I Rule Rome with a God-Tier AI-Chapter 95: The Price of Bread

Back in Rome, Sabina waged a war with no trumpets and no marching legions. Her battlefield was the city itself, a complex, sprawling organism whose health was measured in the price of a loaf of bread. The initial, fiery patriotism for the war in the East had begun to cool, replaced by the low, familiar hum of anxiety that always accompanied a major military campaign. War was expensive, and its first and most immediate casualty was always the stability of the marketplace.

The price of grain, the lifeblood of the city, had begun to rise. It was not yet a crisis, but it was a worrying trend. With the eastern legions requisitioning vast amounts of wheat from the Syrian and Egyptian provinces, the normal, steady flow of grain ships to the port of Ostia had become less reliable. Delays were more frequent, cargo sizes smaller. The great commercial engine of Rome was beginning to feel the strain.

And this, Sabina knew, was exactly the moment Pertinax's allies had been waiting for. The 'precautions' he had taken before his departure—the secret stockpile of legitimate Egyptian wheat he had amassed under his authority as head of the Granary Trust—had transformed from a political gambit into the city's only real buffer against hunger. And the senators loyal to him began to use this fact like a weapon.

A delegation of them, led by a silver-tongued patrician named Glabrio, a known and vocal supporter of Pertinax, requested an audience with Sabina. They came to her offices near the treasury, their faces masks of deep, civic concern.

"Lady Sabina," Glabrio began, his voice dripping with false sincerity. "We come to you with heavy hearts. The people grow restless. The bakers complain of shortages. The grain ships from Alexandria are delayed by storms and, some say, by the needs of the army." He sighed, a theatrical gesture of sorrow. "We are fortunate that the noble Pertinax, in his great wisdom and foresight, established a reserve for just such a contingency. We implore you, on behalf of the good people of Rome, to open these reserves. Stabilize the price of bread. Avert this coming crisis."

The trap was as elegant as it was obvious. The reserves were technically under the authority of Pertinax's office. For Sabina to use them, she would have to issue an emergency decree, an act that would be seen as a public admission that the Emperor's own plans had been insufficient, and that it was Pertinax, the man he had exiled, who was the true savior of the city. His reputation would soar. If she refused, and the prices continued to rise, she risked bread riots in the streets and would be branded as a heartless bureaucrat who had allowed the people to starve while hoarding the city's resources.

Sabina listened to their performance with a placid, unreadable expression. She understood the game perfectly. And she had no intention of playing it by their rules.

She did not argue. She did not refuse. She smiled, a warm, reassuring smile that immediately put the senators on edge. "Your concern for the people does you great credit, Senator Glabrio," she said smoothly. "The Emperor shares your conviction that the citizens of Rome must not suffer due to this just and necessary war. I will, of course, take immediate action."

But her action was not what they expected. The next day, she did not issue an edict to open Pertinax's granaries. Instead, she convened a meeting in her offices. Not with senators, but with the real power behind the city's food supply: the heads of the powerful bakers', millers', and shipping guilds. These were hard-faced, practical men of commerce who cared little for politics and everything for the bottom line.

They entered her office expecting to be threatened or harangued about price-gouging. Instead, Sabina offered them wine and treated them not as subjects, but as business partners.

"Gentlemen," she began, getting straight to the point. "The senators are worried about the rising price of bread. But we know what they are truly worried about is their own influence and the wealth of their land-owning friends. They wish to play politics with the city's hunger. I wish to make a profit."

The guild masters exchanged confused, intrigued glances.

"I have a proposition for you," Sabina continued, her voice all business. "The state requires a stable price for bread for the duration of the campaign. It is a matter of national security. The senators would have me drain our strategic reserves, a short-sighted solution that helps no one but them. I offer you a better deal."

She laid out a plan of stunning, mercantile brilliance. "I will not command you to lower your prices. I will pay you to do so. Effective immediately, I am using the Emperor's emergency war funds to offer each of your guilds a massive, low-interest loan to cover any and all potential losses from market fluctuations for the next six months. Furthermore, I am offering you exclusive, long-term state contracts to supply all government and military institutions within the city. Keep the price of a standard loaf of bread stable at its pre-war level, and the state will not only cover your losses, it will guarantee you a handsome profit. You will be seen as heroes of the city, patriots who held the line in a time of war. And you will all be significantly richer by the spring."

She let the offer sink in, letting them savor the sweet taste of guaranteed profit. Then, she delivered the alternative.

"Defy me," she said, her voice suddenly turning to ice, "continue to raise your prices, and I will use the full weight of the Emperor's wartime authority to declare your industries vital to state security. I will nationalize your guilds. I will seize your warehouses, your ships, and your mills. I will put you all out of business and run the bread supply myself. You will be remembered as war profiteers and traitors."

The choice was simple. On one hand, immense, state-guaranteed wealth and public adoration. On the other, financial ruin and public disgrace.

The guild masters, pragmatic men to their core, almost tripped over themselves in their haste to accept. An hour later, they left her office as the newest and most powerful allies of the imperial government. By the next morning, the price of bread across the city had miraculously stabilized. The whispers of a coming shortage died out. Sabina had won, not by releasing a single grain of Pertinax's wheat, but by buying the absolute loyalty of the city's entire commercial class, cutting the ground out from under the feet of the land-owning senators.

But victory, she knew, came at a cost. That evening, alone in her office, she reviewed the accounting reports. The amount of gold required to subsidize the city's food supply was staggering, a constant and massive drain on the imperial treasury. She looked at the numbers, at the river of gold flowing out to keep the city placid, and she felt a chill. Lyra's original prediction had been correct: a war of expansion, fought with a traditional economy, was economically ruinous.

A cold thought, planted by Pertinax's intercepted message, took root in her mind: The heartland is vulnerable.

She realized, with a sudden, terrifying clarity, that their entire grand strategy rested on a single assumption: that Alex would succeed in the East, and that he would succeed quickly. He had to conquer Parthia. He had to seize its vast wealth, its control of the Silk Road, and bring that "harvest" back to Rome. If he failed, if the war dragged on, the treasury would be empty by spring. The subsidies would end. The guilds would revolt. The city would starve. And the Empire would collapse from within, exactly as Pertinax was hoping. Her victory was a desperate, high-stakes gamble, a bet placed on Alex's success half a world away.