- Location
- Italia
[X] Plan Arts, Laurels, and Headhunters
Res Publica: A Quest of Ancient Rome
- Thread starter Telamon
- Start date
- Original Historic
[X] Plan Renown
The steed will be useful for public appearances, as it's imposing regardless of the truth of its origins, and Pompeian salt is always a worthwhile pursuit.
The steed will be useful for public appearances, as it's imposing regardless of the truth of its origins, and Pompeian salt is always a worthwhile pursuit.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I just want to say, yay @Telamon for doing a great job making some very 'authentic' and credible treasures here.
Also, I'm pretty sure Pompey being an Alexander fanboy starts now. Alexander fanboys start young, because Alexander himself was young. Plus, y'know, the utility benefits of the horse. Because if you ever really need a good horse, you need a good horse.
At least the business of "farm your horse out to stud" is based on your ownership of a small integer number of, y'know, horses. As long as nobody steals the horses or replaces them with other, inferior horses, you can't really stop making money. Your expenses are, like, horse feed, and we already have a farm to feed the horse on.
Contrast this with, say, a winery, where an unscrupulous guy could totally run up business expenses while hiding them from us in the ledgers, until Crassus (because of course it'll be Crassus) shows up to repossess our operating capital. This is less likely to go wrong with a horse breeding business, given that we already own a farm in fee simple and have tenants who know how to take care of animals.
[jk] Plan Hasenpfeffer
-[jk] Do This
-[jk] Do That
-[jk] Do The Other Thing
[jk] And Furthermore
-[jk] Remember to say ARRR!
The problem is that the plan parser stops reading "Plan Hasenpfeffer" at "And Furthermore" because the lack of a - before the [jk] causes it to think everything below that point is a separate vote, not a component of "Plan Hasenpfeffer."
The prestige benefits to us of giving Sertorius the tablet are nontrivial and in some ways greater than the benefits of keeping it for ourselves in the short term, and in the long run we will have many opportunities to enrich ourselves through looting. It gives Sertorius a reason to be personally grateful to us, and earns him a bit of extra respect and prestige that makes it more likely he'll be able to hold his own in the next phase of Roman politics.
Also, I'm pretty sure Pompey being an Alexander fanboy starts now. Alexander fanboys start young, because Alexander himself was young. Plus, y'know, the utility benefits of the horse. Because if you ever really need a good horse, you need a good horse.
We'll have that problem anyway; we'll spend our whole lives being methodically ripped off if we don't at least get Stewardship up to the level of being able to tell, more or less, if we're being cheated. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to create for ourselves an income stream.
At least the business of "farm your horse out to stud" is based on your ownership of a small integer number of, y'know, horses. As long as nobody steals the horses or replaces them with other, inferior horses, you can't really stop making money. Your expenses are, like, horse feed, and we already have a farm to feed the horse on.
Contrast this with, say, a winery, where an unscrupulous guy could totally run up business expenses while hiding them from us in the ledgers, until Crassus (because of course it'll be Crassus) shows up to repossess our operating capital. This is less likely to go wrong with a horse breeding business, given that we already own a farm in fee simple and have tenants who know how to take care of animals.
Yes. You wrote a plan of the form
[jk] Plan Hasenpfeffer
-[jk] Do This
-[jk] Do That
-[jk] Do The Other Thing
[jk] And Furthermore
-[jk] Remember to say ARRR!
The problem is that the plan parser stops reading "Plan Hasenpfeffer" at "And Furthermore" because the lack of a - before the [jk] causes it to think everything below that point is a separate vote, not a component of "Plan Hasenpfeffer."
- Location
- Central Europe
The tablet doesn't only have prestige benefits. It is obviously hinted that it would allow us to further boost our oratory. Oratory is how we jumped up
Edit: Fact checked myself. Also, QM insightful ratings always make me suspicous
Last edited:
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Okay, that's a fair point, and I do consider the tablet a respectable choice.
Honestly, I want the horse for the reasons already listed, but I won't be heartbroken if the tablet wins. Any more than I'll be heartbroken if we do or don't give honors to Tercerus.
Honestly, I want the horse for the reasons already listed, but I won't be heartbroken if the tablet wins. Any more than I'll be heartbroken if we do or don't give honors to Tercerus.
- Location
- NY
[X] Plan Renown
Camiadus
The Lion in The Sky
- Location
- The Holy Land
[X] Plan Renown
Gonna have to go with having a personal steed descended from Bucephalus itself, the level of prestige that even a *rumor* of that would have is enormous. There are over a dozen of tablets of Ascargantus held by wealthy Romans, but who among them can claim to have a horse of royal lineage, descended from the steed of Alexander himself?
Seriously, echoing the image and legacy of Alexander is a massive thing amongst Romans. Being widely known for our generosity towards both superiors and inferiors with lavish gifts and honors is fantastic, but doing that while also managing to bind ourselves to the legacy of the greatest conqueror to ever live? You can't beat that for prestige. Prestige that we badly need.
Gonna have to go with having a personal steed descended from Bucephalus itself, the level of prestige that even a *rumor* of that would have is enormous. There are over a dozen of tablets of Ascargantus held by wealthy Romans, but who among them can claim to have a horse of royal lineage, descended from the steed of Alexander himself?
Seriously, echoing the image and legacy of Alexander is a massive thing amongst Romans. Being widely known for our generosity towards both superiors and inferiors with lavish gifts and honors is fantastic, but doing that while also managing to bind ourselves to the legacy of the greatest conqueror to ever live? You can't beat that for prestige. Prestige that we badly need.
[X] Plan Arts, Laurels, and Headhunters
There have been some good arguments made for keeping the horse (and Plan Renown at least preserves the tablet by giving it to our quasi-patron and commanding officer), but I've been pushing a charisma-build for a while, and a legendary oratory-related artifact sounds right up our alley.
Just remember: there wereforty fifty-nine tablets made total, and no one knows how many only nineteen of them survive -- any that do, are in private collections around the Mediterranean, and are not displayed in public. Given how much time has elapsed, I'd expect there to be perhaps a dozen still surviving in anything like good condition. And we have a chance to join that elite group, that includes kings and consuls and the richest men ever. (How much do you want to bet that Crassus would spend some of his fortune to try to get one like ours?
Horses come and go -- a high-quality horse is nothing to sneeze at, but they're practically a dime a dozen around the Mediterranean -- but one-of-a-kind artifacts like this strike me as far more valuable.
EDIT: thanks @Spacegnom.
There have been some good arguments made for keeping the horse (and Plan Renown at least preserves the tablet by giving it to our quasi-patron and commanding officer), but I've been pushing a charisma-build for a while, and a legendary oratory-related artifact sounds right up our alley.
Just remember: there were
Horses come and go -- a high-quality horse is nothing to sneeze at, but they're practically a dime a dozen around the Mediterranean -- but one-of-a-kind artifacts like this strike me as far more valuable.
EDIT: thanks @Spacegnom.
Last edited:
- Location
- Central Europe
Minor corrections: The update actually specifies the number of tablets:
If this account can be trusted, than this is one of 19 still existing.
Mr.Controll
Lord of the un-nessisary thread bump.
- Location
- The 5th dimention
[X] Plan Arts, Laurels, and Headhunters
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Uh, not going to rule it out. I mean, assuming Alexander actually put his horse out to stud now and then, there were probably a fair number of horses descended from Bucephalus.
And if you listen to the number of people who say their horse is descended from Bucephalus... well, it's a lot like trying to keep track of all the people who say they're descended from a god or legendary hero.
So while I like Renown (if only for the opportunity to troll Pompey), I wouldn't bet TOO much on the horse's legendary parentage granting us more prestige than a tablet of poetry so beautiful it supposedly made the god of poetry cry.
- Location
- Canada
[X] Plan Arts, Laurels, and Headhunters
- Location
- Classified
- Location
- Anatolia
[X] Plan Renown
-[X] Mercator
-[X] Titus Gallio
-[X] Maximius
-[X] Write-In: The Chosen Men: the legionnaires who accompanied Mercator in the charge that broke the Samnite resistance outside the town, and those who accompannied Titus Gallio in his effort to fire the buildings.
-[X] The Tablet of Ascargantus
--[X] You took this as a gift for Sertorius
-[X] The Steed of Cassimaius
--[X] You took this for your own purposes
-[X] Write-In: You draft several Samnites from the surrounding towns, deputize them, and task them with hunting down these forces, warning them that betrayal or laxness in their duties will be met with the same fate as Aeclanum. As compensation, you offer a modest bounty for bandit heads.
-[X] Mercator
-[X] Titus Gallio
-[X] Maximius
-[X] Write-In: The Chosen Men: the legionnaires who accompanied Mercator in the charge that broke the Samnite resistance outside the town, and those who accompannied Titus Gallio in his effort to fire the buildings.
-[X] The Tablet of Ascargantus
--[X] You took this as a gift for Sertorius
-[X] The Steed of Cassimaius
--[X] You took this for your own purposes
-[X] Write-In: You draft several Samnites from the surrounding towns, deputize them, and task them with hunting down these forces, warning them that betrayal or laxness in their duties will be met with the same fate as Aeclanum. As compensation, you offer a modest bounty for bandit heads.
Canon Omake: Of Diseases and Cures
I felt the urge to stretch my creative muscles a little. Not sure how this turned out. It's been a while.
Word Count ~881
"There will come a time, young Atellus, when neither knowledge of the law, nor eloquent oratory, nor even being in the right will avail you in court."
As had become their habit, they sat where they had first met, on Scaevola's balcony, overlooking Rome. The view frequently served as a prop in these little discussions. The Pontifex Maximus, Quintus Cingulatus had discovered, possessed a well-developed melodramatic streak.
But then, such are the requirements of oratory.
Now, though, the old man seemed subdued. More, for the first time Atellus could recall, his age seemed to diminish him rather than enhance his dignitas. Weariness hung on him like a burial shroud, the grey of his eyes now less iron and more aged, crumbling stone.
"Bribery," Atellus ventured at last, seeking to break a silence grown suddenly oppressive.
Scaevola frowned.
"That is a large part of it, yes, but it is not the whole of the problem. It comes back to our Roman hatred of bureaucracy, and that venomous demagogue Gaius Gracchus." He paused, looking expectantly at his pupil.
Used by now to his teacher's foibles, Atellus considered the thread of their conversation, and followed it to its logical conclusion.
"Tax farming in Asia," he said, "and equestrian juries."
"Just so," Scaevola said, smiling bitterly. "And thus were the equestrians simultaneously handed both the opportunity to enrich themselves beyond even their wildest, most deluded hopes, and the means to evade the consequences of their crimes against the Republic's name and abuse of her subjects. Gaius Gracchus was a grasping fool and an aspiring tyrant, but I wonder if he realised what harm he wrought with that, what poison he loosed in the very heart of the Republic." His voice strengthened, ringing with conviction as rage restored his animus.
"The publicani and their ilk are a cancer. They know nothing of what it means to be Roman, nothing of the virtues and traditions our strength is built on. The lowest drunkard in Rome's meanest gutter knows more of restraint and self-discipline. Their wanton exploitation almost beggared Asia, and the naked cruelty with which they pursue it led the province to welcome Mithridates with open arms. They are a cancer, and I grow increasingly convinced they must be excised like one."
He subsided, glaring out over the city, his earlier frailty burned away like morning mist under the sunlight of righteous fury.
"Are they truly untouchable in the courts, then?" Atellus asked quietly. Scaevola's words had been quite a blow to his image of Rome. A boy's image, he would freely concede, but no less treasured for that.
For if it is not Rome as it is, it is Rome as she should be. And how shall that come to pass if those of us who are to lead her do not hold the ideal close to our hearts?
Scaevola gave another bitter smile.
"I assume you have heard of what became of Rutilius Rufus." It was not a question. "A former consul, exiled from Rome, denied all those things that make a citizen a citizen, and all for the crime of helping me to attempt to restrain the publicani in their shameless rape of Asia."
"More than an attempt, surely. I have heard that the locals still celebrate a festival in your honour," Atellus interjected.
Scaevola gestured curtly. "I am not yet so old as to need cosseting boy. Now, let me come to the point. Rufus had the support of Antonius Orator, Crassus Orator, and myself. All modesty aside, any one of us could stand as peer to Demosthenes. All three together? The match has not yet been seen. But gold has an eloquence unsurpassed by any man, and the Equestrian Order are not likely to stopper their ears against its blandishments. And did not, that day."
They sat in silence for some minutes, the dull roar of the greatest city in the world washing over them, before Scaevola stirred again.
"Their short-sightedness mystifies me," he admitted. "It is right and proper for a man to profit from his service to the Republic, so long as the Republic profits from his service, but the publicani consume until nothing is left. They would have been as wealthy in five years under my administration as they would have been left to their own devices, and wealthier in ten. Aye, and Mithridates would yet be entangled in Cappadoccia and Bithynia. But as well wish for the Tiber to flow with Falernian as for mortal men to not be fools."
Atellus hesitated a moment before speaking.
"I fear I may not show the same aptitude for it as I have for other subjects, but my interest is piqued. Where would you suggest I seek further knowledge in such matters?"
The Pontifex Maximus gave him a long, searching look.
"I do not like to speak of my time in Asia," he said at last. "The memories are tainted. But I will give you what notes I have remaining. You are bright enough to gain something from that, I think, and we shall see where we go from there."
Scaevola was as good as his word. Within two days Atellus found his room overflowing with scroll buckets crammed with rolls of finest papyrus covered in the old man's spidery script.
As had become their habit, they sat where they had first met, on Scaevola's balcony, overlooking Rome. The view frequently served as a prop in these little discussions. The Pontifex Maximus, Quintus Cingulatus had discovered, possessed a well-developed melodramatic streak.
But then, such are the requirements of oratory.
Now, though, the old man seemed subdued. More, for the first time Atellus could recall, his age seemed to diminish him rather than enhance his dignitas. Weariness hung on him like a burial shroud, the grey of his eyes now less iron and more aged, crumbling stone.
"Bribery," Atellus ventured at last, seeking to break a silence grown suddenly oppressive.
Scaevola frowned.
"That is a large part of it, yes, but it is not the whole of the problem. It comes back to our Roman hatred of bureaucracy, and that venomous demagogue Gaius Gracchus." He paused, looking expectantly at his pupil.
Used by now to his teacher's foibles, Atellus considered the thread of their conversation, and followed it to its logical conclusion.
"Tax farming in Asia," he said, "and equestrian juries."
"Just so," Scaevola said, smiling bitterly. "And thus were the equestrians simultaneously handed both the opportunity to enrich themselves beyond even their wildest, most deluded hopes, and the means to evade the consequences of their crimes against the Republic's name and abuse of her subjects. Gaius Gracchus was a grasping fool and an aspiring tyrant, but I wonder if he realised what harm he wrought with that, what poison he loosed in the very heart of the Republic." His voice strengthened, ringing with conviction as rage restored his animus.
"The publicani and their ilk are a cancer. They know nothing of what it means to be Roman, nothing of the virtues and traditions our strength is built on. The lowest drunkard in Rome's meanest gutter knows more of restraint and self-discipline. Their wanton exploitation almost beggared Asia, and the naked cruelty with which they pursue it led the province to welcome Mithridates with open arms. They are a cancer, and I grow increasingly convinced they must be excised like one."
He subsided, glaring out over the city, his earlier frailty burned away like morning mist under the sunlight of righteous fury.
"Are they truly untouchable in the courts, then?" Atellus asked quietly. Scaevola's words had been quite a blow to his image of Rome. A boy's image, he would freely concede, but no less treasured for that.
For if it is not Rome as it is, it is Rome as she should be. And how shall that come to pass if those of us who are to lead her do not hold the ideal close to our hearts?
Scaevola gave another bitter smile.
"I assume you have heard of what became of Rutilius Rufus." It was not a question. "A former consul, exiled from Rome, denied all those things that make a citizen a citizen, and all for the crime of helping me to attempt to restrain the publicani in their shameless rape of Asia."
"More than an attempt, surely. I have heard that the locals still celebrate a festival in your honour," Atellus interjected.
Scaevola gestured curtly. "I am not yet so old as to need cosseting boy. Now, let me come to the point. Rufus had the support of Antonius Orator, Crassus Orator, and myself. All modesty aside, any one of us could stand as peer to Demosthenes. All three together? The match has not yet been seen. But gold has an eloquence unsurpassed by any man, and the Equestrian Order are not likely to stopper their ears against its blandishments. And did not, that day."
They sat in silence for some minutes, the dull roar of the greatest city in the world washing over them, before Scaevola stirred again.
"Their short-sightedness mystifies me," he admitted. "It is right and proper for a man to profit from his service to the Republic, so long as the Republic profits from his service, but the publicani consume until nothing is left. They would have been as wealthy in five years under my administration as they would have been left to their own devices, and wealthier in ten. Aye, and Mithridates would yet be entangled in Cappadoccia and Bithynia. But as well wish for the Tiber to flow with Falernian as for mortal men to not be fools."
Atellus hesitated a moment before speaking.
"I fear I may not show the same aptitude for it as I have for other subjects, but my interest is piqued. Where would you suggest I seek further knowledge in such matters?"
The Pontifex Maximus gave him a long, searching look.
"I do not like to speak of my time in Asia," he said at last. "The memories are tainted. But I will give you what notes I have remaining. You are bright enough to gain something from that, I think, and we shall see where we go from there."
Scaevola was as good as his word. Within two days Atellus found his room overflowing with scroll buckets crammed with rolls of finest papyrus covered in the old man's spidery script.
Word Count ~881