The Grass Crown (80 page)

“Here, you come away!” said a new voice. Lucius Decumius took Young Caesar by the shoulder and yanked him further away from the cliff. On his knees, he shakily patted the boy all over to make sure there were no broken bones. “Why did you have to do that?” he whispered too softly for anyone but Young Caesar to hear.

“I had to make it look convincing,” came an answering whisper. “For a moment I didn’t think his horse was going to go. It was best to be sure. I knew I’d be safe.”

“How did you know what I was going to do? You weren’t even looking my way!”

Young Caesar heaved a sigh of exasperation. “Oh, Lucius Decumius! I know you! And I knew why Gaius Marius sent for you the instant he did. Personally I don’t care much what happens to my cousin, but I won’t have Gaius Marius and our own family disgraced. Rumor is one thing. A witness is quite another.”

Cheek against the bright gold hair, Lucius Decumius let his eyes close in an exasperation easily the equal of Young Caesar’s. “But you risked your life!”

“Don’t worry about my life. I can look after it. When I let it go, it will be because I have no further use for it.” The boy extricated himself from Lucius Decumius’s embrace and went to make sure that Gaius Marius was all right.

Shaken and confused, Lucius Cornelius Cinna poured wine for himself and Gaius Marius the moment they reached his tent. Lucius Decumius had taken Young Caesar off to fish in the Anio cascades, and the rest of the party was regrouping to form another party—one deputed to bring the remains of the cadet Publius Claudius Pulcher back for his own funeral.

“I must say that as far as my son and I are concerned, that was a very timely accident,” said Marius bluntly, taking a deep draft of his wine. “Without Publius Claudius you have no case, my friend.”

“It was an accident,” said Cinna in the tones of a man most preoccupied with convincing himself. “It couldn’t have been anything except an accident!”

“Quite right. It couldn’t have been anything else. I nearly lost a better boy than my son.”

“I didn’t think the lad had a hope.”

“I think that particular lad is hope personified,” said Marius with a purr in his voice. “I’ll have to keep my eye on him in the future. Or he’ll be eclipsing me.”

“Oh, what a mess!” sighed Cinna.

“Not an auspicious omen for a man just promoted to the general’s tent, I agree,” said Marius affably.

“I shall acquit myself better than Lucius Cato did!”

Marius grinned. “It would be hard to do worse. However, I do sincerely think you will acquit yourself well, Lucius Cinna. And I am very grateful for your forbearance. Very grateful!”

Somewhere in the back of his mind Cinna could hear the tinkling cascade of coins—or was it the Anio, where that extraordinary boy was happily fishing as if nothing ever banished his composure?

“What is one’s first duty, Gaius Marius?” Cinna asked suddenly.

“One’s first duty, Lucius Cinna, is to one’s family.”

“Not to Rome?”

“What else is our Rome, than her families?”

“Yes… Yes, I suppose that’s true. And those of us who are born to it—or have risen to find our children born to it—must strive to ensure that our families remain in a position to rule.”

“Quite so,” said Gaius Marius.

Lucius Cornelius Sulla

Once Lucius Cornelius Sulla had cast his spell (as Young Caesar had put it) upon Cato the Consul and banished him to fight the Marsi, Sulla proceeded to take steps to recover all Rome’s territories from the Italians. Though officially he still ranked as a legate, he was now in effect the commander-in-chief of the southern theater, and he knew there would be no interference from Senate or consuls—provided, that is, he produced results. Italia was tired; one of its two leaders, the Marsian Silo, might even have contemplated surrender were it not for the other one; Gaius Papius Mutilus the Samnite, Sulla knew, would never give up; therefore he had to be shown that his cause was lost.

Sulla’s initial move was as secret as it was extraordinary, but he had the right man for a job he couldn’t do himself. If his scheme succeeded, it would spell the beginning of the end for the Samnites and their allies of the south. Without telling Catulus Caesar in Capua why he was detaching the two best legions from Campanian service, Sulla loaded then at night aboard a fleet of transports moored in Puteoli harbor.

Their commander was his legate Gaius Cosconius, whose orders were explicit. He was to sail with these two legions right around the foot of the peninsula and land on the eastern coast somewhere near Apenestae, in Apulia. The first third of the voyage—down the west coast—didn’t need to be out of sight of land, as any observer in Lucania might suppose the fleet to be going to Sicily, where there were rumors of uprisings. During the middle third the fleet could hug the coast and put in to revictual in places like Croton and Tarentum and Brundisium, where the tale would be that they were going to put down trouble in Asia Minor—a tale the troops themselves had been given to believe. And when the fleet sailed out of Brundisium on the last third of the voyage—the shortest third—all Brundisium had to be convinced it was on its way across the Adriatic to Apollonia in western Macedonia.

“Beyond Brundisium,” said Sulla to Cosconius, “you dare not make a landfall until you reach your final destination. The decision as to exactly where you come ashore I leave to you. Just pick a quiet place, and don’t strike until you’re absolutely ready. Your task is to free up the Via Minucia south of Larinum and the Via Appia south of Ausculum Apulium. After that, concentrate on eastern Samnium. By the time you’re doing that, I should be driving east to meet you,”

Excited because he had been singled out for this vital mission and confident he and his men were formed of the right stuff to make a success of it, Cosconius concealed his elation and listened gravely.

“Remember, Gaius Cosconius, take your time while you’re at sea,” Sulla cautioned. “I want no more than twenty-five miles a day from you on most days. It’s now the end of March. You must land somewhere to the south of Apenestae fifty days hence. Land too soon, and I won’t have time to complete my half of the pincer. I need these fifty days to take back all the ports on Crater Bay and drive Mutilus out of western Campania. Then I can move east—but not until then.”

“Since successful passage around the foot of Italy is very rare, Lucius Cornelius, I’m glad to have fifty days,” said Cosconius.

“If you have to row, then row,” said Sulla.

“I will be where I am supposed to be in fifty days. You can count on it, Lucius Cornelius.”

“Without the loss of a man, let alone a ship.”

“Every ship has a fine captain and an even finer pilot, and the logistics of the voyage encompass every possibility any of us can think of. I won’t let you down. We’ll get to Brundisium as quickly as we can and we’ll wait there as long as we have to—not one day more, nor one day less,” said Cosconius.

“Good! And remember one thing, Gaius Cosconius—your most reliable ally is Fortune. Offer to her every single day. If she loves you as much as she loves me, all will go well.”

The fleet bearing Cosconius and his two crack legions left Puteoli the next day to brave the elements and lean most heavily upon one particular element—luck. No sooner had it gone than Sulla returned to Capua and marched then for Pompeii. This was to be a combined land and sea attack, as Pompeii had superb port facilities on the Sarnus near its mouth; Sulla intended to bombard the city with flaming missiles launched from his ships anchored in the river.

One doubt huddled in the back of his mind, though it was nothing he could rectify; his flotilla was under the command of a man he neither liked nor trusted to follow orders—none other than Aulus Postumius Albinus. Twenty years before, it had been the same Aulus Postumius Albinus who had provoked the war against King Jugurtha of Numidia. And he hadn’t changed.

Sent orders from Sulla to bring up his ships from Neapolis to Pompeii, Aulus Albinus decided he should first let his crews and his marines know who was in charge—and what would happen to them if they didn’t jump smartly to attention whenever he snapped his fingers. But the crews and the marines were all of Campanian Greek descent, and found the things Aulus Albinus said to them intolerable insults. Like Cato the Consul, he was buried under a storm of missiles—but these were stones, not clods of earth. Aulus Postumius Albinus died.

Fortunately Sulla wasn’t far down the road when news of the murder was brought to him; leaving his troops to continue their march under the command of Titus Didius, Sulla rode on his mule to Neapolis, there to meet the leaders of the mutiny. With him he took Metellus Pius the Piglet, his other legate. Calm unimpaired, he listened to passionate reasons and excuses from the mutineers, then said coldly,

“I am afraid you are going to have to be the best sailors and marines in the history of Roman naval warfare. Otherwise, how can I forget you murdered Aulus Albinus?”

He then appointed Publius Gabinius admiral of the fleet, and that was the end of the mutiny.

Metellus Pius the Piglet held his tongue until he and Sulla were on their way to rejoin the army, at which time his burning question found voice: “Lucius Cornelius, do you not intend to give them any kind of punishment?”

Sulla deliberately tipped the brim of his hat back from his brow to show the Piglet a pair of coolly amused eyes. “No, Quintus Caecilius, I do not.”

“You should have stripped them of their citizenship and then flogged them!”

“Yes, that is what most commanders would have done—more fool they. However, since you are undoubtedly one such foolish commander, I shall explain why I acted as I did. You ought to be able to see it for yourself, you know.”

Holding up his right hand, Sulla told off the points one by one. “First of all, we can’t afford to lose those men. They trained under Otacilius, and they’re experienced. Secondly, I admire their eminent good sense in getting rid of a man who would have led them very poorly—and perhaps would have led them to their deaths. Three, I didn’t want Aulus Albinus! But he’s a consular and he couldn’t be passed over or ignored.”

Three fingers up, Sulla turned in the saddle to glare at the hapless Piglet. “I am going to tell you something, Quintus Caecilius. If I had my way, there would be no place—no place!—on my staff for men as inept and contentious as Aulus Albinus, the late unlamented consul Lupus, and our present consul Cato Licinianus. I gave Aulus Albinus a naval command because I thought he could do us the least harm on the sea. So how could I punish men for doing what I would have done in similar circumstances?”

Up went another finger. “Fourthly, those men have put themselves in a position where, if they don’t do well, I can indeed strip them of their citizenship and flog them—which means that they have no choice but to fight like wildcats. And fifthly”—he had to use his thumb—“I don’t care how many thieves and murderers I have in my forces—provided they fight like wildcats.” Down went the hand, chopping through the defenseless air like a barbarian’s axe.

Metellus Pius opened his mouth, thought better of what he had been going to say, and wisely said nothing at all.

At the point where the road to Pompeii divided, one branch going to the Vesuvian Gate, the other to the Herculanean Gate, Sulla put his troops into a strongly fortified camp. By the time he was settled in behind his entrenchments and ramparts, his flotilla had arrived and was busy firing blazing bundles over the walls into the midst of Pompeian buildings faster than the oldest and most experienced centurion had ever seen; frightened faces looking down from the walls revealed that this was one kind of warfare nobody had counted on, and one which made everyone very uneasy. Fire was worst.

That the Samnites of Pompeii had sent frantic messages for help became clear the next day when a Samnite army larger than Sulla’s by a good ten thousand men arrived, and proceeded to halt not more than three hundred paces from the front of Sulla’s camp. A third of Sulla’s twenty thousand soldiers were absent on foraging excursions, and were now cut off from him. Looking his ugliest, Sulla stood on his ramparts with Metellus Pius and Titus Didius listening to the jeers and catcalls borne on the wind from the city’s walls—noises he did not appreciate any more than he did the advent of a Samnite army.

“Sound the call to arms,” he said to his legates.

Titus Didius was turning to leave when Metellus Pius reached out to grasp Didius by the arm, and detained him.

“Lucius Cornelius, we can’t go out to fight that lot!” the Piglet cried. “We’d be cut to pieces!”

“We can’t not go out and fight,” said Sulla, curtly enough to indicate his anger at being questioned. “that’s Lucius Cluentius out there, and he intends to stay. If I let him build a camp as strong as ours it will be Acerrae all over again. And I am not going to tie up four good legions in a place like this for months—nor do I need Pompeii’s showing the rest of these rebel seaports that Rome can’t take them back! And if that isn’t sufficient reason to attack right now, Quintus Caecilius, then consider the fact that when our foraging parties return, they’re going to trip over a Samnite army with no word of warning—and no chance to survive!”

Didius gave Metellus Pius a contemptuous look. “I’ll sound the call to arms,” he said, and wrenched his arm away.

Crowned with a helmet rather than his usual hat, Sulla climbed to the top of the camp forum tribunal to address the almost thirteen thousand men he had available.

“You all know what’s waiting for you!” he shouted. “A pack of Samnites who outnumber us by nearly three to one! But Sulla is tired of Rome’s being beaten by a pack of Samnites, and Sulla is tired of Samnites owning Roman towns! What good is it being a living Roman if Rome has to lie down before Samnites like a fawning bitch? Well, not this Roman! Not Sulla! If I have to go out and fight alone, I am going! Am I going alone? Am I? Or are you coming with me because you’re Romans too, and just as tired of Samnites as I am?”

The army answered him with a mighty cheer. He stood without moving, until they were done, for he was not done.

“They go!” he sang out, even louder. “Every last one of them must go! Pompeii is our town! The Samnites within its gates murdered a thousand Romans, and now those same Samnites are up there on Pompeii’s walls thinking themselves safe and sound, booing and hissing us because they think we’re too afraid to clean up a pack of dirty Samnites! Well, we’re going to show them they’re wrong! We’re going to take everything the Samnites can dish out until our foraging parties return, and when they do return, our war cries will guide them to the battle! Hear me? We hold the Samnites until our foragers return to fall on their rear like the Romans they are!”

There came a second mighty cheer, but Sulla was already off the tribunal, sword in hand; three ordered columns of soldiers moved at a run through the front and both side gates, Sulla leading the middle column himself.

So swift was the Roman deployment that Cluentius, not expecting a battle, barely had time to ready his troops for the Roman charge. A cool and daring commander, he stood his ground and remained among his own front ranks. Undermanned, the Roman assault began to falter when it failed to break the Samnite line. But Sulla, still leading, refused to move back an inch, and his men refused to leave him there alone. For an hour Romans and Samnites fought a hand-to-hand engagement without let, mercy, retreat. Of truly confrontational battles there had been few; both sides understood that the outcome of this one must inevitably affect the outcome of the war.

Too many good legionaries fell in that hour marking noon, but just as it seemed Sulla must order his troops to fall back or see them die where they stood, the Samnite line trembled, shook, began to fold in on itself. The Roman foraging parties had returned, and were attacking from the rear. Shrieking that Rome was invincible, Sulla led his men back into the fray with renewed vigor. Even so Cluentius gave ground slowly. For a further hour he managed to hold his army together. Then when he saw that all was lost, he rallied his troops and fought his way through the Romans in his rear to retreat on the double toward Nola.

Regarding itself as the talisman of Italian defiance in the south—and knowing Rome was aware it had starved Roman soldiers to death—Nola could not afford to jeopardize its safety. So when Cluentius and over twenty thousand Samnite’ soldiers reached its walls a scant mile ahead of the pursuing Sulla, they found themselves locked out. Leaning over those lofty, smooth, stoutly reinforced stone bastions, the city magistrates of Nola looked down on Lucius Cluentius and their fellow Samnites, and refused to open the gates. Finally, as the Roman front ranks approached the Samnite rear and prepared to charge, the gate below which Cluentius himself stood—not one of the city’s bigger gates—swung wide. But more than that one minor gate the magistrates would not open, plead though the floundering Samnite soldiers did.

Before Pompeii it had been a battle. Before Nola it was a rout. Stunned at Nolan treachery, panic-stricken because it found itself enclosed by the out-thrust corners of Nola’s northern section of walls, the Samnite army went down to utter defeat, and died almost to the last man. Sulla himself killed Cluentius, who refused to seek shelter within Nola when only a handful of his men could do the same.

It was the greatest day of Sulla’s life. Fifty-one years of age, a general in complete charge of a theater of war at last, he had won his first great battle as commander-in-chief. And what a victory! Covered so copiously in the blood of other men that he dripped it, his sword glued by gore to his right hand, reeking of sweat and death, Lucius Cornelius Sulla surveyed the field, snatched the helmet from his head and threw it into the air with a scream of sheer jubilation. In his ears was a gigantic noise drowning out the howls and moans of dying Samnites, a noise inexorably swelling, revealing itself as a chant: