For most of his life, Alpheo had known next to nothing about Romelia , which was a strange admission, considering he had spent nearly half his years within its borders.
But most of those years had been lived under a hay roof or none at all, first as a farmhand, then as a slave. And in both lives, there was little time or need to ponder the greatness of empires. His world had been narrow: a hoe, a bowl of gruel, the lash. Only in the later years of his servitude had he even learned the name of the vast, decrepit giant that ruled over him.
One which by coming to his aid, had been sentenced to decadence by prolonging the civil war that already plagued it for a decade.
So, when the tide of fate finally allowed him to place a crown upon his head, and he found himself sitting among emperors and lords and senators, he still regarded Romelia with a kind of stubborn awe.
And though decay had chewed through its marble bones, some part of him still refused to believe it could truly die.
