The Grass Crown (85 page)

For a long time Sulla stared at himself, not yet recovered from the amazement of discovering what he looked like to other people. The most flawless silver mirror gave no idea compared to this imago. I shall have Magius’s team of sculptors do some portrait busts and a full-length statue in armor, he decided, quite delighted with how he looked to other people. Finally his mind returned to Marius’s perfidy, and his gaze became abstracted; then he gave a little jump, hooked his forefingers around two horns on the front of the temple’s floor. The head of Lucius Cornelius Sulla glided forward and out of the interior on the movable floor and sat, ready for someone to lift off its wig and lever the mask away from a base which was a clay mould of Sulla’s face. Anchored to contours in its own image, shut away from the depredations of light and dust in its dark and airless temple home, the mask would last for generations after generations.

Sulla put his hands to the head atop his own shoulders and took off his Grass Crown, placed it upon the image’s wig. Even on the day the runners had been torn from the soil of Nola they had been browned and bedraggled, for they came from a field of battle and had been bruised, trodden, ground down. Nor had the fingers which had woven them into a twisted braid been skilled and dainty florist’s fingers; they had belonged to the primus pilus centurion Marcus Canuleius, and were more used to wrapping themselves about a gnarled vine clava. Now, seven months later, the Grass Crown had withered to spindling strings sprouting hairlike roots, and the few blades left were dry, shrunken. But you’re tough, my beautiful Grass Crown, thought Sulla, adjusting it upon the wig until it framed the face and hairline as it ought, back from the brow like a woman’s tiara. Yes, you’re tough. You were made of Italian grass and crafted by a Roman soldier. You will endure. Just as I will endure. And together we will make a ruin of Gaius Marius.

The Senate met again the day after its consuls were inducted into office, summoned by Sulla. A new Princeps Senatus existed at last, appointed during the New Year’s Day ceremonies. He was Lucius Valerius Flaccus, Marius’s “man of straw” junior consul during that momentous year when Marius had been consul a sixth time, had his first stroke, and had been helpless to prevent Saturninus’s running amok. It was not a particularly popular appointment, but there were so many restrictions and precedents and regulations that only Lucius Valerius Flaccus had qualified—he was a patrician, the leader of his group of senators, a consular, a censor, and an interrex more times than any other patrician senator. No one had any illusions that he would fill the shoes of Marcus Aemilius Scaurus gracefully or formidably. Including Flaccus himself.

Before the meeting was formally convened he had come to Sulla and begun to ramble on about problems in Asia Minor, but so muddled was his presentation and so incoherent his sentences that Sulla put him firmly aside and indicated that the auspices might be taken. Himself an augur now, he presided over the ceremonies in conjunction with Ahenobarbus Pontifex Maximus. And there’s another doesn’t look well, thought Sulla, sighing; the Senate was in a sorry state.

Not all of Sulla’s time since he had arrived in Rome at the beginning of December had been taken up in visits to friends, sittings for Magius of the Velabrum, idle chatter, a boring wife, and Gaius Marius. Knowing he would be consul, he had spent most of his time talking to those among the knights whom he respected or knew to be most able, in talking to senators who had remained in Rome throughout the war (like the new urban praetor Marcus Junius Brutus), and in talking to men like Lucius Decumius, member of the Fourth Class and caretaker of a crossroads college.

Now he rose to his feet and proceeded to demonstrate to the House that he, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, was a leader who would not brook defiance.

“Princeps Senatus, Conscript Fathers, I am not an orator,” he said, standing absolutely still in front of his curule chair, “so you will get no fine speeches from me. What you will get is a plain statement of the facts, followed by an outline of the measures I intend to take to remedy matters. You may debate the issues—if you feel you must—but I take leave to remind you that the war is not yet satisfactorily concluded. Therefore I do not want to spend any more time in Rome than I must. I also warn you that I will deal harshly with members of this august body who attempt to hinder me for vainglorious or self-interested motives. We are not in a position to suffer the kind of antics performed by Lucius Marcius Philippus during the days before the death of Marcus Livius Drusus—I hope you are listening, Lucius Marcius?”

“My ears are absolutely flappingly wide open, Lucius Cornelius,” drawled Philippus.

A different man might have chosen to flatten Philippus with a well-chosen phrase or two; Lucius Cornelius Sulla did it with his eyes. Even as the titters broke out, those eerie pale orbs were roaming the tiers searching for culprits. Expectation of a verbal exchange was stifled at birth, the laughter ceased abruptly, and everyone discovered valid reasons for leaning forward and looking intensely interested.

“None of us can be unaware how straitened the financial affairs of Rome are, both public and private. The urban quaestors have reported to me that the Treasury is empty, and the tribunes of the Treasury have given me a figure for the debt Rome owes to various institutions and individuals in Italian Gaul. The figure is in excess of three thousand silver talents and is increasing every day for two reasons: the first because Rome is still forced to buy from these institutions and individuals; the second because the principal outstanding remains unpaid, the interest remains unpaid, and we are not always able to pay the interest upon the unpaid interest. Businesses are foundering. Those who have lent money in the private sector cannot collect either debts or interest or interest upon unpaid interest. And those who have borrowed money are in worse condition still.”

His eyes rested reflectively upon Pompey Strabo, who sat in the right-hand front row near Gaius Marius, looking in apparent unconcern at his own nose; here, Sulla’s eyes seemed to be saying to the rest of the House, is a man who should have taken a little time off from his martial activities to do something about Rome’s spiraling financial crisis, especially after his urban praetor died.

“I therefore request that this House send a senatus consultum to the Assembly of the Whole People in their tribes, patrician and plebeian, asking for a lex Cornelia to the following effect: that all debtors, Roman citizens or no, be obliged to pay simple interest only—that is, interest upon the principal only—at the rate agreed to by both parties at the time the loan was made. The levying of compound interest is forbidden, and the levying of simple interest at a higher rate than originally agreed to is forbidden.”

There were murmurs now, particularly from those who had been lending money, but that invisible menace Sulla radiated kept the murmurs low. He was undeniably Roman all the way back to the very beginning. He had the will of a Gaius Marius. But he had the air of a Marcus Aemilius Scaurus. And somehow nobody, even Lucius Cassius, contemplated for one moment treating Lucius Cornelius Sulla in the way Aulus Sempronius Asellio had been treated. He just wasn’t the kind of person other men speculated about murdering.

“No one wins in a civil war,” said Sulla levelly. “The war we are currently concluding is a civil war. It is my personal view that no Italian can ever be a Roman. But I am Roman enough to respect those laws which have recently been enacted to make Romans out of Italians. There will be no booty, there will be no compensation paid to Rome of sufficient magnitude to put so much as one layer of silver sows upon the bare floor of the temple of Saturn.”

“Edepol! Does he think that’s oratory?” asked Philippus of anyone in hearing.

“Tace!” growled Marius.

“The Italian treasuries are as empty as ours,” Sulla went on, ignoring the little exchange below him. “The new citizens who will appear on our rolls are as debt-ridden and impoverished as genuine Romans. At such a time, a new start has to be made somewhere. To promulgate a general cancellation of debts is unthinkable. But nor can debtors be squeezed until they die from it. In other words, it is only fair and equitable that both sides of the lending equation be accommodated. And that is what my lex Cornelia will attempt.”

“What about Rome’s debt to Italian Gaul?” asked Marius. “Is the lex Cornelia to cover this as well?”

“Most definitely, Gaius Marius,” said Sulla pleasantly. “We all know Italian Gaul is very rich. The war in the peninsula didn’t touch it, and it has made a great deal of money out of the war in the peninsula. Therefore it and its businessmen can well afford to abandon measures like compound interest. Thanks to Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, all of Italian Gaul south of the Padus is now fully Roman, and the major centers north of the river have been endowed with the Latin Rights. I think it only fair that Italian Gaul be treated like every other group of Romans and Latins.”

“They won’t be so happy to call themselves Pompey Strabo’s clients after they hear about this lex Cornelia in Italian Gaul,” whispered Sulpicius to Antistius with a grin.

But the House approved with an outburst of ayes.

“You are introducing a good law, Lucius Cornelius,” said Marcus Junius Brutus suddenly, “but it doesn’t go far enough. What about those cases where litigation is inevitable, yet one or both parties in litigation have not the money to lodge sponsio with the urban praetor? Though the bankruptcy courts are closed, there are many cases the urban praetor is empowered to decide without the encumbrances of a proper hearing. If, that is, the sum in question has been lodged in his keeping. But as the law stands at the moment, if the sum in question is not lodged, the urban praetor’s hands are tied, he cannot hear the case nor give a finding. Might I suggest a second lex Cornelia waiving lodgment of sponsio in cases of debt?”

Sulla laughed, clapped his hands together. “Now that is the sort of thing I want to hear, praetor urbanus! Sensible solutions to vexing questions! By all means let us promulgate a law waiving sponsio at the discretion of the urban praetor!”

“Well, if you’re going to go that far, why not just reopen the bankruptcy courts?” asked Philippus, very much afraid of any law to do with debt collection; he was perpetually in debt, and one of Rome’s worst payers.

“For two reasons, Lucius Marcius,” said Sulla, answering as if he thought Philippus’s remark had been serious rather than ironic. “The first is that we do not yet have sufficient magistrates to staff the courts and the Senate is so thin of members that special judges would be hard to find, given that they must have a praetor’s knowledge of the law. The second is that bankruptcy is a civil procedure, and the so-called bankruptcy courts are entirely staffed by special judges appointed at the discretion of the urban praetor. Which goes straight back to reason number one, does it not? If we cannot staff the criminal courts, how can we hope to staff the more flexible and discretionary hearings of civil offenses?”

“So succinctly put! Thank you, Lucius Cornelius,” said Philippus.

“Don’t mention it, Lucius Marcius—and I mean, don’t mention it. Again. Understood?”

There was further debate, of course; Sulla had not expected to see his recommendations adopted without argument. But even among the senatorial moneylenders opposition was halfhearted, as everyone could appreciate that collecting some money was better than collecting none, and Sulla had not attempted to abolish interest entirely.

“I will see a division,” said Sulla when he thought they had talked enough and he was tired of further time-wasting.

The division went his way by a very large majority; the House prepared a senatus consultum commending both Sulla’s new laws to the Assembly of the People, a body to which the consul could present his case himself, patrician though he was.

The praetor Lucius Licinius Murena, a man more famous for his breeding of freshwater eels for the banquet table than his political activity, then proposed that the House consider the recall of those sent into exile by the Varian Commission when it had been under the aegis of Quintus Varius.

“Here we are awarding the citizenship to half of Italy, while the men condemned for supporting this enfranchisement are still without their citizenships!” cried Murena passionately. “It’s time they came home, they’re exactly the Romans we need!”

Publius Sulpicius bounced off the tribunician bench and faced the consul’s chair. “May I speak, Lucius Cornelius?”

“Speak, Publius Sulpicius.”

“I was a very good friend of Marcus Livius Drusus’s, though I was never keen on the enfranchisement of Italy. However, I deplored the way Quintus Varius conducted his court, and all of us must ask ourselves how many of his victims were his victims for no other reason than that he disliked them personally. But the fact remains that his court was legally created and conducted its actual proceedings according to the law. At this present moment the same court is still functioning, albeit in the opposite manner. It is the only court open. Therefore we must conclude that it is a legally constituted body, and that its findings must stand. I hereby notify this House that if any attempt is made to recall any persons sentenced by the Varian Commission, I will interpose my veto,” said Sulpicius.

“As will I,” said Publius Antistius.

“Sit down, Lucius Licinius Murena,” said Sulla gently.

Murena sat down, crushed, and shortly afterward the House ended its first ordinary sitting with the consul Sulla in the chair.

As he was making his way out of the chamber, Sulla found himself detained by Pompey Strabo.

“A private word in your ear, Lucius Cornelius.”

“Certainly,” said Sulla heartily, resolving to prolong the conversation; he had seen Marius lurking in wait for him and wanted nothing to do with Marius, yet knew he couldn’t ignore him without good excuse.

“As soon as you’ve regulated Rome’s financial affairs to your satisfaction,” said Pompey Strabo in that toneless yet menacing voice of his, “I suppose you’ll get round to dealing with who gets what command in the war.”