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

by Colleen McCullough

  Thus did Sulla usher in his Dictatorship, by demonstrating that not only was he master of Rome, but also a master of terror and suspense. Not all the days of itching agony had been spent in mindless torment or drunken stupor; Sulla had thought of this and that and many things. Of how he would achieve mastery of Rome; of how he would proceed when he became master of Rome; of how he would create a mental attitude in every man and woman and child that would enable him to do what had to be done without opposition, without revolt. Not soldiers garrisoning the streets but shadows in the mind, fears which led to hope as well as to despair. His minions would be anonymous people who might be the neighbors or friends of those they sneaked up on and whisked away. Sulla intended to create a climate rather than weather. Men could cope with weather. But climates? Ah, climates could prove unendurable.

  And he had thought while he itched and tore himself to raw and bloody tatters of being an old and ugly and disappointed man given the world’s most wonderful toy to play with: Rome. Its men and women, dogs and cats, slaves and freedmen, lowly and knights and nobles. All his cherished resentments, all his grudges grown cold and dark, he detailed meticulously in the midst of his pain. And took exquisite comfort from shaping his revenge.

  The Dictator had arrived.

  The Dictator had put his gleeful hands upon his new toy.

  PART II

  from DECEMBER 82 B.C.

  until MAY 81 B.C.

  1

  Things, decided Lucius Cornelius Sulla early in December, were going very nicely. Most men still hesitated at the idea of killing someone proscribed on the lists, but a few like Catilina were already showing the way, and the amount of money and property confiscated from the proscribed was soaring. It was money and property, of course, which had directed Sulla’s footsteps down this particular path; from somewhere had to come the vast sums Rome would need in order to become financially solvent again. Under more normal circumstances it would have come out of the coffers of the provinces, but given the actions of Mithridates in the east and the fact that Quintus Sertorius had managed to create enough trouble in both the Spains to curtail Spanish incomes, the provinces could not be squeezed of additional revenues for some time to come. Therefore Rome and Italy would have to yield up the money—yet the burden could not be thrust upon the ordinary people, nor upon those who had conclusively demonstrated their loyalty to Sulla’s cause. Sulla had never loved the Ordo Equester—the ninety—one Centuries of the First Class who comprised the knight—businessmen, but especially the eighteen Centuries of senior knights who were entitled to the Public Horse. Among them were many who had waxed fat under the administration of Marius, of Cinna, of Carbo; and these were the men Sulla resolved would pay the bill for Rome’s economic recovery. A perfect solution! thought the Dictator with gleeful satisfaction. Not only would the Treasury fill up; he would also eliminate all of his enemies.

  He had besides found the time to deal with one other pet aversion—Samnium, and this in the harshest way possible, by sending the two worst men he could think of to that hapless place. Cethegus and Verres. And four legions of good troops. “Leave nothing,” he said. “I want Samnium brought so low that no one will ever want to live there again, even the oldest and most patriotic Samnite. Fell the trees, lay waste the fields, destroy the towns as well as the orchards”—he smiled dreadfully—“and lop off the head of every tall poppy.”

  There! That would teach Samnium. And rid him of two men with considerable nuisance value for the next year. They would not be back in a hurry! Too much money to be made above and beyond what they would send to the Treasury.

  *

  It was perhaps well for other parts of Italy that Sulla’s family arrived in Rome at this moment to restore to him a kind of normality he had not realized he needed as well as missed. For one thing, he hadn’t known that the sight of Dalmatica would fell him like a blow; his knees gave under him, he had to sit down abruptly and stare at her like a callow boy at the unexpected coming of the one unattainable woman.

  Very beautiful—but he had always known that—with her big grey eyes and her brown skin the same color as her hair—and that look of love that never seemed to fade or change, no matter how old and ugly he became. And she was there sitting on his lap with both arms wound about his scraggy neck, pushing his face against her breasts, caressing his scabby head and pressing her lips against it as if it was that glorious head of red-gold hair it used to flaunt—his wig, where was his wig? But then she was tugging his head up, and he could feel the loveliness of her mouth enfold his puckered lips until they bloomed again.... Strength flowed back into him, he rose lifting her in the same movement, and walked with her in triumph to their room, and there dealt with her in something more than triumph. Perhaps, he thought, drowning in her, I am capable of loving after all.

  “Oh, how much I have missed you!” he said.

  “And how much I love you,” she said.

  “Two years … It’s been two years.”

  “More like two thousand years.”

  But, the first fervor of that reunion over, she became a wife, and inspected him with minute pleasure.

  “Your skin is so much better!”

  “I got the ointment from Morsimus.”

  “It’s ceased to itch?”

  “Yes, it’s ceased to itch.”

  After which, she became a mother, and would not rest until he accompanied her to the nursery, there to say hello to little Faustus and Fausta.

  “They’re not much older than our separation,” he said, and heaved a sigh. “They look like Metellus Numidicus.”

  She muffled a giggle. “I know…. Poor little things!”

  And that set the seal upon what had been one of the happiest days of Sulla’s life; she laughed with him!

  Not knowing why Mama and the funny old man were clutching each other in paroxysms of mirth, the twins stood looking up with uncertain smiles until the urge to join in could no longer be resisted. And if it could not be said that Sulla grew to love them in the midst of that burst of laughter, he did at least decide that they were quite nice little people—even if they did look like their great—uncle, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Numidicus Piggle—wiggle. Whom their father had murdered. What an irony! thought their father: is this some sort of retribution the gods have visited upon me? But to believe that is to be a Greek, and I am a Roman. Besides which, I will be dead long before this pair are old enough to visit retribution on anyone.

  *

  The rest of the new arrivals were also well, including as they did Sulla’s grown daughter, Cornelia Sulla, and her two children by her dead first husband. The little girl Pompeia was now eight years old and completely absorbed in her beauty, of which she was very aware. At six years of age the little boy Quintus Pompeius Rufus bade fair to living up to his last name, for he was red of hair, red of skin, red of eye, red of temper.

  “And,” asked Sulla of his steward, Chrysogonus, whose task it had been to look after the family, “how is my guest who cannot cross the pomerium into Rome?”

  A little thinner than of yore (it could not have been an easy job to shepherd so many people of different and distinct natures, reflected Sulla), the steward rolled his expressive dark eyes toward the ceiling and shrugged.

  “I am afraid, Lucius Cornelius, that he will not agree to remain outside the pomerium unless you visit him in person and explain exactly why. I tried! Indeed I tried! But he deems me an underling, beneath contempt—or credibility.”

  That was typical of Ptolemy Alexander, thought Sulla as he trudged out of the city to the inn on the Via Appia near the first milestone where Chrysogonus had lodged the haughty and hypersensitive prince of Egypt, who, though he had been in Sulla’s custody for three years, was only now beginning to be a burden.

  Claiming to be a refugee from the court of Pontus, he had turned up in Pergamum begging Sulla to grant him asylum; Sulla had been fascinated. For he was none other than Ptolemy Alexander the Younger, only legitimate son
of the Pharaoh who had died trying to regain his throne in the same year as Mithridates had captured the son, living on Cos with his two bastard first cousins. All three princes of Egypt had been sent to Pontus, and Egypt had fallen firmly into the grasp of the dead Pharaoh’s elder brother, Ptolemy Soter nicknamed Lathyrus (it meant Chickpea), who resumed the title of Pharaoh.

  From the moment he set eyes on Ptolemy Alexander the Younger, Sulla had understood why Egypt had preferred to be ruled by old Lathyrus the Chickpea. Ptolemy Alexander the Younger was womanish to the extreme of dressing like a reincarnation of Isis in floating draperies knotted and twisted in the fashion of the Hellenized goddess of Egypt, with a golden crown upon his wig of golden curls, and an elaborate painting of his face. He minced, he ogled, he simpered, he lisped, he fluttered; and yet, thought Sulla shrewdly, beneath all that effeminate facade lay something steely.

  He had told Sulla a tale of three hideous years spent as a prisoner at the court of one who was the most militant of heterosexuals; Mithridates, who genuinely believed womanish men could be “cured,” had subjected young Ptolemy Alexander to an endless series of humiliations and degradations designed to disenchant the poor fellow of his chosen proclivities. It had not worked. Thrown into bed with Pontine courtesans and even common whores, Ptolemy Alexander had been able to do no more than hang his head over the edge of the bed and vomit; forced to don armor and go on route marches with a hundred sneering soldiers, he had wept and collapsed; beaten with fists and then with lashes, he had only betrayed the fact that he found such treatment highly stimulating; set on a tribunal in the marketplace of Amisus in all his finery and paint, and there subjected to rains of rotten fruit, eggs, vegetables and even stones, he had dumbly endured without contrition.

  His chance had come when Mithridates began to reel under Sulla’s competent conduct of the war with Rome, and the court disintegrated. Young Ptolemy Alexander had escaped.

  “My two bastard cousins preferred to remain in Amisus, of course,” he lisped to Sulla. “The atmosphere of that abominable court has suited them beautifully! They both went into marriage eagerly—to daughters of Mithridates by his part—Parthian, part—Seleucid wife, Antiochis. Well, they can keep Pontus and all of the King’s daughters! I hate the place!”

  “And what do you want of me?” Sulla had asked.

  “Asylum. Shelter within Rome when you return there. And, when Lathyrus Chickpea dies, the Egyptian throne. He has a daughter, Berenice, who is reigning with him as his Queen. But he cannot marry her, of course—he could only marry an aunt, a cousin, or a sister, and he has none of any available. In the natural way of things Queen Berenice will survive her father. The Egyptian throne is matrilineal, which means the king becomes the king through marriage to the queen or to the eldest—born princess of the line. I am the only legitimate Ptolemy left. The Alexandrians—who have the sole say in the matter since the Macedonian Ptolemies established their capital there rather than in Memphis—will want me to succeed Lathyrus Chickpea, and will consent to my marrying Queen Berenice. So when Lathyrus Chickpea dies I want you to send me to Alexandria to claim the throne—with Rome’s blessing.”

  For some moments Sulla considered this, eyeing Ptolemy Alexander in amusement. Then he said, “You may marry the Queen, but will you be able to get children by her?”

  “Probably not,” said the prince with composure.

  “Then is there any point to the business?” Sulla smirked at his own pun.

  Ptolemy Alexander apparently did not see the point. “I want to be Pharaoh of Egypt, Lucius Cornelius,” he said solemnly. “The throne is rightfully mine. What happens to it after my death is immaterial.”

  “So who else is there in line for the throne?”

  “Only my two bastard cousins. Who are now the minions of Mithridates and Tigranes. I was able to escape when a messenger came from Mithridates that all three of us were to be sent south to Tigranes, who is extending his kingdom in Syria. The purpose of this removal, I gather, was to keep us from Roman custody if Pontus should fall.”

  “Your bastard cousins may not be in Amisus, then.”

  “They were when I left. Beyond that I do not know.”

  Sulla had put his pen down and stared with cold goat’s eyes at the sullen, bedizened person before him. “Very well, Prince Alexander, I will grant you asylum. When I return to Rome you may accompany me. As to your eventual assumption of the Double Crown of Egypt—best perhaps to discuss that when the time comes.”

  But the time had not yet come when Sulla trudged out to the inn at the first milestone on the Via Appia, and he could now foresee certain difficulties anent Ptolemy Alexander the Younger. There was a scheme in the back of his mind, of course; had it not occurred to him on the occasion of his first meeting with Ptolemy Alexander he would simply have sent the young man to his uncle Lathyrus Chickpea in Alexandria, and washed his hands of the whole affair. But the scheme had occurred to him, and now he could only hope that he lived long enough to see it bear fruit; Lathyrus Chickpea was much older than he was, yet apparently still enjoyed the best of health. Alexandria had a salubrious climate, so they said.

  “However, Prince Alexander,” he said when he had been shown into the inn’s best parlor, “I cannot house you at Rome’s expense for however many years it will take your uncle to die. Even in a place like this.”

  Outrage flared in the dark eyes; Ptolemy Alexander drew himself up like a striking snake. “A place like this? I’d rather be back in Amisus than remain in a place like this!”

  “In Athens,” said Sulla coldly, “you were housed royally at the expense of the Athenians, purely due to your uncle’s gifts to that city after I was obliged to sack a part of it and did some little damage. Well, that was the prerogative of Athens. You cost me nothing. Here you’re likely to cost me a fortune Rome cannot spare. So I’m offering you two choices. You may take ship at Rome’s expense for Alexandria, and make your peace with your uncle Lathyrus Chickpea. Or you may negotiate a loan with one of this city’s bankers, hire a house and servants on the Pincian or some other acceptable place outside the pomerium, and remain until your uncle dies.”

  It was difficult to tell if Ptolemy Alexander lost color, so heavy was his maquillage, but Sulla rather fancied that he did; certainly the fight went out of him.

  “I can’t go to Alexandria, my uncle would have me killed!”

  “Then negotiate a loan.”

  “All right, I will! Only tell me how!”

  “I’ll send Chrysogonus to tell how. He knows everything.” Sulla had not sat down, but he moved now to the door. “By the way, Prince Alexander, under no circumstances can you cross the sacred boundary of Rome into the city.”

  “I shall die of boredom!”

  Came the famous sneer. “I doubt that, when it’s known you have money and a nice house. Water always finds its level. Alexandria is a long way from Rome, and I must assume that you will be its lawful king the moment Lathyrus Chickpea dies. Which neither you nor I can know until word reaches Rome. Therefore, as Rome will tolerate no ruling sovereign within her boundary, you must stay outside it. I mean that. Flout me, and you won’t need to go to Alexandria to meet a premature death.”

  Ptolemy Alexander burst into tears. “You’re a horrible, hateful person!”

  Off went Sulla down the road to the Capena Gate, giving voice to an occasional neigh of laughter. What a horrible, hateful person Ptolemy Alexander was! But—how very useful he might prove to be if only Lathyrus Chickpea had the grace and good sense to die while Sulla was still the Dictator! And he gave a little skip of pleasure at the thought of what he was going to do when he heard that the throne of Egypt was vacant.

  Oblivious to the fact that his laughter and his skip and that crabbed gait had become portents of terror to every man and woman who chanced to see him, whose mind was in fabled Alexandria.

  2

  It was religion, however, which chiefly occupied Sulla’s mind. Like most Romans, he didn’t think of
the name of a god, close his eyes and immediately visualize a human person—that was to be a Greek. These days it was a sign of culture and sophistication to show Bellona as an armed goddess, Ceres as a beautiful matron carrying a sheaf of wheat, Mercury with winged hat and winged sandals, because a Hellenized society was superior, because a Hellenized society despised more numinous gods as primitive, unintellectual, incapable of behavior as complex as human behavior. To the Greeks, their gods were essentially human beings owning superhuman powers; they could not conceive a being more complex than a man. So Zeus, who was king of their pantheon, functioned like a Roman censor—powerful but not omnipotent—and handed out jobs to the other gods, who took delight in tricking him, blackmailing him, and behaving a bit like tribunes of the plebs.

  But Sulla, a Roman, knew the gods were far less tangible than the Greeks would have them: they weren’t humanoid and they didn’t have eyes in their heads or hold conversations, nor did they wield superhuman powers, nor go through the integration and differentiation of thought processes akin to a man’s. Sulla, a Roman, knew that the gods were specific forces which moved specific events or controlled other forces inferior to themselves. They fed on life—forces, so they liked to be offered living sacrifices; they needed order and method in the living world as much as they did in their own, because order and method in the living world helped maintain order and method in the world of forces.