The Grass Crown (99 page)

“Of course,” he said, “the fact of the matter is that I am the legally elected senior consul—that the choice of any command should by rights be mine—and that the Senate of Rome conferred a proconsular imperium upon me for the duration of the war against King Mithridates of Pontus. And—as is my right!—I chose the legions who would go with me. I chose you. My men through thick and thin, through one grueling campaign after another. Why would I not choose you? You know me and I know you. I don’t love you, though I believe Gaius Marius loves his men. I hope you don’t love me, though I believe Gaius Marius’s men love him. But then, I have never thought it necessary for men to love other men in order to get the job done. I mean, why should I love you? You’re a pack of smelly rascals out of every hole in every sewer inside or outside Rome! But—ye gods, how I respect you! Time and time again I’ve asked you to give me your best—and by all the gods, you’ve always given it!”

Someone started to cheer, then everyone was cheering. Except the small group who stood directly in front of the platform. The tribunes of the soldiers, elected magistrates who commanded the consul’s legions. Last year’s men, who had included Lucullus and Hortensius, had liked working under Sulla. This year’s men loathed Sulla, thought him a harsh master, overly demanding. One eye on them, Sulla let his soldiers cheer.

“So there we were, men, all going off to fight Mithridates across the sea in Greece and Asia Minor! Not trampling down the crops of our beloved Italy, not raping Italian women. Oh, what a campaign it would have been! Do you know how much gold Mithridates has? Mountains of it! Over seventy strongholds in Lesser Armenia alone crammed to the tops of their walls with gold! Gold that might have been ours. Oh; I don’t mean to imply that Rome would not have got her share—and more than her share! There’s so much gold we could have bathed in it! Rome—and us! Not to mention lush Asian women. Slaves galore. Knacky items of no use to anyone but a soldier.”

He shrugged, lifted his shoulders, held out his hands with their palms up and empty. “It is not to be, men. We’ve been relieved of our commission by the Plebeian Assembly. Not a body any Roman expects to be telling him who’s to fight, or who’s to command. But it’s legal. So I’m told. Though I cannot help but ask myself if it is legal to cancel the imperium of the senior consul in the year of his consulship! I am Rome’s servant. So are all of you. Better say goodbye to your dreams of gold and foreign women. Because when Gaius Marius goes east to fight King Mithridates of Pontus, he’ll be leading his own legions. He won’t want to lead mine.”

Down from the platform came Sulla, walked through the ranks of his twenty-four tribunes of the soldiers without looking at a single one and disappeared into his tent, leaving Lucullus to dismiss the men.

“That,” said Lucullus when he reported to the general’s tent, “was masterly. You don’t have the reputation of an orator, and I daresay you don’t obey the rules of rhetoric. But you certainly know how to get your message across, Lucius Cornelius.”

“Why, thank you, Lucius Licinius,” said Sulla cheerfully as he divested himself of cuirass and pteryges. “I think I do too.”

“What happens now?”

“I wait to be formally relieved of my command.”

“Would you really do it, Lucius Cornelius?”

“Do what?”

“March on Rome.”

Sulla’s eyes opened wide. “My dear Lucius Licinius! How could you even think to ask such a thing?”

“That,” said Lucullus, “is not a straight answer.”

“It’s the only one you’ll get,” said Sulla.

The blow fell two days later. The ex-praetors Quintus Calidius and Publius Claudius arrived in Capua bearing an officially sealed letter from Publius Sulpicius Rufus, the new master of Rome.

“You can’t give it to me in private,” objected Sulla, “it has to be handed to me in the presence of my army.”

Once again Lucullus was directed to parade the legions, once again Sulla climbed upon the speaker’s platform—but this time he was not alone. The two ex-praetors came with him.

“Men, here are Quintus Calidius and Publius Claudius from Rome,” said Sulla casually. “I believe they have an official document for me. I’ve called you here as witnesses.”

A man who took himself very seriously, Calidius made a great show of ensuring that Sulla acknowledge the seal upon the letter before he broke it. He then began to read it out.

“From the concilium plebis of the People of Rome to Lucius Cornelius Sulla. By order of this body, you are hereby relieved of your command of the war against King Mithridates of Pontus. You will disband your army and return to—”

He got no further. A superbly aimed stone struck him on the temple and felled him. Almost immediately a second superbly aimed stone struck Claudius, who tottered; while Sulla stood unconcernedly not three feet away, several more stones followed until Claudius too subsided to the floor of the platform.

The stones ceased. Sulla bent over each man, got to his feet. “They’re dead,” he announced, and sighed loudly. “Well, men, this has definitely put the oil on the fire! In the eyes of the Plebeian Assembly I am afraid we are all now personae non gratae. We have killed the official envoys of the Plebs. And that,” he said, still in conversational tones, “leaves us with but two choices. We can stay here and wait to be put on trial for treason—or we can go to Rome and show the Plebs what the loyal soldier servants of the People of Rome think about a law and a directive they find as intolerable as it is unconstitutional. I’m going to Rome, anyway, and I’m taking these two dead men with me. And I’m going to give them to the Plebs in person. In the Forum Romanum. Under the eyes of that stern guardian of the People’s rights, Publius Sulpicius Rufus. This is all his doing! Not Rome’s!”

He paused, drew a breath. “Now when it comes to going into the Forum Romanum, I need no company. But if there’s any man here who feels he’d like to take a stroll to Rome with me, I’d be very glad of his company! That way, when I cross the sacred boundary into the city I can feel sure I’ve got company on the Campus Martius to watch my back. Otherwise I might suffer the same fate as the son of my colleague in the consulship, Quintus Pompeius Rufus.”

They were with him, of course.

“But the tribunes of the soldiers won’t march with you,” said Lucullus to Sulla in his command tent. “They’ve not got enough gumption to see you in person, so they’ve deputed me to speak for them. They say they cannot condone an army’s marching on Rome, that Rome is a city without military protection because the only armies in Italy belong to Rome. And with the single exception of a triumphing army, no Roman army is ever garrisoned anywhere near Rome. Therefore, they say, you are marching with an army on your homeland, and your homeland has no army to repel you. They condemn your action and will try to persuade your army to change its mind about accompanying you.”

“Wish them luck,” said Sulla, preparing to vacate his quarters. “They can stay here and weep that an army is marching on defenseless Rome. However, I think I’ll lock them up. Just to ensure their own safety.” His eyes rested upon Lucullus. “And what about you, Lucius Licinius? Are you with me?”

“I am, Lucius Cornelius. To the death. The People have usurped the rights and duties of the Senate. Therefore the Rome of our ancestors no longer exists. Therefore I find it no crime to march upon a Rome I would not want to see my unborn sons inherit.”

“Oh, well said!” Sulla strapped on his sword and put his hat upon his head. “Then let us begin to make history.”

Lucullus stopped. “You’re right!” he breathed. “This is the making of history. No Roman army has ever marched upon Rome.”

“No Roman army was ever so provoked,” said Sulla.

Five legions of Roman soldiers set off along the Via Latina to Rome with Sulla and his legate riding at their head and a mule-cart carrying the bodies of Calidius and Claudius at the rear. A courier had been sent at the gallop to Quintus Pompeius Rufus in Cumae; by the time that Sulla reached Teanum Sidicinum, Pompeius Rufus was there waiting for him.

“Oh, I don’t like this!” said the junior consul miserably. “I can’t like it! You are marching on Rome! A defenseless city!”

“We are marching on Rome,” said Sulla calmly. “Don’t worry, Quintus Pompeius. It won’t be necessary to invade the defenseless city, you know. I am simply bringing my army along for company on the way. Discipline has never been so strictly enforced—I’ve got over two hundred and fifty centurions under orders that there’s not to be so much as one turnip stolen from a field. The men have a full month’s rations with them, and they understand.”

“We don’t need your army for company.”

“What, two consuls without a proper escort?”

“We have our lictors.”

“Yes, that’s an interesting thing. The lictors decided to go with us whereas the tribunes of the soldiers decided not to go with us,” said Sulla. “Elected office obviously makes a difference to a man’s attitude about who runs what in Rome.”

“Why are you so happy?” cried Pompeius Rufus in despair.

“I don’t quite know,” said Sulla, concealing his exasperation beneath a show of surprise. Time to smooth some soothing cream on the soft hide of his sentimental and doubting colleague. “If I’m happy for any reason, I suppose it’s that I’ve had enough of Forum idiocies, of men who think they know better than the mos maiorum and want to destroy what our ancestors built up so carefully and patiently. All I want is Rome the way Rome was designed to be. Fathered and guided by the Senate above all other bodies. A place where men who seek office as tribunes of the plebs are harnessed, not let run amok. There comes a time, Quintus Pompeius, when it is not possible to stand by and watch other men change Rome for the worse. Men like Saturninus and Sulpicius. But most of all, men like Gaius Marius.”

“Gaius Marius will fight,” said Pompeius Rufus dolefully.

“Fight with what? There’s not a legion closer to Rome than Alba Fucentia. Oh, I imagine Gaius Marius will try to summon Cinna and his troops—Cinna’s in his pocket, of that I’m sure. But two things will prevent him, Quintus Pompeius. One is the natural tendency of all other men in Rome to doubt my sincerity in leading my army to Rome—it will be deemed a ploy, no one will believe I’ll carry this intent through to its bitter end. The second thing is the fact that Gaius Marius is a privatus. He has neither office nor imperium. If he calls to Cinna for troops, he has to do it as a plea to a friend, not as consul or proconsul. And I very much doubt that Sulpicius will condone any such action by Gaius Marius. Because Sulpicius is one who will think my action a ploy.”

The junior consul was gazing now at his senior colleague in utter dismay—fine words! Correct words. Words which told Quintus Pompeius Rufus that Sulla had every intention of invading Rome.

Twice upon the way—once at Aquinum and once at Ferentinum—Sulla’s army encountered envoys athwart its path; news that Sulla was marching to Rome must have flown like an eagle. Twice did envoys order Sulla to lay down his command in the name of the People and send his army back to Capua; twice did Sulla refuse, though on the second occasion he added,

“Tell Gaius Marius, Publius Sulpicius, and what remains of the Senate that I will meet them on the Campus Martius.”

An offer the envoys did not believe, nor Sulla mean.

Then at Tusculum Sulla found the praetor urbanus, Marcus Junius Brutus, waiting in the middle of the Via Latina with another praetor for moral support. Their twelve lictors—six apiece—were huddled together on the side of the road trying to hide the fact that the fasces they carried contained the axes.

“Lucius Cornelius Sulla, I am sent by the Senate and the People of Rome to forbid your army to advance one foot closer to Rome than this spot,” said Brutus. “Your legions are under arms, not en route to a triumph. I forbid them to go further.”

Sulla said not a word, just sat his mule stony-faced. The two praetors were shoved roughly off the roadway into the midst of their terrified lictors, and the march to Rome continued. Where the Via Latina encountered the first of the diverticulum roads which ringed Rome round, Sulla halted and divided his forces; if anyone believed his story that the army would remain on the Campus Martius, that man now had to accept the fact that Sulla was bent upon invasion.

“Quintus Pompeius, take the Fourth Legion and go to the Colline Gate,” said Sulla, privately wondering whether his colleague had the steel to carry this enterprise through. “You will not enter the city,” he said gently, “so there is no need to worry. Your task is to prevent anyone’s bringing legions down the Via Salaria. Put your men into camp and wait for word from me. If you see troops advancing down the Via Salaria send to me at the Esquiline Gate. That is where I will be.”

He turned then to Lucullus. “Lucius Licinius, take the First and the Third and march them at the double. You have a long way to go. You are to cross the Tiber on the Mulvian Bridge, then march down through the Campus Vaticanus to Transtiberim, where you will halt. You will occupy the whole of that district, and garrison all the bridges—those across Tiber Island, the Pons Aemilius and the old Wooden Bridge.”

“Ought I not to garrison the Mulvian Bridge?”

Sulla’s Invasion of Rome

Sulla gave a fierce grin of triumph. “There will be no legions marching down the Via Flaminia, Lucius Licinius. I have had a letter from Pompey Strabo—who deplores the unconstitutional actions of Publius Sulpicius, and will be very pleased if Gaius Marius does not assume the command against Mithridates.”

He waited at the crossroads until he judged Pompeius Rufus and Lucullus were far enough ahead of him, then he wheeled his own two legions—the Second plus one unnumbered because it was not a consul’s legion—and led them to the Esquiline Gate. At the junction of the Via Latina with the Via Appia and the ring road, the Servian Walls of the city were too far away to be sure if there were any sightseers atop them, but as Sulla marched east along the road which led through the serried ranks of tombs belonging to Rome’s necropolis, the walls grew much closer. And every soldier in Sulla’s two legions could see that the battlements were packed with people who had come to look, to cry out in incredulous amazement.