What he hadn’t been able to see was how to extricate himself from his dilemma without losing face, and at first Sulla’s invasion of his pre-battle conference had seemed the perfect answer; he could blame it on a mutiny, and thunder in the House, and arrange for the treason trials of every officer involved, from Sulla down to the least centurion. But that solution hadn’t lasted more than a very few moments. Mutiny was the most serious crime in the military manual, but a mutiny which saw him standing alone against every other officer in his entire army (he had quickly seen from their faces that none of the men who had been closeted with him when Sulla walked in would refuse to join the mutiny) smacked a great deal more of common sense overcoming monumental stupidity. If there had never been an Arausio—if Caepio and Mallius Maximus had not forever besmirched the concept of the Roman general’s imperium in the eyes of the Roman People—and even some factions within the Senate—then it might have been different. As it was, he understood very quickly after Sulla’s appearance that were he to continue to insist a mutiny had taken place, it was he himself who would suffer in the eyes of the Roman world, he himself who might well end in being arraigned in the special treason court set up by Saturninus.
Consequently, Quintus Lutatius Catulus Caesar drew a deep breath and embarked upon conciliation. “Let me hear no more talk of mutiny, Lucius Cornelius,” he said. “There was no need for you to make your feeling so public. You should have come to see me privately. Had you only done so, matters could have been sorted out between the two of us alone.”
“I disagree, Quintus Lutatius,” said Sulla smoothly. “If I had come to you privately, you’d have sent me about my business. You needed an object lesson.”
Catulus Caesar’s lips tightened; he looked down his long Roman nose, a handsome member of a handsome clan, fair of hair and blue of eye, his hauteur armed for battle. “You’ve been with Gaius Marius far too long, you know,” he said. “This sort of conduct doesn’t accord with your patrician status.”
Sulla slapped his hand against his leather skirt of straps so loudly its fringes and metal ornaments clattered. “Oh, for the sake of all the gods, let’s forget this family claptrap, Quintus Lutatius! I’m fed up to vomit-point with exclusivity! And before you start ranting on about our mutual superior, Gaius Marius, let me remind you that when it comes to soldiering and generaling, he outshines us the way the Alexandrian lighthouse dims a single piddling candle! You’re not a natural military man any more than I am! But where I have the advantage of you is that I learned my craft in apprenticeship to the lighthouse of Alexandria, so my candle burns brighter than yours!”
“That man is overrated!” said Catulus Caesar between his clenched teeth.
“Oh no, he’s not! Bleat and bellow about it as hard as you like, Quintus Lutatius, Gaius Marius is the First Man in Rome! The man from Arpinum took on the lot of you single-handed, and beat you hollow.”
“I’m surprised you’re such an adherent—but I promise you, Lucius Cornelius, that I won’t ever forget it.”
“I’ll bet you won’t,” said Sulla grimly.
“I do advise you, Lucius Cornelius, to change your loyalties somewhat in years to come,” Catulus Caesar said. “If you don’t, you’ll never become praetor, let alone consul!”
“Oh, I do like naked threats!” said Sulla conversationally. “Who are you trying to fool? I have the birth, and if the time should come when it’s to your advantage to woo me, woo me you will!” He looked at Catulus Caesar slyly. “One day, you know, I’ll be the First Man in Rome. The tallest tree in the world, just like Gaius Marius. And the thing about trees so tall is that no one can chop them down. When they fall, they fall because they rot from within.”
Catulus Caesar did not answer, so Sulla flung himself into a chair and leaned forward to pour himself wine.
“Now about our mutiny, Quintus Lutatius. Disabuse yourself of any belief you might be cherishing that I don’t have the gumption to follow this through to its bitterest end.”
“I admit I don’t know you at all, Lucius Cornelius, but I’ve got sufficient measure of your steel these last couple of months to understand there’s very little you’re unwilling to do to get your own way,’’ said Catulus Caesar. He looked down at his old iron senator’s ring as if he could draw inspiration from it. “I said before, and I say it again now, let there be no more talk of mutiny.’’ He swallowed audibly. “I shall abide by the army’s decision to retreat. On one condition. That the word ‘mutiny’ is never mentioned to anyone ever again.”
“On behalf of the army, I agree,” said Sulla.
“I would like to order the retreat personally. After that— I presume your strategy is already worked out?”
“It’s absolutely necessary that you order the retreat personally, Quintus Lutatius. Including to the men waiting outside for us to emerge,” said Sulla. “And yes, I do have a strategy worked out. A very simple strategy. At dawn the army will pull up stakes and move out as quickly as it possibly can. Everyone must be over the bridge and south of Tridentum before tomorrow’s nightfall. The Samnite auxiliaries are lying closest to the bridge, therefore they can guard it until everyone else is over, then cross it themselves in last place. I need the entire corps of engineers immediately, because the moment the last Samnite is over the bridge, it must come down. The pity of it is that it’s built on stone piers we won’t have the opportunity to dismantle, so the Germans will be able to rebuild the bridge. However, they’re not engineers, and that means the job will take them far longer than it would us, and their structure may fall apart a few times as Boiorix brings his people across. If he wants to go south, he has to cross the river here at Tridentum. So we must slow him down.”
Catulus Caesar rose to his feet. “Then let’s get this farce over and done with.” He walked outside and stood calmly, completely in control of his outer self; the repairing of dignitas and auctoritas was already beginning. “Our position here is untenable, so I am ordering a full retreat,” he said, crisply and clearly. “I have given Lucius Cornelius full instructions as to how to proceed, so you will take your orders from him. However, I wish to make it plain that the word ‘mutiny’ has never been spoken. Is that understood?”
The officers murmured assent, profoundly glad that the word “mutiny” could be forgotten.
Catulus Caesar turned to go back inside. “You are dismissed,” he said over his shoulder.
As the group scattered, Gnaeus Petreius fell in beside Sulla, and walked with him toward the bridge. “That went pretty well, I consider, Lucius Cornelius. He did better than I thought he would. Better than others of his kind, I swear.’’
“Oh, he has a brain behind all that grand manner,” said Sulla easily. “But he’s right, ‘mutiny’ is a word never spoken.”
“You won’t hear it from my lips!” said Petreius fervently.
It was fully dark, but the bridge was lit by torches, so they crossed its chinked logs without difficulty. At its far end Sulla ran ahead of the centurions and tribunes following him and Petreius, and turned round to face them.
“All troops ready to roll at the first sign of light,” he said. “Corps of engineers and all centurions are to report to me here one hour before first light. Tribunes of the soldiers, come with me now.”
“Oh, I’m glad we’ve got him!” said Gnaeus Petreius to his second centurion.
“So am I, but I’m not a bit glad we’ve got him,” said the second centurion, pointing in the direction of Marcus Aemilius Scaurus Junior, hurrying after Sulla and his fellow tribunes.
Petreius grunted. “I agree, he is a bit of a worry. Still, I’ll keep an eye on him tomorrow. ‘Mutiny’ may be a word none of us has heard, but our men of Samnium aren’t going to be misled by a Roman idiot, no matter who his father is.”
*
At dawn the legions began to move out. The retreat began—as all maneuvers did among well-trained Roman troops—with remarkable silence and no confusion whatsoever. The legion farthest from t
he bridge crossed it first, then was followed by the legion next farthest from the bridge, so that the army in effect rolled itself up like a carpet. Luckily the baggage train and all the beasts of burden save a handful of horses reserved for the use of the most senior officers had been kept to the south of the village and the bridge; Sulla got these started down the road at first light well ahead of the legions, and had issued orders that half of the army would bypass the baggage train when it caught up, while the other half followed it all the way down to Verona. For if they got clear of Tridentum, Sulla knew the Cimbri wouldn’t move fast enough to see their dust.
As it turned out, the Cimbri were so busy scouting the tracks terracing the mountainsides that it was a full hour after the sun rose before they realized the Roman force was in retreat. Then confusion reigned until Boiorix arrived in person and got his enormous mass of men into some semblance of order. In the meantime the Roman column had indeed moved fast; when the Cimbri finally formed up to attack, the farthest legion from the bridge was already marching at the double across it.
The corps of engineers had worked feverishly among the beams and struts beneath the causeway from well before dawn.
“It’s always the same!” complained the chief of engineers to Sulla when he came to see how the work was progressing. “I always have to deal with a properly built Roman bridge just when I want the wretched thing to fall apart with a gentle tug.”
“Can you do it?” asked Sulla.
“Hope so, legatus! There’s not a bit of lashing or a bolt in the thing, though. Proper sockets and tongues, everything rabbeted together to hold it down, not up. So I can’t pull it apart in a hurry without a bigger crane than any we’ve got with us, even if I had time to assemble a crane that big, which I don’t. No, it’s the hard way, I’m afraid, and that means it’s going to be a bit wobbly when the last of our men are tramping across it,” said the chief engineer.
Sulla frowned. “What’s the hard way?”
“We’re sawing through the main struts and beams.”
“Then keep at it, man! I’ve got a hundred oxen coming to give you that gentle tug—enough?”
“It’ll have to be,” said the chief engineer, and moved off to look at the job from a different angle.
The Cimbric cavalry came shrieking and screaming down the valley, taking the deserted hurdles of five Roman camps in their stride, for these were routine walls and ditches; there hadn’t been sufficient time to build anything else. Only the Samnite legion was left on the far side of the bridge, and was actually in the process of marching out of the main gate of its camp when the Cimbri flashed between them and the bridge, cutting them off. The Samnites turned files into ranks and prepared to withstand the coming charge, spears at the ready, faces set.
Watching helplessly from the opposite side of the bridge, Sulla waited for the first rush of cavalry to go by and wheel their horses, straining to see what the Samnite legion commander was going to do. This was young Scaurus, and now Sulla began to fret that he hadn’t removed this timid son of an intrepid father and taken over command himself. But it was too late now; he couldn’t recross the bridge because he didn’t have enough men with him, and he didn’t trust Catulus Caesar to see to the retreat, which meant he himself had to survive. Nor did he want to draw the Cimbri’s attention to the existence of the bridge, for if they turned their barbarian eyes toward it, there plain to see were five Roman legions and a baggage train marching south and begging for pursuit. If necessary, he decided, he would have the oxen start to haul on the chains connecting them to the undermined bridge; but the moment he did that, there was no hope for the Samnite legion.
“Lead a charge, young Scaurus, lead a charge north!” he found himself muttering. “Roll them back, get your men to the bridge!”
The Cimbric cavalry was turning, its front ranks carried far past the Samnite camp by the impetus of their charge, and the ranks in the rear pulled back on their mounts to give the front ranks room to turn and gallop back; the whole press would then fall upon the Samnite camp, leap their horses up and over, and trample everything down so that the hordes of foot warriors could finish things off. From that point on, the cavalry would turn itself into a giant scoop, pushing the Samnites north into the mass of Cimbric infantry.
The only chance the Samnites had was to drive across the front of the rear ranks of horsemen and cut the front ranks off from this reinforcement, then bring down the mounts of both ranks with their spears, while those not engaged made a dash for the bridge. But where was young Scaurus? Why wasn’t he doing it? A few moments more, and it would be too late!
The cheering of the three centuries of men Sulla had with him actually preceded his own view of the Samnite charge, for he was looking for a horse-mounted tribune of the soldiers, while the charge was led by a man on foot. Gnaeus Petreius, the Samnite primus pilus centurion.
Yelling along with the rest of his men, Sulla hopped and danced from one foot to the other as the Samnites not engaged began to stream across the bridge at a run, packing their numbers so close together that they gave the Cimbri no room to cut them off a second time. The front ranks of Cimbric horses were falling in hundreds before the rain of Samnite spears, warriors struggling to free themselves from fallen steeds, tangling themselves into an ever-increasing chaos as more Samnite spears hurtled to stick into heaving equine sides, chests, rumps, necks, flanks; and the rear ranks of Cimbric horse penned on the other side of the Samnites fared no better. In the end it was their own fallen cavalry which kept the Cimbric foot away. And Gnaeus Petreius came across the bridge behind the last of his men with hardly a German in pursuit.
The oxen had been putting their shoulders to the job long before this happened, for the hundred beasts harnessed two abreast couldn’t gather impetus in under many moments, the lead beasts pulling, then the next, and so on down the fifty pairs until the chains tightened and the bridge began to feel the strain. Being a good stout Roman bridge, it held for much longer than even the chief of engineers—a pessimistic fellow, like all his breed—had thought; but eventually one of the struts parted company with its companions, and amid groans, snaps, pops, and roars the Tridentine bridge across the Athesis gave way. Its timbers tumbled into the torrent and whirled away downstream like straws bobbing about in a garden fountain.
Gnaeus Petreius was wounded in the side, but not badly; Sulla found him sitting while the legion’s surgeons peeled away his mail shirt, his face streaked with a mixture of mud, sweat, and horse dung, but looking remarkably fit and alert nonetheless.
“Don’t touch that wound until you’ve got him clean, you mentulae!” Sulla snarled. “Wash every last bit of dung off him first! He’s not going to bleed to death, are you, Gnaeus Petreius?”
“Not Gnaeus Petreius!” said the centurion, grinning broadly. “We did it, eh, Lucius Cornelius? We got ‘em all across, and only a handful of dead on the other side!”
Sulla sank down beside him and leaned his head too close to the centurion’s to permit of anyone’s overhearing. “What happened to young Scaurus?”
Down went Petreius’s lips. “Got a dose of the shits while he should have been thinking, then when I kept pushing him as to what to do, he passed out on me. Just fell over in a faint. He’s all right, poor young chap; some of the lads carried him over the bridge. Pity, but there it is. None of his dad’s guts, none at all. Ought to have been a librarian.”
“I can’t tell you how glad I am you were there, and not some other primus pilus. I just didn’t think! The moment I did, I kicked myself because I didn’t relieve him of the command myself,” said Sulla.
“Doesn’t matter, Lucius Cornelius, it all worked out in the end. At least this way, he knows his limitations.”
The surgeons were back with enough water and sponges to wash off a dozen men; Sulla got up to let them get to work, extending his right arm. Gnaeus Petreius held up his own, and the two men expressed everything they felt in that handshake.
“It’s the grass
crown for you,” said Sulla.
“No!” said Petreius, looking embarrassed.
“But yes. You saved a whole legion from death, Gnaeus Petreius, and when a man single-handedly saves a whole legion from death, he wears the grass crown. I shall see to it myself,” said Sulla.
Was that the grass crown Julilla had seen in his future all those years ago? wondered Sulla as he headed off down the slope to the town to organize wagon transportation for Gnaeus Petreius, the hero of Tridentum. Poor Julilla! Poor, poor Julilla… She never had managed to do anything right, so perhaps that extended to her brushes against the strange manifestations of Fortune. The sole Julia not born with the gift of making her men happy, that had been Julilla. Then his mind passed to other, more important things; Lucius Cornelius Sulla was not about to start blaming himself for Julilla. Her fate had nothing to do with him; she brought it on herself.
*
Catulus Caesar had his army back in the camp outside Verona before Boiorix was able to get the last of his wagons across the last of several rickety bridges, and commence the downhill trek to the lush plains of the Padus River. At first Catulus Caesar had insisted they stand and fight the Cimbri near Lake Benacus, but Sulla, firmly in the saddle now, would not countenance it. Instead, he made Catulus Caesar send word to every city and town and village from Aquileia in the east to Comum and Mediolanum in the west: Italian Gaul-across-the-Padus was to be evacuated by all Roman citizens, Latin Rights holders, and Gauls unwilling to fraternize with the Germans. The refugees were to move south of the Padus and leave Italian Gaul-across-the-Padus completely to the Cimbri.
“They’ll be like pigs in acorn mush,” said Sulla confidently, veteran of a year of living among the Cimbri. “When they get a taste of the pastures and the peace between Lake Benacus and the north bank of the Padus, Boiorix won’t be able to hold his people together. They’ll scatter in a hundred different directions, you wait and see.”
Masters of Rome Boxset: First Man in Rome, the Grass Crown, Fortune's Favourites, Caesar's Women, Caesar Page 84