4

Wrote Publius Rutilius Rufus to Gaius Marius in June before the news of the capture of Jugurtha and the end of the war in Africa had reached Rome:

We have had a very uneasy winter, and a rather panic-stricken spring. The Germans are definitely on the move, and south at that, into our province along the river Rhodanus. We had been getting urgent letters from our Gallic allies the Aedui since before the end of last year, saying that their unwanted guests the Germans were going to move on. And then in April came the first of the Aeduan deputations to tell us that the Germans had cleaned out the Aeduan and Ambarric granaries, and were loading up their wagons. However, they had given out their destination as Spain, and those in the Senate who think it wiser to play down the threat of the Germans were quick to spread the news.

Luckily Scaurus is not of their number, nor is Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus. So pretty soon after Gnaeus Mallius and I began our consulship, there was a strong faction urging that a new army be recruited for any emergency, and Gnaeus Mallius was directed to assemble six new legions.

Rutilius Rufus found himself stiffening as if to ward off a Marian tirade, and smiled ruefully.

Yes, I know, I know! Hold on to your temper, Gaius Marius, and let me put my case before you start jumping up and down upon my poor head—and I do not mean that lump of bone and flesh on top of my neck! It should by rights have been me directed to recruit and command this new army; I am well aware of it. I am the senior consul, I have had a long and highly successful military career, and am currently even enjoying some degree of fame because my manual of military practice has been published at last. Whereas my junior colleague, Gnaeus Mallius, is almost completely untried.

Well, it’s all your fault! My association with you is general knowledge, and your enemies in the House would sooner, I think, that Rome perish under a flood tide of Germans than gratify you and yours in any way. So Metellus Numidicus Piggle-wiggle got up and made a magnificent speech to the effect that I was far too old to lead an army, and that my undeniable talents could be better used if I remained in Rome to govern. They followed him like sheep the leader who betrays them to the slaughter, and passed all the necessary decrees. Why did I not fight them? I hear you ask. Oh,Gaius Marius, I am not you! I just do not have that streak of destructive hatred for them that you have, nor do I have your phenomenal energy. So I contented myself with insisting that Gnaeus Mallius be provided with some truly able and experienced senior legates. And at least this has been done. He has Marcus Aurelius Scaurus to back him up—yes, I did say Aurelius, not Aemilius. All he shares in common with our esteemed Leader of the House is a cognomen. However, I suspect that his military ability is considerably better than the famous Scaurus’s. At least, for Rome’s sake and Gnaeus Mallius’s sake, I hope so!

And, all told, Gnaeus Mallius has done fairly well. He elected to recruit among the Head Count, and could point to your African army as proof of the Head Count’s effectiveness. By the end of April, when the news came that the Germans would be heading south into our Roman province, Gnaeus Mallius had six legions enlisted, all of Roman or Latin Head Count. But then the delegation arrived from the Aedui, and for the first time the House had definite estimates of the actual number of Germans involved in the migration. We discovered, for instance, that the Germans who killed Lucius Cassius in Aquitania—we knew they numbered about a quarter of a million—were only about a third of the total number, if that. So according to the Aedui, something like eight hundred thousand German warriors, women, and children are at present traveling toward the Gallic coast of the Middle Sea. It mazes the mind, does it not?

The House gave Gnaeus Mallius the authority to recruit four more legions, bringing his force up to a total of ten legions plus five thousand cavalry. And by this, the news of the Germans was out all over Italy, try though the House did to calm everyone down. We are very, very worried, especially because we have not so far actually won one engagement against the Germans. From the time of Carbo, our history has been defeat. And there are those, especially among the ordinary people, who are now saying that our famous adage that six good Roman legions can beat a quarter of a million undisciplined barbarians is so much merda. I tell you, Gaius Marius, the whole of Italy is afraid! And I, for one, do not blame Italy.

I imagine because of the general dread, several of our Italian Allies reversed their policy of recent years, and have voluntarily contributed troops to Gnaeus Mallius’s army. The Samnites have sent a legion of light-armed infantry, and the Marsi have sent a wonderful legion of standard Roman-style infantry. There is also a composite auxiliary legion from Umbria, Etruria, and Picenum. So, as you may imagine, our fellow Conscript Fathers are like the cat which got to the fish—very smug and self-satisfied. Of the four extra legions, three are being paid for and kept up by the Italian Allies.

That is all positive. But there is an opposite side, of course. We have a frightful shortage of centurions, which means that none of the newly enlisted Head Count troops have undergone a proper training program, and the one legion of Head Count men in the last four legions just put together is almost totally unprepared. His legate Aurelius suggested that Gnaeus Mallius split the experienced centurions up evenly among his seven Head Count legions, and that means no more than 40 percent of the centurions in any one legion have undergone anything like battle conditions. Military tribunes are well and good, but I do not need to tell you that it is the centurions who hold the centuries and cohorts together.

Quite frankly, I fear for the result. Gnaeus Mallius is not a bad sort of fellow, but I do not think him capable of waging war against the Germans. This opinion Gnaeus Mallius himself reinforced, when he got up in the House at the end of May and said that he couldn’t ensure every man in his force would know what to do on a battlefield! There are always men who don’t know what to do on a battlefield, but you don’t get up in the House and say so!

And what did the House do? It sent orders to Quintus Caepio in Narbo to transfer himself and his army across to the Rhodanus immediately, and join up with Gnaeus Mallius’s army when it reaches the Rhodanus. For once the House didn’t procrastinate—the message went off by mounted courier, and got from Rome to Narbo in less than two weeks. Nor did Quintus Servilius procrastinate in answering! We got his answer yesterday. And what an answer it was.Naturally the senatorial orders had said that Quintus Caepio would subordinate himself and his troops to the imperium of the year’s consul. All perfectly normal and aboveboard. Last year’s consul may have a proconsular imperium, but in any joint enterprise, the consul of the year takes the senior command.

Oh, Gaius Marius, that did not sit well with Quintus Caepio! Did the House honestly think that he—a patrician Servilius directly descended from Gaius Servilius Ahala, the savior of Rome—would act as the subordinate of an upstart New Man without a single face in an ancestral cupboard, a man who had only reached the consulship because no one of better origins had stood for election? There were consuls and there were consuls, said Quintus Caepio. Yes, I swear to you that he really did say all this! In his year the field of candidates had been respectable, but in this present year the best Rome could do was a broken-down old minor noble (me) and a presumptuous parvenu with more money than taste (Gnaeus Mallius). So, Quintus Caepio’s letter ended, he would certainly march at once for the Rhodanus—but by the time he got there, he expected to find a senatorial courier waiting for him with the news that he would be the supreme commander in this joint venture. With Gnaeus Mallius working as his subordinate, he was sure, said Quintus Caepio, that all would go superbly.

His hand was beginning to cramp; Rutilius Rufus laid his reed pen down with a sigh, and sat massaging his fingers, staring frowningly into nothing. Presently his eyelids began to droop, and his head fell forward, and he dozed; when he woke with a jerk, his hand at least felt better, so he resumed his writing.

Oh, such a long, long letter! But no one else will give you an honest account of what has happened, and you must know it all. Quintus Caepio’s letter had been directed to Scaurus Princeps Senatus rather than to me, and of course you know our beloved Marcus Aemilius Scaurus! He read the whole dreadful letter out to the House with every evidence of ghoulish enjoyment. In fact, he drooled. Oh, and did it put the cat among the pigeons! There were purple faces, flying fists, and a brawl between Gnaeus Mallius and Metellus Piggle-wiggle which I stopped by calling in the lictors from the Curia vestibule—an action which Scaurus did not appreciate. Oh, what a day for Mars! A pity we couldn’t bottle all that hot air and just blow the Germans away with the most poisonous weapon Rome can manufacture.

The upshot of it was that there will indeed be a courier waiting for Quintus Caepio on the banks of the Rhodanus—but the new orders will be exactly the same as the old ones. He is to subordinate himself to the legally elected consul of the year, Gnaeus Mallius Maximus. Such a pity the silly fool dowered himself with a cognomen like Maximus, isn’t it? A bit like awarding yourself a Grass Crown after your men saved you, not the other way around. Not only is it the height of crassness to give yourself a pat on the back, but if you are not a Fabius, the cognomen Maximus is horribly presumptuous. Of course he maintains his great-grandmother was a Fabia Maxima, and his grandfather used it, but all I know is that his father never did. And I doubt the Fabia Maxima story very much.

Anyway, here I am like a war-horse turned out to pasture, itching to be in Gnaeus Mallius’s shoes, and burdened instead with earthshaking decisions like whether we can afford to give the State granaries a new coat of pitch inside this year, after paying to equip seven new Head Count legions. Would you believe that with the whole of Rome talking Germans, Germans, Germans, the House argued for eight days about that one? Drive a man insane, it would!

I do have an idea, though, and I’m going to implement it. Come victory or defeat in Gaul, I’m going to implement it. With not one man left in all Italy whom I would call a centurion’s bootlaces, I am going to recruit drill instructors and other training personnel from the gladiator schools. Capua is full of gladiator schools—and the best ones at that—so what could be more convenient, considering that Capua is also our base camp for all new troops? If Lucius Tiddlypuss can’t hire enough gladiators to put on a good show at his granddad’s funeral, hard luck! Rome’s need is greater than Lucius Tiddlypuss’s, say I! This plan also tells you that I am going to continue to recruit among the Head Count.

I’ll keep you informed, of course. How goes it in the land of the lotus-eaters, sirens, and enchanted isles? Not managed to put leg-irons on Jugurtha yet? It isn’t far off, I’ll bet. Metellus Numidicus Piggle-wiggle is in a trifle of a dither these days, actually. He can’t make up his mind whether to concentrate on you or on Gnaeus Mallius. Naturally he gave a magnificent speech supporting Quintus Servilius’s elevation to commander-in-chief. It gave me inordinate pleasure to sink his case with a few well-placed shafts.

Ye gods, Gaius Marius, how they do get me down! Trumpeting the feats of their wretched ancestors when what Rome needs right now is a living, breathing military genius! Hurry up and come home, will you? We need you, for I am not up to battling the whole of the Senate, I just am not.

There was a postscriptum:

There have been a couple of peculiar incidents in Campania, by the way. I don’t like them, yet I fail to see why they happened, either. At the beginning of May there was a slave revolt at Nuceria—oh, easily put down, and all it really meant was that thirty poor creatures from all over the world were executed. But then three days ago another revolt broke out, this time in a big holding camp outside Capua for low-grade male slaves waiting for buyers in need of a hundred wharf laborers or quarry fodder or treadmill plodders. Almost 250 slaves were involved this time. It was put down at once, as there were several cohorts of recruits in camp around Capua. About fifty of the insurgents perished in the fighting, and the rest were executed forthwith. But I don’t like it, Gaius Marius. It’s an omen. The gods are against us at the moment; I feel it in my bones.

And a second postscriptum:

Some sad news for you has this very moment come to hand. As my letter to you was already arranged through Marcus Granius of Puteoli to go on his fast packet sailing for Utica at the end of the week, I have volunteered to tell you what has happened. Your much-loved father-in-law, Gaius Julius Caesar, died this afternoon. As you know, he has been suffering from a malignancy in the throat for some time. And this afternoon he fell on his sword. He chose the best alternative, as I’m sure you will agree. No man should linger to be a burden to his loved ones, especially when it detracts from his dignity and integrity as a man. Is there one among us who prefers life to death when life means lying in one’s own excrement, or being cleaned of that excrement by a slave? No, when a man cannot command either his bowels or his gorge, it is time to go. I think Gaius Julius would have chosen to go sooner, except that he worried about his younger son, who as I’m sure you know married recently. I went to see Gaius Julius only two days ago, and he managed to whisper through the thing choking him that all his doubts about the suitability of young Gaius Julius’s marriage were now allayed, for the beautiful Aurelia—the darling of my own heart, I admit—was just the right wife for his boy. So it is ave atque vale, Gaius Julius Caesar.

At the very end of June the consul Gnaeus Mallius Maximus left on the long march north and west, his two sons on his personal staff, and all twenty-four of the elected tribunes of the soldiers for that year distributed among seven of his ten legions. Sextus Julius Caesar, Marcus Livius Drusus, and Quintus Servilius Caepio Junior marched with him, as did Quintus Sertorius, taken on as a junior military tribune. Of the three Italian Allied legions, the one sent by the Marsi was the best trained and most soldierly legion of all ten; it was commanded by a twenty-five-year-old Marsic nobleman’s son named Quintus Poppaedius Silo—under supervision by a Roman legate, of course.

Because Mallius Maximus insisted upon lugging enough State-purchased grain to feed his entire force for two months, his baggage train was huge and his progress painfully slow; by the end of the first sixteen days he hadn’t even reached the Adriatic at Fanum Fortunae. Talking very hard and passionately, the legate Aurelius then managed to persuade him to leave his baggage train in the escort of one legion, and push on with his nine others, his cavalry, and light baggage only. It had proven very difficult to convince Mallius Maximus that his troops were not going to starve before they got to the Rhodanus, and that sooner or later the heavy baggage would arrive safely.

Having a much shorter march over level ground, Quintus Servilius Caepio reached the huge river Rhodanus ahead of Mallius Maximus. He took only seven of his eight legions with him—the eighth he shipped to Nearer Spain—and no cavalry, having disbanded it the previous year as an unnecessary expense. Despite his orders and the urging of legates, Caepio had refused to move from Narbo until an expected overseas communication from Smyrna came. Nor was he in a good mood; when he could be deflected from complaining about the disgraceful tardiness of this contact between Smyrna and Narbo, he complained about the in-sensitivity of the Senate in thinking that he would yield supreme command of the Grand Army to a mushroom like Mallius Maximus. But in the end, he was obliged to march without his letter, leaving explicit instructions behind in Narbo that it was to be forwarded as soon as it came.

Even so, Caepio still beat Mallius Maximus to their targetdestination comfortably. At Nemausus, a small trading town on the western outskirts of the vast salt marshes around the delta of the Rhodanus, he was met by the Senate’s courier, who gave him the Senate’s new orders.

It had never occurred to Caepio that his letter would fail to move the Conscript Fathers, especially when none other than Scaurus read it out to the House. So when he opened the cylinder and scanned the Senate’s brief reply, he was outraged. Impossible! Intolerable! He, a patrician Servilius, tugging his forelock at the whim of Mallius Maximus the New Man? Never!

Roman intelligence reported that the Germans were now on their way south, rolling along through the lands of the Celtic Allobroges, inveterate Roman-haters caught in a cleft stick; Rome was the enemy they knew, the Germans the enemy they didn’t know. And the Druidic confraternity had been telling every tribe in Gaul for two years now that there wasn’t room for the Germans to settle anywhere in Gaul. Certainly the Allobroges were not about to yield enough of their lands to make a new homeland for a people far more numerous than they were themselves. And they were close enough to the Aedui and the Ambarri to know well what a shambles the Germans had made out of the lands of these intimidated tribes. So the Allobroges retreated into the towering foothills of their beloved Alps, and concentrated upon harrying the Germans as much as they could.

The Germans breached the Roman province of Gaul-across-the-Alps to the north of the trading post of Vienne late in June, and surged on, unopposed. The whole mass, over three quarters of a million strong, traveled down the eastern bank of the mighty river, for its plains were wider and safer, less exposed to the fierce highland tribes of central Gaul and the Cebenna.

Learning of this, Caepio deliberately turned off the Via Domitia at Nemausus, and instead of crossing the delta marshes on the long causeway Ahenobarbus had built, he marched his army northward on the western bank, thus keeping the river between himself and the path of the Germans. It was the middle of the month Sextilis.

From Nemausus he had sent a courier hotfoot to Rome with another letter for Scaurus, declaring that he would not take orders from Mallius Maximus, and that was final. After this stand, the only route he could take with honor was west of the river.

On the eastern bank of the Rhodanus, some forty miles north of the place where the Via Domitia crossed the river on a long causeway terminating near Arelate, was a Roman trading town of some importance; its name was Arausio. And on the western bank ten miles north of Arausio, Caepio put his army of forty thousand foot soldiers and fifteen thousand noncombatants into a strong camp. And waited for Mallius Maximus to appear on the opposite bank—and waited for the Senate to reply to his latest letter.

Mallius Maximus arrived ahead of the Senate’s reply, at the end of Sextilis. He put his fifty-five thousand infantry and his thirty thousand noncombatants into a heavily fortified camp right on the edge of the river five miles north of Arausio, thus making the river serve as part of his defenses as well as his water source.

The ground just to the north of the camp was ideal for a battle, thought Mallius Maximus, envisioning the river as his greatest protection. This was his first mistake. His second mistake was to detach his five thousand cavalry from his camp, and send them to act as his advance guard thirty miles further north. And his third mistake was to appoint his most able legate, Aurelius, to command the horse, thereby depriving himself of Aurelius’s counsel. All the mistakes were part of Mallius Maximus’s grand strategy; he intended to use Aurelius and the cavalry as a brake on the German advance—not by offering battle, but by offering the Germans their first sight of Roman resistance. For Mallius Maximus wanted to treat, not fight, hoping to turn the Germans peacefully back into central Gaul, well away from southward progress through the Roman province. All the earlier battles fought between the Germans and Rome had been forced on the Germans by Rome, and only after the Germans had indicated they were willing to turn back peacefully from Roman territory. So Mallius Maximus had high hopes for his grand strategy, and they were not without foundation.

However, his first task was to get Caepio from the west bank of the river to the east bank. Still smarting from the insulting, insensitive letter from Caepio that Scaurus had read out in the House, Mallius Maximus dictated a curt and undisguised direct order to Caepio: get yourself and your army across the river and inside my camp at once. He gave it to a team of oarsmen in a boat, thus ensuring quick delivery.

Caepio used the same boat to send Mallius Maximus his answer. Which said with equal curtness that he, a patrician Servilius, would not take orders from any pretentious mushroom of a tradesman, and would stay right where he was, on the western bank.

Said Mallius Maximus’s next directive:

As your supreme commander in the field, I repeat my order to transfer yourself and your army across the river without an hour’s delay. Please regard this, my second such order, as my last. Should you persist in defying me, I shall institute legal proceedings against you in Rome. The charge will be high treason, and your own high-flown actions will have convicted you.

Caepio responded with an equally litigious reply:

I do not admit that you are the supreme commander in the field. By all means institute treason proceedings against me. I will certainly be instituting treason proceedings against you. Since we both know who will win, I demand that you turn the supreme command over to me forthwith.

Mallius Maximus replied with even greater hauteur. And so it went until midway through September, when six senators arrived from Rome, utterly exhausted by the speed and discomfort of their trip. Rutilius Rufus, the consul in Rome, had pushed successfully to send this embassage, but Scaurus and Metellus Numidicus had managed to pull the embassage’s teeth by refusing to allow the inclusion of any senator of consular status or real political clout. The most senior of the six senators was a mere praetor of moderately noble background, none other than Rutilius Rufus’s brother-in-law, Marcus Aurelius Cotta. Scant hours after the embassage arrived at Mallius Maximus’s camp, Cotta at least understood the gravity of the situation.

So Cotta went to work with great energy and a passion normally alien to him, concentrating upon Caepio. Who remained obdurate. A visit to the cavalry camp thirty miles to the north sent him back to the fray with redoubled determination, for the legate Aurelius had led him under cover to a high hill, from which he was able to see the leading edge of the German advance.

Cotta looked, and turned white. “You ought to be inside Gnaeus Mallius’s camp,” he said.

“If a fight was what we wanted, yes,” said Aurelius, his calm unimpaired, for he had been looking at the German advance for days, and had grown used to the sight. “Gnaeus Mallius thinks we can repeat earlier successes, which have always been diplomatic. When the Germans have fought, it’s only been because we pushed them to it. I have absolutely no intention of starting anything—and that will mean, I’m sure, that they won’t start anything either. I have a team of competent interpreters here, and I’ve been indoctrinating them for days as to what I want to say when the Germans send their chiefs to parley, as I’m sure they will, once they realize that there’s a Roman army of huge size waiting for them.”

“But surely they know that now!” said Cotta.

“I doubt it,” said Aurelius, unperturbed. “They don’t move in a military fashion, you know. If they’ve heard of scouts, they certainly haven’t bothered to employ them so far. They just—roll on! Taking, it seems to Gnaeus Mallius and me, whatever comes to them when it comes.”

Cotta turned his horse. “I must get back to Gnaeus Mallius as soon as possible, cousin. Somehow we’ve got to get that stiff-necked imbecile Caepio across the river, or we may as well not even have his army in the vicinity.”

“I agree,” said Aurelius. “However, Marcus Aurelius of the Cottae, if feasible I would like you to return to me here the moment I send you word that a German delegation has arrived to parley. With your five colleagues! The Germans will be impressed that the Senate has sent six representatives all the way from Rome to treat with them.” He smiled wryly. “We certainly won’t let them know that the Senate has sent six representatives all the way from Rome to treat with our own fools of generals!”

*

The stiff-necked imbecile Quintus Servilius Caepio was—rather inexplicably—in a much better mood and more prone to listen to Cotta when he had himself rowed across the Rhodanus the next day.

“Why the sudden lightheartedness, Quintus Servilius?” asked Cotta, puzzled.

“I’ve just had a letter from Smyrna,” said Caepio. “A letter I should have had months ago.” But instead of going on to explain what any letter from Smyrna might contain to make him so much happier, Caepio got down to business. “All right,” he said, “I’ll come across to the east bank tomorrow.” He pointed to his map with an ivory wand topped by a gold eagle he had taken to carrying to indicate the high degree of his imperium; he still had not consented to see Mallius Maximus in person. “Here is where I’ll cross.”

‘ ‘Wouldn’t it be more prudent to cross south of Arausio?’’ asked Cotta dubiously.

“Certainly not!” said Caepio. “If I cross to the north, I’ll be closer to the Germans.”

True to his word, Caepio struck camp at dawn the next day, and marched north to a ford twenty miles above Mallius Maximus’s fortress, a scant ten miles south of the place where Aurelius was encamped with his cavalry.

Cotta and his five senatorial companions rode north too, intending to be in Aurelius’s camp when the German chieftains arrived to treat. En route they encountered Caepio on the east bank, most of his army across the river. But the sight that met their eyes struck fresh dismay into their hearts, for all too obviously Caepio was preparing to dig a heavily fortified camp right where he was.

“Oh, Quintus Servilius, Quintus Servilius, you can’t stay here!” cried Cotta as they sat their horses on a knoll above the new campsite, where scurrying figures dug trenches and piled excavated earth up into ramparts.

“Why not?” asked Caepio, raising his brows.

“Because twenty miles to the south of you is a camp already made—and made large enough to accommodate your legions as well as the ten at present inside it! There is where you belong, Quintus Servilius! Not here, too far away from Aurelius to the north of you and Gnaeus Mallius to the south of you to be of any help to either—or they to you! Please, Quintus Servilius, I beg of you! Pitch an ordinary marching camp here tonight, then head south to Gnaeus Mallius in the morning,” said Cotta, putting every ounce of urgency he could into his plea.

“I said I’d cross the river,” Caepio announced, “but I did not give any sort of undertaking as to what I’d do when I did cross the river! I have seven legions, all trained to the top of their bent, and all experienced soldiers. Not only that, but they’re men of property—true Roman soldiers! Do you seriously think that I would consent to share a camp with the rabble of Rome and the Latin countryside—sharecroppers and laborers, men who can’t read or write? Marcus Cotta, I would sooner be dead!”

“You might well be,” said Cotta dryly.

“Not my army, and not me,” said Caepio, adamant. “I’m twenty miles to the north of Gnaeus Mallius and his loathsome rabble. Which means that I shall encounter the Germans first. And I shall beat them, Marcus Cotta! A solid million barbarians couldn’t defeat seven legions of true Roman soldiers! Let that—that tradesman Mallius have one iota of the credit? No! Quintus Servilius Caepio will hold his second triumph through the streets of Rome as the sole victor! Mallius will have to stand there looking on.”

Leaning forward in his saddle, Cotta put his hand out and grasped Caepio’s arm. “Quintus Servilius,” he said, more earnestly and seriously than he had ever spoken in his entire life, “I beg of you, join forces with Gnaeus Mallius! Which means more to you, Rome victorious or Rome’s nobility victorious? Does it matter who wins, so long as Rome wins? This isn’t a little border war against a few Scordisci, nor is it a minor campaign against the Lusitani! We are going to need the best and biggest army we’ve ever fielded, and your contribution to that army is vital! Gnaeus Mallius’s men haven’t had the time or the training under arms that your men have. Your presence among them will steady them, give them an example to follow. For I say to you very sternly, there will be a battle! I feel it in my bones. No matter how the Germans have behaved in the past, this time is going to be different. They’ve tasted our blood and liked it, they’ve felt our mettle and found it weak. Rome is at stake, Quintus Servilius, not Rome’s nobility! But if you persist in remaining isolated from the other army, I tell you straight, the future of Rome’s nobility will indeed be at stake. In your hands you hold the future of Rome and your own kind. Do the right thing by both, please! March tomorrow to Gnaeus Mallius’s camp, and ally yourself with him.”

Caepio dug his horse in the ribs and moved away, wrenching free of Cotta’s grip. “No,” he said. “I stay here.”

So Cotta and his five companions rode on north to the cavalry camp, while Caepio produced a smaller but identical copy of Mallius Maximus’s camp, right on the edge of the river.

The senators found themselves only just in time, for the German treating party rode into Aurelius’s camp slightly after dawn of the next day. There were fifty of them, aged somewhere between forty and sixty, thought the awestruck Cotta, who had never seen men so large—not one of them looked to be under six feet in height, and most were six inches taller than that. They rode enormous horses, shaggy-coated and unkempt to Roman eyes, with big hooves skirted in long hair, and manes falling over their mild eyes; none was encumbered by a saddle, but all were bridled.

“Their horses are like war elephants,” said Cotta.

“Only a few,” Aurelius answered comfortably. “Most ride ordinary Gallic horses—these men take their pick, I suppose.”

“Look at the young one!” Cotta exclaimed, watching a fellow no older than thirty slide down from his mount’s back and stand, his pose superbly confident, gazing about him as if he found nothing he saw remarkable.

“Achilles,” said Aurelius, undismayed.

“I thought the Germans went naked save for a cloak,” Cotta said, taking in the sight of leather breeches.

“They do in Germania, so they say, but from what we’ve seen of these Germans so far, they’re trousered like the Gauls.”

Trousered they were, but none wore a shirt in this fine hot weather. Many sported square gold pectorals which sat on their chests from nipple to nipple, and all carried the empty scabbards of long-swords on shoulder baldrics. They wore much gold—the pectorals, their helmet ornaments, sword scabbards, belts, baldrics, buckles, bracelets, and necklaces—though none wore a Celtic neck torc. Cotta found the helmets fascinating: rimless and pot-shaped, some were symmetrically adorned above the ears with magnificent horns or wings or hollow tubes holding bunches of stiffly upright feathers, while others were fashioned to resemble serpents or dragon heads or hideous birds or pards with gaping jaws.

All were clean-shaven and wore their uniformly flaxen hair long, either braided or hanging loose, and they had little if any chest hair. Skins not as pink as Celtic skins, Cotta noted—more a pale gold. None was freckled; none had red hair. Their eyes were light blue, and held no grey or green. Even the oldest among them had kept himself in magnificent trim, flat-bellied and warriorlike, no evidence of self-indulgence; though the Romans were not to know it, the Germans killed men who let themselves go to seed.

The parley went on through Aurelius’s interpreters, who were mostly Aedui and Ambarri, though two or three of them were Germans captured by Carbo in Noricum before he was defeated. What they wanted, the German thanes explained, was a peaceful right-of-way through Gaul-across-the-Alps, for they were going to Spain. Aurelius himself conducted the first phase of the talks, clad in full military-parade armor—a torso-shaped silver cuirass, scarlet-plumed Attic helmet of silver, and the double kilt of stiff leather straps called pteryges over a crimson tunic. As a consular he wore a purple cloak lashed to the shoulders of his cuirass, and a crimson girdle ritually knotted and looped around his cuirass just above the waist was the badge of his general’s rank.

Cotta watched spellbound, now more afraid than he had ever dreamed he could be, even in the depths of despair. For he knew he was looking at Rome’s doom. In months to come they haunted his sleep, those German thanes, so remorselessly that he stumbled red-eyed and thick-witted through his days, and even after sheer custom reduced their capacity to keep him wakeful, he would find himself sitting bolt upright in his bed, mouth agape, because they rode their gigantic horses into some less important nightmare. Intelligence reported their numbers at well over three quarters of a million, and that meant at least three hundred thousand gargantuan warriors. Like most men of his eminence, Cotta had seen his share of barbarian warriors, Scordisci and Iapudes, Salassi and Carpetani; but never had he seen men like the Germans. Everyone had deemed the Gauls giants. But they were as ordinary men alongside the Germans.

And, worst terror of all, they spelled Rome’s doom because Rome did not take them seriously enough to heal the discord between the Orders; how could Rome hope to defeat them when two Roman generals refused to work with each other, and called each other snob and upstart, and damned each other’s very soldiers? If Caepio and Mallius Maximus would only work as a team, Rome would field close to one hundred thousand men, and that was an acceptable ratio if morale was high and training complete and leadership competent.

Oh, Cotta thought, his bowels churning, I have seen the shape of Rome’s fate! For we cannot survive this blond horde. Not when we cannot survive ourselves.

Finally Aurelius broke off the talk, and each side stepped back to confer.

“Well, we’ve learned something,” said Aurelius to Cotta and the other five senators. “They don’t call themselves Germans. In fact, they think of themselves as three separate peoples whom they call the Cimbri, the Teutones, and a rather polyglot third group made up of a number of smaller peoples who have joined up with the Cimbri and the Teutones during their wanderings — the Marcomanni, Cherusci, and Tigurini — who, according to my German interpreter, are more Celt than German in origins.”

“Wanderings?” asked Cotta. “How long have they wandered?”

“They don’t seem to know themselves, but for many years, at least. Perhaps a generation. The young sprig who looks like a barbarian Achilles was a small child when his tribe, the Cimbri, left its homeland.”

“Do they have a king?” asked Cotta.

“No, a council of tribal chieftains, the largest part of which you are currently looking at. However, that same young sprig who looks like a barbarian Achilles is moving up in the council very fast, and his adherents are beginning to call him a king. His name is Boiorix, and he’s by far the most truculent among them. He’s not really interested in all this begging for our permission to move south—he believes might is right, and he’s all for abandoning talks with us in favor of just going south no matter what.”

“Dangerously young to be calling himself a king. I agree, he’s trouble,” said Cotta. “And who is that man over there?” He unobtrusively indicated a man of about forty who wore a glittering gold pectoral, and several pounds more of gold besides.

“That’s Teutobod of the Teutones, the chief of their chiefs. He too is beginning to like being called a king, it seems. As with Boiorix, he thinks might is right, and they should simply keep on going south without worrying about whether Rome agrees or not. I don’t like it, cousin. Both my German interpreters from Carbo’s day tell me that the mood is very different than it was then—they’ve gathered confidence in themselves, and contempt for us.” Aurelius chewed at his lip. “You see, they have been living among the Aedui and the Ambarri for long enough now to have learned a lot about Rome. And what they’ve heard has lulled their fears. Not only that, but so far—if you exclude that first engagement of Lucius Cassius’s, and who finds exclusion difficult, considering the sequel?—they have won every encounter with us. Now Boiorix and Teutobod are telling them they have absolutely no reason to fear us just because we’re better armed and better trained. We are like children’s bogeys, all imagination and air. Boiorix and Teutobod want war. With Rome a thing of the past, they can wander where they choose, settle where they like.”

The parley began again, but now Aurelius drew forward his six guests, all clad in togas, escorted by twelve lictors wearing the crimson tunics and broad gold-embossed belts of duty outside Rome itself, and carrying axed fasces. Of course every German eye had noticed them, but now that introductions were performed, they stared at the billowingwhite robes—so unmartial!—in wonder. This was what Romans looked like? Cotta alone wore the purple-bordered toga praetexta of the curule magistrate, and it was to him that all the strange-sounding, unintelligible harangues were directed.

He held up well under the pressure: proud, aloof, calm, soft-spoken. It seemed no disgrace to a German to become puce with rage, spit gobbets of saliva to punctuate his words, pound the fist of one hand into the palm of the other, but there could be no mistaking the fact that they were puzzled and made ill at ease by the unassailable tranquillity of the Romans.

From the beginning of his participation in the parley until its end, Cotta’s answer was the same: no. No, the migration could not continue south; no, the German people could not have a right of way through any Roman territory or province; no, Spain was not a feasible destination unless they intended to confine themselves to Lusitania and Cantabria, for the rest of Spain was Roman. Turn north again, was Cotta’s constant retort; preferably go home, wherever home might be, but otherwise retreat across the Rhenus into Germania itself, and settle there, among their own peoples.

It was not until dusk was fading into night that the fifty German thanes hauled themselves up on their horses and rode away. Last of all to leave were Boiorix and Teutobod, the younger man turning his head over his shoulder to see the Romans for as long as he could. His eyes held neither liking nor admiration. Aurelius is right, he is Achilles, thought Cotta, though at first the parallel’s rightness was a mystery. Then he realized that in the young German’s handsome face lay all the pigheaded, mercilessly vengeful power of Achilles. Here too was a man who would kick his heels by his ships while the rest of his countrymen died like flies, all for the sake of the merest pinprick in the skin of his honor. And Cotta’s heart thudded, despaired; for wasn’t that equally true of Quintus Servilius Caepio?

There was a full moon two hours after nightfall; freed from the encumbrance of their togas, Cotta and his five very soberly silent companions ate at Aurelius’s table, then got ready to ride south.

“Wait until morning,” begged Aurelius. “This isn’t Italy, there are no trusty Roman roads, and you know nothing of the lay of the land. A few hours can’t make any difference.”

“No, I intend to be at Quintus Servilius’s camp by dawn,” said Cotta, “and try to persuade him yet again to join Gnaeus Mallius. I shall certainly apprise him of what’s happened here today. But no matter what Quintus Servilius decides to do, I’m riding all the way back to Gnaeus Mallius tomorrow, and I don’t intend to sleep until I’ve seen him.”

They shook hands. As Cotta and the senators with their escort of lictors and servants rode away into the dense shadows cast by the moon, Aurelius stood clearly delineated by firelight and moonlight, his arm raised in farewell.

I shall not see him again, thought Cotta; a brave man, the very best kind of Roman.

*

Caepio wouldn’t even hear Cotta out, let alone listen to the voice of reason.

“Here is where I stay” was all he said.

So Cotta rode on without pausing to slake his thirst in Caepio’s half-finished camp, determined that he would reach Gnaeus Mallius Maximus by noon at the latest.

At dawn, while Cotta and Caepio were failing to see eye to eye, the Germans moved. It was the second day of October, and the weather continued to be fine, no hint of chill in the air. When the front ranks of the German mass came up against Aurelius’s camp walls, they simply rolled over them, wave after wave after wave. Aurelius hadn’t really understood what was happening; he naturally assumed there would be time to get his cavalry squadrons into the saddle— that the camp wall, extremely well fortified, would hold the Germans at bay for long enough to lead his entire force out the back gate of the camp, and to attempt a flanking maneuver. But it was not to be. There were so many fast-moving Germans that they were around all four sides of the camp within moments, and poured over every wall in thousands. Not used to fighting on foot, Aurelius’s troopers did their best, but the engagement was more a debacle than a battle. Within half an hour hardly a Roman or an auxiliary was left alive, and Marcus Aurelius Scaurus was taken captive before he could fall on his sword.

Brought before Boiorix, Teutobod, and the rest of the fifty who had come to parley, Aurelius conducted himself superbly. His bearing was proud, his manner insufferably haughty; no indignity or pain they could inflict upon him bowed his head or caused him to flinch. So they put him in a wicker cage just large enough to hold him, and made him watch while they built a pyre of the hottest woods, and set fire to it, and let it burn. Aurelius watched, legs straight, no tremor in his hands, no fear on his face, not even clinging to the bars of his little prison. It being no part of their plan that Aurelius should die from inhaling smoke—or that he should die too quickly amid vast licks of flame—they waited until the pyre had died down, then winched the wicker cage over its very center, and roasted Aurelius alive. But he won, though it was a lonely victory. For he would not permit himself to writhe in agony, or cry out, or let his legs buckle under him. He died every inch the Roman nobleman, determined that his conduct would show them the real measure of Rome, make them take heed of a place which could produce men such as he, a Roman of the Romans.

For two days more the Germans lingered by the ruins of the Roman cavalry camp, then the move southward began again, with as little planning as before. When they came level with Caepio’s camp they just kept on walking south, thousands upon thousands upon thousands, until the terrified eyes of Caepio’s soldiers lost all hope of counting them, and some decided to abandon their armor and swim for the west bank of the river, and safety. But that was a last resort Caepio intended to keep exclusively for himself; he burned all but one of his small fleet of boats, posted a heavy guard all the way down the riverbank, and executed any men who tried to escape. Marooned in a vast sea of Germans, the fifty-five thousand soldiers and noncombatants in Caepio’s camp could do nothing but wait to see if the flood would pass them by unharmed.

By the sixth day of October, the German front ranks had reached the camp of Mallius Maximus, who preferred not to keep his army pent up within its walls. So he formed up his ten legions and marched them out onto the ground just to the north before the Germans, clearly visible, could surround his camp. He arrayed his troops across the flat groundbetween the riverbank and the first rise in the ground which heralded the tips of the tentacles of the Alps, even though their foothills were almost a hundred miles away to the east. The legions stood, all facing north, side by side for a distance of four miles, Mallius Maximus’s fourth mistake; not only could he easily be outflanked—since he possessed no cavalry to protect his exposed right—but his men were stretched too thin.

Not one word had come to him of conditions to the north, of Aurelius or of Caepio, and he had no one to disguise and send out into the German hordes, for all the available interpreters and scouts had been sent north with Aurelius. Therefore he could do nothing except wait for the Germans to arrive.

Logically his command position was atop the highest tower of his fortified camp wall, so there he positioned himself, with his personal staff mounted and ready to gallop his orders to the various legions; among his personal staff were his own two sons, and the youthful son of Metellus Numidicus Piggle-wiggle, the Piglet. Perhaps because Mallius Maximus deemed Quintus Poppaedius Silo’s legion of Marsi best disciplined and trained—or perhaps because he deemed its men more expendable than Romans, even Roman rabble—it stood furthest east of the line, on the Roman right, and devoid of any cavalry protection. Next to it was a legion recruited early in the year commanded by Marcus Livius Drusus, who had inherited Quintus Sertorius as his second-in-charge. Then came the Samnite auxiliaries, and next in line another Roman legion of early recruits; the closer the line got to the river, the more ill trained and inexperienced the legions became, and the more tribunes of the soldiers were there to stiffen them. Caepio Junior’s legion of completely raw troops was stationed along the riverbank, with Sextus Caesar, also commanding raw troops, next to him.

There seemed to be a slight element of plan about the German attack, which commenced two hours after dawn on the sixth day of October, more or less simultaneously upon Caepio’s camp and upon Mallius Maximus’s line of battle.

None of Caepio’s fifty-five thousand men survived when the Germans all around them simply turned inward on the three landward perimeters of the camp and spilled into it until the crush of men was so great the wounded were trampled underfoot along with the dead. Caepio himself didn’t wait. As soon as he saw that his soldiers had no hope of keeping the Germans out, he hustled himself down to the water, boarded his boat, and had his oarsmen make for the western bank of the Rhodanus at racing speed. A handful of his abandoned men tried to swim to safety, but there were so many Germans hacking and hewing that no Roman had the time or the space to shed his twenty-pound shirt of mail or even untie his helmet, so all those who attempted the swim drowned. Caepio and his boat crew were virtually the sole survivors.

Mallius Maximus did little better. Fighting valiantly against gargantuan odds, the Marsi perished almost to the last man, as did Drusus’s legion fighting next to the Marsi. Silo fell, wounded in the side, and Drusus was knocked senseless by a blow from the hilt of a German sword not long after his legion engaged; Quintus Sertorius tried to rally the men from horseback, but there was no holding the German attack. As fast as they were chopped down, fresh Germans sprang in to replace them, and the supply was endless. Sertorius fell too, wounded in the thigh at just the place where the great nerves to the lower leg were most vulnerable; that the spear shore through the nerves and stopped just short of the femoral artery was nothing more nor less than the fortunes of war.

The legions closest to the river turned and took to the water, most of them managing to doff their heavy gear before wading in, and so escape by swimming the Rhodanus to its far side. Caepio Junior was the first to yield to temptation, but Sextus Caesar was cut down by one of his own soldiers when he tried desperately to stop their retreat, and subsided into the melee with a mangled left hip.

In spite of Cotta’s protests, the six senators had been ferried across to the western bank before the battle began; Mallius Maximus had insisted that as civilian observers they should leave the field and observe from some place absolutely safe.

“If we go down, you must survive to bring the news to the Senate and People of Rome,” he said.

It was Roman policy to spare the lives of all they defeated, for able-bodied warriors fetched the highest prices as slaves destined for labor, be it in mines, on wharves, in quarries, on building projects. But neither Celts nor Germans spared the lives of the men they fought, preferring to enslave those who spoke their languages, and only in such numbers as their unstructured way of life demanded.

So when, after a brief inglorious hour of battle, the German host stood victorious on the field, its members passed among the thousands of Roman bodies and killed any they found still alive. Luckily this act wasn’t disciplined or concerted; had it been, not one of the twenty-four tribunes of the soldiers would have survived the battle of Arausio. Drusus lay so deeply unconscious he seemed dead to every German who looked him over, and all of Quintus Poppaedius Silo showing from beneath a pile of Marsic dead was so covered in blood he too went undiscovered. Unable to move because his leg was completely paralyzed, Quintus Sertorius shammed dead. And Sextus Caesar, entirely visible, labored so loudly for breath and was so blue in the face that no German who noticed him could be bothered dispatching a life so clearly ending of its own volition.

The two sons of Mallius Maximus perished as they galloped this way and that bearing their distracted father’s orders, but the son of Metellus Numidicus Piggle-wiggle, young Piglet, was made of sterner stuff; when he saw the inevitability of defeat, he hustled the nerveless Mallius Maximus and some half-dozen aides who stood with him across the top of the camp ramparts to the river’s edge, and there put them into a boat. Metellus Piglet’s actions were not entirely dictated by motives of self-preservation, for he had his share of courage; simply, he preferred to turn that courage in the direction of preserving the life of his commander.

*

It was all over by the fifth hour of the day. And then the Germans turned north again, and walked the thirty miles back to where their many thousands of wagons stood all around the camp of the dead Aurelius. In Mallius Maximus’s camp—and in Caepio’s—they had made a wonderful discovery: huge stores of wheat, plus other foodstuffs, and sufficient vehicles and mules and oxen to carry all of it away. Gold, money, clothing, even arms and armor didn’t attract them in the least. But Mallius Maximus’s and Caepio’s food was irresistible, so that they plundered the last rasher of bacon and the last pot of honey. And some hundreds of amphorae of wine.

One of the German interpreters, captured when Aurelius’s camp was overwhelmed and restored to the bosom of his Cimbri people, had not been back among his own kind more than a very few hours when he realized that he had been among the Romans far too long to have any love left for barbarian living. So when no one was looking, he stole a horse and headed south for Arausio town. His route passed well to the east of the river, for he had no wish to encounter the aftermath of the terrible Roman defeat, even by smelling its unburied corpses.

On the ninth day of October, three days after the battle, he walked his tired steed down the cobbled main street of the prosperous town, looking for someone to whom he could tell his news, but finding no one. The whole populace seemed to have fled before the advance of the Germans. And then at the far end of the main street he spied the villa of Arausio’s most important personage—a Roman citizen, of course—and there he discerned activity.

Arausio’s most important personage was a local Gaul named Marcus Antonius Meminius because he had been given the coveted citizenship by a Marcus Antonius, for his services to the army of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus seventeen years before. Exalted by this distinction and helped by the patronage of the Antonius family to gain trade concessions between Gaul-across-the-Alps and Roman Italy, Marcus Antonius Meminius had prospered exceedingly. Now the chief magistrate of the town, he had tried to persuade its people to stay in their houses at least long enough to see whether the battle being fought to the north went for or against Rome. Not succeeding, he had nonetheless elected to stay himself, merely acting prudently by sending his children off in the care of their pedagogue, burying his gold, and concealing the trapdoor to his wine cellar by moving a large stone slab across it. His wife announced that she preferred to stay with him than go with the children, and so the two of them, attended by a loyal handful of servants, had listened to the brief cacophony of anguish which had floated on the heavy air between Mallius Maximus’s camp and the town.

When no one came, Roman or German, Meminius had sent one of his slaves to find out what had happened, and was still reeling with the news when the first of the senior Roman officers to save their own skins came into town. They were Gnaeus Mallius Maximus and his handful of aides, behaving more like drugged animals on their way to ritual slaughter than high Roman military men; this impression of Meminius’s was heightened by the behavior of Metellus Numidicus’s son, who herded them with the sharpness and bite of a small dog. Meminius and his wife came out personally to lead the party into their villa, then gave them food and wine, and tried to obtain a coherent account of what had happened. But all their attempts failed; for the only rational one, young Metellus Piglet, had developed a speech impediment so bad he couldn’t get two words out, and Meminius and his wife had no Greek, and only the most basic Latin.

More dragged themselves in over the next two days, but pitifully few, and no ranker soldiers, though one centurion was able to say that there were some thousands of survivors on the west bank of the river, wandering dazed and leaderless. Caepio came in last of all, accompanied by his son, Caepio Junior, whom he had found on the western bank as he came down it toward Arausio. When Caepio learned that Mallius Maximus was sheltering inside Meminius’s house, he refused to stay, electing instead to press onward to Rome, and take his son with him. Meminius gave him two gigs harnessed to four-mule teams, and sent him on his way with food and drivers.

Bowed over with grief at the death of his sons, Mallius Maximus was unable until the third day to ask whereabouts the six senators were; until then Meminius hadn’t even known of them, but when Mallius Maximus pressed for a search party to find them, Meminius demurred, afraid that the Germans were still in possession of the field of battle, and more concerned with making sure that he and his wife and all his shocked guests were readied for a quick flight to safety.

Such was the situation when the German interpreter rode into Arausio and located Meminius. It was immediately clear to Meminius that the man was big with news of some kind, but unfortunately neither of them could understand the other’s Latin, and it did not occur to Meminius to ask Mallius Maximus to see the man. Instead, he gave him shelter, and told him to wait until someone came with both the language and the state of mind to interview him.

*

Under Cotta’s leadership, the missing senatorial embassage had ventured back across the river in their boat the moment the Germans turned back into the north, and began to search that awful carnage for survivors. With their lictors and servants counted in, they numbered twenty-nine all told, and labored without regard for their safety should the Germans return. As the time passed, no one came to help them.

Drusus had come to his senses with darkness, lain half-conscious through the night, and with the dawn recovered enough to crawl in search of water, his only thought; the river was three miles away, the camp almost as far, so he struck off to the east, hoping to find a stream where the ground began to rise. Not more than a few feet away he found Quintus Sertorius, who flapped a hand at sight of him.

“Can’t move”,” said Sertorius, licking cracked lips. “Leg dead. Waiting for someone. Thought it would be German.”

“Thirsty,” croaked Drusus. “Find water, then be back.”

The dead were everywhere, acres upon acres of them, but they chiefly lay behind the route of Drusus’s unsteady walk in search of water, for he had fallen in the true front line at the very beginning of the battle, and the Romans had not advanced an inch, only fallen back and back and back. Like himself, Sertorius had remained in the front line; had he lain among the tumbled heaps and mounds of Roman dead scant feet to his rear, Drusus would never have seen him.

His heavy Attic helmet gone, Drusus was bareheaded; a little puff of wind came and blew one single strand of hair across the great lump above his right eye, and so swollen, so stretched was the skin and tissue beneath, so bloodied the frontal bone, that the touch of that single strand of hair brought Drusus to his knees in agony.

But the will to live is very strong. Drusus climbed sobbing to his feet and continued his walk east, and even remembered that he had nothing in which to carry water, and that there would be some like Sertorius in sore need of water. Groaning with the immensity of the pain produced by bending over, he pulled the helmets off two dead Marsic soldiers and walked on, carrying the helmets by their chin straps.

And there among the field of Marsic dead stood a little water donkey, blinking its gentle, long-lashed eyes at the carnage, but unable to move away because its halter was wound round and round the arm of a man buried beneath other corpses. It had tried to tug itself free, but only succeeded in tightening the rope until tubes of blackening flesh protruded between the coils. Still wearing his dagger, Drusus cut the rope where it entered the lifeless arm and tied it to his sword belt, so that if he fainted the donkey would not be able to get away. But at the moment he found it, it was very glad to see a living man, and stood patiently while Drusus slaked his thirst, then was quite happy to follow wherever Drusus led.

On the outskirts of the huge confusion of bodies around the water donkey were two moving legs; amid renewed groans from Drusus that the donkey echoed sadly, Drusus managed to shove sufficient of the dead aside to uncover a Marsic officer who was still very much alive. His bronze cuirass was stove in along its right side just below and in front of the man’s right arm, and a hole in the middle of the great dent oozed pink fluid rather than blood.

Working as delicately as he could, Drusus got the officer out of the press of bodies onto a patch of trampled grass and began to unbuckle the cuirass where its front and back plates met along the left side. The officer’s eyes were closed, hut a pulse in his neck was beating strongly, and when Drusus pried the shell of the cuirass off the chest and abdomen it had been designed to protect, he cried out sharply.

Then, “Go easy!” said an irritable voice in purest Latin.

Drusus stopped for a moment, then resumed unbuckling the leather underdress. “Lie still, you fool!” he said. “I’m only trying to help. Want some water first?”

“Water,” echoed the Marsic officer.

Drusus fed it to him out of a helmet, and was rewarded with the unshuttering of two yellow-green eyes, a sight that reminded him of snakes; the Marsi were snake worshipers, and danced with them, and charmed them, and even kissed them tongue to tongue. Easy to believe, looking at those eyes.

“Quintus Poppaedius Silo,” the Marsic officer said. “Some irrumator about eight feet tall caught me on the hop.’’ He closed his eyes; two tears rolled down his bloodied cheeks. “My men—they’re all dead, aren’t they?”

“Afraid so,” said Drusus gently. “Along with mine— and everybody else’s, it seems. My name is Marcus Livius Drusus. Now hold on, I’m going to lift your jerkin off.”

The wound had stanched itself, thanks to the woolen tunic the force of the German long-sword had pushed into its narrow mouth; Drusus could feel broken pieces of ribs moving under his hands, but cuirass, leather jerkin, and ribs had managed to prevent the blade invading the interior of chest and belly.

“You’ll live,” said Drusus. “Can you get up if I help you? I have a comrade back in my own legion who needs me. So it’s either stay here and make your own way to me when you can, or come with me now on your own two feet.” Another lone strand of hair blew across his pulped right forehead, and he screamed with the pain of it.

Quintus Poppaedius Silo considered the situation. “You’ll never cope with me in your state,” he said. “See if you can give me my dagger, I’m going to cut a bit off the bottom of my tunic and use it to bind this gash. Can’t afford to start bleeding again in this Tartarus.”

Drusus gave him the dagger and moved off with his donkey.

“Where will I find you?” Silo asked.

“Over yonder, next legion down,” said Drusus.

Sertorius was still conscious. He drank gratefully, then managed to sit up. His wound was actually the worst of the three of them, and clearly he could not be moved until Drusus got help from Silo. So for the time being Drusus sank down next to Sertorius and rested, moving only when Silo appeared an hour later. The sun was getting up into the sky, and it was growing hot.

“The two of us will have to move Quintus Sertorius far enough away from the dead to give his leg less chance of being infected,” said Silo. “Then I suggest we rig up some sort of shade shelter for him, and see if there’s anyone else alive out here.”

All this was done with frustrating slowness and too much pain, but eventually Sertorius was made as comfortable as possible, and Drusus and Silo set off on their quest. They hadn’t gone very far when Drusus became nauseated, and sank down in a retching huddle on the battered dusty ground, each convulsion of diaphragm and stomach coming amid frantic screams of agony. In little better case, Silo subsided near him, and the donkey, still tethered to Drusus’s belt, waited patiently.

Then Silo rolled over and inspected Drusus’s head. He grunted. “If you can stand it, Marcus Livius, I think your pain might be much less if I broke open that lump with my knife and let some of the fluid out. Are you game?”

“I’d brave the hydra-headed monster if I thought it might fix me up!” gasped Drusus.

Before he applied the tip of his dagger to the lump, Silo muttered some charm or incantation in an ancient tongue Drusus could not identify; not Oscan, for that he understood well. A snake spell, that’s what he’s whispering, thought Drusus, and felt oddly comforted. The pain was blinding. Drusus fainted. And while he was unconscious Silo squeezed as much of the dammed-up blood and fluid out of the lump as he could, mopping up the mess with a chunk he tore off Drusus’s tunic, and then helping himself to another chunk as Drusus stirred, came around.

“Feel any better?” asked Silo.

“Much,” said Drusus.

“If I bind it, you’ll only hurt more, so here, use this to mop up the muck when it blinds you. Sooner or later it will stop draining.” Silo glanced up into the pitiless sun. “We’ve got to move into some shade, or we won’t last— and that means young Sertorius won’t last either,” he said, getting to his feet.

The closer they staggered to the river, the more signs that men lived among the carnage began to appear; faint cries for help, movements, moans.

“This is an offense against the gods,” said Silo grimly. “No battle was ever worse planned. We were executed! I curse Gnaeus Mallius Maximus! May the great light-bearing Snake wrap himself around Gnaeus Mallius Maximus’s dreams!”

“I agree, it was a fiasco, and we were no better generaled than Cassius’s men at Burdigala. But the blame has to be apportioned fairly, Quintus Poppaedius. If Gnaeus Mallius is guilty, how much more so is Quintus Servilius Caepio?” Oh, how that hurt to say! His wife’s father, no less.

“Caepio? What did he have to do with it?” asked Silo.

The head wound was feeling much better; Drusus found he could turn to look at Silo easily. “Don’t you know?” he asked.

“What does any Italian ever know about Roman command decisions?” Silo spat derisively on the ground. “We Italians are just here to fight. We don’t get a say in how we are to fight, Marcus Livius.”

“Well, since the day he arrived here from Narbo, Quintus Servilius has refused to work with Gnaeus Mallius.” Drusus shivered. “He wouldn’t take orders from a New Man.”

Silo stared at Drusus; yellow-green eyes fixed on black eyes. “You mean Gnaeus Mallius wanted Quintus Servilius here in this camp?”

“Of course he did! So did the six senators from Rome. But Quintus Servilius wouldn’t serve under a New Man.”

“You’re saying it was Quintus Servilius who kept the two armies separate?” Silo couldn’t seem to believe what he was hearing.

“Yes, it was Quintus Servilius.” It had to be said. “He is my father-in-law, I am married to his only daughter. How can I bear it? His son is my best friend, and married to my sister—fighting here today with Gnaeus Mallius—dead, I suppose.” The fluid Drusus mopped from his face was mostly tears. “Pride, Quintus Poppaedius! Stupid, useless pride!’’

Silo had stopped walking. “Six thousand soldiers of the Marsi and two thousand Marsic servants died here yesterday—now you tell me it was because some overbred Roman idiot bore a grudge against some underbred Roman idiot?” The breath hissed between Silo’s teeth, he shook with rage. “May the great light-bearing Snake have them both!”

“Some of your men may be alive,” said Drusus, not to excuse his superiors, but in an effort to comfort this man, whom he knew he liked enormously. And he was awash in pain, pain that had nothing to do with any physical wound, pain all bound up in a terrible grief. He—Marcus Livius Drusus—who had not known any of life’s realities until now—wept for shame at the thought of a Rome led by men who could cause so much pain all for the sake of a class-conscious quarrel.

“No, they’re dead,” said Silo. “Why do you think it took me so long to join you where Quintus Sertorius lay? I went among them looking. Dead. All dead!”

“And mine,” said Drusus, weeping still. “We took the brunt of it on the right, and not a cavalry trooper to be seen.”

It was shortly after that they saw the senatorial party in the distance, and called for help.

*

Marcus Aurelius Cotta brought the tribunes of the soldiers into Arausio himself, plodding the five miles behind oxen because the pace and the kind of cart made it an easier journey; his fellows he left trying to organize some kind of order out of the chaos. Marcus Antonius Meminius had managed to persuade some of the local Gallic tribesmen who lived on farmsteads around Arausio to go out to the battlefield and do what they could to help.

“But,” said Cotta to Meminius when he arrived at the local magistrate’s villa, “this is the evening of the third day, and somehow we have to dispose of the dead.”

“The townspeople are gone, and the farmers convinced the Germans will be back—you’ve no idea how hard I had to talk to get anyone to go out there and help you,” said Meminius.

“I don’t know where the Germans are,” said Cotta, “and I can’t work out why they headed back into the north. But so far, I haven’t seen a sign of them. Unfortunately I don’t have anyone to send out to scout, the battlefield is more important.”

“Oh!” Meminius clapped his hand to his brow. “A fellow came in about four hours ago, and from what I can gather—I can’t understand him—he’s one of the German interpreters who were attached to the cavalry camp. He has Latin, but his accent is too thick for me. Would you talk to him? He might be willing to scout for you.”

So Cotta sent for the German, and what he learned changed everything.

“There has been a terrible quarrel, the council of thanes is split, and the three peoples have gone their separate ways,” the man said.

“A quarrel among the thanes, you mean?” asked Cotta.

“Well, between Teutobod of the Teutones and Boiorix of the Cimbri, at least in the beginning,” said the interpreter. “The warriors went back to get the wagons started, and the council met to divide the spoils. There was much wine taken from the three camps of the Romans, and the council drank it. Then Teutobod said he had had a dream while he rode back to the wagons of his people, and was visited by the great god Ziu, and Ziu told him that if his people kept marching south into the Roman lands, the Romans would inflict a defeat upon them that would see all the warriors, the women, and the children slain or sold into slavery. So Teutobod said he was going to take the Teutones to Spain through the lands of the Gauls, not the lands of the Romans. But Boiorix took great exception to this, accused Teutobod of cowardice, and announced that the Cimbri would go south through the Roman lands, no matter what the Teutones did.’’

“Are you sure of all this?” Cotta asked, hardly able to believe it. “How do you know? From hearsay? Or were you there?”

“I was there, dominus.”

“Why were you there? How were you there?”

“I was waiting to be taken to the Cimbri wagons, since I am Cimbric. And they were all very drunk, so no one noticed me. I found I did not want to be a German anymore, so I thought I would learn what I could, and escape.”

“Go on, then, man!” said Cotta eagerly.

“Well, the rest of the thanes joined in the argument, and then Getorix, who leads the Marcomanni and Cherusci and Tigurini, proposed that the matter be settled by remaining among the Aedui and Ambarri. But no one except his own people wanted to do that. The Teutonic thanes sided with Teutobod, and the Cimbric thanes with Boiorix. So the council ended yesterday with the three peoples all wanting different things. Teutobod has ordered the Teutones to travel into far Gaul, and make their way to Spain through the lands of the Cardurci and Petrocorii. Getorix and his people are going to stay among the Aedui and Ambarri. And Boiorix is going to lead the Cimbri to the other side of the great river Rhodanus, and travel to Spain along the outskirts of the Roman lands, rather than through them.”

“So that’s why there’s been no sign of them!” said Cotta.

“Yes, dominus. They will not be coming south through the Roman lands,” said the German.

Back went Cotta to Marcus Antonius Meminius, and told him the news, smiling broadly.

“Spread the word, Marcus Meminius, and as quickly as possible! For you must get all those bodies burned, otherwise your ground and your water will be contaminated, and disease will do more damage to the people of Arausio than the Germans could,” said Cotta. He frowned, chewed his lip. “Where is Quintus Servilius Caepio?”

“Already on his way to Rome, Marcus Aurelius.”

“What?”

“He left with his son to bring the news to Rome as quickly as he could,” said Meminius, puzzled.

“Oh, I’ll just bet he did!” said Cotta grimly. “Is he going by road?”

“Of course, Marcus Aurelius. I gave him four-mule gigs out of my own stables.”

Cotta stood up, bone tired but filled with new vigor. “I will bring the news of Arausio to Rome,” he said. “If I have to grow wings and fly, I’ll beat Quintus Servilius, I swear it! Marcus Meminius, give me the best horse you can find. I start for Massilia at the crack of dawn.”

He rode at the gallop for Massilia, unescorted, commandeered a fresh horse in Glanum, and another in Aquae Sextiae, and got to Massilia seven hours after leaving Arausio. The great seaport founded by the Greeks centuries before had heard not one word about the great battle fought four days earlier; Cotta found the city—so sleek and Greek, sowhite and bright — in a fever of apprehension at the coming of the Germans.

The house of the ethnarch pointed out to him, Cotta walked in with all the arrogance and haste of a Roman curule magistrate on urgent business. As Massilia enjoyed ties of friendship with Rome without submitting to Roman rule, Cotta could have been politely shown the door. But of course he was not. Especially after the ethnarch and a few of his councillors living close by had heard what Cotta had to say.

“I want the fastest ship you’ve got, and the best sailors and oarsmen in Massilia,” he said. “There’s no cargo to slow the ship down, so I’ll carry two spare teams of oarsmen in case we have to row against the wind and into a head sea. Because I swear to you, Ethnarch Aristides, that I will be in Rome in three days, if it means rowing the whole way! We’re not going to hug the coast — we’re going. in as straight a line for Ostia as the best navigator in Massilia can sail. When’s the next tide?”

“You will have your ship and your crew by dawn , Marcus Aurelius, and that happens to coincide with the tide,” said the ethnarch gently. He coughed with great delicacy. “Who will be paying?”

Typical Massiliote Greek, thought Cotta, but didn’t say so aloud. “Write me out a bill,” he said. “The Senate and People of Rome will be paying.”

The bill was written at once; Cotta looked down at the outrageous price and grunted. “It’s a tragedy,” he said to Ethnarch Aristides, “when bad news costs enough to fight another war against the Germans. I don’t suppose you’d lop a few drachmae off?”

“I agree, it is a tragedy,” said the ethnarch smoothly. “However, business is business. The price stands, Marcus Aurelius. Take it or leave it.”

“I’ll take it,” said Cotta.

*

Caepio and his son didn’t bother to take the detour a visit to Massilia would have meant for a road traveler. No one knew better than Caepio — veteran of a year in Narbo and a year in Spain when he had been praetor — that the winds always blew the wrong way across the Sinus Gallicus. He would take the Via Domitia up the valley of the Druentia River, cross into Italian Gaul through the Mons Genava Pass, and hurry as fast as he could down the Via Aemilia and the Via Flaminia. Hopefully he could average seventy miles a day if he managed to commandeer decent animals often enough, and he expected his proconsular imperium to do that for him. It did; as the miles flew by Caepio began to feel confident that he would beat even the senatorial courier to Rome. So rapid had his crossing of the Alps been that the Vocontii, always on the lookout for vulnerable Roman travelers on the Via Domitia, were unable to organize an attack on the two galloping gigs.

By the time he reached Ariminum and the end of the Via Aemilia, Caepio knew he would make it from Arausio to Rome in seven days, assisted by good roads and plenty of fresh mules. He began to relax. Exhausted he might be, a headache of huge proportions he might have, but his version of what had happened at Arausio would be the first version Rome heard, and that was nine tenths of the battle. When Fanum Fortunae appeared and the gigs turned onto the Via Flaminia for the crossing of the Apennines and the descent into the Tiber Valley, Caepio knew he had won. His was the version of Arausio Rome would believe.

But Fortune had a greater favorite; Marcus Aurelius Cotta sailed the Sinus Gallicus from Massilia to Ostia in winds that veered between perfect and nonexistent, a better passage by far than could have been predicted. When the wind dropped, the professional oarsmen took their places in the outriggers, the hortator started to mark the stroke on his drum, and thirty muscled backs bent to the task. It was a small ship, built for speed rather than cargo, and looked suspiciously like a Massiliote fighting ship to Cotta, though the Massiliotes were not supposed to have any without Roman approval. Its two banks of oars, fifteen to a side, were housed in outriggers surmounted by decks that could easily have been fenced with a row of good stout shields and turned into fighting platforms in the twinkling of an eye, and the crane rigged on the afterdeck seemed rather haphazard in construction; perhaps, thought Cotta, a hefty catapult normally sits there. Piracy was a profitable industry, and rife from one end of the Middle Sea to the other.

However, he was not the man to question a gift from Fortune, so Cotta nodded blandly when the captain explained that he specialized in passengers, and that the outrigger decks were a nice place for the passengers to stretch their legs, since cabin accommodation was a bit primitive. Before they sailed Cotta had been persuaded by the captain that two extra teams of oarsmen were excessive, for his men were the best in the business and would keep up a top pace with only one extra team. Now Cotta was glad he had agreed, for they were the lighter in weight because they carried fewer men, and the wind provided enough puff to rest both teams of rowers just when it looked as if exhaustion was going to set in.

The ship had sailed out of Massilia’s magnificent harbor at dawn on the eleventh day of October, and came to anchor in Ostia’s dismally poor harbor at dawn on the day before the Ides, exactly three days later. And three hours later Cotta walked into the consul Publius Rutilius Rufus’s house, scattering clients before him like hens before a fox.

“Out!” he said to the client seated in the chair at Rutilius Rufus’s desk, and threw himself wearily into the chair as the startled client scuttled to the door.

*

By noon the Senate had been summoned to an emergency meeting in the Curia Hostilia; Caepio and his son were at that same moment trotting briskly down the last stretch of the Via Aemilia.

“Leave the doors open,” said Publius Rutilius Rufus to the chief clerk. “This is one meeting the People must hear. And I want it taken down verbatim and transcribed for the records.”

Given the short notice, it was a fairly full House; for in the unfathomable way that news has of percolating ahead of official dissemination, the rumor was already spreading through the city that there had been a great disaster against the Germans in Gaul. The well of the Comitia near the foot of the Curia Hostilia steps was rapidly filling with people; so were the steps and all the level spaces nearby.

Fully privy to Caepio’s letters protesting against Mallius Maximus as well as demanding the supreme authority, and fearing a fresh round of arguments, the Conscript Fathers were edgy. Not having heard in weeks from Caepio, the doughty Marcus Aemilius Scaurus was at a disadvantage, and knew it. So when the consul Rutilius Rufus commanded that the House doors remain open, Scaurus made no move to insist they be closed. Nor did Metellus Numidicus. All eyes were riveted on Cotta, given a chair in the front row in close proximity to the dais on which stood his brother-in-law Rutilius Rufus’s ivory chair.

“Marcus Aurelius Cotta arrived in Ostia this morning,” Rutilius Rufus said. “Three days ago he was in Massilia, and the day before that, he was in Arausio, near which our armies stationed themselves. I call upon Marcus Aurelius Cotta to speak, and give the House notice that this meeting is being transcribed verbatim for the records.”

Of course Cotta had bathed and changed, but there could be no mistaking the grey tinge of fatigue in his normally highly colored face, and every line of his body as he got to his feet indicated the immensity of that fatigue.

“On the day before the Nones of October, Conscript Fathers, a battle was fought at Arausio,” said Cotta, not needing to project his voice, for the House was utterly still. “The Germans annihilated us. Eighty thousand of our soldiers are dead.”

No one exclaimed, no one murmured, no one moved; the House sat in a silence as profound as that inside the Sibyl’s cave at Cumae. “When I say eighty thousand soldiers, I mean just that. The noncombatant dead number some twenty-four thousand more. And the cavalry dead are separate again.”

His voice expressionlessly level, Cotta went on to tell the senators exactly what had happened from the time he and his five companions arrived at Arausio—the fruitless dickering with Caepio; the atmosphere of confusion and unrest Caepio’s flouting of orders created within Mallius Maximus’s chain of command, some of whom sided with Caepio, like Caepio’s son; the stranding of the consular Aurelius and the cavalry too far away to act as part of a military machine. “Five thousand troopers, all their noncombatants, and every single animal in Aurelius’s camp perished. The legate Marcus Aurelius Scaurus was taken prisoner by the Germans and used as a deliberate example. They burned him alive, Conscript Fathers. He died, I was told by a witness, with extreme courage and bravery.”

There were ashen faces among the senators now, for most had sons or brothers or nephews or cousins in one or the other of the armies; men wept silently, heads muffled in their togas, or sat forward, faces hidden in their hands. Scaurus Princeps Senatus alone remained erect, two fierce spots of color in his cheeks, mouth a hard line.

“All of you here today must take a part of the blame,” said Cotta. “Your delegation did not contain one consular, and I—a mere ex-praetor!—was the only curule magistrate among the six. With the result that Quintus Servilius Caepio refused to speak with us as his equals in birth or seniority. Or even experience. Instead, he took our insignificance, our lack of clout, as a message from the Senate that it was behind him in his stand against Gnaeus Mallius Maximus. And he was right to do so, Conscript Fathers! If you had seriously intended to see that Quintus Servilius obeyed the law by subordinating himself to the consul of the year, you would have stuffed your delegation with consulars! But you did not. You deliberately sent five pedarii and one ex-praetor to deal with one of the House’s most obdurately elitist, most senior members!’’

Not a head came up; more and more were now shrouded in folds of toga. But Scaurus Princeps Senatus continued to sit bolt upright, his blazing eyes never leaving Cotta’s face.

“The rift between Quintus Servilius Caepio and Gnaeus Mallius Maximus prevented the amalgamation of their forces. Instead of a tightly bound single army comprising no less than seventeen legions and over five thousand horse, Rome fielded two armies twenty miles apart, with the smaller one closer to the German advance, and the body of cavalry separate again. Quintus Servilius Caepio personally told me that he would not share his triumph with Gnaeus Mallius Maximus, and so had deliberately put his army too far north of Gnaeus Mallius’s to allow it any participation in his battle.”

Cotta drew in a rasping breath which sounded so loud in the silence that Rutilius Rufus jumped. Scaurus did not. Beside Scaurus, Metellus Numidicus poked his head slowly out of his toga, straightened to reveal a stony face.

“Even leaving aside the disastrous rift between them, the truth is, Conscript Fathers, that neither Quintus Servilius nor Gnaeus Mallius had sufficient military talent to win against the Germans! However, of the two commanders, it is Quintus Servilius who must take the brunt of the blame. For not only was he as poor a general as Gnaeus Mallius, but he flouted the law as well. He put himself above the law, he deemed the law a device for lesser mortals than himself! A true Roman, Marcus Aemilius Scaurus Princeps Senatus”—this was said directly to the Leader of the House, who didn’t move—”holds the law paramount, knowing that under the law there is no true social distinction, only a system of checks and balances we have deliberately designed to ensure that no man can consider himself above his peers. Quintus Servilius Caepio behaved like the First Man in Rome. But under the law, there cannot be a First Man in Rome! So I say to you that Quintus Servilius broke the law, where Gnaeus Mallius was simply an inadequate general.”

The stillness and the silence continued; Cotta sighed. “Arausio is a worse disaster than Cannae, my fellow senators. The flower of our men is perished. I know, for I was there. Perhaps thirteen thousand soldiers survived, and they—the greenest troops of all—fled without any order to retreat, leaving their arms and armor behind on the field, and swimming the Rhodanus to safety. They are still wandering unmustered to the west of the river somewhere, and, from some reports I have had, are so frightened of the Germans that they intend to go to earth rather than run the risk of being collected and put back into a Roman army. When he tried to stop this rout, the tribune Sextus Julius Caesar was cut down by his own soldiers. I am pleased to say he lives, for I found him on the field myself, left for dead by the Germans. I and my companions—twenty-nine, all told—were the only people available to succor the wounded, and for nearly three days no others came to help. Though the vast majority of those left lying on the field were dead, there can be no doubt that some died who might not have died were there people on hand to give them aid after the battle.”

In spite of iron control, Metellus Numidicus moved, his hand going out in dreadful query. Cotta caught the gesture, and looked at Gaius Marius’s enemy, who was his own friend; for Cotta had no love to lay on Gaius Marius’s altar.

“Your son, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Numidicus, survived unharmed, but not as a coward. He rescued the consul Gnaeus Mallius and some of his personal staff. However, both the sons of Gnaeus Mallius were killed. Of the twenty-four elected tribunes of the soldiers, only three survived— Marcus Livius Drusus, Sextus Julius Caesar, and Quintus Servilius Caepio Junior. Marcus Livius and Sextus Julius were severely wounded. Quintus Servilius Junior—who commanded the greenest legion of troops, closest to the river—survived unharmed by swimming to safety, in what circumstances of personal integrity I do not know.”

Cotta paused to clear his throat, wondering if the vast relief in Metellus Numidicus’s eyes was mostly for the simple survival of his son, or for the news that his son had been no coward. “But these casualty figures pale when compared to the fact that not one centurion of any experience in either army is now alive. Rome is officerless, Conscript Fathers! And the great army of Gaul-across-the-Alps no longer exists.” He waited for a moment, then added, “It never did exist, thanks to Quintus Servilius Caepio.”

Outside the great bronze doors of the Curia Hostilia the news was being disseminated by those close enough to hear to those too far-away to hear, an ever-widening audience that was still gathering, now spreading up the Argiletum and the Clivus Argentarius, and across the lower Forum Romanum behind the well of the Comitia. The crowds were immense. But they were quiet crowds. The only sounds were the sounds of tears. Rome had lost the crucial battle. And Italy was open to the Germans.

Before Cotta could sit down, Scaurus spoke.

“And where are the Germans now, Marcus Aurelius? How much farther south of Arausio were they when you left to bring us the news? And how much farther south might they be now, this very moment?” he asked.

“I honestly do not know, Princeps Senatus. For when the battle was over—and it only took about an hour—the Germans turned back into the north, apparently to fetch their wagons and women and children, left just to the north of the cavalry camp. But when I departed, they had not come back. And I interviewed a German man whom Marcus Aurelius Scaurus had employed as one of his interpreters when the German chiefs came to parley. This man was captured, recognized as a German, and so was not harmed. According to him, the Germans quarreled, and have—for the moment, anyway—split up into three separate groups. It seems none of the three groups is confident enough to press on alone south into our territory. So they are going to Spain by various routes through Long-haired Gaul. But the quarrel was induced by Roman wine taken as part of the spoils. How long the rift will persist, no one can predict. Nor can I be sure that the man I interviewed was telling all the truth. Or even part of the truth, for that matter. He says he escaped and came back because he doesn’t want to live as a German anymore. But it may be that he was sent back by the Germans to lull our fears and make us even easier prey. All I can tell you for certain is that when I left, there was no sign of a southward German movement,” said Cotta, and sat down.

Rutilius Rufus rose to his feet. “This is not the occasion for a debate, Conscript Fathers. Nor is it an occasion for recriminations, yet more quarrels. Today is an occasion for action.”

“Hear, hear!” said a voice from the back.

“Tomorrow is the Ides of October,” Rutilius Rufus went on. “That means the campaign season is just about over. But we have very little time left to us if we are to prevent the Germans invading Italy anytime they feel like doing so. I have formulated a plan of action which I intend to present to you now, but first I am going to give you a solemn warning. At the slightest sign of argument, dissension, or any other conceivable polarization of this House, I will take my plan to the People and have it approved in the Plebeian Assembly. Thereby depriving you, Conscript Fathers, of your prerogative to take the lead in all matters pertaining to the defense of Rome. The conduct of Quintus Servilius Caepio points up the greatest weakness of our senatorial order—namely, its unwillingness to admit that Chance and Fortune and Luck occasionally combine to throw up men from the lower ranks with far greater abilities than all of us who regard ourselves as entitled by birth and tradition to govern the People of Rome—and command Rome’s armies.”

He had turned his person and pitched his voice toward the open doors, and the great high sound of it floated out into the air above the Comitia.

“We are going to need every able-bodied man in all of Italy, so much is sure. From the Head Count clear through the orders and classes to the Senate, every able-bodied man! I therefore require a decree from you directing the Plebs to enact a law immediately forbidding any man between the ages of seventeen and thirty-five—any man, be he Roman or Latin or Italian—to leave the shores of Italy, or cross the Arnus or the Rubico into Italian Gaul. By tomorrow I want couriers riding at the gallop to every port in our peninsula with orders that no ship or boat is to accept an able-bodied free man as crew or passenger. The penalty will be death, both for the man trying to avoid military service and the man accepting him.”

No one in the House said a word—not Scaurus Princeps Senatus, not Metellus Numidicus, not Metellus Dalmaticus Pontifex Maximus, not Ahenobarbus Senior, not Catulus Caesar, not Scipio Nasica. Good, thought Rutilius Rufus. They’ll not oppose that law, anyway.

“All available personnel will be set to recruiting soldiers of any class from Head Count to Senate. And that means, Conscript Fathers, that those among you aged thirty-five or younger will automatically be inducted into the legions, no matter how many campaigns you have served in previously. We will get soldiers if we enforce this law rigorously. However, I very much fear we won’t get enough. Quintus Servilius cleaned out the last pockets of those throughout Italy owning property, and Gnaeus Mallius took almost seventy thousand men of the Head Count, either as soldiers or as noncombatants.

“So we must look to what other armies we have available. In Macedonia: two legions only, both of auxiliaries, which cannot possibly be spared duty there. In Spain: two legions in the further province, and one in the nearer province— two of these legions are Roman, one auxiliary—and not only will they have to stay in Spain, but they must be heavily reinforced, for the Germans say they intend to invade Spain.” He paused.

And Scaurus Princeps Senatus came to life at last. “Get on with it, Publius Rutilius!” he said testily. “Get to Africa—and Gaius Marius!”

Rutilius Rufus blinked, feigning surprise. “Why, thank you, Princeps Senatus, thank you! If you hadn’t mentioned it, I might have forgotten! Oh, truly are you called the watchdog of the Senate! What would we do without you?”

“Spare me the sarcasm, Publius Rutilius!” Scaurus snarled. “Just get on with it!”

“Certainly! There are three aspects of Africa which I think must be mentioned. The first is a war successfully concluded—an enemy completely rolled up, an enemy king and his family at this very moment waiting for retribution right here in Rome, as houseguests of our noble Quintus Caecilius Metellus Piggle-wiggle—oooops, I do beg your pardon, Quintus Caecilius!—Numidicus, I mean!—well, here in Rome, certainly.

“The second aspect,’’ he went on, “is an army six legions strong—composed of the Head Count, admittedly!—but superbly well trained, and valiant, and brilliantly officered from the most junior centurion and cadet-tribune clear through to its legates. With it is a cavalry force two thousand strong, of equally experienced and valorous men.”

Rutilius Rufus stopped, rocked on his heels, grinned all around him wolfishly. “The third aspect, Conscript Fathers, is a man. One single man. I refer of course to the proconsul Gaius Marius, commander-in-chief of the African army, and sole engineer of a victory so complete it ranks with the victories of Scipio Aemilianus. Numidia will not rise again. The threat in Africa to Rome’s citizens, property, province, and grain supply is now nonexistent. In fact, Gaius Marius is bequeathing us an Africa so subjugated and pacified that it is not even necessary to put a garrison legion there.”

He left the dais on which stood the curule chairs, stepped down onto the black-and-white flagging of the ancient floor, and walked toward the doors, standing so that the main volume of his voice went outside into the Forum.

“Rome’s need for a general is even greater than her need for soldiers or centurions. As Gaius Marius once said in this very House, thousands upon thousands of Rome’s soldiers have perished in the few years since the death of Gaius Gracchus—due solely to the incompetence of the men who led them and their centurions! And at the time Gaius Marius spoke, Italy was still the richer by a hundred thousand men than Italy is right at this moment. But how many soldiers, centurions, and noncombatants has Gaius Marius himself lost? Why, Conscript Fathers, virtually none! Three years ago he took six legions with him to Africa, and he still has those legions alive and well. Six veteran legions, six legions with centurions’.”

He paused, then roared at the top of his voice, “Gaius Marius is the answer to Rome’s need for an army—and a competent general!”

His small spare figure showed briefly against the press of listeners outside on the porch when he turned to walk back up the length of the House to his dais. There he stopped.

“You have heard Marcus Aurelius Cotta say that there has been a quarrel among the Germans, and that at the moment they seem to have abandoned their intention of migrating through our province of Gaul-across-the-Alps. But we cannot possibly let ourselves relax because of this report. We must be skeptical of it, not emboldened by it to indulge in further stupidity. However, one fact seems fairly sure. That we do have the coming winter to prepare. And the first phase of preparation must be to appoint Gaius Marius proconsul in Gaul, with an imperium that cannot be rescinded until the Germans are beaten.”

There was a general murmur, a harbinger of coming protest. Then came the voice of Metellus Numidicus.

“Give Gaius Marius the governorship of Gaul-across-the-Alps with a proconsular imperium for anything up to year*?” he asked incredulously. “Over my dead body!”

Rutilius Rufus stamped his foot, shook his fist. “Oh, ye gods, there you go!” he cried. “Quintus Caecilius, Quintus Caecilius, do you not yet understand the magnitude of our plight? We need a general of Gaius Marius’s caliber!”

“We need his troops,” said Scaurus Princeps Senatus loudly. “We do not need Gaius Marius! There are others here as good.”

“Meaning your friend Quintus Caecilius Piggle-wiggle, Marcus Aemilius?” Rutilius Rufus blew a rude noise. “Rubbish! For two years Quintus Caecilius fiddled about in Africa—I know, because I was there! I worked with Quintus Caecilius, and Piggle-wiggle is an apt name for that gentleman, because he’s as turgidly calculating as any woman’s piggle-wiggle! I have also worked with Gaius Marius. And perhaps it is not too much to hope that some of the members of this House remember about me that I am no mean Military Man myself! I should have been given the command in Gaul-across-the-Alps, not Gnaeus Maximus! But that is past, and 1 do not have the time to waste in recriminations.

“I say to you now, Conscript Fathers, that Rome’s plight is too huge and urgent to pander to a few individuals at the top of our noble tree! I say to you now, Conscript Fathers— all you who sit on the middle tiers of both sides of the House, and all you who sit on the back tiers of both sides of this House!—that there is only one man with the ability to lead us out of our peril! And that one man is Gaius Marius! What matter, that he isn’t in the studbook? What matter, that he isn’t a Roman of Rome? Quintus Servilius Caepio is a Roman of Rome, and look where he’s put us! Do you know where he’s put us? Right in the middle of the shit!”

Rutilius Rufus was roaring, angry and afraid, sure now that they wouldn’t see the reason of his proposal. “Honorable members of this House—Good Men all—fellow senators! I beseech you to put aside your prejudices just this once! We must give Gaius Marius proconsular power in Gaul-across-the-Alps for however long it is going to take to shove the Germans back to Germania!”

And this last passionate plea worked. He had them. Scaurus knew it; Metellus Numidicus knew it.

The praetor Manius Aquillius rose to his feet; a man noble enough, but coming from a family whose history was checkered with more deeds of cupidity than deeds of glory; his father it was who, in the wars after King Attalus of Pergamum willed his kingdom to Rome, had sold the whole land of Phrygia to the fifth King Mithridates of Pontus for a huge sum of gold, and thereby let the inscrutable Orient into western Asia Minor.

“Publius Rutilius, I wish to speak,” he said.

“Speak, then,” said Rutilius Rufus, and sat down, spent.

“I wish to speak!” said Scaurus Princeps Senatus angrily.

“After Manius Aquillius,” said Rutilius Rufus sweetly.

‘‘ Publius Rutilius, Marcus Aemilius, Conscript Fathers,’’ Aquillius began correctly, “I agree with the consul that there is only one man with the genius to extricate us from our plight, and I agree that man is Gaius Marius. But the answer our esteemed consul has proposed is not the right one. We cannot handicap Gaius Marius with a proconsular imperium limited to Gaul-across-the-Alps. First of all, what happens if the war moves out of Gaul-across-the-Alps? What if its theater shifts to Italian Gaul, or Spain, or even to Italy itself? Why, the command will automatically shift to the appropriate governor, or to the consul of the year! Gaius Marius has many enemies in this House. And I for one am not sure that those enemies will hold Rome dearer than their grudges. The refusal of Quintus Servilius Caepio to collaborate with Gnaeus Mallius Maximus is a perfect example of what happens when a member of the old nobility holds his dignitas more important than Rome’s dignitas.”

“You are mistaken, Manius Aquillius,” Scaurus interjected. “Quintus Servilius held his dignitas identical to Rome’s!”

“I thank you for the correction, Princeps Senatus,” said Aquillius smoothly, and with a little bow no one could honestly call ironic. “You are absolutely correct to correct me. The dignitas of Rome and that of Quintus Servilius Caepio are identical! But why do you hold the dignitas of Gaius Marius as so inferior to Quintus Servilius Caepio’s? Surely Gaius Marius’s personal share is quite as high, if not higher, even if his ancestors owned not a scrap! Gaius Marius’s personal career has been illustrious! And does any member of this House seriously believe that Gaius Marius thinks of Arpinum first, Rome second? Does any member of this House seriously believe Gaius Marius thinks of Arpinum in any other way than that it is a part of Rome? All of us have ancestors who were once New Men! Even Aeneas—who came to Latium from far-off Ilium, after all!—was a New Man! Gaius Marius has been praetor and consul. He has therefore ennobled himself, and his descendants to the very end of time will be noble.”

Aquillius’s eyes roved across the white-clad ranks. “I see several Conscript Fathers here today who bear the name of Porcius Cato. Now their grandfather was a New Man. But do we today think of these Porcii Catones as anything save pillars of this House, noble descendants of a man who in his own day had much the same effect on men with the name of Cornelius Scipio as Gaius Marius has today on men with the name of Caecilius Metellus?”

He shrugged, got down from the dais, and emulated Rutilius Rufus by striding down the floor of the House to a position near the open doors.

“It is Gaius Marius and no other who must retain supreme command against the Germans. No matter where the theater of war might be! Therefore it is not enough to invest Gaius Marius with a proconsular imperium limited to Gaul-across-the-Alps.”

He turned to face the House, and thundered his words. “As is evident, Gaius Marius is not here to give his personal opinion, and time is galloping away as fast as a bolting horse. Gaius Marius must be consul. That is the only way we can give him the power he is going to need. He must be put up as a candidate for the coming consular elections— a candidate in absentia!”

The House was growling, murmuring, but Manius Aquillius carried on, and carried their attention. “Can anyone here deny that the men of the Centuries are the finest flower of the People? So I say to you, let the men of the Centuries decide! By either electing Gaius Marius consul in absentia, or not electing him! For this decision of the supreme command is too big for this House to make. And it is also too big for the Assembly of the Plebs or even of the Whole People to make. I say to you, Conscript Fathers, that the decision of the supreme command against the Germans must be handed to that section of the Roman People who matter the most—the men of the First and the Second Classes of citizens, voting in their centuries in their own Assembly, the Comitia Centuriata!”

Oh, here is Ulysses! thought Rutilius Rufus. I would never have thought of this! Nor do I approve. But he’s got the Scaurus faction by the balls just the same. No, it would never have worked to take the vexed question of Gaius Marius’s imperium to the People in their tribes, have the whole thing conducted by the tribunes of the plebs in an atmosphere of shouting, yelling, even rioting crowds! To men like Scaurus, the Plebeian Assembly is an excuse for the rabble to run Rome. But the men of the First and Second Classes? Oh, they’re a very different breed of Roman! Clever, clever Manius Aquillius!

First you do something unheard of, by proposing that a man be elected consul when he isn’t even here to stand for office, and then you let the Scaurus faction know that you are willing to have the whole question decided by Rome’s finest! If Rome’s finest don’t want Gaius Marius, then all they have to do is organize the First and Second Classes of the Centuries to vote for two other men. If they do want Gaius Marius, then all they have to do is vote for him and one other man. And I’d be willing to bet that the Third Class doesn’t even get a chance to vote! Exclusivity is satisfied.

The real legal quibble is the in absentia proviso. Manius Aquillius will have to go to the Plebeian Assembly for that, though, because the Senate won’t give it to him. Look at the tribunes of the plebs wriggling with glee on their bench! There won’t be a veto among them—they’ll take the in absentia dispensation to the Plebs, and the Plebs, dazzled by the vision of ten tribunes of the plebs in accord, will pass a special law enabling Gaius Marius to be elected consul in absentia. Of course Scaurus and Metellus Numidicus and the others will argue the binding power of the lex Villia annalis, which says that no man can stand a second time for the consulship until ten years have elapsed. And Scaurus and Metellus Numidicus and the others will lose.

This Manius Aquillius needs watching, thought Rutilius Rufus, turning in his chair to watch. Amazing! he thought. They can sit there for years as demure and tractable as a new little Vestal Virgin, and then all of a sudden the opportunity presents itself, and off comes the sheep’s disguise, forth stands the wolf. You, Manius Aquillius, are a wolf.