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

by Colleen McCullough

  There were forces pervaded storage cupboards and barns and silos and cellars, liked to see them full—they were called Penates. There were forces kept ships sailing and crossroads together and a sense of purpose among inanimate objects—they were called Lares. There were forces kept the trees right—thinking, obliged them to grow their branches and leaves up into the air and their roots down into the earth. There were forces kept water sweet and rivers going from on high all the way down to the sea. There was a force gave a few men luck and good fortune, but gave most men less, and a few men nothing—it was called Fortuna. And the force called Jupiter Optimus Maximus was the sum total of all other forces, the connective tissue which bound them all together in a way logical to forces, if mysterious to men.

  It was clear to Sulla that Rome was losing contact with her gods, her forces. Why else had the Great Temple burned down? Why else had the precious records gone up in smoke? The prophetic books? Men were forgetting the secrets, the strict formulae and patterns which channeled godly forces. To have the priests and augurs elected disturbed the balances within the priestly colleges, obviated the delicate adjustments only possible when the same families filled the same religious positions time out of mind, forever and ever.

  So before he turned his energies toward rectifying Rome’s creaky institutions and laws, he must first purify Rome’s aether, stabilize her godly forces and allow them to flow properly. How could Rome expect good fortune when a man could be so lost as to what was fitting that he could stand and holler out her secret name? How could Rome expect to prosper when men plundered her temples and murdered her priests? Of course he didn’t remember that he himself had once wanted to plunder her temples; he only remembered that he had not, though he was going to fight a true enemy. Nor did he remember quite how he had felt about the gods in those days before illness and wine had made a shambles of his life.

  In the burning of the Great Temple there was an implicit message, so much he knew in his bones. And it had been given to him to halt the chaos, correct the present drift toward utter disorder. If he did not, then doors supposed to be shut would fly open, and doors supposed to be open would slam shut.

  He summoned the priests and augurs to him inside Rome’s oldest temple, Jupiter Feretrius on the Capitol. So ancient that it had been dedicated by Romulus and was built of tufa blocks without plaster or decoration, it had only two square columns to support its portico, and it contained no image. On a plain square pedestal of equal age there rested a straight electrum rod as long as a man’s hand and arm to the elbow, and a silica flint brooding black and glassy. The only light admitted to its interior came through the door, and it smelled of incredible age—mouse droppings, mildew, damp, dust. Its one room was a mere ten feet by seven feet, so Sulla was grateful for the fact that neither the College of Pontifices nor the College of Augurs was anywhere near full membership.

  Sulla himself was an augur. So too were Marcus Antonius, the younger Dolabella and Catilina. Of priests, Gaius Aurelius Cotta had been in the college the longest; Metellus Pius was not far behind, nor Flaccus the Master of the Horse and Princeps Senatus, who was also the flamen Martialis. Catulus, Mamercus, the Rex Sacrorum Lucius Claudius of the only branch of the Claudii with the first name of Lucius—and a very uneasy pontifex, Brutus the son of Old Brutus, who clearly wondered if and when he was going to be proscribed.

  “We have no Pontifex Maximus,” Sulla began, “and our company is thin. I could have found a more comfortable place for us to meet, but I suspect a little discomfort may not be displeasing to our gods! For some time now we have thought of ourselves ahead of our gods, and our gods are unhappy. Dedicated in the same year as our Republic was born, our temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus did not burn down by accident. I am sure it burned down because Jupiter Best and Greatest feels the Roman Senate and People have cheated him of his due. We are not so callow and credulous that we subscribe to barbarian beliefs in godly wrath—bolts of lightning that strike us dead or pillars that squash us flat are natural events—they merely indicate a man’s personal ill luck. But portents do indicate unhappy gods, and the burning of our Great Temple is a terrible portent. If we still had the Sibylline Books we might discover more about it. But the Sibylline Books burned, along with our fasti of the consuls, the original Twelve Tables, and much else.”

  There were fifteen men present, and not enough room to allow a proper arrangement of speaker and audience; Sulla just stood in their midst and spoke in normal tones. “It is my task as Dictator to return Rome’s religion to its old form, and to make all of you work toward that end. Now I can enact the laws, but it is up to all of you to implement them. On one point I am adamant, for I have had dreams, I am an augur, and I know I am right. Namely, I will invalidate the lex Domitia de sacerdotiis which our Pontifex Maximus of some years ago, Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, took so much pleasure in foisting upon us. Why did he? Because he felt his family had been insulted and himself overlooked. Those are reasons founded in personal pride, not in a true religious spirit. I believe Ahenobarbus Pontifex Maximus displeased the gods, especially Jupiter Best and Greatest. So there will be no more elections for Religious. Not even for the office of Pontifex Maximus.”

  “But the Pontifex Maximus has always been elected!” cried Lucius Claudius the Rex Sacrorum, astonished. “He is the High Priest of the Republic! His appointment must be democratic!”

  “I say, no. From now on, he too will be chosen by his fellow members of the College of Pontifices,” said Sulla in a tone which brooked no argument. “I am right about this.”

  “I don’t know….” Flaccus began, then trailed off when he met Sulla’s awful eyes.

  “I do know, so that will be the end of it!” Sulla’s gaze traveled from one distressed face to another, and quelled all further protest. “I also think it is displeasing to our gods that there are not enough of us to go around, so I intend to give each priestly college—most of the minor as well as the major—fifteen members each instead of the old ten or twelve. No more of this squeezing two jobs in for every one man! Besides, fifteen is a lucky number, the fulcrum upon which thirteen and seventeen—the unlucky ones—turn. Magic is important. Magic creates pathways for the godly forces to travel. I believe that numbers have great magic. So we will work magic for Rome’s benefit, as is our sacred duty.”

  “Perhaps,” ventured Metellus Pius, “wuh—wuh—we could set up only wuh—wuh—one candidate for Pontifex Maximus? That wuh—wuh—way, we could at least have an election process.”

  “There will be no election process!” Sulla spat.

  Silence fell. No one so much as shifted a foot.

  After some time had passed Sulla began to speak again. “There is one priest who sits ill with me, for a number of good reasons. I refer to our flamen Dialis, the young man Gaius Julius Caesar. Upon the death of Lucius Cornelius Merula he was chosen to be Jupiter’s special priest by Gaius Marius and his bought—and—paid—for minion, Cinna. The men who chose him alone are ominous enough! They contravened the usual selection process, which ought to involve the entire gamut of colleges. Another reason for my disquiet concerns my own ancestors, for the first Cornelius to be cognominated Sulla was flamen Dialis. But the burning of the Great Temple is by far the most ominous reason. So I began to make enquiries about this young man, and have learned that he flatly refused to observe the regulations surrounding his flaminate until he assumed the toga virilis. His behavior since has been orthodox, as far as I can find out. Now all this could well have been a symptom of his youth. But what I think is not important. What does Jupiter Optimus Maximus think? That is important! For, my fellow priests and augurs, I have learned that Jupiter’s temple fire finally went out two days before the Ides of Quinctilis. On that exact same day of the year, the flamen Dialis was born. An omen!”

  “It could be a good omen,” said Cotta, who cared about the fate of this particular flamen Dialis.

  “Indeed it could,” said Sulla, “but that is not for me to say.
As Dictator, I feel free to determine the method whereby our priests and augurs are appointed, I feel free to abolish the elections. But the flamen Dialis is different. All of you must decide his fate. All of you! Fetials, pontifices, augurs, the priests of the sacred books, even the epulones and the salii. Cotta, I am putting you in charge of the investigation, as you are the longest—serving pontifex. You have until the Ides of December, when we will meet again in this temple to discuss the religious position of the present flamen Dialis.” He looked at Cotta sternly. “No word of this must get round, especially to young Caesar himself.”

  Home he went, chuckling and rubbing his hands together in transports of delight. For Sulla had thought of the most wonderful joke! The kind of joke Jupiter Optimus Maximus would find a terrific boost to his force pathways. An offering! A living sacrificial victim for Rome—for the Republic, whose High Priest he was! He had been invented to supplant the Rex Sacrorum, ensure that the Republic outranked the Kings, all of whom had been Rex Sacrorum as well as King. Oh, a superb joke! he cried to himself, literally crying—with laughter. I will offer the Great God a victim who will go consenting to the sacrifice, and continue to sacrifice himself until his death! I will dower the Republic and the Great God with the best segment of one man’s life—I will offer up his suffering, his distress, his pain. And all with his consent. Because he will never refuse to be sacrificed.

  *

  The next day Sulla published the first of his laws aimed at regulating the State religion by fixing them to the rostra and the wall of the Regia. At first the rostra perusers presumed it was a new proscription list, so the professional bounty hunters clustered quickly, only to turn away with exclamations of disgust: it turned out to be a list of the men who were now members of the various priestly colleges, major and minor. Fifteen of each, somewhat haphazardly divided between patricians and plebeians (with the plebeians in the majority), and beautifully balanced between the Famous Families. No unworthy names on this list! No Pompeius or Tullius or Didius! Julii, Servilii, Junii, Aemilii, Cornelii, Claudii, Sulpicii, Valerii, Domitii, Mucii, Licinii, Antonii, Manlii, Caecilii, Terentii. It was also noted that Sulla had given himself a priesthood to complement the augurship he held already—and that he was the only man to hold both.

  “I ought to have a foot in both camps,” he had said to himself when contemplating doing this. “I am the Dictator.”

  The day after, he published an addendum containing only one name. The name of the new Pontifex Maximus. Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius the Piglet. Stammerer extraordinary.

  The people of Rome were beside themselves with horror when they saw that frightful name upon the rostra and the Regia—the new Pontifex Maximus was Metellus Pius1? How could that be? What was wrong with Sulla? Had he gone quite mad?

  A shivering deputation came to see him at Ahenobarbus’s house, its members consisting of priests and augurs, including Metellus Pius himself. For obvious reasons he was not the deputation’s Spokesman; his tongue stumbled so these days that no one was willing to stand there shifting from one foot to the other while the Piglet strove to articulate his thoughts. The spokesman was Catulus.

  “Lucius Cornelius, why?” wailed Catulus. “Are we to have no say about this?”

  “I duh—duh—duh—don’t wuh—wuh—wuh—wan? the juh—juh—job!” the Piglet stuttered painfully, eyes rolling, hands working.

  “Lucius Cornelius, you can’t!” Vatia cried.

  “It’s impossible!” shouted son-in-law Mamercus.

  Sulla let them run down before he answered, no flicker of emotion on his face or in his eyes; it was no part of his joke ever to let them see that it was a joke. They must always think him earnest, serious. For he was. He was! Jupiter had come to him in a dream last night and told him how much he appreciated this wonderful, perfect joke.

  They ran down. An apprehensive silence fell, save for the soft sound of the Piglet’s weeping.

  “Actually,” said Lucius Cornelius Sulla in conversational tones, “as the Dictator I can do anything I want. But that is not the point. The point is that I dreamed Jupiter Optimus Maximus came to me and asked specifically for Quintus Caecilius as his Pontifex Maximus. When I woke I took the omens, and they were very propitious. On the way to the Forum to pin my two pieces of parchment up on the rostra and the Regia, I saw fifteen eagles flying from left to right across the Capitol. No owl hooted, no lightning flashed.”

  The deputation looked into Sulla’s face, then at the floor. He was serious. So, it seemed, was Jupiter Optimus Maximus.

  “But no ritual can contain a mistake!” said Vatia. “No gesture, no action, no word can be wrong! The moment something is performed or said wrongly, the whole ceremony has to start all over again!”

  “I am aware of that,” said Sulla gently.

  “Lucius Cornelius, surely you can see!” cried Catulus. “Pius stutters and stammers his way through every statement he makes! So whenever he acts as Pontifex Maximus, we are going to be there forever!’’

  “I see it with crystal clarity,” said Sulla with great seriousness. “Remember, I too will be there forever.” He shrugged. “What can I say, except that perhaps this is some extra sacrifice the Great God requires of us because we haven’t acquitted ourselves as we ought in matters pertaining to our gods?” He turned to Metellus Pius to take one of the spasming hands in both his own. “Of course, Piglet dear, you can refuse. There is nothing in our religious laws to say you can’t.”

  The Piglet used his free hand to pick up a fold of toga and employ it to wipe his eyes and nose. He drew in a breath and said, “I will do it, Lucius Cornelius, if the Great God requires it of muh—muh—me.”

  “There, you see?’’ asked Sulla, patting the hand he held. “You almost got it out! Practice, Piglet dear! Practice!”

  The first paroxysm of laughter was welling dangerously close to eruption; Sulla got rid of the deputation in a hurry and bolted to his study, where he shut himself in. His knees gave way; he collapsed onto a couch, wrapped his arms round his body and howled, the tears of mirth pouring down his face.

  When he couldn’t breathe properly he rolled onto the floor and lay there shrieking and gasping with his legs kicking in the air, hurting so much he thought he might die. But still he laughed, secure in the knowledge that the omens had indeed been propitious. And for the rest of that day, whenever the Piglet’s expression of noble self-sacrifice flashed before his mind’s eye, he doubled over in a fresh paroxysm; so too did he laugh again whenever he remembered the look on Catulus’s face, and Vatia’s, and his son-in-law’s. Wonderful, wonderful! Perfect justice, this Jupiterian joke. Everyone had received exactly what everyone deserved. Including Lucius Cornelius Sulla.

  *

  On the Ides of December some sixty men—members of the minor as well as the major priestly colleges—tried to squash into the temple of Jupiter Feretrius.

  “We have paid our respects to the god,” said Sulla. “I do not think he will mind if we seek the open air.”

  He sat himself on the low wall which fenced off the old Asylum from the parklike areas of ground swelling easily up on either side to the twin humps of Capitol and Arx, and gestured to the rest to sit on the grass.

  That, thought the desperately unhappy Piglet, was one of the oddest things about Sulla: he could invest small things with huge dignity, then—as now—reduce huge things to complete informality. To the Capitoline visitors and tourists—to the men and women who arrived panting at the top of the Asylum steps or the Gemonian steps, taking a shortcut between Forum Romanum and Campus Martius—they must look like a strolling philosopher and his pupils, or an old country daddy with all his brothers, nephews, sons, cousins,

  “What have you to report, Gaius Aurelius?” asked Sulla of Cotta, who sat in the middle of the front row.

  “First of all, that this task was very difficult for me, Lucius Cornelius,” Cotta replied. “You are aware, I suppose, that young Caesar the flamen Dialis is my nephew?’’

/>   “As indeed he is also my nephew, though by marriage rather than blood,” said the Dictator steadily.

  “Then I must ask you another question. Do you intend to proscribe the Caesars?’’

  Without volition Sulla thought of Aurelia, and shook his head emphatically. “No, Cotta, I do not. The Caesars who were my brothers-in-law so many years ago are both dead. They never really committed any crimes against the State, for all they were Marius’s men. There were reasons for that. Marius had helped the family financially, the tie was an obligatory gratitude. The widow of old Gaius Marius is the boy’s blood aunt, and her sister was my first wife.”

  “But you have proscribed both Marius’s and Cinna’s families.”

  “That I have.”

  “Thank you,” said Cotta, looking relieved. He cleared his throat. “Young Caesar was but thirteen years old when he was solemnly and properly consecrated as the priest of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. He fulfilled all the criteria save one: he was a patrician with both parents still living, but he was not married to a patrician woman with both parents still living. However, Marius found him a bride, to whom he was married before the ceremonies of inauguration and consecration. The bride was Cinna’s younger daughter.”

  “How old was she?” Sulla asked, snapping his fingers at his servant, who promptly handed him a peasant’s wide—brimmed straw hat. Having adjusted it comfortably, he looked out slyly from under it, truly an old country daddy.