While Lucius Caesar licked his wounds in Teanum Sidicinum, Gaius Papius Mutilus In crossed the Volturnus River and then the Calor River. When he reached Nola he was greeted with hysterical joy. The town had managed to overthrow a two-thousand-strong garrison the moment Lucius Caesar left, and proudly showed Mutilus a makeshift prison where the Roman cohorts had been put. It was a small paddock inside the walls where sheep and pigs had been kept before slaughter, now fenced in by a very high stone barricade topped with broken sherds, and patrolled constantly. To keep the Romans docile, said the Nolans, they were only being fed once every eight days, and watered every third day.
“Good!” said Mutilus, pleased. “I’ll address them myself.”
To deliver his speech he used the wooden platform from which the Nolans threw bread and water to the captives in the mire below. “My name,” he shouted, “is Gaius Papius Mutilus! I am a Samnite. And by the end of the year I will be ruling all Italy, including Rome! You don’t stand a chance against us. You’re weak, worn out, used up. Townspeople overcame you! Now here you are, penned up like the animals which used to be kept in the same place, but crowded in worse than those animals were. Two thousand of you in a paddock that used to hold two hundred pigs. Uncomfortable, isn’t it? You’re sick. You’re hungry. You’re thirsty. And I’m here to tell you it’s going to get worse. From now on you don’t get fed at all, and you’ll get water every five days. There is an alternative, however. You can enlist in the legions of Italia. Think it over.”
“There’s nothing to think over!” cried Lucius Postumius, the garrison commander. “Here we stay!”
Papius climbed down, smiling. “I’ll give them sixteen days,” he said. “They’ll surrender.”
Things were going very well for Italia. Gaius Vidacilius had invaded Apulia and found himself in a bloodless theater of war—Larinum, Teanum Apulum, Luceria and Ausculum all joined the Italian cause, their men flocking to enlist in the Italian legions. And when Mutilus reached the coast at Crater Bay, the seaports of Stabiae, Salernum and Surrentum declared for Italy, as well as the river port of Pompeii.
Finding himself the owner of four fleets of warships, Mutilus decided to carry the campaign onto the water by launching an attack upon Neapolis. But Rome had had a great deal more experience at sea. The Roman admiral, Otacilius, successfully beat the Italian ships back to their home ports. Determined not to yield, the Neapolitans stoically beat out the fires caused by Mutilus’s bombardment of the waterfront warehouses with oil-soaked, blazing missiles.
In every town where the Italian populace had succeeded in forging an alliance with Italia, the Roman populace was put to death. Among those towns was Nola; Servius Sulpicius Galba’s courageous hostess perished with the rest. Even when apprised of this, the starving garrison of Nola held out until Lucius Postumius called a meeting, not a difficult thing to do; two thousand men in a compound designed for two hundred pigs meant a degree of crowding that made it hard for the men to lie down.
“I think all the rankers should surrender,” Postumius said, looking with tired eyes at tired faces. “The Italians are going to kill us, of that we may be sure. And I for one must defy them until I am dead. Because I am the commander. It is my duty. Whereas you rankers owe Rome a different kind of duty. You must stay alive to fight in other wars—foreign wars. So join the Italians, I beg of you! If you can desert to your own side after joining, do so. But at all costs stay alive. Stay alive for Rome.” He paused to rest. “The centurions must surrender too. Without her centurions, Rome is lost. As for my officers, if you wish to capitulate, I will understand. If you do not, I will understand.”
It took Lucius Postumius a long time to persuade the soldiers to do as he asked. Everyone wanted to die, if only to show the Italians they couldn’t cow genuine Romans. But in the end Postumius won, and the legionaries did surrender. However, talk though he did, try though he did, he couldn’t persuade the centurions. Nor did his four military tribunes want to give in. They all died—centurions, military tribunes, and Lucius Postumius himself.
Before the last man in the Nolan pigpen was dead, Herculaneum declared for the Italian cause and murdered its Roman citizens. Now jubilant, sure of himself, Mutilus stepped up his sea war. Lightning raids were launched against Neapolis for a second time, Puteoli, Cumae, and Tarracina; this brought Latium’s coast into the conflict and exacerbated already festering resentments between Romans, Latins, and the Italians of Latium. Admiral Otacilius fought back doggedly, and with sufficient success to prevent the Italians taking any port beyond Herculaneum; though many a waterfront burned, and men died.
*
When it became clear that all of the peninsula south of northern Campania was Italian territory, Lucius Julius Caesar conferred with his senior legate, Lucius Cornelius Sulla.
“We’re completely cut off from Brundisium, Tarentum, and Rhegium, there can be no doubt of it,” said Lucius Caesar gloomily.
“If we are, then let’s forget about them,” said Sulla cheerily. “I’d rather we concentrated upon northern Campania. Mutilus has laid siege to Acerrae, which means he’s moving toward Capua. If Acerrae surrenders, Capua will go—its livelihood is Roman, but its heart is with Italia.”
Lucius Caesar sat up, affronted. “How can you be so— so merry when we can’t contain Mutilus or Vidacilius?” he demanded.
“Because we will win,” said Sulla strongly. “Believe me, Lucius Julius, we will win! This isn’t an election, you know. In an election, the early vote reflects the outcome. But in war, victory eventually goes to the side that doesn’t give in. The Italians are fighting for their freedom, they say. Now on cursory inspection that might seem like the best of all motives. But it isn’t. It’s an intangible. A concept, Lucius Julius, nothing more. Whereas Rome is fighting for her life. And that is why Rome will win. The Italians aren’t fighting for life in the same way at all. They already know a life they’ve been used to for generations upon generations. It may not be ideal, it may not be what they want. But it is tangible. You wait, Lucius Julius! When the Italian people grow tired of fighting for a dream, the balance will tip against Italia. They’re not an entity. They don’t have a history and a tradition like ours. They lack the mos maiorum! Rome is real. Italia is not.”
Apparently Lucius Caesar’s mind was deaf, even if his ears were not. “If we can’t keep the Italians out of Latium, we’re done for. And I don’t think we’ll keep them out of Latium.”
“We will keep them out of Latium!” Sulla insisted, not losing one iota of his confidence.
“How?” asked the morbid man in the general’s chair.
“For one thing, Lucius Julius, I am the bearer of good tidings. Your cousin Sextus Julius and his brother Gaius Julius have landed in Puteoli. Their ships contain two thousand Numidian cavalry and twenty thousand infantrymen. Most of the foot soldiers are veterans into the bargain. Africa yielded up thousands of Gaius Marius’s old troops—a bit grizzled round the temples, but determined to fight for the homeland. By now they should all be in Capua, being outfitted and undergoing retraining. Four legions, Quintus Lutatius feels, rather than five under-strength legions, and I agree with him. With your permission, I’ll send two legions to Gaius Marius in the north now that he’s commander-in-chief, and we’ll keep the other two here in Campania.” Sulla sighed, grinned jubilantly.
“It would be better to keep all four here in Campania,” said Lucius Caesar.
“I don’t think we can do that,” said Sulla gently but very firmly. “The troop losses in the north have been far greater than ours, and the only two battle-hardened legions are shut up in Firmum Picenum with Pompey Strabo.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Lucius Caesar smothered his disappointment. “Much and all as I detest Gaius Marius, I have to admit I rest far easier now he’s in full command. Things might improve in the north.”
“And they will here too!” Sulla chirped brightly, smothering, not disappointment, but exasperation—ye gods, did any second-in-command ever have such a negative general to deal with? He leaned forward across Lucius Caesar’s desk, face suddenly stern. “We have to draw Mutilus off from Acerrae until the new troops are ready, and I have a plan how to do that.’’
“What?”
“Let me take the two best legions we have, march for Aesernia.”
“Are you sure?”
“Trust me, Lucius Julius, trust me!”
“Well. . .”
“We must draw Mutilus off Acerrae! A feint at Aesernia is the best way. Trust me, Lucius Julius! I’ll do it, and I won’t lose my men doing it either.”
“How will you go?” Lucius Caesar asked, remembering the debacle in the defile near Atina when he met Scato.
“The same way you did. Up the Via Latina to Aquinum, then through the Melfa Gorge.”
“You’ll be ambushed.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be ready,” said Sulla blithely, finding that the deeper went Lucius Caesar’s depressions, the higher were his own flights of fancy.
However, to the Samnite leader Duilius, the two trim-looking legions which appeared on the road from Aquinum seemed far from ready to tackle an ambush. By late afternoon the head of the Roman column was marching jauntily into the maw of the defile, and he could distinctly hear the centurions and tribunes shouting among the ranks that they’d better be all inside and camped before darkness, or there’d be punishment duties for everyone.
Duilius stared down from the top of the crags, frowning, unconsciously chewing his nails. Was this Roman brashness the height of idiocy, or some brilliant ploy? As soon as the Roman front ranks had become properly visible, he knew who was leading them—and leading them on foot at that— Lucius Cornelius Sulla, unmistakable in his big floppy headgear. And Sulla had no reputation for idiocy, even though his activities in the field so far had been minimal. It seemed from the look of the scurrying figures that Sulla was setting about making a very strongly fortified camp, which suggested that his plan was to hang on to the gorge, eject the Samnite garrison.
“He can’t succeed,” said Duilius at last, still frowning. “Still, we’ll do what we can tonight. It’s too late to attack him—but I can make ii impossible for him to retreat tomorrow when I do attack. Tribune, get a legion on the road in his rear, and do it quietly, understand?”
Sulla stood with his second-in-command on the floor of the gorge watching the intensely busy legionaries.
“I hope this works,” said his second-in-command, none other than Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius the Piglet.
Since the death of his father, Numidicus Piggle-wiggle, the Piglet’s affection for Sulla had grown rather than diminished. He had gone south to Capua with Catulus Caesar and spent the early months of the war helping to put Capua on a war footing. This posting to Sulla was his first genuinely martial commission since the Germans, and he burned to excel, yet was determined too that Sulla should have no grounds to complain about his conduct; whatever the orders were, he intended to follow them to the letter.
Up went Sulla’s fine brows, undarkened these days. “It will work,” he said serenely.
“Wouldn’t it just be better to stay here and throw the Samnites out of the gorge? That way, we’d have permanent access to the east,” said the Piglet, looking eager.
“It wouldn’t work, Quintus Caecilius. Yes, we could free the gorge. But we don’t have the two spare legions it would take to hold the gorge in perpetuity. Which means the Samnites would move back into it the moment we left. They have the spare legions. So it’s more important to show them that what seems an impregnable position isn’t necessarily so.” Sulla grunted, a contented sound. “Good, it’s dark enough. Have the torches kindled—and make it look convincing.”
Metellus Pius made it look convincing; to the watchers on the heights it appeared all through the hours of night that the fortification of Sulla’s camp went on at frantic pace.
“They’ve decided to take the gorge off us, no doubt of it,” said Duilius. “Fools! They’re shut in here for the duration.” He too sounded contented.
But the rising of the sun showed Duilius his mistake. Behind the huge mounds of rock and earth thrown up against the sides of the cliffs, there were no soldiers at all; having baited the Samnite bull, the Roman wolf had slunk away. To the east, not to the west. From his vantage point Duilius could see the rear of Sulla’s column dwindling to a pall of dust on the road to Aesernia. And there was nothing he could do about it, for his orders were explicit; he was to garrison the Melfa Gorge, not pursue a formidable little force down onto the shelterless plains. The best he could do in this situation was to send a warning to Aesernia.
Even that recourse proved useless. Sulla punched a hole in the lines of the besiegers and got his expedition inside the city with scarcely a casualty.
“He’s too good,” was the next Italian message, this time from Gaius Trebatius, commanding the Samnite siege, to Gaius Papius Mutilus, attacking Acerrae. “Aesernia is too sprawling to enclose with the number of men I have; I couldn’t spread myself out enough to prevent his getting in, nor compress myself enough to keep him from spreading his invaders. Nor do I think I can prevent his getting out if he decides he wants to.”
The beleaguered city, Sulla soon discovered, was cheerful and undistressed; there were ten cohorts of good soldiers inside, those deserted by Scipio Asiagenes and Acilius having been joined by refugees from Venafrum and then Beneventum. The city also had a competent commander in the person of Marcus Claudius Marcellus.
“The supplies and extra arms you’ve brought us are welcome,” said Marcellus. “We will survive here for many moons to come.”
“Do you plan to stay here yourself, then?”
Marcellus nodded, grinned fiercely. “Of course! Having been driven out of Venafrum, I am determined I will not budge from Latin Aesernia.” His smile faded. “All the Roman citizens of Venafrum and Beneventum are dead, killed by the townsfolk. How much they hate us, the Italians! Especially the Samnites.”
“Not without reason, Marcus Claudius.” Sulla shrugged. “But that’s in the past and for the future. All which concerns us is victory in the field—and holding on to those towns which are defiant Roman outposts in a sea of Italians.” He leaned forward. “This is a war of the spirit too. The Italians must be taught that Rome and Romans are inviolate. I sacked every settlement between the Melfa Gorge and Aesernia, even if it was only a pair of cottages. Why? To demonstrate to the Italians that Rome can operate behind enemy lines and take the fruits of Italian soil to revictual places like Aesernia. If you can hold out here, my dear Marcus Claudius, you too will teach the Italians a lesson.”
“While ever I can, I will hold Aesernia,” said Marcellus, meaning every word.
*
Thus when Sulla quit the city he left in a mood of quiet confidence; Aesernia would continue to withstand its siege. He marched through Italian territory in the open, trusting to his luck, that magical bond he had with the goddess Fortune, for he had no idea of the whereabouts of every Samnite or Picentine army. And his luck held, even when he marched past towns like Venafrum, where he actively encouraged his soldiers to shout and gesture insults up at the watchers on the walls. When his troops strolled through the gates of Capua they were singing, and the whole of Capua turned out to cheer.
Lucius Caesar, Sulla was informed, had marched to Acerrae the moment Mutilus pulled some of his troops out to follow what had seemed like a major deployment against the siege of Aesernia; but—as luck would have it—Mutilus himself had remained at Acerrae. Leaving Catulus Caesar to ensure that his men enjoyed a well-earned rest, Sulla straddled a mule and trotted off to locate his general.
He found him in an ill humor, and bereft of the Numidian cavalry Sextus Caesar had transported across the seas.
“Do you know what Mutilus did?” demanded Lucius Caesar the moment he set eyes upon Sulla.
“No,” said Sulla, leaning casually against a pillar made of captured enemy spears and resigning himself to a litany of complaints.
“When Venusia capitulated and the Venusini joined Italia, the Picentine Gaius Vidacilius found an enemy hostage living in Venusia—I’d completely forgotten he was there, and so I suppose had everyone else. Oxyntas, one of the sons of King Jugurtha of Numidia. So Vidacilius sent the Numidian here to Acerrae. When I attacked, I used my Numidian cavalry as an advance guard. And do you know what Mutilus did? He put a purple robe and a diadem on Oxyntas, and paraded him! The next thing I knew, there were my two thousand horse-troopers on their knees to an enemy of Rome!” Lucius Caesar’s hands clawed at the air.
“To think what it cost to bring them all this way! A futile exercise, futile!”
“What did you do?”
“I rounded them up, force-marched them to Puteoli, and sent them home to Numidia. Let their king deal with them!”
Sulla straightened. “That was good thinking, Lucius Julius,” he said sincerely, turning to stroke the column of captured spears. “Come now, obviously you haven’t suffered a military disaster, despite the appearance of Oxyntas! You’ve won a battle here.”
Natural pessimism began to thaw, though Lucius Caesar could not quite summon up a smile. “Yes, I won a battle— for what it’s worth. Mutilus attacked three days ago, I presume after he got word of your successful penetration through the besiegers at Aesernia. I tricked him by leading my forces out the back gate of my camp, and we killed six thousand Samnites.”
“And Mutilus?”
“Withdrew immediately. For the moment, Capua is safe.”
“Excellent, Lucius Julius!”
“I wish I thought so,” said Lucius Caesar dolefully.
Suppressing a sigh, Sulla asked, “What else has happened?”
“Publius Crassus has lost his oldest boy before Grumentum, and was shut up inside the town for a long while. But the Lucanians are as fickle as they are lacking in discipline, luckily for Publius Crassus and his middle boy. Lamponius drew his men off to somewhere else, and Publius and Lucius Crassus got out.” The commander-in-chief heaved an enormous sigh. “Those fools in Rome wanted me to drop everything and appear in Rome for no better reason than to supervise the choosing of a consul suffectus to replace Lupus until the elections. I told them where to go, and recommended that they rely upon their urban praetor—there’s nothing in Rome Cinna can’t deal with.” He sighed yet again, sniffed, bethought himself of something else. “Gaius Coelius in Italian Gaul has dispatched a beautiful little army under Publius Sulpicius to assist Pompey Strabo in getting his conceited Picentine arse out of Firmum Picenum. I wish Publius Sulpicius good luck in dealing with that cross-eyed semi-barbarian! I must say, however, Lucius Cornelius, that you and Gaius Marius were right about young Quintus Sertorius. At the moment he’s governing Italian Gaul completely on his own, and doing better than Gaius Coelius. Coelius has gone off to Gaul-across-the-Alps in a hurry.”
“What’s going on there?”
“The Salluvii have gone on a headhunting spree.’’ Lucius Caesar grimaced. “What hope have we ever got of civilizing these people when several hundred years of exposure to Greeks and Romans haven’t even made an impression? The moment they thought we weren’t looking, back came the old barbarian habits. Headhunting! I sent Gaius Coelius a personal message instructing him to be utterly merciless. We can’t afford a major uprising in Gaul-across-the-Alps.”
“So young Quintus Sertorius is holding the fort in Italian Gaul,” said Sulla. An extraordinary expression of mingled weariness, impatience, and bitterness settled on his face. “Well, what else could one expect? The Grass Crown before he was thirty.”
“Jealous?” asked Lucius Caesar slyly.
Sulla twisted. “No, I’m not jealous! Good luck to him, and may he prosper! I like that young man. I’ve known him since he was a cadet with Marius in Africa.”
Lucius Caesar made an inarticulate noise and slumped back into his gloom.
“Has anything else happened?” prompted Sulla.
“Sextus Julius Caesar took his half of the troops he brought back from overseas and headed up the Via Appia to Rome, where I gather he intends to spend the winter.” Lucius Caesar did not care very much for his cousin. “He’s sick, as usual. Luckily he’s got his brother Gaius with him—between them they make one decent man.”
“Ah! So my friend Aurelia will have a husband for a little while,” said Sulla, smiling tenderly.
“You know, Lucius Cornelius, you’re odd! What on earth does that matter?”
“It matters not at all. But you are right nonetheless, Lucius Julius. I am odd!”
Lucius Caesar saw something in Sulla’s face that made him decide to change the subject. “You and I are off again very soon.”
“Are we? Upon what deed? To where?”
“Your move on Aesernia convinced me that Aesernia is the key to this whole theater of war. Mutilus is heading there himself, having lost here—or so your intelligence system tells me. I think we must head there too. It mustn’t fall.”
“Oh, Lucius Julius!” cried Sulla in despair. “Aesernia is no more than a spiritual thorn in the Italian paw! While ever it holds out, the Italians must doubt their ability to win this war. But beyond that, Aesernia has no importance! Besides which, it is very well provisioned, and it has a very capable and determined commandant in Marcus Claudius Marcellus. Let it sit there thumbing its nose at the besiegers and don’t worry about it! The only route available if Mutilus has withdrawn into the interior is the Melfa Gorge. Why risk our precious soldiers in that trap?”
Lucius Caesar reddened. “You got through!”
“Yes, I did. I tricked them. It can’t work a second time.”
“I will get through,” said Lucius Caesar stiffly.
“How many legions?”
“All we have. Eight.”
“Oh, Lucius Julius, forget this scheme!” Sulla pleaded. “It would be smarter and wiser to concentrate upon driving the Samnites out of western Campania for good! With eight legions working as one unit, we can take all the ports off Mutilus, reinforce Acerrae, and take Nola. Nola to the Italians is more important than Aesernia is to us!”
The general’s lips thinned in displeasure. “I am in the command tent, Lucius Cornelius, not you! And I say, Aesernia.”
Sulla shrugged, gave up. “As you say, of course.”
*
Seven days later Lucius Julius Caesar and Lucius Cornelius Sulla moved out toward Teanum Sidicinum with eight legions, the entire force available in the southern theater. Every atom of superstition Sulla had in him was screaming in alarm, but he had no choice save to do as he was told. Lucius Caesar was the general. More’s the pity, thought Sulla as he walked at the head of his two legions—the same he had taken to Aesernia—and surveyed the great column ahead of him snaking up and down the low hills. Lucius Caesar had placed Sulla at the tail of the march, far enough away from himself to ensure that Sulla could not share his bivouacs or his conversations. Metellus Pius the Piglet was now elevated to share Lucius Caesar’s bivouacs and conversations, a promotion which had not pleased him in the least. He wanted to stay with Sulla.
At Aquinum the general sent for Sulla, and threw him a letter rather contemptuously. How have the mighty fallen! thought Sulla, remembering how in Rome at the beginning of all this, it had been he to whom Lucius Caesar had turned for advice, it had been he who became Lucius Caesar’s “expert.” Now Lucius Caesar regarded himself as the expert.
“Read that,” said Lucius Caesar curtly. “It’s just come in from Gaius Marius.”
Courtesy normally prompted the man who had received a letter to read it out to those with whom he shared it later on; aware of this, Sulla smiled wryly to himself and laboriously worked his way through Marius’s communication.
As the northern commander-in-chief, Lucius Julius, I believe the time has come to inform you of my plans. I write this on the Kalends of Sextilis, in camp near Reate.
It is my intention to invade the lands of the Marsi. My army is finally in peak condition, and I am absolutely confident it will acquit itself in the same magnificent fashion as all my armies in the past have done, for the sake of Rome and the sake of their general.
Oho! thought Sulla, hackles rising. I’ve never heard the old boy express himself in quite those terms before! “For the sake of Rome and the sake of their general.’’ Now what gnat is whining round in his mind? Why is he linking himself personally to Rome? My army! Not Rome’s army, but my army! I wouldn’t have noticed it—we all say it—except for his reference to himself as their general. This communication will go into the archives of the war. And in it, Gaius Marius is putting himself on an equal footing with Rome!
Quickly Sulla lifted his head, glanced at Lucius Caesar; but if the southern commander-in-chief had spotted the phrase, he was pretending he had not. And so much subtlety, decided Sulla, Lucius Caesar did not have. He went back to deciphering Marius’s letter.
I think you will agree with me, Lucius Julius, that we need a victory—a complete and decisive victory— in my theater. Rome has called our war against the Italians the Marsic War, so we must defeat the Marsi in the field, if at all possible break the Marsi beyond recovery.
Now I can do that, my dear Lucius Julius, but in order to do it, I need the services of my old friend and colleague, Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Plus two more legions. I understand completely that you can ill afford to lose Lucius Cornelius—not to mention two legions. If I did not consider it imperative that I ask, I would not ask this favor of you. Nor, I assure you, is this transfer of personnel a permanent one. Call it a loan, not a gift. Two months is all I need.
If you can see your way clear to granting my petition, Rome will fare the better for your kindness to me. If you cannot see your way clear, then I must sit down again in Reate and think of something else.
Sulla raised his head and stared at Lucius Caesar, his brows climbing. “Well?” he asked, putting the letter down on Lucius Caesar’s desk carefully.
“By all means go to him, Lucius Cornelius,” said Lucius Caesar indifferently. “I can deal with Aesernia without you. Gaius Marius is right. We need a decisive victory in the field against the Marsi. This southern theater is a shambles anyway. It’s quite impossible to contain the Samnites and their allies or get enough of them together in one place to inflict a decisive defeat upon them. All I can do here is engage in demonstrations of Roman strength and persistence. There will be no decisive battle in the south, ever. It is in the north that must happen.”
Up went Sulla’s hackles yet again. One of the two generals was thinking of himself in the same breath as Rome, the other was in a permanent slough of despond, incapable of seeing any light in east or west or south. Lucky perhaps that he could see a little glow in the north! How can we succeed in Campania with a man like Lucius Caesar in command? asked Sulla of himself. Ye gods, why is it that I am never quite senior enough? I’m better than Lucius Caesar! I may well be better than Gaius Marius! Since I entered the Senate I have spent my life serving lesser men— even Gaius Marius is a lesser man because he isn’t a patrician Cornelius. Metellus Piggle-wiggle, Gaius Marius, Catulus Caesar, Titus Didius, and now this chronically depressed scion of an ancient house! And who is it goes from strength to strength, wins the Grass Crown, and ends up governing a whole province at the ripe old age of thirty? Quintus Sertorius. A Sabine nobody. Marius’s cousin!
“Lucius Caesar, we will win!” said Sulla very seriously. “I tell you, I can hear the wings of Victory in the air all around us! We’ll grind the Italians down to so much powder. Beat us in a battle or two the Italians may, but beat us in a war, they cannot! No one can! Rome is Rome, mighty and eternal. I believe in Rome!”
“Oh, so do I, Lucius Cornelius, so do I!” said Lucius Caesar testily. “Now go away! Make yourself useful to Gaius Marius, for I swear you are not very useful to me!”
Sulla got to his feet, and was actually as far as the outer doorway of the house Lucius Caesar had commandeered when he turned back. So intent had he been upon the letter that Lucius Caesar’s physical appearance hadn’t had the power to deflect his attention away from Gaius Marius. Now a fresh fear filled him. The general was sallow, lethargic, shivering, sweating.
“Lucius Julius, are you well?” Sulla demanded.
“Yes, yes!”
Sulla sat down again. “You’re not, you know.”
“I am well enough, Lucius Cornelius.”
“See a physician!”
“In this village? It would be some filthy old woman prescribing decoctions of pig manure and poultices of pounded spiders.”
“I’ll be going past Rome. I’ll send you the Sicilian.”
“Then send him to Aesernia, Lucius Cornelius, because that is where he’ll find me.” Lucius Caesar’s brow shone with sweat. “You are dismissed.”
Sulla lifted his shoulders, got up. “Be it on your own head. You’ve got the ague.”
And that, he reflected, going through the door onto the street without turning back this time, was that. Lucius Caesar was going to enter the Melfa Gorge in no fit state to organize a harvest dance. He was going to be ambushed, and he was going to have to retire to Teanum Sidicinum a second time to lick his wounds, with too many precious men lying dead in the bottom of that treacherous defile. Oh, why were they always so pigheaded, so obtuse?
Not very far down the street he encountered the Piglet, looking equally grim.
“You’ve got a sick man in there,” said Sulla, jerking his head toward the house.
“Don’t rub it in!” cried Metellus Pius. “At the best of times he’s quite impossible to cheer up, but in the grip of an ague—I despair! What did you do to make him stiffen up and ignore you?”
“Told him to forget Aesernia and concentrate on driving the Samnites out of western Campania.’’
“Yes, that would account for it, with our commander-in-chief in his present state,’’ said the Piglet, finding a smile.
The Piglet’s stammer had always fascinated Sulla, who said now, “Your stammer’s pretty good these days.”
“Oh, why did you have to suh-suh-say that, Lucius Cornelius? It’s only all ruh-ruh-right as long as I don’t think about it, cuh-cuh-curse you!”
“Really? That’s interesting. You didn’t stammer before—when? Arausio, wasn’t it?”
“ Yes. It’ s a puh-puh-puh-pain in the arse!’’ Metellus Pius drew a deep breath and endeavored to dismiss the thought of his speech impediment from consciousness. “In your pruh-pruh-present state of odium, I don’t suppose he tuh-tuh-told you what he’s planning to do when he gets back to Rome?”
“No. What is he planning to do?”
“Grant the citizenship to every Italian who hasn’t so far lifted a finger against us.”
“You’re joking!”
“Not I, Lucius Cornelius! In his company? I’ve forgotten what a joke is. It’s true, I swear it’s true. As soon as things run down here—well, they always do when autumn gets old—he’s putting off his general’s suit and putting on his purple-bordered tuh-tuh-toga. His last act as consul, he says, will be to grant the citizenship to every Italian who hasn’t gone to war against us.”
“But that’s treason! Do you mean to say that he and the rest of the inadequate idiots in command have lost thousands of men for the sake of something they haven’t even got the stomach to see through?” Sulla was trembling. “Do you mean to say he’s leading six legions into the Melfa Gorge knowing every life he loses in the process is worthless? Knowing that he intends to open Rome’s back door to every last Italian in the peninsula? Because that is what will happen, you know. They’ll all get the franchise, from Silo and Mutilus down to the last freedman Silo and Mutilus have in their clientele! Oh, he can’t!”
“There’s no use shouting at me, Lucius Cornelius! I’ll be one of those fighting the franchise to the bitter end.”
“You won’t even get the chance to fight it, Quintus Caecilius. You’ll be in the field, not in the Senate. Only Scaurus will be there to fight it, and he’s too old.” Lips thin, Sulla stared sightlessly down the busy street. “It’s Philippus and the rest of the saltatrices tonsae will vote. And they’ll vote yes. As will the Comitia.”
“You’ll be in the field too, Lucius Cornelius,” said the Piglet gloomily. “I huh-huh-hear you’ve been seconded to duty with Gaius Marius, the fat old Italian turnip! He won’t disapprove of Lucius Julius’s law, I’ll bet!”
“I’m not so sure,” said Sulla, and sighed. “One thing you have to admit about Gaius Marius, Quintus Caecilius— he’s first and last and foremost a soldier. Before his days in the field are over, there’ll be a few Marsi too dead to apply for the citizenship.”
“Let us hope so, Lucius Cornelius. Because on the day that Gaius Marius enters a Senate half full of Italians, he’ll be the First Man in Rome again. And consul a seventh time.”
“Not if I have anything to do with it,” said Sulla.
*
The next day Sulla detached his two legions from the tail of Lucius Caesar’s column when it wheeled right ahead of him onto the road leading up the Melfa River. He himself kept to the Via Latina, crossing the Melfa en route to the old ruined township of Fregellae, reduced to rubble by Lucius Opimius after its rebellion thirty-five years before. His legions halted outside the curiously peaceful, flower-filled dells created by Fregellae’s fallen walls and towers. In no mood to supervise his tribunes and centurions doing something as fundamental as pitching fortified camp, Sulla himself walked on alone into the deserted town.
Here it lies, he thought, everything we’re currently fighting about. Here it lies the way those asses in the Senate assured us it would be by the time we put this new Italy-wide revolution down. We’ve given our time, our taxes, our very lives to turn Italy into one vast Fregellae. We said every Italian life would be forfeit. Crimson poppies would grow in ground crimson with Italian blood. We said Italian skulls would bleach to the color of those white roses, and the yellow eyes of daisies would stare blindly up at the sun out of their empty orbits. What are we doing this for, if it is all to go for nothing? Why have we died and why are we still dying if it is all for nothing? He will legislate the citizenship for the half-rebels in Umbria and Etruria. After that, he cannot stop. Or someone else will pick up the wand of imperium he drops. They will all get the citizenship, their hands still red with our blood. What are we doing this for if it is all to go for nothing? We, the heirs of the Trojans, who therefore should well know the feeling of traitors within the gates. We, who are Roman, not Italian. And he will see them become Roman. Between him and those in his like, they will destroy everything Rome stands for. Their Rome will not be the Rome of their ancestors, nor my Rome. This ruined Italian garden here at Fregellae is my Rome, the Rome of my ancestors—strong enough and sure enough to grow flowers in rebellious streets, free them for the hum and twitter of bees and birds.
He wasn’t sure how much of the shimmer in front of his eyes was a part of his grief, how much a part of the blistering cobbles beneath his feet. But through its rivulets in the air he began to discern an approaching shape, blue and bulky— a Roman general walking toward a Roman general. Now more black than blue, men a shining glitter off cuirass and helm. Gaius Marius! Gaius Marius the Italian.
The breath Sulla drew in sobbed, the heart within his chest tripped and stammered. He stopped in his tracks, waited for Marius.
“Lucius Cornelius.”
“Gaius Marius.”
Neither man moved to touch the other. Then Marius turned and ranged himself alongside Sulla and the two of them walked on, silent as the tomb. It was Marius who finally cleared his throat, Marius who could not bear these unspoken emotions.
He said, “I suppose Lucius Julius is on his way to Aesernia?”
“Yes.”
“He ought to be on Crater Bay taking back Pompeii and Stabiae. Otacilius is building a nice little navy now he’s getting a few more recruits. The navy is always a bad last in the Senate’s order of preference. However, I hear the Senate is going to induct all of Rome’s able-bodied freedmen into a special force to garrison and protect the coasts of upper Campania and lower Latium. So Otacilius will be able to take all the current coastal militia into his navy.”
Sulla grunted. “Huh! And when do the Conscript Fathers intend to get around to decreeing this?”
“Who knows? At least they’ve started talking about it.”
“Wonder of wonders!”
“You sound incredibly bitter. Lucius Julius getting on your nerves? I’m not surprised.”
“Yes, Gaius Marius, I am indeed bitter,” said Sulla calmly. “I’ve been walking up this beautiful road thinking about the fate of Fregellae, and the prospective fate of our present crop of enemy Italians. You see, Lucius Julius intends to legislate the Roman citizenship for all Italians who have remained peacefully inclined toward Rome. Isn’t that nice?”
Marius’s step faltered for a moment, then resumed its rather ponderous rhythm. “Does he now? When? Before or after he dashes himself on the rocks of Aesernia?”
“After.”
“Makes you implore the gods to tell you what all the fighting is about, doesn’t it?” asked Marius, unconsciously echoing Sulla’s thoughts. A rumble of laughter came. “Still, I love to soldier, and that’s the truth. Hopefully there’s a battle or two left before the Senate and People of Rome completely crumble in their resolve! What a turnabout! And would that we might raise Marcus Livius Drusus from the dead. Then none of it need have happened. The Treasury would be full instead of emptier than a fool’s head, and the peninsula would be peacefully, happily, contentedly stuffed with legal Romans.”
“Yes.”
They fell silent, walked on into the shell of the Fregellae forum, where occasional columns and flights of steps leading up to nothing reared above the grass and flowers.
“I have a job for you,” said Marius, sitting down on a block of stone. “Here, stand in the shade or sit down with me, Lucius Cornelius, do! Then take off that wretched hat so I can see what those eyes of yours contain.”
Sulla moved into the shade obediently and obediently doffed his hat, but did not sit down, and did not speak.
“No doubt you’re wondering why I’ve come to Fregellae to see you instead of waiting in Reate.”
“I presume you don’t want me in Reate.”
A laugh boomed. “Always up to my tricks, Lucius Cornelius, aren’t you? Quite right. I don’t want you in Reate.” The lingering grin disappeared. “But nor did I want to set my plans down in a letter. The fewer people who know what you’re going to be up to, the better. Not that I have any reason to assume there’s a spy in Lucius Julius’s command tent—just that I’m prudent.”
“The only way to keep a secret is not to tell anybody.”
“True, true.” Marius huffed so deeply that the straps and buckles of his cuirass groaned. “You, Lucius Cornelius, will leave the Via Latina here. You’ll head up the Liris toward Sora, where you will turn with the Liris and follow it to its sources. In other words, I want you on the southern side of the watershed, some few miles from the Via Valeria.”
“So far I understand my part. What about yours?”
“While you’re moving up the Liris, I’ll be marching from Reate toward the western pass on the Via Valeria. I intend to broach the road itself beyond Carseoli. That town is in ruins, and garrisoned by the enemy—Marrucini, my scouts tell me, commanded by Herius Asinius himself. If possible I’ll force a battle with him for possession of the Via Valeria before it enters the pass. At that stage I want you level with me—but south of the watershed.”
“South of the watershed without the enemy’s knowledge,” said Sulla, beginning to lose his coolness.
“Precisely. That means you’ll kill everyone you see. It’s so well known that I lie to the north of the Via Valeria that I’m hoping it won’t occur to either the Marrucini or the Marsi that there might be an army coming up on the southern flank. I’ll try to focus all their attention on my own movements.” Marius smiled. “You, of course, are with Lucius Julius on your way to Aesernia.”
“You haven’t lost the gift of generaling, Gaius Marius.”
The fierce brown eyes flashed. “I hope not! Because, Lucius Cornelius, I tell you plainly—if I lose the gift of generaling, there’ll be no one in this benighted conflagration to take my place. We’ll end in granting the citizenship on the battlefield to those in arms against us.”
Part of Sulla wanted to pursue the citizenship tack, but the dominant part had other ideas. “What about me?” he blurted. “I can general.”
“Yes, yes, of course you can,” said Marius in soothing tones. “I don’t deny that for a moment. But generaling isn’t in your very bones, Lucius Cornelius.”
“Good generaling can be learned,” Sulla said stubbornly.
“Good generaling can indeed be learned. As you have done. But if it isn’t in your very bones, Lucius Cornelius, you can never rise above mere good generaling,” said Marius, utterly oblivious to the fact that what he was saying was derogatory. “Sometimes mere good generaling isn’t good enough. Inspired generaling is called for. And that’s either in the bones, or absent.”
“One day,” said Sulla pensively, “Rome will find herself without you, Gaius Marius. And then—why, we shall see! I’ll be holding the high command.”
Still Marius failed to understand, still he didn’t divine what lay in Sulla’s thoughts. Instead, he chortled merrily. “Well, Lucius Cornelius, we’ll just have to hope that when that day comes, all Rome will need is a good general. Won’t we?”
“Whatever you say,” said Lucius Cornelius Sulla.
*
The galling factor was that—of course!—Marius’s plan was perfect. Sulla and his two legions penetrated as far as Sora without encountering any enemy at all, then—in what amounted to no more than a skirmish—he defeated a small force of Picentes under Titus Herennius. From Sora to the sources of the Liris he met only Latin and Sabine farmers who greeted his appearance with such transparent joy that he refrained from carrying out Marius’s orders and killing them. Those Picentes who had escaped at Sora were more likely by far to report his presence, but he had given them the impression that his was a mission to Sora given to him by Lucius Caesar, and that he was marching then to join Lucius Caesar east of the Melfa Gorge. Hopefully the remnants of Titus Herennius’s Picentes and the Paeligni were lying in wait for Sulla in quite the wrong place.
Marius, Sulla knew from constant communication, had done as he promised and broached the Via Valeria beyond Carseoli. Herius Asinius and his Marrucini had contested the road on the spot, and gone down to crushing defeat after Marius tricked them into thinking he didn’t want a battle there. Herius Asinius himself perished, as did most of his army. Thus Marius marched into the western pass under no threat at all, now heading for Alba Fucentia with four legions comprised of men sure of victory—how could they possibly lose with the old Arpinate fox in their lead? They were blooded, and blooded well.
Sulla and his two legions shadowed Marius along the Via Valeria until the watershed separating them flattened out into the Marsic upland basin around Lake Fucinus; but even then Sulla kept ten miles between himself and Marius, skulking in a surprisingly easy concealment. For this fact, he had cause to be grateful to the Marsians’ love of making their own wine, despite the handicaps of the area. South of the Via Valeria the country was solid vineyard, a vast expanse of grapes grown inside small high-walled enclosures to protect them from the bitter winds which swept off the mountains at just that time of year when the tender grape florets were forming and the insects needed calm air to pollinate. Now Sulla did kill as he went, women and children in the main; all save the oldest men had gone from the lakeside hamlets and farms to serve in the army.
He knew the very moment when Marius joined battle with the Marsi, for the wind that day was blowing from the north, and carried the sounds across the walled vineyards so clearly that Sulla’s men fancied the fight was actually going on among the grapes. A courier had come at dawn to tell Sulla it was probably going to be today; so Sulla put his forces in an eight-deep line beneath the ten-foot fences of the vineyards, and waited.
Sure enough, fleeing Marsi began tumbling over the stone ramparts perhaps four hours after the sounds began—and tumbled straight onto the drawn swords of Sulla’s legionaries, thirsty for a share of the action. In some places there was hard fighting—these were despairing men—but nowhere did Sulla stand in any danger.
As usual I am Gaius Marius’s skilled lackey, Sulla thought, standing on high ground to watch. His was the mind conceived the strategy, his the hand directed the tactics, his the will finished it successfully. And here am I on the wrong side of some wretched wall, picking up his leavings like the hungry man I am. How well he knows himself—and how well he knows me.
Wishing he didn’t have to rejoice, Sulla mounted his mule after his share of the fighting was over and rode the long way round to inform Gaius Marius on the Via Valeria that all had gone exactly as planned, that the Marsi involved were virtually extinct.
*
“I faced none other than Silo himself!” said Marius in his customary post-battle roar, clapping Sulla on the back and leading him into the command tent with an arm about his valued lieutenant’s shoulders. “Mind you, they were napping,” he said gleefully, “I suppose because this to them is home. I burst on them like a thunderclap, Lucius Cornelius! It seems they never dreamed Asinius might lose! No one came to tell them he had; all they knew was that he was moving because I had moved from Reate at last. So there I was coming round a sharp corner, straight into their faces. They were marching to reinforce Asinius. I fetched up just too far away to be obliged to join battle, formed my men into square, and looked as if I was prepared to fight defensively, but not to attack.
“ ‘If you’re such a great general, Gaius Marius, come and fight me!’ shouted Silo, sitting on a horse.
“ ‘If you’re such a great general, Quintus Poppaedius, make me!’ I shouted back.
“We’ll never know what he might have intended to do after that, because his men took the bit between their teeth and charged without his giving the command. Well, they made it easy for me. I know what to do, Lucius Cornelius. But Silo doesn’t. I say doesn’t, as he got away unharmed. When his men broke in panic he turned his horse to face east and galloped off. I doubt he’ll stop until he reaches Mutilus. Anyway, I forced the Marsi to retreat in one direction only—through the vineyards. Knowing you were there to finish them off on the other side. And that was that.”
“It was very well done, Gaius Marius,” said Sulla with complete sincerity.
And so they settled to a victory feast, Marius and Sulla and their deputies—and Young Marius, glowing with pride in his father, whom he now served as a cadet. Oh, there’s a pup bears watching! thought Sulla, and refused to watch him.
The battle was fought all over again, almost at greater length in time; but eventually, as the level in the wine amphorae grew ever lower, the talk turned inevitably to politics. The projected legislation of Lucius Caesar was the subject, coming as a shock to Marius’s juniors; he hadn’t told them of his conversation with Sulla in Fregellae. Reactions were mixed, yet against this huge concession. These were the soldiers, these were men who had been fighting now for six months, seen thousands of their comrades perish—and felt besides that the dodderers and cravens in Rome hadn’t given them a good chance to get into stride, to start winning. Those safe in Rome were apostrophized as a gaggle of dried-up old Vestal Virgins, with Philippus coming in for the strongest criticism, Lucius Caesar not far behind.
“The Julii Caesares are all over-bred bundles of nerves,” said Marius, face purple-red. “A pity we’ve had a Julius Caesar as senior consul in this crisis. I knew he’d break.”
“You sound, Gaius Marius, as if you’d rather we conceded absolutely nothing to the Italians,” said Sulla.
“I would rather we didn’t,” Marius said. “Until it came to open war it was different. But once a people declares itself an enemy of Rome’s, it’s an enemy of mine too. Forever.”
“So I feel,” said Sulla. “However, if Lucius Julius does succeed in convincing Senate and People to pass his law, it will decrease the chance of Etruria’s and Umbria’s going over. I’d heard there were fresh rumblings in both places.”
“Indeed. Which is why Lucius Cato Licinianus and Aulus Plotius have peeled Sextus Julius’s troops away from him and gone—Plotius to Umbria and Cato Licinianus to Etruria,” said Marius.
“What’s Sextus Julius doing, then?”
Young Marius answered, very loudly. “He’s recuperating in Rome. ‘A very nasty chest’ was how my mother put it in her last letter.’’
Sulla’s look should have squashed him, yet didn’t. Even when the commander-in-chief was one’s father, one didn’t butt into the conversation if one was only a contubernalis!
“No doubt the Etrurian campaign will do Cato Licinianus’s chances of winning a consulship for next year the world of good,” said Sulla. “Providing he does well. I imagine he will.”
“So do I,” said Marius, belching. “It’s a pea-sized undertaking—suitable for a pea like Cato Licinianus.”
Sulla grinned. “What, Gaius Marius, not impressed?”
Marius blinked. “Are you?”
“Anything but.” He had had more than enough wine; Sulla switched to water. “In the meantime, what do we do with ourselves? September is a market interval old, and I’ll be due to go back to Campania fairly soon. I’d like to make the most of what time I have left, if that’s possible.”
“I can’t believe Lucius Julius let Egnatius fool him in the Melfa Gorge!” Young Marius interrupted.
“You’re not old enough, my boy, to comprehend the extent of men’s idiocy,” said Marius, approving of the comment rather than disapproving of its maker making it. He turned then to Sulla. “We can’t hope for anything from Lucius Julius now that he’s back in Teanum Sidicinum a second time with a quarter of his army dead, so why return in a hurry, Lucius Cornelius? To hold Lucius Julius’s hand? I imagine there are plenty doing that already. I suggest we go on together to Alba Fucentia,” he said, ending with a peculiar sound somewhere between a laugh and a retch.
Sulla stiffened. “Are you all right?” he asked sharply.
For a moment Marius’s color went from puce to ashes. Then he recovered; the laugh was all a laugh should be. “After such a day, perfect, Lucius Cornelius! Now as I was saying, we’ll go on to relieve Alba Fucentia, after which— well, I fancy a stroll down through Samnium, don’t you? We’ll leave Sextus Julius to invest Asculum Picentum while we bait the Samnite bull. Investing cities is a bore, not my style.” He giggled tipsily. “Wouldn’t it be nice to show up in Teanum Sidicinum with Aesernia in the sinus of your toga as a present for Lucius Julius? How grateful he’d be!”
“How grateful indeed, Gaius Marius.”
The party broke up. Sulla and Young Marius helped Marius to his bed, settled him on it without fussing. Then Young Marius escaped with a vindictive look for Sulla, who had lingered to examine the limp mountain on the couch more closely.
“Lucius Cornelius,” said Marius, slurring his words, “come on your own in the morning to wake me, would you? I want some private talk with you. Can’t tonight. Oh, the wine!”
“Sleep well, Gaius Marius. In the morning it shall be.”
But in the morning it was not to be. When Sulla—none too well himself—ventured into the back compartment of the command tent, he found the mountain on the bed exactly as it had been the night before. Frowning, he approached quickly, feeling the beginnings of a horrible prickling. No, not fear that Marius was dead; the noise of his breathing had been audible from the front section of the tent. Now, gazing down, Sulla saw the right hand feebly plucking, picking at the sheet, and saw too Marius’s goggling eyes alive with a terror so profound it imitated madness. From slumped cheek to flaccid foot his left side was stilled, felled, immobile. Down had come the forest giant without a murmur, powerless to fend off a blow not seen or felt until the deed was over.
“Stroke,” mumbled Marius.
Sulla’s hand went out of its own volition to caress the sweat-soaked hair; now he could be loved. Now he was no more. “Oh, my poor old fellow!” Sulla lowered his cheek against Marius’s, turning his lips into the wet trickle of Marius’ s tears. “ My poor old one! You’re done for at last.”
Out came the words immediately, hideously distorted, yet quite distinct enough to hear with faces pressed together.
“Not—done—yet... Seven—times.”
Sulla reared back as if Marius had risen from the couch and struck him. Then, even as he scrubbed his palm across his own tears, he uttered a shrill little paroxysm of laughter, laughter ending as abruptly as it had begun. “If I have anything to do with it, Gaius Marius, you’re done for!”
“Not—done for,” said Marius, his still intelligent eyes no longer terrified; now they were angry. “Seven—times.”
In one stride Sulla arrived at the flap dividing front room from back, calling for help as if the Hound of Hades was snapping many-headed at his heels.
Only after every last army surgeon had come and gone and Marius had been made as comfortable as possible did Sulla call a meeting of those who milled outside the tent, barred from entering it by Young Marius, weeping desolately.
He held his conference in the camp forum, deeming it wiser to let the ranks see that something was being done; the news of Marius’s catastrophe had spread, and Young Marius was not the only one who wept.
“I am assuming command,” said Sulla evenly to the dozen men who clustered around him.
No one protested.
“We return to Latium at once, before the news of this can reach Silo or Mutilus.”
Now came the protest, from a Marcus Caecilius of the branch cognominated Cornutus. “That’s ridiculous!” he said indignantly. “Here we are not twenty miles from Alba Fucentia, and you’re saying we have to turn around and go back?”
Lips thin, Sulla gestured widely with his arm, encompassing the many groups of soldiers who stood watching and weeping. “Look at them, you fool!” he snapped. “Go on into the enemy heartlands with them! They’ve lost the stomach for it! We have to gentle them along until we’re safely inside our own frontiers. Cornutus—then we have to find them another general they can love a tenth as well!”
Cornutus opened his mouth to say something further, then shut it, shrugged helplessly.
“Anyone else got anything to say?” asked Sulla.
It appeared no one had.
“All right, then. Strike camp on the double. I’ve sent word to my own legions on the far side of the vineyards already. They’ll be waiting for us down the road.”
“What about Gaius Marius?” asked a very young Licinius. “He might die if we move him.”
Sulla’s bark of laughter shocked them rigid. “Gaius Marius? You couldn’t kill him with a sacrificial axe, boy!” Seeing their reaction, he brought his emotions very carefully under control before he went on. “Never fear, gentlemen, Gaius Marius assured me himself not two hours ago that I haven’t seen the last of him yet. And I believed him! So we will take him with us. There will be no scarcity of volunteers to carry his litter.’’
“Are we all going to Rome?” asked the young Licinius timidly.
Only now that he had himself in hand did Sulla perceive how badly frightened and rudderless they all were; but they were Roman nobles, and that meant they questioned everything, weighed everything in terms of their own positions. By rights he ought to be treating them as delicately as newborn kittens.
“No, we are not all going to Rome,” said Sulla without a trace of delicacy in voice or manner. “When we reach Carseoli, you, Marcus Caecilius Cornutus, will assume command of the army. You will put it into its camp outside Reate. His son and I will take Gaius Marius to Rome, with five cohorts of troops as his honor guard.”
“Very well, Lucius Cornelius, if that’s how you wish it done, I suppose that’s how it will have to be done,” said Cornutus.
The look he got from those strange light eyes set what felt like a thousand maggots crawling inside his jaws.
“You are not mistaken, Marcus Caecilius, in thinking that it must be done the way I wish it done,” said Sulla softly, a caress in his voice. “And if it isn’t done precisely as I wish, I’ll grant you a wish—that you’d never been born! Is that quite clear? Good! Now move out.”