Colleen McCullough - 1. First Man in Rome

Julia was pregnant, and very pleased to be so; the only stress she suffered was Marius's henlike concern for her. "Truly, Gaius Marius, I am perfectly well," she said for the thousandth time; it was now November, and the baby was due about March of the next year, so she was beginning to look pregnant. However, she had bloomed the traditional prospective mother's bloom, untroubled by sickness or swelling. "You're sure?" her husband asked anxiously. "Go away, do!" she said, but gently, and smilingly. Reassured, the fatuous husband left her with her servants in her workroom, and went to his study. It was the one place in the huge house where Julia's presence wasn't felt, the one place where he could forget her. Not that he tried to forget her; rather, there were times when he needed to think of other things. Like what was happening in Africa. Sitting at his desk, he drew paper forward and began to write in his bald unvarnished prose to Publius Rutilius Rufus, safely arrived in Tarsus after a very speedy voyage.

I am attending every meeting of both Senate and Plebs, and it finally looks as if there will be elections in the near future. About time. As you said, four days before the Ides of December. Publius Licinius Lucullus and Lucius Annius are beginning to collapse; I don't think they'll succeed in standing for second terms as tribunes of the plebs. In fact, the general impression now is that they plotted to have everyone think it only in order to bring their names more forcibly before the eyes of the electors. They're both consul material, but neither managed to make a splash while tribune of the plebs not surprising, considering they're not reformers. So what better way to make a splash than to inconvenience all of voting Rome? I must be turning into a Cynic. Is that possible for an Italian hayseed with no Greek? As you know, things have been very quiet in Africa, though our intelligence sources report that Jugurtha is indeed recruiting and training a very large army and in Roman style! However, things were far from quiet when Spurius Albinus came home well over a month ago to hold the elections. He gave his report to the Senate, this including the fact that he had kept his own army down to three legions, one made up of local auxiliaries, one of Roman troops already stationed in Africa, and one he had brought with him last spring from Italy. They are yet to be blooded. Spurius Albinus is not martially inclined, it would seem. I cannot say the same for Piggle-wiggle. But what riled our venerable colleagues of the Senate was the news that Spurius Albinus had seen fit to appoint his little brother, Aulus Albinus, governor of Africa Province and commander of the African army in his absence! Imagine! I suppose if Aulus Albinus had been his quaestor it might have passed scrutiny in the Senate, but as I know you know, but I'm telling you again anyway quaestor wasn't grand enough for Aulus Albinus, so he was put on his big brother's staff as a senior legate. Without the approval of the Senate! So there sits our Roman province of Africa, being governed in the governor's absence by a thirty-year-old hothead owning neither experience nor superior intelligence. Marcus Scaurus was spitting with rage, and served the consul a diatribe he won't forget in a hurry, I can tell you. But it's done. We can but hope Governor Aulus Albinus conducts himself properly. Scaurus doubts it. And so do I, Publius Rutilius.

That letter went off to Publius Rutilius Rufus before the elections were held; Marius had intended it to be his last, hoping that the New Year would see Rutilius back in Rome. Then came a letter from Rutilius informing him that Panaetius was still alive, and so rejuvenated at sight of his old pupil that he seemed likely to live for several months longer than the state of his malignancy had at first suggested. "Expect me when you see me, some time in the spring just before Piggle-wiggle embarks for Africa," Rutilius's letter said. So Marius sat down again as the old year dwindled away, and wrote again to Tarsus.

Clearly you had no doubt Piggle-wiggle would be elected consul, and you were correct. However, the People and the Plebs got their share of the elections over before the Centuries polled, neither body producing any surprises. So the quaestors entered office on the fifth day of December and the new tribunes of the plebs on the tenth day the only interesting-looking new tribune of the plebs is Gaius Mamilius Limetanus. Oh, and three of the new quaestors are promising our famous young orators and forensic stars Lucius Licinius Crassus and his best friend, Quintus Mucius Scaevola, are two of them, but the third I find more interesting still: a very brash and abrasive fellow of a recent plebeian family, Gaius Servilius Glaucia, whom I'm sure you'll remember from his court days it's being said these days that he's the best legal draftsman Rome has ever produced. I don't like him. Piggle-wiggle was returned first in the Centuriate polls, so will be the senior consul for next year. But Marcus Junius Silanus was not far behind him. The voting was conservative all the way, as a matter of fact. No New Men among the praetors. Instead, the six included two patricians and a patrician adopted into a plebeian family none other than Quintus Lutatius Catulus Caesar. As far as the Senate is concerned, it was therefore an excellent vote and promises well for the New Year. And then, my dear Publius Rutilius, the thunderbolt fell. It seems Aulus Albinus was tempted by rumors that a huge hoard of treasure was stored in the Numidian town of Suthul. So he waited just long enough to make sure his brother the consul was irrevocably on his way back to Rome to hold the elections, and then invaded Numidia! At the head of three paltry and inexperienced legions, if you please! His siege of Suthul was unsuccessful, of course the townspeople just shut their gates and laughed at him from the top of their walls. But instead of admitting that he wasn't capable of waging a little siege, let alone a whole campaign, what did Aulus Albinus do? Return to the Roman province? I hear you ask, eminently sensible man that you are. Well, that may have been the choice you would have made were you Aulus Albinus, but it wasn't Aulus Albinus's choice. He packed up his siege and marched onward into western Numidia! At the head of his three paltry and inexperienced legions. Jugurtha attacked him in the middle of the night somewhere near the town of Calama, and defeated Aulus Albinus so badly that our consul's little brother surrendered unconditionally. And Jugurtha forced every Roman and auxiliary from Aulus Albinus on down to pass beneath the yoke. After which, Jugurtha extracted Aulus Albinus's signature upon a treaty giving himself everything he hadn't been able to get from the Senate! We got the news of it in Rome not from Aulus Albinus but from Jugurtha, who sent the Senate a copy of the treaty with a covering letter complaining sharply about Roman treachery in invading a peacefully intentioned country that had not lifted so much as a warlike finger against Rome. When I say Jugurtha wrote to the Senate, I actually mean that, he had the gall to write to his oldest and best enemy, Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, in Scaurus's role as Princeps Senatus. A calculated insult to the consuls, of course, to choose to address his correspondence to the Leader of the House. Oh, was Scaurus angry! He summoned a meeting of the Senate immediately, and compelled Spurius Albinus to divulge much that had been artfully concealed, including the fact that Spurius was not quite as ignorant of his little brother's plans as he at first protested. The House was stunned. Then it turned nasty, and the Albinus faction promptly changed sides, leaving Spurius on his own to admit that he had heard the news from Aulus in a letter he received several days earlier. From Spurius we learned that Jugurtha had ordered Aulus back to Roman Africa and forbidden Aulus to put a toenail across the Numidian border. So there waits greedy young Aulus Albinus, petitioning his brother for a directive as to what to do.