A Roman Civics Lesson
Food
Like all of us, you are surely familiar with the phrase “bread and circuses” and it’s an important phrase to remember as you’re governor. Providing adequate housing ensures that you have citizens in your city; but without enough food, those citizens can turn quickly into a riotous mob. You should always be watching your food production to ensure that you have enough food for your citizens.
Remember too that just as more successful citizens have higher expectations for their housing, so too do they have higher expectations for their food. Where novice citizens will be happy to simply receive meat and flour (which they then use to make their own bread) more successful citizens will require more than that. As the city grows, citizens will require bread, sausages and wine.
You should understand in particular that ensuring an adequate supply of sausages and bread means that you have enough farms to produce the flour that’s required for the bread and the meat that’s required for the sausage. Then, in turn, you must ensure that you have enough bakeries to turn the flour into bread and butcher shops to turn the meat into sausages. This is very important and will challenge you: you must always ensure a smooth flow in these processes. Any disruption due to a lack of materials or capacity can quickly turn your citizens into a mob.
One important resource that you will find very useful is the taverns: make sure you listen to what is being said there. The wine in the tavern helps people to speak freely and so you can understand what is really happening in your city from the information you get from the taverns.
Spectacles
I’ve told you about the importance of bread. Now, let’s talk about circuses. By circuses, of course, I mean chariot races and gladiatorial games: so called because in Rome they were held in the Circus Maximus, which was built long before Coliseum was built by the Emperor Vespasian.
There is no greater building you can construct for your city than its own Coliseum. If you are able to build one, you will truly have made your city into one of the great cities of the Roman Empire and truly enhanced the glory of the Empire.
Most importantly of all, though, is how it will help make your citizens happy. After you’ve ensured that you have proper housing and food for your citizens, the next thing you have to worry about is idleness and boredom. Many a time we have seen idle and bored citizens become a riotous mob. There is nothing that will occupy the crowds and keep them out of trouble while also making them happy as effectively as a massive spectacle at the Coliseum. Indeed, look only at the example of the Emperor Commodus: we patricians know that Commodus was a fool and a wastrel of an Emperor. But, he knew well how the spectacle was the key to the heart of the people and he used that key well.
In my own day too, I’ve seen many a politicians career made or broken by how they provide adequate spectacles for the crowds. My advice, then, is for you to look well at building a Coliseum and providing proper spectacles in it as an important goal in your career as governor.
Aqueducts
As governor, maintaining proper housing, food and spectacles will all help to ensure a strong and prosperous city. But these are also easy to be aware of: the people will let you know quickly if you fail to provide these needs.
The mark of a good governor, though, is understanding those needs that the people might not recognize until it’s too late. Water is absolutely necessary to the health and well-being of your city. If you do not have enough water your city will not function properly. The key to ensuring proper water for your cities is one of the chief benefits of Roman governance: the aqueduct.
The aqueduct is one of the chief engineering marvels of our Empire. Second perhaps only to the roads, the aqueduct leaves a visible stamp of Roman authority, power and greatness on the landscape. None of us who have seen an aqueduct can help but to be taken aback in awe by the sight. As governor you will find the only thing more impressive than seeing an aqueduct is seeing an aqueduct that you yourself have built.
Aqueducts bring water into the city from the mountains, lakes and rivers. To build a proper aqueduct, you will need first to locate a proper well source. Then, you will build your aqueduct to bring water from that well source down into the city.
An aqueduct is no small undertaking, but it’s an important element in nurturing the growth of your city. Keep an eye to locating a proper source and building aqueducts for your city early one.
