But Sertorius would not unravel, Metellus Pius decided, because a Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus opposed him on a battlefield.
His son came in, having knocked and been bidden to enter; Metellus Pius was a stickler for the correct etiquette. Known to everyone as Metellus Scipio (though in private his father addressed him as Quintus), the son’s full name was majestic: Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Cornelianus Scipio Nasica. Now nineteen years old, he had traveled out the year before to join his father’s staff as a contubernalis, very pleased that—as his own father had done before him—he could serve his military training under his father. The paternal bond was not a close blood tie, for Metellus Pius had adopted the eldest son of his wife Licinia’s sister, married to Scipio Nasica. Why the elder Licinia was fertile enough to have produced many children and the younger Licinia barren, the Piglet did not know. These things happened, and when they did a man either divorced his barren wife or—if he loved her, as the Piglet did his Licinia—adopted.
On the whole the Piglet was pleased at the result of this adoption, though he might perhaps have wished that the boy was ever so slightly more intelligent and considerably less naturally arrogant. But the latter could be expected; Scipio Nasica was arrogant. Tall and well built, Metellus Scipio owned a certain haughtiness of expression which had to serve as a substitute for good looks, of which he had none. His eyes were blue—grey and his hair quite light, so he didn’t look at all like his adoptive father. And if some of his contemporaries (like young Cato) had been heard to say that Metellus Scipio always walked around as if he had a bad smell under his nose, it was generally agreed that he did have something to turn up his nose about. Since his tenth birthday he had been contracted in betrothal to the daughter of Mamercus and his first wife, a Claudia Pulchra, and though the two young people did a great deal of squabbling, Metellus Scipio was genuinely very attached to Aemilia Lepida, as she was to him.
“A letter from Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus in Emporiae,” said Metellus Pius to his son, waving it in the air but showing no inclination to allow his son to read it.
The superior expression on Metellus Scipio’s face increased; he sniffed contemptuously. “It is an outrage, Father,” he said.
“In one way yes, Quintus my son. However, the contents of his letter have cheered me up considerably. Our brilliant young military prodigy obviously deems Sertorius a military dunce—no equal for himself!”
“Oh, I see.” Metellus Scipio sat down. “Pompeius thinks he’ll wrap Sertorius up in one short campaign, eh?”
“No, no, my son! Three campaigns,” said the Piglet gently.
*
Sertorius had spent the winter in his new capital of Osca together with his most valued legate, Lucius Hirtuleius, another extremely capable legate, Gaius Herennius, and the relative newcomer, Marcus Perperna Veiento.
When Perperna had first arrived things had not gone well, for Perperna had automatically assumed that his gift of twenty thousand infantry and fifteen hundred cavalry would remain in his own personal command.
But, “I cannot allow that,” had Sertorius said.
Perperna had reacted with outrage. “They are my men, Quintus Sertorius! It is my prerogative to say what happens to them and how they should be used! And I say they still belong to me!”
“Why are you trying to emulate Caepio the Consul before the battle of Arausio?” asked Sertorius. “Don’t even think of it, Veiento! In Spain there is only one commander-in-chief and one consul—me!”
This had not ended the matter. Perperna maintained to all and sundry that Sertorius did not have the right to refuse him an equal status or take his army off him.
Then Sertorius had aired it before his senate. “Marcus Perperna Veiento wishes to make war against the Roman presence in Spain as a separate entity and with a rank equal to mine,” he said. “He will not take orders from me or follow my strategies. I ask you, Conscript Fathers, to inform this man that he must subordinate himself to me or leave Spain.”
Sertorius’s senate was happy so to inform Perperna, but still Perperna had refused to accept defeat. Sure that right and custom were on his side, he appealed to his army in assembly. And was told by his men in no uncertain terms that Sertorius was in the right of it. They would serve Quintus Sertorius, not Perperna.
So Perperna had finally subsided. It had seemed to everyone (including Sertorius) that he gave in with good grace and held no grudges. But underneath his placid exterior Perperna smouldered still, keeping the coals of his outrage from dying out. As far as he was concerned, in Roman terms he ranked exactly with Quintus Sertorius: both of them had been praetors, neither consul.
Unaware that Perperna still boiled, Sertorius proceeded that winter Pompey had arrived in Spain to draw up his plans for the coming year’s campaign.
“I don’t know Pompeius at all,” said the commander-in-chief without undue concern. “However, after looking at his career, I don’t think he’ll be hard to beat. Had I deemed Carbo capable of winning against Sulla, I would have remained in Italy. He had some good men in Carrinas, Censorinus and Brutus Damasippus, but by the time he himself deserted—which is really when we might have seen what Pompeius was made of—he left an utterly demoralized command and soldiery behind. Even if one goes back to Pompeius’s earliest battles it becomes obvious that he has never faced a truly able general or an army with an indestructable spirit.”
“All that will change!” said Hirtuleius, grinning.
“It certainly will. What do they call him? Kid Butcher? Well, I don’t think I’ll glorify him to that extent—I’ll just call him a kid. He’s cocksure and conscienceless, and he has no respect for Roman institutions. If he did, he wouldn’t be here with an imperium equal to the old woman’s in Further Spain. He manipulated the Senate into giving him this command when he has absolutely no right to it, no matter what special clauses Sulla might have incorporated into his laws. So it’s up to me to show him his proper place. Which is not nearly as high as he thinks.”
“What will he do, any idea?” asked Herennius.
“Oh, the logical thing,” said Sertorius cheerfully. “He’ll march down the east coast to take it off us.”
“What about the old woman?’’ asked Perperna, who had adopted Sertorius’s name for Metellus Pius with glee.
“Well, he hasn’t exactly shone so far, has he? Just in case Pompeius’s advent has emboldened him, however, we’ll pin him down in his province. I’ll mass the Lusitani on his western borders. That will oblige him to leave the Baetis and take up residence on the Anas, an extra hundred miles on the march from the coast of Nearer Spain if he’s tempted to aid Pompeius. I don’t think he will be tempted, mind you. The old woman is unadventurous and cautious. And why would he strain at the bit to help a kid who has managed to prise identical imperium out of the Senate? The old woman is a stickler, Perperna. He’ll do his duty to Rome no matter who has been given identical imperium. But he won’t do one iota more. With the Lusitani swarming on the far side of the Anas, he’ll see his first duty as containing them.”
The meeting broke up and Sertorius went to feed his white fawn. This creature, magical enough by virtue of its rare color, had assumed enormous importance in the eyes of his native Spanish followers, who regarded it as evidence of Sertorius’s divinely bestowed magical powers. He had not lost his knack with wild animals over the years, and by the time he arrived in Spain the second time he was well aware of the profound effect his ability to snap his fingers and call up wild creatures to him had on the native peoples. The white fawn, apparently motherless, had come to him two years ago out of the mountains in central Spain, tiny and demure; dazzled by its beauty, he had gone down on his knees to it without pausing to think what he was doing, only concerned to put his arms around it and comfort it. But his Spaniards had murmured in awe and looked at him quite differently from that day forward. For the white fawn, they were convinced, was no one less than a personification of their chief goddess, Diana, who was showing Sertorius her special favor and
raising him above all other men. And he had known who the white fawn was! For he had gone down on his knees in humble worship.
The white fawn had been with him ever since, followed him about like a dog. No other man or woman would it permit to go near it; only Sertorius. And—more magical still!—it had never grown, remained a dainty ruby-eyed mite which frisked and cavorted around Sertorius begging to be hugged and kissed, and slept on a sheepskin at the side of his bed. Even when he campaigned it was with him. During battles he tied it to a post in some safe place, for if he left it free it would always try to reach him in the fray, and he could not afford the risk of its dying; did it die, his Spaniards would deem him deserted by the goddess.
In truth he had begun to think himself that the white fawn was a sign of divine blessing, and believed in it more and more; he called it, of course, Diana, and referred to himself when he spoke to it as Daddy.
“Daddy’s here, Diana!” he called.
And Diana came to him eagerly, asking to be kissed. He knelt down to its level and put his arms about its shivering form, put his lips to the soft sleekness of its head, one hand pulling on its ear in rhythmic caresses it loved. He always excluded it from his house when he conferred with his legates, and it would mope, sure it had in some inexplicable way offended Daddy. The frenzy of guilt and contrition with which it greeted him afterward had to be dealt with in extra hugs and many murmured words of love; only then would it eat. Perhaps understandably, he thought more of Diana than he did of his German wife and his half—German son—there was nothing god—given about them. Only his mother did he love more than he did Diana, and her he had not seen in seven years.
The white fawn nosing contentedly at its rich dried grasses (for winter in Osca meant snow and ice, not grazing), Sertorius sat down on a boulder outside his back door and tried to insert himself inside Pompey’s mind. A kid! Did Rome truly believe that a kid from Picenum could defeat him! By the time he rose he had concluded that Rome and the Senate had been tricked by the shell game Philippus performed so well. For of course Sertorius maintained contact with certain people inside Rome—and they were neither humble nor obscure. Beneath Sulla’s blanket many malcontents moved invisibly, and some of them had made it their business to keep Sertorius informed. Since the appointment of Pompey the tenor of these communications had changed a little; a few important men were beginning to hint that if Quintus Sertorius could defeat the new champion of the Senate, Rome might be glad to welcome him home as the Dictator.
But he had thought of something else too, and privately summoned Lucius Hirtuleius to see him.
“We’ll make absolutely sure the old woman stays in Further Spain,” he said to Hirtuleius, “for it may be that the Lusitani won’t be discouragement enough. I want you and your brother to take the Spanish army to Laminium in the spring and station yourselves there. Then if the old woman does decide to try to help the kid, you’ll contain him. Whether he attempts to break out of his province via the headwaters of the Anas or the Baetis, you’ll be in his way.”
The Spanish army was just that, forty thousand Lusitanian and Celtiberian tribesmen whom Sertorius and Hirtuleius had painfully but successfully trained to fight like Roman legions. Sertorius had other Spanish forces which he had retained in their native guise, superb at ambush and guerrilla warfare; but he had known from the beginning that if he was to beat Rome in Spain, he must also have properly trained Roman legions at his disposal. Many men of Roman or Italian nationality had drifted to enlist under him since Carbo’s final defeat, but not enough. Thus had Sertorius generated his Spanish army.
“Can you do without us against Pompeius?” asked Hirtuleius.
“Easily, with Perperna’s men.”
“Then don’t worry about the old woman. My brother and I will make sure he stays in Further Spain.”
*
“Now remember,” said Metellus Pius to Gaius Memmius as that worthy prepared to march for New Carthage, “that your troops are more precious than your own skin. If things should take a turn for the worse—that is, if Pompeius should not do as well as he thinks he will—get your men into shelter strong enough to keep them safe from attack. You’re a good reliable fellow, Memmius, and I’m sorry to lose you. But don’t forget your men.”
Handsome face solemn, Pompey’s new quaestor who happened to be his brother-in-law as well led his single legion eastward across country commonly held to be the richest and most fertile on earth—richer than Campania, richer than Egypt, richer than Asia Province. With exactly the right summer and winter climates, lavish water from rivers fed by perpetual snow and deep alluvial soils, Further Spain was a breadbasket, green in spring and early summer, golden at the bountiful harvest. Its beasts were fat and productive, its waters teemed with fish.
With Gaius Memmius there journeyed two men who were neither Roman nor Spanish; an uncle and nephew of almost the same age, both named Kinahu Hadasht Byblos. By blood they were Phoenician and by nationality citizens of the great city port of Gades, which had been founded as a Phoenician colony nearly a thousand years before and still kept its Punic roots and customs very much in the foreground of Gadetanian life. The rule of the Carthaginians had not been difficult to accept, as the Carthaginians were also of Punic stock. Then had come the Romans, who proved to suit the people of Gades too; Gades prospered, and gradually the noble Gadetani had come to understand that the destiny of their city was inextricably bound to Rome’s. Any civilized people of the Middle Sea was preferable to domination by the barbarian tribesmen of eastern and central Spain, and the chief fear of the Gadetani remained that Rome would eventually deem Spain not worth the keeping, would withdraw. It was for that reason that the uncle and nephew named Kinahu Hadasht Byblos traveled with Gaius Memmius and his single legion to make themselves useful in any way they could. Memmius had gladly handed them the responsibility for procuring supplies, and used them also as interpreters and sources of information. Because he could not comfortably pronounce their Punic name, and because they spoke Latin (quite well, both of them!) with a lisp emerging from their own lisping language, Pompey’s new quaestor had nicknamed them Balbus, which indicated a speech impediment; though he couldn’t work out why, Memmius had learned that they were enormously pleased to be dowered with a Latin cognomen.
“Gnaeus Pompeius has instructed me to proceed through Ad Fraxinum and Eliocroca,” said Memmius to the elder Balbus. “Is that really the way we ought to go?”
“I think so, Gaius Memmius,” said the foreign-looking Balbus, whose hooked nose and high cheekbones proclaimed his Semitic blood, as did his very large dark eyes. “It means we’ll follow the Baetis almost all the way to its western sources, then cross the Orospeda Mountains where they are narrowest. It is a watershed, but if we march from Ad Fraxinum to Basti we can pick up a road leading across the watershed to Eliocroca on the far side. From Eliocroca we descend rapidly onto the Campus Spartarius. That is what the Romans call the plains of the Contestani around New Carthage. There are no advantages to going any other way.”
“How much opposition are we likely to encounter?”
“None until we cross the Orospeda. Beyond that, who knows?”
“Are the Contestani for us or against us?”
Balbus shrugged in a very foreign way. “Can one be sure of any Spanish tribe? The Contestani have always dwelt in proximity to civilized men, which ought to count for something. But one must call Sertorius a civilized man too, and all the Spanish admire him very much.”
“Then we shall see what we shall see,” said Memmius, and worried no more about it; first reach Eliocroca.
Until Gaius Marius had opened up the mines in the ranges between the Baetis and the Anas (called the Marian Mountains after him), the Orospeda Mountains had been the chief source of lead and silver exploited by Rome. As a result the southern part of the ranges was thin of forest, and that included Memmius’s line of march. Altogether he had a distance of three hundred miles to negotiate, two hundred less than Pompey
, but because the terrain was more difficult Memmius had started out somewhat earlier than Pompey, in mid—March. At the end of April, not having hurried at all, he came down from the Orospeda to the little town of Eliocroca on a southern branch of the Tader River; the Campus Spartarius stretched before him.
Having been in Spain too long to trust any native people, Memmius tightened his ranks up and marched defensively toward New Carthage, some thirty miles away to the southwest. Wisely, as he soon discovered. Not far down the good mining road from Eliocroca he found the Contestani lying in wait for him, and promised an offering to Jupiter Optimus Maximus of a bull calf if he kept his legion intact until he could reach safety. Safety obviously was New Carthage itself; Gaius Memmius wasted no time thinking about remaining anywhere outside its island peninsula.
They were a very long twenty-five miles, but the two hundred Gallic cavalry he had with him he sent ahead to guard the approach to the bridge between the mainland and the city, deeming his plight hopeless only if the Contestani cut him off at that one narrowest point. He had started at a brisk pace from Eliocroca at dawn, encountered the massed tribesmen five miles further on, then fought his way crablike with his cohorts in square on the road, the men forming its sides within the moving column spelling the men on its exposed sides. Foot soldiers themselves and unused to pitched battle, the Contestani could not break his formation. When he reached the bridge he found it uncontested and passed across to safety, his legion intact.
The elder Balbus he sent to Gades aboard a dowdy ship which reeked of garum, the malodorous fish paste so prized by every cook in the world; the letter Balbus carried to Metellus Pius was a whiffy one, but no less important for that. It explained the situation, asked for help, and warned Metellus Pius that New Carthage could not last out until winter unless it got food. The younger Balbus he sent on a more perilous mission, to penetrate the boiling tribes north of New Carthage and try to reach Pompey.
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