Colleen McCullough - 1. First Man in Rome

When the new tribunes of the plebs entered office on the tenth day of December, the fun began. Tribune of the plebs for the second time, Lucius Appuleius Saturninus dominated the college completely, and exploited the fear the death of Quintus Nonius had provoked to further his own legislative ends. Though he kept denying strenuously any implication in the murder, he kept dropping little remarks in private to his fellow tribunes of the plebs which gave them cause to wonder if they might not end up as Quintus Nonius did, should they attempt to thwart him. The result was that they permitted Saturninus to do precisely what he pleased; neither Metellus Numidicus nor Catulus Caesar could persuade a single tribune of the plebs to interpose a single veto. Within eight days of entering office, Saturninus brought forward the first of two bills to award public lands to the veterans of both German armies; the lands were all abroad, in Sicily, Greece, Macedonia, and mainland Africa. The bill also carried a novel proviso, that Gaius Marius himself was to have the authority to personally grant the Roman citizenship to three Italian soldier settlers in each colony. The Senate erupted into furious opposition. "This man," said Metellus Numidicus, "is not even going to favor his Roman soldiers! He wants land for all comers on an equal footing Roman, Latin, Italian. No difference! No distinguished attention for Rome's own men! I ask you, fellow senators, what do you think of such a man? Does Rome matter to him? Of course it doesn't! Why should it? He's not a Roman! He's an Italian! And he favors his own breed. A thousand of them enfranchised on the battlefield, while Roman soldiers stood by and watched, unthanked. But what else can we expect of such a man as Gaius Marius?" When Marius rose to reply, he couldn't even make himself heard; so he walked out of the Curia Hostilia and stood on the rostra, and addressed the Forum frequenters instead. Some were indignant; but he was their darling, and they listened. "There's land enough for all!" he shouted. "No one can accuse me of preferential treatment for Italians! One hundred iugera per soldier! Ah, why so much, I hear you ask? Because, People of Rome, these colonists are going to harder places by far than our own beloved Italy. They will plant and harvest in unkind soils and unkind climates, where to make a decent living a man must have more land than he does in our beloved land of Italy." "There he goes!" cried Catulus Caesar from the steps of the Senate, his voice carrying shrilly. "There he goes! Listen to what he's saying! Not Rome! Italy! Italy, Italy, always it's Italy! He's not a Roman, and he doesn't care about Rome!" "Italy is Rome!" thundered Marius. "They are one and the same! Without one, the other does not and cannot exist! Don't Romans and Italians alike lay down their lives in Rome's armies for Rome? And if that is so and who can deny it is so? why should one kind of soldier be any different from the other?" "Italy!" cried Catulus Caesar. "Always it's Italy!" "Rubbish!" shouted Marius. "The first allocations of land go to Roman soldiers, not to Italian! Is that evidence of an Italian bias? And isn't it better that out of the thousands of veteran legionaries who will go to these colonies, three of the Italians among them will become full Roman citizens? I said three, People of Rome! Not three thousand Italians, People of Rome! Not three hundred Italians, People of Rome! Not three dozen Italians, People of Rome! Three! A drop in an ocean of men! A drop of a drop in an ocean of men!" "A drop of poison in an ocean of men!" screamed Catulus Caesar from the steps of the Senate. "The bill may say that the Roman soldiers will get their land first, but where does it say that the first land given away will be the best land?" shouted Metellus Numidicus. But the first land bill, which dealt with various tracts Rome had possessed in her public domain for a number of years and leased to absentee landlords, was passed by the Plebeian Assembly in spite of the opposition. Quintus Poppaedius Silo, now the leading man of his Marsic people in spite of his relative youth, had come to Rome to hear the debates on the land bills; Marcus Livius Drusus had invited him, and he was staying in Drusus's house. "They make a great deal of noise out of Rome versus Italy, don't they?" Silo asked Drusus, never having heard Rome debate this subject before. "They do indeed," said Drusus grimly. "It's an attitude only time will change. I live in hope, Quintus Poppaedius." "And yet you don't like Gaius Marius." "I detest the man. But I voted for him," said Drusus. "It's only four years since we fought at Arausio," said Silo reflectively. "Yes, I daresay you're right, and it will change. Before Arausio, I very much doubt Gaius Marius would have had any chance to include Italian troops among his colonists." "It was thanks to Arausio the Italian debt slaves were freed," said Drusus. "I'm glad to think we didn't die for nothing. And yet look at Sicily. The Italian slaves there weren't freed. They died instead." "I writhe in shame over Sicily," said Drusus, flushing. "Two corrupt, self-seeking senior Roman magistrates did that. Two miserable mentulae! Like them you may not, Quintus Poppaedius, but grant that a Metellus Numidicus or an Aemilius Scaurus would not soil the hem of his toga on a grain swindle." "Yes, I'll grant you that," said Silo. "However, Marcus Livius, they still believe that to be a Roman is to belong to the most exclusive club on earth and that no Italian deserves to belong by adoption." "Adoption?" "Well, isn't that really what the bestowal of the Roman citizenship is? An adoption into the family of Rome?" Drusus sighed. "You're quite right. All that changes is the name. Granting him the citizenship can't make a Roman out of an Italian or a Greek. And as time goes on, the Senate at least sets its heart more and more adamantly against creating artificial Romans." "Then perhaps," said Silo, "it will be up to us Italians to make ourselves artificial Romans with or without the approval of the Senate." A second land bill followed the first, this one to deal with all the new public lands Rome had acquired during the course of the German wars. It was by far the more important of the two, for these were virtually virgin lands, unexploited by large-scale farmers and graziers, and potentially rich in other things than beasts and crops minerals, gems, stone. They were all tracts in western Gaul-across-the-Alps, around Narbo, Tolosa, Carcasso, and in central Gaul-across-the-Alps, plus an area in Nearer Spain which had rebelled while the Cimbri were making things difficult at the foot of the Pyrenees. There were many Roman knights and Roman companies anxious to expand into Gaul-across-the-Alps, and they had looked to the defeat of the Germans for an opportunity and looked to their various patrons in the Senate to secure them access to the new ager publicus Galliae. Now to find that most of it was to go to Head Count soldiers roused them to heights of fury hitherto seen only during the worst days of the Gracchi. And as the Senate hardened, so too did the First Class knights, once Marius's greatest advocates now, feeling cheated of the chance to be absentee landlords in Further Gaul, his obdurate enemies. The agents of Metellus Numidicus and Catulus Caesar circulated everywhere, whispering, whispering... "He gives away what belongs to the State as if he owned both the land and the State" was one whisper, soon a cry. "He plots to own the State why else would he be consul now that the war with the Germans is over?" "Rome has never subsidized her soldiers with land!" "The Italians are receiving more than they deserve!" "Land taken from enemies of Rome belongs exclusively to Romans, not to Latins and Italians as well!" "He's starting on the ager publicus abroad, but before we know it he'll be giving away the ager publicus of Italy and he'll give it to Italians!" "He's calling himself the Third Founder of Rome, but what he wants to call himself is King of Rome!" And on, and on, and on. The more Marius roared from the rostra and in the Senate that Rome needed to seed her provinces with colonies of ordinary Romans, that veteran soldiers would form useful garrisons, that Roman lands abroad were better held by many little men than a handful of big men, the bitterer the opposition became. It stockpiled rather than dwindled from too much use, grew daily stronger, more strenuous. Until slowly, subtly, almost without volition, the public attitude toward the second agrarian law of Saturninus began to change. Many of the policy makers among the People and there were policy makers among the habitual Forum frequenters, as well as among the most influential knights began to doubt that Marius was right. For never had they seen such opposition. "There can't be so much smoke without at least some fire," they began to say, between themselves and to those who listened to them because they were policy makers. "This isn't just another silly Senate squabble it's too implacable." "When a man like Quintus Caecilius Metellus Numidicus who has been censor as well as consul, and don't we all remember how brave he was while he was censor? keeps increasing the number of his supporters, he must have some right on his side." "I heard yesterday that a knight whose support Gaius Marius desperately needs has spurned him publicly! The land at Tolosa he was personally promised by Gaius Marius is now going to be given to the Head Count veterans." "Someone was telling me that he personally overheard Gaius Marius saying he intends to give the citizenship to every single Italian man." "This is Gaius Marius's sixth consulship and his fifth in a row. He was heard to say at dinner the other day that he would never not be consul! He's going to run every single year until he dies." "He really wants to be King of Rome!" Thus did the whispering campaign of Metellus Numidicus and Catulus Caesar begin to pay dividends. And suddenly even Glaucia and Saturninus started to fear that the second land bill was doomed to fail.