Chapter 16

Throughout the years we are at the spotlight. We never hid from your eyes. We are here, guiding you so one day you'll be worthy enough to face him.

The God-Emperor...

Over the course of two centuries, I, together with 9 men created the most powerful faction and family Rome has ever seen. So powerful that it shrouded that of the descendants of Romulus and his company.

The Spinther family, with me at the head made Rome great as per his orders and will. We're the reason for its current strength.

From the edge of the Arabian desert, to the lands of the Britons, it's not the roman eagle that flies but his eagle!

His will manifested on the Roman eagle and that let them conquer. Without his will, Rome wouldn't be like this.

Under his guidance I made Rome powerful, I made Rome more powerful and advance than any of the currently present civilization on this planet combined!

While the current techniques of forging can't create full plate armor, we have created it. Our own soldiers we call The Old Guard uses full plate armor. We're the world's largest armor supplier. Each Lorica Segmentata the legionnaires use are manufactured by us.

While they're on the weak iron, we are already on the medieval age of technology. Our family is known for the Old Guard and our innovations.

The man named Gaius Marius, the man behind the Marian Reforms, is but someone who idolizes me. He's the Consul of that year and a devout believer of what we preach.

Prior to that, the Spinther family is already loved by the plebeians for our mighty contribution to the overall power of Rome. They admired us, we're popular to them because of our "humble" background. Starting from being a brave soldier and steadily climbing the ranks. What we did are what a normal Roman can only dream of. Couple this with the fact that I married a former slave for more publicity and thus furthered our reputation in the minds of the normal Roman.

They saw us as not like those oligarchs at the senate, they saw us as someone like them who managed to climb to the top of the societal ladder and is now giving back to the needy and Rome.

Of course our journey wasn't the most admired trait because the most admired trait of us is our ability to lead and the inventions we introduced. We lead a small town to become as prosperous, as important, and possibly as powerful as Rome in terms of military, industry, and political power in a general sense.

Though our original plan of directly taking the whole nation's for ourselves through a civil war didn't happen because of certain reasons, we found that it worked in favor of us.

All of these combined resulted with me getting elected as the Pontifex Maximus with my age of "80" years old on around 140 BCE. There, I started a massive doctrine revision. I ordered that the state religion be monotheistic, I acted literally as if I'm his Vicar on Earth.

I and my squad mates adjusted our appearances to show that we're getting older as to prevent suspicions.

Jupiter? He is but another servant under him. I introduced the idea of someone, someone more powerful that all the gods such as Mars, Jupiter, Pluto, and many more combined.

I never strayed from the truth, I have made a kingdom for him here on this planet. But as always, people didn't take this religious revisions lightly.

Senators and plebeians alike voiced out their complaints about what I did calling me a unfaithful. This already ensured their death. From the position of Quaestor to Censor, I have them all under control.

Even if they're on different families like the Brutus, Julius, whatever their family is, they're under my command because of the coalition I made with them by forcefully taking control.

As my family grew in power, the three prominent families namely Julius, Scipio, and the Brutus tried to suppress us in someway. But they failed and those who defied me was miserably executed, and I now control each head of the family by eliminating those who didn't like me or my family in secret while installing puppets. This happened before I created a coalition with these 3.

Couple this with the overwhelming support of the plebeians to my family. I am basically the whole senate for a whole two years.

I acted as a dictator in these two whole years to expedite our plans for this nation. Those who didn't agree with my vision are stripped off of their properties, citizenship, and position.

The Consuls are but puppets, and at that time, the Plebeians, and the whole senate is under my control.

So for two whole years, I have made Rome absolutely stable, creating my own version of Pax Romana for myself by not having the senators tell me what the fuck to do out of fear.

I made expansion of the republic stun everyone. Army after army were raised to fight my wars, Parthia? Antioch is under our hands after 4 months of siege. Memphis? I have tamed the land of the Pharaohs. Carthage? Salt everywhere. Greeks? Dead like their democracy. Macedonians? Skewered on their own phalangite spears. Britons? They drowned on sausages.

For two whole years, I, Lupus Spinther a servant of the God-Emperor is the senate.

Battle after battle took place as his greatness let me expand Rome to great heights. But as people feared that I will be an Emperor, I stepped down after my term is over.

This simple act made me loved by everyone as they even wanted to change the constitution to eliminate the 10 year ban so I can run again next year.

With me as the head, people understood that all forms of government are fundamentally flawed in their own right.

Democracy? Exploitable. Dictatorship? Exploitable.

Everything is flawed, but this flaw can be eliminated by him. I didn't turn it down out of increasing my reputation. I turned it down because only, only my God and Emperor can lead and I am but his servant ready to die for him.

A year later, I faked my death and emerged with a new identity of an orphan adopted by Lupus Spinther and Khloe a year before Lupus became Pontifex Maximus. The name of the orphan is chnaged to Lupus Spinther.

This whole process, faking, adoption, and coming to light happened, and it worked flawlessly. None got suspicious.

Now the year is 50 BCE. months before Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon, and I am on my mansion on Kydonia.

My appearance is that of a normal 30 year old man. Curly hair, white skin, fairly built body, and the likes. My appearance compared to 200 years ago are vastly different as to show that I'm adopted.

On the balcony of this large mansion, I am being served by no less than 5 servants. You can say I'm at good hands all the time.

The mansion is large, it occupied a little hill that has a direct view in the wide Mediterranean sea in the distance.

It has the signature architecture of the greeks with a combination of other cultures including Romans. The city that I made to be as great as Rome is under the governing of one of my squad mates.

As I'm lazing around, sitting on a bed on the balcony, a captain of the Old Guard came inside, to report something.

"Hail Lupus!" saluted the captain as he stood straight and raised his hand like that of the Third Reich's salute.

"What is it captain?" I asked, I'm not fond of meeting with unimportant figures like the governor of this city. It's a waste of time. If those three can't even contend with me, then why would I meet a figure like that beggar of a governor of this city.

The servants around me moved fluidly and with extreme coordination, a mark of their training. They brought a cup of wine and passed it down to the captain in one move.

"A messenger of Pompey has came my lord. He said he has message or rather an appeal of support from Pompey." answered the captain as he picked up the wine cup as a sign of respect but didn't drank the contents because it's a breach of his duty.

"Pompey? That stupid Pompey?" I asked looking at him weirdly. My other squad mates unlike me, has actively took wives and spread their seeds.

They're "dead" in some sense that they faked their deaths earlier than me and never returned to Rome. They just stayed at the Atlantis, waiting for the right time to return once more. They reasoned that the current Spinther is already too powerful and they're not needed.

Their descendants have accomplished great things, they're known senators, generals, and many more. They have their own statues on the hall of heroes. But that's before, currently, we don't necessarily have too many senators on the senate but that's fine. We don't need political power if the normal citizen can give us just that.

We are still the most powerful family in Rome, and whoever we introduces as our candidate for Consul wins by a landslide. You can say that we have full control on who wins and who losses the elections.

My reputation as Lupus the great, the greatest Pontifex Maximus can still be felt even today. So, the fact that those senators of my family didn't even told me about this whole politics nonsense is something I won't forgive. Not that I care about it anyway, them telling me is after all, for formalities only.

"Uhm, yes my lord. Pompey, the current leader of the conservatives." said the captain with an uncertain voice. He doesn't really know if his lord is joking or not so he just closed his ears on the stupid part and only acknowledged the Pompey.

"Well then, send him in. Let's see what that stupid of a man has to say." I ordered with a laugh as the captain saluted and left to get the messenger.

I just stood up and walked to the railings of this balcony before leaning and inhaling the refreshing breeze of the Mediterranean sea.

"So it's time? The crossing of the Rubicon, Caesar's march on Rome, Pompey against Caesar. The time of the republic has come to an end. And we're here to witness it..."