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

by Colleen McCullough

  Lucullus paused to look directly at Philippus, who was leaning forward on his stool and smiling broadly. It galled Lucullus to be doing Philippus’s work for him; but he was a fair man, and it came better from the consul—elect than from one even the stupidest senator now realized was Pompey’s lobbyist.

  “When, Conscript Fathers, you gave your special commission to Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, I was governing Africa Province and you could find no capable senator willing to undertake the task of uprooting Quintus Sertorius. You sent Gnaeus Pompeius off with six legions and fifteen hundred cavalry. I tell you frankly that I would not have consented to go with less than ten full legions and three thousand cavalry—the figures Gnaeus Pompeius gives in his letter as adequate for the job. The correct figures!

  “If one examines Gnaeus Pompeius’s military record, it is impressive. And Pompeius is young enough to be flexible, adaptable, all the qualities men lose along with their youthful enthusiasm. Against any other enemy of Rome, six legions and fifteen hundred cavalry would probably have been sufficient. But Quintus Sertorius is a very special case. We have not seen his like since Gaius Marius, and I personally rank him a better general than Marius. So the initial defeats of Pompeius are not so very surprising. His luck was out, was all. For he ran up against one of the best military minds Rome has ever produced. Do you doubt that? You ought not! It is the truth.

  “However, even the finest military minds think in a certain way. The governor of the Further province, our good Pius, has now been in Spain long enough to have begun to understand the way Sertorius thinks. I congratulate Pius for that. Frankly, I did not think he had it in him! Yet he cannot beat Sertorius alone. The theater of war is too vast—it is Italy during the Italian War all over again. One man cannot be north and south at the same time, and between the two regions is a dry and mountainous barrier.

  “You sent the second man—a mere knight upon whom you put a kind of unnamed military crown—to govern the Nearer province. How did you phrase it, Philippus?—non pro-consule, sed pro consulibus. You gave him to understand that you were sending him adequately staffed and adequately remunerated. Oh, make no mistake, he was eager for the job! At twenty-nine years of age and already a hoary veteran, which one of us military fellows would not have been? He was eager for the job, and may well have been eager enough to have gone off even less well provided! You might have got him as cheaply as four legions and five hundred cavalry!”

  “A pity we didn’t,” said Catulus. “He’s lost more men than that since he’s been there.”

  “Hear, hear!” cried Hortensius.

  “And that,” said Lucullus, ignoring the brothers-in-law this time, “brings me to the crux of the matter. How can Rome hope to stop a man like Quintus Sertorius when Rome is not willing to send the money or the men to Spain that would ensure he was stopped? Not even a Quintus Sertorius could have coped with the war Pompeius and Pius might have brought to bear on him on two fronts had each of them commanded ten legions and three thousand horse! Pompeius’s letter accuses this body of losing the war—and I agree with that judgement! How can this body expect miracles when it will not pay the magicians to work them? No money, no reinforcements—it cannot go on! This body must find the money to pay the woefully inadequate legions of Pompeius and Pius, and it must also find the money to give Pompeius at least two more legions. Four would be better.”

  Gaius Cotta spoke from the curule chair. “I agree with every last thing you’ve said, Lucius Licinius. But we do not have the money, Lucius Licinius. We just do not have the money.”

  “Then we have to find it,” said Lucullus.

  “Find it from where?” asked Gaius Cotta. “It is three years since we saw any significant revenues from Spain, and since the Contestani rose up we have seen no revenues at all.

  The Further province cannot mine the Marian Mountains or the southern Orospeda, and the Nearer province now cannot mine around New Carthage. The days when the Treasury’s share of the gold, silver, lead and iron from Spain amounted to twenty thousand talents are gone, as are the mines themselves. Added to which, the events of the last fifteen years have reduced our income from Asia Province to its lowest level since we inherited the place over fifty-five years ago. We are at war in Illyricum, Macedonia and Gaul-across-the-Alps. We even hear rumors that King Mithridates is rising again, though no one can be sure. And should Nicomedes of Bithynia die, the situation in the east will become more precarious still.”

  “To deny our governors in Spain money and troops because we foresee events at the other end of Our Sea that may well not come to pass, Gaius Cotta, is absolute idiocy,” said Lucullus.

  “No, Lucius Lucullus!” Cotta snapped, angered. “I do not need to foresee anything to know that we do not have the money to send to Spain, let alone the troops! Gnaeus Pompeius and Quintus Pius must put up with things the way they are!’’

  The long face grew flintlike. “Then,” said Lucullus in freezing tones, “there will be a new comet in Rome’s sky. Its head will be loyal enough, for that will be a bankrupt Gnaeus Pompeius hurrying home with his tatterdemalion army. But the tail—ah, the tail! The tail will be Quintus Sertorius and the barbarians of Spain he holds in utter thrall. Joined along the way by Volcae, Salluvii, Vocontii, Allobroges, Helvii—and no doubt by the Boii and Insubres of Italian Gaul—not to mention the Ligures and Vagienni!”

  Absolute silence greeted this Parthian shot.

  Deciding it was time to break Sulla’s rule, Philippus got to his feet and walked deliberately into the middle of the Curia Hostilia floor. There he looked at everybody in turn, from an ashen Cethegus to the flinching figures of Catulus and Hortensius. Then he turned to the curule podium and gazed at the discomfited Gaius Cotta, whose face reflected his state of mind.

  “I suggest, Conscript Fathers,” Philippus said, “that we summon the heads of the Treasury and the tax experts and see how we can find a considerable sum of money the honorable consul says we do not have. I also suggest that we find some legions and a squadron or two of cavalry.”

  *

  When Pompey arrived before Septimanca in the lands of the Vaccei he found it smaller than his informants had thought, though it looked prosperous enough. It was situated on a bluff above the Pisoraca River, but not invulnerably so; at Pompey’s advent the whole district surrendered without a fight. Surrounded by interpreters, he endeavored to soothe Septimancan fears and convince the chieftains of the region that he would eventually pay in full for what he took, and that his men would behave.

  Clunia, some miles to the north of the sources of the Durius, was the westernmost of Sertorius’s strongholds, but some of the settlements to the south of the same reach of that river had heard of the fate of Segovia and sent to Pompey at Septimanca the moment he arrived there, fervently assuring him of their loyalty to Rome and offering him whatever he needed. So after a conference with his legates, interpreters and locals, he dispatched Lucius Titurius Sabinus and fifteen cohorts to winter at Termes, Celtiberian in populace but no longer keen to serve Sertorius.

  In fact (as Pompey told Metellus Pius in a letter sent to wish him felicitations for the New Year) the ground swell was now beginning. If in the next campaign season they could damage Sertorius so badly he visibly reeled, places like Septimanca and Termes anxious to submit would increase. The war would go on in Sertorius’s heartland of the Iberus; there would be no more expeditions to the lower east coast.

  The spring came early to the upper Durius, and Pompey did not linger. Leaving the people of Septimanca and Termes to plant their crops (with something extra in case the Romans came back next winter), the reunited four very under—strength legions set off up the Pisoraca to Pallantia, which had declared for Sertorius, apparently for no other reason than that the rival Septimanca had declared for Rome.

  Metellus Pius pulled up stakes in Narbonese Gaul early as well, and marched up the Iberus with the intention of eventually joining Pompey marching down. His most important task, however, was to ope
n the route between the Iberus and central Spain to Roman use, so when he reached the Salo—a big tributary of the Iberus flowing from the Juga Carpetana—he turned up it and one by one subdued the Sertorian towns along it. At the end of this crisp campaign he now had a quick way home to his own province, and had cut Sertorius off from the headwaters of both the Tagus and the Anas, which meant isolation from the tribes of Lusitania.

  Pallantia turned out to be a hard nut to crack, so Pompey settled down to besiege it in the manner of Scipio Aemilianus before Numantia—as he informed the town through a relentless barrage of heralds. To retaliate, Pallantia sent to Sertorius in Osca, and Sertorius responded by bringing his own army to besiege the besiegers. It was clear that he wanted nothing to do with the old woman of the Further province, whose efforts up the Salo he chose to ignore as he passed by; Sertorius was as certain as ever that Pompey was the weak link in the Roman chain.

  Neither side was interested in a direct confrontation at Pallantia, where Pompey concentrated upon reducing the town and Sertorius upon reducing Pompey’s ranks. So while Pompey piled logs and tinder against Pallantia’s stout wooden walls, Sertorius picked off Pompey’s men a few at a time. And at the beginning of April Pompey withdrew, leaving Sertorius to help the town repair its burned section of fortifications before setting off in pursuit.

  A month later Pompey and Metellus Pius met before one of Sertorius’s strongest towns, Calagurris on the upper Iberus.

  With the Piglet came a chest of money for Pompey and two more legions plus six thousand extra men formed into cohorts to plump out his existing legions to full strength. And with all that largesse from Rome came his new proquaestor, none other than Marcus Terentius Varro.

  Oh, how glad he was to see that shiny pate with the fringe of dark hair above its ears! Pompey wept unashamedly.

  “I’d gone before Varro and your reinforcements reached Narbo,” said the Piglet as the three of them sat in Pompey’s tent over a much-needed goblet of watered wine, “but I picked him up when I came out of the Salo valley into the Iberus. And I’m pleased to say he handed me a full war chest too, Magnus.”

  Pompey’s chest expanded; he exhaled a huge sigh of relief. “I take it then that my letter worked,” he said to Varro.

  “Worked?” Varro laughed. “I’d rather say it lit a fire under the Senate hotter than any since Saturninus declared that he was King of Rome! I wish you could have seen everybody’s faces when Lucullus started itemizing the number of Gallic tribes which were sure to tack themselves on to Sertorius’s comet tail when he followed you toward Rome!”

  “Lucullus?” asked Pompey, astonished.

  “Oh, he was your champion, Magnus!”

  “Why? I didn’t think he was fond of me.”

  “He probably isn’t. But I think he was afraid someone might suggest sending him to replace you in Spain. He’s a very good military man, but the last thing he wants is to be sent to Spain. Who in full possession of his wits would want Spain?”

  “Who indeed,” said the Piglet, smiling.

  “So I now have six legions, and both of us can issue some pay,” said Pompey. “How much did we get, Varro?”

  “Enough to give the living and the dead their back pay, and to pay the living for a part of this year. But unfortunately not enough to keep on paying them. I’m sorry, Magnus. It was the best Rome could do.”

  “I wish I knew where Sertorius kept his treasure! I’d make sure it was the next town I attacked, and I wouldn’t rest until his moneybags were in my war chest,” said Pompey.

  “I doubt Sertorius has any funds either, Magnus,” said the Piglet, shaking his head.

  “Rubbish! He got three thousand talents of gold from King Mithridates not more than a year ago!”

  “Swallowed up already, is my guess. Don’t forget that he has no provinces to bring in a regular income, and he hasn’t the slaves to work the mines. Nor do the Spanish tribes have money.”

  “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

  A small and comfortable silence fell. Metellus Pius broke it suddenly, as if reaching a decision he had mulled over in his mind for some time. He drew a breath of sufficient dimension to make Pompey and Varro look at him.

  “Magnus, I have an idea,” he said.

  “I’m listening.”

  “We’ve just agreed Spain is impoverished, Spaniards and Romans alike. Even the Punic Gadetanians are suffering. Wealth is an unattainable dream to most men who live in Spain. Now I happen to have a tiny treasure which belongs to the Further province, and has sat in a trunk in the governor’s residence at Castulo since Scipio Africanus put it there. I have no idea why none of our more avaricious governors took it, but they didn’t take it. It amounts to one hundred talents of gold coins minted by Hannibal’s brother-in-law, Hasdrubal.”

  “That’s why they didn’t take it,” said Varro, grinning. “How could any Roman get rid of Carthaginian gold coins without someone asking questions?”

  “You’re right.”

  “So, Pius, you have a hundred talents in Carthaginian gold coins,” said Pompey. “What do you intend to do with them?”

  “I have a little more than that, actually. I also have twenty thousand iugera of prime river frontage land on the Baetis which a Servilius Caepio took off some local nobleman in payment for tax arrears. It too has been sitting there in Rome’s name for decades, bringing in a little in lease money.”

  Pompey saw the point, “You’re going to offer the gold and the land as a reward to anyone who turns Quintus Sertorius in.”

  “Absolutely correct.”

  “That’s a brilliant idea, Pius! Whether we like it or not, it seems to me that we’ll never manage to crush Sertorius on a battlefield. He’s just too clever. He also has enormous reserves of men to draw on, and they don’t mind whether he pays them or not. All they want is to see the end of Rome. But there are a few greedy men around any army camp or national capital. If you offer a reward you bring the war right inside Sertorius’s palace walls. And you make it a war of nerves. Do it, Pius! Do it!”

  Pius did it. The proclamations went out within a market interval from one end of Spain to the other: a hundred talents of gold coins and twenty thousand iugera of prime river frontage land on the Baetis to the lucky man who laid information directly leading to the death or capture of Quintus Sertorius.

  That it smote Sertorius hard was made apparent to Metellus Pius and Pompey very soon, for they heard that when Sertorius learned of the reward he immediately dismissed his bodyguard of Roman troops and replaced it with a detachment of his loyalest Oscan Spaniards, then removed himself from the company of his Roman and Italian adherents. Actions which wounded the Romans and Italians to the quick. How dared Quintus Sertorius assume it would be a Roman or an Italian to betray him! Chief among the offended Romans and Italians was Marcus Perperna Veiento.

  *

  Amid this war of nerves the actual war ground on inexorably. Working now as a team, Pompey and Metellus Pius reduced some of Sertorius’s towns, though Calagurris had not fallen; Sertorius and Perperna had turned up with thirty thousand men and sat back to pick off the Roman besiegers in much the same way as Sertorius had dealt with Pompey before Pallantia. In the end lack of supplies forced Pompey and Metellus Pius to pull out of the investment of Calagurris, not Sertorius’s harassment; their twelve legions just could not be fed.

  Supplies were a perpetual problem, thanks to the previous year’s poor harvest. And as spring turned into summer, and summer blazed on toward the coming harvest, a freakish disaster played havoc with the war of attrition Pompey and Metellus Pius were intent upon waging. The whole of the western end of the Middle Sea underwent a frightful shortage of food when scanty rains in winter and late spring were succeeded, just as the crops struggled to mature, by a deluge which stretched from Africa to the Alps, from Oceanus Atlanticus to Macedonia and Greece. The harvest did not exist: not in Africa, in Sicily, in Sardinia, in Corsica, in Italy, in Italian Gaul, in Gaul-across-the-Alp
s, or in Nearer Spain. Only in Further Spain did some crops survive, though not with the usual abundance.

  “The only comfort,” said Pompey to the Piglet at the end of Sextilis, “is that Sertorius will run short of food too.”

  “His granaries are full from earlier years,” said the Piglet gloomily. “He’ll survive far more easily than we will.”

  “I can go back to the upper Durius,” said Pompey doubtfully, “but I don’t think the area can feed six full legions.”

  Metellus Pius made up his mind. “Then I am going back to my province, Magnus. Nor do I think you will need me next spring. What has still to be done in Nearer Spain, you can do for yourself. There won’t be food for my men in Nearer Spain, but if you can get inside some of Sertorius’s bigger strongholds you’ll manage to provision your own men. I can take two of your legions to Further Spain with me and winter them there. If you want them back in the spring I’ll send them to you—but if you think you won’t be able to feed them, I’ll keep them. It will be difficult, but the Further province is not as badly hit as every other place west of Cyrenaica. Rest assured, whoever stays with me will be well fed.”

  Pompey accepted the offer, and Metellus Pius marched with eight legions for his own province far earlier in the year than he had planned or wanted to. The four legions Pompey kept were sent at once to Septimanca and Termes, while Pompey, lingering with Varro and the cavalry on the lower Iberus (thanks to the deluge grazing for horses was no longer a problem, so Pompey was sending his troopers to Emporiae to winter under the command of Varro), sat down to write to the Senate in Rome for the second time. And even though he now had Varro, he kept the prose his own.