The First Man in Rome

by Colleen McCullough

  Sulla fought in the front line with the leading cohort of the leading legion, for Marius was in control of tactics and the element of surprise was negligible; when Jugurtha’s infantry lines finally broke, it was Sulla who led the charge against them, Sertorius not far behind.

  Sheer desperation to be rid of Rome for once and for all kept Jugurtha in the battle too long. When he did decide to withdraw, it was already too late to do so, and he had no choice but to struggle on against a Roman force sensing victory. So the Roman victory when it came was complete, rounded, whole. The Numidian and Mauretanian armies were destroyed, most of their men dead on the field. Jugurtha and Bocchus got away.

  Marius rode into Cirta at the head of an exhausted column, every man in it jubilant; there would be no more war on a grand scale in Africa—the least soldier knew it. This time Marius quartered his army within Cirta’s walls, unwilling to risk exposure outside. His troops were billeted upon hapless Numidian civilians, and hapless Numidian civilians made up the work parties he sent out the next day to clean up the field of battle, burn the mountains of African dead, and bring in the far fewer Roman dead for the proper obsequies.

  Quintus Sertorius found himself placed in charge of all the decorations which Marius intended to award at a special assembly of the army following the cremation of the fallen; he was also placed in charge of organizing the ceremony. As it was the first such ceremony he had ever attended, he had no idea how to go about his task, but he was intelligent and resourceful. So he found a veteran primus pilus centurion, and asked him.

  “Now what you got to do, young Sertorius,” said this old stager, “is get all of Gaius Marius’s own decorations out, and display them on the general’s dais so the men can see what sort of soldier he was. These are good boys of ours, Head Count or not, but they don’t know nothing about the military life, and they don’t come from families with a military tradition. So how do they know what sort of soldier Gaius Marius was? I do! That’s because I been with Gaius Marius in every campaign he fought since—oh, Numantia.”

  “But I don’t think he has his decorations with him,” said Sertorius, dismayed.

  “Course he has, young Sertorius!” said the veteran of a hundred battles and skirmishes. “They’re his luck.”

  Sure enough, when applied to, Gaius Marius admitted that he did have his decorations along on the campaign. Looking a little embarrassed, until Sertorius told him of the centurion’s remark about luck.

  All of Cirta turned out to ogle, for it was an impressive ceremony, the army in full parade regalia, each legion’s silver eagle wreathed with the laurels of victory, each maniple’s standard of a silver hand wreathed with the laurels of victory, each century’s cloth vexillum banner wreathed with the laurels of victory. Every man wore his decorations, but since this was a new army of new men, only a few of the centurions and a half-dozen soldiers sported armbands, neck rings, medallions. Of course Publius Vagiennius wore his set of silver phalerae.

  Ah, but Gaius Marius himself reigned supreme! So thought the dazzled Quintus Sertorius, standing waiting to be awarded his Gold Crown for a single combat upon the field; Sulla too was waiting to be awarded a Gold Crown.

  There they were, ranged behind him on the high dais, Gaius Marius’s decorations. Six silver spears for killing a man in single combat on six different occasions; a scarlet vexillum banner embroidered in gold and finished with a fringe of gold bullion for killing several men in single combat on the same occasion; two silver-encrusted shields of the old oval pattern for holding hotly contested ground against odds. Then there were the decorations he wore. His cuirass was of hardened leather rather than the normal silver-plated bronze of a senior officer, for over it he wore all his phalerae on their gold-encrusted harnesses—no less than three full sets of nine in gold, two on the front of the cuirass, one on the back; six gold and four silver torcs depended from little straps across shoulders and neck; his arms and wrists glittered with gold and silver armillae bracelets. Then there were his crowns. On his head he wore one Corona Civica, which was the crown of oak leaves awarded only to a man who had saved the lives of his fellows and held the ground on which he had done the deed for the rest of the battle. Two more oak-leaf crowns hung from two of the silver spears, indicating that he had won the Corona Civica no fewer than three times; on two more of the silver spears hung two Gold Crowns for conspicuous bravery, crowns made of gold hammered into the shape of laurel leaves; on the fifth spear hung a Corona Muralis, a gold crown with a crenellated battlement awarded for being the first man to scale the walls of an enemy town; and on the sixth spear hung a Corona Vallaris, a gold crown awarded for being the first man into an enemy camp.

  What a man! thought Quintus Sertorius, mentally cataloguing these talismans. Yes, the only awards he hadn’t won were the naval crown, given for valor in a sea battle— Marius had never fought at sea, so that omission was logical—and the Corona Graminea, the simple wreath of common grass awarded to a man who literally by his own valor and initiative saved a whole legion, or even a whole army. The grass crown had been given only a handful of times during the whole history of the Republic, the first time to the legendary Lucius Siccius Dentatus, who had won no less than twenty-six different crowns—but only one Corona Graminea. To Scipio Africanus during the second war against Carthage. Sertorius frowned, dredging up the rest of the winners. Oh, Publius Decius Mus had won it during the first Samnite war! And Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosis Cunctator had won it for stalking Hannibal up and down Italy, thus preventing Hannibal’s gaining the confidence to attack Rome herself.

  Then Sulla was called to receive his Gold Crown, and a full set of nine gold phalerae as well, for his valor during the first of the two battles against the kings. How pleased he looked, how—enhanced. Quintus Sertorius had heard that he was a cold sort of fellow, and had a cruel streak; but not once in their time together in Africa had he seen evidence to substantiate these accusations, and surely if they were true, Gaius Marius would not have liked him as well as he clearly did. For of course Quintus Sertorius did not understand that when life was going well, and was enjoyable, and held enough mental and physical challenge, coldness and cruelty could be buried, however temporarily; he also did not understand that Sulla was quite shrewd enough to know Gaius Marius was not the man to whom to show the baser, darker side of himself. In fact, Lucius Cornelius Sulla had been on his very best behavior ever since Marius had asked for him as his quaestor—and had not found it at all difficult to be so, either.

  “Oh!” Quintus Sertorius jumped. He had been so deep in his thoughts that he hadn’t heard his name called, and got a dig in the ribs from his servant, almost as proud of Quintus Sertorius as Quintus Sertorius was of himself. Up onto the dais he stumbled, and stood there while the great Gaius Marius placed the Gold Crown on his head, then suffered the cheers of the army, and had his hand shaken by Gaius Marius and Aulus Manlius.

  And after all the tores and bracelets and medallions and banners were handed out, and some of the cohorts got group awards of gold or silver wreaths for their standard poles, Gaius Marius spoke.

  “Well done, men of the Head Count!” he cried, the dazed recipients of decorations standing gathered around him. “You have proven yourselves braver than the brave, more willing than the willing, harder working than the hardworking, more intelligent than the intelligent! There’s many a naked standard pole which now can be adorned with the decorations won by its owners! When we walk in triumph through Rome, we’ll give them all something to look at! And in future, let no Roman say that the men of the Head Count don’t care enough about Rome to win battles for her!”

  *

  November was just beginning to promise rain when an embassage arrived in Cirta from King Bocchus of Mauretania. Marius let its members stew for several days, ignoring their pleas of urgency.

  “They’ll be soft as cushions,” he said to Sulla when finally he consented to see them.

  “I’m not going to forgive King Bocchus,�
�� he said as his opening gambit, “so go home! You’re wasting my time.”

  The spokesman was a younger brother of the King, one Bogud, and now Prince Bogud stepped forward quickly, before Marius could wave at his lictors to eject the embassage.

  “Gaius Marius, Gaius Marius, my brother the King is only too aware of the magnitude of his transgressions!” said the prince. ‘ ‘He isn’t asking for forgiveness, nor is he asking that you recommend to the Senate and People of Rome that he be reinstated as a Friend and Ally of the Roman People. What he does ask is that in the spring you send two of your most senior legates to his court in Tingis beyond the Pillars of Hercules. There he will explain to them most carefully why he allied himself with King Jugurtha, and he asks only that they listen to him with open ears. They are not to say one word to him in reply—they are to report what he has said to you, so that you may reply. Do, I entreat you, grant my brother the King this favor!”

  “What, send two of my top men all the way to Tingis at the start of the campaigning season?” asked Marius with well-feigned incredulity. “No! The best I’ll do is send them as far as Saldae.” This was a small seaport not far to the west of Cirta’s seaport, Rusicade.

  The whole embassage threw up hands in horror. “Quite impossible!” cried Bogud. “My brother the King wishes to avoid King Jugurtha at all costs!”

  “Icosium,” said Marius, naming another seaport, this one about two hundred miles to the west of Rusicade. “I’ll send my senior legate, Aulus Manlius, and my quaestor, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, as far as Icosium—but now, Prince Bogud, not in the spring.”

  “Impossible!” cried Bogud. “The King is in Tingis!”

  “Rubbish!” said Marius scornfully. “The King is on his way back to Mauretania with his tail between his legs. If you send a fast rider after him, I’ll guarantee he has no trouble reaching Icosium about the same moment as my legates sail in.” He glared at Bogud balefully. “That is my best—and only!—offer. Take it or leave it.”

  Bogud took it. When the embassage embarked two days later, it sailed together with Aulus Manlius and Sulla upon a ship bound for Icosium, having sent that fast rider to catch up with the tattered remnants of the Moorish army.

  “He was waiting for us when we sailed in, just as you said,” Sulla reported a month later, upon his return.

  “Where’s Aulus Manlius?” asked Marius.

  Sulla’s eyes twinkled. “Aulus Manlius isn’t well, so he decided to come back overland.”

  “A serious indisposition?”

  “I’ve never seen a poorer sailor,” said Sulla reminiscently.

  “Well, I never knew that about him!” said Marius, amazed. “I take it then that you did most of the careful listening, not Aulus Manlius?”

  “Yes,” said Sulla, and grinned. “He’s a funny little man, Bocchus. Round like a ball from too many sweeties. Very pompous on the surface, very timid underneath.”

  “It’s a combination goes together,” said Marius.

  “Well, it’s clear enough that he’s afraid of Jugurtha; I don’t think he’s lying about that. And if we were to give him strong guarantees that we have no intention of removing him from rule in Mauretania, I think he’d be delighted to serve Rome’s interests. But Jugurtha works on him, you know.”

  “Jugurtha works on everyone. Did you adhere to Bocchus’s rule about saying nothing, or did you speak up?”

  “Oh, I let him talk himself out first,” said Sulla, “but then I spoke up. He tried to get all royal and dismiss me, so I told him his had been a one-sided bargain that did not bind your representatives as far as you were concerned.”

  “What did you have to say?” asked Marius.

  “That if he was a clever little king, he’d ignore Jugurtha in the future and stick by Rome.”

  “How did he take that?”

  “Quite well. Certainly I left him in a chastened mood.”

  “Then we’ll wait and see what happens next,” said Marius.

  “One thing I did find out,” added Sulla, “was that Jugurtha has come to the end of his recruiting tether. Even the Gaetuli are refusing to give him more men. Numidia is very tired of the war, and hardly anyone in the kingdom, be he a dweller in the settled regions or a nomad of the inland, now feels there’s the remotest chance of winning.”

  “But will they hand over Jugurtha?” Sulla shook his head.

  “No, of course they won’t!”

  “Never mind,” said Marius, showing his teeth. “Next year, Lucius Cornelius! Next year we’ll get him.”

  *

  Shortly before the old year ended, Gaius Marius received a letter from Publius Rutilius Rufus, long delayed en route by a series of appalling storms.

  I know you wanted me to stand for consul in tandem with you, Gaius Marius, but an opportunity has come up which I’d be a fool to ignore. Yes, I intend to stand for the consulship of next year, and am lodging my name as a candidate tomorrow. The well seems to have run temporarily dry, you see. No one of any note is standing. What, not Quintus Lutatius Catulus Caesar again? I hear you ask. No, he’s lying very low these days, as he belongs too obviously to that faction which has defended all our consuls responsible for the loss of so many soldier lives. So far the best nominee is a New Man of sorts—Gnaeus Mallius Maximus, no less. He’s not a bad sort of fellow; I could certainly work with him—but if he’s the best candidate in the field, I’m just about a certainty. Your own command is prorogued for the coming year, as you probably already know.

  Rome is really a very boring place at the moment; I have hardly any news to give you, and precious little by way of scandal. Your family are all well, Young Marius being a joy and a delight, very domineering and ahead of his years, into every sort of mischief and driving his mother mad, just as a small boy ought. However, your father-in-law, Caesar, is not well, though of course, being Caesar, he never complains. There’s something wrong with his voice, and no amount of honey seems to fix it.

  And that really is the end of the news! How frightful. What can I talk about? Barely a page filled, and bare is right. Well, there’s my niece Aurelia. And who on the face of this earth is Aurelia? I hear you ask. Nor are you one bit interested, I’ll warrant. Never mind. You can listen; I’ll be brief. I’m sure you know the story of Helen of Troy, even if you are an Italian hayseed with no Greek. She was so beautiful every single king and prince in all of Greece wanted to marry her. Of like kind is my niece. So beautiful that everyone of any note in Rome wants to marry her.

  All the children of my sister, Rutilia, are handsome, but Aurelia is more than merely handsome. When she was a child, everyone deplored her face—it was too bony, too hard, too everything. But now she’s turning eighteen, everyone is lauding exactly the same face.

  I love her very much, as a matter of fact. Now why? I hear you ask. True, I am not normally interested in the female offspring of my many close relatives, even my own daughter and my two granddaughters. But I know why I prize my darling Aurelia. Because of her serving maid. For when she turned thirteen, my sister and her husband, Marcus Aurelius Cotta, decided she ought to have a permanent maidservant who would also function as companion and watchdog. So they bought a very good girl, and gave the girl to Aurelia. Who after a very short time announced that she didn’t want this particular girl.

  “Why?” asked my sister, Rutilia.

  “Because she’s lazy,” said the thirteen-year-old.

  Back the parents went to their dealer, and, after even more care, chose another girl. Whom Aurelia also refused.

  “Why?” asked my sister, Rutilia.

  “Because she thinks she can dominate me,” said Aurelia.

  And back the parents went a third time, and they combed Spurius Postumius Glycon’s books for another girl. All three, I add, were highly educated, Greek, and vocally intelligent.

  But Aurelia didn’t want the third girl either.

  “Why?” asked my sister, Rutilia.

  “Because she’s got an eye for the main
chance; she’s already fluttering her lashes at the steward,” said Aurelia.

  “All right, go and pick your own maidservant!” said my sister, Rutilia, refusing to have anything more to do with the whole business.

  When Aurelia came home with her choice, the family was appalled. For there stood this sixteen-year-old girl of the Gallic Arverni, a vastly tall and skinny creature with a horrid round pink short-nosed face, faded blue eyes, cruelly cropped hair (it had been sold to make a wig when her previous master needed money), and the most enormous hands and feet I have ever seen on anyone, male or female. Her name, announced Aurelia, was Cardixa.

  Now as you know, Gaius Marius, I am always intrigued with the backgrounds of those we bring into our houses as slaves. For, it has always struck me, we spend considerably more time deciding upon the menu for a dinner party than we do upon the people whom we trust to care for our clothes, our persons, our children, and even our reputations. Whereas, it struck me immediately, my thirteen-year-old niece Aurelia had chosen this ghastly Cardixa girl for precisely the right reasons. She wanted someone loyal, hardworking, submissive, and well intentioned, rather than someone who looked good, spoke Greek like a native (don’t they all?), and could hold up her end of a conversation.

  Thus I made it my business to find out about Cardixa, which was very simple. I merely asked Aurelia, who knew the girl’s whole history. She had been sold into captivity with her mother when she was four years old, after Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus had conquered the Arverni and carved out our province of Gaul-across-the-Alps. Not long after the pair arrived in Rome, the mother died, it appears of homesickness. So the child became a kind of page girl, trotting back and forth with chamber pots, pillows, and pouffes. She was sold several times after she lost her toddler’s prettiness and began to grow into the gangling homely weed I saw when Aurelia brought her home. One master had sexually molested her when she was eight; another master had flogged her every time his wife complained; a third master had her taught to read and write along with his daughter, a recalcitrant student.