Publius Rutilius Rufus was right, all of Rome was buzzing; two and two were cleverly added together and mostly totaled the correct figure, considerably aided by the fact that the youngest of the divorced wife’s three children had a thatch of bright red hair— and that Marcus Porcius Cato Salonianus’s hugely rich but vulgar wife, Cuspia, had also served her husband with divorce papers. That inseparable pair, Quintus Servilius Caepio and Marcus Livius Drusus, were now not on speaking terms, though Caepio for one kept insisting it had nothing to do with divorced wives, but was on account of the fact that Drusus had stolen his ring.
There were those with sufficient intelligence and sense of rightness who noticed that all the best people were siding with Drusus and his sister. Others of less admirable character—like Lucius Marcius Philippus and Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica—were siding with Caepio, as were those sycophantic knights who browsed in the same commercial fields as Gnaeus Cuspius Buteo, Cato’s wronged wife’s father, nicknamed “The Vulture.” Then there were those who sided with no one, finding the whole sensation exquisitely funny; among these was Marcus Aemilius Scaurus Princeps Senatus, just beginning to surface again after several years of extreme quietness following the disgrace of his wife’s falling in love with Sulla; he felt he could afford to laugh, since young Dalmatica’s crush had been unrequited, and she was now beginning to swell with a child Scaurus knew full well could be no one’s save his own. Publius Rutilius Rufus was another who laughed, in spite of his position as the adultress’s uncle.
Yet as things turned out in the end, neither of the guilty participants in the affair suffered the way Marcus Livius Drusus was made to suffer.
“Or perhaps it would be better to say,” Drusus grumbled to Silo not long after the new consuls entered office, “that, as usual, I seem to wind up being responsible for everybody’s baby! If I had all the money which that wretched boor Caepio has cost me over the years in one way or another, I’d be considerably better off! My new brother-in-law, Cato Salonianus, has been left without a feather to fly with—he’s strapped by dowry payments to Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus on behalf of his sister—and of course his wife’s fortune has been withdrawn, along with the support of her social-climbing father. So not only have I had to pay Lucius Domitius. out, but I am—as usual!—expected to house my sister, her husband, and her rapidly expanding family—she’s increasing again!”
Though he knew he was offering scant comfort to Drusus, Silo too joined the ranks of those who saw the funny side, and laughed until he hurt. “Oh, Marcus Livius, never was a Roman nobleman abused as you are!”
“Stop it,” said Drusus, grinning. “I could wish that life—or Fortune, or whoever it is—treated me with a little more of the respect I deserve. But whatever my life might have been like before Arausio—or had there never been an Arausio!—is now utterly beyond me. All I know is that I cannot abandon my poor sister—and that, though I tried not to, I like my new brother-in-law a great deal better than I liked my old one. Salonianus may be the grandson of a girl born in slavery, but he’s a true gentleman nonetheless, and my house is the happier for sheltering him. I even approve of the way he treats Livia Drusa, and I must say he’s won my wife over—she was inclined to think him quite unacceptable coming from that particular brood, but now she likes him very well.”
“It pleases me that your poor little sister is happy at last,” said Silo. “I always had the feeling she existed in some deep misery, but she concealed her predicament with the will of a true Livius Drusus. However, it’s a pity you can’t free yourself of pensioners—I take it you’ll have to finance Salonianus’s career?”
“Of course,” said Drusus, displaying no chagrin. “Luckily my father left me with more money than I can ever spend, so I’m not reduced to penury yet. Think of how annoyed Caepio will be when I push a Cato Salonianus up the cursus honorum!”
“Do you mind if I change the subject?” asked Silo abruptly.
“Not at all,” said Drusus, surprised. “Hopefully the new subject is going to contain a detailed description of your doings over the past few months—I haven’t seen you in nearly a year, Quintus Poppaedius.”
“Is it that long?” Silo did some calculations, and nodded. “You’re right. Where does time go?” He shrugged. “Nothing very much, actually. My business ventures have benefited, is all.”
“I don’t trust you when you’re cagey,” said Drusus, delighted to see this friend of his heart. “However, I daresay you have no intention of telling me what you’ve really been up to, so I won’t make it hard for you by pressing. What was the subject you wanted to bring up, then?”
“The new consuls,” said Silo.
“Good ones, for a change,” said Drusus happily. “I don’t know when we’ve elected such a solid pair—Crassus Orator and Scaevola! I’m expecting great things.”
“Are you? I wish I could say the same. I’m expecting trouble.”
“On the Italian front? Why?”
“Oh, rumor as yet. I hope unfounded, though somehow I doubt that, Marcus Livius.” Silo scowled. “The censors have gone to the consuls with the registers of Roman citizens throughout Italy, and I hear are concerned about the vast number of new names on the rolls. Idiots! One moment they’re prating about how their new census methods will reveal many more citizens than the old way did, the next moment they’re saying there are too many new citizens!”
“So that’s why you’ve not been to Rome in months!” cried Drusus. “Oh, Quintus Poppaedius, I warned you! No, no, please don’t lie to me! If you do we can’t continue to be friends, and I for one would be the poorer! You doctored the rolls.”
“Yes.”
“Quintus Poppaedius, I told you! Oh, what a mess!” For some time Drusus sat with his head in his hands, while Silo, feeling more uncomfortable than he had expected to, sat saying nothing and thinking hard. Finally Drusus lifted his head.
“Well, there’s no point in repining, I suppose.” He got to his feet, shaking his head at Silo in patient exasperation. “You had better go home—don’t show your face in this city for a long time to come, Quintus Poppaedius. We can’t afford to tickle the interest of some particularly bright member of the anti-Italian faction by having you on prominent display. I’ll do what I can in the Senate, but unfortunately I’m still a junior, I won’t be called upon to speak. Among those who can speak, your friends are going to be few, alas.”
Silo was standing too. “Marcus Livius, it will come to war,” he said. “I’ll go home because you’re right, someone will start wondering if they see my face. But, if nothing else, this shows there is no peaceful way to gain enfranchisement for Italy.”
“There is a way. There must be a way,” Drusus said. “Now go, Quintus Poppaedius, as unobtrusively as you can. And if you plan to use the Colline Gate, detour around the Forum, please.”
Drusus himself didn’t detour around the Forum; he went straight there, togate and looking for familiar faces. There was no meeting of Senate or Comitia, but a man could be fairly sure of seeing people in the general area of the lower Forum. And luckily the first valuable man Drusus spied was his uncle, Publius Rutilius Rufus, wandering toward the Carinae and his house.
“This is one time I could wish Gaius Marius was here,” said Drusus as they found a quiet place in the sun just to one side of the ancient Forum trees.
“Yes, I’m afraid there won’t be much support in the Senate for your Italian friends,” said Rutilius Rufus.
“I think there could be—if only there was a powerful man present to urge a little thought. But with Gaius Marius still away in the east, who is there? Unless, Uncle, you—?”
“No,” said Rutilius Rufus firmly. “I am sympathetic to the Italian cause, but a power in the Senate I am not. If anything, I’ve lost auctoritas since my return from Asia Minor—the tax-farmers are still screaming for my head. Quintus Mucius they know they can’t get, he’s too important. But an old and humble consular like me, who never had a famous reputation in the law courts or was a famous orator or led a famous army to victory? No, I haven’t enough clout, truly.”
“So you’re saying there’s little can be done.”
“That’s what I’m saying, Marcus Livius.”
*
On the other side of popular opinion there was much being done, however. Quintus Servilius Caepio sought an interview with the consuls, Crassus Orator and Mucius Scaevola, and the censors, Antonius Orator and Valerius Flaccus. What he had to say interested the four men enormously.
“Marcus Livius Drusus is to blame for this,” said Caepio. “In my hearing he has said many times that the Italians must be given the full citizenship, that there can be no difference between any men within Italy. And he has powerful Italian friends—the leader of the Marsi, Quintus Poppaedius Silo, and the leader of the Samnites, Gaius Papius Mutilus. From the things I overheard in Marcus Livius’s house, I would be prepared to swear formally that Marcus Livius Drusus allied himself with those two Italians and concocted a plan to tamper with the census.”
“Quintus Servilius, have you other evidence to substantiate your accusation?” asked Crassus Orator.
Whereupon Caepio drew himself up with immense dignity, and looked suitably offended. “I am a Servilius Caepio, Lucius Licinius! I do not lie.” Offense became angry indignation. “Evidence to substantiate my accusation? I do not accuse! I simply state the facts. Nor do I need ‘evidence’ to substantiate anything! I repeat—I am a Servilius Caepio!”
“I don’t care if he’s Romulus,” said Marcus Livius Drusus when the consuls and the censors came to see him. “If you can’t see that these ‘facts’ he says he’s simply stating are part of Quintus Servilius Caepio’s current persecution of me and mine, then you’re not the men I think you are! Ridiculous nonsense! Why should I plot against the interests of Rome? No son of my father could do such a thing. For Silo and Mutilus I cannot speak. Mutilus has never been inside my house, as a matter of fact, and Silo comes only as my friend. That I believe the franchise should be extended to every man in Italy is a matter of record, I make no secret of it. But the citizenship I would see extended to the Latins and the Italians must be legal, given freely by the Senate and People of Rome. To falsify the census in any way — be it by physically altering the rolls or by men testifying to a citizenship they do not own entitlement to — is something I could not condone, no matter how right I believe the cause behind it to be.” He threw his arms wide, then up in the air. “Take it or leave it, Quirites, that’s all I have to say. If you believe me, then come and drink a cup of wine with me. If you believe that unconscionable liar Caepio, then leave my house and don’t come back.”
Laughing softly, Quintus Mucius Scaevola linked his arm through Drusus’s. “I for one, Marcus Livius, would be very pleased to drink a cup of wine with you.”
“And I,” said Crassus Orator.
The censors elected to drink wine too.
“But what worries me,” said Drusus in the dining room later that afternoon, “is how Quintus Servilius got hold of his so-called information. Only one conversation occurred between me and Quintus Poppaedius on this subject, and that was many moons ago, when the censors were first elected. “
“What transpired, Marcus Livius?” asked Cato Salonianus.
“Oh, Silo had some wild scheme to enroll illegal citizens, but I dissuaded him. Or thought I did. That was the end of it as far as I was concerned. Why, I hadn’t even seen Quintus Poppaedius until recently! Yet — how did Caepio get his information?”
“Perhaps he did overhear you, perhaps he wasn’t out,” said Cato, who didn’t honestly approve of Drusus’s attitude about the Italians, but was in no case to criticize; one of the more distressing aspects of being Drusus’s pensioner.
“Oh, he was definitely out,” said Drusus dryly. “He was out of Italy at the time, and he certainly didn’t sneak back for one day in order to eavesdrop on a conversation I didn’t know I was going to have until it happened.”
“Then—how indeed?” asked Cato. “Something you’d written he might have been able to find?”
Drusus shook his head so positively he left his audience in no doubt. “I have written nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
“Why are you so sure Quintus Servilius had help in framing his accusations?” asked Livia Drusa.
“Because he accused me of falsifying the enrollment of new citizens, and lumped me with Quintus Poppaedius.”
“Could he not have plucked that out of thin air?”
“Perhaps, except for one really worrying aspect—he gave a third name. Gaius Papius Mutilus of the Samnites. Where did he learn that particular name? I knew of it only because I knew Quintus Poppaedius had grown very friendly with Papius Mutilus. The thing is, I’m certain both Quintus Poppaedius and Papius Mutilus did falsify the rolls. But how did Caepio know it?”
Livia Drusa got to her feet. “I cannot promise anything, Marcus Livius, but it’s possible I can provide an answer. Will you excuse me for a moment?”
Drusus, Cato Salonianus, and Servilia Caepionis waited out the moment, hardly curious; what could Livia Drusa produce to answer such a mysterious question, when the real answer was probably that Caepio had made a lucky guess?
Back came Livia Drusa marching her daughter Servilia in front of her, one hand digging into the child’s shoulder.
“Stand right here, Servilia. I want to ask you something,” said Livia Drusa sternly. “Have you been visiting your father?”
The girl’s small face was so still, so expressionless that it struck those who observed it as a guilty face, guarded.
“I require a truthful answer, Servilia,” said Livia Drusa. ‘ ‘Have you been visiting your father? And before you speak, I would remind you that if you answer in the negative, I will make enquiries in the nursery of Stratonice and the others.”
“Yes, I visit him,” said Servilia.
Drusus sat up straight, so did Cato; Servilia Caepionis sank lower in her chair, shielding her face with her hand.
“What did you tell your father about your Uncle Marcus and his friend, Quintus Poppaedius?”
“The truth,” said Servilia, still expressionless.
“What truth?”
“That they have conspired to put Italians on the roll of Roman citizens.”
“How could you do that, Servilia, when it isn’t the truth?” asked Drusus, growing angry.
“It is the truth!” cried the child shrilly. “I saw letters in the Marsian man’s room not many days ago!”
“You entered a guest’s room without his knowledge?” asked Cato Salonianus incredulously. “That’s despicable, girl!”
“Who are you to judge me?” asked Servilia, rounding on him. “You’re the descendant of a slave and a peasant!”
Lips thin, Cato swallowed. “I might be all of that, Servilia, but even slaves can own principles too high to invade the sacred privacy of a guest.”
“I am a patrician Servilius,” said the child hardily, “whereas that man is just an Italian. He was behaving treasonously—and so was Uncle Marcus!”
“What letters did you see, Servilia?” asked Drusus.
“Letters from a Samnite named Gaius Papius Mutilus.”
“But not letters from Marcus Livius Drusus.”
“I didn’t need to. You’re so thick with the Italians that everyone knows you do what they want, and conspire with them.”
“It’s as well for Rome that you’re female, Servilia,” said Drusus, forcing his face and voice to appear amused. “If you entered the law courts armed with such arguments, you’d soon make a public fool of yourself.” He slid off his couch and came round it to stand directly in front of her. “You are an idiot and an ingrate, my child. Deceitful and— as your stepfather said—despicable. If you were older, I would lock you out of my house. As it is, I will do the opposite. You will be locked inside my house, free to go wherever you like within its walls provided there is someone with you. But outside its walls you will not go at all for any reason. You will not visit your father or anyone else. Nor will you send him notes. If he sends demanding that you go to live with him, I will let you go gladly. But if that should happen, I will never admit you to my house again, even to see your mother. While your father refuses custody of you, I am your paterfamilias. You will accept my word as law because such is the law. Everyone in my house will be instructed to do as I command concerning you and the life you will lead in my house. Is that understood?”
The girl betrayed no trace of shame or fear; dark eyes full of fire, she stood her ground indomitably. “I am a patrician Servilius,” she said. “No matter what you do to me, you cannot alter the fact that I am better than all of you put together. What might be wrong for my inferiors is no more than my duty. I uncovered a plot against Rome and informed my father. As was my duty. You can punish me in any way you choose, Marcus Livius. I don’t care if you lock me inside one room forever, or beat me, or kill me. I know I did my duty.”
“Oh, take her away, get her out of my sight!” cried Drusus to his sister.
“Shall I have her beaten?” asked Livia Drusa, quite as angry as Drusus.
He flinched. “No! There will be no more beatings in my house, Livia Drusa. Just do with her as I’ve ordered. If she ventures outside the nursery or her schoolroom, she must have an escort. And though she is now old enough to be moved from the nursery to her own sleeping cubicle, I will not allow it. Let her suffer lack of privacy, since she accords none to my guests. All this will be punishment enough as the years go on. Ten more of them before she has any hope of leaving here—if her father then takes enough interest in her to make a match for her. If he doesn’t, I will—and not to a patrician! I’ll marry her to some peasant country bumpkin!”
Cato Salonianus laughed. “No, not a country bumpkin, Marcus Livius. Marry her to a truly wonderful freedman, a natural nobleman without the slightest hope of ever becoming one. Then perhaps she will discover that slaves and ex-slaves can be better than patricians.”
“I hate you!” screamed Servilia as her mother hustled her away. “I hate you all! I curse you, I curse you! May every last one of you be dead before I am old enough to marry!”
Then the child was forgotten; Servilia Caepionis slid from her chair to the floor. Drusus gathered her up, terrified, and carried her to their bedroom, where burning feathers held under her nose brought her back to consciousness. She wept desolately.
“Oh, Marcus Livius, you have had no luck since you allied yourself to my family,” she sniffled, while he sat on the edge of the bed and held her close, praying that her baby weathered this.
“I have, you know,” he said, kissing her brow, wiping her tears tenderly. “Don’t make yourself ill, mea vita, the girl isn’t worth it. Don’t give her the satisfaction, please.”
“I love you, Marcus Livius. I always have, I always will.”
“Good! I love you too, Servilia Caepionis. A little more each and every day we spend together. Now calm yourself, don’t forget our baby. He’s growing so nicely,” he said, with a pat for her enlarging belly.
*
Servilia Caepionis died in childbirth the day before Lucius Licinius Crassus Orator and Quintus Mucius Scaevola promulgated a new law about the Italian situation to the members of the Senate, with the result that the Marcus Livius Drusus who dragged himself to the meeting to hear the nature of the bill was in no fit state to lend the matter the attention it warranted.
No one in the Drusus household had been prepared; Servilia Caepionis had been very well, her pregnancy proceeding snugly and without incident. So sudden was her labor that even she had felt no warning; within two hours she was dead of a massive haemorrhage no amount of packing and elevation served to staunch. Out of the house when it happened, Drusus rushed back in time to be with her, but she passed from terrible pain to a dreamy, carefree euphoria, and died without knowing that Drusus held her hand, or understanding that she was dying. A merciful end for her but a horrifying one for Drusus, who received from her no words of love, or comfort, or even acknowledgment of his presence. All her years of trying for that elusive child had come to a finish; she just dwindled to a bloodless, oblivious white effigy in a bed saturated with her life force. When she died the child had not so much as entered the birth canal; the doctors and midwives beseeched Drusus to let them cut the baby out of his wife, but he refused.
“Let her go still wrapping it round,” he said. “Let her have that consolation. If it lived, I couldn’t love it.”
And so he hauled himself to the Curia Hostilia no more than half-alive himself, and took his place among the middle ranks to listen, his priesthood allowing him a position more prominent than his actual senatorial status warranted. His servant situated his folding chair and literally lowered his master down onto it, while those around him murmured their condolences and he nodded, nodded, nodded his thanks, face almost as white as hers had been. Before he was ready for it, he caught sight of Caepio in the back row of the opposite tiers, and managed to go whiter still. Caepio! Who had sent back word when notified of his sister’s death that he was leaving Rome immediately after this meeting, and would not in consequence be able to attend the funeral of Servilia Caepionis.
Indeed, Drusus’s view of proceedings and the House was virtually unimpeded, as he sat near the end of the left-hand tiers, where the great bronze doors of the curia built centuries before by King Tullus Hostilius stood open to permit those crowded in the portico to hear. For this, the consuls decided, must be a fully public meeting. No one save the senators and their single attendants was permitted inside, but a public meeting meant that anyone else could cluster just outside the open doors to listen.
At the other end of the chamber, flanked on either side by the three tiers of steps upon which the House placed their folding stools, stood the raised podium of the curule magistrates, in front of it the long wooden bench upon which the ten tribunes of the plebs perched. The beautiful carved ivory curule chairs of the two consuls were positioned at the front of the platform, those belonging to the six praetors behind, and the ivory curule chairs of the two curule aediles behind them again. Those senators permitted to speak because of sheer accumulation of years or curule office occupied the bottom tier on either side, the middle tier went to those who held priesthoods or augurships, or had served as tribunes of the plebs, or were priests of the minor colleges, while the top tier was reserved for the pedarii—the backbenchers—whose only privilege in the House was to vote.
After the prayers and offerings and omens were declared all satisfactory, Lucius Licinius Crassus Orator, the senior of the two consuls, rose to his feet.
“Princeps Senatus, Pontifex Maximus, fellow curule magistrates, members of this august body, the House has been talking for some time about the illegal enrollment of Italian nationals as Roman citizens during this present census,” he said, a document curled in his left hand. “Though our distinguished colleagues the censors, Marcus Antonius and Lucius Valerius, had expected to see several thousand new names added to the rolls, they did not expect to see very many thousands of new names. But that is what happened. The census in Italy has seen an unprecedented rise in those claiming to be Roman citizens, and testimony has been made to us that most of these new names are those of men of Italian Allied status who have absolutely no right to the Roman citizenship. Testimony has been made to us that the leaders of the Italian nations connived at having their people enroll as Roman citizens virtually en masse. Two names have been put forward: Quintus Poppaedius Silo, leader of the Marsi, and Gaius Papius Mutilus, leader of the Samnites.”
Fingers snapped imperiously; the consul stopped, bowed toward the middle of the front row on his right. “Gaius Marius, I welcome you back to this House. You have a question?”
“I do indeed, Lucius Licinius,” said Marius, rising to his feet looking very brown and fit. “These two men, Silo and Mutilus. Are their names on our rolls?”
“No, Gaius Marius, they are not.”
“Then, testimony aside, what evidence do you have?”
“Of evidence, none,” said Crassus Orator coolly. “I mention their names only because of testimony to the effect that they personally incited the citizens of their nations to apply for enrollment in huge numbers.”
“Surely then, Lucius Licinius, the testimony to which you refer is entirely suspect?”
“Possibly,” said Crassus Orator, unruffled. He bowed again, with a great flourish. “If, Gaius Marius, you would permit me to proceed with my speech, I will make all clear in time.”
Grinning, Marius returned the bow, and sat down.
“To proceed then, Conscript Fathers! As Gaius Marius so perceptively observes, testimony unsupported by solid evidence is questionable. It is not the intent of your consuls or your censors to ignore this aspect. However, the man who testified before us is prestigious, and his testimony does tend to confirm our own observations,” said Crassus Orator.
“Who is this prestigious person?” asked Publius Rutilius Rufus, without rising.
“Due to a certain danger involved, he requested that his name not be divulged,” said Crassus Orator.
“I can tell you, Uncle!” said Drusus loudly. “His name is Quintus Servilius Caepio Wife-beater! He also accused me!”
“Marcus Livius, you are out of order,” said the consul.
“Well, and so I did accuse him! He’s as guilty as Silo and Mutilus!” shouted Caepio from the back row.
“Quintus Servilius, you are out of order. Sit down.”
“Not until you add the name of Marcus Livius Drusus to my charge!” shouted Caepio, even louder.
“The consuls and the censors have satisfied themselves that Marcus Livius Drusus is not implicated in this business,” said Crassus Orator, beginning to look annoyed. “You would be wise—as would all pedarii!—to remember that this House has not yet accorded you the freedom to speak! Now sit down and keep your tongue where it belongs—inside your shut mouth! This House will hear no more from men involved in a personal feud, and this House will pay attention to me!”
Silence followed. Crassus Orator listened to it reverently for some moments, then cleared his throat and began again.
“For whatever reason—and at whoever’s instigation— there are suddenly far too many names upon our census rolls. The assumption that many men have illegally usurped the citizenship is a fair one to make given the circumstances. It is the intention of your consuls to rectify this situation, not to pursue false trails or apportion blame without evidence. We are interested in one thing only: the knowledge that unless we do something, we are going to be faced with a surplus of citizens—all claiming to be members of the thirty-one rural tribes!—who will within a generation be able to cast more votes in the tribal elections than we bona fide citizens, and may possibly also be able to influence voting in the Centuriate Classes.”
“Then I sincerely hope we are going to do something, Lucius Licinius,” said Scaurus Princeps Senatus from his seat in the middle of the right-hand front row, next to Gaius Marius.
“Quintus Mucius and I have drafted a new law,” said Crassus Orator, not taking offense at this particular interruption. “Its intent is to remove all false citizens from the rolls of Rome. It concerns itself with nothing else. It is not an act of expulsion, it will not call for a mass exodus of non-citizens from the city of Rome or from any other center of Romans or Latins within Italy. Its concern is to uncover those who have been entered on the rolls as citizens who are not citizens at all. To effect this, the act proposes that the Italian peninsula be divided into ten parts—Umbria, Etruria, Picenum, Latium, Samnium, Campania, Apulia, Lucania, Calabria, and Bruttium. Each of the ten parts will be provided with a special court of enquiry empowered to investigate the citizen status of all those whose names appear on the census for the first time. The act proposes that these quaestiones be staffed by judges rather than juries, and that the judges be members of the Senate of Rome—each court president will be of consular status, and he will be assisted by two junior senators. A number of steps are incorporated to serve as guidelines for the courts of enquiry, and each man arraigned before them will have to answer—with proof!—the questions included within each step of the guidelines. These protocols will be too strict for any false citizen to escape detection, so much we do assure you for the moment. At a later contio meeting we will of course read out the text of the lex Licinia Mucia in full, but I am never of the opinion that the first contio on any bill should mire itself in detailed legalities.”
Scaurus Princeps Senatus rose to his feet. “If I may, Lucius Licinius, I would like to ask if you propose to set up one of your special quaestiones in the city of Rome herself, and if so, whether this quaestio will function as the one investigating Latium as well as Rome?”
Crassus Orator looked solemn. “Rome herself will constitute the eleventh quaestio,” he answered. “Latium will be dealt with separately. With regard to Rome, however, I would like to say that the rolls of the city have not revealed any mass declarations of new citizens we believe to be spurious. Despite this, we believe it will be worth setting up a court of enquiry within Rome, as the city probably contains many enrolled citizens who—if the enquiries are taken far enough—will be proven ineligible.”
“Thank you, Lucius Licinius,” said Scaurus, sitting down.
Crassus Orator was now thoroughly put out. All hopes he might have cherished to work up to some of his finer rhetorical periods were now utterly destroyed; what had started out as a speech had turned into a questions-and-answers exercise.
Before he could resume his address, Quintus Lutatius Catulus Caesar got up, confirming the senior consul’s suspicions that the House was just not in the mood to listen to magnificent speeches.
“May I venture a question?” asked Catulus Caesar demurely.
Crassus Orator sighed. “Everyone else is, Quintus Lutatius, even those not entitled to speak! Feel free. Do not hesitate. Be my guest. Avail yourself of the opportunity, do!”
“Is the lex Licinia Mucia going to prescribe or specify particular penalties, or is punishment going to be left up to the discretion of the judges, working from existing statutes?”
“Believe it or not, Quintus Lutatius, I was coming to that!” said Crassus Orator with visibly fraying patience. “The new law specifies definite penalties. First and foremost, all spurious citizens who have declared themselves to be citizens during this last census will incur the full wrath of the courts. A flogging will be administered with the knouted lash. The guilty man’s name will be entered upon a list barring him and all his descendants in perpetuity from acquiring the citizenship. A fine of forty thousand sesterces will be levied. If the spurious citizen has taken up residence within any Latin Rights or Roman city, town, or municipality, he and his relations will be deprived of residence and will have to return to the place of his ancestors. In that respect only is this a law of expulsion. Those who do not possess the citizenship but who did not falsify their status will not be affected, they may remain where currently domiciled.”
“What about those who falsified their status on an earlier census than this last one?” asked Scipio Nasica the elder.
“They will not be flogged, Publius Cornelius, nor will they be fined. But they will be entered on the list and they will be expelled from any Latin or Roman center of habitation.”
“What if a man can’t pay the fine?” asked Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus Pontifex Maximus.
“Then he will be sold into debt bondage to the State of Rome for a period of not less than seven years.”
Up clambered Gaius Marius. “May I speak, Lucius Licinius?”
Crassus Orator threw his hands in the air. “Oh, why not, Gaius Marius? That is, if you can speak without being interrupted by all the world and his uncle!”
Drusus watched Marius walk from the place where his stool sat to the center of the floor. His heart, that organ he had thought to have died inside him when his wife died, was beating fast. Herein lay the only chance. Oh, Gaius Marius, little though I like you as a man, Drusus said within himself, say now what I would say, did I only have the right to speak! For if you do not, no one will. No one.
“I can see,’’ said Marius strongly,’’ that this is a carefully planned piece of legislation. As one would expect from two of our finest legal draftsmen. It requires but one more thing to make it watertight, and that is a clause paying a reward to any man who comes forward as an informant. Yes, an admirable piece of legislation! But is it a just law? Ought we not to concern ourselves with that aspect above all others? And, even more to the point, do we genuinely consider ourselves powerful enough, arrogant enough—-dim-witted enough!—to administer the penalties this law carries? From the tenor of Lucius Licinius’s speech—not one of his better ones, I add!—there are tens of thousands of these alleged false citizens, scattered from the border of Italian Gaul all the way to Bruttium and Calabria. Men who feel themselves entitled to full participation in the internal affairs and governance of Rome—otherwise, why run the risk of making a false declaration of citizenship? Everyone in Italy knows what such a declaration involves if it is discovered. The flogging, the disbarment, the fine—though usually all three are not levied upon the same man.”
He turned from the right side of the House to the left side, and continued. “But now, Conscript Fathers, it seems we are to visit the full force of retribution upon each and every one of these tens of thousands of men—and their families! We are to flog them. Fine them more than many of them can afford. Put them upon a blacklist. Evict them from their homes if their homes happen to be situated within a Roman or a Latin place.”
Down the length of the House he walked to the open doors, and turned there to face both sides. “Tens of thousands, Conscript Fathers! Not one or two or three or four men, but tens of thousands! And families of sons, daughters, wives, mothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, all adding up to tens of thousands more. They will have friends—even perhaps have friends among those who do legally possess the Roman citizenship or the Latin Rights. Outside the Roman and Latin towns, their own kind will be in the majority. And we, the senators who are chosen—by lot, do you think?—to man these boards of enquiry, are going to listen to the evidence, follow the guidelines for the inquisition of those brought before us, and follow the letter of the lex Licinia Mucia in sentencing those discovered spurious. I applaud those among us brave enough to do our duty—though I, for one, will be pleading another stroke! Or is the lex Licinia Mucia going to provide for armed detachments of militiamen to be in constant attendance upon each and every one of these quaestiones?’
He began to walk slowly down the floor, continuing to speak as he did so. “Is it really such a crime? To want to be a Roman? It is not much of an exaggeration to say that we rule all of the world that matters. We are accorded every respect, we are deferred to when we travel abroad—even kings back down when we issue orders. The very least man who can call himself a Roman, albeit a member of the Head Count, is better than any other kind of man. Too poor to own a single slave though he may be, he is still and yet a member of the people who rule the world. It endows him with a precious exclusivity no other word than Roman can bestow. Even as he does the menial work his lack of that single slave dictates, still and yet he can say to himself, ‘I am a Roman, I am better than the rest of mankind!’ “
Almost upon the tribunician bench, he turned to face the open doors. “Here within the bounds of Italy, we dwell cheek by jowl with men and women who are racially akin to us, even racially the same in many instances. Men and women who have fed us troops and tribute for four hundred years at least, who participate with us in our wars as paying partners. Oh yes, from time to time some of them have rebelled, or aided our enemies, or spoken out against our policies. But for those crimes they have already been punished! Under Roman law we cannot punish them all over again. Can they be blamed for wanting to be Roman? That is the question. Not why they want to be Roman, nor what prompted this recent onslaught of false declarations. Can they truly be blamed?”
“Yes!” shouted Quintus Servilius Caepio. “Yes! They are our inferiors! Our subjects, not our equals!”
“Quintus Servilius, you are out of order! Sit down and be silent, or leave this meeting!” thundered Crassus Orator.
At a pace which enabled him to preserve physical dignity, Gaius Marius rotated to look about him through a full circle, his face deformed further by a bitter grin. “You think you know what I’m going to say, don’t you?” he asked the House. Then he laughed aloud. “Gaius Marius the Italian, you are thinking, is going to recommend Rome forget the lex Licinia Mucia, leave those tens of thousands of extra citizens on the rolls.” Up flew the brows. “Well, Conscript Fathers, you’re wrong! That is not what I advocate. Like you, I do not believe that our suffrage can be demeaned by allowing men to retain registration who lacked the principles to reject illegal enrollment as Romans. What I advocate is that the lex Licinia Mucia proceed with its courts of enquiry as its eminent engineers have outlined—but only up to a certain point. Beyond that point we dare not go further! Every false citizen must be struck from our rolls and ejected from our tribes. That—and nothing else. Nothing else! For I give you solemn warning, Conscript Fathers, Quirites listening at the doors, that the moment you inflict penalties upon these spurious citizens that consist of defilement of their bodies, their homes, their purses, their future progeny, you will sow a crop of hatred and revenge the like of which will give pause to the dragon’s teeth! You will reap death, blood, impoverishment, and a loathing which will last for millennia to come! Do not condone what the Italians have tried to do. But do not punish them for trying to do it!”
Oh, well said, Gaius Marius! thought Drusus, and applauded. Some others applauded too. But most did not, and from outside the doors came rumbles indicating that those who heard in the Forum did not agree with so much clemency.
Marcus Aemilius Scaurus got up. “May I speak?”
“You may, Leader of the House,” said Crassus Orator.
Though he and Gaius Marius were the same age, Scaurus Princeps Senatus had not retained the same illusion of youth, despite his symmetrical face. The lines which seamed it ate into the flesh, and his hairless dome was anciently wrinkled too. But his beautiful green eyes were young, keen, healthy, sparkling. And formidably intelligent. His much-admired and much-anecdoted sense of humor was not to the fore today, however, even in the creases at the corners of his mouth; today those corners turned right down. He too strolled across the floor to the doors, but then he turned away from the House to face the crowds outside.
“Conscript Fathers of the Senate of Rome, I am your leader, duly reappointed by our present censors. I have been your leader since the year of my consulship, exactly twenty years ago. I am a consular who has been censor. I have led armies and concluded treaties with our enemies, and with those who came asking to be our friends. I am a patrician of the gens Aemilia. But more important by far than any of those things, laudable and prestigious though they may be, I am a Roman!
“It sits oddly with me to have to agree with Gaius Marius, who called himself an Italian. But let me tell you over again the things he said at the beginning of his address. Is it really such a crime? To want to be a Roman? To want to be a member of the race which rules all of the world that matters? To want to be a member of the race which can issue orders to kings and see those orders obeyed? Like Gaius Marius, I say it is no crime to want to be a Roman. But where we differ is on the emphasis in that statement. It is no crime to want. It is a crime to do. And I cannot permit anyone hearing Gaius Marius to fall into the trap he has laid. This House is not here today to commiserate with those who want what they do not have. This House is not here today to wrestle with ideals, dreams, hungers, aspirations. We are here today to deal with a reality—the illegal usurpation of our Roman citizenship by tens of thousands of men who are not Roman, and therefore not entitled to say they are Roman. Whether they want to be Roman is beside the point. The point is that a great crime has been committed by tens of thousands of men, and we who guard our Roman heritage cannot possibly treat that great crime as something minor deserving no more than a metaphorical slap on the wrist.”
Now he turned to face the House. “Conscript Fathers, I, the Leader of the House, appeal to you as a genuine Roman to enact this law with every ounce of power and authority you can give it! Once and for all this Italian passion to be Roman must cease, be crushed out of existence. The lex Licinia Mucia must contain the harshest penalties ever put upon our tablets! Not only that! I think we should adopt both of Gaius Marius’s suggestions, amend this law to contain them. I say that the first amendment must offer a reward for information leading to the exposure of a false Roman— four thousand sesterces, ten percent of the fine. That way our Treasury doesn’t have to find a farthing—it all comes out of the purses of the guilty. And I say that the second amendment must provide a detachment of armed militia to accompany each and every panel of judges as they go about the business of their courts. The money to pay these temporary soldiers can also be found out of the fines levied. It is therefore with great sincerity that I thank Gaius Marius for his suggestions.”
No one afterward was ever sure whether this was the conclusion of Scaurus’s speech, for Publius Rutilius Rufus was on his feet, crying, “Let me speak! I must speak!,” and Scaurus was tired enough to sit down, nodding to the Chair.
“He’s past it, poor old Scaurus,” said Lucius Marcius Philippus to his neighbors on either side. “It’s not like him to have to seize upon another man’s speech to make one of his own.”
‘‘I found nothing to quarrel with in it,” said his left-hand neighbor, Lucius Sempronius Asellio.
“He’s past it,” Philippus repeated.
“Tace, Lucius Marcius!” said Marcus Herennius, his right-hand neighbor. “I’d like to hear Publius Rutilius.”
“You would!” snarled Philippus, but said no more.
Publius Rutilius Rufus made no attempt to stride about the floor of the House; he simply stood beside his little folding stool and spoke.
“Conscript Fathers, Quirites listening at the doors, hear me, I implore you!” He shrugged his shoulders, pulled a face. “I have no real confidence in your good sense, so I do not expect to succeed in turning you away from Marcus Aemilius’s opinion, which is the opinion of most here today. However, what I say must be said—and must be heard to have been said when the future reveals its prudence and rightness. As the future will, I do assure you.”
He cleared his throat, then shouted, “Gaius Marius is correct! Nothing must be done beyond taking every false citizen off our rolls and out of our tribes. Though I am aware most of you—and I think including me!—regard the Italian nationals as a distinct cut below true Romans, I hope we all have sufficient judgment left to understand that this by no means makes barbarians out of the Italian nationals. They are sophisticated, their leading men are extremely well educated, and basically they live the same kinds of lives as we Romans do. Therefore they cannot be treated like barbarians! Their treaties with us go back centuries, their collaborations with us go back centuries. They are our close blood kindred, just as Gaius Marius said.”
“Well, Gaius Marius’s close blood kindred, at any rate,” drawled Lucius Marcius Philippus.
Rutilius Rufus turned to stare at the ex-praetor, speckled brows lifting. “How perceptive of you to make a distinction,” he said sweetly, “between close blood kindred and the sort of kinship forged by money! Now if you hadn’t made that distinction, you’d have to stick to Gaius Marius like a suckerfish, wouldn’t you, Lucius Marcius? Because where money is concerned, Gaius Marius stands closer to you than your own tata does! For I swear that once you begged more money from Gaius Marius than your own tata ever had to give you! If money were like blood, you too would be the object of Italian slurs, am I not right?”
The House roared with laughter, clapped and whistled, while Philippus turned a dull red and tried to disappear.
Rutilius Rufus returned to the subject. “Let us look at the penal provisions of the lex Licinia Mucia more seriously, I beg you! How can we flog people with whom we must coexist, upon whom we levy soldiers and money? If certain dissolute members of this House can cast aspersions upon other members of this House as to their blood origins, how different are we from the Italians? That is what I am saying, that is what you must consider. It is a bad father brings up his son on a regimen consisting of nothing save daily beatings—when that son grows up he loathes his father, he doesn’t love or admire him. If we flog our Italian kindred of this peninsula, we will have to coexist with people who loathe us for our cruelty. If we prevent their attaining our citizenship, we will have to coexist with people who loathe us for our snobbery. If we impoverish them through outrageous fines, we will have to coexist with people who loathe us for our cupidity. If we evict them from their homes, we will have to coexist with people who loathe us for our callousness. How much loathing does that total? More by far, Conscript Fathers, Quirites, than we can afford to incur from people who live in the same lands we do ourselves.”
“Put them down even further, then,” said Catulus Caesar wearily. “Put them down so far they have no feelings whatsoever left. It is what they deserve for stealing the most precious gift Rome can offer.”
“Quintus Lutatius, try to understand!” pleaded Rutilius Rufus. “They stole because we would not give! When a man steals what he regards as rightly belonging to him, he does not call it stealing. He calls it repossession.”
“How can he repossess what wasn’t his in the first place?”
Rutilius Rufus gave up. “All right, I have tried to make you see the foolishness of inflicting truly frightful penalties upon people among whom we live, who flank our roads, form the majority of the populace in the areas where we site our country villas and have our estates, who quite often farm our lands if we are not modern enough to employ slave-labor. I say no more about the consequences to us of punishing the Italians.”
“Thank all the gods for that!” sighed Scipio Nasica.
“I move now to the amendments suggested by our Princeps Senatus—not by Gaius Marius!” said Rutilius Rufus, ignoring this remark. “And may I say, Princeps Senatus, that to take another man’s irony and turn it into your own literality is not good rhetoric! If you’re not more careful, people will begin to say you’re past it. However, I understand it must have been difficult to find moving and powerful words to describe something your heart isn’t in—am I not right, Marcus Aemilius?”
Scaurus said nothing, but had flushed a trifle red.
“It is not Roman practice to employ paid informers any more than it is Roman practice to employ bodyguards,” said Rutilius Rufus. “If we start to do so under the provisions of the lex Licinia Mucia, we will be demonstrating to our Italian co-dwellers that we fear them. We will be demonstrating to our Italian co-dwellers that the lex Licinia Mucia is not intended to punish wrongdoing, but to crush a potential menace—none other than our Italian co-dwellers! In an inverted way, we will be demonstrating to our Italian co-dwellers that we think they can swallow us far more effectively than we have ever been able to swallow them! Such stringent measures and such un-Roman tools as paid informers and bodyguards indicate an enormous fear and dread—we are displaying weakness, Conscript Fathers, Quirites, not strength! A man who feels truly secure does not walk about escorted by ex-gladiators, nor glance over his shoulder every few paces. A man who feels truly secure does not offer rewards for information about his enemies.”
“Rubbish!” said Scaurus Princeps Senatus scornfully. “To employ paid informants is plain common sense. It will lighten the Herculean task before these special courts, which will have to wade through tens of thousands of transgressors. Any tool capable of shortening and lightening the process is desirable! As for the armed escorts, they are also plain common sense. They will discourage demonstrations and prevent riots.”
“Hear, hear! Hear, hear!” came from every part of the House, sprinkled with scattered applause.
Rutilius Rufus shrugged. “I can see I’m talking to ears turned to stone—what a pity so few of you can read lips! I will conclude then by saying only one more thing. If we employ paid informers, we will let loose a disease upon our beloved homeland that will enervate it for decades to come. A disease of spies, petty, blackmailers, haunting doubts of friends and even relatives—for there are some in every community who will do anything for money—am I not right, Lucius Marcius Philippus? We will unleash that shabby brigade which slinks about the corridors of the palaces of foreign kings—which always appears out of the woodwork whenever fear rules a people, or repressive legislation is enacted. I beg you, do not unleash this shabby brigade! Let us be what we have always been—Romans! Emancipated from fear, above the ploys of foreign kings.’’ He sat down. “That is all, Lucius Licinius.”
No one applauded, though there were stirs and whispers, and Gaius Marius was grinning.
And that, thought Marcus Livius Drusus as the House wound up its session, was that. Scaurus Princeps Senatus had clearly won, and Rome would be the loser. How could they listen to Rutilius Rufus with ears turned to stone? Gaius Marius and Rutilius Rufus had spoken eminent good sense— good sense so clear it was almost blinding. How had Gaius Marius put it? A harvest of death and blood that would give pause to the dragon’s teeth. The trouble is, hardly one of them knows an Italian beyond some business deal or uneasy boundary sharing. They don’t even have the faintest idea, thought Drusus sadly, that inside each Italian is a seed of hatred and revenge just waiting to germinate. And I would never have known any of this either, had I not met Quintus Poppaedius Silo upon a battlefield.
His brother-in-law Marcus Porcius Cato Salonianus was seated on the top tier not far away; he threaded a path down to Drusus, put his hand upon Drusus’s shoulder.
“Will you walk home with me, Marcus Livius?”
Drusus looked up from where he still sat, mouth slightly open, eyes dull. “Go on without me, Marcus Porcius,” he said. “I’m very tired, I want to collect my thoughts.”
He waited until the last of the senators were disappearing through the doors, then signed to his servant to pick up his stool and go home ahead of his master. Drusus walked slowly down to the black and white flagging of the floor. As he left the building, the Curia Hostilia slaves were already beginning to sweep the tiers, pick up a few bits of rubbish; when they were done with their cleaning, they would lock the doors against the encroaching hordes of the Subura just up the road, and go back to the public slaves’ quarters behind the three State Houses of the major flaminate priests.
Head down, Drusus dragged himself through the ranks of the portico columns, wondering how long it would take Silo and Mutilus to hear of today’s events, sure in his heart that the lex Licinia Mucia would go—complete with Scaurus’s amendments—through the process from promulgation to ratification in the prescribed minimum time limit of three market days and two intervals; just seventeen days from now, Rome would have a new law upon its tablets, and all hope of a peaceful reconciliation with the Italian Allied nations would be at an end.
When he bumped into Gaius Marius, it was entirely unexpected. And literal. Stumbling backward, the apology died on his lips at the look on Marius’s fierce face. Behind Marius lurked Publius Rutilius Rufus.
“Walk home with your uncle and me, Marcus Livius, and drink a cup of my excellent wine,” said Marius.
Not with all the accumulated wisdom of his sixty-two years could Marius have predicted Drusus’s reaction to this kindly tendered invitation; the taut dark Livian face already starting to display lines crumpled, tears flooded from beneath the eyelids. Pulling his toga over his head to hide this unmanliness, Drusus wept as if his life was over, while Marius and Rutilius Rufus drew close to him and tried to soothe him, mumbling awkwardly, patting him on the back, clucking and shushing. Then Marius had a bright idea, dug in the sinus of his toga, found his handkerchief, and thrust it below the hem of Drusus’s impromptu hood.
Some time elapsed before Drusus composed himself, let the toga fall, and turned to face his audience.
“My wife died yesterday,” he said, hiccoughing.
“We know, Marcus Livius,” said Marius gently.
“I thought I was all right! But this today is too much. I’m sorry I made such an exhibition of myself.”
“What you need is a long draft of the best Falernian,” said Marius, leading the way down the steps.
And indeed, a long draft of the best Falernian did much to restore Drusus to some semblance of normality. Marius had drawn an extra chair up to his desk, at which the three men sat, the wine flagon and the water pitcher handy.
“Well, we tried,” said Rutilius Rufus, sighing.
“We may as well not have bothered,” rumbled Marius.
“I disagree, Gaius Marius,” said Drusus. “The meeting was recorded word for word. I saw Quintus Mucius issue the instructions, and the clerks scribbled as busily while you two were talking as they did while Scaurus and Crassus Orator talked. So at some time in the future, when events have shown who is right and who is wrong, someone will read what you said, and posterity will not consider all Romans to be arrogant fools.”
“I suppose that’s some consolation, though I would rather have seen everyone turn away from the last clauses of the lex Licinia Mucia,” said Rutilius Rufus. “The trouble is, they all live among Italians—but they know nothing about Italians!”
“Quite so,” said Drusus dryly. He put his cup down on the desk and allowed Marius to refill it. “There will be war,” he said.
“No, not war!” said Rutilius Rufus quickly.
“Yes, war. Unless I or someone else can succeed in blocking the ongoing work of the lex Licinia Mucia, and gain universal suffrage for all Italy.” Drusus sipped his wine. “On the body of my dead wife,” he said, eyes filling with tears he resolutely blinked away, “I swear that I had nothing to do with the false registration of these Italian citizens. But it was done, and I no sooner heard about it than I knew who was responsible. The high leaders of all the Italian nations, not merely my friend Silo and his friend Mutilus. I don’t think for one moment that they truly thought they could get away with it. I think it was done in an effort to make Rome see how desperately universal suffrage is needed in Italy. For I tell you, nothing short of it can possibly avoid war!”
“They don’t have the organization to make war,” said Marius.
“You might be unpleasantly surprised,” said Drusus. “If I am to believe Silo’s chance remarks—and I think I must— they have been talking war for some years. Certainly since Arausio. I have no evidence, simply knowledge of what sort of man Quintus Poppaedius Silo is. But knowing what sort of man he is, I think they are already physically preparing for war. The male children are growing up and they’re training them as soon as they reach seventeen. Why should they not? Who can accuse them of anything beyond wanting to be sure their young men are ready against the day Rome wants them? Who can argue with them if they insist the arms and equipment they’re gathering are being gathered against the day Rome demands legions of auxiliaries from them?”
Marius leaned his elbows on the desk and grunted. “Very true, Marcus Livius. I hope you’re wrong. Because it’s one thing to fight barbarians or foreigners with Roman legions— but if we have to fight the Italians, we’re fighting men who are as warlike and Romanly trained as we are ourselves. The Italians would be our most formidable enemies, as they have been in the distant past. Look at how often the Samnites used to beat us! We won in the end—but Samnium is only a part of Italy! A war against a united Italy may well kill us.”
“So I think,” said Drusus.
“Then we had better start lobbying in earnest for peaceful integration of the Italians within the Roman fold,” said Rutilius Rufus with decision. “If that’s what they want, then that’s what they must have. I’ve never been a wholehearted advocate of universal enfranchisement for Italy, but I am a sensible man. As a Roman I may not approve. But as a patriot I must approve. A civil war would ruin us.”
“You’re absolutely sure of what you say?” asked Marius of Drusus, his voice somber.
“I am absolutely sure, Gaius Marius.”
“I think, then, that you should journey to see Quintus Silo and Gaius Mutilus as soon as possible,” said Marius, forming ideas aloud. “Try to persuade them—and through them, the other Italian leaders—that in spite of the lex Licinia Mucia, the door to a general citizenship is not irrevocably closed. If they’re already preparing for war, you won’t be able to dissuade them from continuing preparations. But you may be able to convince them that war is so horrific a last resort that they would do well to wait. And wait. And wait. In the meantime, we must demonstrate in the Senate and the Comitia that a group of us is determined to see enfranchisement for Italy. And sooner or later, Marcus Livius, we will have to find a tribune of the plebs willing to put his life on the line and legislate to make all Italy Roman.”
“I will be that tribune of the plebs,” said Drusus firmly.
“Good! Good! No one will be able to accuse you of being a demagogue, or of wooing the Third and Fourth Classes. You will be well above the usual age for a tribune of the plebs, therefore will present as someone mature, responsible. You are the son of a most conservative censor, and the only liberal tendency you have is your well-known sympathy for the Italians,” said Marius, pleased.
“But not yet,” said Rutilius Rufus strongly. “We must wait, Gaius Marius! We must lobby, we must secure support in every sector of the Roman community first—and that is going to take several years. I don’t know whether you noticed it, but the crowds outside the Curia Hostilia today proved to me what I have always suspected—that opposition to Italian enfranchisement is not limited to the top. It’s one of those odd issues where Rome is united from the top all the way down to the capite censi Head Count—and where, unless I’m mistaken, the Latin Rights citizens are also on Rome’s side.”
“Exclusivity,” said Marius, nodding. “Everyone likes being better than the Italians. I think it’s very possible that this sense of superiority is more entrenched among the lower Classes than it is among the elite. We’ll have to enlist Lucius Decumius.”
“Lucius Decumius?” asked Drusus, knitting his brows.
“A very low fellow I am acquainted with,” said Marius, grinning. “However, he has a great deal of clout in his low way. And as he is utterly devoted to my sister-in-law Aurelia, I shall endeavor to enlist her so she in turn can enlist him.”
Drusus’s frown grew darker. “I doubt you’ll have much luck with Aurelia,” he said. “Didn’t you see her older brother, Lucius Aurelius Cotta, up there on the praetors’ part of the platform? He was cheering and clapping with the rest. And so was his uncle, Marcus Aurelius Cotta.”
“Rest easy, Marcus Livius, she’s not nearly as hidebound as her male relatives,” said Rutilius Rufus, looking besotted. “That young woman has a mind of her own, and she’s tied by marriage to the most unorthodox and radical branch of the Julii Caesares. We will enlist Aurelia, never fear. And, through her, we will also enlist Lucius Decumius.”
There was a light knock on. the door; Julia floated in, surrounded by the gauziest of linen draperies, purchased on Cos. Like Marius, she looked splendidly brown and fit.
“Marcus Livius, my dear fellow,” she said, coming to slip her arms about him as she stood behind his chair and leaned her head down to kiss his cheek. “I shan’t unman you by being too maudlin, I just want you to know how very sorry I am, and to tell you that there is always a warm welcome for you here.”
And, so soothing was her presence, so strong her radiated sympathy, that Drusus found himself exquisitely comforted, and felt revived rather than cast down by her condolences. He reached up to take her hand, and kissed it. “I thank you, Julia.”
She sat in the chair Rutilius Rufus brought for her and accepted a cup of lightly watered wine, absolutely sure of her welcome in this male group, though it must have been obvious to her as she came in that the discussion had been deep and serious.
“The lex Licinia Mucia,” she said.
“Quite right, mel,” said Marius, gazing at her adoringly, more in love with her now than he had been when he married her. “However, we’ve gone as far as we can at the moment. Though I shall need you. I’ll talk to you about that later on.”
“I shall do whatever I can,” she said, clasped Drusus on the forearm and shook it, beginning to laugh. “You, Marcus Livius, indirectly broke up our holiday!”
“How could I possibly have done that?” asked Drusus, smiling.
“Blame me,” said Rutilius Rufus with a wicked chuckle.
“I do!” said Julia, darting a fierce look at him. “Your uncle, Marcus Livius, wrote to us in Halicarnassus last January and told us that his niece had just been divorced for adultery, having given birth to a red-haired son!”
“It’s all true,” said Drusus, his smile growing.
“Yes, but the trouble is, he has another niece—Aurelia! And, though you may not know it, there was a little gossip in the family about her friendship with a certain red-haired man who is now serving as senior legate to Titus Didius in Nearer Spain. So when we read your uncle’s cryptic comment, my husband assumed he was talking about Aurelia. And I insisted on coming home because I would have offered my life as a bet that Aurelia would not involve herself with Lucius Cornelius Sulla beyond simple friendship. When we got here, I learned that we had been worried about the wrong niece! Publius Rutilius tricked us brilliantly.” She laughed again.
“I was missing you,” said Rutilius Rufus impenitently.
“Families,” said Drusus, “can be a dreadful nuisance. But I must admit that Marcus Porcius Cato Salonianus is a more likable man by far than Quintus Servilius Caepio. And Livia Drusa is happy.”
“Then all’s well,” said Julia.
“Yes,” said Drusus. “All is well.”
*
Quintus Poppaedius Silo was traveling from place to place during the days which intervened between the first discussion of the lex Licinia Mucia and its passage into law by a virtually unanimous vote of the tribes in the Assembly of the Whole People. So it was from Gaius Papius Mutilus that Silo learned of the new law, when he arrived in Bovianum.
“Then it’s war,” he said to Mutilus, face set.
“I am afraid so, Quintus Poppaedius.”
“We must call a council of all the national leaders.”
“It is already in train.”
“Whereabouts?”
“Where the Romans will never think of looking,” said Papius Mutilus. “In Grumentum, ten days from now.”
“Excellent!” cried Silo. “Inland Lucania is a place no Roman ever thinks of for any reason. There aren’t any Roman landlords or latifundia within a day’s ride of Grumentum.”
“Nor any resident Roman citizens, more importantly.”
“How will we get rid of visiting Romans, should any turn up?” asked Silo, frowning.
“Marcus Lamponius has it all worked out,” said Mutilus with a faint smile. “Lucania is brigand territory. So any visiting Romans will be captured by brigands. After the council is over, Marcus Lamponius will cover himself in glory by securing their release without payment of ransom.’’
“Clever! When do you yourself intend to start out?”
“Four days from now.” Mutilus linked his arm through Silo’s and strolled with him into the peristyle-garden of his large and elegant house; for, like Silo, Mutilus was a man of property, taste, education. “Tell me what happened during this trip of yours to Italian Gaul, Quintus Poppaedius.”
“I found things pretty much as Quintus Servilius Caepio led me to believe two and a half years ago,” said Silo contentedly. “A whole series of neat-looking little towns scattered up the River Medoacus beyond Patavium, and up both the Sontius and the Natiso above Aquileia. The iron is shipped overland from that part of Noricum near Noreia, but most of its journey is by water—down an arm of the Dravus, then it’s portaged across the watershed to the Sontius and the Tiliaventus, where it goes the rest of the way by water also. The settlements highest up the rivers are devoted to the production of charcoal, which is sent down to the steel settlements by water. I posed as a Roman praefectus fabrum when I visited the area—and I paid in cash, which everyone grabbed at. Sufficient cash, I add, to ensure that they’ll work madly to complete my order. And, as I turned out to be the first serious client they had seen, they’re very happy to go on making arms and armaments exclusively for me.”
Mutilus looked apprehensive. “Are you sure it was wise to pose as a Roman praefectus fabrum?” he asked. “What happens if a real Roman praefectus fabrum walks in? He’ll know you’re not what you purported to be—and notify Rome.”
“Rest easy, Gaius Papius, I covered my tracks very well,” said Silo, unperturbed. “You must understand that because of me it is not necessary for these new settlements to search for business. Roman orders go to established places like Pisae and Populonia. Whereas shipping from Patavium and Aquileia, our armaments can be transported down the Adriatic to Italian ports the Romans don’t use. No Roman will get a whiff of our cargoes, let alone learn that eastern Italian Gaul is in the armaments business. Roman activity lies in the west, on the Tuscan Sea.”
“Can eastern Italian Gaul take on more business?”
“Definitely! The busier the area becomes, the more smiths it will attract. I’ll say this for Quintus Servilius Caepio, he’s got a wonderful little scheme going.”
“What about Caepio? He’s no friend to the Italians!”
“But cagey,” said Silo, grinning. “It’s no part of his plans to advertise his business ventures inside Rome—he’s just trying to hide the Gold of Tolosa in out-of-the-way corners. And he works well shielded from senatorial scrutiny, which means he’s not going to be vetting anything beyond the account books too thoroughly. Nor visiting his investments too often. It surprised me when he demonstrated a talent for this sort of thing—his blood is much higher quality than his thinking apparatus under every other circumstance. No, we don’t need to worry too much about Quintus Servilius Caepio! As long as the sesterces keep tinkling into his moneybags, he’ll stay very quiet and very happy.”
“Then what we have to do is concentrate upon finding more money,” said Mutilus, and ground his teeth together. “By all our old Italian gods, Quintus Poppaedius, it would afford me and mine enormous satisfaction to stamp Rome and Romans out of existence!”
But the next day Mutilus was made to suffer the presence of a Roman, for Marcus Livius Drusus arrived in Bovianum, hot on the trail of Silo, and full of news.
“The Senate is busy drawing lots to empanel judges for these special courts right now,” said Drusus, uneasy because he was inside a chronic hotbed of insurrection like Bovianum, and hoping he had not been seen coming here.
“Do they really intend to enforce the provisions of the lex Licinia Mucia?” asked Silo, still hardly able to believe it.
“They do,” said Drusus grimly. “I’m here to tell you that you have about six market intervals to do what you can to cushion the blow. By seasonal summer the quaestiones will be in session, and every place where a quaestio sits will be plastered with posters advertising the joys and financial rewards of laying information. There’ll be many a nasty type raring to earn four or eight or twelve thousand sesterces—and some will make their fortunes, I predict. It’s a disgrace, I agree, but the Whole People—yes, patricians as well as plebeians!—passed that wretched law well-nigh unanimously.”
“Where will the closest court to me be situated?” asked Mutilus, his face ugly.
“Aesernia. In every case the regional quaestio will sit in a Roman or Latin Rights colony.”
“They wouldn’t be game to sit anywhere else.”
A silence fell. Neither Mutilus nor Silo said anything about war, which alarmed Drusus more than if they had talked of it openly. He knew he had intruded upon the hatching of many plots, but he was caught in a cleft stick; too loyal a Roman not to lodge information about any plots, he was too loyal a friend to Silo to want to learn about any plots. So he held his tongue and concentrated upon doing what he could without impugning his patriotism.
“What do you suggest we do?” asked Mutilus of Drusus.
“As I said, what you can to cushion the blow. Convince those living in Roman or Latin colonies or municipalities that they must flee immediately if they put their names down as Roman citizens without entitlement. They won’t want to move, but you must persuade them to move. If they stay, they’ll be flogged, fined, disbarred, and evicted,” said Drusus.
“They can’t do it!” cried Silo, hands clawing at nothing. “Marcus Livius, there are just too many of these so-called spurious citizens! Surely Rome has to see the sheer volume of enemies she’ll make if she enforces this law! It’s one thing to flog an Italian here and an Italian there, but to flog whole villages and towns of them? Insanity! The country won’t lie down under it, I swear it won’t!”
Drusus put his hands over his ears, shaking his head. “No, Quintus Poppaedius, don’t say it! I beg you, don’t say a word I could construe as treason! I am still a Roman! Truly, I am only here to help you as best I can. Don’t involve me in things I sincerely hope will never bear fruit, please! Get your false citizens out of any place where to stay will lead to discovery. And do it now, while they can at least salvage something of their investments in living among Romans or Latins. It doesn’t matter that everyone will know why they’re leaving as long as they go far enough away to make apprehension difficult. The armed militiamen will be too few and too busy guarding their judges to voyage far afield in search of culprits. One thing you can always rely on—the traditional reluctance of the Senate to spend money. In this situation, it’s your friend. Get your people out! And make sure the full Italian tributes are paid. Don’t let anyone refuse to pay because of a Roman citizenship that isn’t a true one.”
“It will be done,” said Mutilus, who as a Samnite knew how remorseless Roman vengeance could be. “We will bring our people home, and we will look after them.”
“Good,” said Drusus. “That alone will reduce the number of victims.” He fidgeted restlessly. “I cannot stay here, I must be off before noon and reach Casinum before nightfall—a more logical place to find a Livius Drusus than Bovianum. I have land at Casinum.”
“Then go, go!” said Silo nervously. “I wouldn’t have you charged with treason for all the world, Marcus Livius. You’ve been a genuine friend to us, and we appreciate it.”
“I’ll go in a moment,” said Drusus, finding it in him to smile. “First, I want your word that you will not seek recourse in war until there is absolutely no other alternative. I have not given up hope of a peaceful solution, and I now have some powerful allies in the Senate. Gaius Marius is back from abroad and my uncle Publius Rutilius Rufus is also working on your behalf. I swear to you that before too many years have gone by, I will seek office as a tribune of the plebs—and I will then force a general enfranchisement for the whole of Italy though the Plebeian Assembly. But it cannot be done now. We must first gain support for the idea within Rome and among our peers. Especially among the knights. The lex Licinia Mucia may well turn out to be more your friend than your enemy. We think that when its effects are seen, many Romans will shift their sympathy toward the Italian nationals. I am sorry that it will create heroes for your cause in the most painful and costly way— but heroes they will be, and eventually Romans will weep at their plight. So I vow it to you.”
Silo accompanied him to his horse, a fresh beast from the stables of Mutilus, and discovered he was quite unattended.
“Marcus Livius, it’s dangerous to ride alone!” said Silo.
“It’s more dangerous to bring someone with me, even a slave. People talk, and I can’t afford to give Caepio an opportunity to accuse me of being in Bovianum plotting treason,” said Drusus, accepting a leg up.
“Even though none of us leaders registered as citizens, I dare not venture into Rome,” said Silo, gazing up at his friend, head haloed from the sun.
“Definitely do not,” said Drusus, and grimaced. “For one thing, we have an informant in our house.”
“Jupiter! I hope you crucified him!”
“Unfortunately I must bear with this informant, Quintus Poppaedius. She’s my nine-year-old niece Servilia, who is Caepio’s daughter—and his creature.” Shadowed though his face was, it became discernibly red. “We discovered that she invaded your room during your last visit—which is why Caepio was able to name Gaius Papius as one of the innovators of mass registration, in case you wondered. You may tell him this news, so that he too will know how divided this issue makes all of us who live in Italy. Times have changed. It isn’t Samnium against Rome anymore, truly. What we have to achieve is a peaceful union of all the peoples of this peninsula. Otherwise Rome cannot advance any more than the Italian nations can.”
“Can’t you pack the brat off to her father?” Silo asked.
“He doesn’t want her at any price, even the betrayal of my house guests—though I think she thought he would,” said Drusus. “I have her muzzled and tethered, but there’s always the chance that she’ll slip her leash and get to him. So don’t come near Rome or my house. If you need to see me urgently, send a message to me and I’ll meet you in some out-of-the-way place.”
“Agreed.” Hand raised to slap Drusus’s horse on the flank, Silo stayed it for one last message. “Give my warmest regards to Livia Drusa, Marcus Porcius, and of course dear Servilia Caepionis.”
Pain washed over Drusus’s face just as Silo’s hand came down and the horse jolted into motion. “She died not long ago!” he called back over his shoulder. “Oh, I miss her!”
*
The quaestiones provided for by the lex Licinia Mucia were set up in Rome, Spoletium, Cosa, Firmum Picenum, Aesernia, Alba Fucentia, Capua, Rhegium, Luceria, Paestum, and Brundisium, with provision that as soon as those parts of each region had been scoured, the respective court would move to a fresh location. Only Latium ended in not having a court; the lands of the Marsi were felt to be more important, so to Alba Fucentia was the tenth place given.
But on the whole, the Italian leaders who met at Grumentum seven days after Drusus visited Silo and Mutilus at Bovianum had succeeded in removing their spurious citizens from all those Roman and Latin colony towns. Of course there were some who refused to believe they would suffer, as well as some who perhaps did believe but were just too well entrenched to consider fleeing. And upon these men the full wrath of the quaestiones fell.
As well as its consular president and two other senators as judges, each court had a staff of clerks, twelve lictors (the president had been empowered with a proconsular imperium) and an armed mounted escort of a hundred militiamen culled from the ranks of retired cavalry troopers and those ex-gladiators who could ride well enough to turn a horse at the gallop.
The judges had been chosen by lots. Neither Gaius Marius nor Publius Rutilius Rufus drew a lot, no surprise—most likely their wooden marbles hadn’t even been put inside the closed jar of water—so how, when the jar was spun like a top, could their marbles possibly have popped out of the little side spout?
Quintus Lutatius Catulus Caesar drew Aesernia, and Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus Pontifex Maximus drew Alba Fucentia; Scaurus Princeps Senatus wasn’t chosen but Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Nasica was, drawing Brundisium, a location which didn’t please him in the least. Metellus Pius the Piglet and Quintus Servilius Caepio were among the junior judges, as was Drusus’s brother-in-law, Marcus Porcius Cato Salonianus. Drusus himself didn’t draw a lot, a result pleasing him profoundly, as he would have had to announce to the Senate that his conscience would not permit of his serving.
“Someone blundered,” said Marius to him afterward. “If they had the sense they were presumably born with, they would have ensured that you draw a lot, thus forcing you to declare your feelings very publicly. Not good for you in this present climate!”
“Then I’m glad they don’t have the sense they were presumably born with,” said Drusus thankfully.
Marcus Antonius Orator the censor had drawn the lot for the presidency of the quaestio inside the city of Rome. This delighted him, as he knew his transgressors would be more difficult to find than the mass registrants of the country, and he enjoyed conundrums. Also, he could look forward to earning millions of sesterces in fines thanks to the efforts of informers, already milling eagerly with long lists of names.
The catch varied considerably from place to place. Aesernia failed to please Catulus Caesar one little bit; the town was situated in the middle of Samnium, Mutilus had succeeded in persuading all but a handful of the guilty to leave, and the Roman citizen and Latin residents had no information to offer—nor could the Samnites be subverted into betraying their own for any amount of money. However, those who remained were summarily dealt with in an exemplary manner (at least according to Catulus Caesar’s lights), the President of the court having found a particularly brutal fellow among his escort to perform the floggings. The days were boring nonetheless, the procedure calling for the reading out of every citizen name new to the rolls; it took time to discover that each name when read off was no longer resident within Aesernia. Perhaps once every three or four days a name would produce a man, and these encounters Catulus Caesar looked forward to eagerly. Never lacking in courage, he ignored the rumbles of outrage, the boos and hisses with which he was greeted wherever he went, the furtive little sabotages which plagued not only him but his two more junior judges, the clerks and lictors, even the troopers of his escort. Girths snapped on saddles and riders went crashing to the ground, water had a habit of becoming mysteriously fouled, every insect and spider in Italy had seemingly been rounded up and put in their quarters, snakes slid out of chests and cupboards and bedclothes, little togate dolls all smeared with blood and feathers were found everywhere, as were dead cockerels and cats, and episodes of food poisoning became so rife the President of the court was obliged in the end to force-feed slaves some hours before every meal as well as putting guards to watch the food constantly.
Oddly enough, Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus Pontifex Maximus in Alba Fucentia proved a heartening President; like Aesernia, most of the guilty were long gone, so it took the court six days of sessions to unearth its first victim. No one informed, but the man was well off enough to afford to pay his fine, and stood with head held high while Ahenobarbus Pontifex Maximus ordered the immediate confiscation of all his property within Alba Fucentia. The trooper deputed to administer the lash enjoyed his task too much; white-faced, the President of the court ordered the flogging stopped when blood began to spatter everyone within ten paces of the hapless victim. When the next culprit came to light, a different man plied the knout so delicately that the guilty back showed scarcely a laceration. Ahenobarbus Pontifex Maximus also found in himself an unsuspected distaste for informers, of whom there were not many, but who were—perhaps in consequence—particularly loathsome. There was nothing he could do save pay the reward, but he then would turn around and subject an informer to such a lengthy and unpleasant inquisition about his own citizen status that informers ceased to present themselves. On one occasion when the accused false citizen was revealed to have three deformed and retarded children, Ahenobarbus secretly paid the fine himself and firmly refused to allow the man to be ejected from the town, in which his poor children fared better than they would have in the country.
So whereas the Samnites spat contemptuously at the mere mention of Catulus Caesar, Ahenobarbus Pontifex Maximus grew to be quite well liked in Alba Fucentia, and the Marsi were treated more gently than the Samnites. As for the rest of the courts, some presidents were ruthless, some steered a middle course, and some emulated Ahenobarbus. But the hatred grew, and the victims of this persecution were enough in number to steel the Italian nationals in their determination to be rid of the Roman yoke if they died trying. Not one of the courts found itself with the backbone to send its militiamen into the rural fastnesses in search of those who had fled the towns.
The only judge who got himself into legal trouble was Quintus Servilius Caepio, who had been seconded to the court at Brundisium, under the presidency of Gnaeus Scipio Nasica. That sweltering and dusty seaport pleased Gnaeus Scipio Nasica so little after he actually arrived there that a minor illness (later discovered to be haemorrhoids, much to the mirth of the local people) caused him to scurry back to Rome for treatment. His quaestio he left under the aegis of Caepio as President, assisted by none other than Metellus Pius the Piglet. As in most places, the guilty had fled before the court went into session, and informers were scarce. The list of names was read out, the men could not be found, and the days went by fruitlessly—until an informer produced what seemed like ironclad evidence against one of Brundisium’s most respected Roman citizens. He was not of course a part of the concerted mass enrollment, the informer testifying that his illegal usurpation of the citizenship went back over twenty years. As industrious as a dog unearthing rotting meat, Caepio went about making an example of this man, even to the extent that he ordered his questioning under torture. When Metellus Pius grew afraid and protested, Caepio refused to listen, so sure was he that this ostensible pillar of the community was guilty. But then evidence was brought forward proving beyond any shadow of a doubt that the man was what he purported to be—a Roman citizen in high standing. And the moment he was vindicated, he sued Caepio. It took a hasty trip to Rome and an inspired speech by Crassus Orator to secure Caepio’s acquittal, but clearly he could not return to Brundisium. A snarling Gnaeus Scipio Nasica was obliged to go in his stead, mouthing imprecations against all Servilii Caepiones. As for Crassus Orator., obliged to undertake the defense of a man he disliked heartily, the fact that he won the case was scant comfort.
“There are times, Quintus Mucius,” he told his cousin and boon companion Scaevola, “that I wish anyone but us had been consuls in this hideous year!”
*
Publius Rutilius Rufus was writing these days to Lucius Cornelius Sulla in Nearer Spain, having received a missive from that news-starved senior legate begging for a regular diary of Roman events; Rutilius Rufus seized upon the invitation eagerly.
For I swear, Lucius Cornelius, that there is no one abroad among my friends to whom I can be bothered penning a single line. To be writing to you is wonderful, and I promise I will keep you well informed of the goings-on.
To start with, the special quaestiones of the most famous law in many years, the lex Licinia Mucia. So unpopular and perilous to those conducting them did they become by the end of this summer that not one person connected to them did not long for any excuse to wind their enquiries down. And then luckily an excuse popped up out of nowhere. The Salassi, the Brenni, and the Rhaeti began to raid Italian Gaul on the far side of the Padus River, and created some slight degree of havoc between Lake Benacus and the Vale of the Salassi — middle and western Italian Gaul-across-the-Padus, in other words. Quick as you can say Lucius Tiddlypuss, the Senate declared a state of emergency and wound down the legal operations against the illegal Italian citizens. All the special judges flocked back to Rome, intensely grateful for the respite. And — perhaps in retaliation — voted to send none other than poor Crassus Orator to Italian Gaul with an army to put down the rebellious tribes — or at least eject them from civilized parts. This Crassus Orator did most effectively in a campaign lasting less than two months.
Not many days ago Crassus Orator arrived back in Rome and put his army into camp on the Campus Martius because, he said, his troops had hailed him as imperator on the field, and he wanted to celebrate a triumph. Cousin Quintus Mucius Scaevola, left to govern Rome, received the encamped general’s petition and called a meeting of the Senate in the temple of Bellona immediately. But there was no discussion about the requested triumph!
“Rubbish!” said Scaevola roundly. “Ridiculous rubbish! A piddling campaign against several thousand disorganized savages, worthy of a triumph”? Not while I’m in the consul’s curule chair, it’s not! How can we award a single shared triumph to two generals of the caliber of Gaius Marius and Quintus Lutatius Catulus Caesar, then turn round and award an unshared triumph to a man who didn’t even wage a war, let alone win a proper battle? No! He can’t have his triumph! Chief lictor, go and tell Lucius Licinius to dismiss his troops back to their Capuan barracks and get his fat carcass back inside the pomerium, where he can at least make himself useful for a change!”
Ow, ow, ow! I daresay Scaevola had fallen out of the wrong side of the bed—or his wife had kicked him out of it, which amounts to the same thing, I suppose. Anyway, Crassus Orator dismissed his troops and hustled his fat carcass back across the pomerium, but not to make himself useful for a change! All that concerned him was to give Cousin Scaevola a piece of his mind. But he got short shrift.
“Rubbish!” said Scaevola roundly. You know, Lucius Cornelius, there are definitely times when Scaevola reminds me irresistibly of the younger Scaurus Princeps Senatus! “Dear and all to me though you might be, Lucius Licinius,” Scaevola went on to say, “I will not condone quasi-triumphs.”
The result of this brouhaha is that the cousins have ceased to speak. Which is making life in the Senate rather difficult these days, as they are fellow consuls. Still, I have known fellow consuls who were on far worse terms with each other than Crassus Orator and Scaevola could ever be. It will all blow over in time. Personally I consider it a great pity that they didn’t stop speaking to each other before they dreamed up the lex Licinia Mucia!
And, having narrated that bit of nonsense, I have run out of Roman news! Very inert these days, the Forum is.
However, I think you ought to know that we hear great things of you in Rome. Titus Didius—an honorable man, I have always known—mentions you in glowing terms every time he sends a dispatch to the Senate.
Therefore, I would strongly suggest that you think seriously about returning to Rome toward the end of next year, in time to stand for the praetorian elections. As Metellus Numidicus Piggle-wiggle has been dead for some years now, and Catulus Caesar and Scipio Nasica and Scaurus Princeps Senatus are terribly involved in keeping the lex Licinia Mucia alive despite the trouble it has generated, no one is very interested in Gaius Marius—or who, or what might have happened in the past concerning him. The electors are in the right mood to vote for good men, as there seems to be a dearth of them at the moment. Lucius Julius Caesar had no trouble getting in as praetor urbanus this year, and Aurelia’s half brother Lucius Cotta was praetor peregrinus. I think your public standing is higher than that of either of those two men, I truly do. Nor do I think Titus Didius would block your return, for you have given him longer than most senior legates give their commanders—it will be four years by autumn of next year, a good stint.
Anyway, think about it, Lucius Cornelius. I have talked to Gaius Marius, and he applauds the idea, as does—believe it or not!—none other than Marcus Aemilius Scaurus Princeps Senatus! The birth of a son the living image of him has quite turned the old boy’s head. Though why I call a man my own age an old boy, I do not quite know.
Sitting in his office in Tarraco, Sulla digested his breezy correspondent’s words slowly. The news that Caecilia Metella Dalmatica had given Scaurus a son occupied his mind first, and to the complete exclusion of Rutilius Rufus’s other, more important news and opinions until Sulla had smiled sourly for long enough to scotch the memory of Dalmatica. Then he turned his mind to the idea of standing for praetor, and decided that Rutilius Rufus was right. Next year was the time—there would never be a better time. That Titus Didius would not oppose his going, he did not doubt; and Titus Didius would give him letters of recommendation that would greatly enhance his chances. No, he hadn’t won a Grass Crown in Spain; it had fallen to Quintus Sertorius’s lot to do that. But he hadn’t done too badly, either.
Was it a dream? A little spiteful arrow shot from Fortune’s bow through the medium of poor dead Julilla, who had woven a crown for him out of Palatine grass and put it on his head, not knowing the military significance of what she did. Or had Julilla seen clearly? Was the Grass Crown still waiting to be won? In what war? Nothing serious enough was going on, nothing serious loomed anywhere. Oh, Spain still boiled in both provinces, but Sulla’s duties were not of the kind to permit the winning of a corona graminea. He was Titus Didius’s much-valued chief of logistics, supplies, arms, strategy, but Titus Didius didn’t care to use him to command armies. After he was praetor Sulla would get his chance, and dreamed of relieving Titus Didius in Nearer Spain. A rich and fruitful governorship, that was what he needed!
Sulla needed money. He was well aware of it. At forty-five his time was running out rapidly; soon it would be too late to make a bid for the consulship, no matter what people said to him about Gaius Marius. Gaius Marius was a special case. He had no like, not even Lucius Cornelius Sulla. To Sulla, money was the harbinger of power—and that had been true for Gaius Marius as well. If he hadn’t had the fortune he had won for himself while praetorian governor of Further Spain, old Caesar Grandfather would never have considered him as a husband for Julia—and if he hadn’t married Julia, he could never have secured the consulship, difficult though that had been. Money. Sulla had to have money! So to Rome he would go to seek election as praetor, then back to Spain he would come to make money.
Wrote Publius Rutilius Rufus in August of the following year, after a long silence:
I have been ill, Lucius Cornelius, but am now fully recovered. The doctors called my malady all manner of abstruse things, but my own private diagnosis was boredom. However, I have thrown off both malady and ennui, for things in Rome are more promising.
First off, your candidacy for praetor is already being bruited about. Reactions among the electors are excellent, you will be pleased to know. Scaurus continues to be supportive of you—a circumscribed way of saying he did not find you at fault in that old matter of his wife, I imagine. Stiff-necked old fool! He should have been big enough to have admitted it openly at the time instead of virtually forcing you into what I always think of as an exile. But at least Spain has done the trick! Had Gaius Marius only obtained the kind of support from Piggle-wiggle that you are receiving from Titus Didius, his task would have been both easier and more direct.
Now to the international news. Old Nicomedes of Bithynia has died at last, aged, we believe, somewhere in the vicinity of ninety-three. His long-dead Queen’s son—now no chicken himself at sixty-five—has succeeded to the throne. But a younger son—aged fifty-seven—by name of Socrates (the elder’s name is Nicomedes, and he will rule as the third of that name), has lodged a complaint with the Senate in Rome demanding that Nicomedes the Third be deposed, and himself elevated. The Senate is deliberating the matter with extreme turgidity, deeming foreign affairs unimportant. There has also been a little bit of a stir in Cappadocia, where the Cappadocians apparently have haled their boy-king off his throne and replaced him with a fellow whom they call the ninth Ariarathes. But the ninth Ariarathes died recently in suspicious circumstances, so we are told; the boy-king and his regent, Gordius, are back in control—not without some aid from Mithridates of Pontus and a Pontic army.
When Gaius Marius came back from that part of the world he made a speech to the House warning us that King Mithridates of Pontus is a dangerous young man, but those who bothered to turn up to that particular meeting contented themselves with dozing all the way through Gaius Marius’s statement, and then Scaurus Princeps Senatus got up and said he thought Gaius Marius was exaggerating. It appears that the young King of Pontus has been wooing Scaurus with a spate of terrifically polite letters written in immaculate Greek and absolutely larded with quotations from Homer, Hesiod, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides—not to mention Menander and Pindar. Therefore Scaurus has concluded he must be a nice change from your average oriental potentate, keener on reading the Classics than on driving a spike up through his grandmother’s posterior fundamental orifice. Whereas Gaius Marius contends that this sixth Mithridates—called Eupator, of all things!—starved his mother to death, killed the brother who was King under the mother’s regency, killed several of his uncles and cousins, and then finished things off by poisoning the sister to whom he was married! A nice sort of fellow, you perceive, very up on the Classics!
Politically Rome is saturated with lotus-eaters, for I swear nothing happens. On the court front things have been more interesting. For the second year in a row the Senate sent out its special courts to enquire into the illegal mass enrollment of Italian nationals, and—as was the case last year—found it impossible to trace most of the men who had put down their names. However, there have been several hundred victories, which means several hundred poor bleeding wretches have been entered against Rome’s debit account. I tell you, Lucius Cornelius, one gets a chill on the back of the neck if one is stranded without a dozen stout fellows at one’s back in any Italian locality! Never have I encountered such looks, such—I suppose the word is passive—lack of co-operation from the Italians. It is probably many years since they loved us at all, but since these courts were established and began their dirty work of flogging and dispossessing, the Italians have learned to hate us. The one cheering factor is that the Treasury is starting to bleat because the fines levied haven’t even begun to cover the cost of sending ten lots of expensive senators out of Rome. Gaius Marius and I intend to move a motion in the House toward the end of the year, to the effect that the quaestiones of the lex Licinia Mucia be abandoned as futile and far too costly to the State.
A very new and very young sprig of the plebeian house Sulpicius, one Publius Sulpicius Rufus, actually had the gall to prosecute Gaius Norbanus in the treason court for unlawfully driving Quintus Servilius Caepio of aurum Tolosanum and Arausio fame into exile. The charge, alleged Sulpicius, was inadmissible in the Plebeian Assembly; it should have been tried in the treason court. This young Sulpicius, I add, is a constant companion of the present Caepio’s, which shows extremely poor taste on his part. Anyway, Antonius Orator acted for the defense—and made, I personally think, the finest speech of his entire career. With the result that the jury voted solidly for absolution and Norbanus thumbed his nose at Sulpicius and Caepio. I enclose a copy of Antonius Orator’s speech for your delectation. You will enjoy it.
Concerning the other Orator, Lucius Licinius Crassus, the husbands of his two daughters have fared oppositely in the nursery. Scipio Nasica’s son, Scipio Nasica, now has a son, called Scipio Nasica. His Licinia is breeding superbly, as there is already a daughter. But the Licinia who married Metellus Pius the Piglet has had no luck at all. The Piglet nursery is full of echoes because Licinia Piglet is not full. And my niece Livia Drusa had a girl toward the end of last year—a Porcia, of course, and boasting a head of hair that would set six haystacks on fire. Livia Drusa continues to be besotted by Cato Salonianus, whom I find a really pleasant sort of fellow, actually. Now in Livia Drusa, Rome really has a breeder!
I wander about, but what does it matter? Our aediles this year are curiously linked. My nephew Marcus Livius is one of the plebeian aediles, his colleague a fabulously rich nonentity named Remmius, whereas his brother-in-law Cato Salonianus is a curule aedile. Their games will be splendid.
Family news. Poor Aurelia is still living alone in the Subura, but we hope to see Gaius Julius home at last next year—or the year after, at the latest. His brother Sextus is a praetor this year, and it will soon be Gaius Julius’s turn. Of course Gaius Marius will honor his promise, bribe heavily if he has to. Aurelia and Gaius Julius have the most remarkable son. Young Caesar, as they call him, is now five years old, and can already read and write. What is more, he reads immediately! Give him a piece of gibberish you wrote down yourself not moments before and he rattles it off without pausing for breath! I have never known a grown man who could do that—yet there he stands, all of five years old, making fools of the best of us. A stunning-looking child too. But not spoiled. Aurelia is too hard on him, I think.
I can think of nothing else, Lucius Cornelius. Make sure you hurry home. I know in my bones that there is a praetor’s curule chair waiting for you.
Lucius Cornelius Sulla hurried home as bidden, half of him alight with hope, the other half convinced something would happen to mar his chances. Though he longed with every cord that tied his heart to visit his lover of many years, Metrobius, he did not, nor was he at home to Metrobius when that star of the tragic theater came as a client to call. This was his year. If he failed, the goddess Fortune had turned her face away forever, so he would do nothing to annoy that lady; she was especially prone to dislike it when her favorites engaged in love affairs which mattered too much. Goodbye, Metrobius.
He did, however, call upon Aurelia as soon as he had spent a little time with his children, who had grown up so much that he wanted to weep; four years of their little lives stolen from him by a foolish girl he still hankered after! Cornelia Sulla was thirteen years old, and had enough of her dead mother’s fragile beauty to turn heads already, allied as it was to Sulla’s richly waving red-gold hair. She was regularly menstruating, so Aelia said, and the budding breasts beneath her plain gown confirmed. The sight of her made Sulla feel old, a sensation entirely new and most unwelcome; but then she gave him Julilla’s bewitching smile and ran into his arms and stood almost on his level to cover his face with kisses. His son was twelve, an almost pure Caesar in physical type—golden hair and blue eyes, long face, long bumpy nose, tall and slender yet well muscled.
And in the boy Sulla found at last the friend he had never owned; a love so perfect, pure, innocent, heart-whole, that he found himself thinking of nothing and no one else when he should have been concentrating upon charming the electors. Young Sulla—though still in the purple-bordered toga of childhood and wearing the magical talisman of the bulla around his neck on a chain to ward off the Evil Eye— accompanied his father everywhere, standing gravely off to one side and listening intently to whatever was said between Sulla and his acquaintances. Then when they went home they sat together in Sulla’s study and talked about the day, the people, the mood in the Forum.
But Sulla did not take his son with him to the Subura; he walked alone, surprised when every now and then someone in the crowd greeted him, or clapped him on the shoulder; at last he was beginning to be known! Taking these encounters as a good omen, he knocked on Aurelia’s door with greater optimism than he had experienced as he left the Palatine. And, sure enough, Eutychus the steward admitted him immediately. Possessing no sense of shame, he felt at no disadvantage as he waited in the reception room; when he saw her emerge from her workroom he simply held out his hand with a smile. A smile she returned.
How little she had changed. How much she had changed. What was her age now? Twenty-nine? Thirty? Helen of Troy, yield up your laurels, he thought; here is beauty personified. The purple eyes were larger, their black lashes as dense, the skin as thick and creamy as ever, that indefinable air of immense dignity and composure more marked.
“Am I forgiven?” he asked, taking her hand and squeezing it.
“Of course you are, Lucius Cornelius! How could I continue to blame you for a weakness in myself?”
“Shall I try again?” he asked irrepressibly.
“No, thank you,” she said, taking a seat. “Some wine?”
“Please.” He looked around. “Still alone, Aurelia?”
“Still alone. And perfectly happy, I do assure you.”
“You are the most self-sufficient person I have ever met. If it hadn’t been for that one little episode, I’d be tempted to think you inhuman—or superhuman!—so I’m glad it happened. One could not maintain a friendship with a genuine goddess, could one?”
“Or a genuine demon, Lucius Cornelius,’’ she countered.
He laughed. “All right, I yield!”
The wine came, was poured. Sipping at his cup, he looked at her across its brim, her face rayed by the fizzing little purple bubbles the slightly effervescent wine gave off. Perhaps it was the peace and contentment of his new friendship with his son allowed his eyes an extra measure of vision, pierced the lucent windows of her mind and dived into the depths beyond, there to discover layer upon layer of complexities, contingencies, conundrums, all logically put away in carefully sorted categories.
“Oh!” he said, blinking, “There isn’t a facade to you at all! You are exactly what you seem to be.”
“I hope so,” she said, smiling.
“We mostly aren’t, Aurelia.”
“Certainly you aren’t.”
“So what do you think exists behind my facade?”
But she shook her head emphatically. “Whatever I think, Lucius Cornelius, I shall keep to myself. Something tells me it is safer.’’
“Safer?”
She shrugged. “Why that word? I don’t honestly know. A premonition? Or something from long ago, more likely. I don’t have premonitions, I’m not giddy enough.”
“How are your children?’’ he asked, changing the subject to something safer.
“Would you like to see for yourself?”
“Why not? My own have surprised me, that much I can tell you. I confess I shall find it hard to be civil to Marcus Aemilius Scaurus. Four years, Aurelia! They’re almost grown up, and I was not here to see it happen.”
“Few Roman men of our class are, Lucius Cornelius,” she said placidly. “In all likelihood you would have gone away even had that business with Dalmatica never happened. Just enjoy your children while you can; and don’t think harshly of what cannot now be altered.”
The fine fair brows he darkened artificially lifted quizzically. “There is so much about my life that I would change! That’s the trouble, Aurelia. So much I regret.”
“Regret it if you must, but don’t let it color today or tomorrow,” she said, not mystically, but practically. “If you do, Lucius Cornelius, the past will haunt you forever. And—as I have told you several times before—you still have a long course to run. The race has hardly commenced.’’
“You feel that?”
“Completely.”
And in trooped her three children, Caesars all. Julia Major called Lia was ten years old and Julia Minor called Ju-ju was almost eight. Both girls were tall, slender, graceful; they looked like Sulla’s dead Julilla, save that their eyes were blue. Young Caesar was six. Quite how he contrived to give the impression that his beauty was greater than that of his sisters, Sulla didn’t know, only felt it. A totally Roman beauty, of course; the Caesars were totally Roman. This was the boy, he remembered, who Publius Rutilius Rufus had said could read at a glance. That indicated an extraordinary degree of intelligence. But many things might happen to Young Caesar to damp down the fires of his mind.
“Children, this is Lucius Cornelius Sulla,” said Aurelia.
The girls murmured shy greetings, whereas Young Caesar turned on a smile which caught at Sulla’s breath, stirred him in a way he hadn’t felt since his first meeting with Metrobius. The eyes looking directly at him were very like his own—palest blue surrounded by a dark ring. They blazed intelligence. Here am I as I might have been had I known a mother like the wonderful Aurelia and never known a drunkard like my father, thought Sulla. A face to set Athens on fire, and a mind too.
“They tell me, boy,” said Sulla, “that you’re very clever.’’
The smile became a laugh. “Then you haven’t been talking to Marcus Antonius Gnipho,” Young Caesar said.
“Who’s he?”
“My tutor, Lucius Cornelius.”
“Can’t your mother teach you for two or three more years?”
“I think I must have driven her mad with my questions when I was a little boy. So she got a tutor for me.”
“Little boy? You’re still that.”
“Littler,” said Young Caesar, not at all daunted.
“Precocious,” said Sulla dismissively.
“Not that word, please!”
“Why not, Young Caesar? What do you know, at six, about the nuances in a word?”
“About that one, enough to know that it’s almost always applied to haughty little girls who sound exactly like their grandmothers,” said Young Caesar sturdily.
“Ahah!” said Sulla, looking more interested. “That’s not got out of a book, is it? So you have eyes which feed your clever mind with information, and from it you make deductions.”
“Naturally,” said Young Caesar, surprised.
“Enough. Go away now, all of you,” said Aurelia.
The children went, Young Caesar smiling at Sulla over his shoulder until he caught his mother’s eye.
“If he doesn’t burn out, he’ll either be an adornment to his class or a thorn in its paw,” said Sulla.
“Hopefully an adornment,” said Aurelia.
“I wonder?” And Sulla laughed.
“You’re standing for praetor,” said Aurelia, changing the subject, sure Sulla had had enough of children..
“Yes.”
“Uncle Publius says you’ll get in.”
“Let us hope he’s more like Teiresias than Cassandra, then!”
He was like Teiresias; when the votes were counted, not only was Sulla a praetor, but—as he was returned at the top of the poll—he was also praetor urbanus. Though under normal circumstances the urban praetor’s duties were almost entirely involved with the courts and with those petitioning for litigation, he was empowered (if both the consuls were absent or unfit to govern) to act in loco consularis—to defend Rome and command its armies in case of attack, to promulgate laws, to direct the Treasury.
The news that he was to be urban praetor dismayed Sulla greatly. The urban praetor could not be away from Rome for more than ten days at a time; the office denied Sulla a bolt-hole, he was forced to remain inside Rome among all the temptations of his old life and in the same house as a woman he despised. However, he now had a form of support never before so much as imagined, in the person of his son. Young Sulla would be his friend, Young Sulla would be in attendance on him in the Forum, Young Sulla would be at home each evening to talk to, to laugh with. How like his first cousin Young Caesar he was! To look at, anyway. And the lad had a good mind, even if not in Young Caesar’s class. Sulla had a strong feeling that he wouldn’t have liked his son nearly as much were he as clever as Young Caesar.
The elections had produced a bigger shock than Sulla’s topping the praetors’ poll, a shock not without its amusing side for those not directly affected. Lucius Marcius Philippus had announced his candidacy for consul, convinced he was the jewel in an uninspiring field. But first place went to the younger brother of the censor Lucius Valerius Flaccus, one Gaius Valerius Flaccus. That was all right, perhaps; at least a Valerius Flaccus was a patrician, his family influential! But the junior consul was none other than that ghastly New Man, Marcus Herennius! Philippus’s howls of outrage could be heard in Carseoli, vowed the Forum frequenters, chuckling. Everyone knew where the fault lay, including Philippus—in those remarks of Publius Rutilius Rufus during his speech advocating a kinder lex Licinia Mucia. Until then, the world had forgotten how Gaius Marius had bought Philippus after he had been elected a tribune of the plebs. But insufficient time had elapsed between that speech and Philippus’s consular candidacy for people to forget all over again.
“I’ll get Rutilius Rufus for this!” vowed Philippus to Caepio.
“We’ll both get him,” said Caepio, also smarting.