Year: 671
Caesarian Empire
Theodosian Palace
Onemonth ago
After the end of the Eighth Native Coalition, Leo I, realized that the laws written in Roman Law were too outdated to be used in the 7th century and needed to be changed or replaced as the Eastern Romans did and in its place the Corpus Iuris Civlis was in force, since the reign of Justinian the Great so far, so he was willing to put an end to certain very old laws of Roman Law and the would update to the needs of the Caesarian Empire, but to do so it would need to improve the efficiency of public servants and be able to pass on laws and prevent corruption cases from becoming endemic as it was with Rome at its height and at its fall.
An employee knocked on the door and asked:
"Your Majesty, the blacksmith you paid to make a mobile Polybius is here and wants to speak with your Majesty." says the employee.
Then Leo says:
"Send him in, it will be a pleasant surprise to see how the mobile press that I had planned during the Eighth Native Coalition War and only now is completed turned out." says Leo.
The servant opened the door and the blacksmith came in, bringing what looked like a wine press, but he was carrying the press that was dismantled and said:
"My emperor, I have come to show you personally how this press works, which I have named the Antikythera Press." said the blacksmith.
The blacksmith began to assemble the press, each part of the press he made a point of showing at each step how the press was formed, lasting about two hours until the press was ready.
After the press was finished, Leo took one of his books from the shelf and ordered the blacksmith:
"Print on paper the following text, by the Western Roman author Paulus Theodosius Magnus in his book: A Hope in the Midst of Chaos. After the last sailors' rebellion, the atmosphere was very tense, we were at the limit of sanity and many died before even stepping on land, the last resources were close to running out until on July 12, 407 AD, more than 507 years after the birth of Julius Caesar, we discovered a New World, the sailors who were alive disembarked on dry land and thanked God for arriving alive in this place, many who were still Mithraists said that Caesar and Mithra protected their people, but soon this discussion was contained when we met for the first time with the natives of this land, they were a red-skinned people and used bows and arrows, at that time we were on the verge of collapse and no one would cross the Atlantic Ocean to save us, so as leader of the expedition I tried to communicate with the natives and to my surprise they thought we were gods or something like that, with that we had a good relationship with the natives, they gave us fruits and food in exchange we taught them how to use metal to defend themselves from enemy tribes, so some sailors stayed to protect the natives and we would return to Rome to show a new home to the Romans and I called this land Paulistania." Leo orders.
The blacksmith then took a sheet of paper and began to use to print this specific text from the discoverer of the New World, it took about five minutes to complete the text and this left him impressed with such agility, so he ordered:
"I have a challenge for you, finish by the end of this month, the Republic, by Plato and De Bello Gallico by Julius Caesar, if you finish it this month, you will have my support to build more mobile presses." Leo orders.
The blacksmith is grateful and says:
"I will not disappoint you, your Majesty, leave it to me that by the end of the month, these books will be printed and I will deliver them to you." says the blacksmith.
Leo got up from his chair and handed over two books that were on the shelf and he said:
"Take these two books, they are the versions that are written in late Latin and keep this invention secret until I can contain the corruption in the Caesarian Empire, until then, continue to be a blacksmith and print these books at your most relaxed time." Leo said.
The blacksmith dismantled the press and took it back with him, so Leo could focus on eliminating corruption in the Caesarian Empire, while the blacksmith continued his normal life but keeping a secret that would drastically change the history of the Caesarian Empire, being the first printing press in the world before China and Korea and also 769 years before the Gutenberg Press in Europe.
TheodosianPalace
Onemonthlater
Leo had finally put an end to the corruption that was beginning to bring about rampant inflation, and so Leo began writing new law codes to update Roman Law and to this he realized that slavery was a great evil and caused a gigantic difference between the non-slave owners and the slave owners, in addition to the landowners who were concentrating large territories without paying taxes to the Caesarian Empire and the question of the armed forces regarding the standardization of the Caesarian army.
Leo wrote more than 150 thousand words to solve the problems of the Caesarian Empire, with this purpose the Codex Flavianus was created in order to provide an answer to these problems.
Now Leo was ready to put his ideas into action without anyone to get in his way internally, so the employee knocked on the door and asked:
"Your Majesty, the blacksmith who came a month ago is back with two books, shall I let him in?" asks the employee.
Leo then replied:
"Let him in, our greatest asset over all known and unknown nations, It is our time to revive classical and late Latin in the New World, everyone will speak Latin as it was during the height of the Roman Empire, so let him in I want to talk to him and discuss the future of the Roman generations who will be born into a very different kind of world, in which we Romans will once again be the center of the world." Leo replied.
The blacksmith entered the room with the two books, but these were not the books that Leo had given to the blacksmith and he said:
"Your Majesty, these are the books I printed, it took about 3 days to complete the two books and about two weeks to bind the books, this is without a doubt the greatest invention of humanity and it was we Romans who created it, with this we can create a literacy process and Christianization of the tribes here and in Canada, we can still improve the propagation of our laws and avoid problems of corruption." says the blacksmith.
Leo, at 61 years of age, knew that the Caesarian Empire would last for centuries and his father's invention, the Fulminatrix, changed the way of fighting in close-range battles, leaving bows and arrows behind as useless compared to his father's invention, the Palatine bombard changed the battles at sea and now this movable press would change the way communication took place, leaving the scribes who took a long time to produce a book and now this press was producing about a book a day, something really unthinkable until a few years ago, but now they had an invention that would make them the center of the world.
So he takes a large, unnamed book and then Leo orders:
"This book was made during the Eighth Native Coalition, it took me about two years to complete, in this book is written a new system of laws that I created about slavery, economics, military, health, education and diplomacy, I want you to produce this book and have it delivered on the day of the birth of Julius Caesar and the Discovery of the New World, take this book to the Forum of New Rome and write the words "Codex Flavianus" for the name of this law book, I expect it to be delivered by the deadline." Leo orders.
The blacksmith is then grateful that the emperor trusts him to produce something so important and then he says:
"It will be an honor to produce such an important book, Your Majesty, I will deliver it to the Forum of New Rome as Your Majesty orders." says the blacksmith.
After that, the blacksmith came out of the room with a big book and Leo knew news of a coalition of Avars, Germanic tribes and Slavs against the Eastern Roman Empire in Italy and the Balkans, a new war was approaching and according to informants, it would be a war on a large scale in a fight between barbarism and civilization, a war that would be the Western version of the Eastern Roman-Sassanid wars, whoever comes out alive will be the definitive victor and will reap the laurels of their glories against their enemies.
NewRomeForum
Now
July 12, 671 AD, would be one of the most important days in the history of the Caesarian Empire, it was about 264 years since the Discovery of the New World and 771th anniversary of the birth of Julius Caesar, a day of double celebration for the Romans, the senators were gathered for a solemn session in homage to the Discovery of the New World and the birth of Julius Caesar, Leo was with the Classis Nova Latium Claudius Theodosius descendant of Paulus Magnus Theodosius and Quintus Theodosius Maximus, Since the Romans did not know where Julius Caesar's descendants were, a statue was built in his honor near where Paulus Magnus Theodosius had arrived in the New World.
The senators were ready to begin the celebrations, when a blacksmith entered the Forum and brought with him a large book and handed it to Leo who spoke to the senators:
"Senators, I bring you an update of Roman Law, from today onwards, these laws and some laws still from Roman Law compatible with our reality, so I present to you, the Codex Flavianus, the update of Roman Law, I will not be as verbose as Justinian was compiling laws from the 4th and 5th centuries to update to a different reality,I am direct and I know what needs to be done to become a power, all the laws that are written will have to be followed to the letter, any attempt to not follow the laws written in this book will be arrested for conspiracy against the Caesarian Empire, with that I finish my speech." Leo said to the senators.
There was a buzz after Leo's speech and the majority leader senator took the book and read the first law which was the Lex S. Ioannis Nysseni which prohibited the slave trade, prisoners of war being used as booty, capturing natives to make them slaves and finally set a time limit of 70 years for slavery to be abolished.
The Caesarian Senate went up in flames, slave-owning senators shouted that the emperor had gone mad and needed to be deposed, while the anti-slavery senators applauded the emperor and Thus began a long debate between abolitionists and slaveholders that would last a few years until the abolition of slavery in 741 AD in the Caesarian Empire.
The Codex Flavianus managed to stabilize the Caesarian Empire for centuries and prevented very bad rulers from coming to power or an outbreak of government as happened with Augustus Flavius Septimus who was deposed by the Senate because Valerius' Rebellion broke out against his government.