835-889 CE (Superpowers)

''Rome weathered the viking storm and learned a lesson in geopolitics - know your geopolitical region. One of the driving forces in the Senate after Caesar Illyrio ended the Scandinavian Wars was the mapping of the world immediately surrounding the empire. States in Africa were being discovered by these expeditions while other Romans prepared for forays to the Far East. Diplomacy with Indian states had not been maintained lately but some voices in the Senate were keen to reverse the trend. Meanwhile, the political conflict between provincial and imperial interests was coming to a head after another provincially sympathetic emperor came to power. Rome was overextending itself through supports of its provincial citizens and had made itself vulnerable to a potential fiscal disaster.''

Caesar Cassius (835-889)
Only a young senator when he was adopted, Aemilius Cassius was raised as the son of the most politically influential family in the Roman Empire, with a patriarch serving as Censor to uphold the interests of citizens who lived outside Rome. By a narrow margin, Cassius had been chosen by the Senate in the wake of an ambiguous succession. His election was a major victory for the foederalis faction of senators over the patricianis faction. As a result, the Senate and Caesar were forced to continue selling the public land (ager publicus) to sustain the spending required to provide services to the public.