Colleen McCullough - 3. Fortune's Favorites

PART VIII from MAY 71 B.C. until MARCH 69 B.C.

When Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus reached the border at the Rubico River, he didn't halt his army. That part of the Ager Gallicus he owned lay in Italy, and to Italy he would go, no matter what Sulla's laws said. His men were starved to see their homes, and there were still more among them who were his Picentine and Umbrian veterans than there were others. Outside Sena Gallica he put them into a vast camp under orders not to stray without leave from a tribune and proceeded then to Rome with a cohort of foot to escort him down the Via Flaminia. The answer had come to him shortly after he began the long march from Narbo to his new pass across the Alps, and he wondered then at his denseness in not seeing it sooner. Three times he had been given a special commission: once by Sulla, twice by the Senate; twice with propraetorian status, once with proconsular status. He was, he knew, undoubtedly the First Man in Rome. But he also knew that no one who mattered would ever admit the fact. So he would have to prove it to everyone, and the only way he could do that was to bring off some coup so staggering in its audacity and so glaringly unconstitutional that after it was done all men would have to accord him his rightful title of the First Man in Rome. He who was still a knight would force the Senate to make him consul. His opinion of the Senate grew progressively lower, and his liking for that body remained nonexistent. The members of it could be bought as easily as cakes from a bakery, and its inertia was so monumental that it could hardly move out of the way of its own downfall. When he had begun to march his men from Tarentum to Rome in order to force Sulla to give him a triumph, Sulla had backed down! At the time he hadn't seen it that way such was Sulla's effect on people but he now understood that indeed the affair had been a victory for Magnus, not for Sulla. And Sulla had been a far more formidable foe than ever the Senate could be. During his last year in the west he had followed the news about the successes of Spartacus with sheer disbelief; even though he owned the consuls Gellius and Clodianus, still he found it impossible to credit the degree of their incompetence in the field and all they could do to excuse themselves was to harp about the poor quality of their soldiers! It had been on the tip of his pen to write and tell them that he could have generaled an army of eunuchs better, but he had refrained; there was no point in antagonizing men one had paid a long price for. The two further items he had learned about in Narbo only served to reinforce his incredulity. The first item came in letters from Gellius and Clodianus: the Senate had stripped them of the command in the war against Spartacus. The second item came from Philippus: after blackmailing the Senate into procuring a law from the Assembly of the People, Marcus Licinius Crassus had deigned to accept the command, together with eight legions and a good amount of cavalry. Having campaigned with Crassus, Pompey deemed him mediocre in the extreme, and his troops mediocre too. So Philippus's news only served to make him shake his head in a quiet despair. Crassus wouldn't defeat Spartacus either. Just as he left Narbo there arrived the final verification of his impression of the war against Spartacus so poor was the quality of Crassus's troops that he had decimated them! And that, as every commander knew from history and his manuals of military method, was a last measure doomed to failure it utterly destroyed morale. Nothing could stiffen the backbones of men so cowardly that they had earned the punishment of decimation. Yet wasn't it just like big, lumbering Crassus to believe decimation could cure his army's ailments? He began to toy with the thought of arriving back in Italy in time to clean up Spartacus, and out of that like a thunderclap had burst THE IDEA. Of course the Senate would beg him on bended knee to accept yet another special commission the extirpation of the Spartacani. But this time he would insist that he be made consul before he took on the job. If Crassus could blackmail the Conscript Fathers into a command legalized by the People, then what hope did the Conscript Fathers have of withstanding Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus? Proconsul (non pro consule, sed pro consulibus) was just not good enough anymore! Was he to become the Senate's perpetual workhorse perpetually palmed off with an imperium outside of true senatorial power? No! Never again! He didn't at all mind the idea of entering the Senate if he could do so as consul. To the best of his recollection, no one had ever managed to do that. It was a first, a mighty big first and it would demonstrate to the whole world that he was the First Man in Rome. Right across the miles of the Via Domitia he had indulged in one fantasy after another, so happy and affable that Varro (to name only one) couldn't understand what was going through his mind. At times Pompey had been tempted to say something, then would sheer away, resolve to hug this delicious scheme to himself. Varro and the rest would find out soon enough. The mood of joyous anticipation continued to prevail after the new pass had been surveyed and paved and the army descended the Vale of the Salassi into Italian Gaul. Down the Via Aemilia, and still Pompey whistled and chirped blithely. Then at the little town of Forum Popillii, well inside Italy, the awful blow fell. He and his six legions literally ran into a jostling mob of draggled men armed in a nonissue manner which betrayed that they were Spartacani. To round them up and kill them all was easy; what came hard was to learn that Marcus Crassus had annihilated the army of Spartacus in a battle fought less than a month before. The war against Spartacus was over. His chagrin was obvious to every last one of his legates, who all assumed that he had whistled and chirped his way down the Via Aemilia because he had expected to go straight into another campaign. That he had planned to demand to be made consul because of this campaign occurred to no one. For several days he gloomed; even Varro avoided his company. Oh, Pompey was thinking, why didn't I hear this while I was still in Gaul across the Alps? I will have to use the threat of my undischarged army, but I have brought that army inside the borders of Italy contrary to Sulla's constitution. And Crassus still has an army in the field. If I was in Gaul across the Alps I could skulk there until Crassus celebrated his ovation and his troops returned to civilian life. I could have used my tame senators to block the curule elections until I made my move. As it is, I'm in Italy. So it will have to be the threat of my army. Those several gloomy days, however, were succeeded by a new mood; Pompey led his men into their camp at Sena Gallica not whistling and chirping exactly, but not glooming either. Reflection had led him to ask himself a very important question: what were the men of Crassus's army anyway? Answer: the scum of Italy, too craven to stand and fight. Why should the fact that Crassus had won change that? The six thousand fugitives he had encountered at Forum Popillii were pathetic. So perhaps decimation had stiffened the backbones of Crassus's men a bit but could it last? Could it match the splendid courage and perseverance of men who had slogged through the Spanish heat and cold for years without pay, without booty, without decent food, without thanks from the precious Senate? No. The final answer was a loud and definite NO! And as Rome grew closer Pompey's mood gradually soared back toward its earlier happiness. "What exactly are you thinking?" Varro demanded as he and Pompey rode together down the middle of the road. "That I am owed a Public Horse. The Treasury never paid me for my dear dead Snowy." "Isn't that your Public Horse?" asked Varro, pointing at the chestnut gelding Pompey bestrode. "This nag?" Pompey snorted contemptuously. "My Public Horse has to be white." "Actually it's not a nag, Magnus," said the owner of part of the rosea rura, an acknowledged expert on horseflesh. "It's really an excellent animal." "Just because it belonged to Perperna?" "Just because it belongs to itself!" "Well, it's not good enough for me." "Was that really what you were thinking about?" "Yes. What did you think I was thinking about?" "That's my question! What?" "Why don't you hazard a guess?" Varro wrinkled his brow. "I thought I had guessed when we ran across those Spartacani outside Forum Popillii I thought you were planning on another special commission and were very disappointed when you discovered Spartacus was no more. Now I just don't know!" "Well, Varro, wonder on. I think in this I will keep my counsel for the present," said Pompey.