Chapter 124: The Queen’s Demands
The dust of the crisis had settled, but the political landscape of Rome had been permanently reshaped by the tremors. Alex had won. He had defeated the Plague Legion, cured its survivors, and masterfully transformed a catastrophic mutiny into a tool of his own expansionist policy. He had returned to the city a hero twice over, first as a conqueror, then as a savior. But a savior who returns to a city that has learned to save itself finds his place upon the throne subtly, yet irrevocably, altered.
The meeting took place in the grand reception hall of the palace, a space designed for the pronouncements of absolute power. But this was not to be a pronouncement. It was a negotiation. Alex sat on his modest curule chair, flanked by the ever-present Sabina. Across from them sat his sister, the Augusta Lucilla. She was no longer the defeated sister kept on a political leash, nor was she merely the pious matron of a state charity. She was the Victrix, the Victorious One, the woman whose decisive action on the city walls had broken the back of the fanatics' charge. She carried herself with a new, unassailable confidence, the quiet, formidable authority of a person who has tasted real power and found it to her liking. She had come not to ask, but to demand.
"Brother," she began, her voice as smooth and reasonable as a philosopher's discourse, utterly devoid of their usual venomous subtext. "I have come to speak on behalf of the brave citizens who took up arms to defend our home. The men who now proudly call themselves the 'Sons of the She-Wolf.'"
She gestured to an aide, who brought forward a heavy scroll. It was a petition, its parchment dark with the thousands of signatures and thumbprints of the men who had served in her militia.
"These men served the city bravely and with honor," Lucilla continued. "But a temporary militia, mustered in a moment of crisis, is a fragile shield. The Praetorians, in their barracks, guard the Emperor. The great legions, on the frontiers, guard the Empire. But who, brother, guards Rome itself? Who stands upon the walls when the legions are a thousand miles away? We have seen how vulnerable we are. The city needs a permanent, dedicated guardian."
She paused, letting her proposal settle in the grand, silent hall. She was proposing that her militia, the force whose loyalty was to her and her alone, be formalized, institutionalized, made a permanent fixture of the Roman state.
"I therefore propose the creation of a new, permanent military force," she declared, her voice ringing with conviction. "The Legio I Urbana. The First Urban Legion. A legion recruited solely from the sons of Roman citizens, born and raised within these sacred walls. Their sole, sacred duty will be the permanent defense of the city and the maintenance of public order."
The demand was a political bombshell, and it landed with the force of a siege stone. The Urban Cohorts were a police force. The Praetorians were the Emperor's personal guard. What Lucilla was proposing was a third, entirely new army in the heart of Rome, one whose identity was tied not to the Emperor or the state, but to the city itself.
Sabina, who had been listening with a hawk's intensity, could no longer contain herself. "This is unprecedented, Augusta!" she interjected, her voice sharp. "A new legion in the capital? Its role would conflict directly with that of the Praetorian Guard. And to have it commanded..." she trailed off, stopping just short of the true, radical nature of the proposal.
Lucilla turned her calm, cool gaze on Sabina. "Yes, Lady Sabina? To have it commanded by whom?" She did not wait for an answer. She made her final, most audacious demand. "This new Urban Legion must, of course, be placed under the command of a new office, one befitting its unique and sacred duty. The office of the Praefectus Murorum—Prefect of the Walls. An office I would humbly offer to fill myself."