"Everyone, head this way!"
"Move it, you lazy bastards! Faster!"
The moment the ship docked at the pier, the slaves began hauling the cargo ashore.
Some passengers immediately dropped to their knees, vomiting violently from seasickness, while others stretched their limbs, glad to feel solid ground beneath their feet again.
Spurius was among the latter.
"I didn't expect the air in Hispania to feel this fresh."
Taking a deep breath, he felt the cool, salty sea breeze fill his lungs.
Following his lead, his fellow engineers followed him off the ship.
"Where are we supposed to go from here?"
"They said someone would be here to guide us once we arrived..."
Just as Spurius was about to answer, a group of legionaries in full armor approached them.
"Are you Spurius?"
"I am. We were sent here by order of Lucius Caesar."
"And we were sent by order of his father. Welcome to Hispania."
Spurius exchanged polite greetings with the centurion in charge.
"Frankly, I have no idea why the Imperator's son saw fit to send engineers all the way out here," the officer muttered, casting a skeptical glance at Spurius and his colleagues.
"We already have plenty of capable engineers in our legions."
"We're simply here to lend a helping hand," Spurius replied with a smile.
He patted the heavy satchel slung over his shoulder, packed tight with paper.
"I brought a few designs for new devices and topographical maps. We also brought some parts prepared in advance, so all you'll have to do is assemble them."
"Maps?"
"Right now, these are the most valuable objects in all of Hispania. Assuming sir Caesar's judgment is correct, of course."
Spurius nodded confidently.
The papers in his bag were likely worth more than every merchant vessel docked in this harbor combined—perhaps more than anything else in the harbor.
"First, we need to meet with the governor. We were ordered to deliver these to him personally."
***
"So, did you entrust your money to them as well?"
"Strictly speaking, I simply haven't called in the full amount yet. I don't need all those coins on hand right now anyway."
"Well, I suppose that makes sense."
"I hear the equestrian merchants are depositing enormous sums of money."
"I don't know about all this. If you ask me, the safest place for your money is under your own floorboards of your own house."
"Shh! Keep your voice down! What if someone hears you?"
The moneylending and deposit-taking businesses pioneered by Crassus were spreading through the city of Rome at an astonishing pace.
While Crassus boldly offered low-interest loans directly to the plebs, other politicians like Metellus primarily focused on wealthy merchants.
They focused their lending on established businessmen whose standing had been established over years of trade, minimizing the risk of them vanishing with the funds.
With vast sums of coin suddenly pouring into circulation, the Roman economy sprang to life as never before.
"There has never been a better time to start a business!"
"Exactly! We need to take out a loan and enlarge our trade immediately. The rates are so low as to be almost nothing, right?"
Before long, all eyes in the city were on Lucius Caesar.
The genius who had engineered one commercial success after another.
What new banking venture would he unveil?
However, contrary to everyone's expectations, the young Caesar remained silent.
When he finally announced that he would be focusing exclusively on his new paper-manufacturing business for the time being, the public was visibly disappointed.
"He was the one who invented the Veterans' Fund in the first place. It's surprising that he's keeping out of it."
"Well, this kind of banking requires an obscene amount of ready money. Perhaps even he has run short of ready money."
But despite what the citizens assumed, Lucius Caesar was already carefully preparing his next step.
***
"As the banking sector expands, the demand for qualified accountants will rise rapidly."
"And right now, we are the only people in Rome who truly know how to handle complex numbers." Babu nodded in agreement.
Dozens of clerks were seated in the academy classroom, furiously taking notes on clean sheets of paper.
I turned my head and looked at the complex formulas I had written on the board.
Double-entry bookkeeping, standardized ledger formatting, monthly and quarterly financial auditing, and the basic principles of probability and statistics.
Everything I was teaching my employees were concepts so thoroughly normalized in the 21st century that people took them entirely for granted.
They were the bare basics taught in introductory business and accounting courses.
But those 'basics' were the culmination of two thousand years of human trial, error, and refinement.
As someone once said, I was standing on the shoulders of giants.
Or rather, Rome itself was now standing on those giants' shoulders.
"Using this knowledge, we can supply the market with financial experts far better than any others in Rome."
"Countless merchants and patricians have already come asking for our help. Our clerks have already gained a great deal of experience managing the insurance ledgers," Babu answered.
"Several rival guilds have attempted to lure away our staff, but they've met with very little success. You compensate them so generously that they have stayed loyal to us."
"But we can't stop this knowledge from spreading indefinitely. Nor do I have any intention of trying," I replied with a light chuckle.
Knowledge of Arabic numerals and advanced accounting was already spreading out into the broader Roman economy.
Trying to keep it all to ourselves by force would be a fool's errand.
There was a far better alternative.
"As the banking market grows, they will desperately need more talent. And the only institution capable of educating such men and supplying them to the market is us."
"You mean..." Babu muttered, his eyes widening. "You intend to drastically expand the academy's size?"
"We're already doing exactly that at the technical academy. We provide the best education to capable individuals, and in return, we get the fruits of their labor."
It was essentially a kind of primitive university.
Though with one added condition that they were bound by contract to work for me for a set period after graduating.
"Sending our people out to other businesses will be very profitable, yes, but wouldn't it be even more profitable for us to operate a bank ourselves?" Babu asked cautiously.
"To completely abandon such a vast market seems..."
"I never said I was washing my hands of it. I merely said it was too early for us to offer direct loans and deposits to the general public yet."
That kind of reckless banking was only possible if you had the practically limitless ready money like Crassus.
Right now, I possessed a weapon far more potent than mere wealth.
A weapon that belonged exclusively to me.
"Let's utilize the Ostia towers."
"The towers?"
"What do you think is the single most important thing to a merchant, Babu?"
"Well..." Babu scratched his bald head.
"Making money? Buying goods cheap and selling them at a premium?"
"No. The most important thing is not losing the money you began with."
And there were countless threats constantly stalking merchants in this era.
Of course, Rome already had certain wealthy bankers—argentarii—who offered services for deposits, money changing, and written payment orders.
But those services were strictly limited, available only to a tiny circle of the very wealthy.
The vast majority of merchants had to transport heavy chests of silver and gold across the Republic to conduct their business.
Thieves could steal it in the night, or armed bandits could slaughter them on the road and take everything.
"What if we could spare them that risk entirely?"
Instead of answering, Babu furrowed his brow in deep confusion.
"I apologize, sir Caesar, but I do not follow."
"It's simpler than it sounds, Babu."
I patted him on the shoulder.
I suppose the concept was still too weird for people of this era to easily visualize.
"We send the money through the Ostia towers."
"Send the money... through the towers?" Babu asked, looking utterly bewildered.
"Are you suggesting we pass coins from one tower to the next?"
***
"So you're telling me that if I travel to Ostia, you'll hand me the money there?"
"Yes. You simply need to visit our office in the city. Provide them with your seal and the prearranged phrase, and they will immediately give you the money."
"...I find that hard to believe."
The merchants of Rome reacted with the same skepticism and disbelief.
The idea that you could deposit physical coin in Rome and withdraw it in Ostia without transporting it was baffling to them.
"Is this some kind of elaborate scam?"
"Are you calling Lucius Caesar a fraud?"
"No, no, of course not! But... You expect me to believe that a few words can move gold and silver? It just sounds impossible."
"Naturally, there will be a modest transaction fee. Furthermore, if you forget your seal or passphrase, you will have to return to Rome to resolve the issue. If you plan to have a proxy withdraw the funds on your behalf, the necessary papers must be prepared in advance."
Hundreds of merchants traveled the dangerous roads between Rome and Ostia every single day.
They either physically carried their cash or relied on trusted agents in Ostia—both of which carried serious risks.
Carrying the money yourself meant risking your life against bandits, and no matter how 'trustworthy' an agent was, there was always the chance they would steal the money and disappear.
Yet here was Lucius Caesar, offering to send their money swiftly and safely for a modest fee.
Moving your entire fortune to another city using nothing but a few spoken words was a kind of privilege enjoyed by only the most powerful, elite patrician houses in the Republic.
"How in the gods' names is he doing this with those towers?"
"I haven't the faintest idea."
How exactly was Lucius Caesar accomplishing something so miraculous?
In truth, the actual method behind the Ostia towers was disappointingly simple.
***
"I still do not fully grasp the concept, Lucius."
"For example, let's say a merchant deposits 10,000 sesterces at our branch in Rome."
I sketched a quick diagram on a sheet of paper with my quill.
I never thought the day would come when I'd have to explain what, in my previous life, would have been a simple bank transfer.
"The Rome branch records the deposit in their ledger and immediately transmits a 'Payment Order' through the towers to the Ostia branch, which is where he wishes to draw the money."
"Ah. So the Ostia branch simply takes the money out of their own vault and hands it to him."
"Exactly. After verifying his identity, they hand over the money. At the end of the day, the Rome and Ostia branches simply compare their ledgers and settle the difference."
"Using those towers as a sort of local vaults..."
"It's an unfamiliar concept, yes. But it's not actually that strange when you break it down."
I gave a casual shrug.
Honestly, you could theoretically run this system without the towers at all.
You could just send couriers on horseback with the payment orders.
But dispatching riders for every single payment order would be painfully slow and expensive. If I tried offering this service using couriers, I'd bankrupt myself within a week.
The optical telegraph towers reduced the whole process to something simple and swift.
By utilizing prearranged codes and abbreviations, we could transmit the orders instantly.
There was no need to physically transport carts of coins back and forth between the branches for every transaction.
If Rome wired 3,000 sesterces to Ostia, and Ostia wired 2,500 back to Rome, the branches only needed to physically transfer the 500-sesterce difference to settle the balance.
"In truth, we are not sending money at all. We are sending instructions."
"And you intend to build these towers not just to Ostia, but across the entirety of Italy."
"If the gods favor me, I might even be able to connect them all the way to Hispania. The paved roads from Rome already stretch that far."
"If hundreds—thousands of merchants begin transferring their wealth through your towers, the sheer volume of transfer fees you will collect is..." My mother murmured, trailing off in awe.
Julia was sitting quietly in the corner of the atrium, listening intently to our conversation, though she looked completely lost.
"Does that mean you'll be able to send letters to father in Hispania really fast too?"
"Father will be back in Rome long before the towers reach Hispania, Julia."
I replied with a warm smile.
I recalled hearing that Spurius and the other engineers had safely arrived in Hispania a while ago.
I wondered how the operation was going.
"The true power contained within the Ostia towers is almost limitless. It extends far beyond trade and transport alone."
As I spoke, I roughly sketched the Italian peninsula on the paper, marking Rome and various other major cities with small ink dots.
Just like in my past life, I was dreadful at drawing.
"Until now, sending a message from Rome to any other major city took days at the least. Often, it took well over a week. And hiring dedicated couriers cost an exorbitant amount of money."
Yet despite these obstacles, tens of thousands of citizens living in other cities regularly made the arduous journey to Rome.
Why?
"If a citizen living outside the city of Rome wanted to cast their vote, they had no choice but to physically travel to the Roman Forum. And more often than not, by the time news of a critical vote reached their city and they made the journey, the election was already over."
"But if they utilize the towers..."
"A vastly greater number of citizens will be able to take part in votes. That is the true power of the towers."
Economics and politics.
All the way down to the daily lives of the ordinary plebeians.
The network of towers held the power to fundamentally rewrite the rules of Roman civilization.
"I imagine the sharper minds in the Senate have already begun to realize this. They will undoubtedly try to seize control of the towers by any means necessary."
But I was fully prepared for that.
The Senate had already rejected my request to fund the towers.
No matter how shameless the Optimates were, they had absolutely no legal grounds to seize a privately funded enterprise.
Instead of gambling my fortune on the dangerous lending trade, I would expand my network of towers carefully and step by step, steadily increasing my influence in the Republic.
"Let's see how things will play out for now."
However, there was one major factor I hadn't anticipated.
The merchants.
Or rather, the sheer, terrifying obsession of merchants who had tasted the absolute convenience of instant tower transfers.
"Let me get this straight. You're saying the merchant guilds in the cities listed here have pooled their money and offered to build the towers for us?"
"Yes. They promised that if we simply provide the designs and choose the sitess, they will cover the full cost of construction themselves. And once the towers are fully built, they will turn them over to you outright, Young Master."
Felix scratched his head, looking just as baffled as I felt.
"I suppose it makes sense. We're the only ones in the world who actually know how to operate these towers."
"..."
They were going to build the towers for free and just hand them over to me.
I suppose the obsession merchants had with efficiency was the exact as it was in the 21st century.
"It has gone so far that the cities are nearly at each other's throats. They're trying to outbid one another, begging us to build in their territory first..."
I could picture the impending chaos without even closing my eyes.
I was about to have a horde of politicians from every Socii (allied cities) in Italy knocking down my front door.
"Let's stick to the exact same method we used in Rome. We'll recruit the operators locally in each city through a mix of tribal nominations and qualifying exams. That will buy us the loyalty of the local populations."
After all, no one in their right mind would turn down a high-paying job.
"We should also announce that any funds they donate toward the construction will be set against the fees of future transfers. That should whip the merchants into an even greater frenzy of investment."
"Coordinating with the local tribes in every city and setting the schedules won't be easy." Felix nodded slowly, meticulously taking notes on his sheet of paper. "Not to mention supervising the exams and managing the dispatch of the engineers. I honestly don't know who we could possibly find to manage chaos on this scale."
"..."
A heavy silence fell over the room. For a brief moment, the two of us just stared at each other.
A moment later, Felix chuckled to himself.
"I knew you were going to try something like this, Young Master, so I made a few preparations of my own."
I crossed my arms. "Preparations?"
I had never seen Felix look this confident before.
"After all you've dragged me through lately, did you really think I wouldn't come prepared?"
Felix replied, squaring his shoulders.
"For once, let me be the one to surprise you."