2017/6b.plaintext

   1 With resolve and trepidation my dear father in law obediently concluded his affairs in Britannia and
   2 returned to Rome by the end of the year, as ordered by the Emperor. He feared the same terrible end
   3 as meted out by Domitian to both Arulenus Rusitcus and Hernnius Senecio, but the Gods were generous
   4 and, remarkably the loss of the Codex remained a secret, known only to a few loyal comrades from the
   5 Ninth. Publicly choosing to regard his dogged pursuit of the Aquila as a mark of courage, the
   6 Emperor spared him the fate of other disgraced generals and, to the surprise of some, he was awarded
   7 triumphal decorations. A statue was erected by the Senate on the order of the Emperor, but, taken
   8 ill, Agricola was sent to live quietly on his family estate where he was tended by the Emperor’s own
   9 physicians. His death was a grievous shock to me, and a painful event to all his friends. It was
  10 felt as a real loss even by those to whom he was not personally known. Numbers, moreover, of the
  11 populace and the busy masses came to his house; and in public places, and wherever knots of talkers
  12 were assembled, his name was on all lips; nor did a single soul on hearing of his death rejoice at
  13 the news or forget it quickly. This sympathy was increased by the wide-spread rumour that he had
  14 been removed by poison on the Emperor’s command. Domitian lost no time in appointing the ambitious
  15 Salustius Lucullus as the new governor of the province. He was charged with securing the fragile
  16 peace with Caledonia and headed there to confront Calgacus. It was only then that the loss of the
  17 Codex was revealed. Salustius wrote of his shock at the news in a letter to Cato dated the fifth day
  18 before the kalends of May in the year of the consulships of Marcus Arrecinus Clemens II and Lucius
  19 Baebius Honoratus. “We are expressly charged by our most munificent and great Emperor Domitian to
  20 secure Pax Romana in the Northern Kingdoms and yet you write to me of the loss of the Codex
  21 Occultorum. Your leader Agricola has already paid the price of such a loss, but if you do not
  22 recover the Codex before the passing of the year then you may be sure that you will join him. You
  23 tell me that intelligence from a captured spy suggests that the traitor Calgacus has the Codex and
  24 is massing his supporters in the North. While the Barbarians themselves are unlikely to make much of
  25 the Codex, Calgacus is an educated Roman and he must be stopped before he can destroy the security
  26 of the Imperial ciphers. The Codex will be recovered, or you, your family and everyone you know will
  27 pay the price. And so to the seventh part of the true story of Agricola in which the fate of the
  28 ninth legion and of the Codex itself will in time be revealed. Until then it will be guarded by the
  29 ancient Babylonian Goddess of War.