The other Saturninus story is a lot funnier, as well as a lot more intriguing. I still haven’t worked out what our vindicated tribune of the plebs is up to.
About two weeks ago, a fellow turned up in the Forum and climbed up on the rostra—it was vacant at the time, there being no Comitial meeting and the amateur orators having decided to take a day off—and announced to the whole bottom end of the Forum that his name was Lucius Equitius, that he was a freedman Roman citizen from Firmum Picenum, and—now wait for it, Gaius Marius, it’s glorious!—that he was the natural son of none other than Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus!
He had his tale off pat, and it does hang together, as far as it goes. Briefly, it goes like this: his mother was a free Roman woman of good though humble standing, and fell in love with Tiberius Gracchus, who also fell in love with her. But of course her birth wasn’t good enough for marriage, so she became his mistress, and lived in a small yet comfortable house on one of Tiberius Gracchus’s country estates. In due time Lucius Equitius—his mother’s name was Equitia—was born.
Then Tiberius Gracchus was murdered and Equitia died not long after, leaving her small son to the care of Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi. But Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi was not amused at being appointed the guardian of her son’s bastard, and put him in the care of a slave couple on her own estates at Misenum. She then had him sold as a slave to people in Firmum Picenum.
He didn’t know who he was, he says. But if he has done the things he says he has, then he was no infant when his father, Tiberius Gracchus, died, in which case he’s lying. Anyway, sold into slavery in Firmum Picenum, he worked so diligently and became so beloved of his owners that when the paterfamilias died, he was not only manumitted, but fell heir to the family fortunes, there being no heirs of the flesh, so to speak. His education was excellent, so he took his inheritance and went into business. Over the next however many years, he served in our legions and made a fortune. To hear him talk, he ought to be about fifty years old, where in actual fact he looks about thirty.
And then he met a fellow who made a great fuss about his likeness to Tiberius Gracchus. Now he had always known he was Italian rather than foreign, and he had wondered greatly, he says, about his parentage. Emboldened by the discovery that he looked like Tiberius Gracchus, he traced the slave couple with whom Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi had boarded him for a while, and learned from them the story of his begetting. Isn’t it glorious? I haven’t made up my mind yet whether it’s a Greek tragedy or a Roman farce.
Well, of course our gullible sentimental Forum-frequenters went wild, and within a day or two Lucius Equitius was being feted everywhere as Tiberius Gracchus’s son. A pity his legitimate sons are all dead, isn’t it? Lucius Equitius does, by the way, bear a most remarkable resemblance to Tiberius Gracchus—quite uncanny, as a matter of fact. He speaks like him, walks like him, grimaces like him, even picks his nose the same way. I think the thing that puts me off Lucius Equitius the most is that the likeness is too perfect. A twin, not a son. Sons don’t resemble their fathers in every detail, I’ve noticed it time and time again, and there’s many a woman brought to bed of a son who is profoundly thankful for that fact, and expends a great deal of her postpartum energy assuring the sprog’s tata that the sprog is a dead ringer for her great-uncle Lucius Tiddlypuss. Oh, well!
Then the next thing all we old fogies of the Senate know, Saturninus takes this Lucius Equitius up, and starts climbing onto the rostra with him, and encourages Equitius to build a following. Thus, not a week had gone by before Equitius was the hero of everyone in Rome on an income lower than a tribune of the Treasury and higher than the Head Count—tradesmen, shopkeepers, artisans, smallholding farmers—the flower of the Third and Fourth and Fifth Classes. You know the people I mean. They worshiped the ground the Brothers Gracchi walked on, all those little honest hardworking men who don’t often get to vote, but vote in their tribes often enough to feel a distinct cut above freedmen and the Head Count. The sort who are too proud to take charity, yet not rich enough to survive astronomical grain prices.
The Conscript Fathers of the Senate, particularly those wearing purple-bordered togas, began to get a bit upset at all this popular adulation—and a bit worried too, thanks to the participation of Saturninus, who is the real mystery. Yet what could be done about it? Finally none other than our new Pontifex Maximus, Ahenobarbus (he’s got a new nickname and it’s sticking—pipinna!), proposed that the sister of the Brothers Gracchi (and the widow of Scipio Aemilianus, as if we could ever forget the brawls that particular married couple used to have!) should be brought to the Forum and hied up onto the rostra to confront the alleged imposter.
Three days ago it was done, with Saturninus standing off to one side grinning like a fool — only he isn’t a fool, so what’s he up to? — and Lucius Equitius gazing blankly at this wizened-up old crab apple of a woman. Ahenobarbus Pipinna struck a maximally pontifical pose, took Sempronia by the shoulders — she didn’t like that a bit, and shook him off like a hairy-legged spider — and asked in tones of thunder, “Daughter of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus Senior and Cornelia Africana, do you recognize this man?”
Of course she snapped that she’d never seen him before in her life, and that her dearest, most beloved brother Tiberius would never, never, never loosen the stopper of his wine flask outside the sacred bonds of marriage, so the whole thing was utter nonsense. She then began to belabor Equitius with her ivory and ebony walking stick, and it really did turn into the most outrageous mime you ever saw — I kept wishing Lucius Cornelius Sulla had been there. He would have reveled in it!
In the end Ahenobarbus Pipinna (I do love that nickname! Given to him by none other than Metellus Numidicus!) had to haul her down off the rostra while the audience screamed with laughter, and Scaurus fell about hooting himself to tears and only got worse when Pipinna and Piggle-wiggle and Piglet accused him of unsenatorial levity.
The minute Lucius Equitius had the rostra to himself again, Saturninus marched up to him and asked him if he knew who the old horror was. Equitius said no, he didn’t, which proved either that he hadn’t been listening when Ahenobarbus roared out his introduction, or he was lying. But Saturninus explained to him in nice short words that she was his Auntie Sempronia, the sister of the Brothers Gracchi. Equitius looked amazed, said he’d never set eyes on his Auntie Sempronia in all his astonishingly full life, and then said he’d be very surprised if Tiberius Gracchus had ever told his sister about the mistress and child in a snug little love nest down on one of the Sempronius Gracchus farms.
The crowd appreciated the good sense of this answer, and goes merrily on believing implicitly that Lucius Equitius is the natural son of Tiberius Gracchus. And the Senate—not to mention Ahenobarbus—is fulminating. Well, all except Saturninus, who smirks; Scaurus, who laughs; and me. Three guesses what I’m doing!
Publius Rutilius Rufus sighed and stretched his cramped hand, wishing that he could feel as uncomfortable writing a letter as Gaius Marius did; then perhaps he might not be driven to putting in all the delicious details which made the difference between a five-column missive and a fifty-five-column missive.
And that, dear Gaius Marius, is positively all. If I sit here a moment longer I’ll think of more entertaining tales, and end in falling asleep with my nose in the inkpot. I do wish there was a better—that is, a more traditionally Roman—way of going about safeguarding your command than running yet again for the consulship. Nor do I see how you can possibly pull it off. But I daresay you will. Keep in good health. Remember, you’re no spring chicken anymore, you’re an old boiler, so don’t go tail over comb and break any bones. I will write again when something interesting happens.
Gaius Marius got the letter at the beginning of November, and had just got it worked out so he could read it through with real enjoyment when Sulla turned up. That he was back for good he demonstrated by shaving off his now enormously long and drooping moustaches, and having his hair barbe
red. So while Sulla soaked blissfully in the bath, Marius read the letter out to him, and was ridiculously happy at having Sulla back to share such pleasures.
They settled in the general’s private study, Marius having issued instructions that he was not to be disturbed, even by Manius Aquillius.
“Take off that wretched torc!” Marius said when the properly Roman, tunic-clad Sulla leaned forward and brought the great gold thing into view.
But Sulla shook his head, smiling and fingering the splendid dragon heads which formed the ends of the torc’s almost complete circle. “No, I don’t think I ever will, Gaius Marius. Barbaric, isn’t it?”
“It’s wrong on a Roman,” grumbled Marius.
“The trouble is, it’s become my good-luck talisman, so I can’t take it off in case my luck goes with it.” He settled himself on a couch with a sigh of voluptuous ease. “Oh, the bliss of reclining like a civilized man again! I’ve been carousing bolt upright at tables with my arse on hard wooden benches for so long that I’d begun to think I had only dreamed there were races lay down to eat. And how good it is to be continent again! Gauls and Germans alike, they do everything to excess—eat and drink until they spew all over each other, or else starve half to death because they went out to raid or do battle without thinking to pack a lunch. Ah, but they’re fierce, Gaius Marius! Brave! I tell you, if they had one tenth of our organization and self-discipline, we couldn’t hope to beat them.”
“Luckily for us, they don’t have as much as a hundredth of either, so we can beat them. At least I think that’s what you’re saying. Here, drink this. It’s Falernian.”
Sulla drank, deeply, yet slowly. “Wine, wine, wine! Nectar of the gods, balm for the sore heart, glue for the shredded spirit! How did I ever exist without it?” He laughed. “I don’t care if I never see another horn of beer or tankard of mead in all the rest of my life! Wine is civilized. No belches, no farts, no distended belly—on beer, a man becomes a walking cistern.”
“Where’s Quintus Sertorius? All right, I hope?”
“He’s on his way, but we traveled separately, and I wanted to brief you alone, Gaius Marius,” said Sulla.
“Any way you want it, Lucius Cornelius, as long as I hear it,” said Marius, watching him with affection.
“I hardly know where to start.”
“At the beginning, then. Who are they? Where do they come from? How long has their migration been going on?”
Relishing his wine, Sulla closed his eyes. “They don’t call themselves Germani, and they don’t regard themselves as a single people. They are the Cimbri, the Teutones, the Marcomanni, the Cherusci, and the Tigurini. The original homeland of the Cimbri and the Teutones is a long, wide peninsula lying to the north of Germania, vaguely described by some of the Greek geographers, who called it the Cimbrian Chersonnese. It seems the half farthest north was the home of the Cimbri, and the half joining onto the mainland of Germania was the home of the Teutones. Though they regard themselves as separate peoples, it’s very difficult to see any physical characteristics peculiar to either people, though the languages are somewhat different—they can understand each other, however.
“They weren’t nomads, but they didn’t grow crops, and didn’t farm in our sense. It would seem that their winters were more wet than snowy, and that the soil produced wonderful grass all year round. So they lived with and off cattle, eked out by a little oats and rye. Beef eaters and milk drinkers, a few vegetables, a little hard black bread, and porridge.
“And then about the time that Gaius Gracchus died— almost twenty years ago, at any rate—they had a year of inundations. Too much snow on the mountains feeding their great rivers, too much rain from the skies, ferocious gales, and very high tides. The ocean Atlanticus covered the whole peninsula. And when the sea receded, they found the soil too saline to grow grass, and their wells brackish. So they built an army of wagons, gathered together the cattle and horses which had survived, and set off to find a new homeland.”
Marius was stiff with interest and excitement, sitting very straight in his chair, his wine forgotten. “All of them? How many were there?” he asked.
“Not all of them, no. The old and the feeble were knocked on the head and buried in huge barrows. Only the warriors, the younger women, and the children migrated. As far as I can estimate, about six hundred thousand started to walk southeast down the valley of the great river we call the Albis.”
“But I believe that part of the world is hardly peopled,” said Marius, frowning. “Why didn’t they stay along the Albis?”
Sulla shrugged. “Who knows, when they don’t? They just seem to have given themselves into the hands of their gods, and waited for some sort of divine signal to tell them they had found a new homeland. Certainly they didn’t seem to encounter much opposition as they walked, at least along the Albis. Eventually they came to the sources of the river, and saw high mountains for the first time in the memory of the race. The Cimbrian Chersonnese was flat and low-lying.”
“Obviously, if the ocean could flood it,” said Marius, and lifted a hand hastily. “No, I didn’t mean that sarcastically, Lucius Cornelius! I’m not good with words, or very tactful.” He got up to pour more wine into Sulla’s cup. “I take it that the mountains affected them powerfully?”
“Indeed. Their gods were sky gods, but when they saw these towers tickling the underbellies of the clouds, they began to worship the gods they were sure lived beneath the towers, and shoved them up out of the ground. They’ve never really been very far from mountains since. In the fourth year they crossed an alpine watershed, and passed from the headwaters of the Albis to the headwaters of the Danubius, a river we know more about, of course. And they turned east to follow the Danubius toward the plains of the Getae and the Sarmatae.”
“Was that where they were going, then?” Marius asked. “To the Euxine Sea?”
“It appears so,” said Sulla. “However, they were blocked by the Boii from entering the basin of northern Dacia, and so were forced to keep following the course of the Danubius where it bends sharply south into Pannonia.”
“The Boii are Celts, of course,” said Marius thoughtfully. “Celt and German didn’t mix, I take it.”
“No, they certainly didn’t. But the interesting thing is that nowhere have the Germans decided to stay put and fight for land. At the least sign of resistance from the local tribes, they’ve moved on. As they did away from the lands of the Boii. Then somewhere near the confluence of the Danubius with the Tisia and the Savus, they ran up against another wall of Celts, this time the Scordisci.”
“Our very own enemies, the Scordisci!” Marius exclaimed, grinning. “Well, isn’t it comforting to find out now that we and the Scordisci have a common enemy?”
One red-gold brow went up. “Considering that it happened about fifteen years ago and we knew nothing of it, it’s hardly comforting,” Sulla said dryly.
“I’m not saying anything right today, am I? Forgive me, Lucius Cornelius. You’ve been living it; I’m merely sitting here so excited at finding out at last that my tongue has developed a forest of thumbs,” said Marius.
“It’s all right, Gaius Marius, I do understand,” said Sulla, smiling.
“Go on, go on!”
“Perhaps one of their greatest problems was that they had no leader worthy of the name. Nor any semblance of a—a—master plan, for want of a better phrase to describe it. I think they just waited for the day when some great king would give them permission to settle down on some of his vacant land.”
“And of course great kings are not prone to do that,” said Marius.
“No. Anyway, they turned back and began to travel west,” Sulla went on, “only they left the Danubius. They followed the Savus first, then skewed a little north, and picked up the course of the Dravus, which they then tracked toward its sources. By this time they had been walking for over six years without staying for more than a few days anywhere.”
“They don’t travel on the wa
gons?” asked Marius.
“Rarely. They’re harnessed to cattle, so they’re not driven, just guided. If someone is ill or near term with a child, the wagon becomes a vehicle of transport, not otherwise,” said Sulla. He sighed. “And of course we all know what happened next. They entered Noricum, and the lands of the Taurisci.”
“Who appealed to Rome, and Rome sent Carbo to deal with the invaders, and Carbo lost his army,” said Marius.
“And, as always, the Germans turned away from trouble,” said Sulla. “Instead of invading Italian Gaul, they walked right into the high mountains, and came back to the Danubius a little to the east of its confluence with the Aenus. The Boii weren’t going to let them go east, so they headed west along the Danubius, through the lands of the Marcomanni. For reasons I haven’t been able to fathom, a large segment of the Marcomanni joined the Cimbri and the Teutones in this seventh year of the migration.”
“What about the thunderstorm?” Marius asked. “You know, the one which interrupted the battle between the Germans and Carbo, and saved at least some of Carbo’s men. There were those who believed the Germans took the storm as a sign of divine wrath, and that that was what saved us from invasion.”
“I doubt it,” said Sulla tranquilly. “Oh, I’m sure when the storm broke, the Cimbri—it was the Cimbri who fought Carbo; they were closest to his position—fled in terror, but I don’t believe it deflected them from Italian Gaul. The real answer seems simply to be that they never liked waging war to win territory for themselves.”
“How fascinating! And here we see them as slavering hordes of barbarians just thirsting for Italy.” Marius looked at Sulla keenly. “And what happened next?”
“Well, they followed the Danubius right to its sources this time. In the eighth year they were joined by a group of real Germans, the Cherusci, who came down from their lands around the Visurgis River, and in the ninth year by a people of Helvetia called the Tigurini, who seem to have lived to the east of Lake Lemanna, and are definitely Celts. As are, I believe, the Marcomanni. However, both the Marcomanni and the Tigurini are very Germanic Celts.”
Masters of Rome Boxset: First Man in Rome, the Grass Crown, Fortune's Favourites, Caesar's Women, Caesar Page 76