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

by Colleen McCullough

  “Oh, this is going to be tremendous fun!” cried Pompey.

  And such was the contentment in the command tent that no one found this statement too flippant; even Marcus Terentius Varro, sitting quietly in a corner taking notes.

  *

  The strategy worked. While Metellus Pius hustled himself, Varro Lucullus and five legions to Ancona, the other six plus the cavalry pretended to be eleven. Then Pompey and Crassus moved out of the camp and crossed the Aesis without opposition; Carbo had decided, it seemed, to lure them toward Ariminum, no doubt planning a decisive battle on ground more familiar to him.

  Pompey led the way with his cavalry, hard on the heels of Carbo’s rear guard, cavalry commanded by Censorinus, and nipped those heels with satisfying regularity. These tactics irritated Censorinus, never a patient man; near the town of Sena Gallica he turned and fought, cavalry against cavalry. Pompey won; he was developing a talent for commanding horse. Into Sena Gallica the smarting Censorinus retreated with infantry and cavalry both—but not for long. Pompey stormed its modest fortifications.

  Censorinus then did the sensible thing. He sacrificed his horse, made off through the back gate of Sena Gallica with eight legions of infantry, and headed for the Via Flaminia.

  By this time Carbo had learned of the unwelcome presence of the Piglet and his army in Faventia; Norbanus was now cut off from Ariminum. So Carbo marched for Faventia, leaving Carrinas to follow him with eight more legions; Censorinus, he decided, would have to fend for himself.

  But then came Brutus Damasippus to find Carbo as he marched, and gave him the news that Sulla had annihilated the army of Young Marius at Sacriportus. Sulla was now heading up the Via Cassia toward the border of Italian Gaul at Arretium, though all the troops he had were three legions. In that instant, Carbo changed his plans. Only one thing could be done. Norbanus would have to hold Italian Gaul unaided against Metellus Pius; Carbo and his legates must halt Sulla at Arretium, not a difficult thing to do when Sulla had but three legions.

  *

  Pompey and Crassus got the news of Sulla’s victory over Young Marius at just about the same time as Carbo did, and hailed it with great jubilation. They turned westward to follow Carrinas and Censorinus, each now bringing eight legions to Carbo at Arretium on the Via Cassia. The pace was furious, the pursuit determined. And this, decided Pompey as he headed with Crassus for the Via Flaminia, was no campaign for cavalry; they were heading into the mountains. Back to the Aesis he sent his horse—troopers, and resumed command of his father’s veterans. Crassus, he had discovered, seemed content to follow his lead as long as what Pompey suggested added up to the right answers inside that hard round Crassus head.

  Again it was the presence of so many veterans made the real difference; Pompey and Crassus caught up to Censorinus on a diverticulum of the Via Flaminia between Fulginum and Spoletium, and didn’t even need to fight a battle. Exhausted, hungry, and very afraid, the troops of Censorinus disintegrated. All Censorinus managed to retain were three of his eight legions, and these precious soldiers he determined must be saved. He marched them off the road and cut across country to Arretium and Carbo. The men of his other five legions had scattered so completely that none of them afterward were ever successfully amalgamated into new units.

  Three days later Pompey and Crassus apprehended Carrinas outside the big and well-fortified town of Spoletium. This time a battle did take place, but Carrinas fared so poorly that he was forced to shut himself up inside Spoletium with three of his eight legions; three more of his legions fled to Tuder and went to earth there; and the last two disappeared, never to be found.

  “Oh, wonderful!” whooped Pompey to Varro. “I see how I can say bye—bye to stolid old Crassus!”

  This he did by hinting to Crassus that he should take his three legions to Tuder and besiege it, leaving Pompey to bring his own men to bear on Spoletium. Off went Crassus to Tuder, very happy at the thought of conducting his own campaign. And Pompey sat down before Spoletium in high fettle, aware that whoever sat down before Spoletium would collect most of the glory because this was where General Carrinas himself had taken refuge. Alas, things didn’t work out as Pompey had envisaged! Astute and daring, Carrinas sneaked out of Spoletium during a nocturnal thunderstorm and stole away to join Carbo with all three of his legions intact.

  Pompey took Carrinas’s defection very personally; fascinated, Varro learned what a Pompeian temper tantrum looked like, complete with tears, gnawed knuckles, plucked tufts of hair, drumming of heels and fists on the floor, broken cups and plates, mangled furniture. But then, like the nocturnal thunderstorm so beneficial to Carrinas, Pompey’s thwarted rage rolled away.

  “We’re off to Sulla at Clusium,” he announced. “Up with you, Varro! Don’t dawdle so!”

  Shaking his head, Varro tried not to dawdle.

  *

  It was early in June when Pompey and his veterans marched into Sulla’s camp on the Clanis River, there to find the commander-in-chief a trifle sore and battered of spirit. Things had not gone very well for him when Carbo had come down from Arretium toward Clusium, for Carbo had nearly won the battle which developed out of a chance encounter, and therefore could not be planned. Only Sulla’s presence of mind in breaking off hostilities and retiring into a very strong camp had saved the day.

  “Not that it matters,” said Sulla, looking greatly cheered. “You’re here now, Pompeius, and Crassus isn’t far away. Having both of you will make all the difference. Carbo is finished.”

  “How did Metellus Pius get on?” Pompey asked, not pleased to hear Sulla mention Crassus in the same breath.

  “He’s secured Italian Gaul. Brought Norbanus to battle outside Faventia, while Varro Lucullus—he’d had to go all the way to Placentia to find asylum—took on Lucius Quinctius and Publius Albinovanus near Fidentia. All went splendidly. The enemy is scattered or dead.”

  “What about Norbanus himself?”

  Sulla shrugged; he never cared very much what happened to his military foes once they were beaten, and Norbanus had not been a personal enemy. “I imagine he went to Ariminum,” he said, and turned away to issue instructions about Pompey’s camp.

  Sure enough, Crassus arrived the following day from Tuder at the head of three rather surly and disgruntled legions; rumor was rife among their ranks that after Tuder fell, Crassus had found a fortune in gold and kept the lot.

  “Is it true?” demanded Sulla, the deep folds of his face grown deeper, his mouth set so hard its lips had disappeared.

  But nothing could dent that bovine composure. Crassus’s mild grey eyes widened, he looked puzzled but unconcerned. “No.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “There was nothing to be had in Tuder beyond a few old women, and I didn’t fancy a one.”

  Sulla shot him a suspicious glance, wondering if Crassus was being intentionally insolent; but if so, he couldn’t tell. “You are as deep as you are devious, Marcus Crassus,” he said at last. “I will accord you the dispensations of your family and your standing, and elect to believe you. But take fair warning! If ever I discover that you have profited at the expense of the State out of my aims and endeavors, I will never see you again.”

  “Fair enough,” said Crassus, nodding, and ambled off.

  Publius Servilius Vatia had listened to this exchange, and smiled now at Sulla. “One cannot like him,” he said.

  “There are few men this one does like,” said Sulla, throwing his arm around Vatia’s shoulders. “Aren’t you lucky, Vatia?”

  “Why?”

  “I happen to like you. You’re a good fellow—never exceed your authority and never give me an argument. Whatever I ask you to do, you do.” He yawned until his eyes watered. “I’m dry. A cup of wine, that’s what I need!”

  A slender and attractive man of medium coloring, Vatia was not one of the patrician Servilii; his family, however, was more than ancient enough to pass the most rigorous of social examinations, and his mother was one of the most a
ugust Caecilii Metelli, the daughter of Metellus Macedonicus—which meant he was related to everybody who mattered. Including, by marriage, Sulla. So he felt comfortable with that heavy arm across his back, and turned within Sulla’s embrace to walk beside him to the command tent; Sulla had been imbibing freely that day, needed a little steadying.

  “What will we do with these people when Rome is mine?’’ asked Sulla as Vatia helped him to a full goblet of his special wine; Vatia took his own wine from a different flagon, and made sure it was well watered.

  “Which people? Crassus, you mean?”

  “Yes, Crassus. And Pompeius Magnus.” Sulla’s lip curled up to show his gum. “I ask you, Vatia! Magnus! At his age!”

  Vatia smiled, sat on a folding chair. “Well, if he’s too young, I’m too old. I should have been consul six years ago. Now, I suppose I never will be.”

  “If I win, you’ll be consul. Never doubt it. I am a bad enemy, Vatia, but a stout friend.”

  “I know, Lucius Cornelius,” said Vatia tenderly.

  “What do I do with them?” Sulla asked again.

  “With Pompeius, I can see your difficulty. I cannot imagine him settling back into inertia once the fighting is over, and how do you keep him from aspiring to offices ahead of his time?”

  Sulla laughed. “He’s not after office! He’s after military glory. And I think I will try to give it to him. He might come in quite handy.” The empty cup was extended to be refilled. “And Crassus? What do I do with Crassus?”

  “Oh, he’ll look after himself,” said Vatia, pouring. “He will make money. I can understand that. When his father and his brother Lucius died, he should have inherited more than just a rich widow. The Licinius Crassus fortune was worth three hundred talents. But of course it was confiscated. Trust Cinna! He grabbed everything. And poor Crassus didn’t have anything like Catulus’s clout.”

  Sulla snorted. “Poor Crassus, indeed! He stole that gold from Tuder, I know he did.”

  “Probably,” said Vatia, unruffled. “However, you can’t pursue it at the moment. You need the man! And he knows you do. This is a desperate venture.”

  *

  The arrival of Pompey and Crassus to swell Sulla’s army was made known to Carbo immediately. To his legates he turned a calm face, and made no mention of relocating himself or his forces. He still outnumbered Sulla heavily, which meant Sulla showed no sign of breaking out of his camp to invite another battle. And while Carbo waited for events to shape themselves, tell him what he must do, news came first from Italian Gaul that Norbanus and his legates Quinctius and Albinovanus were beaten, that Metellus Pius and Varro Lucullus held Italian Gaul for Sulla. The second lot of news from Italian Gaul was more depressing, if not as important. The Lucanian legate Publius Albinovanus had lured Norbanus and the rest of his high command to a conference in Ariminum, then murdered all save Norbanus himself before surrendering Ariminum to Metellus Pius in exchange for a pardon. Having expressed a wish to live in exile somewhere in the east, Norbanus had been allowed to board a ship. The only legate who escaped was Lucius Quinctius, who was in Varro Lucullus’s custody when the murders happened.

  A tangible gloom descended upon Carbo’s camp; restless men like Censorinus began to pace and fume. But still Sulla would not offer battle. In desperation, Carbo gave Censorinus something to do; he was to take eight legions to Praeneste and relieve the siege of Young Marius. Ten days after departing, Censorinus was back. It was impossible to relieve Young Marius, he said—the fortifications Ofella had built were impregnable. Carbo sent a second expedition to Praeneste, but only succeeded in losing two thousand good men when Sulla ambushed them. A third force set off under Brutus Damasippus to find a road over the mountains and break into Praeneste along the snake—paths behind it. That too failed; Brutus Damasippus looked, abandoned all hope, and returned to Clusium and Carbo.

  Even the news that the paralyzed Samnite leader Gaius Papius Mutilus had assembled forty thousand men in Aesernia and was going to send them to relieve Praeneste had no power now to lift Carbo’s spirits; his depression deepened every day. Nor did his attitude of mind improve when Mutilus sent him a letter saying his force would be seventy thousand, not forty thousand, as Lucania and Marcus Lamponius were sending him twenty thousand men, and Capua and Tiberius Gutta another ten thousand.

  There was only one man Carbo really trusted, old Marcus Junius Brutus, his proquaestor. And so to Old Brutus he went as June turned into Quinctilis, and still no decision had come to him capable of easing his mind.

  “If Albinovanus would stoop to murdering men he’d laughed and eaten with for months, how can I possibly be sure of any of my own legates?’’ he asked.

  They were strolling down the three—mile length of the Via Principalis, one of the two main avenues within the camp, and wide enough to ensure their conversation was private.

  Blinking slowly in the sunlight, the old man with the blued lips made no quick, reassuring answer; instead, he turned the question over in his mind, and when he did reply, said very soberly, “I do not think you can be sure, Gnaeus Papirius.”

  Carbo’s breath hissed between his teeth; he trembled. “Ye gods, Marcus, what am I to do?”

  “For the moment, nothing. But I think you must abandon this sad business before murder becomes a desirable alternative to one or more of your legates.”

  “Abandon ?’’

  “Yes, abandon,” said Old Brutus steadily.

  “They wouldn’t let me leave!” Carbo cried, shaking now.

  “Probably not. But they don’t need to know. I’ll start making our preparations, while you look as if the only thing worrying you is the fate of the Samnite army.” Old Brutus put his hand on Carbo’s arm, patted it. “Don’t despair. All will be well in the end.”

  By the middle of Quinctilis, Old Brutus had finished his preparations. Very quietly in the middle of the night he and Carbo stole away without baggage or attendants save for a mule loaded down with gold ingots innocently sheathed in a layer of lead, and a large purse of denarii for traveling expenses. Looking like a tired pair of merchants, they made their way to the Etrurian coast at Telamon, and there took ship for Africa. No one molested them, no one was the slightest bit interested in the laboring mule or in what it had in its panniers. Fortune, thought Carbo as the ship slipped anchor, was favoring him!

  *

  Because he was paralyzed from the waist down, Gaius Papius Mutilus could not lead the Samnite/Lucanian/Capuan host himself, though he did travel with the Samnite segment of it from its training ground at Aesernia as far as Teanum Sidicinum, where the whole host occupied Sulla’s and Scipio’s old camps, and Mutilus went to stay in his own house.

  His fortunes had prospered since the Italian War; now he owned villas in half a dozen places throughout Samnium and Campania, and was wealthier than he had ever been: an ironic compensation, he sometimes thought, for the loss of all power and feeling below the waist.

  Aesernia and Bovianum were his two favorite towns, but his wife, Bastia, preferred to live in Teanum—she was from the district. That Mutilus had not objected to this almost constant separation was due to his injury; as a husband he was of little use, and if understandably his wife needed to avail herself of physical solace, better she did so where he was not. However, no scandalous tidbits about her behavior had percolated back to him in Aesernia, which meant either she was voluntarily as continent as his injury obliged him to be, or her discretion was exemplary. So when Mutilus arrived at his house in Teanum, he found himself quite looking forward to Bastia’s company.

  “I didn’t expect to see you,” she said with perfect ease.

  “There’s no reason why you should have expected me, since I didn’t write,” he said in an agreeable way. “You look well.”

  “I feel well.”

  “Given my limitations, I’m in pretty good health myself,” he went on, finding the reunion more awkward than he had hoped; she was distant, too courteous.

  “What brings
you to Teanum?” she asked.

  “I’ve an army outside town. We’re going to war against Sulla. Or at least, my army is. I shall stay here with you.”

  “For how long?” she enquired politely.

  “Until the business is over one way or the other.”

  “I see.” She leaned back in her chair, a magnificent woman of some thirty summers, and looked at him without an atom of the blazing desire he used to see in her eyes when they were first married—and he had been all a man. “How may I see to your comfort, husband? Is there any special thing you’ll need?”

  “I have my body servant. He knows what to do.”

  Disposing the clouds of expensive gauze about her splendid body more artistically, she continued to gaze at him out of those orbs large and dark enough to have earned her an Homeric compliment: Lady Ox-eyes. “Just you to dinner?” she asked.

  “No, three others. My legates. Is that a problem?”

  “Certainly not. The menu will do you honor, Gaius Papius.”

  The menu did. Bastia was an excellent housekeeper. She knew two of the three men who came to eat with their stricken commander, Pontius Telesinus and Marcus Lamponius. Telesinus was a Samnite of very old family who had been a little too young to be numbered among the Samnite greats of the Italian War. Now thirty-two, he was a fine-looking man, and bold enough to eye his hostess with an appreciation only she divined. That she ignored it was good sense; Telesinus was a Samnite, and that meant he hated Romans more than he could possibly admire women.