Chapter 129: Propaganda
His mission in Jerusalem was now over.
He had recruited new miners to work in the mines, and the local discontent had subsided.
The most satisfying achievement was breaking the pride of the arrogant Jews.
He was about to leave Jerusalem with his legion, when a white captain came running to report.
“Governor, one of the prisoners claims to be a Roman citizen. We checked and it seems to be true, so we need your instructions.”
“A Roman citizen?”
Marcus frowned at the unexpected situation.
There were some Roman citizens who settled and rooted in the provinces, but he did not anticipate that there would be a Roman citizen among Antigonus’s supporters.
‘How annoying. It’s complicated to punish a Roman citizen without proper procedures… No, wait. This could be an opportunity.’
Marcus quickly thought of a way to use this coincidence.
He walked past the soldiers who surrounded him and approached the prisoner who was held by them.
Judging by his appearance, he was not a Latin Roman citizen, but a pure-blooded Jewish Roman citizen.
He was perfect for Marcus’s plan.
“Are you a Roman citizen?”
“Y-yes! I swear I didn’t know Antigonus was plotting such a conspiracy. I was just a merchant who followed Antigonus.”
“How did you get your citizenship?”
“My father served as a mercenary in the Roman army. He received his citizenship as a reward.”
“Oh, I see. You are the descendant of a great warrior who fought and bled for Rome.”
Marcus untied the rope that bound the prisoner with a gracious smile.
Serving as a mercenary in the Roman army and receiving citizenship was one of the typical ways for foreigners to become Romans.
The famous apostle Paul in the Bible was also said to have inherited his citizenship from his grandfather who served in the Roman army.
Rome treated these people generously as one of its methods of assimilating the provinces.
It wanted to make the provincials feel that they wanted to become Roman citizens too.
Marcus lifted up the prisoner so that the Jewish crowd around him could see him well.
The quick-witted interpreters returned to their original positions and translated Marcus’s words into Hebrew without missing a single letter.
“It is impossible to punish a Roman citizen without a fair trial. Rome never forgets the merit of those who shed blood for Rome. I promise you on my name that you will be able to clear your guilt through a legitimate trial.”
“T-thank you! Thank you so much!”
Marcus’s voice was friendly as he put his hand on the prisoner’s shoulder.
The eyes of the Jews who watched the situation were filled with shock.
They felt the dignity of a Roman citizen that clearly distinguished him from ordinary provincials.
“Your name is?”
“Alpheus.”
“I see, Alpheus. You will enjoy all the rights you have as a Roman citizen, so you don’t need to worry about anything.”
Even if they were not born on the Italian peninsula, all those who had Roman citizenship were entitled to the protection of Roman law without exception.
Of course, there was a slight difference in culture depending on whether they were born as Romans or not.
But that difference was practically negligible compared to the difference between citizens and non-citizens.
Marcus looked around at the swaying crowd with satisfaction.
This should be enough to show off the power of Roman citizenship.
He originally planned to return to Damascus and announce Jerusalem’s fate officially, but he thought it would be more efficient to use this opportunity now.
He cleared his throat and nailed a wedge into the turbulent atmosphere.
“I will say this clearly here for those who are anxious. The Jewish region will be guaranteed autonomy as long as it pays its provincial taxes faithfully.
Antipatros is the administrative governor of Judea and has the right to handle all matters of Judea. If Judea shows loyalty and belonging to Rome, Rome will also give corresponding rewards. I promise that here.
The existence of Alpheus is proof of that. In addition, as a reward for those who did not participate in this riot and maintained their position in Jerusalem, I will grant them Roman citizenship. Those who are considered beneficial to Rome in the future will also be accepted as Romans, so I hope you work hard.”
The faces of the Jews who were designated as recipients of citizenship were filled with indescribable joy.
The other Jews looked at them with envy and admiration.
The realistic young generation among Jews naturally set their goal to become Roman citizens.
Marcus also granted them permission to use ports as Caesar did in history.
Of course, he decided to charge port fees.
He also officially allowed them to rebuild their destroyed temple.
But unlike Caesar, he did not allow them to rebuild Jerusalem’s walls.
But even this was enough to elicit a dramatic response from the Jews.
Antipatros bowed his head and shouted.
“Great governor of Rome, Marcus Mesopotamicus! On behalf of the entire Jewish region, I thank you for your generous decision!”
“Of course, this is not for free. You have to remember that you have a duty to maintain peace in southern Syria and never let something like today happen again. I hope there will never be a need for the governor of Rome to march into Jerusalem again.”
“There will never be such a thing. We swear by the name of our God.”
Following Antipatros, the high priest Hilkiah, who was moved to tears by the permission to rebuild the temple, declared that Marcus was the anointed ruler by God.
It was the second time in history that a foreigner received such a title after Cyrus the Great of Persia.
The Jews followed him out of Jerusalem and sent him off with blessings and cheers.
With this, at least as long as Marcus was alive, there would be no rebellion from Judea against Rome.
Marcus’s ultimate goal was to completely dismantle Judea and Romanize it, but no one had noticed that yet.
He recited a phrase in Hebrew with the help of a soldier who knew the language, and then said it to the Jews who followed him.
“May God’s peace be with you.”
The Jews shed tears and prayed for God’s glory to be with Marcus.
With this, Marcus had completely won the hearts of the Jewish region, and he was able to return to Antioch with dignity.
He captured more than 10,000 prisoners, received praise from the locals, and not a single drop of his soldiers’ blood was spilled.
This was the result that Marcus achieved with just one visit to Jerusalem.
※※※※
When Marcus returned to Antioch, he immediately started the aftermath.
Antigonus and his followers, who were brought as prisoners, were all sent to the mines in the north.
The compensation paid by the Jews of Jerusalem was distributed to the residents who suffered from the riot.
From the outside, it seemed that everything was settled, but Marcus did not stop there.
He secretly thanked Antigonus for inciting a riot in Jerusalem.
He had been planning to overhaul the administration of the provinces anyway, and this gave him a very good excuse.
He realized that there were too many flaws in Rome’s provincial administration as he performed his duties as governor.
The officials’ expertise was lacking, but more importantly, there were too few of them.
The provinces of the Republic had only about 150 to 300 officials in charge of administration.
It was a level where there was not even one official per 10,000 people.
No wonder there were holes in every aspect of administration, and they dealt with problems after they happened rather than preventing them in advance.
The most important problem that Marcus identified in provincial administration was that they did not have a proper document management system.
It was very different from the situation in Rome’s major cities on the Italian peninsula.
The governor had to deal with everything from administration, justice, to military, so he could keenly feel this deficiency.
Especially in the judicial field, this problem was particularly noticeable.
There was no clear guidance and precedent recorded, so the officials could not make judgments, and naturally, the work was concentrated on the governor.
This happened frequently whenever the situation became a little complicated.
“Governor, if an orphan of free birth is raised as a slave, is his status still free? In that case, how should we calculate the foster care fee?”
“We found cases where convicts sentenced to hard labor were used as public slaves. Is this also included in the category of hard labor? I think some records are missing in between, but I can’t find them no matter how hard I look.”
“Governor, about the special allowance for legionaries…”
All these burdens caused by poor record management were focused on the governor.
The problem was that Marcus was not in charge of one province, but several.
Almost every province had similar situations, so it was impossible to cope unless he had five bodies or so.
He could solve this problem by arbitrarily handling it without clear rules, but Marcus did not want to do that.
He felt the need to fill in the gaps in provincial administration.
He started by clarifying the rules and punishing those who deliberately exploited the loopholes.
There were quite a few people who used the loopholes in provincial administration to do various things in the East at that time.
From nobles who ran usury businesses with exorbitant interest rates by poking at provincial law, officials who handled public funds recklessly, to free citizens’ organizations that escaped punishment and wielded violence.
It was almost natural for all classes to deviate from normality.
Marcus first selected additional officials from each city who were natives of that region.
He wanted to overhaul the entire system from scratch, but it took too much time and he did not have enough authority to do so.
If he ever got to a position where he could do that in the future, he might introduce an advanced bureaucratic system, but it was premature for now.
All he could do now was to send auditors to make accounting more strict and codify vague precedents more rigorously.
A wind of overtime swept across Syria province.
All officials worked almost all night long to document various cases and common practices.
Of course, there were opinions that Marcus was doing something unnecessary.
Especially those who had been working in administration for a long time tended to think so.
It was just that they couldn’t express it openly because Marcus worked harder than anyone else himself.
Similarly, Septimus, who had a lot of experience in administration, pointed out this dissatisfaction and reported it.
“Marcus sir, do you know that there is a lot of discontent among the officials lately?”
“Why, do they have too much work?”
“They say they can bear it because you pay them overtime according to your instructions. They say it’s a temporary overtime, so they can handle it.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“They think it’s a waste of time to codify all the precedents and norms. It would be enough to carve or write the important laws on stone or parchment, but there are too many to do that. Inevitably, they have to write on papyrus, but as you know, papyrus is very hard to manage…”
Marcus nodded lightly.
It was an expected criticism.
There were three main ways of recording documents at that time.
They were carving on clay tablets, using parchment or papyrus.
Clay tablets were obviously not suitable for recording large amounts of documents, so they were not worth considering.
Parchment was sturdy and durable if well maintained, but it was prohibitively expensive.
On the other hand, papyrus was light and easy to obtain, making it suitable for recording large amounts of documents.
But storage was a separate issue.
Papyrus was extremely weak to moisture and had poor durability.
In other words, it was easily damaged even with strict management, and copies had to be made periodically by copying.
The officials thought that it was impossible to manage the codified norms continuously, even if they made them.
In fact, because of these drawbacks, papyrus production was completely discontinued after the papermaking technology of Tang Dynasty was transferred to Islam.
“That’s a reasonable complaint. But don’t worry, I already have a solution prepared. No, it would be better to show you directly. Call the officials in charge of records tomorrow. I’ll show them with my own eyes that their worries were unfounded.”
“Yes. I understand.”
Septimus turned his back and left without any questions to gather the officials.
His absolute trust in his master shone from his back.
The next day, after Marcus’s order, Septimus gathered the officials at the designated place.
They all had a tense look on their faces.
From the perspective of low-level provincial officials, Rome’s governor was an existence above the clouds.
They trembled nervously, wondering if their complaints had reached his ears.
When Marcus showed up, the officials knelt reflexively.
Marcus did not want to waste time on unnecessary things, so he raised his hand to stop their actions.
“There’s no need for that. Get up and follow me. I have something to show you. I want to hear your impressions.”
“A new thing?”
“A new thing that will drastically reduce your hardships. You can’t possibly manage a large amount of documents, let alone record them. That’s why I heard a lot of worrying words lately.”
Their faces turned pale as they shook their heads hastily.
“There is no such thing. We never had any complaints about your orders. We…”
“I’m not trying to interrogate you, so don’t be so nervous. Actually, I also think that papyrus is not suitable for recording documents because it has many flaws.”
Marcus led the officials out of the paper mill where he had entered.
This time, he entered a building marked as Printing House No. 5.
A strange device with a square arch-shaped pillar attached to the center of a large desk caught their eye.
They could guess that paper was something used for writing, but they could not even guess what the unidentified device in the printing house was for.
Marcus proudly introduced one of the greatest inventions in human history that had jumped over 1400 years of time.
“This is the first metal type printing press ever invented in history. You are lucky. You get to see the first printing press in action. From now on, your concept of type will be turned upside down. Look forward to it.”
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