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

by Colleen McCullough

  Rome stirred uneasily, began to see the peregrinations of her wizened master as something more than just benign excursions; what had been quite amusing in a saddened way now took on a more sinister guise, and the innocent eccentricities of yesterday became the suspicious purposes of today and the terrifying objectives of tomorrow. He never spoke to anyone! He talked to himself! He stood in one place for far too long looking at who knew what! He had shouted once or twice! What was he really doing? And why was he doing it?

  Exactly in step with this growing apprehension, the odd activities of those innocuous-looking bands of private persons who knocked on the street doors of houses belonging to knights became more overt. They were now noticed to stand here or there taking notes, or to follow like shadows behind an affluent Carboan banker or a prosperous Marian broker. The disappearing men disappeared with increasing frequency. And then one group of private persons knocked upon the street door of a pedarius senator who had always voted for Marius, for Cinna, for Carbo. But the senator was not marched away. When he emerged into the street there was a flurry of arms, the sweep of a sword, and his head fell to the ground with a hollow thock!, and rolled away. The body lay emptying itself of blood down the gutter, but the head disappeared.

  Everyone began to find a reason for drifting past the rostra to count the heads—Carbo, Young Marius, Carrinas, Censorinus, Scipio Asiagenus, Old Brutus, Marius Gratidianus, Pontius Telesinus, Brutus Damasippus, Tiberius Gutta of Capua, Soranus, Mutilus…. No, that was all! The head of the backbencher senator was not there. Nor any head of any man who had vanished. And Sulla continued to walk with his idiotic wig not quite straight, and his brows and lashes painted. But whereas before people used to stop and smile to see him—albeit smiled with pity—now people felt a frightful hole blossom in their bellies at sight of him, and scrambled in any direction save toward him, or bolted at a run away from him. Wherever Sulla now was, no one else was. No one watched him. No one smiled, albeit with pity. No one accosted him. No one molested him. He brought a cold sweat in his wake, like the wraiths which issued from the mundus on the dies religiosi.

  Never before had one of the great public figures been so shrouded in mystery, so opaque of purpose. His behavior was not normal. He should have been standing on the rostra in the Forum telling everyone in magnificent language all about his plans, or throwing rhetorical sand in the Senate’s eyes. Speeches of intent, litanies of complaint, flowery phrases—he should have been talking. To someone, if not everyone. Romans were not prone to keep their counsel. They talked things over. Hearsay ruled. But from Sulla, nothing. Just the solitary walks which acknowledged no complicity, implied no interest. And yet—all of it had to be emanating from him! This silent and uncommunicative man was the master of Rome.

  *

  On the Kalends of December, Sulla called a meeting of the Senate, the first such since Flaccus had spoken. Oh, how the senators hurried and scurried to the Curia Hostilia! Feeling colder even than the air, pulses so rapid heartbeats could not be counted, breathing shallow, pupils dilated, bowels churning. They huddled on their stools like gulls battered by a tempest, trying not to look up at the underside of the Curia roof for fear that, like Saturninus and his confederates, they would be felled in an instant by a rain of tiles from above.

  No one was impervious to this nameless terror—even Flaccus Princeps Senatus—even Metellus Pius—even military darlings like Ofella and panders like Philippus and Cethegus. And yet when Sulla shuffled in he looked so harmless! A pathetic figure! Except that he was ushered in by an unprecedented twenty-four lictors, twice as many as a consul was entitled to—and twice as many as any earlier dictator.

  “It is time that I told you of my intentions,” Sulla said from his ivory seat, not rising; his words came out in jets of white vapor, the chamber was so cold. “I am legally Dictator, and Lucius Valerius, the Leader of the House, is my Master of the Horse. Under the provisions of the Centuriate law which gave me my position, I am not obliged to see other magistrates elected if I so wish. However, Rome has always reckoned the passing of the years by the names of the consuls of each year, and I will not see that tradition broken. Nor will I have men call this coming year ‘In the Dictatorship of Lucius Cornelius Sulla.’ So I will see two consuls elected, eight praetors elected, two curule and two plebeian aediles elected, ten tribunes of the plebs elected, and twelve quaestors. And to give magisterial experience to men too young to be admitted into the Senate, I will see twenty-four tribunes of the soldiers elected, and I will appoint three men to be moneyers, and three to look after Rome’s detention cells and asylums.”

  Catulus and Hortensius had come in a state of terror so great that both sat with anal sphincters clenched upon bowel contents turned liquid, and hid their hands so that others would not see how they shook. Listening incredulously to the Dictator announcing that he would hold elections for all the magistracies! They had expected to be pelted from the roof, or lined up and beheaded, or sent into exile with everything they owned confiscated—they had expected anything but this! Was he innocent? Did he not know what was going on in Rome? And if he did not know, who then was responsible for those disappearances and murders?

  “Of course,” the Dictator went on in that irritatingly indistinct diction his toothlessness had wrought, “you realize that when I say elections, I do not mean candidates. I will tell you—and the various Comitia!—whom you will elect. Freedom of choice is not possible at this time. I need men to help me do my work, and they must be the men I want, not the men whom the electors would foist on me. I am therefore in a position to inform you who will be what next year. Scribe, my list!” He took the single sheet of paper from a clerk of the House whose sole duty seemed to be its custodian, while another secretary lifted his head from his work, which was to take down with a stylus on wax tablets everything Sulla said.

  “Now then, consuls … Senior—Marcus Tullius Decula. Junior—Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella—”

  He got no further. A voice rang out, a togate figure leaped to his feet: Quintus Lucretius Ofella.

  “No! No, I say! You’d give our precious consulship to Decula! No! Who is Decula? A nonentity who sat here safe and sound inside Rome while his betters fought for you, Sulla! What has Decula done to distinguish himself? Why, as far as I know he hasn’t even had the opportunity to wipe your podex with his sponge—on—a—stick, Sulla! Of all the miserable, malicious, unfair, unjust tricks! Dolabella I can understand—all of your legates got to know of the bargain you made with him, Sulla! But who is this Decula? What has this Decula done to earn the senior consulship? I say no! No, no, no!”

  Ofella paused for breath.

  Sulla spoke. “My choice for senior consul is Marcus Tullius Decula. That is that.”

  “Then you can’t be allowed to have the choice, Sulla! We will have candidates and a proper election—and I will stand!”

  “You won’t,” said the Dictator gently.

  “Try and stop me!” Ofella shouted, and ran from the chamber. Outside a crowd had gathered, anxious to hear the results of this first meeting of the Senate since Sulla had been ratified Dictator. It was not composed of men who thought they had anything to fear from Sulla—they had stayed at home. A small crowd, but a crowd nonetheless. Pushing his way through it without regard for the welfare of anyone in his path, Ofella stormed down the Senate steps and across the cobblestones to the well of the Comitia and the rostra set into its side.

  “Fellow Romans!” he cried. “Gather round, hear what I have to say about this unconstitutional monarch we have voluntarily appointed to lord over us! He says he will see consuls elected. But there are to be no candidates—just the two men of his choice! Two ineffectual and incompetent idiots—and one of them, Marcus Tullius Decula, is not even of a noble family! The first of his family to sit in the Senate, a backbencher who scrambled into a praetorship under the treasonous regime of Cinna and Carbo! Yet he is to be senior consul while men like me go unrewarded!”

  Sulla had
risen and walked slowly down the tesselated floor of the Curia to the portico, where he stood blinking in the stronger light and looking mildly interested as he watched Ofella shouting from the rostra. Without drawing attention to themselves, perhaps fifteen ordinary-looking men began to cluster together at the foot of the Senate steps right in the path of Sulla’s eyes.

  And slowly the senators crept out of the Curia to see and hear what they could, fascinated at Sulla’s calm, emboldened by it too—he wasn’t the monster they had begun to think him, he couldn’t be!

  “Well, fellow Romans,” Ofella went on, voice more stentorian as he got into stride, “I am one man who will not lie down under these studied insults! I am more entitled to be consul than a nonentity like Decula! And it is my opinion that the electors of Rome, if offered a choice, will choose me over both of Sulla’s men! Just as there are others they would choose did others step forward and declare themselves candidates!”

  Sulla’s eyes met those of the leader of the ordinary-looking men standing just below him; he nodded, sighed, leaned his weary body against a convenient pillar.

  The ordinary-looking men moved quietly through the thin crowd, came to the rostra, mounted it, and laid hold of Ofella. Their gentleness was apparent, not real; Ofella fought desperately, to no avail. Inexorably they bent him over until he collapsed on his knees. Then one of them took a handful of hair, stood well back, and pulled until head and neck were extended. A sword flashed up and down. The man holding the hair staggered despite his wide stance in the moment when his end parted company with the rest of Ofella, then whipped the head on high so all could see it. Within moments the Forum was empty save for the stunned Conscript Fathers of the Senate.

  “Put the head on the rostra,” said Sulla, straightened himself, and walked back into the chamber.

  Like automatons the senators followed.

  “Very well, where was I?” asked Sulla of his secretary, who leaned forward and muttered low—voiced. “Oh, yes, so I was! I thank you! I had finished with the consuls, and I was about to commence on the praetors. Clerk, your list!” And out went Sulla’s hand. “Thank you! To proceed.... Mamercus Aemilius Lepidus Livianus. Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. Gaius Claudius Nero. Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella the younger. Lucius Fufidius. Quintus Lutatius Catulus. Marcus Minucius Thermus. Sextus Nonius Sufenas. Gaius Papirius Carbo. I appoint the younger Dolabella praetor urbanus, and Mamercus praetor peregrinus.”

  A truly extraordinary list! Clearly neither Lepidus nor Catulus, who might at a proper election have expected to come in at the top of the poll, was to be preferred to two men who had actively fought for Sulla. Yet there they were, praetors when loyal Sullans of senatorial status and the right age had been passed over! Fufidius was a relative nobody. And Nonius Sufenas was Sulla’s sister’s younger boy. Nero was a minor Claudius of no moment. Thermus was a good soldier, but so poor a speaker he was a Forum joke. And just to annoy all camps, the last place on the list of praetors had gone to a member of Carbo’s family who had sided with Sulla but failed to distinguish himself!

  “Well, you’re in,” whispered Hortensius to Catulus. “All I can hope for is that I’m on next year’s list—or the year after that. Ye gods, what a farce! How can we bear him?”

  “The praetors don’t matter,” said Catulus in a murmur. “They’ll all flog themselves to shine—Sulla isn’t fool enough to give the wrong job to the wrong man. It’s Decula interests me. A natural bureaucrat! That’s why Sulla picked him—had to, given that Dolabella had blackmailed him into a consulship! Our Dictator’s policies will be meticulously executed, and Decula will love every moment of the execution.”

  The meeting droned on. One after another the names of the magistrates were read out, and no voice was raised in protest. Done, Sulla handed his paper back to its custodian and spread his hands upon his knees.

  “I have said everything I want to say at this time, except that I have taken due note of Rome’s paucity of priests and augurs, and will be legislating very soon to rectify matters. But hear this now!’‘ he suddenly roared out, making everyone jump. “There will be no more elected Religious! It is the height of impiety to cast ballots to determine who will serve the gods! It turns something solemn and formal into a political circus and enables the appointment of men who have no tradition or appreciation of priestly duties. If her gods are not served properly, Rome cannot prosper.” Sulla rose to his feet.

  A voice was raised. Looking mildly quizzical, Sulla sank back into his ivory chair.

  “You wish to speak, Piglet dear?” he asked, using the old nickname Metellus Pius had inherited as his father’s son.

  Metellus Pius reddened, but got to his feet looking very determined. Ever since his arrival in Rome on the fifth day of November, his stammer—almost nonexistent these days—had steadily and cruelly worsened. He knew why. Sulla. Whom he loved but feared. However, he was still his father’s son, and Metellus Numidicus Piggle—wiggle had twice braved terrible beatings in the Forum rather than abrogate a principle, and once gone into exile to uphold a principle. Therefore it behooved him to tread in his father’s footsteps and maintain the honor of his family. And his own dignitas.

  “Luh—Luh—Lucius Cornelius, wuh—wuh—will you answer wuh—wuh—one question?”

  “You’re stammering!” cried Sulla, almost singing.

  “Truh—truh—true. Suh—suh—suh—sorry. I will try,” he said through gritted teeth. “Are you aware, Luh—Luh—Lucius Cornelius, that men are being killed and their property confiscated thruh—thruh—throughout Italy as well as in Rome?”

  The whole House listened with bated breath to hear Sulla’s answer: did he know, was he responsible?

  “Yes, I am aware of it,” said Sulla.

  A collective sigh, a general flinching and huddling down on stools; the House now knew the worst.

  Metellus Pius went on doggedly. “I uh—uh—uh—understand that it is necessary to punish the guilty, but no man has been accorded a truh—truh—trial. Could you cluh—cluh—clarify the situation for me? Could you, for instance, tuh—tuh—tuh—tell me whereabouts you intend to draw the line? Are any men going to be accorded a trial? And who says these men have committed treason if they are nuh—nuh—not tried in a proper court?’’

  “It is by my dictate that they die, Piglet dear,” said the Dictator firmly. “I will not waste the State’s money and time on trials for men who are patently guilty.”

  The Piglet labored on. “Then cuh—cuh—can you give me some idea of whom you intend to spare?”

  “I am afraid I cannot,” said the Dictator.

  “Then if yuh—yuh—yuh—you do not know who will be spared, can you tell me whom you intend to punish?”

  “Yes, dear Piglet, I can do that for you.”

  “In which case, Luh—Luh—Lucius Cornelius, would you please share that knowledge with us?” Metellus Pius ended, sagging in sheer relief.

  “Not today,” said Sulla. “We will reconvene tomorrow.”

  Everyone came back at dawn on the morrow, but few looked as if they had enjoyed any sleep.

  Sulla was waiting for them inside the chamber, seated on his ivory curule chair. One scribe sat with his stylus and wax tablets, the other held a scroll of paper. The moment the House was confirmed in legal sitting by the sacrifice and auguries, out went Sulla’s hand for the scroll. He looked directly at poor Metellus Pius, haggard from worry.

  “Here,” Sulla said, “is a list of men who have either died already as traitors, or who will die shortly as traitors. Their property now belongs to the State, and will be sold at auction. And any man or woman who sets eyes upon a man whose name is on this list will be indemnified against retaliation if he or she appoints himself or herself an executioner.” The scroll was handed to Sulla’s chief lictor. “Pin this up on the wall of the rostra,” said Sulla. “Then all men will know what my dear Piglet alone had the courage to ask to know.”

  “So if I see one of the men on your list, I can kill hi
m?” asked Catilina eagerly; though not yet a senator, he had been bidden by Sulla to attend meetings of the Senate.

  “You can indeed, my little plate—licker! And earn two talents of silver for doing so, as a matter of fact,” said Sulla. “I will be legislating my program of proscriptions, of course—I will do nothing that has not the force of law! The reward will be incorporated into the legislation, and proper books will be kept of all such transactions so that Posterity will know who in our present day and age profited.”

  It came out demurely, but men like Metellus Pius had no trouble in discerning Sulla’s malice; men like Lucius Sergius Catilina (if in truth they discerned Sulla’s malice) obviously did not care.

  *

  The first list of proscribed was in the number of forty senators and sixty-five knights. The names of Gaius Norbanus and Scipio Asiagenus headed it, with Carbo and Young Marius next. Carrinas, Censorinus and Brutus Damasippus were named, whereas Old Brutus was not. Most of the senators were already dead. The lists, however, were basically intended to inform Rome whose estates were confiscate; they did not say who was already dead, who still alive. The second list went up on the rostra the very next day, to the number of two hundred knights. And a third list went up the day after that, publishing a further group of two hundred and fifteen knights. Sulla apparently had finished with the Senate; his real target was the Ordo Equester.

  His leges Corneliae covering proscription regulations and activities were exhaustive. The bulk of them, however, appeared over a period of a mere two days very early in December, and by the Nones of that month all was in a Deculian order, as Catulus had prophesied. Every contingency had been taken into account. All property in a proscribed man’s family was now the property of the State, and could not be transferred into the name of some scion innocent of transgression; no will of a man proscribed was valid, no heir named in it could inherit; the proscribed man could legally be slain by any man or woman who saw him, be he or she free, or freed, or still slave; the reward for murder or apprehension of a proscribed man was two talents of silver, to be paid by the Treasury from confiscated property and entered in the public account books; a slave claiming the reward was to be freed, a freedman transferred into a rural tribe; all men—civilian or military—who after Scipio Asiagenus had broken his truce had favored Carbo or Young Marius were declared public enemies; any man offering assistance or friendship to a proscribed man was declared a public enemy; the sons and grandsons of the proscribed were debarred from holding curule office and forbidden to repurchase confiscated estates, or come into possession of them by any other means; the sons and grandsons of those already dead would suffer in the same way as the sons and grandsons of those listed while still living. The last law of this batch, promulgated on the fifth day of December, declared that the whole process of proscription would cease on the first day of the next June. Six months hence.