Chapter 78: Son-in-law and Father-in-law’s Script 1>
Marcus decided to hold the Ceres Festival after March.
His reason was that he wanted to give enough time for the farmers from all over Italy to gather, but the truth was a bit different.
Even if he introduced the four-field system, he couldn’t foster independent farmers without land to cultivate.
He needed a system that could support his innovative farming method.
However, as a mere aedile, Marcus was not in a position to draft such a bill yet.
That’s why he needed the existence of the Triumvirate.
Marcus felt the need to nurture independent farmers for the future of Rome.
Pompey had to distribute public land to his veterans to save face.
Caesar had the duty to represent the interests of the Triumvirate as much as possible as a consul.
The Triumvirate agreed to deal with these two issues together, not separately.
They planned to revise the agrarian law so that both the soldiers who served under Pompey and the farmers who needed land could benefit.
It was a huge bill that was not fully organized yet.
But Caesar said he would be able to submit it by March.
This was the reason why Marcus chose to hold the festival after March.
The agrarian law was entangled with the interests of the privileged class, so it was impossible to pass it by normal means.
In fact, every time the agrarian law was discussed after the Gracchi brothers’ reform, there was bloodshed in Rome’s politics.
So Marcus and Caesar decided to use every means possible to ensure the passage of this law.
If the farmers from all over Italy gathered and joined forces with Pompey’s veterans, even the Senate would not dare to oppose them openly.
They agreed not to use violence, but they didn’t count on the citizens getting excited and rising up.
Since there was still some time left until the festival, Marcus focused more on improving sanitation for now.
He executed most of his projects immediately with his authority as a aedile, but sometimes he had to seek approval from the Senate for some matters.
Of course, the Senate fully supported Marcus.
He paid for the projects with his own money first, and then they allocated a budget after seeing the results.
Thanks to this agreement, most of his projects passed without any hitch.
“It’s dangerous to use human waste that comes through the sewer as fertilizer. We need to enact a law that requires human waste to be composted. I’ll build the facility, but we need a law on composting. I ask you, consul, to consider this and draft a law.”
The consul in charge of this year’s administration was Caesar. He asked with interest.
“Is it harmful to use uncomposted human waste as fertilizer?”
“Yes. I have also prepared data on this. People who eat grains that use uncomposted human waste as fertilizer suffer from abdominal pain more often than those who don’t. This is because the bad toxins in human waste seep into the grains. So we need to compost them for a long time to remove the toxins.”
The real reason was more about parasites than toxins, but explaining that would only confuse them more.
In fact, most of the senators nodded their heads and accepted Marcus’s easy explanation.
Caesar didn’t object either.
“So we just need to enact a law on composting human waste?”
“No. While we’re at it, we also need to update the law on street sanitation. If you go to Subura, you’ll often see people throwing all kinds of garbage out of their windows in insulae. This is not only unsightly, but also bad for hygiene.”
Caesar, who had lived in Subura for a long time, was very familiar with this scene.
“Yeah. It’s not a very surprising sight either. People secretly throwing garbage from high-rise buildings. But it’s something that needs some attention anyway.”
“Yes. But if we just ban it, most people will choose to throw it secretly. We also need to provide a more convenient way for people living in high-rise insulae to dispose of their wastewater and garbage.”
“That makes sense. I’ll consider that when making the bill.”
Caesar was unusually sympathetic to the lives of commoners despite being a nobleman of illustrious lineage. He immediately thought of several solutions in his head.
He looked around at his audience and asked.
“Does anyone have anything else to say about what Marcus requested? If not, I’ll proceed with the vote.”
Metellus Scipio raised his hand and requested to speak.
He got up from his seat after getting the right to speak.
“I’m not opposed, but it will obviously require additional budget to store and manage human waste for a long time. How are we going to do that after the Crassus family pays for it once?”
Before Marcus could explain, Caesar cut in first.
“We have enough revenue to allocate additional budget. The tax reform two years ago increased the revenue significantly last year.”
“Ah…”
“It’s only natural that the revenue increased when we made the taxes more transparent and reduced the burden. I believe this answers your question.”
Metellus, who had overlooked such an obvious fact, blushed and sat back down.
Marcus’s tax reform had greatly increased Rome’s revenue.
When the senators first received the report, they checked it several times with disbelief.
They were convinced that there would be a huge hole in the revenue.
They only agreed because they thought the Crassus family would make up for it.
But now that the results were out, they had to accept it.
From then on, Marcus’s words gained more weight.
His trust from the Senate also deepened.
No one else wanted to speak after Metellus.
Marcus’s law on public sanitation was unanimously passed.
It was when the senators were about to get up from their seats, thinking that the meeting was over.
“There is one more matter to discuss.”
Caesar’s calm voice drew the attention of the senators.
Bibulus, who was always ready to veto, asked grumpily.
“What else do you have to say?”
“Yes, my dear senators. I have been in the Senate for about ten years now. During that time, I was moved and enlightened by the speeches of many intellectuals with excellent insight.
And that hasn’t changed until now. I think it’s a pity that the brilliant eloquence of orators like Hortensius, Cicero, and Cato gradually fades away in people’s memory. So I plan to publish the minutes of the meeting in the form of consular commentaries and make them public. Of course, the contents of the closed meetings will not be disclosed.”
Bibulus, who was about to argue, couldn’t say anything and closed his mouth again.
He couldn’t find any reason to oppose no matter how hard he thought.
The public meetings were already open and ongoing.
Right outside the meeting hall, there were some citizens who were lining up to hear the contents of this meeting.
Usually, these people ran to the Forum Romanum as soon as the meeting was over and told what they heard.
But no one could convey this vast amount of information without any errors.
Sometimes there were distortions and inaccuracies.
Caesar said he wanted to improve this situation.
In fact, some senators who had been distorted several times raised their hands and agreed.
Of course, some senators who had made controversial remarks several times showed their discomfort.
There were also people like Cato who opposed everything Caesar did.
But Caesar’s determination was firm.
He decided to have the scribes record the contents of the meeting with his authority as a consul and post them on the Forum Romanum from today.
Once this happened, Bibulus couldn’t do anything about it.
If he abolished the consular commentaries during his term of administration, he would look bad in public.
This kind of information disclosure couldn’t be reversed once it was done.
Unless it was something that seriously violated the interests of the public, but Caesar’s action was clearly for the public good.
Bibulus and Cato could only vent their anger inwardly while leaving with a smirk.
Of course, the Senate didn’t suffer any damage from this trivial act.
They were just annoyed that they gave Caesar another advantage.
Marcus smiled meaningfully as he watched Cato and Bibulus leave with a smirk.
His expression looked like a mischievous boy who was looking forward to the trouble that would happen later.
※※※※
While Caesar and the Senate were having a nerve war, Marcus didn’t care and continued to do his work.
He tried to finish his work as quickly as possible, but a month had already passed by.
The one-year term was too short to realize all of his plans.
He needed to move as fast and efficiently as possible.
Fortunately, in just a month, the sanitation awareness of the people in Rome had improved a lot.
It would take a few more years to spread throughout Italy, but it was better than expected.
The biggest factor was that there was already a primitive soap.
If he had brought a new thing and explained everything from scratch, the citizens wouldn’t have adapted so quickly.
Thanks to this, the soap factories he had bought in advance also enjoyed a huge sales boom.
On top of that, Marcus produced high-quality soap using olive oil.
It was still very expensive because the production technology was not good, but it sold like hotcakes among wealthy nobles.
He replenished a considerable amount of money he had spent while performing his aedileship in no time.
There, Marcus used his authority as a aedile to tackle the lead poisoning problem that was prevalent among nobles.
The upper class of Rome used sapa, which was obtained by heating wine in lead containers, as a seasoning mainly.
Of course, this sapa contained concentrated lead components and they accumulated in the bodies of Romans who ate it.
In the long run, he would have to replace the aqueducts as well, but he put that problem aside for now since lime water coated the aqueducts and protected them.
Marcus held a small festival to introduce sugar as an alternative to sapa.
He had been demonstrating it several times and refining its quality, so it already boasted a high level of perfection.
Those who tasted sugar were completely captivated by the sweet taste they had never experienced before.
“So this sugar thing is not bad for your body like sapa?”
Unlike the citizens who couldn’t focus on anything but the sweetness, the senators’ reactions were dramatic.
If a person was exposed to lead for a long time, the probability of getting gout increased exponentially.
The pain of gout was beyond imagination, as if the joints themselves were being torn apart.
For the Romans, gout was a source of fear.
The older and richer the nobles were, the more likely they were to encounter gout patients.
Especially those who saw their family members suffering from gout were afraid that they might become like that someday.
So they were very interested in Marcus’s words that could dramatically reduce this probability.
Many prominent figures gathered, including Vibullius, the current praetor, Scipio of the Metellus family, Sillanus and Cicero, the former praetors, and Afranius.
“Is it certain that we won’t get that devilish disease if we don’t use honeydew?”
“There are various factors that cause gout. Obesity or excessive nutrition intake also affect it quite a bit. But what’s certain is that eating honeydew increases the chance of getting gout drastically. That’s why I made this sugar.”
Marcus asked Septimus to bring him a scroll.
It was a document that summarized the ratio of people who got gout among the nobles who enjoyed eating dishes with honeydew and the Stoic nobles who lived frugally.
“As you can see, the side that hardly consumed honeydew has a much lower ratio of getting gout. But this honeydew is widely used as a seasoning. It’s hard for the nobles who are used to the sweetness to quit it overnight. So I made this sugar.”
Strictly speaking, the sweetness of sugar and honeydew was slightly different in nature.
But for the nobles who believed they could be freed from the fear of gout, such a minor difference didn’t matter.
Moreover, in terms of concentrated sweetness, sugar was superior to honeydew.
The nobles were already imagining how to use this sugar in their cooking and whetted their appetite.
Cicero, who was enjoying the taste of sugar like other nobles, suddenly asked a serious question.
“By the way, Marcus. Is there enough supply of this sugar thing?”
The eyes of the nobles were all focused on Marcus.
The price of sugar was set quite high, but that was not a problem for the nobles here.
The real problem was whether they could get enough supply for their needs.
Marcus scratched his head with an ambiguous smile.
“Thanks to preparing for a long time, I have secured a solid production system. But there is a risk of shortage if the demand is higher than expected. Of course, I will supply you with priority.”
Marcus was cultivating sugarcane on a large scale not only in Italy but also in Asia Minor.
One of his brother Publius’s tasks as a aedile who was elected and dispatched to Asia Minor was to manage large-scale farmland.
But the sugar produced in Asia Minor did not cross over to Rome.
It was used as a major material for trading with eastern countries.
Especially, it helped a lot to make connections with Parthian nobles who were currently doing him a great favor.
In this era, even India, the origin of sugar, did not have the technology to crystallize sugar.
The Parthian nobles were amazed by the sweet new thing brought by Roman merchants.
The nobles who realized that they could get sugar if they got closer to Roman merchants tried to make friends with Tadius’s subordinates without exception.
He even received proposals to exchange silk and sugar from time to time.
Sugar was historically a luxury item until before the Industrial Revolution.
Sugar made in BC era was literally worth its weight in gold.
The impact of sugar was more than Marcus had imagined.
‘I expected that sweeteners would have a huge status in ancient times…but I didn’t think it would be this much.’
He had lived in an era where sugar was so common that he knew it intellectually but did not feel it.
Anyway, thanks to an unexpected variable, his plan in the east yielded results faster than expected.
The reform in Rome also went smoothly as expected.
The Senate still thought they had control, but their foundation was slowly collapsing.
Vibullius spent almost his entire month in charge of state affairs without doing anything.
He had no purpose other than opposing Caesar.
The only thing he did with his praetor authority was to pass the bills that Marcus needed.
And finally, in March when Caesar took charge of state affairs again, the Senate received an attack they never imagined.
The harbinger of conflict that brought countless bloodshed to Rome.
A challenge named land reform bill flew in front of the Senate.
< End of Chapter 78. Son-in-law and Father-in-law’s Script 1 >
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