Augusta, the Eternal City

The Eternal City of Augusta is the religious center of Ereba. For 1500 years, it has been the very center of culture, civilization, and power in Ereba. With its senate house, stately forums, airy temples, and luxurious markets, it seems natural as the hub of empire. Yet no emperor has reigned in Augusta for four centuries. It remains technically subject to Byzantios, ruling through the Exarch of R'varr. But for the most part the Eternal City itself is left to its own governance and the people sheltered under the wisdom of its spiritual leader, the Arch-Cleric of Augusta, Keeper of the Light, Shepherd of the Faithful.

Demographics

The upper classes trace their origins to a number of ancient families. Families with ties to the royal founders of the city are patricians while those without such divine ancestry are plebeians. Over time, and especially following the fall of the Nine Gods, the distinction between patrician and plebeian became less important, though patrician families can be proud and haughty. Status is based mostly on wealth and reflected in four basic classes of Augustan society-the senatorial class, the equestrian class, the military class, and the proletarian class. All four of these classes come from the ancient families of Augusta and together make up the citizenry. Other inhabitants of the city do not enjoy the same rights and protections as citizens. These include ambassadors, foreign merchants, itinerant scholars, pilgrims, traveling entertainers, servants, and slaves.

Government

The Prefect of the City: Temporal authority in the Eternal City is in the hands of its Prefect, who superintends all guilds and corporations, maintains and distributes the grain supply, oversees the drainage and sewer system, and commands the city guard.

The City Guard: The city guard is comprised of professional soldiers. They see to the city's defenses, counteract the roving mobs and gangs who sometimes plague the streets, and guard against insurrection and popular uprisings. They are under the command of the Prefect of the City, but more immediately under the command of their own officers.

The City Watch: Order at night is kept by the watch, who are deployed both to fight fires and keep an eye out for thieves. As they are instrumental in fighting fires, they carry tools like picks, axes, and mattocks. The city watch is a large group, with one watch center for each of the city's 14 districts. Each watch center has a team of four healers as well as a chaplain. They are commanded by a Prefect of the Watch.

The Holy Censor: Maintaining the census, upholding public morality, and overseeing public expenditure and finance is the duty of the Holy Censor. In practice, maintaining the responsibility for maintaining the census falls heavily upon the parish priests who are charged with keeping accurate records of their parishioners. Likewise, the maintenance of public buildings and tax collection are privately auctioned. So while the Censor holds great power in his office, that power is normally disbursed through parish priests, bands of strongmen serving local moneylenders, and entrepreneurs with access to raw materials and cheap labor.

Infrastructure

Walls: The towering walls surrounding the city have recently been rebuilt by Gregorios.

Sewers: The City has an extensive underground sewer system, centered on a large central drainage tunnel, the Cloaca Maxima. This was originally constructed as an open drainage ditch when the marshy surroundings of the city were subject to frequent flooding. Eventually, it was covered over and is now an underground waterway dating back to the earliest days of the city itself.

Catacombs: An old edict forbids burials within the city proper

Aqueduct

Arena

Guilds and Factions

Although the men of Augusta have walked in the Light of Amon for 400 years, some patrician families maintain their own shrines to the Nine Gods-or even more ancient orders of beings.

History

The legendary founders of the city were Raxos and Regulos, twin sons of the priestess L'nirr and the war-god Argos, who would eventually lead the fledgling city to victory in a conflict over control of the river trade with the powerful Targonian city-state of Veii. The merchants of Veii were filled with jealousy over the trade with the dwarfs as well, for the dwarfs despised the Targonian cities. After the time of the twins, the city entered an era during which it was ruled by a powerful series of monarchs (called the Age of the Seven Kings). Early kings pursued a warlike course of expansion, but later kings built the city's infrastructure, including its salt works, aqueduct, circus, forum, and the network of catacombs and sewers for draining the swampy area between the hills. In this, the city was ever assisted by the dwarf holds, for the men of the city loved the stone work of the dwarfs and the dwarfs loved the goods that poured in from the trade routes on the Tyrrian Sea.

But the great families of Augusta, feeling their individual power grow, at last grew weary of their kings. The last three kings, all of Targonian lineage, increasingly turned their attention to the army, using it to control the citizens. The last of these, Tarquin the Proud, finally overreached himself in attempting to take as a mistress the virtuous daughter of a prominent senator. When the girl killed herself rather than submit to the tyrant's embraces, the patrician class rose in revolt. They drove Tarquin from the city and declared Augusta a Republic. The young republic expanded aggressively eastward to the Sea of Illyria, northward to the Targonian city-states, and southward to the free city of Tarentum.

With its growth, conflict between the Republic the maritime Empire of Khart-Haddag became inevitable. The two powers first clashed over control of the island of Sikelia, which had been ruled by the semi-independent Argosian city-states. In a series of wars, Augusta eventually defeated Khart-Haddag and reduced the city to rubble. But years of war had enriched some families far beyond the others. Ambitious generals sought to aggrandize themselves and their families, unscrupulous politicians began to manipulate the laws for their personal gain, and the grim specter of civil war arose to threaten the Augustan world.

These civil wars came to an end in 1 CY with the crowning of the first emperor on the hill where the city was first founded.

The modern history of Augusta begins with the removal of the imperial seat to the northern city of Medegia. Thereafter, Augusta's population declined rapidly as it lost its status as a center of power. In the absence of a central imperial presence, power shifted to the aristocracy and their priesthood. Augusta became a cultural and intellectual hub, with young men and women from all corners of the Empire coming there to embark upon careers of law or public speaking. The influx of intellectuals into a city recently bereft of central authority led immediately to controversy. Throughout its history, Augusta had always remained tolerant of a variety of cults, so long as those cults did not directly challenge the privileged status of the Nine Gods or the authority of the state. But many of those cults secretly ate away at the fabric of Augustan values, especially those devoted to the powers of chaos.

Founding Date

751 BCY

Founders

• Raxos
• Regulus

Population

23,000 +

Owner/Ruler

His Most Supreme Holiness, Gregorios II

Owning Organization

The Duchy of Augusta