Masters of Rome Boxset: First Man in Rome, the Grass Crown, Fortune's Favourites, Caesar's Women, Caesar

by Colleen McCullough

  “No doubt,” said Scaurus blandly.

  “Then have young Marcus Livius send the bills for the grain to Quintus Servilius Caepio,” said Marius. “He’s got more money to pay for it than the Treasury has!”

  “That’s an unfounded allegation.”

  “Not according to King Copillus.”

  An uneasy, silence fell for a simmering moment before Sulla said, “How much of that Asian grain reaches us, Marcus Aemilius? I hear the pirate problem grows worse every year.”

  “About half, no more,” Scaurus said grimly. “Every hidden cove and harbor on the Pamphylian and Cilician coasts shelters pirates. Of course by trade they’re slavers, but if they can steal grain to feed the slaves they steal, then they’re sure of huge profits, aren’t they? And whatever grain they have left over, they sell back to us at twice the price we originally paid for it, if for no other reason than they guarantee it will reach us without being pirated—again.

  “Amazing,” said Marius, “that even among pirates there are middlemen. Because that’s what they are! Steal it, then sell it back to us. Pure profit. It’s time we did something, Princeps Senatus, isn’t it?”

  “It certainly is,” said Scaurus fervently.

  “What do you suggest?”

  “A special commission for one of the praetors—a roving governorship, if there is such an animal. Give him ships and marines, and charge him with flushing out every nest of pirates along the whole Pamphylian and Cilician coast,” said Scaurus.

  “We could call him the governor of Cilicia,” said Marius.

  “What a good idea!”

  “All right, Princeps Senatus, let’s call the Conscript Fathers together as soon as possible, and do it.”

  “Let’s,” said Scaurus, oozing charity. “You know, Gaius Marius, I may loathe everything you stand for, but I do love your capacity to act without turning the whole business into a new set of circus games.”

  “The Treasury will scream like a Vestal invited to dinner in a brothel,” said Marius, grinning.

  “Let it! If we don’t eradicate the pirates, trade between East and West will cease to be. Ships and marines,” said Scaurus thoughtfully. “How many, do you think?”

  “Oh, eight or ten full fleets, and, say—ten thousand trained marines. If we have that many,” said Marius.

  “We can get them,” Scaurus said confidently. “If necessary we can hire some at least from Rhodes, Halicarnassus, Cnidus, Athens, Ephesus—don’t worry, we’ll find them.”

  “It ought to be Marcus Antonius,” said Marius.

  “What, not your own brother?” asked Scaurus, aping surprise.

  But Marius grinned, unruffled. “Like me, Marcus Aemilius, my brother Marcus Marius is a landlubber. Where all the Antonii like going to sea.”

  Scaurus laughed. “When they’re not all at sea!”

  “True. But he’s all right, our praetor Marcus Antonius. He’ll do the job, I think.”

  “I think he will too.”

  “And in the meantime,” said Sulla, smiling, “the Treasury is going to be so busy whining and complaining about Marcus Aemilius’s grain purchases and pirate chasers that it won’t even notice how much money it’s paying out for Head Count armies. Because Quintus Lutatius will have to enlist a Head Count army too.”

  “Oh, Lucius Cornelius, you’ve been too long in the service of Gaius Marius!” said Scaurus.

  “I was thinking the same thing,” said Marius unexpectedly. But more than that he would not say.

  *

  Sulla and Marius left for Gaul-across-the-Alps late in February, having dealt with the obsequies and aftermath of Julilla; Marcia had agreed to remain in Sulla’s house to look after the children for the time being.

  “But,” she said in minatory tones, “you can’t expect me to be here forever, Lucius Cornelius. Now that I’m getting into my fifties, I have a fancy to move to the Campanian coast. My bones don’t like the damp city weather. You had better marry again, give those children a proper mother and some half brothers or half sisters to play with.’’

  “It will have to wait until the Germans are dealt with,” Sulla said, trying to keep his voice courteous.

  “Well, all right then, after the Germans,” said Marcia.

  “Two years hence,” he warned.

  “Two? One, surely!”

  “Perhaps, though I doubt it. Plan on two, Mother-in-law.”

  “Not a moment longer, Lucius Cornelius.”

  Sulla looked at her, one brow lifting quizzically. “You had better start looking for a suitable wife for me.”

  “Are you joking?”

  “No, I’m not joking!” Sulla cried, his patience worn a trifle thin of late. “How do you think I can go away to fight the Germans and also look inside Rome for a new wife? If you want to move out as soon as I’m home, then you’d better have a wife picked out and willing to be picked out.”

  “What sort of wife?”

  “I don’t care! Just make sure she’ll be kind to my little ones,” said Sulla.

  For this and other reasons, Sulla was very glad to leave Rome. The longer he remained there, the greater became his hunger to see Metrobius, and the more he saw Metrobius, the more he suspected he would want to see Metrobius. Nor could he exert the same influence and control over the grown Metrobius that he had over the boy; Metrobius was now of an age to feel that he too had something to say about how the relationship was to progress. Yes, it was best to be far from Rome! Only his children would he miss, dear little people they were. Enchanting. Utterly, uncritically loving. He would be away for many moons, but the moment he reappeared, they welcomed him with open arms and millions of kisses. Why shouldn’t adult love be like that? But the answer, he thought, was simple. Adult love was too concerned with self and with thinking.

  *

  Sulla and Marius had left the junior consul, Quintus Lutatius Catulus Caesar, in the throes of recruiting another army, and complaining loudly because it would have to be Head Count in composition.

  “Of course it has to be Head Count!” said Marius shortly. “And don’t come grizzling and mewling to me about it— it wasn’t I lost eighty thousand soldiers at Arausio, nor any of the rest we’ve wasted in battle!”

  That of course shut Catulus Caesar up, but in a tight-lipped, aristocratic way.

  “I wish you wouldn’t cast the crimes of his own sort in his face,” said Sulla.

  “Then let him stop casting the Head Count in my face!” growled Marius.

  Sulla gave up.

  Luckily things in Gaul were very much as they ought to be; Manius Aquillius had kept the army in good condition with more construction of bridges and aqueducts and plenty of drills. Quintus Sertorius had come back, but then returned to the Germans because, he said, he could be of better use there; he would go with the Cimbri on their trek, and report to Marius whenever he could. And the troops were beginning to quiver with eager anticipation at the thought that this year they’d see action.

  That year should have seen an extra February intercalated—inserted—into the calendar, but the difference between the old Pontifex Maximus, Dalmaticus, and Ahenobarbus, the new, now showed itself: Ahenobarbus could see no virtue in keeping the calendar in time with the seasons. So when the calendar March came around, it was still winter, for the calendar now began to move ahead of the actual seasons. In a year of only 355 days, an extra 20-day month had to be intercalated each two years, traditionally at the end of February. But it was a decision made by the College of Pontifices, and if the members were not kept up to the mark by a conscientious Pontifex Maximus, the calendar fell by the wayside, as it did now.

  Happily a letter arrived from Publius Rutilius Rufus not long after Sulla and Marius settled back into the routine of life in an army camp on the far side of the Alps.

  This is definitely going to be an event-filled year, so my main problem is knowing where to start. Of course everyone was just waiting for you to get out of the way, and I swear you hadn’
t got as far as Ocelum before there were mice and rats cavorting all over the lower end of the Forum. What a lovely play they’re having, O Cat!

  All right then, I’ll start with our precious pair of censors, Piggle-wiggle and his tame cousin Billy Goat. Piggle-wiggle has been going about for some time— well, since he was elected, really, only he was careful not to talk in your vicinity—saying that he intends to “purge the Senate,” I think he put it.

  One thing you can say for them, they’re not going to be a venal pair of censors, so all the State contracts will be gone into properly, and let according to price combined with merit. However, they’ve antagonized the Treasury already by demanding a large sum of money to repair and redecorate some of the temples not rich enough to pay themselves, not to mention fresh paint and marble latrine benches in the three State houses of the major flamines, also the houses of the Rex Sacrorum and the Pontifex Maximus. Personally I like my wooden latrine bench. Marble is so cold and hard! There was quite a lively little squabble when Piggle-wiggle mentioned the Domus Publicus of the Pontifex Maximus, the Treasury being of the opinion that our new P.M. is rich enough to donate paint and marble latrine benches.

  They then proceeded to let all the ordinary contracts—and did very well, I consider. Tenders were plentiful, bidding was brisk, and I doubt there’ll be much chicanery.

  They had moved with almost unheard-of speed to this point because what they really wanted to do, of course, was review the roll of senators and the roll of knights. Not two days after the contracts were all finished—I swear they’ve done eighteen months of work in less than one month!—Piggle-wiggle called a contio of the Assembly of the People to read out the censors’ findings on the moral plenitude or turpitude of the Conscript Fathers of the Senate. However, someone must have told Saturninus and Glaucia ahead of time that their names were going to be missing, because when the Assembly met, it was stuffed with hired gladiators and other bully-boys not normally to be found attending meetings of the Comitia.

  And no sooner did Piggle-wiggle announce that he and the Billy Goat were removing Lucius Appuleius Saturninus and Gaius Servilius Glaucia from the roll of senators, than the place erupted. The gladiators charged the rostra and hauled poor Piggle-wiggle down off it, then passed him from man to man slapping him viciously across the face with their huge and horny open hands. It was a novel technique—no clubs or billets of wood, just open hands. On the theory I suppose that hands cannot kill unless bunched into fists. Minimal violence, I heard it being called. How pathetic. It all happened so quickly and was so well organized that Piggle-wiggle had been passed all the way to the start of the Clivus Argentarius before Scaurus, Ahenobarbus, and a few other Good Men managed to pick him up and race him to asylum within the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. There they found his face twice its normal size, both eyes closed, his lips split in a dozen places, his nose spurting like a fountain, his ears mangled, and his brows cut. He looked for all the world like an old-time Greek boxer at the Olympic games.

  How do you like the word they’re attaching to the archconservative faction, by the way? Boni—the Good Men. Scaurus is going round claiming to have invented it after Saturninus began calling the archconservatives the Policy Makers. But he ought to remember that there are plenty of us old enough to know that both Gaius Gracchus and Lucius Opimius called the men of their factions the boni. Now back to my story!

  After he learned Cousin Numidicus was safe, Cousin Caprarius managed to restore order in the Comitia. He had his heralds blow their trumpets, then shouted out that he didn’t agree with his senior colleague’s findings, therefore Saturninus and Glaucia would remain on the senatorial rolls. You’d have to say Piggle-wiggle lost the engagement, but I don’t like friend Saturninus’s methods of fighting. He simply says he had nothing to do with the violence, but that he’s grateful the People are so vehemently on his side.

  You might be pardoned for thinking that was the end of it. But no! The censors then began their financial assessment of the knights, having had a handsome new tribunal built near the Pool of Curtius—a wooden structure, admittedly, but designed for their purpose, with a flight of steps up each side so those being interviewed are kept orderly—up one side, across the front of the censors’ desk, and down the other side. Well done. You know the routine—each knight or would-be knight must furnish documentary evidence of his tribe, his birthplace, his citizenship, his military service, his property and capital, and his income.

  Though it takes several weeks to discover whether in truth these applicants do have an income of at least 400,000 sesterces a year, the show always draws a good crowd on its first couple of days. As it did when Piggle-wiggle and the Billy Goat began to go through the equestrian rolls. He did look a sight, poor Piggle-wiggle! His bruises were more bilious-yellow than black, and the cuts had become a network of congested dark lines. Though his eyes had opened enough to see. He must have wished they hadn’t, when he saw what he saw in the afternoon of that first day on the new tribunal!

  None other than Lucius Equitius, the self-proclaimed bastard son of Tiberius Gracchus! The fellow strolled up the steps when his turn came, and stood in front of Numidicus, not Caprarius. Piggle-wiggle just froze as he took in the sight of Equitius attended by a small army of scribes and clerks, all loaded down with account books and documents. Then he turned to his own secretary and said the tribunal was closing for the day, so please to dismiss this creature standing in front of him.

  “You’ve got time to see me,” said Equitius.

  “All right then, what do you want?” he asked ominously.

  “I want to be enrolled as a knight,” said Equitius.

  “Not in this censors’ lustrum, you’re not!” snarled our Good Man Piggle-wiggle.

  I must say Equitius was patient. He said, rolling his eyes toward the crowd standing around the base of the tribunal—and it then became apparent that the gladiators and bully-boys were back—”You can’t turn me down, Quintus Caecidius. I fulfill all the criteria.”

  “You do not!” said Numidicus. “You are disqualified on the most basic ground of all—you are not a Roman citizen.”

  “But I am, esteemed censor,” said Equitius in a voice everyone could hear. “I became a Roman citizen on the death of my master, who bestowed it upon me in his will, along with all his property, and his name. That I have gone back to my mother’s name is immaterial. I have the proof of my manumission and adoption. Not only that, but I have served in the legions for ten years—and as a Roman citizen legionary, not an auxiliary.”

  “I will not enroll you as a knight, and when we commence the census of the Roman citizens, I will not enroll you as a Roman citizen,” said Numidicus.

  “But I am entitled,” said Equitius, very clearly. “I am a Roman citizen—my tribe is Suburana—1 served my ten years in the legions—I am a moral and respectable man—I own four insulae, ten taverns, a hundred iugera of land at Lanuvium, a thousand iugera of land at Firmum Picenum, a market porticus in Firmum Picenum—and I have an income of over four million sesterces a year, so I also qualify for the Senate.” And he snapped his fingers at his head clerk, who snapped his fingers at the minions, all of whom stepped forward holding out huge collections of papers. “I have proof, Quintus Caecilius.”

  “I don’t care how many bits of paper you produce, you vulgar lowborn mushroom—and I don’t care who you bring forward to witness for you, you sucking bag of greed!” cried Piggle-wiggle. “I will not enroll you as a citizen of Rome, let alone as a member of the Ordo Equester! I piss on you, pimp! Now be off!”

  Equitius turned to face the crowd, spread his arms wide—he was wearing a toga—and spoke. “Do you hear that?” he asked. “I, Lucius Equitius, son of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, am denied my citizenship as well as my knight’s status!”

  Piggle-wiggle got to his feet so fast and moved so fast that Equitius didn’t even see him coming; the next thing, our valiant censor landed a right on Equitius’s jaw, and down Equitius
went on his arse, sitting gaping up with his brains rattling round in their bone-box. Then Piggle-wiggle followed the punch with a kick that sent Equitius slithering off the edge of the tribunal into the crowd.

  “I piss on the lot of you!” he roared, shaking his fists at the spectators and gladiators. “Be off with you, and take that non-Roman turd with you!”

  So it happened all over again, only this time the gladiators didn’t touch Piggle-wiggle’s face. They dragged him off the tribunal and took to his body with fists, nails, teeth, and boots. In the end it was Saturninus and Glaucia—I forgot to tell you that they were lurking in the background—who stepped forward and pulled Numidicus out of the ranks of his attackers. I imagine it was no part of their plan to have Numidicus dead. Then Saturninus climbed up on the tribunal and quietened everyone enough for Caprarius to make himself heard.

  “I do not agree with my colleague, and I will take it upon myself to admit Lucius Equitius into the ranks of the Ordo Equester!” he yelled, white-faced, poor fellow. I don’t think he ever saw so much violence on any of his military campaigns.

  “Enter Lucius Equitius’s name!” roared Saturninus.

  And Caprarius entered the name in the rolls.

  “Home, everyone!” said Saturninus.

  And everyone promptly went home, carrying Lucius Equitius on their shoulders.

  Piggle-wiggle was a mess. Lucky not to be dead, is my opinion. Oh, he was angry! And went at Cousin Billy Goat like a shrew for giving in yet again. Poor old Billy Goat was just about in tears, and quite incapable of defending his actions.

  “Maggots! Maggots, the lot of them!” Piggle-wiggle kept saying, over and over, while we all tried to bind up his ribs—he had several broken ones—and discover what other injuries his toga was hiding. And yes, it was all very foolish, but ye gods, Gaius Marius, one has to admire Piggle-wiggle’s courage!

  Marius looked up from the letter, frowning. “I wonder exactly what Saturninus is up to?” he asked.

  But Sulla’s mind was dwelling upon a far less important point. “Plautus!” he said suddenly.