Chapter 19

Lucilla was once again in the forum surrounded by leaders of various immigrant groups, although this time most of them hadn’t traveled as far. The praetorians had made good progress getting all the people still landing on their shores out of the small fishing villages that couldn’t handle them and to some of the larger cities, where the need for labor was still outpacing its supply.

A sign of that success was also in how many more people were there than had attended before. Part of that was because the immigrants weren’t gathered up in villages, where they could elect one person to serve as their representative, and instead were starting to be more spread out among the cities. Since they came from all over Germania, and now even points further east, they weren’t a predominant single, or even series, of ethnic or cultural groups either, meaning smaller groups needed to send spokesmen if they wanted to be heard.

Everything started off well. Most of the immigrants were happy to swear allegiance to Britannia, forsaking a return to their homeland and had started integrating into society. There’d been some issues with housing, and the western part of the city had already begun expanding as more was being built. So far, her father had left that up to private industry, which was buying up land from farmers, some of whom wanted to move south where new land was available in the former Carthaginian territory and others that had had difficulty adjusting to the new reality without slaves. They were being paid well for the land, with the businessmen buying the property and bidding against each other, all of them seeing an opportunity to make money off of these new citizens.

It hadn’t happened yet, but her father’s agents had several conversations with these businessmen to find out how they planned on making money from people with very little to their name. Some had a plan to sell it to the immigrants, taking payment over time, with interest taken with each payment, while others were setting themselves up as landlords, renting the apartments or houses out. The reason there was so much competition to buy up property and set up these new homes was because part of the agreement for citizenship required joining the legions or working in critical industry, meaning all of these new citizens were guaranteed to have some sort of steady income.

Nearly all of the properties being built were three-story insulae Each multi-unit building had eight small single or multi-room domiciles on the top two stories, with shops for rent on the ground floor, which made sense. There wasn’t enough land for villas or small single-family homes, and even with their new employment, these people wouldn’t make enough to afford anything like that in the near future. At the rate they were going, Devnum was going to grow half again in size by next year, which was a startling rate of growth, especially considering there were a lot of abandoned and destroyed homes in Londinium and other cities that had, until recently, been controlled by the Carthaginians.

Of course, that only seemed incredible because she was here and could see the changes firsthand. Other cities, both up in Caledonia and along the border in mining towns, were growing just as fast, since they had as much need for manpower as Devnum did. She was certain once business began to expand south into the reconquered territory, those cities would also see significant growth, since the influx of immigrants didn’t seem to be stopping any time soon.

The one thing her father did was warn the businessmen investing in this expansion not to take advantage of these new citizens. They knew these people had little choice but to accept whatever deal they were offered, since there wasn’t housing for them inside the city and they couldn’t very well go back to where they came from, making the immigrants a tempting target for exploitation.

That was the first topic Lucilla discussed with them, after greeting them and learning a little bit about the now more diverse group of immigrants being represented.

“We’ve petitioned the Imperial Senate and asked both the Caledonian leadership and the Roman Senate to pass laws limiting the amount of interest these developers can ask for the new homes being built. It will take time, but we will try and protect you from being taken advantage of. I wanted you to be aware of what we are doing so you can pass it on to your people and tell them to be patient if a deal you are being offered seems wrong in some way. We will continue to try to support you as best we can by maintaining some of the communal homes outside of town so you have a roof over your heads until we can get laws passed protecting you from unfair exploitation.”

The influx of refugees had been so great that they’d been forced to erect temporary buildings or tent cities outside of town, mostly in the areas where the legions had camped over the winter, to give the immigrants and their families a place to live until they could figure out better housing. They’d also instructed the praetorians to set up similar facilities in other cities that were seeing an influx of immigrants from the continent.

“What do we do if we think someone is taking advantage of us? We appreciate your people giving us a place to live, but we want a place of our own. We want to start our new lives. We have sworn allegiance to the Empire and are working in what you called ‘critical industries,’ doing our part to help our new country. Living by your charity makes us as reliant on you as we would be on our new landlords and any unfair deal they give us. We just want to live and work.”

“I understand that, and I do not want you becoming reliant on the Empire for your ability to live. It’s why all the places we assigned for you to stay in, are temporary. We are not putting in permanent buildings to house new immigrants, because it is in our best interest to get you integrated into society as quickly as possible. That being said, we don’t want you to feel pushed into taking a deal you know is bad for you, just because you don’t want to accept charity. I’m not asking you to wait until we get a law passed protecting you. I’m just asking you to make sure your people are careful about what deals they take.”

“How do we do that? We did not have to worry about borrowing money or paying money for a home to someone else where I came from. How would we know what is fair or not? And how would we go about doing something about it if we find out it isn’t fair?” another man asked.

“That’s a good question. We are going to have a few clerks from the Imperial Treasury making stops at the temporary settlement camps every week, where they will spend the day answering questions about what is considered reasonable and if a deal is unreasonable. If you have been offered an unreasonable deal, report it to them. While legally we may not be able to pressure these businessmen into doing the right thing, many are also working on government contracts that are making them very rich, which gives us additional ways to remind them of their responsibilities as a citizen of the Empire. We will speak with these builders and lenders and try to convince them to offer you something more in line with what is considered reasonable or normal in the Empire. If we can’t, we’ll let you know and you can choose to look to other builders, wait for the new laws mandating fair treatment to pass, or take the deal and move on with things. Ultimately, it is your decision what to do, and if you are anxious enough to start your new life and, knowing the fairness of the deal you are being offered, decide to accept it, then we, of course, will not stop you.”

Next followed a series of questions about specifics or deals they’d already been offered, even though none of the housing was up yet. That part wasn’t unusual or suspect, and Lucilla already assumed much of the new housing would be sold or rented before they were finished, but she wasn’t prepared to answer most of those questions. All she could do was promise that she would pass the questions on to some of the clerks being assigned to investigate refugee claims and make sure they’d get back to them with the answer.

In the end, she was pretty sure many of these people would end up taking deals regardless of how fair it was without waiting for government oversight, partly out of a desire to get on with their lives, but mostly out of fear that if they didn’t, someone else who was more desperate, would take it first, and they’d be left in the settlement camps.

She tried to explain to them that eventually they’d find places for everyone, and no one was going to be left in the camps long term, but scared people in new environments often made decisions against their own self-interest and had trouble listening to advice that required ignoring that fear. As she said, she wasn’t going to stop them if that was what they decided, although it was going to create future problems for the Empire as a new impoverished class began to form. It wouldn’t be slavery exactly, but it would be close to it, where wages barely kept up with workers’ debts, putting them further at the mercy of the people they were indebted to.

That, however, was a problem for another day. All they could do was try and protect them as best they could, get them out of the settlement camps and off government support, and into the factories and legions. Hortensius had been mobile for only a handful of days and he was already looking at half a dozen new projects to start, forming new partnerships with other manufacturers and factory owners to increase production as export demand for Britannian goods increased. They needed to increase their workforce, and they needed to do it now, not at the leisure of the senate and their negotiations.

As the meeting started to wind down, she found the spokesmen for several Scandi groups and asked them to stay behind.

“We appreciate you inviting us to these things, but we have none of the same concerns as these people,” one of the spokesmen said as the other immigrant leaders left. “We are just here to trade and make money and aren’t looking to buy property or integrate into your Empire.”

“Yes, I understand that, and honestly, I didn’t invite you to this meeting to talk about those things. I just had to get their concerns out of the way before we could speak. However, I have been told that some of you have been moving your families here. That is a lot more permanent than just setting up shop as merchants.”

Several of the men looked at each other. Lucilla was surprised at their naiveté. They had to know her people were paying attention to their movements, both to keep track of the kinds of products being shipped in and out of the Empire and to keep an eye out for Carthaginian agents posing as merchants that might be trying to hide among them.

“Only a few, and mostly those are for the men arranging for shipments and working with the local businesses.”

“I’m not criticizing; just pointing out that trying to say you’re only here loading up ships isn’t entirely true. You’re all paying the required taxes, so we aren’t asking you to become citizens or for anything more than you are already doing.”

“Then what exactly did you need from us?” another man said, getting to the point.