Colleen McCullough - 3. Fortune's Favorites

The patient and protesting letter Gaius Norbanus sent to Scipio Asiagenus did nothing to avert Scipio's self inflicted disaster; yet no one was more astonished than Scipio Asiagenus when, having decided after all to give battle, he discovered that his troops would not fight for him. Instead, his eight legions deserted en masse to Sulla. In fact, even when Sulla stripped him of his consular insignia of office and sent him packing under the escort of a squadron of cavalry, Scipio Asiagenus was still incapable of appreciating Rome's predicament. Quite tranquilly and complacently he went off to Etruria and began to recruit another army from among the enormous number of Gaius Marius's clients who lived there. Gaius Marius might be dead, but his memory would never fade. Whereas Scipio Asiagenus was merely a passing presence. "He doesn't even understand that he broke a solemn truce," said Sulla, looking puzzled. "I know the Scipiones are on the way down, but that one ! He's not worthy of the name Cornelius Scipio. If I take Rome, I'll execute him." "You should have executed him when you had him," said the Piglet, a little waspishly. "He's living to be a nuisance. '' "No, he's the poultice I'm applying to Etruria's boil," said Sulla. "Draw the poison out, Pius, while there's only one head to deal with. Don't leave it to become a carbuncle." More wisdom, of course; Metellus Pius grinned. What a wonderful metaphor!"

Though the month was still Quinctilis and summer not yet over, Sulla moved no more that year. With Scipio's departure the two camps were joined cozily together, and Sulla's hoary centurions began working upon the young and inexperienced troops who had belonged to Carbo's Rome. Fear of Sulla's veterans had operated upon them more powerfully than had the more friendly aspects of fraternization; the slight exposure of scant days had revealed to them a kind of soldier they didn't know hardbitten, weathered, completely professional. Definitely not the sort of men any raw recruit could confidently face on a field of battle. Desertion had seemed the better alternative. The defection of Sinuessa Aurunca under the influence of Quintus Sertorius could be no more than a pinprick; Sulla did invest it, but only to use it as a training ground for Scipio's army, not to starve it out or storm its forbidding ramparts. He was not interested in any task which caused mass loss of life that year. Sinuessa's most useful purpose was to contain the extremely able Quintus Sertorius. Holed up there, he was useless to Carbo, who could indeed have used him to better purpose. Word came from Sardinia that Philippus and his Spanish cohorts had seized power easily. He would be able to send the entire harvest of Sardinia: and in due time the grain ships arrived in Puteoli, there to unload for Sulla's benefit, having encountered no war galleys or pirates en route. Then winter came early, and was an unusually severe one. To split the size of his more than doubled forces, Sulla sent some cohorts off to invest Capua as well as Sinuessa and Neapolis, thus compelling other parts of Campania than Teanum to help feed his troops. Verres and Cethegus proved capable victuallers, even devised a method of storing fish caught in the Adriatic in bins of packed down snow; fish lovers who could never get enough of it fresh, Sulla's soldiers reveled in this unexpected treat, and the army surgeons found themselves coping with case after case of bone in the throat. All of which was of no importance to Sulla, who had picked at some of the scabs on his healed face, and started the itching again. Everyone who came into contact with him had begged him to let them fall off naturally, but that restless temperament couldn't wait; when they began to lift and dangle, he picked. The outbreak was a very bad one, and (perhaps because of the cold? wondered Varro, pressed into service because he had revealed a scientific curiosity) raged without let for three full months. Three months of a sodden, genuinely lunatic Sulla, who moaned and scratched, screamed and drank. At one stage Varro bound his hands to his sides to keep them from his face, and though like Ulysses tied to the mast while the Sirens sang he was willing enough to endure this confinement, at the same time he implored to be freed. And of course succeeded eventually in freeing himself. To scratch again. It was at the turn of the year that Varro despaired, went to warn Metellus Pius and Pompey that he doubted whether Sulla would recover by the spring. "There's a letter for him from Tarsus," said Metellus Pius, who was resigned to keeping Pompey company through the winter; Crassus was among the Marsi, and Appius Claudius and Mamercus were in charge of siege operations elsewhere. Varro looked alert. "Tarsus?" "That's right. From the ethnarch Morsimus." Is there a jar?'' "No, just a letter. Can he read it?" "Definitely not." "Then you'd better read it, Varro," said Pompey. Metellus Pius looked scandalized. "Really, Pompeius!" "Oh, Piglet, stop being so sanctimonious!" said Pompey wearily. "We know he's been hoping for some magic salve or other, and we know he'd charged Morsimus with finding it. Now there's news of some sort, but he can't read. Don't you think for his sake, if for no one else's that Varro ought to see what Morsimus has to say?" So Varro was allowed to see what Morsimus had to say.

Here is the recipe, which is the most I can do for you, dear Lucius Cornelius, my friend and patron. It seems the salve has to be freshly prepared more often than the length of a journey from the Pyramus of Cilicia Pedia all the way to Rome would permit. So you must seek out the ingredients and make it for yourself. Luckily none of the ingredients is exotic, though many of them apparently are hard to extract. The cure has to come from a sheep, or sheep. First you take a fleece of absolutely raw wool, and set someone to scraping the fibers with an instrument sharp enough to crush them, yet not sharp enough to cut them through. You will find that on the edge of your strigilis a substance builds up rather oily, but having the consistency of cheese curds. You must scrape until you have a great mound of this many fleeces, was how my source put it. Then you soak the substance in warm water warm, not hot! though it cannot be too cool either. The best test is a fingertip in the water it should feel hot, but by no means unbearable. The substance will partially melt into a layer which floats on top. That layer is the part you want, in measure a full beaker. Then you take a fleece with its hide attached, making sure some fat adheres to the back of the hide the animal must have been freshly slaughtered, as indeed all must have been and you boil it. The fat you obtain from this you must render twice over, and then you must reserve a full beaker of it. The fat of a sheep, so said my source, needs some special fat from inside the beast also, for sheep fat is very hard, even in a warm room. My source the smelliest and most detestable of crones, not to mention the most rapacious of creatures! said this internal fat must be plucked from amid the harder fat on top of the sheep's kidneys, and mashed. Then it must be melted in warm water, as with the scrapings from the wool. You must lift off the layer which forms on top of the water, in the amount of two thirds of a beaker. To this, add one third of a beaker of bile freshly drawn from the sheep's gallbladder immediately after its slaughtering. After which, you mix all the ingredients together gently, but thoroughly. The ointment is rather hard, but not as hard as the rendered fat on its own. Smear it on at least four times a day. I warn you, dear Lucius Cornelius, that it stinks disgustingly. But my source insists that it be used without the addition of perfumes or spices or resins. Please let me know if it works! The vile old crone swears it was she who made that original jar you used with such success, though I myself am in some doubt. Vale from Morsimus.