Colleen McCullough - 2. The Grass Crown

Sulla put the letter down, head spinning. Simple? How could Publius Rutilius concoct such a tortuous scheme as this, yet have the gall to term it simple? Military maneuvers were less complex! However, it was worth a try. Anything was worth a try. So he resumed his reading in a slightly happier frame of mind, anxious to see what else Rutilius Rufus had to say.

Matters in my small corner of our vast world are not good. I suppose no one in Rome these days has the time or the interest to follow events in Asia Minor. But somewhere, no doubt, there is a report lying in the Senate offices which by now our Princeps Senatus will have seen. He will also see the letter I have sent to him by the same courier as this one. There is a Pontic puppet on the throne of Bithynia. Yes, the moment he was sure Rome's back was turned, King Mithridates invaded Bithynia! Ostensibly the leader of the invasion was Socrates, the younger brother of King Nicomedes the Third which accounts for the fact that Bithynia is still calling itself a free country, having exchanged King Nicomedes for King Socrates. It seems a contradiction in terms to call a king Socrates, doesn't it? Can you imagine Socrates of Athens permitting himself to be crowned a king? However, no one in Asia Province is under any delusion that Bithynia is "free." In all save name, Bithynia is now the fief of Mithridates of Pontus who must, incidentally, be fuming at the dilatory conduct of King Socrates! For King Socrates let King Nicomedes get away. Despite his accumulation of years, Nicomedes skipped across the Hellespont as nimbly as a goat; rumor here in Smyrna has it that he is en route for Rome, there to complain about the loss of the throne the Senate and People of Rome graciously let him sit on. You'll see him in Rome before the end of the year, burdened down with a large part of the contents of the Bithynian treasury. And as if one wasn't bad enough! there is now a Pontic puppet upon the throne of Cappadocia. Mithridates and Tigranes rode in tandem to Eusebeia Mazaca and installed yet another son of Mithridates on the throne. This one is another Ariarathes, but probably not the Ariarathes whom Gaius Marius interviewed. However, King Ariobarzanes was just as nimble as King Nicomedes of Bithynia. He skipped off too, well ahead of his pursuers. And he will reach Rome with a petition in his hands not long after Nicomedes. Alas, he is much poorer! Lucius Cornelius, there is sore trouble brewing for our Asia Province, I am convinced of it. And there are many in Asia Province who have not forgotten the heyday of the publicani. Many who loathe the word Rome. Thus is King Mithridates being actively wooed in some quarters here. I very much fear that if or more likely when he makes a move to steal our Asia Province, he will be welcomed with open arms. All this is not your problem, I know. It will fall to Scaurus. Who is not very well, he tells me. By now you will be hard at your war games in Campania. I agree with you, the course is turning. The poor, poor Italians! Citizenship or not, they will remain unforgiven for many generations to come. Do let me know how things turn out for your girl. I predict that Love will take its course.

Rather than try to explain Publius Rutilius Rufus's ploy to his wife, Sulla simply sent that section of the letter to Aelia in Rome with an accompanying note advising her to do exactly as Rutilius Rufus directed provided she could make head from tail of it. Apparently Aelia had no trouble understanding her orders. When Sulla arrived in Rome with Lucius Caesar, he found his house redolent with domestic harmony, a beaming and affectionate daughter, and wedding plans. "It all turned out exactly as Publius Rutilius said it would," said Aelia happily. "Young Marius was a brute to her when she saw him. Poor little thing! She went with me to Gaius Marius's house consumed with love and pity and sure Young Marius would fall onto her breast to cry upon her shoulder. Instead, she found him furious because he had been ordered by the cadet committee of the Senate to remain on the staff of his old command. Presumably the general replacing Gaius Marius will be one of the new consuls, and Young Marius hates both of them. I believe he tried to get himself posted to you, but got a very cold refusal from the committee." "Not as cold as his welcome would have been had he come to me," said Sulla grimly. "I think what was making him angriest was the fact that no one wanted him. Of course he's blaming his father's unpopularity for that, but in his heart I rather think he suspects it's due to his own shortcomings." Aelia jigged in a small triumph. "He didn't want Cornelia's sympathy and he didn't want adolescent adoration. So he was if I am to believe Cornelia utterly vile to her." "So she decided to marry young Quintus Pompeius." "Not at once, Lucius Cornelius! I let her weep for two days first. Then I said that, since it seemed there would be no pressure from you about marriage to young Quintus Pompeius, she might like to go to dinner at his house. Just to see what he was like. Just to satisfy her curiosity." Sulla was grinning. "What happened?" "They looked at each other and liked what they saw. At dinner they were opposite each other, and talked away like old friends." So delighted was she that Aelia took her husband's hand, squeezed it. "You were wise not to let Quintus Pompeius know our daughter was an unwilling bride. The whole family was delighted with her.'' Sulla snatched his hand away. "The wedding's set?" Face clouding, Aelia nodded. "As soon as the elections are over." She gazed up at Sulla with big sad eyes. "Dear Lucius Cornelius, why don't you like me? I try so hard!" His expression darkened, he moved away. "Frankly, Aelia, for no other reason than you bore me." And he was gone. She stood quite still, conscious only of a troubled joy; he hadn't said he wanted to divorce her. Stale bread was definitely preferable to no bread.

The news that Aesernia had finally surrendered to the Samnites came not long after Lucius Caesar and Sulla arrived in Rome. The city had literally starved, reduced to eating every dog, cat, mule, donkey, horse, sheep and goat it owned before capitulating. Marcus Claudius Marcellus had handed Aesernia over personally, then disappeared, no one knew where. Except the Samnites. "He's dead," said Lucius Caesar. "You're probably right," said Sulla. Lucius Caesar, of course, would not be returning to the field. His term as consul was drawing to an end and he was hoping to stand for censor in the spring, so had no ambition to continue as a legate to the new commander-in-chief of the southern theater. The incoming tribunes of the plebs were somewhat stronger than of recent years, perhaps because all Rome was now talking about the enfranchisement law Lucius Caesar was rumored to be going to introduce; they were, however, on the progressive side, and mostly in favor of lenient treatment for the Italians. The President of the College was a Lucius Calpurnius Piso who had a second cognomen, Frugi, to distinguish his part of the Calpurnius Piso clan from the Calpurnii Pisones who had allied themselves in marriage with Publius Rutilius Rufus, and bore the second cognomen Caesoninus. A forceful man of pronounced conservative leanings, Piso Frugi had already announced that he would on principle oppose the two most radical tribunes of the plebs, Gaius Papirius Carbo and Marcus Plautius Silvanus, if they tried to ignore the limitations of Lucius Caesar's bill and give the citizenship to Italians actively engaged in war as well; that he had agreed not to oppose Lucius Caesar's bill was thanks to the persuasive talking of Scaurus and others he respected. Thus interest in Forum doings, almost nonexistent since the beginning of the war, started to revive; the coming year promised to contain interesting political contention. More depressing by far were the Centuriate elections, at least at the consular level. The two leading contenders had been accepted for two months as the winners, and now came in the winners; that Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo was senior consul and Lucius Porcius Cato Licinianus his junior everyone attributed to the fact that Pompey Strabo celebrated a triumph scant days before the elections. "These triumphs are pathetic," said Scaurus Princeps Senatus to Lucius Cornelius Sulla. "First Lucius Julius, now Gnaeus Pompeius, if you please! I feel very old." He also looked very old, thought Sulla, and experienced a frisson of alarm; if the lack of Gaius Marius promised torpid and unimaginative activity on the battlefield, what would the lack of Marcus Aemilius Scaurus do to that other battlefield, the Forum Romanum? Who for instance would look after those minuscule yet ultimately very important foreign matters Rome always found herself embroiled in? Who would put conceited fools like Philippus and arrogant upstarts like Quintus Varius in their places? Who would face up to whatever came so fearlessly, so sure of his own ability and superiority? The truth was that ever since Gaius Marius's stroke Scaurus had visibly diminished; scrap and snarl though they had for over forty years, they needed each other. "Marcus Aemilius, look after yourself!" said Sulla with sudden urgency, visited by a premonition. The green eyes twinkled. "We all have to go some time!" "True. But in your case, not yet. Rome needs you. Otherwise we'll be left to the tender mercies of Lucius Julius Caesar and Lucius Marcius Philippus what a fate!" Scaurus started to laugh. "Is that the worst fate can befall Rome?'' he asked, and put his head to one side like a skinny, ancient, plucked fowl. "In some ways I approve of you tremendously, Lucius Cornelius. Yet in other ways I have a feeling Rome might fare worse at your hands than at Philippus's." He wiggled the fingers of one hand. "You may not be a natural Military Man, but most of your years in the Senate have been spent in the army. And I have noticed that many years of military service make autocrats out of senators. Like Gaius Marius. When they attain high political office, they become impatient of the normal political restraints." ' They were standing outside the Sosius bookshop on the Argiletum, where one of Rome's best food stalls had been sitting for decades. So as they talked they were eating tarts filled with raisins and honeyed custard; a bright-eyed urchin watched them closely, ready to be ready with an offer of a basin of warm water and a cloth the tarts were juicy and sticky. "When my time comes, Marcus Aemilius, how Rome fares at my hands depends upon what sort of Rome she is. One thing I can promise you I will not see Rome disgrace our ancestors. Nor will I see Rome dominated by the likes of a Saturninus," said Sulla harshly. Scaurus finished his food, demonstrating to the urchin that he was aware of his presence by snapping sticky fingers before the urchin could rush forward unsolicited. Paying strict attention to the process, he washed and dried his hands, and gave the boy a whole sestertius. Then, while Sulla followed suit (and gave the boy a much smaller coin), he resumed talking. "Once I had a son," he said without a tremor, "but that son was unsatisfactory. A weakling and a coward, for all he was in nature a nice young man. Now I have another son, too young to know what stuff he's made of. Yet my first experience taught me one thing, Lucius Cornelius. No matter how illustrious our ancestors might have been, in the end we still come to depend upon our progeny." Sulla's face twisted. "My son is dead too, but I have no other," he said. "In which case, it was meant." "Do you not think it is all random, Princeps Senatus?" "No, I do not. I have been here to contain Gaius Marius. Rome needed me to do that and here I was, Rome's to command. These days I see you more as a Marius than as a Scaurus, somehow. And there is no one I can see on the horizon to contain you. Which might prove more dangerous to the mos maiorum than a thousand like Saturninus," said Scaurus. "I promise you, Marcus Aemilius, that Rome stands in no danger from me." Sulla thought about that statement, and qualified it. "Your Rome, I mean. Not Saturninus's." "I sincerely hope so, Lucius Cornelius." They moved off in the direction of the Senate. "I gather Cato Licinianus has elected to run things in Campania," said Scaurus. "He's a more difficult man to deal with than Lucius Julius Caesar just as insecure, but more overbearing." "He won't trouble me," said Sulla tranquilly. "Gaius Marius called him a pea, and his campaign in Etruria pea-sized. I know how to deal with a pea." "How?" "Squash it." "They won't give you the command, you know. I did try." "It doesn't matter in the least," said Sulla, smiling. "I'll take the command when I squash the pea." From another man it might have sounded vainglorious; Scaurus would have whooped with laughter. From Sulla it sounded ominously prescient; Scaurus shuddered instead.