to circulate that Gaius and Lucius Caesar were going to announce something entirely new in time for the Troy festival.

"I hear Caesar has been spending all his time meeting with his supporters lately."

"Ah, you mean those collegia his supporters formed." Just what kind of plan was the young Caesar concocting this time? Very few people actually knew the truth.

"Rome is a republic. We believe the Republic must be a government of the citizens, by the citizens, and for the citizens." I read the words on the page aloud. Brutus and the other men were all watching me with tense expressions.

"We believe the Republic must be built on mutual trust between the Senate and the citizens, and that it exists to uphold the law and serve the common good." I continued reading aloud, finally reaching the last clause.

"We respect the freedom of every individual citizen, and we resolutely reject the use of violence to resolve political disputes." In the tense silence, I nodded to Brutus.

"All those in favor of adopting these principles as our organization's founding platform, please raise your hands." He spoke. The men in the room raised their hands one by one. In the end, every single hand was raised—except mine.

"Wait, Lucius, why aren't you raising your hand?"

"I figured if I raised my hand first, everyone else might feel pressured to just follow along." I said with a chuckle, finally raising my hand last. These men were no longer just members of my fan club. They were now members of Rome's first true political party. The membership was remarkably diverse, ranging from patricians and members of prominent plebeian families to ordinary citizens and freedmen.

"I'm glad to see everyone is in agreement. Let us launch the organization under a provisional charter for now. We will finalize the official party constitution after gathering feedback from the regional branches following the festival." I said. In the end, we had settled on only a handful of core principles for the new party. The Republic and the Rule of Law. Liberty and Civic Participation. Trust and Transparency. Private Property and Responsibility. Basic Relief for Citizens. Nonviolent Politics.

Those were the essentials. Every point had been settled only after several days and nights of debate.

"Yes, though of course, your father will have to review it as well." Brutus said, rubbing his bloodshot eyes. He had worked harder than anyone else over the past few days. Perhaps because of that, he looked like he might collapse at any given moment.

"You've done more than enough."

"But is it really okay to do this?" Brutus asked.

"To turn the collegia supporting you into an official organization, complete with internal voting procedures and official positions."

"I've told you this before, but it's not simply an organization that supports me. You are allies who share my convictions." I replied with a smirk. Granted, in the past, the Senate would have undoubtedly thrown a fit about forming a private political organization. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! But Rome was different now.

"Cicero and the other senators will definitely move to create similar organizations of their own." New political parties would soon spring up across Rome. Countless political parties would soon reveal themselves. And it was certain they would all fight for the citizens' votes. But the biggest change would be something else entirely.

"Until now, Roman politics has been conducted almost entirely within the city of Rome." Rome had generally left the Italian municipalities to govern their own local affairs. Although their citizens possessed Roman citizenship, anyone wishing to vote still had to travel all the way to Rome. They were fellow citizens on paper, but their voices were almost never heard in actual Roman politics.

"But people who agree with my convictions exist not only here in Rome, but all across Italy." Father and I had invested heavily in the allied cities all this time. We had improved their infrastructure, created jobs, and secured their support. There were already collegia established by my supporters there as well. Setting up party branches all across Italy was perfectly feasible. If that happened, the politicians in Rome would no longer be able to ignore the demands of the citizens outside Rome.

"All of Italy will be bound together as one true community." Clodius had mentioned that some sort of conspiracy was brewing in the Italian cities and in Gaul. We could gather intelligence on that as well.

"During this festival, countless citizens from the allied cities will visit Rome," I said.

"We will listen to their opinions and decide how to integrate the allied cities into politics."

"If you had been here decades ago when the Social War broke out, Lucius..." Brutus let out a yawn and shook his head.

"That war would never have happened in the first place. If someone had suggested integrating the Italian communities into Roman politics this way back then, people would have called him a lunatic."

"Actually, all of this became inevitable the moment we built the first signal tower." I shrugged. They had already been granted Roman voting rights decades ago. As communication improves, regional boundaries begin to fade, and citizens once separated by distance grow more closely connected. A shared national identity begins to emerge. And the number of people coming all the way to Rome to vote will only continue to grow.

"But the citizens living within the city of Rome won't be happy about this." Brutus said, carefully gauging my reaction.

"They will believe that the more citizens from the allied cities participate in politics, the weaker their own voting power will become."

"That is exactly why this festival is so important. This festival will be a massive turning point for Rome." It reminded me of the idea behind 'Imagined Communities'. A person's sense of belonging to a nation or community is shaped, in part, by shared imagination. And print was one of the forces that gave that shared imagination shape. Newspapers, pamphlets, and even letters. I stared at the words written at the very top of the party platform. The name of the political party. Societas Civium pro Re Publica.

Translated literally, the Association of Citizens Formed for the Republic. For short, it was going to be called Foedus Civium — the Citizens' Alliance.

"And this festival will also mark a turning point in the lives of every citizen."

As the date of the Nova Troia festival drew near, countless Italian citizens flocked to Rome.

"We provide clean beds and delicious meals!"

"If you need anything, just ask one of the slaves downstairs!" Crassus's inns swallowed up the flood of visitors, raking in enormous profits. From the Floralia to the Troy Game, it had always been common for Italian citizens to travel to Rome for festivals, but never before had so many gathered at once.

"At this rate, isn't this going to become a regular festival?"

"It already seems much larger than most of Rome's established festivals." With even Crassus's inns completely full, a new tent village had to be set up on the outskirts of Nova Troia to accommodate latecomers. Naturally, their attention turned toward the legend of Troy itself. The Romans traditionally traced part of their ancestry back to the Trojans through Aeneas. Until then, the Italian communities had shared little sense of a common Roman identity.

During the Social War, Rome granted full citizenship to the vast majority of the allied cities, but citizenship alone did not immediately make them feel like one people. Countless cities in Italy had existed long before Rome was even founded, and they each had its own long history, traditions, and culture. They believed they and the Romans came from completely different origins.

But as signal towers appeared and information began to travel rapidly, a new sentiment began to take root—the sense that they were all Romans.

"I heard you're entering the Troy Literary Contest too?"

"Dozens of people around me have already applied. Well, I figured I might as well enter too."

"Of course. No one I know is more interested in the legend of Troy than you." Not only residents of Rome but also Roman citizens from cities across Italy participated in the Nova Troia Literary Contest. Unlike before, anyone could easily send their work to Rome by simply paying a small postage fee.

"O great Venus! By the wisdom and mercy with which you saved Aeneas from the flames of Troy..." The fall of Troy and the birth of Rome. An ancient foundation legend was now captivating citizens all across Italy as never before. One myth. One people. One Republic. Everyone was beginning to believe in a single, shared history. And the Citizens' Alliance, newly announced by Lucius, served as the culmination of this fervor.

"To think they're creating a new organization all across Italy. Weren't there already plenty of collegia supporting Lucius?"

"I hear this is a completely different kind of organization." They formally enrolled members, collected membership dues and donations, and used internal votes to decide how the party would be run. Furthermore, they selected candidates to run in various elections and supported them.

"Didn't he basically just create his own personal faction?"

"But no one has ever done it so publicly, or with such a specific, detailed platform before."

"I hear they record all membership dues and donations in ledgers and make the records public, too." As this news spread throughout Italy, the optimates immediately took action as well.

"If we let this continue, Caesar won't just dominate Rome—he'll have the rest of Italy in the palm of his hand!"

"We already proposed the land bill and the establishment of the public police force. What more do we have to do now?" The optimates had an advantage of their own. The man currently leading them, Cicero was a native of the municipium of Arpinum rather than Rome itself.

"I will personally step forward and persuade the citizens of the allied cities." Just like that, the festival celebrating the construction of Nova Troia morphed into a fierce competition for the support of Roman citizens across Italy.

"We lack the resources to compete with Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey. In the end, what we need is money."

"But we can't exactly dip into the state treasury right now either. If we want to push new policies, we inevitably need the cooperation of those three." Meanwhile, there were those who were deeply dissatisfied with this shifting landscape. Namely, the powerful politicians and prestigious families of the allied cities.

As the religious reforms progressed, the discontent of the local power brokers across Italy grew day by day. The families that had monopolized religious offices raised their voices the loudest.

"It was a mistake to install the signal towers in the first place."

"The merchants begged and pleaded so much, we had no choice. Who could have known things would turn out like this?"

"If things keep going this way, Rome will end up deciding how our temples are run and who gets appointed to their priesthoods. We have to stop that from happening, whatever it takes, don't we?"

"Right, we must protect our city's autonomy, no matter what." They were members of prestigious families who had built their reputations and networks over generations in their respective cities.

"If Caesar's influence keeps growing like this, all the privileges we've enjoyed will be gone."

"With Clodius gone, we need to find another way." Until recently, they had maintained close ties with Clodius, waiting for an opportunity. They intended to use the chaos in Rome to entrench their own interests. What they feared the most was the temple reforms Gaius Caesar was so determined to push through. It was fine for the temples to earn advertising revenue and expand their authority, but regular financial audits were completely unacceptable.

Control over the temples was one of the key privileges many of these families had monopolized for generations.

"Yes, we need to find a way to force Caesar to compromise with us." With the Nova Troia festival right around the corner, they chose a new strategy.

"Let us cooperate with Cicero and the other optimates. Weren't they trying to stop Caesar's temple reforms as well?"

"Exactly. If we join forces with them, we can thwart Caesar's scheme." Thus, they secretly sent an offer of alliance to the optimates in Rome. On the very night that letter arrived, one senator quietly paid a visit to the consul's domus.

"Welcome, Senator." Caesar said with a beaming smile. He exchanged a brief embrace with Cicero.

"You said you had something to discuss with me?"