Colleen McCullough - 3. Fortune's Favorites

When Crassus began his own march into the south, he went at the head of a military organization dedicated to one end the extirpation of the Spartacani. Nor for the moment was he in any hurry. He knew exactly whereabouts his quarry was, and had guessed that its objective was Sicily. Which made no difference to Crassus. If he had to fight the Spartacani in Sicily, all the better. He had been in touch with the governor (still Gaius Verres) and been assured that the slaves of Sicily were in no condition to foment a third uprising against Rome even if the Spartacani came. Verres had put the militia on alert and stationed them around Pelorus, conserving his Roman troops for whatever shape a campaign might assume, and sure that Crassus would arrive hard on the heels of the Spartacani to take the brunt of the action. But nothing happened. The whole enormous mass of Spartacani continued to camp around Scyllaeum, it seemed because no shipping was available. Then Gaius Verres wrote.

I have heard a curious tale, Marcus Crassus. It seems that Spartacus approached the pirate admirals Pharnaces and Megadates and asked them to ferry twenty thousand of his best troops from Scyllaeum to Pelorus. The pirates agreed to do this for a price of four thousand talents two thousand to be paid as a deposit, the other two thousand upon completion of the job. Spartacus gave them two thousand talents and off they sailed. Laughing their heads off! For no more than a promise they had enriched themselves mightily. While some may say that they were fools for not proceeding with the scheme and thereby earning themselves another two thousand talents, it appears Pharnaces and Megadates preferred the fortune they had got for doing no work at all. They had formed a poor opinion of Spartacus himself, and foresaw a risk in trying to earn the other two thousand. My own personal opinion is that Spartacus is a rank amateur, a hayseed. Pharnaces and Megadates gulled him as easily as a Roman trickster can gull an Apulian. Had there been a decent army in Italy last year it would have rolled him up, I am sure of it. All he has on his side are sheer numbers. But when he faces you, Marcus Crassus, he will not prosper. Spartacus has no luck, whereas you, dear Marcus Crassus, have proven yourself one of Fortune's favorites.

When he read that final sentence, Caesar burst out laughing. "What does he want?" he asked, handing the note back to Crassus. "Is he in need of a loan? Ye gods, that man eats money!" "I wouldn't lend to him," said Crassus. "Verres won't last." "I hope you're right! How does he know so much about what happened between the pirate strategoi and Spartacus?" Crassus grinned; it worked a small miracle upon his big smooth face, which suddenly looked young and naughty. Oh, I daresay they told him all about it when he applied for his cut of the two thousand talents." "Do you think they gave him a cut?" "Undoubtedly. He lets them use Sicily as their base." They were sitting alone in the general's command tent, in a stout camp pitched beside the Via Popillia outside Terina, a hundred miles from Scyllaeum. It was the beginning of February, and winter had begun; two braziers produced a glow of heat. Just why Marcus Crassus had settled upon the twenty eight year old Caesar as his particular friend was a source of great debate among his legates, who were more puzzled than jealous. Until Crassus had begun to share his leisure moments with Caesar he had owned no friends at all, therefore no legate felt himself passed over or supplanted. The conundrum arose out of the incongruity of the relationship, for there were sixteen years between them in age, their attitudes to money lay at opposite poles, they looked inappropriate when seen together, and no mutual literary or artistic leaning existed. Men like Lucius Quinctius had known Crassus for years, and had had close dealings with him both political and commercial without ever being able to claim a deep seated friendship. Yet from the time Crassus had co opted this year's tribunes of the soldiers two months too early, he had sought Caesar out, made overtures and found them reciprocated. The truth was actually very simple. Each man had recognized in the other someone who was going to matter in the future, and each man nursed much the same political ambitions. Had this recognition not taken place, the friendship could not have come about. But once it existed other factors came into play to bind them more tightly. The streak of hardness which was so evident in Crassus also lay in the smoother, utterly charming Caesar; neither man cherished illusions about his noble world; both had burrowed deeply into mines of common sense and neither cared very much about personal luxuries. The differences between them were superficial, though they were blinding: Caesar the handsome rake developing a formidable reputation as a womanizer versus Crassus the absolutely faithful family man; Caesar the brilliant intellectual with style and flair versus Crassus the plodding pragmatist. An odd couple. That was the verdict among the fascinated observers, who all from that time on began to see Caesar as a force to be reckoned with; for if he was not, why would Marcus Crassus have bothered with him? "It will snow tonight," said Crassus. "In the morning we'll march. I want to use the snow, not become hampered by it." "It would make so much sense," said Caesar, "if our calendar and the seasons coincided! I can't abide inaccuracy!" Crassus stared. "What provoked that remark?" "The fact that it's February and we're only beginning to feel winter." "You sound like a Greek. Provided one knows the date and waggles a hand outside the door to feel the temperature, what can it matter?'' "It matters because it's slipshod and untidy!" said Caesar. "If the world was too tidy it would be hard to make money." "Harder to hide it, you mean," said Caesar with a grin.

When Scyllaeum drew near the scouts reported that Spartacus still camped within the little promontory beyond the port, though there were signs that he might move fairly soon. His Spartacani had eaten the region out. Crassus and Caesar rode ahead with the army's engineers and an escort of troopers, aware that Spartacus owned no cavalry; he had tried to train some of his foot soldiers to ride, and for a while had attempted to tame the wild horses roaming the Lucanian forests and mountains, but had had no success with either men or mounts. The snow was falling steadily in a windless afternoon when the two Roman noblemen and their company began to prowl the country just behind the triangular outthrust wherein lay the Spartacani; if any watch had been set it was a halfhearted one, for they encountered no other men. The snow of course was a help, it muffled noise and coated horses and riders in white. "Better than I hoped," said Crassus with much satisfaction as the party turned to ride back to camp. If we build a ditch and a wall between those two ravines, we'll shut Spartacus up in his present territory very nicely." "It won't hold them for long," said Caesar. "Long enough for my purposes. I want them hungry, I want them cold, I want them desperate. And when they break out, I want them heading north into Lucania." "You'll accomplish the last, at any rate. They'll try at our weakest point, which won't be to the south. No doubt you'll want the consuls' legions doing most of the digging." Crassus looked surprised. "They can dig, but alongside everybody else. Ditch and wall have to be finished within one market interval, and that means the hoariest old veterans will be plying spades too. Besides, the exercise will keep them warm." "I'll engineer it for you," Caesar offered, but without expectation of assent. Sure enough, Crassus declined. "I would rather you did, but it isn't possible. Lucius Quinctius is my senior legate. The job has to go to him." "A pity. He's got too much office and oratory in him." Office and oratory or no, Lucius Quinctius tackled the job of walling the Spartacani in with huge enthusiasm. Luckily he had the good sense to lean on the expertise of his engineers; Caesar was right in thinking him no fortification architect. Fifteen feet wide and fifteen feet deep, the ditch dived into the ravines at either end, and the earth removed from it was piled up into a log reinforced wall topped with a palisade and watchtowers. From ravine to ravine, the ditch, wall, palisade and watchtowers extended for a distance of eight miles, and were completed in eight days despite constant snow. Eight camps one for each legion were spaced at regular intervals beneath the wall; the general would have ample soldiers to man his eight miles of fortifications. Spartacus became aware that Crassus had arrived the moment activity began if he had not been aware earlier but seemed almost uninterested. All of a sudden he bent the energies of his men toward constructing a huge fleet of rafts which apparently he intended should be towed behind Scyllaeum's fishing boats. To the watching Romans it appeared that he pinned his faith on an escape across the strait, and thought the scheme foolproof enough to ignore the fact that his landward escape route was rapidly being cut off. Came the day when this mass exodus by water began; those Romans not obliged by duty to be elsewhere climbed the flank of nearby Mount Sila for the best view of what happened in Scyllaeum harbor. A disaster. Those rafts which remained afloat long enough to load with people could not negotiate the entrance, let alone the open strait beyond; the fishing boats were not built to tow such heavy, unwieldy objects. "At least it doesn't seem as if many of them drowned," said Caesar to Crassus as they watched from Mount Sila. "That," said Crassus, voice detached, "Spartacus probably thinks a pity. Fewer mouths to feed." "I think," said Caesar, "that Spartacus loves them. The way a self appointed king might love his people." "Self appointed?" "Kings who are born to rule care little for their people," said Caesar, who had known a king born to rule. He pointed to where the shores of the bay were scenes of frenzied activity. "I tell you, Marcus Crassus, that man loves every last ungrateful individual in his vast horde! If he didn't, he would have cut himself off from them a year ago. I wonder who he really is?" "Starting with what Gaius Cassius had to say, I'm having that question investigated," said Crassus, and prepared to descend. "Come on, Caesar, you've seen enough. Love! If he does, then he's a fool." "Oh, he's definitely that," said Caesar, following. "What have you found out?" "Almost everything except his real name. That may not come to light. Some fool of an archivist, thinking Sulla's Tabularium would hold military records as well as everything else, didn't bother to put them in a waterproof place. They're indecipherable, and Cosconius doesn't remember any names. At the moment I'm chasing his minor tribunes." "Good luck! They won't remember any names either." Crassus gave a grunt which might have been a short laugh. "Did you know there's a myth about him running around Rome that he's a Thracian?" "Well, everybody knows he's a Thracian. Thracian or Gaul there are only the two kinds." Caesar's laugh rang out joyously. "However, I take it that this myth is being assiduously disseminated by the Senate's agents." Crassus stopped, turned to gaze back and up at Caesar, a look of startled surprise on his face. "Oh, you are clever!" "It's true, I am clever." "Well, and doesn't it make sense?" "Certainly," said Caesar. "We've had quite enough renegade Romans of late. We'd be fools to add one more to a list that includes such military luminaries as Gaius Marius, Lucius Cornelius Sulla and Quintus Sertorius, wouldn't we? Better by far to have him a Thracian." "Huh!" Crassus emitted a genuine grunt. "I'd dearly love to set eyes on him!" "You may when we bring him to battle. He rides a very showy dappled grey horse tricked out with red leather tack and every kind of knightly knob and medallion. It used to belong to Varinius. Besides, Cassius and Manlius saw him at close quarters, so we have a good description. And he's a distinctive kind of fellow very big, tall, and fair."