Maximus' eyebrows raised. A man who remembered the Republic. Not only remembered it, but didn't know anything else...

His face fell, at the mention of survival, and he let out a long breath and shook his head.

"... No. The Rome I knew has been dust, for over a thousand years. The Rome you knew - the Republic, the true Rome, that was over before I was born." He shifted, uncomfortably. "There was a man, I knew, who hoped to make it a republic, again. But that wish, I fear, died with him."