Upon receiving the Senate's proposal, Pompeius became furious and threw the statue to pieces on the spot.
"How dare these sneaky old raccoons treat me, Pompeius, like this?"
Suddenly, the advice Markus had given him last year flashed through his mind like a bolt of lightning.
How many times has he been warned to accept the minimum promise before disbanding the army?
It was none other than Pompeius himself who let it slip through his fingers.
Now that he thinks about it, it's funny that he was so upset.
Of course, he had something to say, too.
Disbanding an army was a sacred duty for a Roman commander.
And that duty was not limited to commanders.
If a commander has proven his disloyalty by disbanding his army, the Senate should recognize his achievement with a proper tribute.
Without that mutual trust, who will disband an army by law in the future?
Pompeius disbanded the army expecting the Senate to make a reasonable judgment.
He never imagined it would go this far.
"You must have thought I couldn't do anything because I disbanded the army...… It makes me realize that it was an absurd illusion."
There was still a chance to reverse the situation.
Pompeius's triumphus would take place eight months from now.
Common sense dictates that you can't keep a great general who is about to perform a triumphus away from civilian contact for eight months.
So the Senate had no choice but to give Pompeius a chance to address the citizens.
Just a few days later, the Circus Flaminius outside the wall was selected as a speech hall.
It wasn't hard to see how many people would show up.
Pompeius used this opportunity to denounce the feckless Senate and make his case.
In fact, he could simply give up the Triumphus and run for the office of Consul, but he couldn't bring himself to do that.
For the Romans, the Triumphus was the greatest honor they could never give up.
It was the same for Pompeius, who had already held two Triumphus.
Notably, this Triumphus was to be held on Pompeius' birthday and on the most spectacular scale in Roman history.
It's an honor no one else in history has ever had. He couldn't bear to give it up.
This partly is because the consul is available for future years, but the Triumphus is not.
Rome has already acquired all the civilization rights that people recognize.
The only areas beyond Roman hegemony were now the barbarians in the north and the great eastern country of Parthia.
The implication is that Pompeius' time to build a major campaign of this magnitude may never come.
Therefore, the option of abandoning the Triumphus did not exist in Pompeius' mind.
His adjutant, Philippus, implored him as he diligently drafted his speech.
"Mr. Magnus, perhaps we should call Mr. Marcus?"
"Marcus? Why?"
"I think you'd better ask him about this political field. Because we are soldiers by nature, we cannot give efficient advice to Magnus."
"There's no need for that. It's not my way to come here and hang around after grossly disregarding advice not to disband the army. If I were Pompeius Magnus, this would be a simple matter to take care of. Then we'd talk about what to do next."
Philippus showed signs of concern, but Pompeius' resolve was firm.
It was just as Marcus had predicted.
And the results were no different than expected.
Pompeius's gnashing of teeth could be summarized in one word: Failure.
Initially, Pompeius' talent for rallying the troops was not matched by his talent for public speaking.
So he prepared thoroughly in my own way, but this was rather counterproductive.
The key to public speaking is clarity.
You should avoid explaining complicated content and convey only the gist as much as possible.
However, in his criticism of the Senate, Pompeius gave a very complicated and difficult explanation.
The citizens didn't hear the details of the eastern province's plans for the organization or the land distribution process.
Moreover, Pompeius was full of confidence that he had done something that no one else could match.
Although this might not have been the case for the officers who fought alongside them, it was a bit much for the average citizen.
In the end, Pompeius's speech ends up being a confusing, self-indulgent rant that doesn't really say what he wants to say.
The senators walked away mockingly.
They put their plan into action as if there was nothing more to see.
The plan for the organization of the provinces and the distribution of land was put on indefinite hold.
At least a refusal would have given Pompeius a reason to come out as a show of force, but this wasn't a senate that could not see that.
There are so many complicated reform plans that they say they will deal with them first, but what can they do?
Furious, Pompeius locked himself in his villa until the triumphus was held.
If the Roman political situation in 62 B.C. was best suited to the expression "riot," the word symbolizing Rome in 61 B.C. was "rigid."
The Senate's do-nothing strategy struck a nerve with Pompeius.
None of this solved the underlying problem.
Nothing but time was passing meaninglessly, drifting down the River Tiber, mindlessly passing by Rome.
* * *
Even if Rome is stopped, the lives of citizens living in it have not stopped.
Marcus knew that this time, which seemed meaningless at first glance, was more important than ever.
It's not just the calm before the storm.
This year and next will be the last time he can do this without doing some serious cleaning up.
From then on, Rome would be plunged into a turbulent period in which it would never catch its breath.
It was necessary to be prepared not to be swept away by the torrent of the times.
Moreover, Marcus no longer intended to flow in moderation with the flow of the times.
Now is the time to take the initiative first.
To do so, you must analyze the cards you have now more calmly than ever.
One by one, Marcus summoned his henchmen and briefed them on his orders.
"Septimus, did the relocation of the production facility proceed as scheduled?"
"Yes, sir. As you ordered, we have moved most of the mass-produced military infrastructure to the east."
"I don't suppose anyone noticed?"
"Of course. The production of military supplies is also going smoothly."
Marcus nodded with a satisfied smile.
So far, most of the modern knowledge gained by Marcus has been spent on the development of military technology.
He maximized efficiency by throwing goals at talented craftsmen and giving them breakthrough knowledge every two months when they got stuck.
Of course, we couldn't neglect other areas of technical development, so it was impossible to achieve results quickly.
Ten years later, they had barely reached late medieval levels of steel-making technology.
In Rome, however, it was not possible to build equipment or test the technology to its fullest extent.
In Rome, where it was forbidden to have anything resembling an army, this would be a recipe for treason.
So Marcus kept the technology in Rome and moved all the production facilities to the eastern provinces.
In Asia Minor, almost 2,000 kilometers from Rome, there was no fear of secrets leaking.
"Armor and bows need to be especially secure, but even if they were leaked, it would be impossible for another country to mass produce them."
"Don't worry. In fact, we're just getting into production, so we don't have to worry about it leaking out."
"...Okay, well, there's Thaddeus in the East anyway, so we shouldn't be lacking in preparation."
Even the most sophisticated political and economic power is no match for military might.
In fact, in the original history, Crassus and his brother Publius were killed in the Parthian expedition.
There's nothing to say that history can't repeat itself again.
That's why Marcus made it a priority to have a reliable military option.
The development of heavy and durable weapons and the mass production of steel weapons were designed to support the strength of the army. In addition, great efforts were made to improve the bow, applying modern knowledge to its fullest extent.
At first, he thought about making gunpowder, but after thinking about it, he realized that it wouldn't work.
Even if they could make gunpowder, they didn't yet have the firearms technology to make cannons.
Of course, if you focus all your knowledge on a cannon, you might succeed.
But even if you could make a gunpowder weapon, what happened afterward was more problematic.
Unlike steel weapons and improved bows, cannons could never hide their presence.
Besides, Marcus wasn't even old enough to be granted Imperium yet, so there was a good chance he'd end up in the wrong place at the wrong time.
A big part of this was the unpredictability of how far the butterfly effect of gunpowder weapons would extend.
Maybe he'll touch gunpowder one day, but that's only if the circumstances warrant it.
'You can have an overwhelming advantage just by taking care of steel technology anyway.'
He didn't want to overdo it and then mess it up.
He was confident that what he had in place was more than enough.
"Enough with the military reporting, what about agriculture, are we on track?"
"Yes. First of all, the combination of iron farming tools and improved harnesses was more efficient than I imagined. Farmers liked that they could plow the fields much faster and deeper than before."
"What about four-field rotations? That's the most important one."
The area where Marcus paid as much attention as the military was definitely agriculture.
No matter how developed commerce was in Rome, agriculture was the root of supporting the economy.
Roman agriculture was a latifundium system that used large-scale slavery, which also contributed to the social division of Rome.
The owners of large farms with large numbers of slaves grew prosperous, while the smallholders who were pushed out of competition became poorer.
This phenomenon was eating away at Rome's growth engines.
No matter how large the number of slaves is, it is not very helpful for tax revenue.
A healthy economic system requires a large number of free people.
Politicians concerned about the future of Rome tried to solve this problem by reforming land laws.
But passing the land reform bill wasn't easy, and it wasn't a complete solution to the problem.
Strictly speaking, it was only to the extent that the number of self-employed farmers did not fall below a certain level.
There was a need to increase self-employed farmers' productivity fundamentally.
Otherwise, Rome, as a country, is going to run out of options at some point.
Latifundium's structure was not meant to last forever.
A business that relies on an endless supply of slaves is based on the premise that there will always be a supply of slaves.
However, as Rome's territorial expansion reaches its limits, the supply of slaves will eventually stop, and there will inevitably come the point where the numbers cannot be maintained.
It won't be a problem when Marcus is alive, but that day will surely come someday.
Of course, he wasn't doing this because he was worried about the future long after his death.
The improvement of agricultural productivity naturally leads to population growth, and the increase in the affordable population means an increase in national power.
In a way, it was an issue that was more important than military technology.
For this reason, Marcus had focused on gaining knowledge about farming until he recently started looking for books on prenatal care and pregnancy.
At first, applying only medieval farming methods was thought to increase productivity greatly.
However, Rome's farming methods were surprisingly high.
He was shocked to find that they were using more advanced farming methods than in the early medieval period.
Perhaps for that reason, the speed of understanding Marcus' proposed new farming method was also very fast.
Marcus, who was worried about whether to explain the concept from the beginning, was ashamed of his prejudice.
In any case, Septimus reported with enthusiasm the results of his experiments on Marcus's farmland.
"The four-field rotations method you suggested, Mr. Marcus, is definitely more efficient than the traditional method. For one thing, fallow land has almost completely disappeared. The farmers seem to think that Markus has been given an oracle by the earth goddess Ceres."
"I'm glad it worked. Now let's expand the area where we use the four-field rotations method. And if it has a similar effect everywhere, we should spread this method throughout Rome."
"How did you come up with this method?"
"Farming inevitably creates fallow land, but I read that clover and turnips can be grown on land where barley or wheat has been grown, so I thought that if I planted them in rotation, I could get a harvest without fallowing."
In ancient times, when land could not be artificially fertilized with nitrogen, fallowing was a necessity, not a choice.
This is because the nutrients in the land that are consumed when growing crops are depleted faster than they can be replenished naturally.
In addition, there were problems such as pests and increased soil toxicity.
Of course, the ancient people knew this and came up with various measures.
The Romans overcame fallow by spreading manure as a fertilizer, completely tilling the ground, or by rotational cropping, where the land was left bare and cultivated by rotating different crops.
However, wheat farming was labor intensive, and the Mediterranean climate in which Rome was located meant that the land dried up quickly.
No matter how much they cultivate, there are always going to be fallow fields.
The Romans practiced a Three-field system, dividing the land into thirds and planting wheat on one side, barley on the other, and leaving the rest fallow.
Surprisingly, this was far ahead of the early medieval practice of plowing the land in two and leaving half fallow.
This was because farming methods failed to continue after Rome collapsed and were cut off in the middle.
From there, Marcus took it a step further with his four-field rotations, otherwise known as the Norfolk four-course system.
This farming system allowed for a four-year rotation of barley, clover, wheat, and turnips, with no fallow at the point of the field.
This is because those four crops need different nutrients on the land.
Developed in the 16th century and not widely used until the 18th century, the four-field rotations system was a kind of agricultural revolution that dramatically increased European productivity.
Clover and turnips were available in Rome, so it wasn't difficult to introduce them.
The problem was that farmers were reluctant to step out of their comfort zone and adopt new methods.
It wasn't exactly the farmers' fault.
When it comes to farming, if you use the wrong method and fail, you will have to starve to death.
It was natural to want to use only proven methods.
So Marcus first tried out the four-field rotations method on his own farm.
He convinced the farmers to sign a contract that said they would not be held responsible if their farms failed and that they would be compensated.
Although the verification took a tremendous amount of time, the result was a great success.
Even Septimus, who was no longer surprised by Marcus' accomplishments, was stunned again.
"The way you've implemented it will seem like a godsend to the newcomers. They don't mention the goddess Ceres' name for nothing."
"We're not done yet, because we still have a lot of problems with the way we apply manure. It's a systemic problem, and we can't change it now, but it's good to start preparing for it."
"We investigated as ordered by the young master. By the way, is it wrong to give human feces as manure?"
"No. Human waste is safe as fertilizer, but only if you store it for a long time and compost it. If you just scoop it up and spread it around like you're doing now, you're going to have problems."
"Hmm... I don't know why, but if you say so, there must be a reason."
People of this era did not yet have knowledge or a concept of intestinal parasites.
They enjoyed their fermented sauces made from fish and used the human waste they moved out of town as fertilizer.
The nightmare cycle of parasitization is complete.
However, the issue was also intertwined with decrees on public baths and toilets, and compost storage.
It was a tough problem for Marcus, who was still just a quaestor.
Still, it is only a few years away from becoming an aedile, so it won't be long before I can start making improvements.
Marcus was planning to launch a sanitation project that had been on hiatus until now.
The term of office in Rome is only one year, so there is not enough time to prepare after taking office.
It was important to prepare all the projects to be implemented from now on and start immediately after taking office.
Fortunately, Rome had the basic infrastructure in place to improve sanitation.
Water and sewage wouldn't be found in a medieval city, public baths scattered throughout the city, and a society that already uses primitive soap.
It's just that one of the keys was missing due to a lack of hygiene.
Public baths were dirty because they did not change the water, and early soap forms were used more to wash clothes than bodies.
Marcus only needs to improve this system that has already been built.
Of course, it will not be easy to persuade citizens who do not feel the need to do so.
It was important to visually show the effects of improving hygiene so that anyone could see them.
He decided to leave this to Danae, who is good at math.
"We will conduct a survey of people living in Suburra from this year to next year. A full investigation would be impossible, so you can select about 1,000 people by age and gender. Give me a rough statistic of how often they get sick in two years and how many people die from it."
"I think it's going to cost a lot to investigate a thousand people."
"No matter how much it costs, it's cheap compared to the fame I'll get."
"I'm sure the master's attention to hygiene has helped a lot of people in the family, but it would be nice to put that into numbers and compare before and after the hygiene project."
"Yes, so please do me a favour. Right now, if possible."
Danae bowed her head and immediately left the room to hire investigators.
Septimus also left to find out which farmland to implement the four-field rotations method.
Now the only people in the room are Marcus, who is filling out the paperwork, and Spartacus, who is watching.
Seeing that Marcus was still so engrossed in his work after having ordered so many things, Spartacus spoke up.
"When I look at you, I sometimes feel like you really are an apostle of gods. Some slaves say that many of them already feel that way, and I can honestly understand that."
"An apostle of the gods? That kind of talk is going around the family?"
"Yes. It is easy to see that what you do can change this country from its roots, even for a person with low knowledge like me. It's also making changes in everything from military to agriculture to social institutions and finance."
"So you're saying that perhaps it's actually a sign from the gods?"
Spartacus nodded silently.
It was the natural nature of ancient and medieval people to associate incomprehensible phenomena with the existence of God.
What Marcus does now transcends the realm of understanding, so receiving this kind of gaze was natural.
"It is said that Egypt and Imperial Rome considered their monarchs to be living gods.
He didn't mean to aim for it, but hearing these words from Septimus and Spartacus one after another drew a vague picture in his head.
The idea of treating himself as a divinity was so foreign to him that he couldn't bring himself to do it.
However, it may be possible to utilize something similar as a means of governance.
Marcus exchanged words with Spartacus but never turned his gaze toward him.
His gaze was not on the present but on a future that might never come or come surprisingly soon.