SPQR (Senatus Populesque Romanus)- Intro
All of the civilizations in the known world had fallen- all of them except for one, and that was the civilization whose advanced technology and superior tactics in the art of making war had brought Asia Minor, Judea, and Thracia and Gallia to their knees- Rome. It had been an untold number of years, centuries even, since Romulus and Remus had been spirited away by an adopted wolf mother, Lupina by the shores of the lazy Tiber River and allowed to live a peaceful childhood, far from the hateful sell-swords and bandits that wished to devour them. Suckled on the blood of a wolf, the two warriors fought with the same ferocity of the animal that raised them, until they were transformed into these creatures, as would be the fate of all their subjects, who were cursed to become animals. In return, they built only the greatest and strongest city that had ever existed, consisted of all the species' smartest and strongest. A ferocious army with the world's most brilliant tacticians, a navy that could blockade any port and win any battle at sea, architectural advances that would put any other to shame, and an Emperor who was unquestionably a god amongst men had propelled this city and the empire it supported to new and wonderful heights. It was the Roman's birthright to rule the world, to be superior to all the world's others, to rise above in every circumstance against the long-haired, undisciplined barbarians of the world.
And yet the balance of power was always precarious. For Martellus Lisenius, an elderly wolf who remembered the enlightened rule of Marcus Aurelius, a lion who was as strong a philosopher and orator as a military general, the emperors were in his opinion steering the city into perdition. Martellus saw in his lifetime, the not-so-smooth transition from a fledgling Republic blessed with limitless potential to an Empire that had consumed the entire world. The Senate was rapidly transformed from a governing body with actual power into the Emperor's personal rubber stamp. Instead of hearing cases, instead of writing the laws which sustained the Empire, and appropriating funds to their committees, the Senators spent more of their money catering to the Emperor's every whim. In the days of the Republic, the Senate would designate funds for the creation of swords, javelins, and chariots to the foundries and wheelwrights of Rome, now everything needed the Emperor's approval. And as the years went on, the Emperor became less willing to pay for the actual equipment necessary for conquests instead paying for lavish statues and buildings, to honor himself. His infallibility and godhood was also an innovation that was not present in the Republic as the emperors had to be humble servant-leaders of a republic that depended on them. But in the years since, the Romans had become complacent and placed more in the trust in an Emperor who the Senators was immature but was also a god.
The conquest of the Roman centurions (of which his own cub, also of the name Martellus was a member) had allowed Martellus Lisenius and his wife Claudia to live very comfortably, in a spacious domus (private home) far from the squalor and noise and filth of the city as a wealthy senator. From here, books from the Grecian provinces, the other treasure from the Pax Romana, that worldwide peace authored by the gladia of Roman soldiers, served Martellus' interests well. These books written by sages who lived centuries ago and they contained the secrets of government and law that the old wolf had craved. The feeling of silk on his fur, the taste of delicacies such as flamingo imported from Africa and Sicilian wine, the beautiful country home overlooking the Mediterranean (or as the Romans pompously claimed it "Mare Nostrum"- our sea) it was all a far cry from the wolf's childhood home, a place that still scared him decades after leaving it.
His father, Julius was a plebeian farmer who had made the mistake of forsaking his home in the country for a filthy tenement, or insula, in the middle of Rome. Filthy, overcrowded, and crime-ridden, the insula in which the Lisenius pack lived was absolutely terrible and yet, for an internship to a Senator that promised his father a good job, he would do anything. All those sweltering summer days in which the house was an oven and the bone-chilling winter nights in which the house was as inviting and welcome as a stone tomb, all the filth and criminal behavior of their neighbors, all would be worth it if Julis could find a way into the government and thanks be to the gods of Rome, he did. For his father's work, the panther Senator by the name of Publius Ordovicii, one of half-Gallian birth would eventually give him the hand of his daughter, Claudia. The marriage guaranteed him a way into the higher circles of Roman patrician society, a world filled with titles, and ovations, and triumph parades for the returning soldiers. Eventually, Martellus would make a name for himself in the Senate, appropriating funds to the military in which, his cub was a member, a vested interest of the highest importance.
On this night, after a tiresome day of sitting in on hearings, orations, and paying his tribute to the Emperor, il Imperium deus literally "the Emperor (who is) god", the time had come to expand his views to the knowledge developed outside of Rome encapsulated in books. The sacred Scriptures of the residents of Judea fascinated the wolf, with their belief in one and only one invisble God as did the writings of the Greeks, where the olives and grapes of the region could not compare with the incandescent light of ancient Greek philosophy. Martellus would study often into the next morning's sunrise the conviction of Solon's lawmaking, the drama of Aeschylus, the arithmetic of Pythagoras and Euclid, the first universities established by Plato, and the reasoning of Aristotle, his mentor- these lofty and beautiful pursuits captured the wolf's mind. In the Odyssey by the blind poet Homer, Martellus found an ideal role model for his son, long-suffering and persistent and it was Odysseyus' calling as a soldier that inspired his son to forsake cursus honroum, the career ladder which would lead Martellus II to similar heights as his father, and become himself a soldier patrolled in the very regions where the Romans were most hated.
And he had competently performed his tasks with a wolf's tenacity and cleverness that soon he was elevated from humble auxilia to the glory of legionnaire, a commander of 60 warriors of various species all of whom would gladly forfeit their lives to save his. It was Martellus' own son that would be honored most at the triumph parades and it was for him that every Senator rose before the Emperor made them bow their heads. But after a meal of dates, olives, lettuce, and raisins (no wine or meat until his son's legion had returned from the deserts of Judea), the wolf stripped himself of the toga pretexta, marked by purple which signified his status as a Senator to lie next to his wife, looking out across the atrium where in a matter of weeks, and hopefully by the Lupercalia (a special day made especially for the wolves in the empire), his son would return home, announce his official retirement from that dangerous line of work, and become a Senator, to follow in his father's pawsteps. His homecoming and the triumph that would honor his legion, and the legions of others was scheduled very shortly.
As the wolf looked back to his upbringing in the poverty of the insula, his rise to power in the Senate, and the general prosperity of the city and empire of which he was a citizen, he could only be thankful. Thankful to the deities of Rome, to the Emperor mainly, and thankful to the citizens who had chosen him to lead Rome ad meliora (to greater things) Even if Martellus chose not to agree with the Emperor's actions, he was still a god and thus infallible and the citizens paid their tribute to him. And Martellus owed a debt of gratitude to the Empire's powerful armies which filled with his mouth with expensive, rich foods, and his mind with spacious ideas. And as he retired to sleep next to his wife, a prayer issued forth from the wolf's muzzle, a prayer for the most powerful empire the world had ever known or will ever know.
"Ad maiorem gloriam Imperius. Ad maiorem gloriam Seantus Populesque Romanus."