Colleen McCullough - 2. The Grass Crown

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Other men than Drusus and the Italian leaders had also worked through that summer; Caepio In had lobbied the knights assiduously, Varius and Caepio combined had managed to harden Comitial resistance to Drusus, and Philippus, his tastes always outrunning his purse, allowed himself to be bought by a group of knights and senators whose latifundia holdings represented the major part of their assets. Of course no one knew what was coming, but the House knew that Drusus had lodged a request to speak at the meeting on the Kalends of September, and was consumed with curiosity. Many among the senators, carried away by the force of Drusus's oratory earlier in the year, were now wishing Drusus had talked less well; the initial flush of senatorial supportive enlightenment had dissipated, so that the men who gathered in the Curia Hostilia on the first day of September were resolved to close their ears to Drusus's magic. Sextus Julius Caesar was in the chair, September being one of the months during which he held the fasces, which meant the preliminary rites were scrupulously observed. The House sat and rustled restlessly while the omens were consulted, the prayers said, the sacrificial mess cleared away. And when the House finally settled down to business, everything taking precedence over a speech from a tribune of the plebs was dealt with extremely quickly. Time. It was time. Drusus rose from the tribunician bench below the dais on which sat the consuls, the praetors and the curule aediles, and walked to his usual spot up by the great bronze doors, which as on previous occasions he had asked be shut. "Revered fathers of our country, members of the Senate of Rome," he began softly, "several months ago I spoke in this House of a great evil in our midst the evil of the ager publicus. Today I intend to speak about a much greater evil than the ager publicus. One which, unless crushed, will see the end of us. The end of Rome. "I mean, of course, the people who dwell side by side with us in this peninsula. I mean the people we call Italians." A wave of sound passed through the white ranks on either side of the House, more like a rising wind in trees than human voices, or like a swarm of wasps in the distance. Drusus heard it, understood its import, continued regardless. "We treat them, these thousands upon thousands of people, like third-class citizens. Literally! The first-class citizen is the Roman. The second-class citizen holds the Latin Rights. And the third-class citizen is the Italian. He who is considered unworthy of any right to participate in our Roman congress. He who is taxed, flogged, fined, evicted, plundered, exploited. He whose sons are not safe from us, he whose women are not safe from us, he whose property is not safe from us. He who is called upon to fight in our wars and fund the troops he donates us, yet is expected to consent to his troops being commanded by us. He who, if we had lived up to our promises, would not have to endure the Roman and Latin colonies in his midst for we promised full autonomy to the Italian nations in return for troops and taxes, then tricked them by seeding our colonies within their borders thus taking the best of their world off them, as well as withholding our world from them." The noise was increasing, though as yet it did not obscure what Drusus was saying; a storm coming closer, a swarm coming closer. Drusus found his mouth dry, had to pause to lick and swallow in the most natural manner he could summon. There must be no obvious nervousness. He pressed on. "We of Rome have no king. Yet within Italy, every last one of us acts like a king. Because we like the sensation it gives us, we like to see our inferiors crawl about under our regal noses. We like to play at kings! Were the people of Italy genuinely our inferiors, there might be some excuse for it. But the truth is that the Italians are not inferior to us in any natural way. They are blood of our blood. If they were not, how could anyone in this House cast aspersions upon another member of this House for his 'Italian blood'? I have heard the great and glorious Gaius Marius called an Italian. Yet he conquered the Germans! I have heard the noble Lucius Calpurnius Piso called an Insubrian. Yet his father died gallantly at Burdigala! I have heard the great Marcus Antonius Orator condemned because he took the daughter of an Italian as his second wife. Yet he overcame the pirates, and was a censor!" "He was indeed a censor," said Philippus, "and while he was a censor, he permitted thousands and thousands of Italians to enroll themselves as Roman citizens!" "Do you mean to imply, Lucius Marcius, that I connived at it?" asked Antonius Orator in a dangerous voice. "I most certainly do, Marcus Antonius!" Antonius Orator rose to his feet, big and burly. "Step outside, Philippus, and repeat that!" he cried. "Order! Marcus Livius has the floor!" said Sextus Caesar, beginning to wheeze audibly. "Lucius Marcius and Marcus Antonius, you are both out of order! Sit down and be silent!" Drusus resumed. "I repeat. The Italians are blood of our blood. They have been no mean part of our successes, both within Italy and abroad. They are no mean soldiers. They are no mean farmers. They are no mean businessmen. They have riches. They have a nobility as old as ours, leading men as educated as ours are, women as cultured and refined as ours are. They live in the same kind of houses as we do. They eat the same kind of food as we do. They have as many connoisseurs of wine as we do. They look like us." "Rubbish!" cried Catulus Caesar scornfully, and pointed at Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo from Picenum. "See him? Snub nose and hair the color of sand ! Romans may be red, Romans may be yellow, Romans may be white, but Romans are not sandy! He's a Gaul, not a Roman! And if I had my way, he and all the rest of the un-Roman mushrooms glowing in the dark of our beloved Curia Hostilia would be pulled up and thrown out! Gaius Marius, Lucius Calpurnius Piso, Quintus Varius, Marcus Antonius for marrying beneath him, every Pompeius who ever marched down from Picenum with a straw between his teeth, every Didius from Campania, every Pedius from Campania, every Saufeius and Labienus and Appuleius get rid of the lot, I say!" The House was in an uproar. Either by name or by inference, Catulus Caesar had managed to insult a good third of its members; but what he said sat very well with the other two thirds, if only because Catulus Caesar had reminded them of their superiority. Caepio alone did not beam quite as widely as he ought Catulus Caesar had singled out Quintus Varius. "I will be heard!" Drusus shouted. "If we sit here until darkness falls, I will be heard!" "Not by me, you won't!" yelled Philippus. "Nor by me!" shrieked Caepio. "Marcus Livius has the floor! Those who refuse to allow him to speak will be ejected!" cried Sextus Caesar. "Clerk, go outside and bring in my lictors!" Off scurried the head clerk, in marched Sextus Caesar's twelve lictors in their white togas, fasces shouldered. "Stand here on the back of the curule dais," said Sextus Caesar loudly. "We have an unruly meeting, and I may ask you to eject certain men." He nodded to Drusus. "Continue." “I intend to bring a bill before the concilium plebis giving the full Roman citizenship to every man from the Arnus to Rhegium, from the Rubico to Vereium, from the Tuscan Sea to the Adriatic Sea!" said Drusus, shouting now to make himself heard. "It is time we rid ourselves of this frightful evil that one man in Italy is deemed better than another man that we of Rome can keep ourselves exclusive! Conscript Fathers, Rome is Italy! And Italy is Rome! Let us once and for all admit that fact, and put every man in Italy upon the same footing!" The House boiled into madness, men shouting "No, no, no!," feet stamping, roars of outrage, boos and hisses, stools flying to crash on the floor around Drusus, fists shaking at Drusus from every tier on either side. But Drusus stood unmoving and uncowed. "I will do it!" he screamed. "I will do it!" "Over my dead body!" howled Caepio from the dais. Now Drusus moved, swung to face Caepio. "If necessary, it will be over your dead body, you overbred cretin! When have you ever had speech or congress with Italians, to know what sort of men they are?" Drusus yelled, trembling with anger. "In your house, Drusus, in your house! Talking sedition! A nest of them, all dirty Italians! Silo and Mutilus, Egnatius and Vidacilius, Lamponius and Duronius!" "Never in my house, and never sedition!" Caepio was on his feet, face purple. "You're a traitor, Drusus! A blight on your family, an ulcer on the fair face of Rome! I'll bring you to trial for this!" "No, you festering scab, it's I who will bring you to trial! What happened to all that gold from Tolosa, Caepio? Tell this House that! Tell this House how enormous and prosperous your business enterprises are, and how unsenatorial!" Drusus shouted. "Are you going to let him get away with this?" roared Caepio, turning from one side of the chamber to the other, hands outstretched imploringly. "He's the traitor! He's the viper!" Through all of this exchange Sextus Caesar and Scaurus Princeps Senatus had been calling for order; Sextus Caesar now gave up. Snapping his fingers at his lictors, he adjusted his toga and stalked out of the meeting behind his escort, looking neither to left nor to right. Some of the praetors followed him, but Quintus Pompeius Rufus leaped from the dais in the direction of Catulus Caesar at precisely the same moment as Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo came at Catulus from the far side of the House. Both meant murder, fists doubled, faces ugly. However, before either Pompeius could reach the sneering, haughty Catulus Caesar, Gaius Marius stepped into the fray. Shaking his fierce old head, he grabbed at Pompey Strabo's wrists and bore them down, while Crassus Orator restrained the furious Pompeius Rufus. The Pompeii were hauled unceremoniously from the chamber, Marius gathering in Drusus as he went, Antonius Orator helping. Catulus Caesar remained standing beside his stool, smiling. "They didn't take that too well," said Drusus, drawing in big deep breaths. The group had sought the bottom of the Comitia well wherein to shelter and compose itself; within moments a small crowd of angry and indignant partisans had joined it. "How dared Catulus Caesar say that about us Pompeians!" yelled Pompey Strabo, clutching at his remote cousin Pompeius Rufus as if at a spar in a tempestuous sea. "If I had to put a color on his hair, I'd call it sandy!" "Quin tacetis, the lot of you!" said Marius, eyes seeking Sulla in vain; until today, at any rate, Sulla had been one of Drusus's most enthusiastic supporters, hadn't missed a single meeting during which Drusus had spoken. Where was he now? Had today's events put him off? Was he perhaps bowing and scraping to Catulus Caesar? Common sense said that was unlikely, but even Marius had not expected such a violent House. And where was Scaurus Princeps Senatus? "How dared that licentious ingrate Philippus imply that I fiddled the census?" demanded Antonius Orator, ruddy face a richer red. "He backed down soon enough when I invited him to say the same thing outside, the worm!" "When he accused you, Marcus Antonius, he also accused me!" said Lucius Valerius Flaccus, lifted out of his normal torpor. "He will pay for that, I swear he will!" "They didn't take it at all well," said Drusus, his mind not able to deviate from its beaten track. "You surely didn't expect them to, Marcus Livius," said the voice of Scaurus from behind the group. "Are you still with me, Princeps Senatus?" Drusus asked when Scaurus elbowed his way to the center of the group. "Yes, yes!" cried Scaurus, flapping his hands. "I agree it's time we did the logical thing, if only to avert a war," he said. "Unfortunately most people refuse to believe the Italians could ever mount a war against Rome." "They'll find out how wrong they are," said Drusus. "They will that," said Marius. He looked about again. "Where is Lucius Cornelius Sulla?" "Gone off on his own," said Scaurus. "Not to one of the opposition?" "No, just off on his own," said Scaurus with a sigh. "I very much fear he hasn't been terribly enthusiastic about anything since his poor little son died." "That's true," said Marius, relieved. "Still, I did think this fuss might have stimulated him." "Nothing can, save time," said Scaurus, who had also lost a son, in many ways more painfully than Sulla. "Where do you go from this, Marcus Livius?" asked Marius. "To the Plebeian Assembly," said Drusus. "I'll call a contio for three days hence." "You'll be opposed more strongly still," said Crassus Orator. "I don't care," said Drusus stubbornly. "I have sworn to get this legislation through and get it through I will!" "In the meantime, Marcus Livius," said Scaurus soothingly, "the rest of us will keep working on the Senate." "You ought to do better among those Catulus Caesar insulted, at least," said Drusus with a faint smile. "Unfortunately, many of them will be the most obdurately against giving the citizenship away," said Pompeius Rufus, grinning. "They would all have to speak to their Italian aunties and cousins again, after pretending they don't have any." "You seem to have recovered from the insult!" snapped Pompey Strabo, who clearly hadn't. "No, I haven't recovered at all," said Pompeius Rufus, still grinning. "I've just tucked it away to take out on those who caused it. There's no point taking my anger out On these good fellows." Drusus held his contio on the fourth day of September. The Plebs gathered eagerly, looking forward to a rousing meeting, yet feeling safe to gather; with Drusus in charge, there would be no violence. However, Drusus had only just launched into his opening remarks when Lucius Marcius Philippus appeared, escorted by his lictors and followed by a large group of young knights and sons of senators. "This assembly is illegal! I hereby demand that it be broken up!" cried Philippus, shoving through the crowd behind his lictors. "Move along, everybody! I order you to disperse!" "You have no authority in a legally convened meeting of the Plebs," said Drusus calmly, looking unruffled. "Now go about your proper business, junior consul." "I am a plebeian, I am entitled to be here," said Philippus. Drusus smiled sweetly. "In which case, Lucius Marcius, kindly conduct yourself like a plebeian, not a consul! Stand and listen with the rest of the plebeians." "This meeting is illegal!" Philippus persisted. "The omens have been declared auspicious, I have adhered to the letter of every law in convoking my contio, and you are simply taking up this meeting's valuable time," said Drusus, to an accompaniment of loud cheers from his audience, which may have come to oppose what Drusus wished to talk about, but resented Philippus's interference. That was the signal for the young men around Philippus to start pushing and shoving the crowd, ordering it to go home at the same moment as they pulled cudgels from beneath their togas. Seeing the cudgels, Drusus acted. "This contio is concluded!" he cried from the rostra. "I will not permit anyone to make a shambles out of what should be an orderly meeting!" But that didn't suit the rest of the gathering; a few men began pushing and shoving back, a cudgel was swung, and it took Drusus himself, leaping down from the rostra, to make sure no blows were struck, persuade people to go peacefully home. At which point a bitterly disappointed Italian client of Gaius Marius's saw red. Before anyone could stop him including the junior consul's cluster of apathetic lictors he had walked straight up to Philippus and walloped him on the nose; then he was gone too quickly to be apprehended, leaving Philippus trying to cope with a pulped nose pouring fountains of blood all over his snowy toga. "Serves you right," said Drusus, grinning again, and departed. "Well done, Marcus Livius," said Scaurus Princeps Senatus, who had watched from the Senate steps. "What now?" "Back to the House," said Drusus. When he went back to the House on the seventh day of September, Drusus met with a better reception, much to his surprise; his consular allies had lobbied to considerable effect. "What the Senate and People of Rome must realize," said Drusus in a loud, firm, impressively serious voice, "is that if we go on denying our citizenship to the people of Italy, there will be war. I do not say so lightly, believe me! And before any of you start ridiculing the idea of the people of Italy as a formidable enemy, I would remind you that for four hundred years they have been participating with us in our wars or, in some cases, warring against us. They know us as a people at war they know how we war, and it is the same way they war themselves. In the past, Rome has been stretched to her very limits to beat one or two of the Italian nations is there anyone here who has forgotten the Caudine Forks? That was inflicted upon us by one Italian nation, Samnium. Until Arausio, the worst defeats sustained by Rome all involved the Samnites. So if, in this day and age, the various nations of Italy decide to unite and go to war against us united, the question I ask of myself and of all of you! is can Rome beat them?" A wave of restlessness passed through the white ranks on either side of the floor where Drusus stood, like wind through a forest of feathery trees; and with it, a sigh like wind. "I know the vast majority of you sitting here today believe that war is absolutely impossible. For two reasons. The first, because you do not believe the Italian Allies could ever find enough in common to unite against a common enemy. The second, because you will not believe any nation in Italy save Rome is prepared for war. Even among those who support me actively, there are men who cannot believe the Italian Allies are ready for war. Indeed, it might not be inaccurate if I said none of those who support me actively can credit that Italy is ready for war. Where are the arms and armor? they ask. Where the equipment, where the soldiers? And I say, there! Ready and waiting. Italy is ready. If we do not grant Italy the citizenship, Italy will destroy us in war." He paused, threw his arms out. "Surely, Conscript Fathers of our Senate, you can see that war between Rome and Italy would be civil war? A conflict between brothers. A conflict upon the soil we call our own, and they call their own. How can we justify to our grandchildren the ruination of their wealth, their inheritances, on grounds as flimsy as these I hear from this assembly every time it meets? There is no victor in civil war. No spoils. No slaves to sell. Think about what I am asking you to do with a care and a detachment greater than any you have ever summoned! This is not a matter for emotions. Not a matter for prejudices. Not a matter for lightness. All I am really trying to do is to save my beloved Rome from the horrors of civil war." This time the House really listened. Drusus began to hope. Even Philippus, who sat looking angry and muttered under his breath from time to time, did not interject. Nor perhaps more significantly did the vociferous and malignant Caepio. Unless, of course, these were new tactics they had dreamed up during the six intervening days. It might even be that Caepio didn't want a nose as hugely swollen and sore as Philippus's. After Drusus was finished, Scaurus Princeps Senatus, Crassus Orator, Antonius Orator, and Scaevola all spoke in support of Drusus. And the House listened. But when Gaius Marius rose to speak, the peace shattered. At precisely that moment when Drusus had decided the cause was won. Afterward, Drusus was forced to conclude that Philippus and Caepio had planned it this way all along. Philippus jumped to his feet. "Enough!" he screamed, jumping off the curule dais. "It is enough, I say! Who are you, Marcus Livius Drusus, to corrupt the minds and the principles of men as great as our Princeps Senatus? That the Italian Marius is on your side I find inevitable, but the Leader of the House? My ears, my ears! Do they truly hear what some of our most revered consulars have said today?" "Your nose, your nose! Does it truly smell how you smell, Philippus?" mocked Antonius Orator. "Tace, Italian-lover!" shouted Philippus. "Shut your vile mouth, pull in your Italian-loving head!" As this last was a reference to a part of the male anatomy not mentioned in the House, Antonius Orator was up from his stool the moment the insult was uttered. Marius on one side of him and Crassus Orator on the other were ready, however, and pulled him back before he could attack Philippus. "I will be heard!" Philippus yelled. "Wake up to what is being put to you, you senatorial sheep! War? How can there possibly be war? The Italians have no arms and no men! They could hardly go to war with a flock of sheep even sheep like you!" Sextus Caesar and Scaurus Princeps Senatus had been calling for order ever since Philippus had inserted himself into the proceedings; Sextus Caesar now beckoned to his lictors, kept inside today as a precaution. But before they could advance upon Philippus, standing in the middle of the floor, he had ripped the purple-bordered toga from his body, and thrown it at Scaurus. "Keep it, Scaurus, you traitor! Keep it, all of you! I am going into Rome to find another government!" "And I," cried Caepio, leaving the dais, "am going to the Comitia to assemble all the People, patrician and plebeian!" The House dissolved into chaos, backbencher senators milling without purpose, Scaurus and Sextus Caesar calling again and again for order, and most of those in the front and middle rows streaming out of the doors in the wake of Philippus and Caepio. The lower end of the Forum Romanum was crowded with those who waited to hear how the Senate felt at the end of this session. Caepio went straight to the rostra, shouting for the Whole People to assemble in their tribes. Not bothering with formalities or with the fact that the Senate had not been legally dismissed, which meant no Comitia could be convoked he launched into a diatribe against Drusus, who now stood beside him on the rostra. "Look at him, the traitor!" howled Caepio. "He's busy giving away our citizenship to every dirty Italian in this peninsula, to every flea-bitten Samnite shepherd, to every mentally incompetent Picentine rustic, to every stinking brigand in Lucania and Bruttium! And such is the caliber of our idiot Senate that it is actually about to let this traitor have his way! But I won't let them, and I won't let him!" Drusus turned to his nine fellow tribunes of the plebs, who had followed him onto the rostra; they were not pleased at the presumption of the patrician Caepio, no matter how they felt about Drusus's proposal. Caepio had called the Whole People, it was true, but he had done so before the Senate had been dismissed, and he had usurped the territory of the tribunes of the plebs in the most cavalier fashion; even Minicius was annoyed. "I am going to break this farce up," said Drusus, tight-lipped. "Are you all with me?" "We're with you," said Saufeius, who was Drusus's man. Drusus stepped to the front of the rostra. "This is an illegally convened meeting, and I veto its continuance!" "Get out of my meeting, traitor!" shouted Caepio. Drusus ignored him. "Go home, people of this city! I have interposed my veto against this meeting because it is not legal! The Senate is still officially in session!" "Traitor! People of Rome, are you going to let yourselves be ordered about by a man who wants to give away your most precious possession?" shrieked Caepio. Drusus lost his patience at last. "Arrest this lout, fellow tribunes of the plebs!" he cried, gesturing to Saufeius. Nine men surrounded Caepio and took hold of him, quelling his struggles easily; Philippus, who was standing on the floor of the well looking up at the rostra, suddenly thought of urgent business elsewhere, and fled. "I have had enough, Quintus Servilius Caepio!" said Drusus in a voice which could be heard throughout the lower Forum. "I am a tribune of the plebs, and you have obstructed me in the execution of my duties! Take heed, for this is my only warning. Cease and desist at once, or I will have you thrown from the Tarpeian Rock!" The Comitia well was Drusus's fief, and Caepio, seeing the look in Drusus's eyes, understood; the old rancor between patrician and plebeian was being called into effect. If Drusus did instruct the members of his college to take Caepio and throw him from the Tarpeian Rock, Drusus would be obeyed. "You haven't won yet!" Caepio yelled as he pulled free of the restraining hands and stormed off after the vanished Philippus. "I wonder," said Drusus to Saufeius as they watched the graceless exit of Caepio, "if Philippus is tired of his house guest yet?" "I'm tired of both of them," said Saufeius, and sighed sadly. "You realize, I hope, Marcus Livius, that had the Senate meeting continued, you would have secured your mandate?" "Of course I do. Why do you think Philippus suddenly went into that manic temper tantrum? What a terrible actor he is!" said Drusus, and laughed. "Throwing his toga away! What next?" "Aren't you disappointed?" "Almost to death. But I will not be stopped. Not until I have no breath left in my body."