The Grass Crown (101 page)

“People of Rome, no one is more conscious of the gravity of my actions than I am,” he said in his clear and carrying voice. “Nor must you think that the presence of an army within Rome is due to anyone’s intent save my own. I am the senior consul, legally elected and legally put in command of my army. I brought that army to Rome, no one else. My colleagues acted under my orders, as they are obliged to do, including my junior consul, Quintus Pompeius Rufus—though I would remind you that his son was murdered here in our sacred Forum Romanum by some of the Sulpician rabble.”

He was speaking slowly in order that the heralds could relay his words outward, and now he paused until the last shouts in the distance ceased.

“For far too long, People of Rome, the right of the Senate and the consuls to organize the affairs and laws of Rome has been ignored—and of recent years even trampled underfoot by a very few power-crazed, self-seeking demagogues calling themselves tribunes of the plebs. These unscrupulous crowd-pleasers seek election as the guardians of the rights of the People, then proceed to abuse that hallowed trust in a completely irresponsible manner. Their excuse is always the same—that they are acting on behalf of the ’sovereign People’! Whereas the truth is, People of Rome, that they are acting in their own interests entirely. You are lured on by promises of largesse or privilege which it is quite beyond the power of this State to grant—especially when you consider that these men usually arise at a time when this State is least able to grant largesse or privilege. That is why they succeed! They play upon your desires and your fears! But they do not mean you well. What they promise, they cannot deliver. For example, did Saturninus ever provide that free grain? Of course he did not! Because there was no grain available. If it had been, your consuls and the Senate would have provided it. When the grain did come, it was your consul, Gaius Marius, who distributed it—not free of charge, but at a very reasonable price.”

He stopped again until the heralds caught up.

“Do you really believe that Sulpicius would have legislated to cancel your debts? Of course he would not! Even had I and my army not stepped in, it was beyond his power to do so. No man can evict a whole class from its rightful place—as Sulpicius did the Senate!—on grounds of indebtedness, then turn around and cancel all debt! If you examine his conduct, you will see all this for yourselves—Sulpicius wanted to destroy the Senate, found a way of doing so, and allowed you to think he would treat you in exactly the opposite manner to the way he treated men he had convinced you were your enemies. Always dangling a bait. That he could secure a general cancellation of debt. But he used you, People of Rome. Never once did he say in a public assembly that he would seek a general cancellation of debt! Instead, he sent his agents among you to whisper of it in private. Doesn’t that tell you how insincere he was? If he intended to cancel debt, he would have announced it from the rostra. He never did. He used you with utter indifference to your plight. Whereas I as your consul did secure as much relief from the burden of debt as is possible without undermining the whole structure of money—and I did it for every Roman, from highest to lowest. I even did it for those who are not Roman! I enacted a general law limiting the payment of interest to interest on the capital only, and at the original agreed rate. So, you might say, it is I who helped relieve debt. Not Sulpicius!”

He rotated through a full circle, pretending that he was peering this way and that into the crowd. After repeating this several times, he turned back to face the crowd again and shrugged, lifting his hands in a gesture of futile appeal.

“Where is Publius Sulpicius?” he asked, seeming amazed. “Whom have I killed since I brought my army into Rome? A few slaves and freedmen, a few ex-gladiators. Rabble. Not respectable Romans. Why then isn’t Publius Sulpicius here to speak to you, to refute what I am telling you? I call upon Publius Sulpicius to come forward and refute me in decent and honorable debate—not inside the Curia Hostilia, but out here in full view of his ’sovereign People’!” He cupped his hands around his mouth and roared, “Publius Sulpicius, tribune of the plebs, I demand that you come forward to answer me!”

But his only answer was the crowd’s silence.

“He is not here to answer, People of Rome, because when I—the legally elected consul!—entered this city accompanied by my only friends, my soldiers, to seek justice for myself and for them, Publius Sulpicius ran away. But why did he run away? Did he fear for his life? Why should he do that? Have I tried to kill any elected magistrate, or even any ordinary respectable resident of Rome? Do I stand here in full armor holding a dripping sword in my right hand? No! I stand here in the purple-bordered toga of my high office, and my only friends, my soldiers, are not present to hear what I am saying to you. They do not need to be present! I am their legally elected representative as much as I am your legally elected representative. Yet Sulpicius is not here! Why is he not here? Do you truly believe he is fearful for his life? If he is, People of Rome, then he is because he knows what he did was illegal and treasonous. For myself, I would rather give him the benefit of the doubt, and wish with all my heart that he was here today!”

Time to stop again, time to peer into the crowd, to pretend to hope Sulpicius was present. Sulla cupped his hands around his mouth and roared, “Publius Sulpicius, tribune of the plebs, I demand that you stand forth to answer me!”

No one appeared.

“He is gone, People of Rome. He fled in the company of the man who duped him as surely as he duped you—Gaius Marius!” cried Sulla.

And now the crowd began to stir, to murmur; that was one name no member of the People of Rome liked to hear spoken of in tones of condemnation.

“Yes, I know,” said Sulla very slowly and carefully, making sure his exact words were relayed outward, “Gaius Marius is everybody’s hero. He saved Rome from Jugurtha of Numidia. He saved Rome and Rome’s world from the Germans. He went to Cappadocia and single-handedly ordered King Mithridates to go home—you didn’t know that, did you? Yet I stand here willing to tell you another of Gaius Marius’s great deeds! Many of his greatest deeds are unsung. I know of them because I was his loyal legate in his campaigns against Jugurtha and the Germans. I was his right-hand man. It is the fate of right-hand men not to be known, not to be famous. And I do not grudge Gaius Marius one tittle of his glorious reputation. It is deserved! But I too have been Rome’s loyal servant. I too went to the east and single-handedly ordered King Mithridates to go home. I led the first Roman army across the river Euphrates into unknown lands.”

He stopped again, seeing with pleasure that the crowd was now settling down, that he had at least managed to convince it of his absolute earnestness.

“I have been Gaius Marius’s friend as well as his right-hand man. For many years I was his brother-in-law—until my wife, who was the sister of his wife, died. I did not divorce her. There was no kind of animosity between us. His son and my daughter are first cousins. When some days ago the henchmen of Publius Sulpicius murdered many young men of fine family and great potential, including the son of my colleague Quintus Pompeius—a young man who happened to be my son-in-law, the husband of Gaius Marius’s niece—I was obliged to flee for my life from the Forum. And where did I choose to go, sure my life was sacrosanct there? Why, I went to the house of Gaius Marius, and was sheltered by him.”

Yes, the crowd was definitely settling down well. He had introduced the subject of Gaius Marius in the right way.

“When Gaius Marius won his great victory against the Marsi, I acted as his right-hand man yet again. And when my army—the army I led to Rome—awarded me the Grass Crown for saving it from certain death at the hands of the Samnites, Gaius Marius rejoiced that I, his unsung assistant, had at last won a reputation for myself upon the battlefield. In terms of importance and the number of enemy lives taken, my victory was a greater one than his, but did that affect him? Of course it did not! He rejoiced for me! And did he not choose to make his reappearance in the Senate on the day of my inauguration as consul? Did his presence not enhance my standing?”

They were completely absorbed now, and no one spoke; Sulla pushed on toward his peroration.

“However, People of Rome, all of us—you—me—Gaius Marius—must from time to time face and deal with very unpleasant facts. One such fact concerns Gaius Marius. He is neither young enough nor well enough to conduct a huge foreign war. His mind is damaged. That apparatus, as all of you know, does not seem to recover as does the body it inhabits recover. The man you have seen for the last two years walking, swimming, exercising, curing his body of its severe affliction, cannot cure his mind. It is that mental malady I blame for his actions of late. I excuse his excesses in the name of the love I bear him. As must you. Rome is facing a worse conflagration than the one from which she is currently emerging. A greater and far more dangerous power than the Germans has arisen in the person of an eastern king with properly trained and properly equipped armies whose men he numbers in the hundreds of thousands. A man with fleets of hundreds of decked war galleys. A man who has succeeded in obtaining the collaboration of foreign peoples Rome has sheltered and protected—and now give us no thanks. How can I, People of Rome, continue to stand by while you in your ignorance convey the command in this war from me—a man in my prime!—to him—a man past his prime?”

No lover of public speaking, he was feeling the strain. But when he stopped to allow the heralds to catch up he managed to stand as if he wasn’t thirsty, as if his knees weren’t trembling, as if he didn’t care how the crowd reacted.

“Even had I been willing to give up my lawfully conferred command of the war against King Mithridates of Pontus in favor of Gaius Marius, People of Rome, the five legions comprising my army were not willing. I stand here not only as the legally elected senior consul, but as the legally appointed representative of Rome’s soldiers. It was they who elected to march to Rome—not to conquer Rome, not to use Romans like enemies!—but to show the People of Rome how they feel about an illegal law extracted from an assembly of civilians by a tongue far more gifted than mine, and at the instigation of a sick old man who happens to be a hero. Yet before they were allowed an opportunity to have audience with you, my soldiers were forced to deal with gangs of armed ruffians who refused them peaceful entry. Gangs of armed ruffians got together from out of the ranks of slaves and freedmen by Gaius Marius and Publius Sulpicius. That my soldiers were not refused entry by the respectable citizens of Rome is manifest—the respectable citizens of Rome are here today to listen to me as I put forward my case and the case of my soldiers. I and they ask only one thing. That we be allowed to do what we were legally and validly appointed to do—fight King Mithridates.”

He drew a breath, and when next he spoke produced a voice as loud and brazen as a trumpet call.

“I go to the East in the knowledge that no man enjoys better health, that I have suffered no cerebral catastrophes, that I am in a position to give Rome what Rome must have—victory against the evil foreign king who wants to crown himself King of Rome, who killed eighty thousand of our men and women and children as they clung to altars crying on the gods to protect them! My command is fully according to the law. In other words, the gods of Rome have given this task to me. The gods of Rome repose their trust in me.”

He had won. As he stepped aside for a much greater orator to take his place in the person of Quintus Mucius Scaevola Pontifex Maximus, he knew he had won. For in spite of their susceptibility to those of silver tongue and golden voice, the men of Rome were sane and sensible, and could understand common sense when it was put to them as reasonably as it was forcibly.

“I could wish you had found some other way to assert yourself, Lucius Cornelius,” said Catulus Caesar to him as the meeting finally broke up, “but I must support you.”

“What other way did he have?” demanded Antonius Orator. “Go on, Quintus Lutatius, give me another way!”

It was the brother, Lucius Caesar, who answered. “One way was for Lucius Cornelius to stay in Campania with his legions and refuse to give up his command.”

Crassus the Censor snorted. “Oh, certainly! And then after Sulpicius and Marius gathered the rest of the legions in Italy together, what do you suppose would have happened? If neither side stepped down, it would have been real civil war, not war against mere Italians, Lucius Julius! At least by coming to Rome, Lucius Cornelius did the only thing which could have avoided armed confrontation between Romans. The very fact that there are no legions in Rome was his greatest guarantee of success!”

“You’re right, Publius Licinius,” said Antonius Orator.

And thus it was left; everybody deplored Sulla’s tactics, but no one could think of an alternative.

For ten more days Sulla and the leaders of the Senate continued to speak daily in the Forum Romanum, gradually winning the People over with a remorseless campaign aimed at discrediting Sulpicius and gently dismissing Gaius Marius as a sick old man who ought to be content to rest on his laurels.

After those summary executions for looting, Sulla’s legions behaved impeccably, and found themselves taken to the hearts of many civilian residents, fed and pampered a little—especially once the news got round that this was the fabled army of Nola, that this was the army had really won the war against the Italians. Sulla was careful, however, to provision his troops without placing additional strain on the city’s food supplies, and left the pampering up to free choice. But there were those among the populace who eyed the troops skeptically, and remembered that they had marched on Rome of their own volition; therefore if these soldiers were defied or annoyed, a mass slaughter might take place for all their general’s fine words in the Forum. After all, he had not sent them back to Campania. He was keeping them within Rome. Not the act of one who would refuse to use them should the occasion arise.