The First Man in Rome

by Colleen McCullough

  “You speak feelingly, Lucius Cornelius.”

  “I do, I do!” Smile fading, Sulla studied the surface of his wine reflectively, then looked up at Marius, his light eyes gleaming. “They’ve elected themselves an overall king,” he said abruptly.

  “Oho!” said Marius softly.

  “His name is Boiorix, and he’s Cimbric. The Cimbri are the most numerous people.”

  “It’s a Celtic name, though,” said Marius. “Boiorix—Boii. A very formidable nation. There are colonies of Boii all over the place—Dacia, Thrace, Long-haired Gaul, Italian Gaul, Helvetia. Who knows? Maybe a long time ago they planted a colony among the Cimbri. After all, if this Boiorix says he’s Cimbric, then he’s Cimbric. They can’t be so primitive that they have no genealogical lore.”

  “Actually they have very little genealogical lore,” said Sulla, propping himself on his elbow. “Not because they’re particularly primitive, but because their whole structure is different from ours. Different from any people scattered around the Middle Sea, for that matter. They’re not farmers, and when men don’t own land and farm down the generations, they don’t develop a sense of place. That means they don’t develop a sense of family either. Tribal life— group life, if you prefer—is more important. They tend to eat as a community, which for them is more sensible. When houses are huts for sleeping and have no kitchens, or home is on wheels and has no kitchen, it’s easier to kill whole beasts, spit them, roast them whole, and feed the tribe as a single group.

  “Their genealogical lore relates to the tribe, or even to the collection of individual tribes which make up the people as a whole. They have heroes they sing about, but they embroider their doings out of all proportion to what must have been actual fact—a chieftain only two generations back behaves like Perseus or Hercules, he’s become so shadowy as a man. Their concept of place is shadowy too. And the position—chief or thane or priest or shaman—takes precedence over the identity of the individual man filling it. The individual man becomes the position! He moves apart from his family, and his family doesn’t rise with him. And when he dies, the position goes to someone the tribe selects without regard to what we would call family entitlements. Their ideas about family are very different from ours, Gaius Marius.” Sulla lifted himself off his elbow to pour more wine.

  “You’ve actually been living with them!” gasped Marius.

  “Oh, I had to!” Sipping enough from his cup to diminish the level of the wine, Sulla added water. “I’m not used to it,” he said, sounding surprised. “Never mind, my head will return, no doubt.” He frowned. “I managed to infiltrate the Cimbri while they were still trying to fight their way across the Pyrenees. It would have been November of last year, the moment I returned from seeing you.”

  “How?” asked Marius, fascinated.

  “Well, they were beginning to suffer what any people in a protracted war suffer—including us, especially after Arausio. Since the whole nation save for the old and infirm is moving as a unit, every warrior who dies is likely to leave a widow and orphans. These women become a liability unless their male children are old enough to become warriors fairly quickly. So the widows have to scramble to find new husbands among the warriors not old enough or enterprising enough to have acquired women already. If a woman succeeds in attaching herself and her offspring to another warrior, she’s allowed to continue as before. Her wagon is her dowry. Though not all the widowed women have wagons. And not all the widowed women find new mates. Owning a wagon definitely helps. They’re given a certain amount of time to make fresh arrangements. Three months—that is, one season. After that, they’re killed—along with their children—and the members of their tribe who don’t have wagons cast lots for vacant wagons. They kill those who are deemed too old to contribute productively to the welfare of the tribe, and excess girl-children are killed.”

  Marius grimaced. “And I thought we were hard!”

  But Sulla shook his head. “What’s hard, Gaius Marius? The Germans and the Gauls are like any other peoples. They structure their society to survive as a people. Those who become a drain on the community that it simply cannot afford must go. And which is better—to set them adrift without men to look after them, or hit them on the head? To die slowly of starvation and cold, or quickly and without pain? That’s how they look at it. That’s how they have to look at it.”

  “I suppose so,” said Marius reluctantly. “Personally I take great delight in our old. Listening to them is worth giving them food and shelter.”

  “But that’s because we can afford to keep our old, Gaius Marius! Rome is very rich. Therefore Rome can afford to support some at least of those who contribute nothing productive to the community. But we don’t condemn the exposing of unwanted children, do we?” Sulla asked.

  “Of course not!”

  “So what’s the difference, really? When the Germans find a homeland, they’ll become more like the Gauls. And the Gauls exposed to Greeks or Romans become more like Greeks or Romans. Having a homeland will enable the Germans to relax the rules; they’ll acquire sufficient wealth to feed their old and their widows burdened with children. They’re not city dwellers, they’re country folk. Cities have different rules again, haven’t you noticed? Cities breed disease to remove the old and the infirm, and cities decrease the farmer’s sense of place and family. The bigger Rome gets, the closer to the Germans it gets.”

  Marius scratched his head. “I’m lost, Lucius Cornelius. Get back to the subject, please! What happened to you? Did you find yourself a widow and tack yourself onto a tribe as a warrior?”

  Sulla nodded. “Exactly so. Sertorius did the same thing in a different tribe, which is why we haven’t seen a great deal of each other, only occasionally to compare notes. We each found a woman with a wagon who hadn’t managed to find a new mate. That was after establishing ourselves within our tribes as warriors, of course. We’d done that before we set out to see you last year, and we found our women as soon as we got back.”

  “Didn’t they reject you?” asked Marius. “After all, you were posing as Gauls, not as Germans.”

  “True. But we fight well, Quintus Sertorius and I. No tribal chief sneezes at good warriors,” said Sulla, grinning.

  “At least you haven’t been called upon to kill Romans! Though no doubt you would have, had it been necessary.”

  “Certainly,” said Sulla. “Wouldn’t you?”

  “Of course I would. Love is for the many. Sentiment is for the few,” said Marius. “A man must fight to save the many, never the few.” He brightened. “Unless, that is, he has the opportunity to do both.”

  “I was a Gaul of the Carnutes serving as a Cimbric warrior,” Sulla said, finding Marius’s philosophizing as confusing as Marius found his. “In the very early spring there was a big council composed of all the chiefs of all the tribes. The Cimbri by then had moved as far west as they could, hoping to penetrate Spain where the Pyrenees are lowest. The council was held on the banks of the river the Aquitanians call the Aturis. Definite word had come, you see, that every tribe of the Cantabri, Astures, Vettones, western Lusitani, and Vascones had gathered on the Spanish side of the mountains to contend German passage into their lands. And at this council, all of a sudden, completely unexpected—Boiorix emerged!”

  “I remember the report Marcus Cotta filed after Arausio,” Marius said. “He was one of the two leaders who fell out, and the other was Teutobod of the Teutones.”

  “He’s very young,” said Sulla, “about thirty, no more. Monstrously tall, and built like Hercules. Feet that look as big as licker-fish. But the interesting thing is that he’s got a mind akin to ours. Both the Gauls and the Germans have patterns of thinking so different from any people of the Middle Sea that to us they seem—barbarian! Whereas Boiorix has shown himself these past nine months to be a very different kind of barbarian. For one thing, he’s had himself taught to read and write—in Latin, not in Greek. I think I’ve already told you that when a Gaul is literate, he tend
s to be literate in Latin, not in Greek—”

  “Boiorix, Lucius Cornelius!” said Marius. “Boiorix!”

  Smiling, Sulla resumed. “Back to Boiorix it is. He’s been strong in the councils for perhaps four years, but this spring he overcame all opposition, and got himself appointed paramount chief—we’d call him a king, certainly, because he’s reserved the final decision in all situations for himself, and he isn’t afraid to disagree with his council.”

  “How did he get himself appointed?” Marius asked.

  “The old way,” said Sulla. “Neither Germans nor Gauls hold elections, though they do sometimes vote in council. But council decisions are more likely to be made by whoever remains sober the longest, or has the loudest voice. As for Boiorix, he became king by right of combat. He took on all comers, and killed them. Not in a single engagement— merely one a day until there were no more challengers left. All told, eleven thanes disputed his right. And bit the dust, in good old Homeric fashion.”

  “King by killing one’s rivals,” said Marius thoughtfully. “Where’s the satisfaction in that? Truly barbaric! Kill a rival in debate or court, and he’ll live to fight again. No man should be without rivals. Alive, he shines against them because he’s better than they are. Dead, he has no one to shine against at all.”

  “I agree,” said Sulla. “But in a barbarian world—or an Eastern one, for that matter—the whole idea is to kill all one’s rivals. It’s safer.”

  “What happened to Boiorix after he became king?”

  “He told the Cimbri they were not going to Spain. There were far easier places, he said. Like Italy. But first, he said, the Cimbri were going to join up with the Teutones, the Tigurini, the Marcomanni, and the Cherusci. And then he would be king of the Germans as well as the Cimbri.”

  Sulla refilled his cup, well watered. “We spent the spring and the summer moving north through Long-haired Gaul. We crossed the Garumna, the Liger, and the Sequana, and then we entered the lands of the Belgae.”

  “The Belgae!” breathed Marius. “You’ve seen them?”

  “Yes, of course,” said Sulla, looking casual.

  “There must have been war to the death.”

  “Not at all. King Boiorix, you see, has taken to what you or I would call opening up negotiations. Until our summer journey through Long-haired Gaul, the Germans had revealed no interest in negotiating. Every time they’ve encountered one of our armies barring their progress, for instance, they’ve sent an embassage to us asking for permission to pass through our territory. We’ve always said no, naturally. So they ride away and they never come back for a second try. They’ve never dickered, or asked to sit down at a bargaining table, or attempted to find out if there was anything we’d be prepared to take from them in order to open up a fresh round of propositions. Whereas Boiorix has behaved very differently. He negotiated a passage through Long-haired Gaul for the Cimbri.”

  “Did he now? What did he bargain with?”

  “He bought the Gauls and the Belgae off with meat, milk, butter—and work in the fields. He bartered his cattle for their beer and their wheat, and offered his warriors to help plough extra ground to grow enough for everyone,” said Sulla.

  Marius’s eyebrows worked furiously. “Clever barbarian!”

  “Indeed he is, Gaius Marius. And so in complete peace and amity we followed the Isara River north from the Sequana, and came finally to the lands of a tribe of Belgae called the Atuatuci. Basically, the Atuatuci are Germans who live along the Mosa River just downstream from the Sabis, and who also live on the edge of a vast forest they call the Arduenna. It stretches east from the Mosa all the way to the Mosella, and unless you’re a German, it’s impenetrable. The Germans of Germania proper live inside the forests, and use them in much the same way as we use fortifications.”

  Marius was thinking hard, for his eyebrows continued to writhe as if they had life of their own. “Continue, Lucius Cornelius. I’m finding the German Enemy more and more interesting.”

  Sulla inclined his head. “I thought you would. The Cherusci actually come from a part of Germania not so very far from the lands of the Atuatuci, and claim the Atuatuci are their kinsmen. So they had persuaded the Teutones, the Tigurini, and the Marcomanni to go with them to the lands of the Atuatuci while the Cimbri were away south looking up at the Pyrenees. But when we of the Cimbri came upon the scene late in Sextilis, it wasn’t a happy scene at all. The Teutones had antagonized the Atuatuci and the Cherusci to the point where there had been a lot of skirmishing, quite a few deaths, and an ill feeling that we Cimbri could see almost visibly growing.”

  “But King Boiorix fixed all that,” said Marius.

  “King Boiorix fixed all that!” Sulla said with a grin. “He settled the Atuatuci down and then called a grand council of the migrant Germans — Cimbri, Teutones, Tigurini, Cherusci, and Marcomanni. At the council he announced that he was not only the King of the Cimbri, but the King of all the Germans. He had to fight a few duels, but not with his only serious rivals, Teutobod of the Teutones and Getorix of the Tigurini. They thought a bit like Romans themselves, because they both decided they liked living and would have considerably more nuisance value to King Boiorix alive than dead.”

  “And how did you find all this out?’ ‘ asked Marius. “Had you become a chieftain by this? Did you sit listening?”

  Sulla tried to look modest, humility being a little too out of character. “As a matter of fact, I had become a thane. Not a very big thane, you understand, just big enough to be invited to the councils. My wife Hermana — she’s actually a member of the Cherusci, not the Cimbri— bore twin boys just as we reached the Mosa, and it was considered such a good omen that my status as tribal chief was elevated to group thane just in time to participate in the grand council of all the Germans.”

  Marius roared with laughter. “Do you mean to say that in years to come, some poor Roman is going to come up against a couple of little Germans who look like you?”

  “It’s possible,” said Sulla, grinning.

  “And a few little Quintus Sertoriuses as well?”

  “One, at least.”

  Marius sobered. “Continue, Lucius Cornelius.”

  “He’s very, very clever, our lad Boiorix. Whatever we do, we mustn’t underrate him because he’s a barbarian. Because he came up with a grand strategy you would have been proud to have thought of yourself. I do not exaggerate, believe me.”

  Marius tensed. “I believe you! What’s his grand strategy?”

  “As soon as the weather permits it next year — March at the latest — the Germans intend to invade Italy on three fronts,” said Sulla. “When I say March, I mean that’s when the whole eight hundred thousand of them are going to leave the lands of the Atuatuci. Boiorix has given everyone six months to complete the journey from the Mosa River to Italian Gaul.”

  Both Marius and Sulla leaned forward.

  “He’s divided them into three separate forces. The Teutones are to invade Italian Gaul from the west. They represent some quarter million of the total number. They’ll be led by their king, Teutobod, and at this stage they plan to travel down the Rhodanus and along the Ligurian coast toward Genua and Pisae. It’s my guess, however, that with Boiorix in charge of the whole invasion, before they start they’ll have changed their route to the Via Domitia and the Mons Genava Pass. Which will bring them out on the Padus at Taurasia.”

  “He’s learning some geography as well as some Latin, is he?” asked Marius grimly.

  “I told you, Boiorix is a reader. He’s also put Roman captives to the torture — not quite all of those we lost at Arausio died. If they fell to the Cimbri, Boiorix kept them alive until he found out what he wanted to know. One cannot blame our men for co-operating. “ Sulla pulled a face. “The Germans routinely resort to torture.”

  “So that means the Teutones will be following the same route as the whole host took before Arausio,” said Marius. “How are the others planning to enter Italian Gaul?” />
  “The Cimbri are the most numerous of the three great German divisions,” said Sulla. “All told, four hundred thousand of them at least. Where the Teutones go straight down the Mosa to the Arar and the Rhodanus, the Cimbri will move down the Rhenus all the way to Lake Brigantinus, go north of the lake over the watershed and down to the source of the Danubius. They’ll go east along the Danubius until they reach the Aenus, then down the Aenus and cross into Italian Gaul through the Pass of Brennus. Which will put them on the Athesis, near Verona.”

  “Led by King Boiorix himself,” said Marius, and humped his head into his shoulders. “I like it less and less.”

  “The third group is the smallest and least cohesive,” Sulla went on. “The Tigurini, Marcomanni, and Cherusci. About two hundred thousand of them. They’ll be led by Getorix of the Tigurini. At first Boiorix was going to send them in a straight line through the great German forests—the Hercynian, Gabreta, and so on— and have them strike south through Pannonia into Noricum. Then I think he wondered if they’d stick to it, and decided to make them travel with him down the Danubius to the Aenus. From there they’ll keep on going east along the Danubius until they reach Noricum, and turn south. They’ll enter Italian Gaul over the Carnic Alps, which will put them at Tergeste, with Aquileia not far away.”

  “And each segment has six months to make the journey, you say?” Marius asked. “Well, I can see the Teutones doing it, but the Cimbri have a much longer journey, and the hybrids the longest journey of all.”

  “And there you are mistaken, Gaius Marius,” said Sulla. “In actual fact, from the point on the Mosa where all three divisions start out, the distance each division travels is much the same. All involve crossing the Alps, but only the Teutones will cross through country they haven’t traversed before. The Germans have wandered everywhere through the Alps during the last eighteen years! They’ve been down the Danubius from its sources to Dacia; they’ve been down the Rhenus from its sources to the Helella; they’ve been down the Rhodanus from its sources to Arausio. They’re alpine veterans.”