No consulship ever mattered to its owner the Marius’s first consulship mattered to him. He proceeded to his inauguration on New Year’s Day secure in the knowledge that his night watch for omens had been unimpeachable, and that his white bull had gorged itself on drugged fodder. Solemn and aloof, Marius stood looking every inch the consul, splendidly tall, far more distinguished than any of those around him in the crisp fine early morning air; the senior consul, Lucius Cassius Longinus, was short and stocky, didn’t look imposing in a toga, and was completely overshadowed by his junior colleague.
And at long last Lucius Cornelius Sulla walked as a senator, the broad purple stripe on the right shoulder of his tunic, attending his consul, Marius, in the role of quaestor.
Though he didn’t have the fasces for the month of January, those crimson-tied bundles of rods being the property of the senior consul, Cassius, until the Kalends of February, Marius nevertheless summoned the Senate for a meeting the following day.
“At the moment,” he said to the assembled senators, almost all of whom elected to attend, for they didn’t trust Marius, “Rome is being called upon to fight wars on at least three fronts, and that excludes Spain. We need troops to combat King Jugurtha, the Scordisci in Macedonia, and the Germans in Gaul. However, in the fifteen years since the death of Gaius Gracchus we have lost sixty thousand Roman soldiers, dead on various fields of battle. Thousands more have been rendered unfit for further military service. I repeat the length of the period, Conscript Fathers of the Senate—fifteen years. Not even half a generation in length.”
The House was very silent; among those who sat there was Marcus Junius Silanus, who had lost more than a third of that total less than two years earlier, and was still fending off treason charges. No one had ever dared before to say the dreaded total number in the House, yet all present knew very well that Marius’s figures erred on the side of conservatism. Numbed by the sound of the figures pronounced in Marius’s upcountry Latin, the senators listened.
“We cannot fill the levies,” Marius went on, “for one cogent reason. We no longer have enough men. The shortage of Roman citizen and Latin Rights men is frightening, but the shortage of Italian men is worse. Even conscripting in every district south of the Arnus, we stand no hope of recruiting the troops we need to field this year. I would presume the African army, six legions strong, trained and equipped, will return to Italy with Quintus Caecilius Metellus, and be used by my esteemed colleague Lucius Cassius in Further Gaul of the Tolosates. The Macedonian legions are also properly equipped and of veteran status, and will, I am sure, continue to do well under Marcus Minucius and his young brother.”
Marius paused to draw breath; the House continued to listen. “But there remains the problem of a new African army. Quintus Caecilius Metellus has had six full-strength legions at his disposal. I anticipate being able to reduce that total to four legions if I have to. However, Rome doesn’t have four legions in reserve! Rome doesn’t even have one legion in reserve! To refresh your memories, I will give you the precise numbers a four-legion army contains.”
There was no need for a Gaius Marius to refer to notes; he simply stood there on the consuls’ dais slightly in front of his ivory curule chair and gave the figures out of his memory. “At full strength: 5,120 infantrymen per legion, plus 1,280 noncombatant freemen and another 1,000 non-combatant slaves per legion. Then we have the cavalry: a force of 2,000 mounted troops, with a further 2,000 non-combatant freemen and slaves to support the horse. I am therefore faced with the task of finding 20,480 infantrymen, 5,120 noncombatant freemen, 4,000 noncombatant slaves, 2,000 cavalry troopers, and 2,000 noncombatant cavalry support men.”
His eyes traveled the House. “Now the noncombatant forces have never been difficult to recruit, and will not be difficult to recruit, I predict—there is no property qualification upon the noncombatant, who can be as poor as a foothills sharecropper. Nor will the cavalry be difficult, as it is many generations since Rome fielded mounted troopers of Roman or Italian origin. We will as always find the men we want in places like Macedonia, Thrace, Liguria, and Gaul-across-the-Alps, and they bring their own noncombatants with them, as well as their horses.”
He paused for a longer space of time, noting certain men: Scaurus and the unsuccessful consular candidate Catulus Caesar, Metellus Dalmaticus Pontifex Maximus, Gaius Memmius, Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, Scipio Nasica, Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus. Whichever way these men jumped, the senatorial sheep would follow.
“Ours is a frugal state, Conscript Fathers. When we threw out the kings, we abrogated the concept of fielding an army largely paid for by the State. For that reason, we limited armed service to those with sufficient property to buy their own arms, armor, and other equipment, and that requirement was for all soldiers—Roman, Latin, Italian, no difference. A man of property has property to defend. The survival of the State and of his property matter to him. He is willing to put his heart into fighting. For that reason, we have been reluctant to assume an overseas empire, and have tried time and time again to avoid owning provinces.
“But after the defeat of Perseus, we failed in our laudable attempt to introduce self-government into Macedonia because the Macedonians could not understand any system save autocracy. So we had to take Macedonia over as a province of Rome because we couldn’t afford to have barbarian tribes invading the west coast of Macedonia, so close to our own Italy’s east coast. The defeat of Carthage forced us to administer Carthage’s empire in Spain, or risk some other nation’s taking possession. We gave the bulk of African Carthage to the kings of Numidia and kept only a small province around Carthage itself in the name of Rome, to guard against any Punic revival—and yet, look at what has happened because we gave so much away to the kings of Numidia! Now we find ourselves obliged to take over Africa in order to protect our own small province and crush the blatantly expansionist policies of one man, Jugurtha. For all it takes, Conscript Fathers, is one man, and we are undone! King Attalus willed us Asia when he died, and we are still trying to avoid our provincial responsibilities there! Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus opened up the whole coast of Gaul between Liguria and Nearer Spain so that we had a safe, properly Roman corridor between Italy and Spain for our armies—but out of that, we found ourselves obliged to create yet another province.”
He cleared his throat; such a silence! “Our soldiers now fight their campaigns outside of Italy. They are away for long periods, their farms and homes are neglected, their wives unfaithful, their children unsired. With the result that we see fewer and fewer volunteers, are forced increasingly to call up men in the levies. No man who farms the land or conducts a business wants to be away from it for five or six or even seven years! And when he is discharged, he is liable to be called up again the moment the volunteers don’t volunteer.’’
The deep voice grew somber. “But more than anything else, so many of these men have died during the past fifteen years! And they have not replaced themselves. The whole of Italy is empty of men with the necessary property qualifications to form a Roman army in the traditional mould.”
The voice changed again, was raised to echo round the naked rafters of the ancient hall, built during the time of King Tullus Hostilius. “Well, ever since the time of the second war against Carthage, the recruiting officers have had to wink an eye at the property qualifications. And after the loss of the younger Carbo’s army six years ago, we have even admitted to the ranks men who couldn’t afford to buy their own armor, let alone equip themselves in other ways. But it has been covert, unapproved, and always a last resort.
“Those days are over, Conscript Fathers. I, Gaius Marius, consul of the Senate and People of Rome, am hereby serving notice upon the members of this House that I intend to recruit my soldiers, not conscript them—I want willing soldiers, not men who would rather be at home! And where am I going to find some twenty thousand volunteers, you ask? Why, the answer’s simple! I am going to seek them among the Head Count, the absolute bottom of the social strata, too poor to be admitted to one of the Five Classes— I am going to seek my volunteers among those who have no money, no property, and very often no steady job—I am going to seek my volunteers among those who never before have been offered the opportunity to fight for their country, to fight for Rome!”
A swelling murmur arose, and increased, and increased, until the whole House was thundering: “No! No! No!”
Showing no anger, Marius waited patiently, even as the anger of others beat around him tangibly in shaking fists and purpling faces, the scraping of more than two hundred folding stools as the swishing togas of men leaping to their feet pushed them across the old stone floor, buffed by the passage of centuries of feet.
Finally the noise died down; roused to ire though they were, they knew they hadn’t yet heard it all, and curiosity was a powerful force, even in the irate.
“You can scream and yell and howl until vinegar turns into wine!” shouted Marius when he could make himself heard. “But I am serving notice upon you here and now that this is what I am going to do! And I don’t need your permission to do it, either! There’s no law on the tablets says I cannot do it—but within a matter of days there will be a law on the tablets says I can do it! A law which says that any lawfully elected senior magistrate in need of an army may seek it among the capite censi—the Head Count—the proletarii. For I, senators, am taking my case to the People!”
“Never!” cried Dalmaticus.
“Over my dead body!” cried Scipio Nasica.
“No! No! No!” cried the whole House, thundering.
“Wait!” cried the lone voice of Scaurus. “Wait, wait! Let me refute him!”
But no one heard. The Curia Hostilia, home of the Senate since the foundation of the Republic, shuddered to its very foundations from the noise of infuriated senators.
“Come on!” said Marius, and swept out of the House, followed by his quaestor, Sulla, and his tribune of the plebs, Titus Manlius Mancinus.
The Forum crowds had gathered at the first rumblings of the storm, and found the well of the Comitia already packed with Marius’s supporters. Down the steps of the Curia and across to the rostra along the back of the Comitia marched the consul Marius and the tribune of the plebs Mancinus; the quaestor Sulla, a patrician, remained on the Senate House steps.
“Hear ye, hear ye!” roared Mancinus. “The Assembly of the Plebs is called into session! I declare a contio, a preliminary discussion!”
Forth to the speaker’s platform at the front of the rostra stepped Gaius Marius, and turned so that he partially faced the Comitia and partially the open space of the lower Forum; those on the steps of the Senate House mostly saw his back, and when all the senators save the few patricians began to move down the tiers of the Comitia to where from its floor they could look straight at Marius and harass him, the ranks of his clients and supporters who had been summoned to the Comitia in readiness suddenly blocked their onward passage, and would not let them through. There were scuffles and punches, teeth were bared and tempers flared, but the Marian lines held. Only the nine other tribunes of the plebs were allowed to proceed to the rostra, where they stood along its back with stern faces and silently debated whether it was going to be possible to interpose a veto and live.
“People of Rome, they say I cannot do what is necessary to ensure the survival of Rome!” Marius shouted. “Rome needs soldiers, Rome needs soldiers desperately! We are surrounded on all fronts by enemies, yet the noble Conscript Fathers of the Senate as usual are more concerned with preserving their inherited right to rule than ensuring the survival of Rome! It is they, People of Rome, who have sucked the blood of Romans and Latins and Italians dry by their indifferent exploitation of the classes of men who have traditionally been Rome’s soldiers! For I say to you, there are none of these men left! Those who haven’t died on some battlefield thanks to the greed, the arrogance, and the stupidity of some consular commander are either too maimed to be of further use as soldiers, or currently serving in the legions!
“But there is an alternative source of soldiers, a source ready and eager to volunteer to serve Rome as soldiers! I am referring to the men of the Head Count, the citizens of Rome or of Italy who are too poor to have a vote in the Centuries, too poor to own land or businesses, too poor to buy soldiers’ gear! But it is time, People of Rome, that the thousands upon thousands of these men should be called upon to do more for Rome than queue up whenever cheap grain is offered, push and shove their way into the Circus on holidays in search of gratification, breed sons and daughters they cannot feed! The fact that they have no worth should not make them worthless! Nor do I for one believe that they love Rome any less than any man of substance! In fact, I believe their love for Rome is purer by far than the love displayed by most of the honorable members of the Senate!”
Marius raised himself up in swelling indignation, threw wide his arms to embrace, it seemed, the whole of Rome. “I am here with the College of Tribunes at my back to seek a mandate from you, the People, which the Senate will not give me! I am asking you for the right to call upon the military potential of the Head Count! I want to turn the men of the Head Count from useless insignificants into soldiers of Rome’s legions! I want to offer the men of the Head Count gainful employment—a profession rather than a trade!—a future for themselves and their families with honor and prestige and an opportunity to advance! I want to offer them a consciousness of dignity and worth, a chance to play no mean part in the onward progress of Rome the Mighty!”
He paused; the Comitia stared up at him in profound silence, all eyes fixed on his fierce face, his glaring eyes, the indomitable thrust of chin and chest. “The Conscript Fathers of the Senate are denying these thousands upon thousands of men their chance! Denying me the chance to call upon their services, their loyalty, their love of Rome! And for what? Because the Conscript Fathers of the Senate love Rome more than I do? No! Because they love themselves and their own class more than they love Rome or anything else! So I have come to you, the People, to ask you to give me—and give Rome!—what the Senate will not! Give me the capite censi, People of Rome! Give me the humblest, the lowliest! Give me the chance to turn them into a body of citizens Rome can be proud of, a body of citizens Rome can make use of instead of merely enduring, a body of citizens equipped and trained and paid by the State to serve the State with hearts and bodies as soldiers! Will you give me what I ask? Will you give Rome what Rome needs?”
And the shouting began, the cheering, the stamping of feet, the audible breaking of a tradition ten centuries old. Nine tribunes of the plebs looked sideways at each other, and agreed without speaking not to interpose a veto; for all of them liked living.
*
“Gaius Marius,” said Marcus Aemilius Scaurus in the House when the lex Manila had been passed, empowering the consuls of the day to call for volunteers among the capite censi, “is a ravening, slavering wolfshead, running amok! Gaius Marius is a pernicious ulcer upon the body of this House! Gaius Marius is the single most obvious reason why, Conscript Fathers, we should close our ranks against New Men, never even permit them a seat at the very back of this venerable establishment! What, I ask you, does a Gaius Marius know about the nature of Rome, the imperishable ideals of its traditional government?
“I am Princeps Senatus—the Leader of the House—and in all my many years within this body of men I love as the manifestation of the spirit of Rome it is, never have I seen a more insidious, dangerous, piratical individual than Gaius Marius! Twice within three months he has taken the hallowed prerogatives of the Senate and smashed them on the uncouth altar of the People! First he nullified our senatorial edict giving Quintus Caecilius Metellus an extended command in Africa. And now, to gratify his own ambitions, he exploits the ignorance of the People to grant him powers of recruitment of soldiers that are unnatural, unconscionable, unreasonable, and unacceptable!”
The meeting was heavily attended; of the 300 living senators, over 280 had come to this session of the House, winkled out of their homes and even their sickbeds by Scaurus and the other leaders. And they sat upon their little folding stools in the three rising tiers along either side of the Curia Hostilia like a huge flock of snowy hens gone to roost on their perches, only the purple-bordered togas of those who had been senior magistrates to relieve that blinding, shadowless mass of white. The ten tribunes of the plebs sat upon their long wooden bench on the floor of the House, to one side of the only other magistrates accorded the distinction of isolation from the main body—two curule aediles, six praetors, and two consuls—all seated upon their beautiful carved ivory chairs raised up on a dais at the far end of the hall, opposite the pair of huge bronze doors which gave entrance to the chamber.
On that dais sat Gaius Marius, next to and slightly behind the senior consul, Cassius, his isolation purely one of the spirit; Marius appeared calm, content, almost catlike, and he listened to Scaurus without dismay, without anger. The deed was done. He had his mandate. He could afford to be magnanimous.
“This House must do whatever it can to limit the power Gaius Marius has just given the Head Count. For the Head Count must remain what it has always been—a useless collection of hungry mouths we who are more privileged must care for, feed, and tolerate—without ever asking it for any service in return. For while it does no work for us and has no use, it is no more and no less than a simple dependant, Rome’s wife who toils not, and has no power, and no voice. It can claim nothing from us that we are not willing to give it, for it does nothing. It simply is.
“But thanks to Gaius Marius we now find ourselves faced with all the problems and grotesqueries of what I must call an army of professional soldiers—men who have no other source of income, no other way of making a living—men who will want to stay on in the army from campaign to campaign—men who will cost the State enormous sums of money. And, Conscript Fathers, men who will claim they now have a voice in Rome’s scheme of things, for they do Rome a service, they work for Rome. You heard the People. We of the Senate, who administer the Treasury and apportion out Rome’s public funds, must dig into Rome’s coffers and find the money to equip Gaius Marius’s army with arms, armor, and all the other gear of war. We are also directed by the People to pay these soldiers on a regular basis instead of at the very end of a campaign, when booty is available to help defray the outlay. The cost of fielding armies of insolvent men will financially break the back of the State, there can be no doubt of it.”
“Nonsense, Marcus Aemilius!” Marius interjected. “There is more money in Rome’s Treasury than Rome knows what to do with—because, Conscript Fathers, you never spend any of it! All you do is hoard it.”
The rumbling began, the faces started to mottle, but Scaurus held up his right arm for silence, and got it. “Yes, Rome’s Treasury is full,” he said. “That is how a treasury should be! Even with the cost of the public works I instituted while censor, the Treasury remains full. But in the past there have been times when it was very empty indeed. The three wars we fought against Carthage brought us to the very brink of fiscal disaster. So what, I ask you, is wrong with making sure that never happens again? While her Treasury is full, Rome is prosperous.”
“Rome will be more prosperous because the men of her Head Count have money in their purses to spend,” said Marius.
“That is not true, Gaius Marius!” cried Scaurus. “The men of the Head Count will fritter their money away—it will disappear from circulation and never grow.”
He walked from where he stood at his stool in the front row of the seated tiers, and positioned himself near the great bronze doors, where both sides of the House could see as well as hear him.
“I say to you, Conscript Fathers, that we must resist with might and main in the future whenever a consul avails himself of the lex Manila and recruits among the Head Count. The People have specifically ordered us to pay for Gaius Marius’s army, but there is nothing in the law as it has been inscribed to compel us to pay for the equipping of whichever is the next army of paupers! And that is the tack we must take. Let the consul of the future cull all the paupers he wants to fill up the ranks of his legions—but when he applies to us, the custodians of Rome’s monies, for the funds to pay his legions as well as to outfit them, we must turn him down.
“The State cannot afford to field an army of paupers, it is that simple. The Head Count is feckless, irresponsible, without respect for property or gear. Is a man whose shirt of mail was given to him free of charge, its cost borne by the State, going to look after his shirt of mail? No! Of course he won’t! He’ll leave it lying about in salt air or downpours to rust, he’ll pull up stakes in a camp and forget to take it with him, he’ll drape it over the foot of the bed of some foreign whore and then wonder why she stole it in the night to equip her Scordisci boyfriend! And what about the time when these paupers are no longer fit enough to serve in the legions? Our traditional soldiers are owners of property, they have homes to return to, money invested, a little solid, tangible worth to them! Where pauper veterans will be a menace, for how many of them will save any of the money the State pays them? How many will bank their share of the booty? No, they will emerge at the end of their years of paid service without homes to go to, without the wherewithal to live. Ah yes, I hear you say, but what’s strange about that, to them? They live from hand to mouth always. But, Conscript Fathers, these military paupers will grow used to the State’s feeding them, clothing them, housing them. And when upon retirement all that is taken away, they will grumble, just as any wife who has been spoiled will grumble when the money is no longer there. Are we then going to be called upon to find a pension for these pauper veterans?
“It must not be allowed to happen! I repeat, fellow members of this Senate I lead, that our future tactics must be designed to pull the teeth of those men conscienceless enough to recruit among the Head Count by adamantly refusing to contribute one sestertius toward the cost of their armies!”
Gaius Marius rose to reply. “A more shortsighted and ridiculous attitude would be hard to find in a Parthian satrap’s harem, Marcus Aemilius! Why won’t you understand? If Rome is to hold on to what is even at this moment Rome’s, then Rome must invest in all her people, including the people who have no entitlement to vote in the Centuries! We are wasting our farmers and small businessmen by sending them to fight, especially when we dower them with brainless incompetents like Carbo and Silanus—oh, are you there, Marcus Junius Silanus? I am sorry!
“What’s the matter with availing ourselves of the services of a very large section of our society which until this time has been about as much use to Rome as tits on a bull? If the only real objection we can find is that we’re going to have to be a bit freer with the mouldering contents of the Treasury, then we’re as stupid as we are shortsighted! You, Marcus Aemilius, are convinced that the men of the Head Count will prove dismal soldiers. Well, I think they’ll prove wonderful soldiers! Are we to continue to moan about paying them? Are we going to deny them a retirement gift at the end of their active service? That’s what you want, Marcus Aemilius!
“But I would like to see the State part with some of Rome’s public lands so that upon retirement, a soldier of the Head Count can be given a small parcel of land to farm or to sell. A pension of sorts. And an infusion of some badly needed new blood into the more than decimated ranks of our smallholding farmers. How can that be anything but good for Rome? Gentlemen, gentlemen, why can’t you see that Rome can grow richer only if Rome is willing to share its prosperity with the sprats in its sea as well as the whales?”
But the House was on its feet in an uproar, and Lucius Cassius Longinus, the senior consul, decided prudence was the order of the day. So he closed the meeting, and dismissed the Conscript Fathers of the Senate.
*
Marius and Sulla set out to find 20,480 infantrymen, 5,120 noncombatant freemen, 4,000 noncombatant slaves, 2,000 cavalry troopers, and 2,000 noncombatant cavalry support men.
“I’ll do Rome; you can do Latium,” said Marius, purring. “I very much doubt that either of us will have to go as far afield as Italy. We’re on our way, Lucius Cornelius! In spite of the worst they could do, we’re on our way. I’ve conscripted Gaius Julius, our father-in-law, to deal with arms and armor manufactories and contractors, and I’ve sent to Africa for his sons—we can use them. I don’t find either Sextus or Gaius Junior the stuff true leaders are made of, but they’re excellent subordinates, as hardworking and intelligent as they are loyal.”
He led the way into his study, where two men were waiting. One was a senator in his middle thirties whose face Sulla vaguely knew, the other was a lad of perhaps eighteen.
Marius proceeded to introduce them to his quaestor.
“Lucius Cornelius, this is Aulus Manlius, whom I’ve asked to be one of my senior legates.” That was the senator. One of the patrician Manliuses, thought Sulla; Marius did indeed have friends and clients from all walks.
“And this young man is Quintus Sertorius, the son of a cousin of mine, Maria of Nersia, always called Ria. I’m seconding him to my personal staff.” A Sabine, thought Sulla; they were, he had heard, of tremendous value in an army—a little unorthodox, terrifically brave, indomitable of spirit.
“All right, it’s time to get to work,” said the man of action, the man who had been waiting over twenty years to implement his ideas as to what the Roman army ought to be.
“We will divide our duties. Aulus Manlius, you’re in charge of getting together the mules, carts, equipment, non-combatants, and all the staples of supply from food to artillery. My brothers-in-law, the two Julius Caesars, will be here any day now, and they’ll assist you. I want you ready to sail for Africa by the end of March. You can have any other help you think you may need, but might I suggest you start by finding your noncombatants, and cull the best of them to pitch in with you as you go? That way, you’ll save money, as well as begin to train them.”
The lad Sertorius was watching Marius, apparently fascinated, while Sulla found the lad Sertorius more fascinating than he did Marius, used as he was by now to Marius. Not that Sertorius was sexually attractive, he wasn’t; but he did have a power about him that was odd in one so young. Physically he promised to be immensely powerful when he reached maturity, and maybe that contributed to Sulla’s impression, for though he was tall, he was already so solidly muscular that he gave an impression of being short; he had a square, thick-necked head and a pair of remarkable eyes, light brown, deep-set, and compelling.
“I myself intend to sail by the end of April with the first group of soldiers,” Marius went on, gazing at Sulla. “It will be up to you, Lucius Cornelius, to continue organizing the rest of the legions, and find me some decent cavalry. If you can get it all done and sail by the end of Quinctilis, I’ll be happy.” He turned his head to grin at young Sertorius. “As for you, Quintus Sertorius, I’ll keep you on the hop, rest assured! I can’t have it said that I keep relatives of mine around doing nothing.”
The lad smiled, slowly and thoughtfully. “I like to hop, Gaius Marius,” he said.
*
The Head Count flocked to enlist; Rome had never seen anything like it, nor had anyone in the Senate expected such a response from a section of the community it had never bothered to think about save in times of grain shortages, when it was prudent to supply the Head Count with cheap grain to avoid troublesome rioting.
Within scant days the number of volunteer recruits of full Roman citizen status had reached 20,480—but Marius declined to stop recruiting.
“If they’re there to take, we’ll take them,” he said to Sulla. “Metellus has six legions, I don’t see why I ought not to have six legions. Especially with the State funding the costs! It won’t ever happen again, if we are to believe dear Scaurus, and Rome may have need of those two extra legions, my instincts tell me. We won’t get a proper campaign mounted this year anyway, so we’ll do better to concentrate on training and equipping. The nice thing is, these six legions will all be Roman citizen legions, not Italian auxiliaries. That means we still have the Italian proletarii to tap in years to come, as well as plenty more Roman Head Count.”
It all went according to plan, which was not surprising when Gaius Marius was in the command tent, Sulla found out. By the end of March, Aulus Manlius was en route from Neapolis to Utica, his transports stuffed with mules, ballistae, catapults, arms, tack, and all the thousand and one items which gave an army teeth. The moment Aulus Manlius was landed in Utica, the transports returned to Neapolis and picked up Gaius Marius, who sailed with only two of his six legions. Sulla remained behind in Italy to get the other four legions outfitted and into order, and find the cavalry. In the end he went north to the regions of Italian Gaul on the far side of the Padus River, where he recruited magnificent horse troopers of Gallo-Celtic background.
There were other changes in Marius’s army, above and beyond its Head Count composition. For these were men who had no tradition of military service, and so were completely ignorant of what it entailed. And so were in no position to resist change, or to oppose it. For many years the old tactical unit called the maniple had proven too small to contend with the massive, undisciplined armies the legions often had to fight; the cohort—three times the size of the maniple—had been gradually supplanting it in actual practice. Yet no one had officially regrouped the legions into cohorts rather than maniples, or restructured its centurion hierarchy to deal with cohorts rather than maniples. But Gaius Marius did, that spring and summer of the year of his first consulship. Except as a pretty parade-ground unit, the maniple now officially ceased to exist; the cohort was supreme.
However, there were unforeseen disadvantages in fielding an army of proletarii. The old-style propertied soldiers of Rome were mostly literate and numerate, so had no difficulty recognizing flags, numbers, letters, symbols. Marius’s army was mostly illiterate, barely numerate. Sulla instituted a program whereby each unit of eight men who tented and messed together had at least one man in it who could read and write, and for the reward of seniority over his fellows, was given the duty of teaching his comrades all about numbers, letters, symbols, and standards, and if possible was to teach them all to read and write. But progress was slow; full literacy would have to wait until the winter rains in Africa rendered campaigning impossible.
Marius himself devised a simple, highly emotive new rallying point for his legions, and made sure all ranks were indoctrinated with superstitious awe and reverence for his new rallying point. He gave each legion a beautiful silver spread-winged eagle upon a very tall, silver-clad pole; the eagle was to be carried by the aquilifer, the man considered the best specimen in his whole legion, exclusively clad in a lion skin as well as silver armor. The eagle, said Marius, was the legion’s symbol for Rome, and every soldier was obliged to swear a dreadful oath that he would die rather than allow his legion’s eagle to fall into the hands of the Enemy.
Of course he knew exactly what he was doing. After half a lifetime under the colors—and being the kind of man he was—he had formed firm opinions and knew a great deal more about the actual individual ranker soldiers than any high aristocrat. His ignoble origins had put him in a perfect position to observe, just as his superior intelligence had put him in a perfect position to make deductions from his observations. His personal achievements underrated, his undeniable abilities mostly used for the advancement of his betters, Gaius Marius had been waiting for a very long time before his first consulship arrived—and thinking, thinking, thinking.
*
Quintus Caecilius Metellus’s reaction to the vast upheaval Marius had provoked in Rome surprised even his son, for Metellus was always thought a rational, controlled kind of man. Yet when he got the news that his command in Africa had been taken away from him and given to Marius, he went publicly mad, weeping and wailing, tearing his hair, lacerating his breast, all in the marketplace of Utica rather than the privacy of his offices, and much to the fascination of the Punic population. Even after the first shock of his grief passed, and he withdrew to his residence, the merest mention of Marius’s name was enough to bring on another bout of noisy tears—and many unintelligible references to Numantia, some trio or other, and some pigs.
The letter he received from Lucius Cassius Longinus, senior consul-elect, did much to cheer him up, however, and he spent some days organizing the demobilization of his six legions, having obtained their consent to re-enlist for service with Lucius Cassius the moment they reached Italy. For, as Cassius told him in the letter, Cassius was determined that he was going to do a great deal better in Gaul-across-the-Alps against the Germans and their allies the Volcae Tectosages than Marius the Upstart could possibly do in Africa, troopless as he would be.
Ignorant of Marius’s solution to his problem (in fact, he would not learn of it until he arrived back in Rome), Metellus quit Utica at the end of March, taking all six of his legions with him. He chose to go to the port of Hadrumetum, over a hundred miles to the southeast of Utica, and there sulked until he heard that Marius had arrived in the province to assume command. In Utica to wait for Marius he left Publius Rutilius Rufus.
So when Marius sailed in, it was Rutilius who greeted him on the pier, Rutilius who formally handed over the province.
“Where’s Piggle-wiggle?” asked Marius as they strolled off to the governor’s palace.
“Indulging in a monumental snit way down in Hadrumetum, along with all his legions,” said Rutilius, sighing. “He has taken a vow to Jupiter Stator that he will not see you or speak to you.’’
“Silly fool,” said Marius, grinning. “Did you get my letters about the capite censi and the new legions?”
“Of course. And I’m a trifle tender around the ears due to the paeans of praise Aulus Manlius has sung about you since he got here. A brilliant scheme, Gaius Marius.” But when he looked at Marius, Rutilius didn’t smile. “They’ll make you pay for your temerity, old friend. Oh, how they’ll make you pay!”
“They won’t, you know. I’ve got them right where I want them—and by all the gods, I swear that’s the way I’m going to keep them until the day I die! I am going to grind the Senate into the dust, Publius Rutilius.”
“You won’t succeed. In the end, it’s the Senate will grind you into the dust.”
“Never!”
And from that opinion Rutilius Rufus could not budge him.
Utica was looking its best, its plastered buildings all freshly whitewashed after the winter rains, a gleaming and spotless town of modestly high buildings, flowering trees, a languorous warmth, a colorfully clad people. The little squares and plazas were thronged with street stalls and cafes; shade trees grew in their centers; the cobbles and paving stones looked clean and swept. Like most Roman, Ionian Greek, and Punic towns, it was provided with a good system of drains and sewers, had public baths for the populace and a good water supply aqueducted in from the lovely sloping mountains blue with distance all around it.
“Publius Rutilius, what are you going to do?” asked Marius once they reached the governor’s study, and were settled, both of them amused at the way Metellus’s erstwhile servants now bowed and scraped to Marius. “Would you like to stay on here as my legate? I didn’t offer Aulus Manlius the top post.”
Rutilius shook his head emphatically. “No, Gaius Marius, I’m going home. Since Piggle-wiggle is leaving, my term is up, and I’ve had enough of Africa. Quite candidly, I don’t fancy seeing poor Jugurtha in chains—and now that you’re in command, that’s how he’s going to end up. No, it’s Rome and a bit of leisure for me, a chance to do some writing and cultivate friends.”
“What if one day not so far in the future, I were to ask you to run for the consulship—with me as your colleague?”
Rutilius threw him a puzzled yet very keen glance. “Now what are you plotting?”
“It has been prophesied, Publius Rutilius, that I will be consul of Rome no less than seven times.”
Any other man might have laughed, or sneered, or simply refused to believe. But not Publius Rutilius Rufus. He knew his Marius. “A great fate. It raises you above your equals, and I’m too Roman to approve of that. But if such is the pattern of your fate, you cannot fight it, any more than I can. Would I like to be consul? Yes, of course I would! I consider it my duty to ennoble my family. Only save me for a year when you’re going to need me, Gaius Marius.”
“I will indeed,” said Marius, satisfied.
*
When the news of the elevation of Marius to the command of the war reached the two African kings, Bocchus took fright and bolted home to Mauretania immediately, leaving Jugurtha to face Marius unsupported. Not that Jugurtha was cowed by his father-in-law’s desertion, any more than he was cowed by the idea of Marius’s new position; he recruited among the Gaetuli and bided his time, leaving it to Marius to make the first move.
By the end of June four of his six legions were in the Roman African province, and Marius felt pleased enough with their progress to lead them into Numidia. Concentrating on sacking towns, plundering farmlands, and fighting minor engagements, he blooded his lowly recruits and welded them into a formidable little army. However, when Jugurtha saw the size of the Roman force and understood the implications of its Head Count composition, he decided to risk the chance of battle, recapture Cirta.
But Marius arrived before the city could fall, leaving Jugurtha no option save a battle, and at last the Head Count soldiers were offered the opportunity to confound their Roman critics. A jubilant Marius was able afterward to write home to the Senate that his pauper troops had behaved magnificently, fought not one iota less bravely or enthusiastically because they had no vested property interests in Rome. In fact, the Head Count army of Marius defeated Jugurtha so decisively that Jugurtha himself was obliged to throw away his shield and spear in order to escape uncaptured.
The moment King Bocchus heard of it, he sent an embassage to Marius begging that he be allowed to re-enter the Roman client fold; and when Marius failed to respond, he sent more embassages. Finally Marius did consent to see a deputation, which hurried home to tell the King that Marius didn’t care to do business with him on any level. So Bocchus was left to chew his nails down to the quick and wonder why he had ever succumbed to Jugurtha’s blandishments.
Marius himself remained wholly occupied in removing from Jugurtha every square mile of settled Numidian territory, his aim being to make it impossible for the King to seek recruits or supplies in the rich river valleys and coastal areas of his realm. And make it impossible for the King to accrue additional revenues. Only among the Gaetuli and Garamantes, the inland Berber tribes, could Jugurtha now be sure of finding shelter and soldiers, be sure his armaments and his treasures were safe from the Romans.
*
Julilla gave birth to a sickly seven-months baby girl in June, and in late Quinctilis her sister, Julia, produced a big, healthy, full-term baby boy, a little brother for Young Marius. Yet it was Julilla’s miserable child who lived, Julia’s strong second son who died, when the foetid summer vapors of Sextilis curled their malignant tentacles among the hills of Rome, and enteric fevers became epidemic.
“A girl’s all right, I suppose,” said Sulla to his wife, “but before I leave for Africa you’re going to be pregnant again, and this time you’re going to have a boy.”
Unhappy herself at having given Sulla a puling, puking girl-baby, Julilla entered into the making of a boy with great enthusiasm. Oddly enough, she had survived her first pregnancy and the actual birth of her tiny daughter better by far than her sister, Julia, had, though she was thin, not well, and perpetually fretful. Where Julia, better built and better armed emotionally against the tempests of marriage and maternity, suffered badly that second time.
“At least we have a girl to marry off to someone we need when the time comes,” said Julilla to Julia in the autumn, after the death of Julia’s second son, and by which time Julilla knew she was carrying another child. “Hopefully this one will be a boy.” Her nose ran; she sniffled, hunted for her linen handkerchief.
Still grieving, Julia found herself with less patience and sympathy for her sister than of yore, and understood at last why their mother, Marcia, had said—and grimly—that Julilla was permanently damaged.
Funny, she thought now, that you could grow up with someone, yet never really understand what was happening to her. Julilla was ageing at the gallop—not physically, not even mentally—a process of the spirit, rather, intensely self-destructive. The starvation had undermined her in some way, left her unable to lead a happy kind of life. Or maybe this present Julilla had always been there beneath the giggles and the silliness, the enchanting girlish tricks which had so charmed the rest of the family.
One wants to believe the illness caused this change, she thought sadly; one needs to find an external cause, for the alternative is to admit that the weakness was always there.
She would never be anything save beautiful, Julilla, with that magical honey-amber coloring, her grace of movement, her flawless features. But these days there were circles beneath her huge eyes, two lines already fissuring her face between cheeks and nose, a mouth whose dented corners now turned down. Yes, she looked weary, discontented, restless. A faint note of complaint had crept into her speech, and still she heaved those enormous sighs, a habit quite unconscious but very, very irritating. As was her tendency to sniffle.
“Have you got any wine?” Julilla asked suddenly.
Julia blinked in simple astonishment, aware that she was faintly scandalized, and annoyed at herself for such a priggish reaction. After all, women did drink wine these days! Nor was it regarded as a sign of moral collapse anymore, save in circles Julia herself found detestably intolerant and sanctimonious. But when your young sister, barely twenty years old and brought up in the house of Gaius Julius Caesar, asked you for wine in the middle of the morning without a meal or a man in sight—yes, it was a shock!
“Of course I have wine,” she said.
“I’d love a cup,” said Julilla, who had fought against asking; Julia was bound to comment, and it was unpleasant to expose oneself to the disapproval of one’s older, stronger, more successful sister. Yet she hadn’t been able to refrain from asking. The interview was difficult, the more so because it was overdue.
These days Julilla found herself out of patience with her family, uninterested in them, bored by them. Especially by the admired Julia, wife of the consul, rapidly becoming one of Rome’s most esteemed young matrons. Never put a foot wrong, that was Julia. Happy with her lot, in love with her ghastly Gaius. Marius, model wife, model mother. How boring indeed.
“Do you usually drink wine in the mornings?” Julia asked, as casually as she could.
A shrug, a flapping and fluttering of hands, a brightly burning look that acknowledged the shaft, yet refused to take it seriously. “Well, Sulla does, and he likes to have company.”
“Sulla? Do you call him by his cognomen!”
Julilla laughed. “Oh, Julia, you are old-fashioned! Of course I call him by his cognomen! We don’t live inside the Senate House, you know! Everyone in our circles uses the cognomen these days, it’s chic. Besides, Sulla likes me to call him Sulla—he says being called Lucius Cornelius makes him feel a thousand years old.”
“Then I daresay I am old-fashioned,” said Julia, making an effort to be casual. A sudden smile lit her face; perhaps it was the light, but she looked younger than her younger sister, and more beautiful. “Mind you, I do have some excuse! Gaius Marius doesn’t have a cognomen.”
The wine came. Julilla poured a glass of it, but ignored the alabaster decanter of water. “I’ve often wondered about that,” she said, and drank deeply. “Surely after he’s beaten Jugurtha he’ll find a really impressive cognomen to assume. Trust that stuck-up sourpuss Metellus to talk the Senate into letting him celebrate a triumph, and assume the cognomen Numidicus! Numidicus ought to have been kept for Gaius Marius!”
“Metellus Numidicus,” said Julia with punctilious regard for facts, “qualified for his triumph, Julilla. He killed enough Numidians and brought home enough booty. And if he wanted to call himself Numidicus, and the Senate said he might, then that’s that, isn’t it? Besides, Gaius Marius always says that the simple Latin name of his father is good enough for him. There’s only one Gaius Marius, where there are dozens of Caecilius Metelluses. You wait and see—my husband isn’t going to need to distinguish himself from the herd by a device as artificial as a cognomen. My husband is going to be the First Man in Rome—and by dint of nothing except superior ability.”
Julia eulogizing the likes of Gaius Marius was quite sickening; Julilla’s feelings about her brother-in-law were a mixture of natural gratitude for his generosity, and a contempt acquired from her new friends, all of whom despised him as an upstart, and in consequence despised his wife. So Julilla refilled her cup, and changed the subject.
“This isn’t a bad wine, sister. Mind you, Marius has the money to indulge himself, I daresay.” She drank, but less deeply than from her first cup. “Are you in love with Marius?” she asked, suddenly realizing that she honestly didn’t know.
A blush! Annoyed at betraying herself, Julia sounded defensive when she answered. “Of course I’m in love with him! And I miss him dreadfully, as a matter of fact. Surely there’s nothing wrong with that, even among those in your circles. Don’t you love Lucius Cornelius?”
“Yes!” said Julilla, who now found herself on the defensive. “But I do not miss him now he’s gone, I can assure you! For one thing, if he stays away for two or three years, I won’t be pregnant again the minute this one is born.” She sniffled. “Waddling around weighing a talent more than I ought is not my idea of happiness. I like to float like a feather, I hate feeling heavy! I’ve either been pregnant or getting over a pregnancy the whole time I’ve been married. Ugh!”
Julia held her temper. “It’s your job to be pregnant,” she said coolly.
“Why is that women never have any choice in a job?” asked Julilla, beginning to feel tearful.
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous!” Julia snapped.
“Well, it’s an awful way to have to live one’s life,” said Julilla mutinously, feeling the effects of the wine at last. And it made her cheer up; she summoned a conscious effort, and smiled. “Let’s not quarrel, Julia! It’s bad enough that Mama can’t find it in herself to be civil to me.”
And that was true, Julia acknowledged; Marcia had never forgiven Julilla for her conduct over Sulla, though quite why was a mystery. Their father’s frostiness had lasted a very few days, after which he treated Julilla with all the warmth and joy her beginning recovery inspired. But their mother’s frostiness persisted. Poor, poor Julilla! Did Sulla really like her to drink wine with him in the mornings, or was that an excuse? Sulla, indeed! It lacked respect.
*
Sulla arrived in Africa at the end of the first week in September with the last two legions and two thousand magnificent Celtic cavalrymen from Italian Gaul. He found Marius in the throes of mounting a major expedition into Numidia, and was hailed gladly, and put immediately to work.
“I’ve got Jugurtha on the run,” Marius said jubilantly, “even without my full army. Now that you’re here, we’ll see some real action, Lucius Cornelius.”
Sulla passed over letters from Julia and from Gaius Julius Caesar, then screwed up his courage to offer condolences for the death of Marius’s unseen second son.
“Please accept my sympathy for the passing of your little Marcus Marius,” he said, awkwardly aware that his own ratlike daughter, Cornelia Sulla, was doggedly continuing to survive.
A shadow crossed Marius’s face, then was resolutely wiped away. “I thank you, Lucius Cornelius. There’s time to make more children, and I have Young Marius. You left my wife and Young Marius well?”
“Very well. As are all the Julius Caesars.”
“Good!” Private considerations were shelved; Marius put his mail on a side table and moved to his desk, where a huge map painted on specially treated calfskin was spread out. “You’re just in time to sample Numidia at first hand. We’re off to Capsa in eight days’ time.” The keen brown eyes searched Sulla’s face, peeling and splotchy. “I suggest, Lucius Cornelius, that you explore the Utican marketplaces until you find a really strong hat with as wide a brim as possible. It’s obvious you’ve been out and around in Italy all summer. But the sun of Numidia is even hotter and harsher. You’ll burn like tinder here.”
It was true; Sulla’s flawless white complexion, hitherto sheltered by a life lived largely indoors, had suffered during his months of traveling throughout Italy, exercising troops, and learning himself as surreptitiously as possible. Pride had not permitted him to skulk in the shade while others braved the light, and pride had dictated that he wear the Attic helmet of his high estate, headgear which did nothing to save his skin. The worst of the sunburn was now over, but so little pigment did he possess that there was no deepening of his color, and the healed and healing areas were as white as ever. His arms had fared better than his face; it was possible that after sufficient exposure, arms and legs would manage to survive assault by the sun. But his face? Never.
Some of this did Marius sense as he watched Sulla’s reaction to his suggestion of a hat; he sat down and pointed to the tray of wine. “Lucius Cornelius, I have been laughed at for one thing or another since I first entered the legions at seventeen. At first I was too scrawny and undersized, then I was too big and clumsy. I had no Greek. I was an Italian, not a Roman. So I understand the humiliation you feel because you have a soft white skin. But it is more important to me, your commanding officer, that you maintain good health and bodily comfort, than that you present what you consider the proper image to your peers. Get yourself that hat! Keep it tied on with a woman’s scarf, or ribbons, or a gold-and-purple cord if such is all you can find. And laugh at them! Cultivate it as an eccentricity. And soon, you’ll find, no one even notices it anymore. Also, I recommend that you find some sort of ointment or cream thick enough to lessen the amount of sun your skin drinks up, and smear it on. And if the right one stinks of perfume, what of it?”
Sulla nodded, grinned. “You’re right, and it’s excellent advice. I’ll do as you say, Gaius Marius.”
“Good.”
A silence fell; Marius was edgy, restless, but not for any reason connected with Sulla, his quaestor understood. And all of a sudden Sulla knew what the reason was—hadn’t he labored under the same feeling himself? Wasn’t all of Rome laboring under it?
“The Germans,” Sulla said.
“The Germans,” Marius said, and reached out a hand to pick up his beaker of well-watered wine. “Where have they come from, Lucius Cornelius, and where are they going?”
Sulla shivered. “They’re going to Rome, Gaius Marius. That is what we all feel in our bones. Where they come from, we don’t know. A manifestation of Nemesis, perhaps. All we know is that they have no home. What we fear is that they intend to make our home theirs.”
“They’d be fools if they didn’t,” said Marius somberly. “These forays into Gaul are tentative, Lucius Cornelius— they’re simply biding their time, gathering up their courage. Barbarians they may be, but even the least barbarian knows that if he wants to settle anywhere near the Middle Sea, he must first deal with Rome. The Germans will come.”
“I agree. But you and I are not alone. That’s the feeling from one end of Rome to the other these days. A ghastly worry, a worse fear of the inevitable. And our defeats don’t help,” said Sulla. “Everything conspires to help the Germans. There are those, even in the Senate, who walk round speaking of our doom as if it had already happened. There are those who speak of the Germans as a divine judgment.’’
Marius sighed. “Not a judgment. A test.” He put down his beaker and folded his hands. “Tell me what you know about Lucius Cassius. The official dispatches give me nothing to think about, they’re so rarefied.”
Sulla grimaced. “Well, he took the six legions which came back from Africa with Metellus—how do you like the ‘Numidicus,’ by the way?—and he marched them all the way down the Via Domitia to Narbo, which it seems he reached about the beginning of Quinctilis, after eight weeks on the road. They were fit troops, and could have moved faster, but no one blames Lucius Cassius for going easy on them at the start of what promised to be a hard campaign. Thanks to Metellus Numidicus’s determination not to leave a single man behind in Africa, all Cassius’s legions were over strength by two cohorts, which meant he had close to forty thousand infantrymen, plus a big cavalry unit he augmented with tame Gauls along the way—about three thousand altogether. A big army.”
Marius grunted. “They were good men.” .
“I know. I saw them, as a matter of fact, while they were marching up through the Padus Valley to the Mons Genava Pass. I was recruiting cavalry at the time. And though you may find this hard to believe, Gaius Marius, I had never before seen a Roman army on the march, rank after rank after rank, all properly armed and equipped, and with a decent baggage train. I’ll never forget the sight of them!” He sighed. “Anyway... the Germans it seems had come to an understanding with the Volcae Tectosages, who claim to be their kinsmen, and had given them land to the north and east of Tolosa.”
“I admit the Gauls are almost as mysterious as the Germans, Lucius Cornelius,” said Marius, leaning forward, “but according to the reports, Gauls and Germans are not of the same race. How could the Volcae Tectosages call the Germans kinsmen? After all, the Volcae Tectosages aren’t even long-haired Gauls—they’ve been living around Tolosa since before we’ve had Spain, and they speak Greek, and they trade with us. So why?”
“I don’t know. Nor it seems does anyone,” said Sulla.
“I’m sorry, Lucius Cornelius, I interrupted. Continue.”