Augusta Vesnia

Augusta Vesnia, also called the Painter and the Artist, was the daughter of Emperor Manius, Aeliana Justina Vesnia, and Augustok Vesnia and the first grey hand of the Seprum Republic.

## Political Contributions

### Centralization

While her father Emperor Manius founded the Seprum Republic, Augusta Vesnia is credited with sustaining it by creating, almost from scratch, a centralized administrative state to maintain the vast Seprum army in its campaigns abroad. She started the decadal census, now a Seprum tradition, to collect accurate population data in order to levy taxes and conscript people into the military. With so many men and wifere at war, Augusta opted to hire almost exclusively women to conduct the census. This increased female literacy in Seprum and gave employment to some up-and-coming artes, many of which eventually became patricians after the war of unification ended. With her new data, Augusta could fund the wars of Emperors Aelius, Felix, and Caeso without levying exorbitant taxes.

To conduct a good census, Augusta realized she needed a good road system and accurate maps. During the next decades, she also invested in standardizing infrastructure, using legionnaires away from the war front or cadets to pave roads, mapping them at the same time. These maps became invaluable in later years when the aqueduct system needed improvement.

### Seprum Identity

Augusta designated herself Emperor Aelius's spymaster, drawing from her pool of newly-literate women to find her first group of spies. The daughters of merchants, or those distantly related to paters, were often trained in etiquette and languages but were too well-off to stoop to lower-class jobs. As spies, they could better their family names and their own prospects without dirtying their reputations. Augusta especially prized women who could pass well for Henesian, including speaking local dialects. Her courses in espionage eventually took almost a year, and she referred to her spies, affectionately, as her grey women.

These spies led her to the conclusion that, to win the war, Seprum could not rely on overwhelming military force: they needed to integrate conquered subjects into the republic. To that end, she commissioned teams to collect folk songs, traditions, and plays from conquered regions, giving them a Seprum twist and spreading them across the empire until Henesian people could travel as far west as Antioch and still hear songs they recognized. She also invested in translating traditional Seprum works and spreading them in Henesia. Her plan to grant conquered peoples citizenship after time spent in indentured servitude lasts until this day.

### Grey Hand

As the first grey hand of the Republic, Augusta shaped the scope of the role, sometimes fighting with black hands to increase her own realm of power. At her insistence, Emperor Aelius invited her to strategy and logistics meetings, which eventually led to the integration of prisoner management into Seprum logistical planning, a key advantage against ciphramancers. She also consolidated her own power over spies and assassins, especially in the capital, passing it down to the next grey hand to make sure espionage did not transfer to the position of black hand.

Perhaps her most important contribution, though, was building the Grey Keep, where the most important and dangerous prisoners are kept. It was built to her precise specification, which makes it suited for patricians and mages alike. Her research into interrogation was continued by future grey hands and Grey Keep commandants and had a devastating effect on enemy morale.