That the Marsi at any rate were prepared for war was brought home to the Senate and the People of Rome some days later, when word came that Quintus Poppaedius Silo was leading two full-strength legions of Marsi, properly equipped and armed, down the Via Valeria toward Rome. A startled Princeps Senatus summoned the Senate to an urgent meeting, only to find that a mere handful of senators were willing to attend; neither Philippus nor Caepio was there, nor had sent any message as to why. Drusus had also refused to come, but had sent word that he felt he could not be present while his peers contended with a threat of war from such an old personal friend as Quintus Poppaedius Silo.
“The rabbits!” said Scaurus to Marius, eyeing the empty tiers. “They’ve bolted into their burrows, apparently on the theory that if they stay there, the nasty men will go away.”
But Scaurus didn’t think the Marsi meant war, and managed to convince his meager audience that the best way to deal with this “invasion” was by peaceful methods.
“Gnaeus Domitius,” he said to Ahenobarbus Pontifex Maximus, “you are an eminent consular, you have been censor, and you are Pontifex Maximus. Would you be willing to travel out to meet this army like a Popillius Laenas, accompanied only by lictors? You were the iudex in the special court of the lex Licinia Mucia set up in Alba Fucentia a few years ago, so the Marsi know you—and I hear they respect you greatly, thanks to your clemency. Find out why this army is on the march, and what the Marsi want of us.”
“Very well, Princeps Senatus, I will be another Popillius Laenas,” said Ahenobarbus, “provided that you endow me with a full proconsular imperium. Otherwise I won’t be able to say or do what I might think necessary at the moment. I also want the axes put into my fasces, please.”
“You shall have both,” said Scaurus.
“The Marsi will reach the outskirts of Rome tomorrow,” said Marius, grimacing.’’ You realize, I hope, what day it is? “
“I do,” said Ahenobarbus. “The day before the Nones of October—the anniversary of the battle of Arausio, at which the Marsi lost a whole legion.”
“They planned it this way,” said Sextus Caesar, quite enjoying this meeting, despite its gloomy atmosphere; no Philippus, no Caepio, and only those senators present whom he privately deemed patriots.
“That’s why, Conscript Fathers, I do not think they mean this as an act of war,” said Scaurus.
“Clerk, go summon the lictors of the thirty curiae,” said Sextus Caesar. “You will have your proconsular imperium, Gnaeus Domitius, as soon as the lictors of the thirty curiae get here. And will you report back to us in a special session the day after tomorrow?” he asked.
“On the Nones?” asked Ahenobarbus incredulously.
“In this emergency, Gnaeus Domitius, we will meet on the Nones,” said Sextus Caesar firmly. “Hopefully it will be a better attended meeting! What is Rome coming to, that a genuine emergency produces no more than a handful of concerned men?”
“Oh, I know why, Sextus Julius,” said Marius. “They didn’t come because they didn’t believe the summonses. They all decided this was a manufactured crisis.”
*
On the Nones of October the House was fuller, yet by no means full. Drusus was present, but Philippus and Caepio were not, having decided that their absence would show the senators what they thought of this “invasion.”
“Tell us what happened, Gnaeus Domitius,” said the only consul present, Sextus Caesar.
“Well, I met Quintus Poppaedius Silo not far from the Colline Gate,” said Ahenobarbus Pontifex Maximus. “He was marching at the head of an army. Two legions would be about right—at least ten thousand actual soldiers, the appropriate number of noncombatants, eight pieces of excellent field artillery, and a squad of cavalry. Silo himself was on foot, as were his officers. I could see no sign of a baggage train, so I presume he had brought his men in light marching order.” He sighed. “They were a magnificent sight, Conscript Fathers! Beautifully turned out, in superb condition, well disciplined. While Silo and I talked, they stood to attention in the sun without speaking, and no one broke ranks.”
“Could you tell, Pontifex Maximus, if their mail shirts and other arms were new?” asked Drusus anxiously.
“Yes, Marcus Livius, easily. Everything was new, and of the highest quality manufacture,” said Ahenobarbus.
“Thank you.”
“Continue, Gnaeus Domitius,” said Sextus Caesar.
“We stopped within hailing distance, I and my lictors, Quintus Poppaedius Silo and his legions. Then Silo and I walked out alone to talk, where we could not be overheard.
“ ‘Why this martial expedition, Quintus Poppaedius?’ I asked him, very courteously and calmly.
“ ‘We come to Rome because we have been summoned by the tribunes of the plebs,’ said Silo, with equal courtesy.
“ ‘The tribunes of the plebs?’ I asked him then. “‘Not a tribune of the plebs? Not Marcus Livius Drusus?’
“ ‘The tribunes of the plebs,’ he said.
“ ‘All of them, you mean?’ I asked, wanting to be sure.
“ ‘All of them,’ he said.
“ ‘Why should the tribunes of the plebs summon you?’ I asked.
“ ‘To assume the Roman citizenship, and to see that every Italian is awarded the Roman citizenship,’ he said.
“I drew back from him a little, and raised my brows, looking beyond him at his legions. ‘By threat of arms?’ I asked.
“ ‘If necessary,’ he said.
“So I employed my proconsular imperium to make a statement I could not otherwise have made, given the tenor of the recent sessions in this House. A statement, Conscript Fathers, that I considered the situation required. I said to Silo, ‘Force of arms will not prove necessary, Quintus Poppaedius.’
“His answer was a scornful laugh. ‘Oh, come, Gnaeus Domitius!’ he said. ‘Do you honestly expect me to believe that? We of Italy have waited literal generations for the citizenship without taking up arms, and for our patience, have seen our chances dwindle away to nothing! Today we have come to understand that our only chance to gain the citizenship is by force.’
“Naturally that upset me greatly, Conscript Fathers. I struck my hands together and cried, ‘Quintus Poppaedius, Quintus Poppaedius, I assure you, the time is very close! Please, I beg of you, disband this force, put up your swords, go home to the lands of the Marsi! I give you my solemn promise that the Senate and People of Rome will grant every Italian the Roman citizenship.’
“He looked at me for a long time without speaking, then he said, ‘Very well, Gnaeus Domitius, I will take my army away from here—but only far enough and for long enough to see whether you speak the truth. For I tell you straight and fair, Pontifex Maximus, that if the Senate and People of Rome do not grant Italy the full Roman citizenship during the term of this present College of the Tribunes of the Plebs, I will march on Rome again. And all of Italy will be marching with me. Mark that well! All of Italy will unite to destroy Rome.’
“Whereupon he turned and walked away. His troops about-faced, showing me how well trained they were, and marched off. I returned to Rome. And all night, Conscript Fathers, I thought. You know me well. You know me of old. My reputation is not that of a patient man, nor even that of an understanding man. But I am quite capable of telling the difference between a radish and a bull! And I tell you plainly, my fellow senators, that yesterday I saw a bull. A bull with hay wrapped round both horns, and fire trickling from his nostrils. It was not an empty promise I made to Quintus Poppaedius Silo! I will do everything in my power to see that the Senate and People of Rome grant the franchise to all of Italy.”
The House was humming; many eyes gazed at Ahenobarbus Pontifex Maximus in wonder, and many minds took note of this remarkable change in attitude by one famous for his intractable and intolerant nature.
“We will meet again tomorrow,” said Sextus Caesar, looking pleased. “It is time we searched for the answer to this question yet again. The two praetors who have been traveling Italy at the instigation of Lucius Marcius”—Sextus Caesar bowed to Philippus’s empty seat gravely—”have not come up with any kind of answer so far. We must debate the issue again. But first, I want to see the people here to listen who have not bothered to listen lately—my fellow consul and the praetor Quintus Servilius Caepio, in particular.”
They were there on the morrow, both of them, obviously familiar with every detail of Ahenobarbus’s report; yet not, it seemed to Drusus, Scaurus Princeps Senatus and the others who wanted so badly to see that pair back down, worried or even concerned. Gaius Marius, his heart inexplicably heavy, let his eyes roam across the faces of those present. Sulla hadn’t missed one meeting since Drusus had become a tribune of the plebs, but nor had he been helpful; the death of his son had removed him from any normal congress with all men, even his proposed colleague in that future consulship, Quintus Pompeius Rufus. He sat and listened, face impassive, then left each meeting the moment it was over, and may as well have disappeared from the face of the earth. Significantly, he had voted to keep the laws of Drusus on the tablets, so Marius presumed he was still in their camp. But speech with him was something no one had known. Catulus Caesar looked a little uncomfortable today, probably as a result of the defection of his hitherto staunch ally, Ahenobarbus Pontifex Maximus.
There was a stir; Marius returned his attention to the House. Philippus of course held the fasces for the month of October, so today it was he in the chair, not Sextus Caesar. He had another document with him, one he had not entrusted to his clerk this time. When the formalities were over he rose to speak first.
“Marcus Livius Drusus,” Philippus said clearly and coldly, “I wish to read something to the House of far greater import than a quasi-invasion by your best friend, Quintus Poppaedius Silo. But before I read it, I want every senator to hear you say you are present and will listen.”
“I am present, Lucius Marcius, and I will listen,” said Drusus, equally clearly and coldly.
Drusus looked, thought the watching Gaius Marius, terribly tired. As if he had long since outrun his strength, and carried on now purely by the power of his will. In recent weeks he had lost a great deal of weight, his cheeks had fallen in, his eyes sunk back in his head and circled with dark grey shadows.
Why do I feel as if I’m a slave in a treadmill? wondered Marius. Why am I so on edge, so desperately anxious and apprehensive? Drusus does not have my sinews, nor does he have my unshakable conviction that I am right. He is too fair, he is too reasonable, he is too inclined to see both sides. They will kill him, mentally if not physically. Why did I never see how dangerous is this Philippus? Why did I never see how brilliant he is?
Philippus unrolled his single sheet of paper and held it out at arm’s length between his right hand and his left. “I shall not preface this by any comment, Conscript Fathers,” he said. “I shall simply read, and let you draw your own conclusions. The text goes as follows:
“ ‘I swear by Jupiter Optimus Maximus, by Vesta, by Mars, by Sol Indiges, by Terra and by Tellus, by the gods and heroes who founded and assisted the people of Italy in their struggles, that I will hold as my friends and foes those whom Marcus Livius Drusus holds as his friends and foes. I swear that I will work for the welfare and benefit of Marcus Livius Drusus and all those others who take this oath, even at the cost of my life, my children, my parents, and my property. If through the law of Marcus Livius Drusus I become a citizen of Rome, I swear that I will worship Rome as my only nation, and that I will bind myself to Marcus Livius Drusus as his client. This oath I take upon myself to pass on to as many other Italians as I can. I swear faithfully, in the knowledge that my faith will bring its just rewards. And if I am forsworn, may my life, my children, my parents and my property be taken from me. So be it. So do I swear.’’’
Never had the House been so still. Philippus looked from Scaurus with mouth agape to Marius grinning savagely, from Scaevola with lips pressed together to Ahenobarbus purpling in the cheeks, from Catulus Caesar’s horror to Sextus Caesar’s grief, from Metellus Pius the Piglet’s dismayed consternation to Caepio’s naked joy.
Then he let his left hand go from the paper, which recoiled with a loud snap; half the House jumped.
“That, Conscript Fathers, is the oath which thousands upon thousands of Italians have sworn over the course of the past year. And that, Conscript Fathers, is why Marcus Livius Drusus has worked so hard, so unflaggingly, so enthusiastically, to see his friends of Italy awarded the priceless gift of our Roman citizenship!” He shook his head wearily. “Not because he cares one iota about their dirty Italian hides! Not because he believes in justice—even a justice so perverted! Not because he dreams of a career so luminous it will put him in the history books! But because, fellow members of this body, because he holds an oath of clientship with most of Italy! Were we to give Italy the franchise, Italy would belong to Marcus Livius Drusus! Imagine it! A clientele stretching from the Arnus to Rhegium, from the Tuscan Sea to the Adriatic! Oh, I do congratulate you, Marcus Livius! What a prize! What a reason to work so indefatigably! A clientele bigger than a hundred armies!”
Philippus turned then, stepped down from the curule dais, and walked with measured steps around its corner to the end of the long wooden tribunician bench where Drusus sat.
“Marcus Livius Drusus, is it true that all of Italy has sworn this oath?” asked Philippus. “Is it true that in return for this oath, you have sworn to secure the citizenship for all of Italy?”
Face whiter than his toga, Drusus stumbled to his feet, one hand outstretched, whether imploring or fending off, no one could tell. And then, even as his mouth worked at a reply, Drusus pitched full length upon the old black and white flags which formed the tesselated floor. Philippus stepped back and out of the way fastidiously, but Marius and Scaurus were both on their knees beside Drusus almost as quickly as he had fallen.
“Is he dead?” asked Scaurus against the background noise of Philippus dismissing the meeting until the morrow.
Listening with ear to Drusus’s chest, Marius shook his head. “A severe collapse, but not death,” he said, leaning back on his heels and drawing in a deep breath of relief.
The syncope lasted so long that Drusus began to mottle and grey in the face; his arms and legs moved, jerked colossally several times while he emitted dreadful and frightening sounds.
“He’s having a fit!” cried Scaurus.
“No, I don’t think so,” said the militarily experienced Marius, who had seen in the field almost everything at one time or another. “When a man passes out for so long, he often starts to jerk around, but at the end of it. He’ll revive soon.”
Philippus paused on his way out to look down from far enough away to ensure that if Drusus should vomit, his toga would not wear it. “Take the cur out of here!” he said contemptuously. “If he’s dying, let him die on unhallowed ground.”
Marius lifted his head. “Mentulam caco, cunne!” he said to Philippus loudly enough for everyone in the vicinity to hear.
Philippus walked on, rather more quickly; if there was any man in the world he feared, that man was Gaius Marius.
Those who cared enough to linger waited a long time for Drusus to come round; enormously pleased, Marius saw that among them was Lucius Cornelius Sulla.
When Drusus did return to consciousness, he seemed not to know where he was, what had happened.
“I’ve sent for Julia’s litter,” said Marius to Scaurus. “Let him lie here until it arrives.” He was minus his toga, sacrificed as a pillow for Drusus’s head and a blanket for his poor cold limbs.
“I’m absolutely confounded!” said Scaurus, perching on the edge of the curule dais, and so short that his feet swung clear of the ground. “Truly, I would never have believed it of this man!”
Marius blew a derisive noise. “Rubbish, Marcus Aemilius! Not believe it of a Roman nobleman? I’d not be prepared to believe the contrary! Jupiter, how you do fool yourselves!”
The bright green eyes began to dance. “Jupiter, you Italian bumpkin, how you do shine a light on our weaknesses!” Scaurus said, shoulders heaving.
“It’s just as well someone does, you attenuated heap of old bones,” said Marius affably, seating himself beside the Princeps Senatus and looking at the only three men who remained—Scaevola, Antonius Orator, and Lucius Cornelius Sulla. “Well, gentlemen,” he said, thrusting his legs out and waggling his feet, “what do we do next?”
“Nothing,” said Scaevola curtly.
“Oh, Quintus Mucius, Quintus Mucius, forgive our poor inanimate tribune of the plebs his very Roman weakness, do!” cried Marius, now laughing as hard as Scaurus was.
Scaevola took umbrage. “It may be a Roman weakness, Gaius Marius, but it is not one I own!” he snapped.
“No, probably not—which is why you’ll never be his equal, my friend,” said Marius, pointing one foot at Drusus on the floor.
Scaevola screwed up his face in disgust. “You know, Gaius Marius, you really are impossible! And as for you, Princeps Senatus, pray stop regarding this as a laughing matter!”
“None of us has yet answered Gaius Marius’s original query,” said Antonius Orator pacifically. “What do we do next?”
“It isn’t up to us,” said Sulla, speaking for the first time. “It’s up to him, of course.”
“Well said, Lucius Cornelius!” cried Marius, getting up because the familiar face of his wife’s chief litter bearer had poked itself timidly around one great bronze door. “Come on, my squeamish friends, let’s get this poor fellow home.”
The poor fellow still wandered deliriously through some strange world when he was delivered into the care of his mother, who very sensibly declined to call in the doctors.
“They’ll only bleed him and purge him, and they’re the last things he needs,” she said firmly. “He hasn’t been eating, that’s all. Once he comes out of his shock, I’ll feed him some hot honeyed wine, and he’ll be himself again. Especially after a sleep.”
Cornelia Scipionis got her son into his bed and made him drink a full cup of the promised hot honeyed wine.
“Philippus!” he cried, trying to sit up.
“Don’t worry about that insect until you feel stronger.”
He drank again and did manage to sit up, pushing his fingers through his short black hair. “Oh, Mama! Such a terrible difficulty! Philippus found out about the oath.”
Scaurus had apprised her of the situation, so she had no need to question him; instead, she nodded wisely. “Surely you didn’t think Philippus or some other wouldn’t ask?”
“It’s been so long that I’d forgotten the wretched oath!”
“Marcus Livius, it isn’t important,” she said, and drew her chair closer to the bed, took his hand. “What you do is far more significant than why you do it—that’s a fact of life! Why you do a thing is solely balm for the self, why you do a thing cannot affect its outcome. The what is all that matters, and I’m sure that a sane and healthy self-regard is the best way to get what done properly. So do cheer up, my son! Your brother is here, and very anxious about you. Cheer up!”
“They will hate me for this.”
“Some will, that’s true. Mostly out of envy. Others will be utterly consumed with admiration,” said the mother. “It certainly doesn’t seem to have deterred the friends who brought you home.”
“Who?” he asked eagerly.
“Marcus Aemilius, Marcus Antonius, Quintus Mucius, Gaius Marius,” she said. “Oh, and that fascinating man, Lucius Cornelius Sulla! Now if I were only younger—”
Knowledge of her had softened the impact of such remarks, no longer offensive to him; he was able therefore to smile at this whimsy. “How odd that you like him! Mind you, he does seem very interested in my ideas.”
“So I gathered. His only son died earlier this year, not so?”
“Yes.”
“It shows in him,” said Cornelia Scipionis, getting up. “Now, Marcus Livius, I shall send your brother in to you, and you must make up your mind to eat. There is nothing wrong with you that good food won’t remedy. I’ll have the kitchen prepare something as tasty as it is nourishing, and Mamercus and I will sit here until you eat it.”
Thus it was that darkness had fallen before he was left alone with his thoughts. He did feel much better, it was true, but the dreadful weariness would not go away, and he seemed no more inclined to sleep after his meal, even after so much mulled wine. How long had it been since he last slept deeply, satisfyingly? Months.
Philippus had found out. Inevitable that somebody would, inevitable that whoever did would go either to him, Drusus, or to Philippus. Or Caepio. Interesting, that Philippus hadn’t told his dear friend Caepio! If he had, Caepio would have pushed in, tried to take over, unwilling that Philippus should have all the victory. Which was, no doubt, why Philippus had kept it to himself. All will not be peace and amity in the house of Philippus tonight! thought Drusus, smiling in spite of himself.
And now that the knowledge of discovery had sunk into his conscious mind, Drusus found himself at rest. His mother was right. Publication of the oath couldn’t affect what he was doing; it could only affect his own pride. If people chose to believe he did what he had done because of the enormous clientele the deed would bring him, what did it really matter? Why should he want them to believe his motives were entirely altruistic? It would not be Roman to abrogate personal advantages, and he was Roman! In any other instance, he could see now very clearly, the implications of a clientele in one man’s giving the citizenship to several hundred thousand men would have screamed at his fellow senators, at the leaders of the Plebs, and probably at most of lowly Rome. That no one had seen the implications until Philippus actually read out the oath was symptomatic of how emotional this issue was, how lacking in reason—it provoked a storm of feeling so powerful it clouded every practical aspect. Why had he expected people to see the logic in what he was trying to do, when they were so enormously involved emotionally that they hadn’t even seen the client side of it? If they couldn’t see the clients, then they had no hope of seeing the logic, so much was sure.
His eyelids lowered, and he slept. Deeply, satisfyingly.
When he went to the Curia Hostilia at dawn the next morning, Drusus felt his old self, and quite equal to dealing with the likes of Philippus and Caepio.
In the chair, Philippus ignored any other business, including the march of the Marsi; he got straight down to Drusus and the oath sworn by the Italians.
“Is the text of what I read out yesterday correct, Marcus Livius?” Philippus asked.
“To the best of my knowledge, Lucius Marcius, yes, though I have never heard the oath, nor seen it written down.”
“But you knew of it.”
Drusus blinked, face the picture of surprise. “Of course I knew of it, junior consul! How could a man not know about something so advantageous to himself, as well as to Rome? If you had been the advocate of general enfranchisement for all of Italy, wouldn’t you have known?”
This was attacking with a vengeance; Philippus had to pause, thrown off balance.
“You’d never catch me advocating anything for the Italians beyond a good flogging!” he said haughtily.
“Then more fool you!” cried Drusus. “Here is something well worth doing on every level, Conscript Fathers! To rectify an injustice which has persisted for generations—to bring all of our country into an hegemony as real as it is desirable—to destroy some of the more appalling barriers between men of different Classes—to remove the threat of an imminent war—and it is imminent, I warn you!—and to see every one of these new Roman citizens bound by oath to Rome and to a Roman of the Romans! That last is vitally important! It means every one of these new citizens will be guided properly and Romanly, it means they will know how to vote and who to vote for, it means they will be led to elect genuine Romans rather than men from their own Italian nations!”
That was a consideration; Drusus could see it register on the faces of those who listened intently, and everyone was listening intently. He knew well the chief fear of all his fellow senators—that an overwhelming number of new Roman citizens spread across the whole thirty-five tribes would markedly decrease the Roman content of the elections, would see Italians contest the polls for consul, praetor, aedile, tribune of the plebs, and quaestor, would see Italians in huge numbers enter the Senate, all determined to wrest control of the Senate away from the Romans and into the hands of Italy. Not to mention the various comitia. But if these new Romans were bound by an oath—and it was a frightful oath—both to Rome and to a Roman of the Romans, they were honor-bound to vote as they were told to vote, like any other group of clients.
“The Italians are men of honor, as are we,” said Drusus. “By the very swearing of this oath, they have shown it! In return for the gift of our citizenship, they will abide by the wishes of true Romans. True Romans!”
“You mean they will abide by your wishes!” said Caepio with venom. “The rest of us true Romans will simply have appointed ourselves an unofficial dictator!”
“Nonsense, Quintus Servilius! When in the conduct of my tribunate of the plebs have I shown myself anything less than completely conforming to the will of the Senate? When have I shown myself more concerned with my own welfare than with the welfare of the Senate? When have I shown myself indifferent to the wants of every level throughout the People of Rome? What better patron could the men of Italy have than I, the son of my father, a Roman of the Romans, a truly thoughtful and essentially conservative man?”
Drusus turned from one side of the House to the other, his hands outstretched. “Whom would you rather have as patron to so many new citizens, Conscript Fathers? Marcus Livius Drusus, or Lucius Marcius Philippus? Marcus Livius Drusus, or Quintus Servilius Caepio? Marcus Livius Drusus, or Quintus Varius Severus Hybrida Sucronensis? For you had better make up your minds to it, members of the Senate of Rome—the men of Italy will be enfranchised! I have sworn to do it—and do it I will! You have taken my laws off the tablets, you have stripped my tribunate of the plebs of its purpose and its achievements. But my year in office is not yet over, and I have honorably acquitted myself in respect of my treatment of you, my fellow senators! On the day after tomorrow, I will take my case for the general enfranchisement of Italy to the Plebeian Assembly, and I will have the matter discussed in contio after contio, always religiously correct, always conducted with due attention to the law, always in a peaceful and orderly manner. For, other oaths aside, I swear to all of you that I will not pass out of my tribunate of the plebs without seeing one lex Livia on the tablets—a law providing that every man from the Arnus to Rhegium, from the Rubicoto Vereium, from the Tuscan to the Adriatic, shall be a full citizen of Rome! If the men of Italy have sworn an oath to me, I also swore an oath to them—that during my time in office, I would see them enfranchised. And I will! Believe me, I will!”
He had carried the day, everyone knew it.
“The most brilliant thing about it,” said Antonius Orator, “is that now he has them thinking of general citizenship as inevitable. They’re used to seeing men break, not being broken. But Drusus has broken them, Princeps Senatus, I guarantee he has!”
“I agree,” said Scaurus, who looked quite lit up from within. “You know, Marcus Antonius, I used to think that nothing in Roman government could surprise me—that it has all been done before—and usually done better. But Marcus Livius is unique. Rome has never seen his like. Nor will again, I suspect.”
*
Drusus was as true as his word. He took his case for the enfranchisement of Italy to the concilium plebis, surrounded by an aura of indomitability every man present could not but admire. His fame had grown and spread, he was talked about at every level of society; that solid conservatism, that iron determination to do things properly and legally, now turned him into a novel kind of hero. All of Rome was essentially conservative, including the Head Count, capable of espousing a Saturninus yet not willing to kill its betters for a Saturninus. The mos maiorum—all those traditions and customs piled up by centuries of time—would always matter, even to the Head Count. And here at last was a man to whom the mos maiorum mattered as much as justice did. Marcus Livius Drusus began to assume the mantle of a demigod; and that in turn meant people started to believe that anything he wanted must be right.
Helplessly Philippus, Caepio, Catulus Caesar, and their followers, with Metellus Pius the Piglet hovering indecisively on the outskirts, watched Drusus conduct his contiones all through the last half of October, and into November. At first the meetings tended to be stormy, a condition Drusus dealt with beautifully, permitting every man a hearing, and even permitting massed voices, yet never succumbing to the tyranny or the seduction of the crowd. When a gathering grew too heated, he disbanded it. In the beginning, Caepio had tried to break the meetings up with violence, but that formerly tried and true technique of the Comitia didn’t work with Drusus, who seemed to have an inbuilt instinct as to when violence was likely to erupt, and again, dismissed his meeting before it could erupt.
Six contiones, seven, eight... And each one quieter than the last, each one seeing an audience more reconciled to the inevitability of this piece of legislation. Water on stone, Drusus wore his opponents down with unfailing grace and dignity, admirable good temper, ever-present reasonableness. He made his enemies look crass, ill-mannered, oafish.
“It is the only way,” he said to Scaurus Princeps Senatus after the eighth contio, standing with him on the steps of the House, from which vantage point Scaurus had watched.
“What the noble Roman politician lacks is patience. Luckily that is a quality I possess in abundance. I cope with them, all those who come to listen, and they like that. They like me! I have been patient with them, and they have grown to trust me.”
“You’re the first man since Gaius Marius whom they have genuinely liked,” said Scaurus reminiscently.
“With good reason,” said Drusus. “Gaius Marius is another man they feel they can trust. He appeals to them because of his quite wonderful directness, his strength, his air of being one of them rather than a Roman nobleman. I don’t have his natural advantages—I cannot be other than I am, a Roman nobleman. But patience has won out, Marcus Aemilius. They have learned to trust me.”
“And you really think the time has come for a vote?”
“I do.”
“Shall I gather the others? We can dine at my house.”
“Today above all days, I think we should dine at my house,” said Drusus. “Tomorrow will seal my fate, one way or the other.”
Scaurus hurried off to find Marius, Scaevola, and Antonius Orator. When he saw Sulla, he waved to him as well. “I’m bearing an invitation from Marcus Livius. Dinner at his house, Lucius Cornelius?” And, seeing the look of antisocial reluctance appear on Sulla’s face, he added impulsively, “Oh, do come! There will be no one there to poke or pry, Lucius Cornelius!”
The look vanished. Sulla actually produced a smile. “All right then, Marcus Aemilius, I’ll come.”
At the beginning of September the six men would have had the walk to themselves, for though Drusus had many clients, it was not normal practice for the clients to follow their patron home at the end of business in the Forum. Dawn was when they gathered at the patron’s house. Yet on this day of the eighth contio, Drusus’s following in the Comitia had grown so hugely that he and his five noble companions were the center of an excited crowd some two hundred strong. The escort was not comprised of important men, or wealthy men. Of the Third and Fourth Classes, even some of the Head Count, they had come to admire, wanting to honor this steadfast, indomitable, integral man. Since his second contio they had gathered to escort him home in ever-increasing numbers, and were particularly eager to do so today because the morrow would see the vote.
“So it’s for tomorrow,” said Sulla to Drusus as they walked.
“Yes, Lucius Cornelius. They have learned to know me and to trust me, from the knights with the plebeian power to all these small men surrounding us now. I can see no point in postponing the vote any longer. There’s a kind of fulcrum involved. If I am to succeed, I will succeed tomorrow.”
“There’s no doubt you will succeed, Marcus Livius,” said Marius contentedly. “And I for one will be voting for you.”
It was a very short walk; across the lower Forum to the Vestal Steps, a right turn onto the Clivus Victoriae, and Drusus’s house was upon them.
“Come in, come in, my friends!” Drusus said cheerily to the crowd. “Go through to the atrium, and I will take my leave of you there.” To Scaurus he said very quietly, “Take the rest to my study and wait. I shan’t be long, but it’s courtesy to speak to them before I dismiss them.”
While Scaurus and the other four noblemen hastened ahead to the study, Drusus shepherded his straggling escort through the vast peristyle-garden to the great double doors on the back wall of the colonnade at its far end. Beyond them lay the atrium, a lovely room vivid with colors, but dim now because the sun had gone down. For some time he stood in the middle of his admirers, joking and laughing, exhorting them to vote the right way on the morrow; in small groups they began to take their leave of him, those men about him dwindling away until only a few were left. The brief twilight was fading, and the shadows of that moment just before the lamps were lighted turned the recesses behind the pillars and in the many alcoves into impenetrable darkness.
Oh, wonderful! The last few were turning to go. One of the men brushed hard against Drusus in the gloom, he felt the sinus of his toga yanked down, experienced a sharp and burning pain in his right groin, and bit back the noise he almost made because, though they were his admirers, these men were strangers nonetheless. Now they were hurrying, exclaiming at the way the light had suddenly gone, and anxious to get themselves home before night transformed the alleys of Rome into defiles boiling with dangers.
Half-blinded by pain, Drusus stood in the doorway looking along the garden, his left arm raised, encumbered by the multiple folds of his toga; he watched until the door warden at the far end of the peristyle had let the men out into the street, then turned to walk to his study, where his friends waited. But the moment he moved, that inexplicable and dazzling pain exploded into fury. He could not stifle this scream, it ripped its way out of him with as little mercy as a harpy. Something warm and liquid was suddenly pouring down his right leg. Frightening!
When Scaurus and the others burst out of the study, Drusus was standing with legs already buckling, his hand clasped against his right hip; he took the hand away and gazed at it in astonishment, for it was covered in blood. His blood. Down on his knees, he subsided slowly to the floor like a billowing sack with the air trapped beneath it, and lay, eyes wide open, gasping in growing pain.
It was Marius, not Scaurus, who took control. He freed the right hip from folds of toga until the hilt of a knife protruding from the upper part of Drusus’s groin became visible, an answer to the mystery.
“Lucius Cornelius, Quintus Mucius, Marcus Antonius, each of you go for a different doctor,” Marius said crisply. “Princeps Senatus, have the lamps lit immediately—all of them!”
Without warning Drusus screamed again, a horrifying noise which rose to the starry painted sky of his atrium ceiling and lingered there like some audible bat blundering from beam to beam; and the atrium came to life, slaves flying everywhere crying out, Cratippus the steward helping Scaurus light the lamps, Cornelia Scipionis running into the room with all six children in her wake, rushing to her son’s side, kneeling on a floor now awash with blood.
“Assassin,” said Marius tersely.
“I must send for his brother,” said the mother, getting to her feet with the skirt of her gown soaked in blood.
No one noticed the six children, who crept up behind Marius and gaped at the scene on the floor, enormous eyes taking in the spreading sheet of blood, their uncle’s awful twisted face, the dirty stubby thing growing out of his lower belly. He screamed now continuously, the pain growing as the internal bleeding compressed the great nerve-trunks feeding the leg; at each new cry of agony the children jumped, flinched, whimpered, until Young Caepio recollected himself enough to take his scrawny little brother Cato within his arm and push Cato’s quivering head against his chest, cutting off the sight of Uncle Marcus from little Cato’s bulging eyes.
Only when Cornelia Scipionis returned were the children seen, banished under the escort of a weeping and shivering nurserymaid; the mother knelt again opposite Marius, as helpless as he.
Sulla appeared at that moment, almost literally carrying Apollodorous Siculus, whom he threw to the ground beside Marius. “The cold-hearted mentula didn’t want to leave his dinner.”
“He must be taken to his bed before I can examine him,” said the Sicilian Greek physician, still breathless from Sulla’s assault.
So Marius, Sulla, Cratippus and two other servants lifted the shrieking Drusus from the floor, dragging a broad trail of bright red blood behind them from the soaked toga as they carried him to his big bed, where he and Servilia Caepionis had tried vainly for so many years to make children. The room, a small one, had been so stuffed with lamps it seemed as bright as day to those who dumped Drusus down.
Other doctors were arriving; Marius and Sulla left them to it, joining the others in the atrium, from which place they could still hear Drusus screaming, screaming. When Mamercus ran in, Marius pointed toward the master’s bedroom, but made no move to follow.
“We can’t leave,” said Scaurus, looking very old.
“No, we can’t,” said Marius, feeling very old.
“Then let’s move back to the study. We’ll be less in the way,” said Sulla, trembling from a combination of shock and the effort of dragging a reluctant doctor away from his dinner couch.
“Jupiter, I don’t believe it!” cried Antonius Orator.
“Caepio?” asked Scaevola, shivering.
“I’d pick Varius the Spaniard cur,” said Sulla, teeth showing.
They settled in the study feeling useless, impotent, as men do who are used to directing things, their ears still assaulted by those terrible cries emanating from the bedroom. But they hadn’t been in the study long when they discovered that Cornelia Scipionis was a true member of her formidable clan, for even in the midst of this ordeal she found the time to have wine and food sent to them, and gave them the services of a slave.
When the doctors finally managed to remove the knife, it turned out to be ideal for the purpose upon which it had been employed; a wicked little wide-bladed, curved-bladed shoemaker’s knife.
“It has been twisted completely around inside the wound,” said Apollodorus Siculus to Mamercus above the remorseless racket of Drusus’s cries.
“What does that mean?” asked Mamercus, sweating in the heat of so many tiny tongues of flame, incapable yet of appreciating any of the implications, let alone all of them.
“Everything is torn beyond repair, Mamercus Aemilius. The blood vessels, the nerves, the bladder, even, I think, the bowel.”
“Can’t you give him something for the pain?”
“I have already administered syrup of poppies, but I will give him more. Unfortunately I do not think it will help.”
“What will help?” demanded Mamercus.
“Nothing.”
“Are you saying my son is going to die?” asked Cornelia Scipionis incredulously.
“Yes, domina,” said the doctor with dignity. “Marcus Livius is bleeding both internally and externally, and we have not the skill to stop either. He must die.”
“In such pain? Can you do nothing for that?” asked the mother.
“There is no more effective drug in our pharmacopoeia than syrup of Anatolian poppies, domina. If that does not help him, nothing will.”
All through the long night Drusus lay on his bed screaming, screaming, screaming. The sound of his agony penetrated into every last inch of that fabulous house, reached the ears of the six children huddled together in the nursery for company and comfort, little Cato’s head still buried in his brother’s arms, all of them weeping and whimpering, the memory of Uncle Marcus on the floor burning their minds and spoiling their lives, already spoiled from so much tragedy.
But Young Caepio cradled his little brother Cato fiercely, kissing his hair. “See, I am here! Nothing can hurt you!”
On the Clivus Victoriae people kept gathering until the crowd stretched for three hundred paces in either direction; even out there the sound of Drusus’s screaming was audible, echoed by sighs and sobs, smaller cries of smaller yet no less real pain.
Inside, the Senate had gathered in the atrium, though Caepio did not come, nor Philippus, a prudent decision; and nor, noted Lucius Cornelius Sulla, poking his head round the door of the study, had Quintus Varius. Something moved in a pool of darkness near the exit to the loggia; Sulla slid silently around and out to see. A girl, perhaps thirteen or fourteen, dark and pretty.
“What do you want?” he asked, suddenly materializing in front of her, a lamp directly behind him.
She gasped as she looked up at the fiery halo of red-gold hair, thinking for a moment that she looked at the dead Cato Salonianus; her eyes blazed hate, then died down. “And who are you to ask me that?” she snapped with huge hauteur.
“Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Who are you?”
“Servilia.”
“Back to bed, young lady. This is no place for you.”
“I’m looking for my father,” she said.
“Quintus Servilius Caepio?”
“Yes, yes, my father!”
Sulla laughed, not caring enough about her to spare her. “Why would he be here, silly child, when half the world suspects him of having Marcus Livius murdered?”
Her eyes lit up again, this time with joy. “Is he truly going to die? Truly?”
“Yes.”
“Good!” she said savagely, opened a door, and disappeared.
Sulla shrugged, went back to the study.
Shortly after dawn, Cratippus appeared. “Marcus Aemilius, Gaius Marius, Marcus Antonius Lucius Cornelius, Quintus Mucius, the master is asking to see you.”
The screams had died down to sporadic, gurgling moans; the men in the study understood the meaning of this, and made haste behind the steward, pushing through the clusters of senators waiting in the atrium.
Drusus lay, his skin as white as the sheets, his face no more than a mask in which someone diabolical had inserted a brilliant, vital, beautiful pair of great dark eyes. To one side of him stood Cornelia Scipionis, tearless and rigid; to the other side stood Mamercus Aemilius Lepidus Livianus, tearless and rigid. The doctors had all gone.
“My friends, I must depart,” said Drusus.
“We understand,” Scaurus said gently.
“My work will not be done now.”
“No, it will not,” said Marius.
“But to stop me, they had to do this.” He cried out in pain, but softly, worn out.
“Who was it?” asked Sulla.
“Any of seven men. I don’t know them. Ordinary men. Of the Third Class, I would say. Not Head Count.”
“Have you received any threats?” asked Scaevola.
“None.” He moaned again.
“We will find the assassin,” said Antonius Orator.
“Or the man who paid the assassin,” said Sulla.
They stood around the foot of the bed in silence then, not wanting to waste any more of what little life Drusus had left. But at the very end, when he was gasping with the effort of breathing and the pain had died down to something he could bear, Drusus struggled to sit up, looking at them out of clouding eyes.
“Ecquandone?” he asked, loudly, strongly. “Ecquandone similem mei civem habebit res publica? Who will ever be able to succor the Republic in my like?”
The work of the little film creeping across those splendid eyes became complete; they glazed to an opaque gold. Drusus died.
“No one, Marcus Livius,” said Sulla. “No one.”