A Roman Civics Lesson
Food
One reason that you will want to consider building aqueducts is to be able to ensure enough of a water supply to foster the building of baths for the city.
Truly the greatest difference between a civilized Roman city and a barbarian city are the baths. After all, the baths provide a place for cleanliness and good hygiene which is always important in a city, especially in the summer! As you’ve seen from your time in the military, hygiene is something that the barbarians, especially the Germans, lack.
But hygiene is only part of the benefit of baths. After all, the baths really are a place where citizens work to foster a healthy body. As the writer Juvenal says “you should pray for a healthy mind in a healthy body”. And citizens who wisely spend time every day at the baths are able to attend to their bodies properly to ensure they have proper health by exercising and engaging in sport.
Spending time at the baths wrestling, playing ball games, or swimming help citizens to keep in good health and augments the inherent benefits in the hot and cold water treatments of the baths themselves. As you know first hand, nothing feels as good as a proper bath treatment after a vigorous exercise.
And, indeed, as Juvenal’s writing implies, the benefit is not merely physical but mental as well. It’s because of this that the baths have become such an important place for social gathering and discussion. Many an important conversation has taken place at the baths, helped by the clear thinking the treatments foster. Indeed, you remember I first approached you about running for governor as my client at the baths?
The social benefits of the baths are really innumerable and that’s one reason why the most successful and prosperous citizens require a bath in their city. As governor, if you fail to build proper bath facilities, you won’t be able to attract those best citizens who can ensure the success of your city as one of the greatest cities in the Roman Empire.
Roads
The saying goes that all roads lead to Rome and the more you travel the Empire, the more you’ll see the truth of that saying. The roads are a marvel of Roman power and engineering. Coupled with the sea lanes of the Mediterranean, the Roman roads knit together the lands where Roman power holds sway into a single Empire that unites all the different nations.
The roads that unite the Empire are built and maintained by the Roman Army. Because the Legions are the first and most important beneficiary of the roads, it makes sense that they would oversee their construction. By having the Legionaries also perform the actual construction of the roads, we provide activity for the Legions, keeping them out of the idleness and trouble that bored soldiers can get into. Also, the roads are too vital to the Empire to trust to someone as a private enterprise, with all the shoddy construction that invariably results from that.
Roads are an important part of the daily life of the city as well. They provide the arteries through which trade and important raw materials will travel. Roads can be important for ensuring the movement of raw materials like flour, meat and linen to shops where they’re made into food and products vital to the well being of the city. Remember that a transportation problem that hampers the butcher’s ability to get meat to turn into sausages can lead to riots just as easily as a shortage of meat from the farm.
As governor, then, make sure you watch for places where transportation is a problem and take steps to build roads that will ensure proper transportation and supplies for your citizens.
