Colleen McCullough - 2. The Grass Crown

IX (88-87 B.C.)

The news of the massacre of Asia Province’s Roman and Latin and Italian residents reached Rome ahead of the news that Mithridates had invaded the province and reached Rome in record time. Just nine days after the last day of Quinctilis, the Princeps Senatus Lucius Valerius Flaccus was convening the House in the temple of Bellona outside the pomerium because this was to do with a foreign war. To those present he read out a letter from Publius Rutilius Rufus in Smyrna.

I am sending this by a specially commissioned fast ship to Corinth, and onward to Brundisium by another just as fast, trusting that the rebellion in Greece does not prevent its passage. The courier has been instructed to ride from Brundisium to Rome at the gallop, night and day. The large sum of money this is costing has been given to me by my friend Miltiades, the ethnarch of Smyrna, who begs only that the Senate and People of Rome remember his service to them when, as must happen, Asia Province belongs to Rome again. It may be that you do not know as yet of the invasion of King Mithridates of Pontus, who now rules both Bithynia and our Roman Asian province. Manius Aquillius is dead under the most hideous circumstances, and Gaius Cassius is fled I know not where. A quarter of a million Pontic soldiers are west of the Taurus, the Aegean is completely covered by Pontic fleets, and Greece has allied itself with Pontus against Rome. I very much fear that Macedonia is totally isolated. But that is not the worst of it. On the last day of Quinctilis, every Roman and Latin and Italian in the Asia Province, Bithynia, Pisidia, and Phrygia was massacred by order of King Mithridates of Pontus. Their slaves were also massacred. The number of dead, I believe, is something like eighty thousand citizens and seventy thousand slaves one hundred and fifty thousand altogether. That I did not suffer the same fate is due to my non-citizen status, though I believe the King issued a warning that I by name! was not to be touched. A nice sop to the hound of Hades. What can the sparing of my old life do to offset the brutal hacking into pieces of Roman women and little babies? They were torn from altars still crying on the gods and their bodies lie rotting unburied, again by order of the King of Pontus. This barbarian monstrosity now fancies himself the king of the world, and is boasting that he will be on Italian soil before the year is out. No one is left east of Italy to gainsay his boast save our people in Macedonia. But I despair of Macedonia. Though I have not been able to confirm it, there is news that King Mithridates has mounted a land expedition against Thessalonica which has already penetrated west of Philippi without a shred of opposition. I know more about activities in Greece, where a Pontic agent named Aristion has snatched all power in Athens and persuaded most of Greece to declare for Mithridates. The isles of the Aegean are in Pontic hands, the fleets are gigantic. When Delos fell, another twenty thousand of our people were put to death. Please, I beg of you, regard my letter as deliberately brief and understated, and do what you can to prevent this frightful barbarian Mithridates crowning himself the King of Rome. It is that serious.

"Oh, we don't need this!" said Lucius Caesar to his brother Catulus Caesar. "We may not need it, but we've got it," said Gaius Marius, eyes sparkling. "A war against Mithridates! I knew it had to come. Surprising, really, that it's been so long." "Lucius Cornelius is on his way to Rome," said the other censor, Publius Licinius Crassus. "I'll breathe easier then." "Why?" demanded Marius fiercely. "We shouldn't have summoned him! Let him finish the Italian war." "He is the senior consul," said Catulus Caesar. "The Senate cannot make far-reaching decisions without his presence in the chair." "Tchah!" said Marius, and lumbered away. "What's the matter with him?" asked Flaccus Princeps Senatus. "What do you think, Lucius Valerius? He's an old war-horse snuffing the scent of just the right kind of war a foreign one," said Catulus Caesar. "But surely he can't think he's going to it," said Publius Crassus the censor. "He's too old and sick!" "Of course he thinks he's going," said Catulus Caesar.

The war in Italy was over. Though the Marsi never did formally surrender, among all the peoples who had taken up arms against Rome they were the most devastated; hardly a Marsian male was left alive. In February, Quintus Poppaedius Silo fled to Samnium, and joined Mutilus within Aesernia. Mutilus he found so severely wounded that he was incapable ever again of leading an army. He was paralyzed from the waist down. "I must pass the leadership of Samnium on to you, Quintus Poppaedius," Mutilus said. "No!" cried Silo. "I don't have your way with troops especially Samnite troops nor do I have your skill as a general." “There's no one else. My Samnites have elected to follow you." "Do the Samnites really want to continue the war?" "Yes," said Mutilus. "But in the name of Samnium, not Italia." "I can understand that. But surely there is one Samnite left to lead them!" "Not one, Quintus Poppaedius. It has to be you." "Very well, then," said Silo, sighing. What neither of them discussed was the ruin of their hopes for independent Italia. Nor did they discuss what both of them knew that if Italia was finished, Samnium could not possibly win. In May the last rebel army sallied out of Aesernia under the command of Quintus Poppaedius Silo. It numbered thirty thousand infantry and a thousand horse, and was further augmented by a force of twenty thousand manumitted slaves. Most of the infantry had been wounded in one battle or another and fetched up in Aesernia because it was the only secure place left to go; Silo had brought the cavalry with him and managed to get through the Roman lines around the city. All of which made this sally inevitable; Aesernia could not long continue to feed so many mouths. As every marching man knew, it was a last-ditch stand; no one really expected to win. The most they could hope for was to make every death count. But then when Silo's soldiers took Bovianum and killed the Roman garrison there, they began to feel better. Perhaps there was a chance after all? Metellus Pius and his army were sitting before Venusia on the Via Appia, so to Venusia they would go. And there outside Venusia the last battle of the war took place, a curious rounding out of the events which had started with the death of Marcus Livius Drusus. For on the field of Venusia there met in single combat the two men who had loved Drusus best his friend Silo and his brother Mamercus. While the Samnites died in thousands, no match for the fit and experienced Romans, Silo and Mamercus slogged hand to hand until Silo fell. Mamercus stood looking down at the Marsian with tears in his eyes, sword raised. He hesitated. "Finish me, Mamercus!" gasped Quintus Poppaedius Silo. "You owe me that for killing Caepio. I will walk in no triumph held by the Piglet!" "For killing Caepio," said Mamercus, and finished him. Then wept desolately for Drusus, Silo, and the bitterness of victory. "It's done," said Metellus Pius the Piglet to Lucius Cornelius Sulla, who had come to Venusia the moment he heard of the battle. "Venusia capitulated yesterday." "No, it is not done," said Sulla grimly. "It won't be done until Aesernia and Nola submit." "Have you considered," ventured the Piglet rather timidly, "that if we were to lift the sieges at Aesernia and Nola, life in those two places would go back to normal and everyone would probably pretend nothing had ever happened?" "I'm sure you're right," said Sulla, "which is why we will not lift the siege at either place. Why should they get away with it? Pompey Strabo didn't let Asculum Picentum get away with it. No, Piglet, Aesernia and Nola stay the way they are. For all eternity if necessary." "I hear Scato is dead, and the Paeligni surrendered." "Correct, except that you have it the wrong way round," said Sulla with a grin. "Pompey Strabo accepted the surrender of the Paeligni. Scato fell on his sword rather than be a part of it." "So it really is the end!" said Metellus Pius in wonder. "Not until Aesernia and Nola submit."