The First Man in Rome

by Colleen McCullough

  “Bomilcar.”

  “Leave us,” said the King to his brutes, but was prudent enough still to order them to remove Bomilcar’s dagger.

  Alone with the King and the half-conscious Nabdalsa, Bomilcar sighed. “The only thing I regret,” he said, “is that this will kill our mother.”

  It was the cleverest thing he could have said under the circumstances, for it earned him a single blow from the executioner’s axe instead of the slow, lingering dying his half brother the King yearned to inflict upon him.

  “Why?” asked Jugurtha.

  Bomilcar shrugged. “When I grew old enough to start weighing up the years, brother, I discovered how much you had cheated me. You have held me in the same contempt you might have held a pet monkey.”

  “What did you want?” Jugurtha asked.

  “To hear you call me brother in front of the whole world.”

  Jugurtha stared at him in genuine wonder. “And raise you above your station? My dear Bomilcar, it is the sire who matters, not the dam! Our mother is a Berber woman of the Gaetuli, and not even the daughter of a chief. She has no royal distinction to convey. If I were to call you brother in front of the whole world, all who heard me do so would assume that I was adopting you into Masinissa’s line. And that—since I have two sons of my own who are legal heirs—would be imprudent, to say the very least.”

  “You should have appointed me their guardian and regent,” said Bomilcar.

  “And raise you again above your station? My dear Bomilcar, our mother’s blood negates it! Your father was a minor baron, a relative nobody. Where my father was Masinissa’s legitimate son. It is from my father I inherit my royalty.”

  “But you’re not legitimate, are you?”

  “I am not. Nevertheless, the blood is there. And blood tells.”

  Bomilcar turned away. “Get it over and done with,” he said. “I failed—not you, but myself. Reason enough to die. Yet—beware, Jugurtha.”

  “Beware? Of what? Assassination attempts? Further treachery, other traitors?”

  “Of the Romans. They’re like the sun and the wind and the rain. In the end they wear everything down to sand.”

  Jugurtha bellowed for the brutes, who came tumbling in ready for anything, only to find nothing untoward, and stood waiting for orders.

  “Kill them both,” said Jugurtha, moving toward the door. “But make it quick. And send me both their heads.”

  The heads of Bomilcar and Nabdalsa were nailed to the battlements of Capsa for all to see. For a head was more than a mere talisman of kingly vengeance upon a traitor; it was fixed in some public place to show the people that the right man had died, and to prevent the appearance of an imposter.

  Jugurtha told himself he felt no grief, just felt more alone than ever before. It had been a necessary lesson: that a king could trust no man, even his brother.

  However, the death of Bomilcar had two immediate results. One was that Jugurtha became completely elusive, never staying more than two days in any one place, never informing his guard where he was going next, never allowing his army to know what his plans for it were; authority was vested in the person of the King, no one else. The other result concerned his father-in-law, King Bocchus of Mauretania, who had not actively aided Rome against his daughter’s husband, but had not actively aided Jugurtha against Rome either; the feelers went out from Jugurtha to Bocchus at once, and Jugurtha put increased pressure upon Bocchus to ally himself with Numidia, eject Rome from all of Africa.

  *

  By the end of summer, Quintus Caecilius Metellus’s position in Rome had been totally undermined. No one there could find a kindly word to say about him or his conduct of the war. And still the letters kept coming, steady, relentless, influential in the extreme.

  After the capture of Thala and the surrender of Cirta, the Caecilius Metellus faction had managed to gain some ground among the knights’ lobbies, but then came further news from Africa that made it clear neither Thala nor Cirta would ensure an end to the war; and after that came reports of endless, pointless skirmishes, of advances further into the Numidian west achieving nothing, of funds misused and six legions kept in the field at huge cost to the Treasury and with no end to the expense in sight. Thanks to Metellus, the war against Jugurtha would certainly drag on for at least another year.

  The consular elections were scheduled for mid-October, and Marius’s name—now on everyone’s lips—was constantly bruited about as a candidate. Yet time went on, and still he didn’t appear in Rome. Metellus remained obdurate.

  “I insist upon going,” said Marius to Metellus for what must have been the fiftieth time.

  “Insist all you like,” said Metellus. “You’re not going.”

  “Next year I will be consul,” said Marius.

  “An upstart like you consul? Impossible!”

  “You’re afraid the voters would elect me, aren’t you?” asked Marius smugly. “You won’t let me go because you know I will be elected.”

  “I cannot believe any true Roman would vote for you, Gaius Marius. However, you’re an extremely rich man, and that means you can buy votes. Should you ever at any time in the future be elected consul—and it won’t be next year!— you may rest assured that I will gladly expend every ounce of energy I possess in proving in a court of law that you bought office!”

  “I don’t need to buy office, Quintus Caecilius, I never have bought office. Therefore feel free to try,” said Marius, still annoyingly smug.

  Metellus tried a different tack. “I am not letting you go—reconcile yourself to that. As a Roman of the Romans, I would betray my class if I did let you go. The consulship, Gaius Marius, is an office far above anyone of your Italian origins. The men who sit in the consul’s ivory chair must fit it by birth, by the achievements of their ancestors as much as by their own. I would rather be disgraced and dead than see an Italian from the Samnite borderlands—a semi-literate boor who ought never even have been praetor!—sit in the consul’s ivory chair! Do your worst—or do your best! It makes not one iota of difference to me. I would rather be disgraced and dead than give you permission to go to Rome.”

  “If necessary, Quintus Caecilius, you will be both,” said Marius, and left the room.

  Publius Rutilius Rufus attempted to bring both men to reason, his motives concern for Rome as well as for Marius.

  “Leave politics out of it,” he said to them. “The three of us are here in Africa to beat Jugurtha, but neither of you is interested in devoting your energies to that end. You’re more concerned with getting the better of each other than you are of Jugurtha, and I, for one, am fed up with the situation!”

  “Are you accusing me of dereliction of duty, Publius Rutilius?” asked Marius, dangerously calm.

  “No, of course I’m not! I’m accusing you of withholding that streak of genius I know you to possess in warfare. I am your equal tactically. I am your equal logistically. But when it comes to strategy, Gaius Marius—the long-term look at war—you have no equal at all anywhere. Yet have you devoted any time or thought to a strategy aimed at winning this war? No!”

  “And where do I fit into this paean of praise for Gaius Marius?” asked Metellus, tight-lipped. “For that matter, where do I fit into this paean of praise for Publius Rutilius Rufus? Or am I not important?”

  “You are important, you unmitigated snob, because you are the titular commander in this war!” snapped Rutilius Rufus. “And if you think you’re better at tactics and logistics than I, or better at tactics and logistics and strategy than Gaius Marius, do not feel backward at coming forward about it, I beg you! Not that you would. But if it’s praise you want, I am prepared to give you this much—you’re not as venal as Spurius Postumius Albinus, nor as ineffectual as Marcus Junius Silanus. Your main trouble is that you’re just not as good as you think you are. When you displayed sufficient intelligence to enlist me and Gaius Marius as your senior legates, I thought the years must have improved you. But I was wrong. You’ve wasted o
ur talents as well as the State’s money. We’re not winning this war, we’re engaged in an extremely expensive impasse. So take my advice, Quintus Caecilius! Let Gaius Marius go to Rome, let Gaius Marius stand for consul—and let me organize our resources and devise our military maneuvers. As for you—devote your energies to undermining Jugurtha’s hold over his people. You are welcome to every scrap of public glory as far as I’m concerned, provided that within these four walls you’re willing to admit the truth of what I’m saying.”

  “I admit nothing,” said Metellus.

  And so it went on, all through late summer and well into autumn. Jugurtha was impossible to pin down, indeed seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth. When it became obvious even to the least ranker legionary that there was not going to be a confrontation between the Roman army and the Numidian army, Metellus withdrew from far western Numidia and went into camp outside Cirta.

  Word had come that Bocchus of Mauretania had finally yielded to Jugurtha’s pressure tactics, formed up his army, and marched to join his son-in-law somewhere to the south; united, rumor had it, they planned to move on Cirta. Hoping to join battle at last, Metellus made his dispositions and listened with more interest than usual to Marius and Rutilius Rufus. But it was not to be. The two armies lay some miles apart, with Jugurtha refusing to be drawn. Impasse descended again, the Roman position too strongly defended for Jugurtha to attack, and the Numidian position too ephemeral to tempt Metellus out of his camp.

  *

  And then, twelve days before the consular elections in Rome, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Piggle-wiggle formally released Gaius Marius from his service as senior legate in the campaign against Jugurtha.

  “Off you go!” said Metellus, smiling sweetly. “Rest assured, Gaius Marius, that I will make all of Rome aware that I did release you before the elections.”

  “You think I won’t get there in time,” said Marius.

  “I think—nothing, Gaius Marius.”

  Marius grinned. “That’s true enough, at any rate,” he said, and snapped his fingers. “Now where’s the piece of paper that says I’m formally released? Give it to me.”

  Metellus handed over Marius’s marching orders, his smile somewhat fixed, and as Marius reached the door he said, not raising his voice, “By the way, Gaius Marius, I have just had some wonderful news from Rome. The Senate has extended my governorship of Africa Province and my command in the Numidian war into next year.”

  “That’s nice of the Senate,” said Marius, and vanished.

  “I piss on him!” Marius said to Rutilius Rufus moments later. “He thinks he’s cooked my goose and saved his own. But he’s wrong. I’m going to beat him, Publius Rutilius, you wait and see! I’m going to be in Rome in time to stand for consul, and then I’m going to have his prorogued command torn off him. And have it given to myself.”

  Rutilius Rufus eyed him thoughtfully. “I have a great deal of respect for your ability, Gaius Marius,” he said, “but in this case, time is going to prove Piggle-wiggle the winner. You’ll never make it to Rome for those elections.”

  “I will,” said Marius, sounding supremely confident.

  He rode from Cirta to Utica in two days, pausing to snatch a few hours’ sleep en route, and ruthlessly commandeering a fresh horse at every opportunity. Before nightfall of the second day he had hired a small, fast ship he found in Utica harbor. And at dawn of the third day he set sail for Italy, having offered a costly sacrifice to the Lares Permarini on the seashore just as light began to filter into the eastern rim of the world.

  “You sail to an unimaginably great destiny, Gaius Marius,” said the priest who made the offering to the gods who protect all those who voyage on the sea. “I have never seen better omens than today.”

  His words were no surprise to Marius. Ever since Martha the Syrian prophetess had told him what his future held, he had remained unshaken in his conviction that things would turn out just as she predicted. So as the ship crept from Utica harbor, he leaned tranquilly on the rail and waited for a wind. It came out of the southwest at a steadily brisk twenty sea miles, and it blew the ship from Utica to Ostia in just three days, a perfect following wind in a perfect following sea, no need to hug the coast, no need to put in anywhere for shelter or provisions. All the gods were on his side, as Martha had foretold.

  News of the miraculous voyage beat him into Rome, even though he delayed in Ostia only long enough to pay for his ship and reward its captain generously; so when he rode into the Forum Romanum and dismounted before the consul Aurelius’s electoral table, a crowd had gathered. A crowd which cheered and applauded him wildly, and gave him to understand that he was the hero of the hour. Surrounded by people clapping him on the back, beaming at his magical appearance, Marius stepped up to the consul suffectus who had taken the place of Servius Sulpicius Galba, condemned by the Mamilian Commission, and laid Metellus’s letter down on the table.

  “If you will excuse the fact that I have not waited to change into the whitened toga, Marcus Aurelius,” he said, “I am here to lodge my name as a candidate in the consular contest.”

  “Provided you can prove that Quintus Caecilius has freed you from your obligation to him, Gaius Marius, I will accept your name gladly,” said the suffect consul, stirred by the crowd’s welcome and aware that the most influential knights in the city were hurrying from every basilica and porticus around as the news of Marius’s unexpected arrival spread.

  How Marius had grown! How wonderfully substantial he looked as he stood half a head taller than those around him, smiling his fierce smile! How wide his shoulders, to take the burden of the consulship upon them! For the first time in his long career the Italian hayseed with no Greek experienced genuine political adulation; not the wholesome faithful esteem of soldiers, but the fickle self-serving adoration of the Forum masses. And Gaius Marius loved it, not because his image of himself needed it, but because it was so alien, so tainted, so inexplicable.

  He plunged into the five most hectic days of his life, with neither the time nor the energy to give Julia more than a quick hug, and never home at an hour when his son might have been shown to him. For that hysterical welcome when he declared his candidacy was not an indication that he could win; the enormously influential Caecilius Metellus faction joined hands with every other aristocratic faction, patrician and plebeian, in a last-ditch effort to keep the Italian hayseed with no Greek out of the consul’s ivory curule chair. His strength lay among the knights, thanks to his Spanish connections and to Prince Gauda’s promises of coming concessions in a Gaudane Numidia, but there were many knights whose ties were to the various factions allied against him.

  And people talked, people argued, people questioned, people debated: would it truly be a good thing for Rome to elect the New Man Gaius Marius consul? New Men were a risk. New Men didn’t know the noble life. New Men made mistakes noblemen did not. New Men were New Men were New Men... Yes, his wife was a Julia of the Julians. Yes, his military record was an adornment to Rome. Yes, he was so rich he could confidently be expected to keep himself above corruption. But who had ever seen him in the law courts? Who had ever heard him speak about laws and lawmaking? Wasn’t it true that he had been a disruptive element in the College of Tribunes of the Plebs all those years ago, with his defiance of those who knew Rome and Rome’s needs better than he, and that obnoxious law which had narrowed the voting bridges in the saepta? And look at his age! He would be a full fifty years old if he became consul, and old men made poor consuls.

  And over and above all these speculations and objections, the Caecilius Metellus faction made meaty capital out of the most repellent aspect of Gaius Marius as consul. He was not a Roman of the Romans. He was an Italian. Was Rome so devoid of suitable Roman noblemen that the consulship should go to an Italian New Man? Surely among the candidates were half a dozen men more worthy than Gaius Marius! Romans all. Good men all.

  Of course Marius spoke, to small groups and to large ones, in the Forum R
omanum, in the Circus Flaminius, from the podiums of various temples, in the Porticus Metelli, in all the basilicae. And he was a good speaker, well trained in rhetoric, though he had not used his skills until after he entered the Senate. Scipio Aemilianus had seen to his oratical polish. He held his audiences; no one walked away or dismissed him as a poor sort of speaker, though he couldn’t rival Lucius Cassius or Catulus Caesar. Many were the questions thrown at him, some from those who simply wanted to know, some from those he himself had put up to ask, some from those his enemies had put up to ask, and some from those who were interested to hear the differences between his answers and Metellus’s reports to the Senate.

  The election itself was a quiet and orderly one, held in the voting grounds out on the Campus Martius, at the place called the saepta. Elections in the thirty-five tribes could be called in the well of the Comitia in the Forum Romanum, for it was easy to organize tribal voters in a relatively confined space; but the elections of the Centuriate Assembly were massively unwieldy in size, requiring as they did the deployment of the Centuries in the Five Classes.

  As the vote of each century was called, starting with the First Century of the First Class, the pattern began to emerge: Lucius Cassius Longinus was going to be the choice of every century, but their choices of the second consul were rich and varied. Sure enough, the First and Second Classes voted so solidly for Lucius Cassius Longinus that he was returned in first place without missing a century, and so was designated the senior consul, who held the fasces for the month of January. But the name of the junior consul wasn’t known until almost the end of the Third Class, so close was the contest between Gaius Marius and Quintus Lutatius Catulus Caesar.

  And then it happened. The successful candidate for junior consul was Gaius Marius. The Caecilius Metelluses were still able to influence Centuriate voting—but not enough to keep Gaius Marius out. And that could be classified as a great triumph for Gaius Marius, the Italian hayseed with no Greek. He was a genuine New Man, the first of his family to hold a seat in the Senate, the first of his family to make his home inside the city of Rome, the first of his family to make a huge fortune, the first of his family to make a mark in the army.