About Pollex, from BoardGameGeek:
According to tradition, the Senate was established by Romulus, the founder of Rome. It was made up of 100 members chosen from among the patricians and was structured according to the tribal order typical of the Indo-European populations of that historical period. These early communities often included in their tribal councils the “elders,” men of some experience and wisdom.
The first Roman families were called gens (“clans”). Each of them was made up of an aggregation of families under a common patriarch, called pater (from the Latin “father”), who was the undisputed head of the gens.
When the original gentes aggregated into a community, the patres were selected from among the founders of the various families to form a federal council, which then took the name of the Senate. Thus, the patres understood that it was now necessary to have a single man to guide them. For these reasons they elected a king (rex), and invested him with sovereign powers.
In Pollex you are one of the would-be kings, and by playing your cards right, you can collect the indispensable consent of the plebeians and patricians, thus proving that you are, of all the candidates, the most astute strategist and the only one worthy of becoming the next king of Rome.
-description from the publisher
