I Rule Rome with a God-Tier AI-Chapter 177: The Shadow War

The tavern in the port city of Ravenna was a place of secrets. By day, it was a noisy, bustling hub for sailors and merchants. By night, it transformed, the dim, smoky light of its oil lamps providing cover for the illicit deals that were the lifeblood of any great port. In a dark, secluded booth, two merchants clinked their wine cups together, their faces lit by triumphant, greedy smiles.

"To the Emperor's War," the first merchant, a corpulent man named Varro, toasted with a cynical grin. "It's made us richer than peace ever did."

"And to the Lady Sabina's blockades," his partner, a lean, nervous man named Crispus, added. "For making it all so profitable."

Their deal was done. A hidden compartment in Crispus's wagon, now loaded onto a barge destined for a northern river port, was filled with fifty amphorae of the finest Falernian wine. The official manifest listed the cargo as low-grade pottery. They had bribed the local legionary quartermaster, a man with expensive tastes and a flexible sense of duty, to sign the forged documents and look the other way. The wine, which was worth a small fortune in Ravenna, would be worth ten times that in the boomtowns around Vulcania, where the conscripted workers and soldiers were thirsty and desperate for a taste of home.

"The quartermaster is a fool," Varro chuckled, taking a deep drink of wine. "He thinks in terms of a few thousand sesterces. He doesn't see the bigger picture. This is just the beginning. Soon, we'll be moving oil, spices, even silk."

Just as Crispus was about to reply, the tavern doors at both the front and back of the long room burst open simultaneously. The men who entered were not the city watch, with their noisy armor and official bearing. They were quiet, grim-faced men in simple, unremarkable civilian tunics. They moved not like soldiers, but like wolves, with a chilling, silent efficiency that froze the entire tavern in a moment of shocked silence. They were the Frumentarii, Perennis's new secret police, the unseen enforcers of the Emperor's Peace.

Before Varro or Crispus could even react, two of the men were at their table. There were no accusations, no reading of charges. A heavy hand clamped down on Varro's shoulder, while another twisted Crispus's arm behind his back with painful, practiced ease. Across the room, the corrupt quartermaster, who had been celebrating his bribe in a corner, was similarly taken. The merchants, the soldier, and their bags of silver were hauled out into the dark street and bundled into an unmarked black carriage. There would be no public trial, no messy legal proceedings. They were simply... gone. The tavern's owner, his face pale with terror, quickly began wiping down their table, trying to erase any sign that they had ever been there.

Days later, in the command center at Vulcania, Perennis delivered his report to Alex. The spymaster stood with his usual impassive posture, but there was a gleam of satisfaction in his cold eyes. He detailed the successful operation in Ravenna, and a dozen others like it that had taken place in the towns and cities across Northern Italy. The burgeoning black market, which had threatened to undermine Sabina's war economy, was being ruthlessly and efficiently suppressed.

"The word is spreading," Perennis said, his voice a dry whisper. "Merchants are learning that the profits of smuggling are not worth the price. The flow of unauthorized goods to the north has slowed to a trickle."

He paused, then revealed the true, deeper value of his new organization. "The interrogations of these men are also proving to be... fruitful," he added with a thin, cruel smile. "These greedy fools, in their desperation to save their own skins from the torturer, offer up more than just the names of their partners. They tell us everything. Every rumor they have heard in the taverns, every disgruntled word they have overheard on the roads. They give us the mood of the people, the names of senators in Rome who curse your name in their private villas, the officers in the legions who grumble about your new tactics and their delayed pay."

He had not just created a force to stop crime. He was building a vast, domestic intelligence network, an unseen web that was beginning to stretch into every level of Roman society, listening, watching, and reporting. He was forging the eyes and ears of a true police state.

He handed Alex a scroll, a summary of the intelligence his new Frumentarii had gathered over the past few weeks. It was a chaotic collection of whispers, rumors, and grievances from across the land. Alex took the scroll back to his private quarters and began feeding the raw text into Lyra's analytical engine. He was looking for patterns, for connections that a human, reading through the noise, might miss.

He watched as Lyra processed the data, cross-referencing names, locations, and keywords. After a few moments, the AI highlighted a recurring theme, a statistically significant cluster of discontent originating from a specific region and social class.

Pattern detected, Lyra's text appeared. A high concentration of negative sentiment towards imperial economic policies is originating from the northern provinces of Venetia and Istria. The sentiment is most prevalent among the traditional, land-owning senatorial aristocracy. Key grievance topics include: the slave levy, the conscription of guild artisans, and the disruption of traditional trade routes with the northern tribes.

Alex stared at the screen. Perennis returned later that evening, and Alex presented him with Lyra's findings. The spymaster provided the human context that brought the cold data to life.

"The northern Italian nobility," Perennis confirmed with a nod. "The old families. They are a proud, conservative bunch. Their families have owned those great estates since the days of the Republic. Your war economy is threatening their entire way of life. You have taken their slaves, conscripted their workers, and forbidden them from the lucrative amber and fur trade they conduct with the tribes across the Alps. They see you as a tyrant, a radical who is destroying Roman tradition to fight what they believe is just another barbarian rabble."

He leaned closer, his voice dropping. "And my agents report that this discontent has found a leader. A powerful, old-school senator named Cassius Longinus. His family is ancient, his personal wealth is immense, and his estates near Aquileia are the largest in the region. He is a known traditionalist, a close friend of the exiled Pertinax, and a man who commands deep respect among his peers. He is quiet, but he is a rock around which the river of their anger is beginning to flow. My sources say he is beginning to hold secret meetings at his villa, gatherings of other disgruntled landowners who feel their world is being torn apart."

Alex stood before the great map, a new, insidious threat now materializing at his own back. He had thought he had secured the home front when he neutralized Pertinax and Lucilla. He had been a fool. His own ruthless, necessary policies were creating a new, grassroots opposition, not among the faceless plebs, but among the powerful, wealthy, and well-connected aristocracy of Northern Italy.

Perennis's new secret police had solved one problem—the chaos of the black market—only to uncover a new, more dangerous one. A conspiracy of the old guard, brewing right on the doorstep of his war effort. Alex realized with a chilling clarity that the "Emperor's Peace" was not a permanent state he had achieved. It was a constant, ongoing, and vicious war, fought not just on the frozen banks of the Danube, but in the smoky taverns of Ravenna, on the grand estates of Aquileia, and in the bitter, resentful hearts of the very people he was trying to save.