The others by now had come to their feet.
“Gaius Octavius.” A short young man of muscular physique, Gaius Octavius was handsome in a rather Greek way, brown of hair and hazel of eye—except for his ears, which stuck straight out like jug handles. His handshake was nicely firm.
“Publius Cornelius Lentulus—plain Lentulus.” One of the haughty ones, obviously, and a typical Cornelian—brown of coloring, homely of face. He looked as if he had trouble keeping up, yet was determined to keep up—insecure but dogged.
“The fancy Lentulus—Lucius Cornelius Lentulus Niger. We call him Niger, of course.” Another of the haughty ones, another typical Cornelian. More arrogant than plain Lentulus.
“Lucius Marcius Philippus Junior. We call him Lippus—he’s such a snail.” The nickname was an unkindness, as Lippus did not have bleary eyes; rather, his eyes were quite magnificently large and dark and dreamy, set in a far better-looking face than Philippus owned—from his Claudian grandmother, of course, whom he resembled. He gave an impression of easygoing placidity and his handshake was gentle, though not weak.
“Marcus Valerius Messala Rufus. Known as Rufus the Red.” Not one of the haughty ones, though his patrician name was very haughty. Rufus the Red was a red man—red of hair and red of eye. He did not, however, seem to be red of disposition.
“And, last as usual because we always seem to look over the top of his head, Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus.”
Bibulus was the haughtiest one of all, perhaps because he was by far the smallest, diminutive in height and in build. His features lent themselves to a natural expression of superiority, for his cheekbones were sharp, as was his bumpy Roman nose; the mouth was discontented and the brows absolutely straight above slightly prominent, pale grey eyes. Hair and brows were white—fair, having no gold in them, which made him seem older than his years, numbering twenty-one.
Very occasionally two individuals upon meeting generate in that first glance a degree of dislike which has no foundation in fact or logic; it is instinctive and ineradicable. Such was the dislike which flared between Gaius Julius Caesar and Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus in their first exchange of glances. King Nicomedes had spoken of enemies—here was one, Caesar was sure.
Gabinius pulled the eighth chair from its position against the wall and set it at the table between his own and Octavius’s.
“Sit down and eat,” he said.
“I’ll sit, gladly, but forgive me if I don’t eat.”
“Wine, you’ll have some wine!”
“I never touch it.”
Octavius giggled. “Oh, you’ll love living here!” he cried. “The vomit is usually wall to wall.”
“You’re the flamen Dialis!” exclaimed Philippus’s son.
“I was the flamen Dialis,” said Caesar, intending to say no more. Then he thought better of that, and went on, “If I give you the details now, no one need ever ask about it again.” He told the story crisply, his words so well chosen that the rest of them—no scholars, any—soon realized the new tribune was an intellectual, if not a scholar.
“Quite a tale,” said Gabinius when it was over.
“So you’re still married to Cinna’s daughter,” said Bibulus.
“Yes.”
“And,” said Octavius, giving a whoop of laughter, “we are now hopelessly locked in the ancient combat, Gabinius! Caesar makes it four patricians! War to the death!”
The rest gave him withering glances, and he subsided.
“Just come out from Rome, have you?” asked Rufus.
“No, from Bithynia.”
“What were you doing in Bithynia?” asked plain Lentulus.
“Gathering a fleet for the investment of Mitylene.”
“I’ll bet that old pansy Nicomedes liked you,” sneered Bibulus. Knowing that it was a breach of manners calculated to offend most of those in the room, he had tried not to say it; but somehow his tongue could not resist.
“He did, as a matter of fact,” said Caesar coolly.
“Did you get your fleet?” Bibulus pressed.
“Naturally,” said Caesar with a haughtiness Bibulus could never have matched.
The laughter was sharp, like Bibulus’s face. “Naturally? Don’t you mean, un—naturally?”
No one actually saw what happened next. Six pairs of eyes only found focus after Caesar had moved around the table and picked Bibulus up bodily, holding him at arm’s length, feet well clear of the floor. It looked ridiculous, comedic; Bibulus’s arms were swinging wildly at Caesar’s smiling face but were too short to connect—a scene straight out of an inspired mime.
“If you were not as insignificant as a flea,” said Caesar, “I would now be outside pounding your face into the cobbles. Unfortunately, Pulex, that would be tantamount to murder. You’re too insignificant to allow me to beat you to a pulp. So stay out of my way, fleabite!” Still holding Bibulus clear of the floor, he looked about until he found something that would do—a cabinet six feet tall. Without seeming to exert much effort, he popped Bibulus on top, gracefully avoiding the boot Bibulus aimed at him. “Kick your feet up there for a while, Pulex.”
Then he was gone, out into the road.
“Pulex really suits you, Bibulus!” said Octavius, laughing. “I shall call you Pulex from now on, you deserve it. How about you, Gabinius? Going to call him Pulex?”
“I’d rather call him Podex!” snapped Gabinius, red-faced with anger. “What possessed you to say that, Bibulus? It was utterly uncalled for, and it makes every one of us look bad!” He glared at the others. “I don’t care what the rest of you do, but I’m going out to help Caesar unload.”
“Get me down!” said Bibulus from the top of the cabinet.
“Not I!” said Gabinius scornfully.
In the end no one volunteered; Bibulus had to drop cleanly to the floor, for the flimsy unit was too unstable to permit of his lowering himself by his hands. In the midst of his monumental rage he also knew bewilderment and mortification—Gabinius was right. What had possessed him? All he had succeeded in doing was making a churl of himself—he had lost the esteem of his companions and could not console himself that he had won the encounter, for he had not. Caesar had won it easily—and with honor—not by striking a man smaller than himself, but rather by showing that man’s smallness up. It was only natural that Bibulus should resent size and muscularity in others, as he had neither; the world, he well knew, belonged to big and imposing men. Just the look of Caesar had been enough to set him off—the face, the body, the height—and then, to cap those physical advantages, the fellow had produced a spate of fluent, beautifully chosen words! Not fair!
He didn’t know whom he hated most—himself, or Gaius Julius Caesar. The man with everything. Bellows of mirth were floating in from the road, too intriguing for Bibulus to resist. Quietly he crept to the side of the doorway and peered around it furtively. There stood his six fellow tribunes holding their sides, while the man who had everything sat upon the back of a mule! Whatever he was saying Bibulus could not hear, but he knew the words were witty, funny, charming, likable, irresistible, fascinating, interesting, superbly chosen, spellbinding.
“Well,’’ he said to himself as he slunk toward the privacy of his room, “he will never, never, never be rid of this flea!”
*
As winter set in and the investment of Mitylene slowed to that static phase wherein the besiegers simply sat and waited for the besieged to starve, Lucius Licinius Lucullus finally found time to write to his beloved Sulla.
I hold out high hopes for an end to this in the spring, thanks to a very surprising circumstance about which I would rather tell you a little further down the columns. First, I would like you to grant me a favor. If I do manage to end this in the spring, may I come home? It has been so long, dear Lucius Cornelius, and I need to set eyes on Rome—not to mention you. My brother, Varro Lucullus, is now old enough and experienced enough to be a curule aedile, and I have a fancy to share the curule aedileship with him.
There is no other office a pair of brothers can share and earn approbation. Think of the games we will give! Not to mention the pleasure. I am thirty-eight now, my brother is thirty-six—almost praetor time, yet we have not been aediles. Our name demands that we be aediles. Please let us have this office, then let me be praetor as soon afterward as possible. If, however, you feel my request is not wise or not deserved, I will of course understand.
Thermus seems to be managing in Asia Province, having given me the siege of Mitylene to keep me busy and out of his hair. Not a bad sort of fellow, really. The local peoples all like him because he has the patience to listen to their tales of why they can’t afford to pay the tribute, and I like him because after he’s listened so patiently, he insists they pay the tribute.
These two legions I have here are composed of a rough lot of fellows. Murena had them in Cappadocia and Pontus, Fimbria before him. They have an independence of mind which I dislike, and am busy knocking out of them. Of course they resent your edict that they never be allowed to return to Italy because they condoned Fimbria’s murder of Flaccus, and send a deputation to me regularly asking that it be lifted. They get nowhere, and by this know me well enough to understand that I will decimate them if they give me half an excuse. They are Rome’s soldiers, and they will do as they are told. I become very testy when rankers and junior tribunes think they are entitled to a say—but more of that anon.
It seems to me at this stage that Mitylene will have softened to a workable consistency by the spring, when I intend a frontal assault. I will have several siege towers in place, so it ought to succeed. If I can beat this city into submission before the
summer, the rest of Asia Province will lie down tamely.
The main reason why I am so confident lies in the fact that I have the most superb fleet from—you’ll never guess!—Nicomedes! Thermus sent your nephew by marriage, Gaius Julius Caesar, to obtain it from Nicomedes at the end of Quinctilis. He did write to me to that effect, though neither of us expected to see the fleet before March or even April of next year. But apparently, if you please, Thermus had the audacity to laugh at young Caesar’s confidence that he would get the fleet together quickly. So Caesar pokered up and demanded a fleet size and delivery date from Thermus in the most high—handed manner possible. Forty ships, half of them decked quinqueremes or triremes, delivered on the Kalends of November. Such were Thermus’s orders to this haughty young fellow.
But would you believe it, Caesar turned up in my camp on the Kalends of November with a far better fleet than any Roman could ever have expected to get from the likes of Nicomedes? Including two sixteeners, for which I have to pay no more than food and wages for their crews! When I saw the bill, I was amazed—Bithynia will make a profit, but not an outrageous one. Which makes me honor—bound to return the fleet as soon as Mitylene falls. And to pay up. I hope to pay up out of the spoils, of course, but if these should fail to be as large as I expect, is there any chance you could persuade the Treasury to make me a special grant?
I must add that young Caesar was arrogant and insolent when he handed the fleet over to me. I was obliged to put him in his place. Naturally there is only one way he could possibly have extracted such a magnificent fleet in such a short time from old pansy Nicomedes—he slept with him. And so I told him, to put him in his place. But I doubt there is any way in the world to put Caesar in his place! He turned on me like a hooded snake and informed me that he didn’t need to resort to women’s tricks to obtain anything—and that the day he did was the day he would put his sword through his belly. He left me wondering how to discipline him—not usually a problem I have, as you know. In the end I thought perhaps his fellow junior military tribunes might do it for me. You remember them—you must have seen them in Rome before they set out for service. Gabinius, two Lentuli, Octavius, Messala Rufus, Bibulus, and Philippus’s son.
I gather tiny Bibulus did try. And got put up on top of a tall cabinet for his pains. The ranks in the junior tribunes’ quarters have been fairly split since—Caesar has acquired Gabinius, Octavius, and Philippus’s son—Rufus is neutral—and the two Lentuli and Bibulus loathe him. There is always trouble among young men during siege operations, of course, because of the boredom, and it’s difficult to flog the young villains to do any work. Even for me. But Caesar spells trouble above and beyond the usual. I detest having to bother myself with people on this low level, but I have had no choice on several occasions. Caesar is a handful. Too pretty, too self-confident, too aware of what is, alas, a very great intelligence.
However, to give Caesar his due, he’s a worker. He never stops. How I don’t quite know, but almost every ranker in the camp seems to know him—and like him, more’s the pity. He just takes charge. My legates have taken to avoiding him because he won’t take orders on a job unless he approves of the way the job is being done. And unfortunately his way is always the better way! He’s one of those fellows who has it all worked out in his mind before the first blow is struck or the first subordinate ordered to do a thing. The result is that all too often my legates end up with red faces.
The only way so far that I have managed to prick his confidence is in referring to how he obtained his wonderful fleet from old Nicomedes at such a bargain price. And it does work, to the extent that it angers him hugely. But will he do what I want him to do—physically attack me and give me an excuse to court—martial him? No! He’s too clever and too self-controlled. I don’t like him, of course. Do you? He had the impudence to inform me that my birth compared to his is less than the dust!
Enough of junior tribunes. I ought to find things to say about grander men—senior legates, for example. But I am afraid that about them I can think of nothing.
I hear that you have gone into the matchmaking business, and have found Pompeius Kid Butcher a wife far above his own standing. You might, if you have the time, find me a bride. I have been away since my thirtieth birthday, now I am almost of praetor’s age and have no wife, let alone son to succeed me. The trouble is that I prefer good wine, good food and good times to the sort of woman a Licinius Lucullus must marry. Also, I like my women very young, and who is so hard up that he would give me his thirteen-year-old? If you can think of anyone, let me know. My brother absolutely refuses to act as a matchmaker, so you can imagine how happy I was to learn that you have gone into the business.
I love you and miss you, dear Lucius Cornelius.
Late in March, Marcus Minucius Thermus arrived from Pergamum, and agreed that Lucullus should attack. When he heard all the details about Caesar’s Bithynian fleet he roared with laughter, though Lucullus was still unable to see the funny side of it; he was too plagued by complaints passed up the command chain about his unruly, scrapping junior military tribunes.
There was, however, a very old and unwritten army law: if a man is a constant source of trouble, put him somewhere in the battle sure to see him dead by the end of it. And, making his plans for the assault on Mitylene, Lucullus resolved to abide by this ancient army law. Caesar would have to die. Full command in the coming battle had been left with him; Thermus would be present only as an observer.
It was not extraordinary for a general to call all ranks of his officers to a final council, but rare enough in the case of Lucullus to cause some comment. Not that anyone thought it odd to see the junior military tribunes present; they were inordinately troublesome, and clearly the general did not trust them. Normally they served, chiefly as messengers, under his legionary tribunes, and it was as such that he appointed them when he came to the fine details at the end of his war council. Except for Caesar, to whom he said coldly,
“You are a pain in the podex, but I note that you like to work hard. I have therefore decided to give you command of a special cohort composed of all the worst elements in the Fimbriani. This cohort I will hold in reserve until I see whereabouts the fiercest resistance is. Then I will order it into that section of the battle. It will be your job as their commander to see that they reverse the sit
uation.”
“You’re a dead man,” said Bibulus complacently as they sat in their quarters after the council.
“Not I!” said Caesar cheerfully, splitting a hair from his head with his sword, and another with his dagger.
Gabinius, who liked Caesar enormously, looked worried. “I wish you weren’t such a prominent sort of mentula,” he said. “If you would only pipe down and make yourself inconspicuous, you wouldn’t be singled out. He’s given you a job he ought not to have given to a junior, especially one who has never served in a campaign before. All of his own troops are Fimbriani and under permanent sentence of exile. He’s gathered together the ones who resent it most, then put you in charge of them! If he was going to give you command of a cohort, it ought to have been of men from Thermus’s legions.”
“I know all that,” said Caesar patiently. “Nor can I help it if I’m a prominent sort of mentula—ask any of the camp women.”
That provoked a chuckle from some, dark looks from others; those who loathed him might have forgiven him more easily had he not, over the course of the winter, earned an enviable reputation among the female camp followers—made more novel and amusing by his insistence that the lucky woman be so clean she shone.
“Aren’t you worried at all?” asked Rufus the Red.
“No,” said Caesar. “I have luck as well as talent. Wait and see.” He slid sword and dagger into their scabbards carefully, then prepared to carry them to his room. As he passed by Bibulus he tickled him under the chin. “Don’t be afraid, little Pulex,” he said, “you’re so small the enemy will never notice you.”
“If he wasn’t so sure of himself, I might find him more bearable,” said plain Lentulus to Lentulus Niger as they trod together up the stairs to their rooms.
“Something will cut him down to size,” said Niger.
“Then I hope I’m there to see it,” said plain Lentulus, and shivered. “It’s going to be nasty tomorrow, Niger.”
“Most of all for Caesar,” said Niger, and smiled with sour satisfaction. “Lucullus has thrown him to the arrows.”
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