Colleen McCullough - 1. First Man in Rome

Marcus Aurelius Cotta brought the tribunes of the soldiers into Arausio himself, plodding the five miles behind oxen because the pace and the kind of cart made it an easier journey; his fellows he left trying to organize some kind of order out of the chaos. Marcus Antonius Meminius had managed to persuade some of the local Gallic tribesmen who lived on farmsteads around Arausio to go out to the battlefield and do what they could to help. "But," said Cotta to Meminius when he arrived at the local magistrate's villa, "this is the evening of the third day, and somehow we have to dispose of the dead." "The townspeople are gone, and the farmers convinced the Germans will be back you've no idea how hard I had to talk to get anyone to go out there and help you," said Meminius. "I don't know where the Germans are," said Cotta, "and I can't work out why they headed back into the north. But so far, I haven't seen a sign of them. Unfortunately I don't have anyone to send out to scout, the battlefield is more important." "Oh!" Meminius clapped his hand to his brow. "A fellow came in about four hours ago, and from what I can gather I can't understand him he's one of the German interpreters who were attached to the cavalry camp. He has Latin, but his accent is too thick for me. Would you talk to him? He might be willing to scout for you." So Cotta sent for the German, and what he learned changed everything. "There has been a terrible quarrel, the council of thanes is split, and the three peoples have gone their separate ways," the man said. "A quarrel among the thanes, you mean?" asked Cotta. "Well, between Teutobod of the Teutones and Boiorix of the Cimbri, at least in the beginning," said the interpreter. "The warriors went back to get the wagons started, and the council met to divide the spoils. There was much wine taken from the three camps of the Romans, and the council drank it. Then Teutobod said he had had a dream while he rode back to the wagons of his people, and was visited by the great god Ziu, and Ziu told him that if his people kept marching south into the Roman lands, the Romans would inflict a defeat upon them that would see all the warriors, the women, and the children slain or sold into slavery. So Teutobod said he was going to take the Teutones to Spain through the lands of the Gauls, not the lands of the Romans. But Boiorix took great exception to this, accused Teutobod of cowardice, and announced that the Cimbri would go south through the Roman lands, no matter what the Teutones did.'' "Are you sure of all this?" Cotta asked, hardly able to believe it. "How do you know? From hearsay? Or were you there?" "I was there, dominus." "Why were you there? How were you there?" "I was waiting to be taken to the Cimbri wagons, since I am Cimbric. And they were all very drunk, so no one noticed me. I found I did not want to be a German anymore, so I thought I would learn what I could, and escape." "Go on, then, man!" said Cotta eagerly. "Well, the rest of the thanes joined in the argument, and then Getorix, who leads the Marcomanni and Cherusci and Tigurini, proposed that the matter be settled by remaining among the Aedui and Ambarri. But no one except his own people wanted to do that. The Teutonic thanes sided with Teutobod, and the Cimbric thanes with Boiorix. So the council ended yesterday with the three peoples all wanting different things. Teutobod has ordered the Teutones to travel into far Gaul, and make their way to Spain through the lands of the Cardurci and Petrocorii. Getorix and his people are going to stay among the Aedui and Ambarri. And Boiorix is going to lead the Cimbri to the other side of the great river Rhodanus, and travel to Spain along the outskirts of the Roman lands, rather than through them." "So that's why there's been no sign of them!" said Cotta. "Yes, dominus. They will not be coming south through the Roman lands," said the German. Back went Cotta to Marcus Antonius Meminius, and told him the news, smiling broadly. "Spread the word, Marcus Meminius, and as quickly as possible! For you must get all those bodies burned, otherwise your ground and your water will be contaminated, and disease will do more damage to the people of Arausio than the Germans could," said Cotta. He frowned, chewed his lip. "Where is Quintus Servilius Caepio?" "Already on his way to Rome, Marcus Aurelius." "What?" “He left with his son to bring the news to Rome as quickly as he could," said Meminius, puzzled. "Oh, I'll just bet he did!" said Cotta grimly. "Is he going by road?" "Of course, Marcus Aurelius. I gave him four-mule gigs out of my own stables." Cotta stood up, bone tired but filled with new vigor. "I will bring the news of Arausio to Rome," he said. "If I have to grow wings and fly, I'll beat Quintus Servilius, I swear it! Marcus Meminius, give me the best horse you can find. I start for Massilia at the crack of dawn." He rode at the gallop for Massilia, unescorted, commandeered a fresh horse in Glanum, and another in Aquae Sextiae, and got to Massilia seven hours after leaving Arausio. The great seaport founded by the Greeks centuries before had heard not one word about the great battle fought four days earlier; Cotta found the city so sleek and Greek, so white and bright in a fever of apprehension at the coming of the Germans. The house of the ethnarch pointed out to him, Cotta walked in with all the arrogance and haste of a Roman curule magistrate on urgent business. As Massilia enjoyed ties of friendship with Rome without submitting to Roman rule, Cotta could have been politely shown the door. But of course he was not. Especially after the ethnarch and a few of his councillors living close by had heard what Cotta had to say. "I want the fastest ship you've got, and the best sailors and oarsmen in Massilia," he said. "There's no cargo to slow the ship down, so I'll carry two spare teams of oarsmen in case we have to row against the wind and into a head sea. Because I swear to you, Ethnarch Aristides, that I will be in Rome in three days, if it means rowing the whole way! We're not going to hug the coast we're going. in as straight a line for Ostia as the best navigator in Massilia can sail. When's the next tide?" “You will have your ship and your crew by dawn , Marcus Aurelius, and that happens to coincide with the tide," said the ethnarch gently. He coughed with great delicacy. "Who will be paying?" Typical Massiliote Greek, thought Cotta, but didn't say so aloud. "Write me out a bill," he said. "The Senate and People of Rome will be paying." The bill was written at once; Cotta looked down at the outrageous price and grunted. "It's a tragedy," he said to Ethnarch Aristides, "when bad news costs enough to fight another war against the Germans. I don't suppose you'd lop a few drachmae off?" "I agree, it is a tragedy," said the ethnarch smoothly. "However, business is business. The price stands, Marcus Aurelius. Take it or leave it." "I'll take it," said Cotta.

Caepio and his son didn't bother to take the detour a visit to Massilia would have meant for a road traveler. No one knew better than Caepio veteran of a year in Narbo and a year in Spain when he had been praetor that the winds always blew the wrong way across the Sinus Gallicus. He would take the Via Domitia up the valley of the Druentia River, cross into Italian Gaul through the Mons Genava Pass, and hurry as fast as he could down the Via Aemilia and the Via Flaminia. Hopefully he could average seventy miles a day if he managed to commandeer decent animals often enough, and he expected his proconsular imperium to do that for him. It did; as the miles flew by Caepio began to feel confident that he would beat even the senatorial courier to Rome. So rapid had his crossing of the Alps been that the Vocontii, always on the lookout for vulnerable Roman travelers on the Via Domitia, were unable to organize an attack on the two galloping gigs. By the time he reached Ariminum and the end of the Via Aemilia, Caepio knew he would make it from Arausio to Rome in seven days, assisted by good roads and plenty of fresh mules. He began to relax. Exhausted he might be, a headache of huge proportions he might have, but his version of what had happened at Arausio would be the first version Rome heard, and that was nine tenths of the battle. When Fanum Fortunae appeared and the gigs turned onto the Via Flaminia for the crossing of the Apennines and the descent into the Tiber Valley, Caepio knew he had won. His was the version of Arausio Rome would believe. But Fortune had a greater favorite; Marcus Aurelius Cotta sailed the Sinus Gallicus from Massilia to Ostia in winds that veered between perfect and nonexistent, a better passage by far than could have been predicted. When the wind dropped, the professional oarsmen took their places in the outriggers, the hortator started to mark the stroke on his drum, and thirty muscled backs bent to the task. It was a small ship, built for speed rather than cargo, and looked suspiciously like a Massiliote fighting ship to Cotta, though the Massiliotes were not supposed to have any without Roman approval. Its two banks of oars, fifteen to a side, were housed in outriggers surmounted by decks that could easily have been fenced with a row of good stout shields and turned into fighting platforms in the twinkling of an eye, and the crane rigged on the afterdeck seemed rather haphazard in construction; perhaps, thought Cotta, a hefty catapult normally sits there. Piracy was a profitable industry, and rife from one end of the Middle Sea to the other. However, he was not the man to question a gift from Fortune, so Cotta nodded blandly when the captain explained that he specialized in passengers, and that the outrigger decks were a nice place for the passengers to stretch their legs, since cabin accommodation was a bit primitive. Before they sailed Cotta had been persuaded by the captain that two extra teams of oarsmen were excessive, for his men were the best in the business and would keep up a top pace with only one extra team. Now Cotta was glad he had agreed, for they were the lighter in weight because they carried fewer men, and the wind provided enough puff to rest both teams of rowers just when it looked as if exhaustion was going to set in. The ship had sailed out of Massilia's magnificent harbor at dawn on the eleventh day of October, and came to anchor in Ostia's dismally poor harbor at dawn on the day before the Ides, exactly three days later. And three hours later Cotta walked into the consul Publius Rutilius Rufus's house, scattering clients before him like hens before a fox. "Out!" he said to the client seated in the chair at Rutilius Rufus's desk, and threw himself wearily into the chair as the startled client scuttled to the door.