read the romacest on your intro post and i am VERY intrigued. spare a couple of your thoughts for me?
i have. yapped about them sooooo much. so im gonna try and give new facts and hcs abt them 🧎
i think one fundamental difference between how most people see their dynamic and how i do, is that rome was still a teenager when he began conquering the rest of the mediterranean. he had only been a republic for so many years, and he didn't start to get really BIG until he began conquering. of course, he started this process of growing with romano, his sicilia, a tiny little savage he "saved" from carthage
i cannot say for certain how happy romano was in the beginning. it's something i'm still tweaking, but there's definitely a sadness he feels being owned by someone else. carthage was like a mother to him, and rome killed her without remorse. romano is, ultimately, the most human of all the nations so it's no wonder he tries to form relationships typical for humans that others — like rome — just don't understand. he just likes having this pretty boy to sit on his lap
and sit on his lap he does 🫣 because, once romano turns 14, he's adult enough to be one of rome's pueri delicati (ancient rome was fucking weird guys 😭) and he quickly becomes the favorite, if only because they look so damn identical.
rome's fatal flaw with his treatment of romano comes down to the constant wars on sicily, the revolts and uprisings of slaves and farmers alike. they bickered constantly over the fate of romano's people, and if rome wasn't so damn annoyed by that stubborn attitude he might've laughed in his face, the idea that romano believed he held any power was truly laughable. it wasn't until after the assassination of caesar that the people of the island and, by extension, his sicilia began to chill out.
in the end... his little grain prince, his sicilia, was trusted to watch over the west. rome ran off to fight in wars he'd never return from, ultimately passing the reigns of the empire into the hands of romano.
