Thinking that Sulla would not waste time getting himself and his troops across the Adriatic ahead of winter’s unfavorable winds, Publius Sulpicius struck his first blow against the established order of things halfway through October. Of preparation he had little save within his own mind; for someone without love for demagogues, it was impossible to cultivate the art of the demagogue. He had, however, taken the precaution of seeking an interview with Gaius Marius and asking for Marius’s support. No lover of the Senate, Gaius Marius! Nor was Sulpicius disappointed in his reception. After listening to what Sulpicius proposed to do, Marius nodded.
“You may rest assured I will lend you my full support, Publius Sulpicius,” the Great Man said. For a moment he said nothing more, then he added, apparently as an afterthought, “However, I will ask one favor of you—that you legislate to give me the command in the war against Mithridates.”
It seemed like a small price to pay; Sulpicius smiled. “I agree, Gaius Marius. You shall have your command,” he said.
Sulpicius convoked the Plebeian Assembly, and in contio put two prospective laws before it as separate bills. One called for the expulsion from the Senate of every member who was in debt to the tune of more than eight thousand sesterces; the other called for the return of all those men exiled by the Varian Commission in the days when Varius himself had prosecuted those he alleged had been in favor of the citizenship for Italy.
Silver-tongued, golden-voiced, Sulpicius found exactly the right note. “Who do they think they are to sit in the Senate and make the decisions this body should be making, when hardly one of them isn’t a poor man and hopelessly in debt?” he cried. “For all of you who are in debt, there is no relief—no way of hiding behind senatorial exclusivity, no easing of your burdens by understanding moneylenders who do not think it politic to push you too far! Yet for them inside the Curia Hostilia, trifling little matters like debts can be ignored until better times! I know because I am a senator—I hear what they say to each other, I see the favors done here and there for moneylenders! I even know who among those in the Senate lend money! Well, it is all going to stop! No man who owes money should have a seat in the Senate! No man ought to be able to call himself a member of that haughty and exclusive club if he is no better than the rest of Rome!”
Shocked, the Senate sat up straight, astounded because it was Sulpicius acting like a demagogue. Sulpicius! The most conservative and valuable of men! It had been he who vetoed the recall of the Varian exiles back before the beginning of the year! Now here he was, recalling them! What had happened?
Two days later Sulpicius reconvened the Plebeian Assembly and promulgated a third law. All the new Italian citizens and many thousands of Rome’s freedman citizens were to be distributed evenly across the whole thirty-five tribes. Piso Frugi’s two new tribes were to be abandoned.
“Thirty-five is the proper number of tribes, there can be no more!” shouted Sulpicius. “Nor is it right that some tribes can hold as few as three or four thousand citizens, yet still have the same voting power in tribal assemblies as tribes like Esquilina and Suburana, each with more than a hundred thousand citizen members! Everything in Roman government is designed to protect the almighty Senate and the First Class! Do senators or knights belong to Esquilina or Suburana? Of course not! They belong to Fabia, to Cornelia, to Romilia! Well, let them continue to belong to Fabia, to Cornelia, to Romilia, I say! But let them share Fabia and Cornelia and Romilia with men from Prifernum, Buca, Vibinium—and let them share Fabia and Cornelia and Romilia with freedmen from Esquilina and Suburana!”
This was greeted with hysterical cheers, having the full approval of all strata save the uppermost and the lowliest; the uppermost because it would lose power, the lowliest because its situation would not be changed in the least.
“I don’t understand!” gasped Antonius Orator to Titus Pomponius as they stood in the well of the Comitia surrounded by screaming, howling supporters of Sulpicius. “He’s a nobleman! He hasn’t had time to gather so many adherents! He’s not a Saturninus! I—do—not—understand!”
“Oh, I understand,” said Titus Pomponius sourly. “He’s attacked the Senate for debt. What this crowd here today is hoping for is simple. They think if they pass whatever laws Sulpicius asks them to pass, as a reward he’ll legislate for the cancellation of debts.”
“But he can’t do that if he’s busy throwing men out of the Senate for being in debt for eight thousand sesterces! Eight thousand sesterces! It’s a pittance! There’s hardly a man in the whole city isn’t in debt for at least that much!”
“In trouble, Marcus Antonius?” asked Titus Pomponius.
“No, of course not! But that can’t be said for more than a handful—even men like Quintus Ancharius, Publius Cornelius Lentulus, Gaius Baebius, Gaius Atilius Serranus— ye gods, the best men on earth, Titus Pomponius! But who hasn’t had trouble finding cash these past two years? Look at the Porcii Catones, with all that land in Lucania—not a sestertius of income thanks to the war. And the Lucilii too—southern landowners again.” Marcus Antonius paused for breath, then asked, “Why should he legislate for the cancellation of debts when he’s throwing men out of the Senate for debt?”
“He hasn’t any intention of cancelling debts,” said Pomponius. “The Second and Third Classes are just hoping he will, that’s all.”
“Has he promised them anything?”
“He doesn’t have to. Hope is the only sun in their sky, Marcus Antonius. They see a man who hates the Senate and the First Class as much as Saturninus did. So they hope for another Saturninus. But Sulpicius is vastly different.”
“Why?” wailed Antonius Orator.
“I have absolutely no idea what maggot’s in his mind,” said Titus Pomponius. “Let’s get out of this crowd before it turns on us and rends us limb from limb.”
On the Senate steps they met the junior consul, who was accompanied by his very excited son, just back from military duty in Lucania and still in a martial mood.
“It’s Saturninus all over again!” cried young Pompeius Rufus loudly. “Well, this time we will be ready for him— we’re not going to let him get control of the crowds the way Saturninus did! Now that almost everybody is back from the war it’s easy to get a trusty gang together and stop him—and that’s what I’m going to do! The next contio he calls will turn out very differently, I promise you!”
Titus Pomponius ignored the son in order to concentrate upon the father and other senators in hearing. “Sulpicius is not remotely another Saturninus,” he said doggedly. “The times are different and Sulpicius’s motives are different. Then, it was shortage of food. Now, it’s the prevalence of debt. But Sulpicius doesn’t want to be King of Rome. He wants them to rule Rome”—finger pointing at the Second and Third Classes jammed into the Comitia—”and that is very different indeed.”
“I’ve sent for Lucius Cornelius,” said the junior consul to Titus Pomponius, Antonius Orator and Catulus Caesar, who had heard what Pomponius said and drifted over.
“Don’t you think you can control what’s happening, Quintus Pompeius?” asked Pomponius, who was adept at asking awkward questions.
“No, I don’t,” said Pompeius Rufus frankly.
“What about Gaius Marius?” asked Antonius Orator. “He can control any crowd within Rome.”
“Not this time,” said Catulus Caesar contemptuously. “In this instance, he’s backing the rebellious tribune of the plebs. Yes, Marcus Antonius, it’s Gaius Marius who has put Publius Sulpicius up to this!”
“Oh, I don’t believe that,” said Antonius Orator.
“I tell you, Gaius Marius is backing him!”
“If that is really true,” said Titus Pomponius, “then I would say a fourth law will appear on Sulpicius’s agenda.”
“A fourth law?” asked Catulus Caesar, frowning.
“He will legislate to remove the command of the war against Mithridates from Lucius Sulla. Then give it to Gaius Marius.”
“Sulpicius wouldn’t dare!” cried Pompeius Rufus.
“Why not?” Titus Pomponius stared at the junior consul. “I am glad you’ve sent for the senior consul. When will he be here?”
“Tomorrow or the day after.”
Sulla arrived well before dawn the next morning, having driven to Rome the moment Pompeius Rufus’s letter found him. Did any consul ever have so much bad news? asked Sulla of himself—first the massacre in Asia Province, now another Saturninus. My country is bankrupt, I have just put down one revolution, and against my name in the fasti will go the odium of having sold off State property. Not that any of it matters provided I can deal with it. And I can deal with it.
“Is there a contio today?” he asked Pompeius Rufus, to whose house he had gone immediately.
“Yes. Titus Pomponius says Sulpicius is going to put a law forward to strip you of the command in the war against Mithridates and give it to Gaius Marius.”
All outward movement in Sulla stilled, even his eyes. “I am the consul, and the war was given to me legally,” he said. “If Gaius Marius was well enough, he could have it gladly. But he isn’t well enough. And he can’t have it.” He blew through his nose. “I suppose this means Gaius Marius is backing Sulpicius.”
“So everyone thinks. Marius hasn’t appeared at any of the contiones yet, but it is true that I’ve seen some of his minions at work in the crowd among the lower Classes. Like that frightful fellow who leads a gang of Suburan roughnecks,” said Pompeius Rufus.
“Lucius Decumius?”
“Yes, that’s him.”
“Well, well!” said Sulla. “This is a new aspect of Gaius Marius, Quintus Pompeius! I didn’t think he’d stoop to using tools like Lucius Decumius. Yet I very much fear that having his old age and his poor health pointed out to him so resoundingly in the House has given him to understand he’s finished. But he doesn’t want to be finished. He wants to go to war against Mithridates. And if that means he must turn himself into a Saturninus, he will.”
“There’s going to be trouble, Lucius Cornelius.”
“I know that!”
“No, I mean that my son and a lot of other sons of senators and knights are assembling a force to expel Sulpicius from the Forum,” said Pompeius Rufus.
“Then you and I had better be in the Forum when Sulpicius convenes the Plebeian Assembly.”
“Armed?”
“Definitely not. We must try to contain this legally.”
When Sulpicius arrived in the Forum shortly after dawn, it was apparent that he had heard rumors of the band led by the junior consul’s son, for he appeared in the midst of a huge escort of young men of the Second and Third Classes, all armed with clubs and small wooden shields; and to protect this inner escort he had surrounded them with a mass of men from what seemed the Fifth Class and the Head Count—ex-gladiators and crossroads college members. So huge was the “bodyguard” that young Quintus Pompeius Rufus’s little army was dwarfed to the size of impotence.
“The People,” cried Sulpicius to a Comitia half filled by his “bodyguard” alone, “are sovereign! That is, the People are said to be sovereign! It’s a convenient phrase trotted out by the members of the Senate and the leading knights whenever they need your votes. But it means absolutely nothing! It is hollow, it is a mockery! What responsibilities do you truly have in government? You are at the mercy of the men who call you together, the tribunes of the plebs! You don’t formulate laws and promulgate them in this Assembly—you are simply here to vote on laws formulated and promulgated by the tribunes of the plebs! And with very few exceptions, who own the tribunes of the plebs? Why, the Senate and the Ordo Equester! And what happens to those tribunes of the plebs who declare themselves the servants of the sovereign People? I’ll tell you what happens to them! They are penned up in the Curia Hostilia and smashed into pulp by tiles off the Curia Hostilia roof!”
Sulla twisted his shoulders. “Well, that’s a declaration of war, isn’t it? He’s going to make Saturninus a hero.”
“He’s going to make himself a hero,” said Catulus Caesar.
“Listen!” said Merula flamen Dialis sharply.
“It is time,” Sulpicius was saying, “that the Senate and the Ordo Equester were shown once and for all who is sovereign in Rome! That is why I stand here before you— your champion—your protector—your servant. You are just emerging from three frightful years, years during which you were required to shoulder the bulk of the burden of taxes and land deprivation. You gave Rome most of the money to fund a civil war. But did anyone in the Senate ask you what you thought about war against your brothers, the Italian Allies?”
“We certainly did ask!” said Scaevola Pontifex Maximus grimly. “They were more passionately for war than the Senate was!”
“They’re not about to remember that now,” said Sulla.
“No, they didn’t ask you!” shouted Sulpicius. “They denied your brothers the Italians their citizenship, not yours! Yours is a mere shadow. Theirs is the substance ruling Rome! They couldn’t allow the addition of thousands of new members into their exclusive little rural tribes—that would have given their inferiors too much power! So even after the franchise was granted to the Italians they made sure the new citizens were contained within too few tribes to affect electoral outcomes! But all of that ends, sovereign People, the moment you ratify my law to distribute the new citizens and the freedmen of Rome across the whole thirty-five tribes!”
A wave of cheering broke out so loudly that Sulpicius was obliged to stop; he stood, smiling broadly, a handsome man in his middle thirties with a patrician look to him despite his plebeian rank—fine boned, fair in coloring.
“There are also other ways in which you have been cheated, thanks to the Senate and the Ordo Equester,” Sulpicius went on when the noise died down. “It is more than time that the prerogative—and it is no more than prerogative, for it is not law!—of conferring all military commands and directing all wars was removed from the Senate and the Senate’s secret masters of the Ordo Equester! It is time that you—the backbone, the basis of everything truly Roman!— were given the tasks you should have under the law. Among those tasks is the right to decide whether or not Rome should go to war—and if it is to be war, who should command.”
“Here it comes,” said Catulus Caesar.
Sulpicius turned to level his finger at Sulla, who stood in the forefront of the crowd atop the Senate steps, his looks singling him out. “There is the senior consul! Elected senior consul by his peers, not yours! How long is it since even the Third Class was needed to cast a ballot in the consular elections?”
Seeming to realize that he was in danger of drifting from his point, Sulpicius paused, came back to it. “The senior consul was given the command in a war so vital to the future of Rome that if that war is not conducted by the best man in Rome, Rome may well cease to exist. So who gave the command of the war against King Mithridates of Pontus to the senior consul? Who decided he was the best man in Rome to do the job? Why, the Senate and their secret masters of the Ordo Equester! Putting up their own, as always! Willing to jeopardize Rome in order to see a patrician nobleman put on the trappings of the general! For who is this Lucius Cornelius Sulla? What wars has he won? Do you know him, sovereign People? Well, I can tell you who he is! Lucius Cornelius Sulla stands there because he rode on Gaius Marius’s back! Everything he has achieved he achieved by riding on Gaius Marius’s back! He is said to have won the war against the Italians! But we all know that it was Gaius Marius dealt the first and hardest blows—had Gaius Marius not, then this man Sulla couldn’t have gone on to victory!”
“How dare he!” gasped Crassus Censor. “It was you and no one but you, Lucius Cornelius! You won the Grass Crown! You brought the Italians to their knees!” He drew in a great breath to shout this at Sulpicius, but shut his mouth when Sulla twisted his arm.
“Leave be, Publius Licinius! If we start shouting at them, they’ll turn on us and lynch us. I want this mess cleared up in a legal and peaceful way,” said Sulla.
Sulpicius was still hammering his point home. “Can this Lucius Cornelius Sulla address you, sovereign People? Of course he can’t! He’s a patrician! Too good for the likes of you! In order to give this precious patrician the command of the war against Mithridates, the Senate and the Ordo Equester passed over a far more qualified and able man! They passed over none other than Gaius Marius! Saying he was sick, saying he was old! But I ask you, sovereign People!—who have you seen every single day for the past two years walking through this city forcing himself to get well? Exercising, looking better every day? Gaius Marius! Who might be old, but is no longer sick! Gaius Marius! Who might be old, but is still the best man in Rome!”
The cheering had broken out again, but not for Sulpicius. The crowd parted to reveal Gaius Marius walking down to the bottom of the Comitia well, briskly and on his own; Gaius Marius no longer needed to lean on his boy, who was not with him.
“Sovereign People of Rome, I ask you to approve of a fourth law in my program of legislation!’’ Sulpicius shouted, beaming at Gaius Marius. “I propose that the command of the war against King Mithridates of Pontus be stripped away from the haughty patrician Lucius Cornelius Sulla, and given to your own Gaius Marius!”
Sulla waited to hear no more. Asking that Scaevola Pontifex Maximus and Merula flamen Dialis accompany him, he walked home.
Ensconced in his study, Sulla looked at them. “Well, what do we do?” he asked.
“Why Lucius Merula and me?” was Scaevola’s answer.
“You’re the heads of our religion,” said Sulla, “and you know the law as well. Find me a way to prolong Sulpicius’s campaign in the Comitia until the crowd gets tired of it— and him.”
“Something soft,” said Merula thoughtfully.
“Soft as kitten’s fur,” said Sulla, tossing back a cup of unwatered wine. “If it came to a pitched battle in the Forum, he’d win. He’s no Saturninus! Sulpicius is a much cleverer man. He beat us to the violent alternatives. I did a rough count of the number in his guard, and came up with a figure not much short of four thousand. And they’re armed. Clubs on the surface, but I suspect swords underneath. We can’t field a civilian force capable of teaching them a lesson in a space as confined as the Forum Romanum.’’ Sulla stopped, grimaced as if he tasted something sour and bitter; his pale cold eyes looked into nothing, “If I have to, Pontifex Maximus, flamen Dialis, I will pile Pelion on top of Ossa before I see our rightful privileges overturned! Including my own position! But let us first see if we can’t defeat Sulpicius with his own weapon—the People.”
“Then,” said Scaevola, “the only thing to do is to declare all the Comitial days between now and whenever you wish as feriae.”
“Oh, that’s a good idea!” said Merula, face lightening.
Sulla frowned. “Is it legal?”
“Most definitely. The consuls, the Pontifex Maximus, and the Colleges of Pontifices are at complete liberty to set days of rest and holiday during which the Assemblies cannot meet.”
“Then post the declaration of feriae this afternoon on rostra and Regia, and have the heralds proclaim days of rest and holiday between now and the Ides of December.” Sulla grinned nastily. “His term as a tribune of the plebs finishes three days before that. And the moment he’s out of office, I’ll have Sulpicius up on charges of treason and inciting violence.”
“You’ll have to try him quietly,” said Scaevola, shivering.
“Oh, for Jupiter’s sake, Quintus Mucius! How can it be done quietly?” asked Sulla. “I shall haul him up and try him, that’s all! If he can’t woo the crowds with lovely words, he’ll be helpless enough. I’ll drug him.”
Two pairs of startled eyes flew to Sulla’s face; it was when he said things like drugging a man that he was most alien, least able to be understood.
Sulla convened the Senate next morning and announced that the consuls and pontifices had declared a period of feriae during which no meetings in the Comitia could be held. It fetched a round of quiet cheers, as Gaius Marius was not in the House to object.
Catulus Caesar walked out of the chamber afterward with Sulla. “How dared Gaius Marius place the State in jeopardy, all for the sake of a command he’s not fit to take up?” demanded Catulus Caesar.
“Oh, because he’s old, he’s afraid, his mind’s not what it was, and he wants to be consul of Rome seven times,” said Sulla wearily.
Scaevola Pontifex Maximus, who had left ahead of Sulla and Catulus Caesar, suddenly came running back. “Sulpicius!” he cried. “He’s ignoring the proclamation of feriae, he’s calling it a ploy devised by the Senate and going ahead in contio!”
Sulla didn’t look surprised. “I imagined that was what he would do,” he said.
“Then what was the point of it?’’ asked Scaevola indignantly.
“It puts us in the position of being able to declare any laws he discusses or passes during the period of feriae invalid,” said Sulla. “That’s the only virtue feriae has.”
“If he passes his law expelling everyone in debt from the Senate,” said Catulus Caesar, “we’ll never be able to declare his laws invalid. There won’t be enough senators left to make a quorum. And that means the Senate will cease to exist as a political force.”
“Then I suggest that we get together with Titus Pomponius, Gaius Oppius, and other bankers and arrange for the cancellation of all senatorial debts—unofficially, of course.”
“We can’t!” wailed Scaevola. “The senatorial creditors are insisting on their money, and there isn’t any money! No senator borrows from respectable lenders like Pomponius and Oppius! They’re too public! The censors would get to know!”
“Then I’ll charge Gaius Marius with treason and take the money from his estates,” said Sulla, looking ugly.
“Oh, Lucius Cornelius, you can’t!” moaned Scaevola. “The ‘sovereign People’ would tear us apart!”
“Then I’ll open my war chest and pay the Senate’s debts with that!” said Sulla through his teeth.
“You can’t, Lucius Cornelius!”
“I am getting very tired of being told I can’t,” said Sulla. “Let myself be beaten by Sulpicius and a pack of gullible fools who think he’s going to cancel their debts? I won’t! Pelion on top of Ossa, Quintus Mucius! I will do whatever I have to do!”
“A fund,” said Catulus Caesar. “A fund set up by those of us not in debt to salvage those who face expulsion.”
“To do that, we would have needed to see into the future,” said Scaevola miserably. “It would take at least a month. I’m not in debt, Quintus Lutatius. Nor are you, I imagine. Nor Lucius Cornelius. But ready money? I don’t have any! Do you? Can you scrape up more than a thousand sesterces without selling property?”
“I can, but only just,” said Catulus Caesar.
“I can’t,” said Sulla.
“I think we should put a fund together,” said Scaevola, “but it will require the sale of property. Which means it will come too late. Those senators in debt will have been expelled. However, as soon as they’re out of debt, the censors can reinstall them.”
“You don’t think Sulpicius will permit that, do you?” asked Sulla. “He’ll do some more legislating.”
“Oh, I hope I get a chance to lay my hands on Sulpicius some dark night!” said Catulus Caesar savagely. “How can he dare to do all this at a time when we can’t even fund a war we have to win?”
“Because Publius Sulpicius is clever and committed,” said Sulla. “And I suspect Gaius Marius put him up to it.”
“They’ll pay,” said Catulus Caesar.
“Be careful, Quintus Lutatius. It’s they might make you pay,” said Sulla. “Still, they fear us. And with good reason.”
*
Seventeen days had to elapse between the first contio at which a law was discussed and the meeting of the Assembly voting that law into being; Publius Sulpicius Rufus continued to hold his contiones while the days dripped away and the time for ratification came ever closer, seemed more inevitable.
On the day before the first pair of Sulpicius’s laws were to be put to the vote, young Quintus Pompeius Rufus and his friends who were the sons of senators and knights of the First Class decided to put a stop to Sulpicius in the only way now possible—by force. Without the knowledge of their fathers or of the curule magistrates, young Pompeius Rufus and some others gathered over a thousand men aged between seventeen and thirty. They all owned armor and arms, they had all until very recently been in the field against the Italians. As Sulpicius conducted the contio applying the finishing touches to the actual drafting of his first pair of laws, a thousand heavily armed young men of the First Class marched into the Forum Romanum and immediately attacked the men attending Sulpicius’s meeting.
The invasion caught Sulla completely unprepared; one moment he and his colleague Quintus Pompeius Rufus were observing Sulpicius from the top of the Senate steps, surrounded by other senior senators, and the next moment the whole of the lower Forum was a battlefield. He could see young Quintus Pompeius Rufus wreaking havoc with a sword, heard the father standing beside him cry out in anguish, and held the father’s arm so strongly he couldn’t move.
“Leave it, Quintus Pompeius. There’s nothing you can do,” said Sulla curtly. “You’d never even get to his side.”
Unfortunately the crowd was so large it extended far beyond the actual Comitia well. No general, young Pompeius Rufus had deployed his men thinly spread out rather than kept them in a wedge. Had he done so, he might have driven through the middle of the pack; as it was, Sulpicius’s guard had no difficulty in uniting.
Fighting bravely, young Pompeius Rufus himself succeeded in working his way around the rim of the Comitia well and reached the rostra. Intent upon Sulpicius as he scrambled up to the rostra platform, he never even saw the burly middle-aged fellow who had obviously retired from the gladiatorial ring until his sword was wrenched down. Young Pompeius Rufus tumbled from the rostra into Sulpicius’s guard below, and was clubbed to death.
Sulla heard the father’s scream, felt rather than saw several senators drag him away, and himself realized that the guard, now victorious over the ranks of the young elite, would turn next to the Senate steps. Like an eel he wriggled through the throng of panicked senators and dropped off the edge of the Senate House podium into the pandemonium below, his toga praetexta abandoned. A deft twist of his hand plucked a chlamys cloak from some Greek freedman trapped by the fight; Sulla threw it over his telltale head and pretended he too was a Greek freedman only intent upon removing himself from the turmoil. He ducked beneath the colonnade of the Basilica Porcia, where frantic merchants were trying to disassemble their stalls, and worked his way into the Clivus Argentarius. The crowd grew less, the fighting nonexistent; Sulla headed up the hill and through the Porta Fontinalis.
He knew exactly where he was going. To see the prime mover in all this. To see Gaius Marius, who wanted to command a war and get himself elected consul a seventh time.
He threw the chlamys away and knocked on Marius’s door clad only in his tunic. “I want to see Gaius Marius,” he said to the porter in tones which implied he was clad in all his regalia.
Unwilling to deny entry to a man he knew so well, the porter held the door open and admitted Sulla to the house.
But it was Julia who came, not Gaius Marius.
“Oh, Lucius Cornelius, this is terrible!” she said, and turned to a servant. “Bring wine.”
“I want to see Gaius Marius,” said Sulla through his teeth.
“You can’t, Lucius Cornelius. He’s asleep.”
“Then wake him, Julia. If you don’t, I swear I will!”
Again she turned to a servant. “Please ask Strophantes to wake Gaius Marius and tell him Lucius Cornelius Sulla is here to see him on urgent business.”
“Has he gone completely mad?” asked Sulla, reaching for the water flagon; he was too thirsty to drink wine.
“I don’t know what you mean!” cried Julia, looking defensive.
“Oh, come, Julia! You’re the Great Man’s wife! If you don’t know him, no one does!” snarled Sulla. “He’s deliberately engineered a series of events he thinks will bring him the command against Mithridates, he’s cultivated the lawless career of a man who is determined to tear down the mos maiorum, he’s turned the Forum into a shambles and caused the death of the son of the consul Pompeius Rufus— not to mention the deaths of hundreds of others!”
Julia closed her eyes. “I cannot control him,” she said.
“His mind is gone,” said Sulla.
“No! Lucius Cornelius, he is sane!”
“Then he’s not the man I thought he was.”
“He just wants to fight Mithridates!”
“Do you approve?”
Again Julia closed her eyes. “I think he should stay at home and leave the war to you.”
They could hear the Great Man coming, and fell silent.
“What’s amiss?” asked Marius as he entered the room. “What brings you here, Lucius Cornelius?”
“A battle in the Forum,” said Sulla.
“That was imprudent,” said Marius.
“Sulpicius is imprudent. He’s given the Senate nowhere to go except to fight for its existence in the only way left — with the sword. Young Quintus Pompeius is dead.”
Marius smiled, not a pretty sight. “That’s too bad! I don’t imagine his side won.”
“You’re right, it didn’t win. Which means that at the end of a long and bitter war — and facing yet another long and bitter war! — Rome is the poorer by a hundred or so of her best young men,” said Sulla harshly.
“Yet another long and bitter war? Nonsense, Lucius Cornelius! I’ll beat Mithridates in a single season,” said Marius complacently.
Sulla tried. “Gaius Marius, why can’t you get it through your head that Rome has no money? Rome is bankrupt! Rome cannot afford to field twenty legions ! The war against the Italians has put Rome into hopeless debt! The Treasury is empty! And even the great Gaius Marius cannot win against a power as strong as Pontus in one single season if he has only five legions to work with!”
“I can pay for several legions myself,” said Marius.
Sulla scowled. “Like Pompey Strabo? But when you pay them yourself, Gaius Marius, they belong to you, not to Rome.”
“Rubbish! It means no more than that I place my own resources at the disposal of Rome.”
“Rubbish! It means you place Rome’s resources at your disposal,” Sulla countered sharply. “You’ll lead your legions!”
“Go home and calm down, Lucius Cornelius. You’re upset at the loss of your command.”
“I haven’t lost my command yet,” said Sulla. He looked at Julia. “You know your duty, Julia of the Julii Caesares. Do it! To Rome, not to Gaius Marius.”
She walked with him toward the door, face impassive. “Please don’t say any more, Lucius Cornelius. I can’t have my husband upset.”
“To Rome, Julia! To Rome!”
“I am Gaius Marius’s wife,” she said as she held open the door. “My first duty is to him.”
Well, Lucius Cornelius, you lost that one! said Sulla to himself as he walked down onto the Campus Martius. He’s as mad as a Pisidian seer in a prophetic frenzy, but no one will admit it, and no one will stop him. Unless I do.
Taking the long way round, he went not to his own house but to the house of the junior consul. His daughter was now a widow with a newborn boy and a year-old girl.
“I have asked my younger son to take the name of Quintus,” said the junior consul, tears rolling unchecked down his face. “And of course we have my dear Quintus’s own little son, who will perpetuate the senior branch.”
Of Cornelia Sulla there was no sign.
“How is my daughter?” Sulla asked.
“Heartbroken, Lucius Cornelius! But she has her children, and that is some consolation.”
“Well, sad as this is, Quintus Pompeius, I’m not here to mourn,” said Sulla crisply. “We must call a conference. It goes without saying that at a time like this a man wants nothing to do with the outside world—I speak feelingly, having lost a son myself. But the outside world will not go away. I must ask you to come to my house at dawn tomorrow.”
Exhausted, Lucius Cornelius Sulla then plodded across the brow of the Palatine to his own elegant new house and his anxious new wife, who burst into tears of joy at seeing him unharmed.
“Never worry about me, Dalmatica,” he said. “My time isn’t yet. I haven’t fulfilled my destiny.”
“Our world is coming to an end!” she cried.
“Not while I live,” said Sulla.
He slept long and dreamlessly, the repose of a man much younger than he, and woke before the dawn with no idea exactly what he ought to do. This rudderless state of mind did not worry him in the least; I do best when I act as Fortune dictates on the moment, he thought, and found himself actually looking forward to the day.
“As far as I can estimate, the moment Sulpicius’s senatorial debt law is passed this morning, the number in the Senate will drop to forty. Not enough for a quorum,” said Catulus Caesar gloomily.
“We still have censors, do we not?” asked Sulla.
“Yes,” said Scaevola Pontifex Maximus. “Neither Lucius Julius nor Publius Licinius is in debt.”
“Then we must act on the assumption that it has not occurred to Publius Sulpicius that the censors might have the courage to add to the Senate,” said Sulla. “When it does occur to him, he’ll bring in some other law, nothing is more certain. In the meantime, we can try to get our expelled colleagues out of debt.”
“I agree, Lucius Cornelius,” said Metellus Pius, who had made the trip from Aesernia the moment he heard what Sulpicius was doing in Rome, and had been talking with Catulus Caesar and Scaevola as they walked to Sulla’s house. He threw out his hands irritably. “If the fools had only borrowed money from men of their own kind, they might have secured a dispensation for their debts, at least for the time being! But we’re caught in our own trap. A senator needing to borrow money has to be very quiet about it if he can’t secure a loan from a fellow senator. So he goes to the worst kind of usurer.’’
“I still don’t understand why Sulpicius has turned on us like this!” said Antonius Orator fretfully.
“Tace!” said every other voice, goaded.
‘‘Marcus Antonius, we may never know why,” said Sulla with more patience than he was known for. “At this time it’s even irrelevant why. What is far more important.”
“So how do we go about getting the expelled senators out of debt?” asked the Piglet.
“A fund, as agreed to. There will have to be a committee to handle it. Quintus Lutatius, you can be the chairman. There’s no senator in debt would have the gall to conceal his true circumstances from you,” said Sulla.
Merula flamen Dialis giggled, clapped a guilty hand over his mouth. “I apologize for my levity,” he said, lips quivering. “It just occurred to me that if we were sensible, we’d avoid seeking to pull Lucius Marcius Philippus out of the mire! Not only will his debts more than equal the combined total of everyone else’s, but we could then lose him permanently from the Senate. After all, he’s only one man. His omission won’t make any difference except in the amount of peace and quiet.”
“I think that’s a terrifically good idea,” said Sulla blandly.
“The trouble with you, Lucius Cornelius, is that you are politically nonchalant,” said Catulus Caesar, scandalized. “It makes no difference what we think of Lucius Marcius— the fact remains that his is an old and particularly illustrious family. His tenure in the Senate must be preserved. The son is a far different man.”
“You’re right, of course,” sighed Merula.
“Very well, that’s decided,” said Sulla, smiling faintly. “For the rest, we can do no more than wait upon events. Except that I think it’s time to terminate the period of feriae. According to the religious regulations, Sulpicius’s laws are more than effectively invalidated. And I have an idea that it behooves us to allow Gaius Marius and Sulpicius to think they’ve won, that we’re powerless.”
“We are powerless,” said Antonius Orator.
“I’m not convinced of that,” said Sulla. He turned to the junior consul, very silent and morose. “Quintus Pompeius, you have every excuse to leave Rome. I suggest you take your whole family down to the seashore. Make no secret of your going.”
“What about the rest of us?” asked Merula fearfully.
“You’re in no danger. If Sulpicius had wanted to eliminate the Senate by killing its members, he could have done that yesterday. Luckily for us, he’s preferred to use more constitutional means. Is our urban praetor clear of debt? Not that it matters, I suppose. A curule magistrate can’t be ejected from his office, even if he has been ejected from the Senate,” said Sulla.
“Marcus Junius is clear of debt,” said Merula.
“Good, it’s unequivocal. He’s going to have to govern Rome in the absence of the consuls.”
“Both consuls? Don’t tell me you intend to leave Rome too, Lucius Cornelius!” said Catulus Caesar, aghast.
“I have five legions of infantry and two thousand horse sitting in Capua waiting for their general,” said Sulla. “After my precipitate departure the rumors will be flying. I must settle everyone down.”
“You really are politically nonchalant! Lucius Cornelius, in a situation as serious as this, one of the consuls must remain in Rome!”
“Why?” asked Sulla, raising a brow. “Rome isn’t under the administration of the consuls at the moment, Quintus Lutatius. Rome belongs to Sulpicius. And I intend that he be convinced it does.”
From that stand Sulla refused to be budged, so the meeting broke up soon afterward, and Sulla left for Campania.
*
He took his time upon the journey, riding upon a mule without an escort of any kind, his hat on his head, and his head down. All along the way people were talking; the news of Sulpicius and the demise of the Senate had spread almost as quickly as the news of the massacre in Asia Province. As he chose to travel on the Via Latina, Sulla passed through loyally Roman countryside the whole way, and learned that many of the local people considered Sulpicius an Italian agent, that some thought him the agent of Mithridates, and that no one was in favor of a Rome without the Senate. Even though the magical name of Gaius Marius was also being bruited about, the innate conservatism of countryfolk tended toward skepticism of his fitness to command in this new war. Unrecognized, Sulla quite enjoyed these conversations in the various hostelries he patronized along the way, for he had left his lictors in Capua and was dressed like any ordinary traveler.
And on the road he thought in time to the jogging of his mule, leisurely thoughts which whirled and swirled, inchoate almost—but not quite. Not quite. Of one thing he was sure. He had done the right thing in electing to return to his legions. For they were his legions—or four of them were. He had led them himself for close to two years, they had given him his Grass Crown. The fifth legion was another Campanian one, under the command of Lucius Caesar first, then of Titus Didius, then of Metellus Pius. Somehow when it had come time to select a fifth legion to go east with him against Mithridates, he found himself turned against his original idea, which had been to second a Marian legion from service with Cinna and Cornutus. And now I am very glad indeed that I have no Marian legion in Capua, thought Lucius Cornelius Sulla.
“That’s the problem with being a senator,” said Sulla’s loyal assistant Lucullus. “Custom dictates that all a senator’s money be tied up in land and property, and who is going to leave money idle? So it becomes impossible to lay one’s hands on sufficient cash when a senator suddenly needs it. We’ve got into the habit of borrowing.”
“Are you in debt?” asked Sulla, not having thought of it; like Gaius Aurelius Cotta, Lucius Licinius Lucullus had been hustled into the Senate after Sulla had given the censors a public kick up the backside. He was twenty-eight years old.
“I am in debt to the amount of ten thousand sesterces, Lucius Cornelius,” said Lucullus levelly. “However, my brother Varro will have seen to it, I imagine, with things in Rome the way they are. He’s the one with the money these days. I struggle. But thanks to my uncle Metellus Numidicus and my cousin Pius, I do manage to meet the senatorial census.”
“Well, be of good cheer, Lucius Licinius! When we get to the east we’ll have the gold of Mithridates to play with.”
“What do you intend to do?” asked Lucullus. “If we move very quickly, we can probably sail before Sulpicius’s laws are enforced.”
“No, I think I must remain to see what happens,” said Sulla. “It would be foolish to sail with my command in doubt.” He sighed. “Actually I think it’s time I wrote to Pompey Strabo.”
Lucullus’s clear grey eyes rested upon his general with a big question in their depths, but in the end he said nothing. If any man had ever looked in control of a situation, that man was Sulla.
Six days later a letter came from Flaccus Princeps Senatus, not officially couriered; Sulla broke it open and scanned its short contents carefully.
“Well,” he said to Lucullus, who had brought the note, “it seems there are only about forty senators left in the Senate. The Varian exiles are being recalled—but if in debt are no longer to be members of the Senate, and of course all of them are in debt. The Italian citizens and the freedman citizens are to be distributed across all thirty-five tribes.
And—last but not least!—Lucius Cornelius Sulla has been relieved of his command and replaced by Gaius Marius in a special enactment of the sovereign People.”
“Oh,” said Lucullus, flattened.
Sulla threw the paper down and snapped his fingers to a servant. “My cuirass and sword,” he said to the man, and then, to Lucullus, “Summon the whole army to an assembly.”
An hour later Sulla ascended the camp forum speaker’s platform in full military dress save for the fact that he wore his hat, not a helmet. Look familiar, Lucius Cornelius, he told himself—look like their Sulla.
“Well, men,” he said in a clear, carrying voice, but without shouting, “it looks as if we’re not going to fight Mithridates after all! You’ve been sitting here kicking your heels until those in power in Rome—and they are not the consuls!—made up their minds. They have now made up their minds. The command in the war against King Mithridates of Pontus is to go to Gaius Marius by order of the Plebeian Assembly. The Senate of Rome is no more, as there are not enough senators left to constitute a quorum. Therefore all decisions about matters martial and military have been assumed by the Plebs—under the guidance of their tribune, Publius Sulpicius Rufus.”
He paused to let the soldiers murmur among themselves and transmit his words to those too far away to hear, then began to speak again in that deceptively normal voice (Metrobius had taught him to project it years ago).
“Of course,” he said, “the fact of the matter is that I am the legally elected senior consul—that the choice of any command should by rights be mine—and that the Senate of Rome conferred a proconsular imperium upon me for the duration of the war against King Mithridates of Pontus. And—as is my right!—I chose the legions who would go with me. I chose you. My men through thick and thin, through one grueling campaign after another. Why would I not choose you? You know me and I know you. I don’t love you, though I believe Gaius Marius loves his men. I hope you don’t love me, though I believe Gaius Marius’s men love him. But then, I have never thought it necessary for men to love other men in order to get the job done. I mean, why should I love you? You’re a pack of smelly rascals out of every hole in every sewer inside or outside Rome! But—ye gods, how I respect you! Time and time again I’ve asked you to give me your best—and by all the gods, you’ve always given it!”
Someone started to cheer, then everyone was cheering. Except the small group who stood directly in front of the platform. The tribunes of the soldiers, elected magistrates who commanded the consul’s legions. Last year’s men, who had included Lucullus and Hortensius, had liked working under Sulla. This year’s men loathed Sulla, thought him a harsh master, overly demanding. One eye on them, Sulla let his soldiers cheer.
“So there we were, men, all going off to fight Mithridates across the sea in Greece and Asia Minor! Not trampling down the crops of our beloved Italy, not raping Italian women. Oh, what a campaign it would have been! Do you know how much gold Mithridates has? Mountains of it! Over seventy strongholds in Lesser Armenia alone crammed to the tops of their walls with gold! Gold that might have been ours. Oh; I don’t mean to imply that Rome would not have got her share—and more than her share! There’s so much gold we could have bathed in it! Rome—and us! Not to mention lush Asian women. Slaves galore. Knacky items of no use to anyone but a soldier.”
He shrugged, lifted his shoulders, held out his hands with their palms up and empty. “It is not to be, men. We’ve been relieved of our commission by the Plebeian Assembly. Not a body any Roman expects to be telling him who’s to fight, or who’s to command. But it’s legal. So I’m told. Though I cannot help but ask myself if it is legal to cancel the imperium of the senior consul in the year of his consulship! I am Rome’s servant. So are all of you. Better say goodbye to your dreams of gold and foreign women. Because when Gaius Marius goes east to fight King Mithridates of Pontus, he’ll be leading his own legions. He won’t want to lead mine.”
Down from the platform came Sulla, walked through the ranks of his twenty-four tribunes of the soldiers without looking at a single one and disappeared into his tent, leaving Lucullus to dismiss the men.
“That,” said Lucullus when he reported to the general’s tent, “was masterly. You don’t have the reputation of an orator, and I daresay you don’t obey the rules of rhetoric. But you certainly know how to get your message across, Lucius Cornelius.”
“Why, thank you, Lucius Licinius,” said Sulla cheerfully as he divested himself of cuirass and pteryges. “I think I do too.”
“What happens now?”
“I wait to be formally relieved of my command.”
“Would you really do it, Lucius Cornelius?”
“Do what?”
“March on Rome.”
Sulla’s eyes opened wide. “My dear Lucius Licinius! How could you even think to ask such a thing?”
“That,” said Lucullus, “is not a straight answer.”
“It’s the only one you’ll get,” said Sulla.
*
The blow fell two days later. The ex-praetors Quintus Calidius and Publius Claudius arrived in Capua bearing an officially sealed letter from Publius Sulpicius Rufus, the new master of Rome.
“You can’t give it to me in private,” objected Sulla, “it has to be handed to me in the presence of my army.”
Once again Lucullus was directed to parade the legions, once again Sulla climbed upon the speaker’s platform—but this time he was not alone. The two ex-praetors came with him.
“Men, here are Quintus Calidius and Publius Claudius from Rome,” said Sulla casually. “I believe they have an official document for me. I’ve called you here as witnesses.”
A man who took himself very seriously, Calidius made a great show of ensuring that Sulla acknowledge the seal upon the letter before he broke it. He then began to read it out.
“From the concilium plebis of the People of Rome to Lucius Cornelius Sulla. By order of this body, you are hereby relieved of your command of the war against King Mithridates of Pontus. You will disband your army and return to—”
He got no further. A superbly aimed stone struck him on the temple and felled him. Almost immediately a second superbly aimed stone struck Claudius, who tottered; while Sulla stood unconcernedly not three feet away, several more stones followed until Claudius too subsided to the floor of the platform.
The stones ceased. Sulla bent over each man, got to his feet. “They’re dead,” he announced, and sighed loudly. “Well, men, this has definitely put the oil on the fire! In the eyes of the Plebeian Assembly I am afraid we are all now personae non gratae. We have killed the official envoys of the Plebs. And that,” he said, still in conversational tones, “leaves us with but two choices. We can stay here and wait to be put on trial for treason—or we can go to Rome and show the Plebs what the loyal soldier servants of the People of Rome think about a law and a directive they find as intolerable as it is unconstitutional. I’m going to Rome, anyway, and I’m taking these two dead men with me. And I’m going to give them to the Plebs in person. In the Forum Romanum. Under the eyes of that stern guardian of the People’s rights, Publius Sulpicius Rufus. This is all his doing! Not Rome’s!”
He paused, drew a breath. “Now when it comes to going into the Forum Romanum, I need no company. But if there’s any man here who feels he’d like to take a stroll to Rome with me, I’d be very glad of his company! That way, when I cross the sacred boundary into the city I can feel sure I’ve got company on the Campus Martius to watch my back. Otherwise I might suffer the same fate as the son of my colleague in the consulship, Quintus Pompeius Rufus.”
They were with him, of course.
“But the tribunes of the soldiers won’t march with you,” said Lucullus to Sulla in his command tent. “They’ve not got enough gumption to see you in person, so they’ve deputed me to speak for them. They say they cannot condone an army’s marching on Rome, that Rome is a city without military protection because the only armies in Italy belong to Rome. And with the single exception of a triumphing army, no Roman army is ever garrisoned anywhere near Rome. Therefore, they say, you are marching with an army on your homeland, and your homeland has no army to repel you. They condemn your action and will try to persuade your army to change its mind about accompanying you.”
“Wish them luck,” said Sulla, preparing to vacate his quarters. “They can stay here and weep that an army is marching on defenseless Rome. However, I think I’ll lock them up. Just to ensure their own safety.” His eyes rested upon Lucullus. “And what about you, Lucius Licinius? Are you with me?”
“I am, Lucius Cornelius. To the death. The People have usurped the rights and duties of the Senate. Therefore the Rome of our ancestors no longer exists. Therefore I find it no crime to march upon a Rome I would not want to see my unborn sons inherit.”
“Oh, well said!” Sulla strapped on his sword and put his hat upon his head. ‘‘Then let us begin to make history.’’
Lucullus stopped. “You’re right!” he breathed. “This is the making of history. No Roman army has ever marched upon Rome.”
“No Roman army was ever so provoked,” said Sulla.
*
Five legions of Roman soldiers set off along the Via Latina to Rome with Sulla and his legate riding at their head and a mule-cart carrying the bodies of Calidius and Claudius at the rear. A courier had been sent at the gallop to Quintus Pompeius Rufus in Cumae; by the time that Sulla reached Teanum Sidicinum, Pompeius Rufus was there waiting for him.
“Oh, I don’t like this!” said the junior consul miserably. “I can’t like it! You are marching on Rome! A defenseless city!”
“We are marching on Rome,” said Sulla calmly. “Don’t worry, Quintus Pompeius. It won’t be necessary to invade the defenseless city, you know. I am simply bringing my army along for company on the way. Discipline has never been so strictly enforced—I’ve got over two hundred and fifty centurions under orders that there’s not to be so much as one turnip stolen from a field. The men have a full month’s rations with them, and they understand.”
“We don’t need your army for company.”
“What, two consuls without a proper escort?”
“We have our lictors.”
“Yes, that’s an interesting thing. The lictors decided to go with us whereas the tribunes of the soldiers decided not to go with us,” said Sulla. “Elected office obviously makes a difference to a man’s attitude about who runs what in Rome.”
“Why are you so happy?” cried Pompeius Rufus in despair.
“I don’t quite know,” said Sulla, concealing his exasperation beneath a show of surprise. Time to smooth some soothing cream on the soft hide of his sentimental and doubting colleague. “If I’m happy for any reason, I suppose it’s that I’ve had enough of Forum idiocies, of men who think they know better than the mos maiorum and want to destroy what our ancestors built up so carefully and patiently. All I want is Rome the way Rome was designed to be. Fathered and guided by the Senate above all other bodies. A place where men who seek office as tribunes of the plebs are harnessed, not let run amok. There comes a time, Quintus Pompeius, when it is not possible to stand by and watch other men change Rome for the worse. Men like Saturninus and Sulpicius. But most of all, men like Gaius Marius.”
“Gaius Marius will fight,” said Pompeius Rufus dolefully.
“Fight with what? There’s not a legion closer to Rome than Alba Fucentia. Oh, I imagine Gaius Marius will try to summon Cinna and his troops—Cinna’s in his pocket, of that I’m sure. But two things will prevent him, Quintus Pompeius. One is the natural tendency of all other men in Rome to doubt my sincerity in leading my army to Rome— it will be deemed a ploy, no one will believe I’ll carry this intent through to its bitter end. The second thing is the fact that Gaius Marius is a privatus. He has neither office nor imperium. If he calls to Cinna for troops, he has to do it as a plea to a friend, not as consul or proconsul. And I very much doubt that Sulpicius will condone any such action by Gaius Marius. Because Sulpicius is one who will think my action a ploy.”
The junior consul was gazing now at his senior colleague in utter dismay—fine words! Correct words. Words which told Quintus Pompeius Rufus that Sulla had every intention of invading Rome.
*
Twice upon the way—once at Aquinum and once at Ferentinum—Sulla’s army encountered envoys athwart its path; news that Sulla was marching to Rome must have flown like an eagle. Twice did envoys order Sulla to lay down his command in the name of the People and send his army back to Capua; twice did Sulla refuse, though on the second occasion he added,
“Tell Gaius Marius, Publius Sulpicius, and what remains of the Senate that I will meet them on the Campus Martius.”
An offer the envoys did not believe, nor Sulla mean.
Then at Tusculum Sulla found the praetor urbanus, Marcus Junius Brutus, waiting in the middle of the Via Latina with another praetor for moral support. Their twelve lictors—six apiece—were huddled together on the side of the road trying to hide the fact that the fasces they carried contained the axes.
“Lucius Cornelius Sulla, I am sent by the Senate and the People of Rome to forbid your army to advance one foot closer to Rome than this spot,” said Brutus. “Your legions are under arms, not en route to a triumph. I forbid them to go further.”
Sulla said not a word, just sat his mule stony-faced. The two praetors were shoved roughly off the roadway into the midst of their terrified lictors, and the march to Rome continued. Where the Via Latina encountered the first of the diverticulum roads which ringed Rome round, Sulla halted and divided his forces; if anyone believed his story that the army would remain on the Campus Martius, that man now had to accept the fact that Sulla was bent upon invasion.
“Quintus Pompeius, take the Fourth Legion and go to the Colline Gate,” said Sulla, privately wondering whether his colleague had the steel to carry this enterprise through. “You will not enter the city,” he said gently, “so there is no need to worry. Your task is to prevent anyone’s bringing legions down the Via Salaria. Put your men into camp and wait for word from me. If you see troops advancing down the Via Salaria send to me at the Esquiline Gate. That is where I will be.”
He turned then to Lucullus. “Lucius Licinius, take the First and the Third and march them at the double. You have a long way to go. You are to cross the Tiber on the Mulvian Bridge, then march down through the Campus Vaticanus to Transtiberim, where you will halt. You will occupy the whole of that district, and garrison all the bridges—those across Tiber Island, the Pons Aemilius and the old Wooden Bridge.”
“Ought I not to garrison the Mulvian Bridge?”