Rome was not built in a day, and Elian could feel every brick of its ambition the moment they arrived.
The air around them shimmered, less like a portal and more like the weight of time compressing their bodies, wringing the present out of them.
When Elian opened his eyes, the scents of olive oil, sweat, and something faintly metallic filled his lungs.
The city stretched before them: a civilization pulsing with pride and order.
Rome was alive in ways Ancient Sumer and Egypt had not been. The streets bustled with chariots, merchants, and voices raised in Latin, echoing off marble columns and dusty red-tiled roofs. Soldiers in gleaming armor marched in unison, their boots striking rhythm into the cobblestones.
Selene stepped forward with practiced grace, her eyes fixed on the heart of the city. "We're here," she said. "At the beginning of empire. The rise of Augustus."
Elian blinked. "Caesar Augustus. The first emperor."
"Yes," Selene said. "But he wasn't born a ruler. History made him, shaped him. Just as it does all leaders."
They walked down the Forum Romanum, the center of Roman public life. Columns reached skyward like stone arms, each one carved with the weight of rhetoric and ambition.
Elian glanced at the monuments, some freshly built, others still being erected.
The senate was in session.
Inside the Curia Julia, they watched from a shadowed corner as senators debated the fate of the Republic. Elian couldn't
understand every word, but the passion was unmistakable. And then, he saw him.
Octavian.
Younger than he expected. Slender, not yet the commanding figure the history books depicted. But the eyes sharp, calculating. There was steel behind that gaze, not the kind forged by fire but by resolve.
"He's just a man," Elian whispered.
Selene nodded. "History often forgets that."
Outside, the streets murmured with gossip. Some spoke of how Octavian avenged Julius Caesar. Others whispered of civil war, of Marc Antony, Cleopatra. Rome stood on the edge of something vast and terrifying.
Later that day, Selene led Elian toward Palatine Hill.
They looked down upon the heart of the city. The golden light of sunset spilled over temples, villas, and the Tiber River that wound like a living thread through the city.
"Do you know why this place endures, Elian?" Selene asked.
He thought for a moment. "Power? Order?"
"Stories," she replied. "Rome tells stories about itself, gods, greatness, destiny. And people believe. Augustus understood that. He didn't just rule he crafted a myth. He became the savior of Rome, not by accident, but by narrative."
Elian watched as torches were lit across the rooftops. "Is that what we're doing? Following stories?"
"In a way. But we also reveal the cracks in them. That's how truth begins."
That evening, they slipped into the shadows of a gathering at Augustus private villa. Elian watched as senators toasted their new leader, as poets praised his vision for peace the Pax Romana. But beneath the revelry, Elian sensed tension.
The Republic had died with Caesar, but its ghost still haunted the room.
Augustus, now older and more composed, gave a speech. It was brief, measured. He promised stability, unity, a future unmarred by civil war. The crowd responded with applause, but Elian caught the weariness in some eyes.
"He knows," Selene whispered beside him.
"Knows what?"
"That peace is never truly free. That to secure a future, you must sacrifice something sometimes honesty, sometimes blood."
As they left, Elian asked, "Do you admire him?"
Selene took her time answering. "I respect what he built. But admiration... that's harder. He ended wars, yes. But he also shaped Rome in his image. He became the state. That kind of power always has a price."
They walked along the Via Appia, the road stretching far beyond the city. Travelers and traders passed them, some singing, some silent. The stars began to emerge above.
Elian looked up. "Was this necessary? All of it? The shift from Republic to Empire?"
Selene's expression softened. "That's the question Rome still asks itself. Power concentrated may bring order, but it can also breed decay. Augustus was brilliant, but he opened a door that others would abuse. Nero. Caligula. Domitian."
"So, no moment in history is ever really isolated," Elian said quietly. "It echoes."
She smiled. "Exactly. And the echo always returns."
Before they left the era, Elian stood at the base of Augustus newly built mausoleum, a grand cylinder meant to house the emperor and his kin for eternity. He touched the stone and thought of legacy how some chase immortality not through gods or magic, but through memory.
As the shimmer of time began to swirl again, pulling them forward, Elian took one last look at the city. The Rome of Augustus. A city balancing on the knife-edge of greatness and control.
"Where to next?" he asked.
Selene glanced at him, her expression unreadable. "To see how power ages."
And with that, Rome dissolved behind them. Not as dust, but as memory.