otivm/docs/architecture/historical-reality-parameters.md

Historical Reality Parameters

TheRON — OTIVM / CIVICVS Parameter Schema Instrument

Status: Internal only — not player-facing content

Date: 2026-04-28

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0. Purpose and Scope

This document is an internal schema instrument. It is not a scenario. It is not player-facing content. It will not be shown to participants.

Its purpose is to map the parameter domains required for an economically honest simulation of Roman commercial life in approximately 14 BCE. Four domains are covered:

1. Enslaved labour
2. Legal and status discrimination
3. Commercial sex
4. Public violence and the arena

These domains are not peripheral to Roman economic life. They are structural. A simulation that excludes them cannot model Roman economics accurately. A simulation that includes them as gratuitous spectacle has failed its purpose.

The principle governing this document:

These domains are modelled as parameters and economic forces. The simulation does not editorialise. It models. The participant encounters these as the MERCATOR encounters them — as the texture of the world they operate in, not as moral choices presented for approval. The facts no longer affect living beings. They belong to a historical period whose actors have all ceased to exist. The purpose of modelling them is contribution to accurate historical understanding, not sensation.

Method: for each domain, this document identifies:

• The structural role of the domain in the Roman economy
• Existing parameters from docs/architecture/parameter-registry.md that are already affected by this domain, with the nature of the effect stated
• New parameters required that are not yet in the registry
• Sources

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1. Enslaved Labour

1.1 Structural role

Slavery was not an anomaly in the Roman economy. It was its operating system. Estimates suggest enslaved persons constituted 15–30% of the Italian population in the late Republic and early Empire — potentially 2–3 million people in Italy alone. In the commercial harbour economy of Ostia, enslaved labour was present at every operational level: BAIВLVS (porters), warehouse workers, ship crew members, accounting staff, household service, and skilled artisans.

The MERCATOR operated inside this system whether or not he personally owned enslaved persons. He hired them, contracted their labour through their owners, competed against their output, and used infrastructure they maintained. His FACTOR might be enslaved or freedman. His access to certain services depended on this system.

The Roman economy did not develop water-powered or steam-powered industrial production at scale despite possessing the engineering knowledge to do so. The reason is documented: human bodies were cheaper. This is not an inference — it is the economic consequence of a labour cost structure where the marginal cost of additional enslaved labour was lower than the capital cost of mechanical substitution. This consequence must be present in the parameter model.

Primary sources:

• Cato the Elder, De Agricultura — management of enslaved agricultural workers, cost structures, maintenance calculations
• Columella, De Re Rustica — detailed labour cost accounting
• Digest of Justinian, Book 21 — ACTIO EMPTI and sale of enslaved persons, warranty obligations, disclosure requirements
• Varro, Rerum Rusticarum — classification of labour as instrumentum vocale (speaking tools), semivocale (semi-speaking: animals), mutum (mute: inanimate)

Secondary sources:

• Keith Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaves (1978)
• Moses Finley, The Ancient Economy (1973)
• Walter Scheidel, The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World, Chapter 5 (2007)

1.2 Existing parameters affected

liquiditas A MERCATOR who owns enslaved workers holds capital in a non-liquid form. Their sale value is an asset; their maintenance is a recurring cost. The ratio of enslaved-to-hired labour in a commercial operation directly affects the owner's liquidity profile. The existing liquiditas parameter must accommodate a distinction between liquid capital and capital held in human assets.

labour_cost (stub — see §1.3) Currently absent from the registry. Hired free labour (MERCENNARIUS) and contracted enslaved labour have different cost structures, different legal exposure for the contracting party, and different reliability profiles. These cannot be collapsed into a single cost parameter.

ius_accessus An enslaved person has no IVS_ACCESSVS in Roman law. They cannot enter contracts, appear as witnesses, or initiate legal proceedings in their own name. A MERCATOR conducting NEGOTIA through an enslaved FACTOR (institor servilis) has a specific legal exposure profile: the owner is liable for the FACTOR's commercial acts up to the value of the PECULIUM (the allowance granted to the enslaved person for commercial use). This is the actio institoria and actio tributoria framework. The ius_accessus differential between a CIVIS, a LIBERTUS, and a SERVUS is not a single ordinal scale — it is a legally structured set of distinct capabilities and incapacities.

auctoritas A MERCATOR who treats enslaved persons visibly well or badly affects their AVCTORITAS differently depending on the social context. Excessive cruelty was considered poor form even in a slave-owning society — not on humanitarian grounds, but because it signalled poor management and social instability. The AVCTORITAS system must accommodate the social signalling dimension of how an actor manages labour.

officia_burden Ownership of enslaved persons creates legal obligations (maintenance, the actio de peculio, liability for their commercial acts) that contribute to OFFICIA_BVRDEN. This is not modelled in the current registry entry, which frames OFFICIA_BVRDEN primarily in terms of social obligations.

1.3 New parameters required

labour_source

token:    labour_source
scope:    actor
layer:    roman
maturity: research_needed

The composition of an actor's labour force: proportion enslaved vs free hired vs freedman contracted. Affects liquiditas profile, ius_accessus exposure, legal liability, and operational flexibility. An actor with primarily enslaved labour has lower variable costs but higher capital locked in assets and higher legal exposure for their acts. An actor with primarily hired free labour has higher variable costs, lower asset lock, and cleaner legal separation.

labour_cost

token:    labour_cost
scope:    scenario
layer:    roman
maturity: research_needed

The cost per unit of labour for a specific ITER or operational task, disaggregated by labour type. BAIВLVS day rate for free hired labour is documented in Diocletian's Edict (301 CE, later than our period but provides relative structure). Earlier estimates require interpolation from Cato and Columella. Research needed: Ostia-specific rates, 1st c. BCE.

peculium_value

token:    peculium_value
scope:    actor
layer:    roman
maturity: research_needed

The commercial allowance granted to an enslaved FACTOR for use in NEGOTIA. Sets the ceiling of the owner's liability under actio tributoria. Also the de facto working capital of an enslaved commercial agent. A FACTOR with a large PECULIUM is effectively conducting independent commercial operations on behalf of their owner. This is one of the mechanisms by which enslaved persons could accumulate capital toward self-purchase (MANUMISSIO).

manumission_probability

token:    manumission_probability
scope:    actor
layer:    roman
maturity: research_needed

The probability that a skilled enslaved commercial agent will be formally freed (MANUMISSIO) within a defined time horizon, converting to LIBERTUS status. Relevant because LIBERTUS actors have a different parameter profile from both CIVIS and SERVUS actors. The transition from SERVUS to LIBERTUS is a background drift event of the highest magnitude — it changes IVS_ACCESSVS, AVCTORITAS floor, and social network access simultaneously. This transition is the origin story of the BACKGROUND-0002 (Freedman Trader) cast profile.

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2. Legal and Status Discrimination

2.1 Structural role

Roman society was organised around legally encoded status hierarchies that directly governed commercial capability. These were not informal prejudices — they were written into law and enforced by courts. The relevant distinctions for the MERCATOR's world:

CIVIS ROMANVS — full Roman citizen. Full legal capability: contract, witness, property ownership, legal action. The baseline.

LATINVS — Latin status. Commercial rights but restricted political and full legal rights. Many LIBERTI were LATINI IVNIANI — freed but without full citizenship.

PEREGRINUS — foreign free person. Commercial activity permitted under ius gentium but restricted Roman law access. Significant in Ostia, a port city with large foreign populations.

LIBERTUS / LIBERTA — freedman/woman. Citizen status in most cases (if freed formally by a CIVIS) but socially marked by servile origin. Could not hold most public offices. Subject to ongoing operae (labour obligations) to former owner. In practice, freedmen dominated Roman commercial and craft activity.

SERVUS — enslaved person. No legal personhood. No contract, no witness, no property (technically — PECULIUM was a practical workaround).

Women — regardless of status, Roman women had restricted commercial legal capability without a male guardian (TVTOR) in most circumstances. Exceptions existed; they were exceptions.

Non-Roman ethnic and religious communities — Jews, Egyptians, and other identifiable groups faced specific restrictions, social hostility, and periodically legal exclusions that affected commercial activity. This is not modern racism but it had comparable commercial effects: restricted access to certain markets, inability to use certain legal instruments, exclusion from some COLLEGIA.

Primary sources:

• Gaius, Institutiones — systematic treatment of legal status categories
• Digest of Justinian, Books 1, 4, 40 — citizenship, manumission, legal capacity
• Cicero, Pro Balbo — citizenship as commercial prerequisite

Secondary sources:

• Jane Gardner, Being a Roman Citizen (1993)
• A.N. Sherwin-White, The Roman Citizenship (1973)
• John Bodel, Epigraphic Evidence — freedman commercial activity

2.2 Existing parameters affected

ius_accessus The existing registry entry describes this as an ordinal scale (low / medium / high). This is insufficient. IVS_ACCESSVS is not a continuous variable — it is a structured set of legal capabilities that differ categorically between SERVUS, LATINVS, PEREGRINUS, LIBERTUS, and CIVIS. The schema must accommodate legal status as a discrete category, not an ordinal score. The ordinal representation is a simplification that will produce wrong results in legal dispute scenarios.

auctoritas The existing registry notes AVCTORITAS as partially observable and socially constructed. The legal status layer adds a floor and ceiling to AVCTORITAS that is structurally imposed, not just socially earned. A LIBERTUS cannot exceed a certain AVCTORITAS threshold regardless of commercial success, because certain social expressions of AVCTORITAS (holding office, certain COLLEGIA membership) are legally closed to him. A CIVIS of low commercial achievement still has a higher AVCTORITAS floor than a successful LIBERTUS in formal legal contexts.

information_quality Access to commercial information in Rome was heavily mediated by social networks that were themselves status-stratified. A PEREGRINUS in Ostia had access to information networks within his ethnic community but reduced access to Roman citizen networks. A LIBERTUS had access to his former owner's network (CLIENTELA) but was excluded from others. The information_quality parameter must accommodate network access constraints derived from legal and social status.

negotiatio Negotiation capability was not purely a personal skill — it was mediated by legal standing. A SERVUS negotiating on behalf of an owner could achieve certain outcomes but was legally constrained in others. A PEREGRINUS negotiating with Roman citizens was operating under ius gentium, not Roman civil law, with different remedies available if the counterparty defaulted.

2.3 New parameters required

legal_status

token:    legal_status
scope:    actor
layer:    roman
maturity: canonical

The actor's formal Roman legal status. Discrete categories, not ordinal: civis_romanus, latinvs, peregrinus, libertus, liberta, servus. This is the foundational parameter that determines the structure of ius_accessus for each actor. It does not drift — it changes through specific legal events (manumission, citizenship grant) which are recorded as events in the time-series.

ethnic_community

token:    ethnic_community
scope:    actor
layer:    roman
maturity: provisional

The actor's cultural and ethnic community affiliation, where distinct from Roman citizen status. Affects information_quality within community networks, access to community-specific commercial infrastructure (e.g. Jewish merchant networks, Egyptian grain traders, Syrian traders in Ostia), and exposure to community-specific legal restrictions and social hostility. Not a racial category — a social and legal one.

tutor_required

token:    tutor_required
scope:    actor
layer:    roman
maturity: provisional

Boolean. Whether the actor legally requires a male guardian (TVTOR) to execute certain commercial transactions. Applies to women actors. Affects ius_accessus for specific transaction types. A woman MERCATRIX (female merchant — attested in inscriptions) conducting NEGOTIA without a TVTOR faces legal exposure on certain contract types.

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3. Commercial Sex

3.1 Structural role

Commercial sex in Rome was a licensed, taxed, legally categorised industry. This is not a peripheral fact — it is documented in municipal records, legal texts, and archaeological evidence across the Roman world including Ostia.

Key structural elements relevant to the simulation:

MERETRIX — a woman registered as a prostitute with the AEDILE (municipal official). Registration was required by law (Lex Iulia de adulteriis, 18 BCE — near our simulation period). It conferred a specific legal status: the MERETRIX was exempt from adultery law (applying only to respectable women) but permanently infamis — legally disgraced, stripped of certain legal protections.

LENO / LENA — the brothel-keeper (male / female). A commercial operator. Subject to the INFAMIA legal sanction, which removed certain legal protections and rights. Taxed: the VECTIGAL MERETRICVM was a municipal revenue source.

FORNIX / LUPANAR — the physical location. In Ostia, archaeologically attested in harbour and market districts — precisely the areas the MERCATOR operates in.

Commercial relevance to the MERCATOR:

• The LUPANAR was part of the harbour economy. Its proximity to docks, warehouses, and taverns is not coincidental — it served transient labour populations: sailors, porters, travelling merchants.
• Expenditure in this sector is a legitimate economic flow that affects the actor's liquiditas and OFFICIA_BVRDEN profile.
• The LENO as commercial actor had specific legal constraints that affected contract enforceability.
• Association with this sector affected AVCTORITAS and FAMA differently depending on the actor's status and the visibility of the association.

Primary sources:

• Digest of Justinian, Book 3.2 — INFAMIA, legal consequences of MERETRICIA profession
• CIL (Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum) — Pompeii price lists (later than our period but structurally informative)
• Plautus comedies — commercial and social references (earlier period, informative for social norms)

Secondary sources:

• Thomas McGinn, Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome (1998)
• Sarah Levin-Richardson, The Brothel of Pompeii (2019)
• Rebecca Flemming, Medicine and the Making of Roman Women (2000)

3.2 Existing parameters affected

liquiditas Expenditure in this sector is a recurring cost parameter for actors whose social patterns include harbour district activity. It is economically indistinguishable from expenditure on food, wine, or lodging in the simulation's accounting model — it is a cost that reduces available capital. It must not be treated as categorically different from other consumption costs in the schema.

auctoritas Visible association with the sector affected AVCTORITAS differently by social class. A high-status actor (Lentulus) visible in a LUPANAR faces AVCTORITAS and FAMA damage. A low-status actor (Felix, Varro) faces no particular consequence — it was unremarkable for their social level. This is a perceived_vs_true interaction: the social cost is mediated by who observes, not by the act itself.

fama The FAMA parameter must accommodate sector-specific social visibility. Certain locations and associations produce FAMA effects only if observed by status-relevant witnesses. The BALNEA rumour network (rumor_velocity) carries some of this information; the schema must model that rumour content has differential impact by observer status.

officia_burden Not applicable for the MERCATOR as consumer. Applicable if modelling the LENO as a commercial actor type — ownership of a LUPANAR creates specific legal and operational obligations.

3.3 New parameters required

infamia_flag

token:    infamia_flag
scope:    actor
layer:    roman
maturity: canonical

Boolean. Whether the actor carries the legal status of INFAMIA — legal disgrace that removes certain protections and rights. Applies to: LENO, LENA, MERETRIX, gladiators, actors, and others defined by Roman law. Affects ius_accessus (certain legal actions barred), auctoritas (formal ceiling reduced), and clientela (certain patron-client relationships unavailable). Not the same as low FAMA — INFAMIA is a legal status, FAMA is a social perception.

sector_visibility

token:    sector_visibility
scope:    relation
layer:    roman
maturity: provisional

The probability that an actor's commercial or social activity in a specific sector is observed by status-relevant witnesses and enters the rumour network. Modulates fama effects for activities that have differential social consequences by observer. High sector_visibility in the harbour district late at night produces different FAMA effects than the same activity unseen.

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4. Public Violence and the Arena

4.1 Structural role

Public violence in Rome was not an anomaly or a failure of civilization. It was a deliberately maintained social institution with specific economic, political, and social functions. The relevant forms for the MERCATOR's world:

LVDI — public games, including gladiatorial combat (MVNERA), animal hunts (VENATIONES), and chariot racing (LUDI CIRCENSES). Sponsored by magistrates, wealthy patrons, and the Emperor. The sponsor (EDITOR MVNERUM) gained AVCTORITAS and CLIENTELA in proportion to the scale and quality of the event. This was not entertainment in the modern sense — it was a mechanism for redistributing social capital from wealthy to popular, cementing political alliances, and demonstrating the sponsor's power and generosity.

Gladiatorial schools (LVDI GLADIATORUM) — commercial operations. A LANISTA (gladiatorial trainer/manager) purchased, trained, and hired out gladiators. This was a profitable but INFAMIA-carrying business. Gladiators themselves were often enslaved persons or condemned criminals, but also included free volunteers (AVCTORAMENTVM) drawn by pay, status within the arena world, and — occasionally — the release from debt.

Capital punishment — public execution (SVPPLICIUM) was a regular civic event. Criminals, slaves, and enemies of the state were executed publicly in ways that served as both deterrent and spectacle. This is not tangential to the commercial world — condemned criminals included defaulted debtors in some circumstances.

Commercial relevance to the MERCATOR:

• Attending, sponsoring, or being seen at LVDI was an AVCTORITAS and CLIENTELA event, not merely entertainment.
• The LANISTA as commercial actor operated within specific legal constraints (INFAMIA) while conducting profitable trade in human combat capacity.
• The economic demand generated by LVDI — for animals, equipment, food, temporary labour, lodging — was a commercial opportunity the MERCATOR could service.
• The EDITOR MVNERUM role was a form of liquiditas expenditure that produced auctoritas returns — one of the clearest Roman examples of converting money into social capital.

Primary sources:

• Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars — sponsorship economics, scale of games
• Cicero, Pro Sestio, De Officiis — AVCTORITAS logic of public sponsorship
• CIL — inscriptions recording EDITOR MVNERUM, costs, and social returns
• Digest of Justinian, Book 3.2 — INFAMIA of LANISTA

Secondary sources:

• Keith Hopkins and Mary Beard, The Colosseum (2005)
• Fik Meijer, The Gladiators (2003)
• Donald Kyle, Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome (1998)

4.2 Existing parameters affected

auctoritas The EDITOR MVNERUM mechanism is the clearest Roman example of direct liquiditas → auctoritas conversion. The existing registry entry does not describe this pathway explicitly. It must be added: spending on public sponsorship (LVDI, public feasts, building dedications) is a direct investment in AVCTORITAS that bypasses the slow accumulation through repeated commercial reliability. It is also irreversible — a patron who sponsors games cannot unsponsor them, and the AVCTORITAS gained decays if not maintained by further sponsorship.

clientela Public games generated CLIENTELA directly. Attendees who received free admission or gifts (MISSILIA — tokens thrown to the crowd) entered a diffuse client relationship with the sponsor. This is a mass CLIENTELA acquisition mechanism — distinct from the individual cultivation described in the existing registry entry. The schema must accommodate both forms.

officia_burden The EDITOR MVNERUM role created specific obligations: to the audience (expectation of future games), to the performers contracted, to the animals suppliers, to the venue. Once entered, the role generated ongoing OFFICIA_BVRDEN whether or not the actor wished to continue.

liquiditas Sponsoring LVDI was a major capital expenditure. The scale ranged from modest municipal games to the multi-day spectacles of the Imperial period. For a working MERCATOR, even modest sponsorship represented a significant liquiditas commitment with an uncertain auctoritas return — because the social capital gained depended on attendance, weather, the quality of the performance, and the political climate.

4.3 New parameters required

sponsorship_investment

token:    sponsorship_investment
scope:    actor
layer:    roman
maturity: provisional

Capital committed by an actor to public sponsorship (LVDI, public feasts, building dedications). Produces auctoritas return at a rate modulated by event scale, attendance, and political climate. The return is delayed (AVCTORITAS accrues after the event, not during the expenditure) and uncertain (bad weather, poor performance, or political interference reduces return). Irreversible once committed.

arena_demand_index

token:    arena_demand_index
scope:    city
layer:    roman
maturity: provisional

The current commercial demand generated by scheduled or recent LVDI in a city — for animals, equipment, food, lodging, and temporary labour. A city in the week before major games has different commercial conditions from a city in a quiet period. Affects food_price_index, porter_availability, storage_fee_index, and dock_congestion.

lanista_flag

token:    lanista_flag
scope:    actor
layer:    roman
maturity: provisional

Boolean. Whether the actor is operating as or in partnership with a LANISTA (gladiatorial school operator). Applies INFAMIA consequences (see infamia_flag) while enabling access to specific commercial networks (arena supply chains, condemned labour pools). A commercial actor who avoids this sector loses certain opportunities; one who enters it gains opportunities at AVCTORITAS cost.

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5. Cross-Domain Parameter Summary

New parameters introduced by this document, for addition to docs/architecture/parameter-registry.md:

Token	Scope	Layer	Domain	Maturity
labour_source	actor	roman	enslaved labour	research_needed
labour_cost	scenario	roman	enslaved labour	research_needed
peculium_value	actor	roman	enslaved labour	research_needed
manumission_probability	actor	roman	enslaved labour	research_needed
legal_status	actor	roman	legal discrimination	canonical
ethnic_community	actor	roman	legal discrimination	provisional
tutor_required	actor	roman	legal discrimination	provisional
infamia_flag	actor	roman	commercial sex / arena	canonical
sector_visibility	relation	roman	commercial sex	provisional
sponsorship_investment	actor	roman	arena	provisional
arena_demand_index	city	roman	arena	provisional
lanista_flag	actor	roman	arena	provisional

Existing parameters requiring schema revision:

Token	Required revision
ius_accessus	Must become a structured legal capability set, not an ordinal scale. Keyed to legal_status.
auctoritas	Must accommodate: status-imposed floor and ceiling; direct liquiditas→auctoritas conversion via sponsorship; INFAMIA ceiling constraint.
officia_burden	Must include: liability for enslaved persons' commercial acts; sponsorship obligations once entered.
information_quality	Must accommodate: network access constraints derived from legal_status and ethnic_community.
fama	Must accommodate: sector_visibility modulation — FAMA effects are observer-dependent, not universal.
liquiditas	Must distinguish: liquid capital vs capital held in human assets (enslaved persons).

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6. Schema Discipline

These parameters must not be encoded differently from any other parameter in the schema. They are historical facts about a specific period and place, not editorial content. The same precision, confidence tagging, and source citation standards apply here as to cargo weights and customs duties.

Uncertainty is a first-class record. Where source data is thin — particularly for labour cost rates and PECULIUM values specific to Ostia in 14 BCE — the parameter is marked maturity: research_needed and the confidence tag reflects the gap. A gap honestly documented is more useful than a false precision.

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Historical Reality Parameters — internal instrument, 2026-04-28 Not player-facing. Schema use only. The simulation models. It does not editorialise. TheRON — single contributor. AI assistants implement, document, flag — do not direct.