Fair enough, but this doesn't eliminate the problem of Avaritus, it just pushes it toward a later stage, and makes him a bigger player (since, by the time you encounter him, you will be a bigger player).

Good. That means a stronger economy for me to work with. Especially since, if he were really my neighbor, I would very likely have a strong business relationship with him by then, providing fertilizer, transportation, and banking services for him. If he manages to steal a few of my technologies... GOOD. That makes him my ally. In all likelihood I would probably be setting up client sub-patricians as a surrounding buffer to myself anyhow, and feeding them inferior versions of my technologies for them to work with.

There are modern classes you can take on assembly line training. They take longer than two weeks, and they assume that the audience can read, write, and add, at the very least, which is more than I can say for your backwater Roman peasants. At this point, I'd like to see you produce some evidence that your two-week training period would be sufficient.

They're also producing vastly more complicated products. And are training general assembly workers -- workers who can move freely from line-position to line-position. Using a vast array of modern tools in dynamic situations. Exactly the opposite of what I'd be doing. Your objection just doesn't hold water. You're making assumptions about what I'd be doing that directly contradict what I have explained I'd be doing.

It's making any hope of this dialogue go anywhere quite vanishingly small. What part of: "I would train individual workers in individual rote tasks and ONLY those tasks" is such a difficult concept for you to grasp? Why is this such a cognitive stumbling block for you? You keep doing everything in your power to misunderstand me on this point.

Why?

In addition, have you personally ever tried to construct something relatively simple, like the Giordani air rifle, in your garage in the modern world, using modern tools (other than, possibly, CNC) ? How long did it take you ?

The Giardoni air rifle is not "simple" to make by hand. While the metalsmiths of Rome frequently had the skillset necessary to achieve it, I myself do not. It also required a number of small-ish parts that would not be obvious as to their function in a damaged state. It could be reverse-engineered, certainly, but without an understanding of the mechanical principles involved the mere process of reverse-engineering it and constructing a successful prototype would take as long as a year even for a skilled metalsmith. If we presume merely a three month window for that, it would STILL take at least that long for that metalsmith to train others in its making, and without line-assembly to assist him in so crafting the numbers they could turn out would be far, far smaller. And the rate of fire available to others given the lack of motorized pumps would be far smaller than it would be for my troops. Which is part of the point: all of the technologies selected contribute to one another in non-trivial ways. Extracting the secrets of one or two of the above would result in a bootstrapping period of their own that would also be significantly inferior to my own.

If I were Avaritus, I'd focus on stealing one of your assembled prototypes (remember, I know that you have them, I just don't know what they are). It would be easier than stealing your actual smiths, though that's an option, too.

This wouldn't become an issue until at earliest the third year. And even then the process of reverse engineering without foreknowledge of the actual function of all given parts is less than spectacularly useful.

Also -- without a ready fuel supply both the engines and the guns (which are being recharged via motorized pumps, remember) -- would be at best far less effective for any outside agent. And the methylation process itself (along with distillation) would also be subjecct to deathwatch scrutiny, so as to suppress their adoption time by outside actors.

At last we can agree on something; but then, why are you so focused on all the rotating death-watch guards ? Why bother keeping anything a secret at all ?

What exactly is it about the concept of "trade secrets" that you are having such a difficult time grasping? Why is it that you can't figure out -- despite my repeatedly explaining this to you -- that there is a HUGE difference between "knowing about" a thing and "mastering" a thing?? What exactly is it about the concept of "maintaining technological advantage" that you don't get? I don't care if the secrets get out the slow way. That's fine. But I can certainly work to maintain my technological advantage for a longer window. And the best way to do that is to suppress the direct transmission of technical competence away from those areas under my control.

By making it harder to bribe or kidnap or cause the defection/capture of my technicians I reduce the flow of information outwards. Seriously -- why is this a difficult concept for you?

Again: I'm not depending on a total suppression of knowledge. That would be pointless and idiotic. Instead I am working with the first mover advantage. I liinked you to the Wikipedia article on First Mover Advantages already. Please actually read that link, and stop bringing this topic up.

This is not a legitimate objection on your part. Please stop bringing it up.

Your financial, political, and military success is directly proportional to the number of enemies you end up making.

Financial, political, and military success each create more allies and friends than they do enemies. Especially if you are gracious to your enemies.

Priests are the wrong kinds of enemies.

You don't understand religion in Rome, then. Priests were essentially irrelevant. That's what I've been trying to tell you. There was no such thing as a centralized, powerful religious body in Rome. It didn't exist. "Priests" did not have political power in the Roman era. That's just not how the structure of the day worked. Mystery cults were numerous and plentiful -- and small. What individuals within a given cult that did have power had said power not because of their religious affiliations but in spite of it.

This, too, is an entirely spurious concern on your part. Please stop raising it.

But I do confess that I have trouble seeing how you'd use actual aeolipiles for industrial-grade applications; I was assuming that you were using the word to refer to the general class of heat engines, but maybe I was wrong.

Because I wouldn't use them in industrial-grade applications. I would use simple, low-efficiency turbines. And I wouldn't use them in "industrial applications". I would use them as power trains for wagons and to power ultralights. Also, you're strongly underestimating the technical competence of roman metallurgists of the era. Especially after having introduced metal-casting (or sintering) to the era. Cock valves, for example, were in widespread use -- and in massive dimensions -- at the time, as well as hand-carried water-pumps.

So again, no single item I'd be introducing would -- in and of itself -- be far outside of the scope of the competencies of the Roman era. But to adopt all of them? Even by reverse-engineering after being exposed to the existence of the concept, adopting more than a handful here-and-there would require several years.

And by then I'd already be in possession of vast sums of money and materials, at which point having trade partners I could use to accelerate my acquisition of the needed materials, parts, and equipment to achieve my ends would only be beneficial to me.

Remember, also, that I'd have a buffer zone of several hundred miles between myself and the nearest actual city, and would otherwise be surrounded almost exclusively by the kinds of people the word "pagani" originally referred to: rednecks. This was not an accident. The geographical placement in mind was also designed to help suppress the dissemination of my technologies outside of my scope of influence.