Colleen McCullough - 2. The Grass Crown

The next day Sulla detached his two legions from the tail of Lucius Caesar's column when it wheeled right ahead of him onto the road leading up the Melfa River. He himself kept to the Via Latina, crossing the Melfa en route to the old ruined township of Fregellae, reduced to rubble by Lucius Opimius after its rebellion thirty-five years before. His legions halted outside the curiously peaceful, flower-filled dells created by Fregellae's fallen walls and towers. In no mood to supervise his tribunes and centurions doing something as fundamental as pitching fortified camp, Sulla himself walked on alone into the deserted town. Here it lies, he thought, everything we're currently fighting about. Here it lies the way those asses in the Senate assured us it would be by the time we put this new Italy-wide revolution down. We've given our time, our taxes, our very lives to turn Italy into one vast Fregellae. We said every Italian life would be forfeit. Crimson poppies would grow in ground crimson with Italian blood. We said Italian skulls would bleach to the color of those white roses, and the yellow eyes of daisies would stare blindly up at the sun out of their empty orbits. What are we doing this for, if it is all to go for nothing? Why have we died and why are we still dying if it is all for nothing? He will legislate the citizenship for the half-rebels in Umbria and Etruria. After that, he cannot stop. Or someone else will pick up the wand of imperium he drops. They will all get the citizenship, their hands still red with our blood. What are we doing this for if it is all to go for nothing? We, the heirs of the Trojans, who therefore should well know the feeling of traitors within the gates. We, who are Roman, not Italian. And he will see them become Roman. Between him and those in his like, they will destroy everything Rome stands for. Their Rome will not be the Rome of their ancestors, nor my Rome. This ruined Italian garden here at Fregellae is my Rome, the Rome of my ancestors strong enough and sure enough to grow flowers in rebellious streets, free them for the hum and twitter of bees and birds. He wasn't sure how much of the shimmer in front of his eyes was a part of his grief, how much a part of the blistering cobbles beneath his feet. But through its rivulets in the air he began to discern an approaching shape, blue and bulky a Roman general walking toward a Roman general. Now more black than blue, men a shining glitter off cuirass and helm. Gaius Marius! Gaius Marius the Italian. The breath Sulla drew in sobbed, the heart within his chest tripped and stammered. He stopped in his tracks, waited for Marius. "Lucius Cornelius." "Gaius Marius." Neither man moved to touch the other. Then Marius turned and ranged himself alongside Sulla and the two of them walked on, silent as the tomb. It was Marius who finally cleared his throat, Marius who could not bear these unspoken emotions. He said, "I suppose Lucius Julius is on his way to Aesernia?" "Yes." "He ought to be on Crater Bay taking back Pompeii and Stabiae. Otacilius is building a nice little navy now he's getting a few more recruits. The navy is always a bad last in the Senate's order of preference. However, I hear the Senate is going to induct all of Rome's able-bodied freedmen into a special force to garrison and protect the coasts of upper Campania and lower Latium. So Otacilius will be able to take all the current coastal militia into his navy." Sulla grunted. "Huh! And when do the Conscript Fathers intend to get around to decreeing this?" "Who knows? At least they've started talking about it." "Wonder of wonders!" "You sound incredibly bitter. Lucius Julius getting on your nerves? I'm not surprised." "Yes, Gaius Marius, I am indeed bitter," said Sulla calmly. "I've been walking up this beautiful road thinking about the fate of Fregellae, and the prospective fate of our present crop of enemy Italians. You see, Lucius Julius intends to legislate the Roman citizenship for all Italians who have remained peacefully inclined toward Rome. Isn't that nice?" Marius's step faltered for a moment, then resumed its rather ponderous rhythm. "Does he now? When? Before or after he dashes himself on the rocks of Aesernia?" "After." "Makes you implore the gods to tell you what all the fighting is about, doesn't it?" asked Marius, unconsciously echoing Sulla's thoughts. A rumble of laughter came. "Still, I love to soldier, and that's the truth. Hopefully there's a battle or two left before the Senate and People of Rome completely crumble in their resolve! What a turnabout! And would that we might raise Marcus Livius Drusus from the dead. Then none of it need have happened. The Treasury would be full instead of emptier than a fool's head, and the peninsula would be peacefully, happily, contentedly stuffed with legal Romans." "Yes." They fell silent, walked on into the shell of the Fregellae forum, where occasional columns and flights of steps leading up to nothing reared above the grass and flowers. "I have a job for you," said Marius, sitting down on a block of stone. "Here, stand in the shade or sit down with me, Lucius Cornelius, do! Then take off that wretched hat so I can see what those eyes of yours contain." Sulla moved into the shade obediently and obediently doffed his hat, but did not sit down, and did not speak. "No doubt you're wondering why I've come to Fregellae to see you instead of waiting in Reate." "I presume you don't want me in Reate." A laugh boomed. "Always up to my tricks, Lucius Cornelius, aren't you? Quite right. I don't want you in Reate." The lingering grin disappeared. "But nor did I want to set my plans down in a letter. The fewer people who know what you're going to be up to, the better. Not that I have any reason to assume there's a spy in Lucius Julius's command tent just that I'm prudent." "The only way to keep a secret is not to tell anybody." "True, true." Marius huffed so deeply that the straps and buckles of his cuirass groaned. "You, Lucius Cornelius, will leave the Via Latina here. You'll head up the Liris toward Sora, where you will turn with the Liris and follow it to its sources. In other words, I want you on the southern side of the watershed, some few miles from the Via Valeria." "So far I understand my part. What about yours?" "While you're moving up the Liris, I'll be marching from Reate toward the western pass on the Via Valeria. I intend to broach the road itself beyond Carseoli. That town is in ruins, and garrisoned by the enemy Marrucini, my scouts tell me, commanded by Herius Asinius himself. If possible I'll force a battle with him for possession of the Via Valeria before it enters the pass. At that stage I want you level with me but south of the watershed." "South of the watershed without the enemy's knowledge," said Sulla, beginning to lose his coolness. "Precisely. That means you'll kill everyone you see. It's so well known that I lie to the north of the Via Valeria that I'm hoping it won't occur to either the Marrucini or the Marsi that there might be an army coming up on the southern flank. I'll try to focus all their attention on my own movements." Marius smiled. "You, of course, are with Lucius Julius on your way to Aesernia." "You haven't lost the gift of generaling, Gaius Marius." The fierce brown eyes flashed. "I hope not! Because, Lucius Cornelius, I tell you plainly if I lose the gift of generaling, there'll be no one in this benighted conflagration to take my place. We'll end in granting the citizenship on the battlefield to those in arms against us." Part of Sulla wanted to pursue the citizenship tack, but the dominant part had other ideas. "What about me?" he blurted. "I can general." "Yes, yes, of course you can," said Marius in soothing tones. "I don't deny that for a moment. But generaling isn't in your very bones, Lucius Cornelius." "Good generaling can be learned," Sulla said stubbornly. "Good generaling can indeed be learned. As you have done. But if it isn't in your very bones, Lucius Cornelius, you can never rise above mere good generaling," said Marius, utterly oblivious to the fact that what he was saying was derogatory. "Sometimes mere good generaling isn't good enough. Inspired generaling is called for. And that's either in the bones, or absent." "One day," said Sulla pensively, "Rome will find herself without you, Gaius Marius. And then why, we shall see! I’ll be holding the high command." Still Marius failed to understand, still he didn't divine what lay in Sulla's thoughts. Instead, he chortled merrily. "Well, Lucius Cornelius, we'll just have to hope that when that day comes, all Rome will need is a good general. Won't we?" "Whatever you say," said Lucius Cornelius Sulla.