It was Young Marius and Lucius Decumius who got Gaius Marius away from the temple of Tellus and hid him within the cella of the temple of Jupiter Stator on the Velia; it was Young Marius and Lucius Decumius who then searched for Publius Sulpicius, Marcus Laetorius, and the other noblemen who had buckled on a sword to defend Rome against the army of Lucius Cornelius Sulla; and it was Young Marius and Lucius Decumius who shepherded Sulpicius and nine others into the temple of Jupiter Stator not very long afterward.
“This is all we could find, Father,” said Young Marius, sitting down on the floor nearby. “I heard that Marcus Laetorius, Publius Cethegus, and Publius Albinovanus were seen slipping through the Capena Gate not long ago. But of the Brothers Granii I can find no sign. Hopefully that means they left the city even earlier.”
“What an irony,” said Marius bitterly to no one in particular, “to go to earth inside an establishment dedicated to the god who halts soldiers in retreat. Mine wouldn’t stand and fight, no matter what I promised them.”
“They weren’t Roman soldiers,” Young Marius pointed out.
“I know that!”
“I never thought Sulla would go through with it,” said Sulpicius, breathing as if he had been running for hours.
“I did—after I met him on the Via Latina at Tusculum,” said the urban praetor, Marcus Junius Brutus.
“Well, Sulla owns Rome now,” said Young Marius. “Father, what are we going to do?”
Sulpicius answered, detesting the way everyone deferred to Gaius Marius, who might have been consul six times and been of great help to a tribune of the plebs bent on destroying the Senate, but at this moment was merely a privatus. “We go to our homes and we behave as if nothing has happened,” he said firmly.
Marius turned his head to look at Sulpicius incredulously, more tired than he had ever been in his life, and horribly aware that his left hand, arm and jaw were needled with numbness. “You can if you like,” he said, rolling his tongue in his mouth because it felt funny. “I know Sulla. And I know what I’m going to do. Run for my life.”
“I think I agree with you,” said Brutus, the blue tinge to his lips darker than usual, his chest laboring to pull in more air. “If we stay, he’ll kill us. I saw his face at Tusculum.”
“He cannot kill us!” said Sulpicius positively; a much younger man, he was recovering his wits along with his breath. “No one will be more aware than Sulla that he’s nefas. He’ll bend over backwards to make sure everything he does from now on is legal.”
“Rubbish!” said Marius scornfully. “What do you think he’s going to do, shoo his men back to Campania tomorrow? Of course he won’t! He’ll occupy Rome and do whatever he wants.”
“He’d never dare,” said Sulpicius, realizing that, in similar case to many others in the Senate, he didn’t know Sulla well.
Marius found it in him to laugh. “Dare? Lucius Cornelius Sulla, dare? Grow up, Publius Sulpicius! Sulla would dare anything. And in the past he has. What’s worse, he dares after he thinks. Oh, he won’t try us for treason in some trumped-up court! That big a fool he’s not. He’ll just smuggle us off somewhere secret, kill us, and give out that we died in the battle.”
“That’s what I thinks too, Gaius Marius,” said Lucius Decumius. “He’d as soon kill his mother, that one.” He shivered, held up his right hand clenched into a fist, except that the index and the little fingers stuck up stiffly like two horns—the sign to ward off the Evil Eye. “He isn’t like other men.”
The nine lesser lights sat on the temple floor where they could watch the leaders debate, none of them important men in Senate or Ordo Equester, though all were members of one or the other. It had seemed a cause worth fighting for, to keep a Roman army out of Rome, but now that they had failed so miserably, each of them had arrived at that point where he deemed himself a fool for trying. Tomorrow their spines would stiffen again, as they all believed Rome worth dying for; but in the temple of Jupiter Stator, exhausted and disillusioned, they all hoped Marius would prevail over Sulpicius.
“If you go, Gaius Marius, I cannot stay,” said Sulpicius.
“Better to go, believe me. I certainly am,” said Marius.
“What about you, Lucius Decumius?” asked Young Marius.
Lucius Decumius shook his head. “No, I can’t leave. But—lucky for me!—I isn’t important. I have to look after Aurelia and Young Caesar—their tata is with Lucius Cinna at Alba Fucentia these days. I’ll keep an eye on Julia for you, Gaius Marius.”
“Whatever of my property Sulla can lay his hands on will be confiscated,” said Marius, and grinned smugly. “Isn’t it fortunate I have money buried everywhere?”
Marcus Junius Brutus hauled himself to his feet. “I’ll have to go home and bring away what I can.” He looked not to Sulpicius but to Marius. “Where are we going? Are we going our own ways, or is it better to go all together?”
“We’ll have to leave Italy,” said Marius, holding out his right hand to his son and his left to Lucius Decumius; he came to a standing position fairly easily. “I think we should leave Rome separately and stay separated until we’re well clear of Rome. Then it will be better if we stick together. I suggest we rendezvous on the island of Aenaria in one month’s time—the Ides of December. I won’t have any trouble locating Gnaeus and Quintus Granius to make sure they’re at the meeting place, and hopefully they’ll know where Cethegus, Albinovanus, and Laetorius are. After we reach Aenaria, leave it to me. I’ll procure a ship. From Aenaria we’ll sail to Sicily, I think. Norbanus is my client, and he’s the governor.”
“But why Aenaria?” asked Sulpicius, still unhappy at the decision to quit Rome.
“Because it’s an island, it’s off the beaten track, and it’s not very far from Puteoli. I have many relatives and a lot of money in Puteoli,” said Marius, flapping his left hand around as if it annoyed him. “My second cousin Marcus Granius—he’s the cousin of Gnaeus and Quintus, they’ll go to him—is a banker. He has the use of a large part of my cash fortune. While we all make our separate ways to Aenaria, Lucius Decumius here will go to Puteoli with a letter from me to Marcus Granius. Granius will send sufficient funds from Puteoli to Aenaria to enable all twenty of us to live decently while we’re away.” He tucked the offending hand into his general’s sash. “Lucius Decumius will also look for the others. We will be twenty, I assure you. It costs money to be an exile. But don’t worry. I have money. Sulla won’t stay in Rome forever. He’ll go to fight Mithridates. Curse him! And when he’s too committed to that war to contemplate a return to Italy, we’ll all come home again. My client Lucius Cinna will be consul in the New Year, and he’ll make sure we return.”
Sulpicius looked astonished. “Your client?”
“I have clients everywhere, Publius Sulpicius, even among the great patrician families,’’ said Gaius Marius complacently; he was beginning to feel better—or rather, the numbness had settled down. Moving toward the temple entrance, he turned to the others and said, “Keep your courage up! It was prophesied that I would be consul of Rome seven times, so this absence is purely a temporary one. And when I am consul a seventh time, you will all be rewarded greatly.”
“I need no reward, Gaius Marius,” said Sulpicius stiffly. “I do this for Rome alone.”
“That’s true of everyone here, Publius Sulpicius. In the meantime, we’d better get a move on. I give Sulla until darkness to garrison all the gates. Our best alternative is the Capena—but be careful, all of you.”
Sulpicius and the other nine disappeared at a run up the Clivus Palatinus, but when Marius started to walk along the Velia toward the Forum and his house, Lucius Decumius detained him.
“Gaius Marius, you and I are going to the Capena Gate at once,” said the little man from the Subura. “Young Marius can dash home and pick up a bit of ready money, he’s the youngest and fittest. If he finds the Capena Gate garrisoned, he can find some other way out, even if he has to go over the walls. He can write that letter to your cousin, and your wife can add a bit to convince him.”
“Julia!” said Marius desolately.
“You’ll see her again, just like you said. The prophecy, eh? Seven times consul. You’ll be back. She’ll worry a lot less if she knows you’re already on your way. Young Marius, your tata and I will wait among the tombs just beyond the gate. We’ll try to keep an eye out for you, but if we can’t, then look for us there.”
While Young Marius turned in the direction of home, his father and Lucius Decumius walked up the Clivus Palatinus.
Just inside the Porta Mugonia they entered the narrow street which ran to the old meeting houses above the Via Triumphalis, where a flight of steps led down off the Palatium. Noises in the distance told them that Sulla and his troops were moving from the Esquiline down into the Palus Ceroliae, but when Marius and Decumius hurried through the huge Capena Gate, no one garbed like a soldier was anywhere near it. They walked a short distance down the road before placing themselves behind a tomb from which they could see the gate comfortably. Many people came through Capena during the next two hours; not everyone wanted to remain in a Rome held by a Roman army.
Then they saw Young Marius. He was leading the donkey kept for fetching large loads from the marketplace or firewood from the hill of the Janiculum. With him walked a woman muffled closely in a dark mantle.
“Julia!” cried Marius, not caring who saw him emerge from his hiding place.
Her pace quickened, she met him and snuggled against him, eyes closing as his arms went round her. “Oh, Gaius Marius, I was sure I had missed you!” she said, and lifted her face to receive his kiss, and another, and another.
How many years had they been married? Yet it was still a deep pleasure to kiss, even in the grief and anxiety pressing upon them at that moment.
“Oh, I shall miss you!” she said, trying not to weep.
“I won’t be away so very long, Julia.”
“I can’t believe Lucius Cornelius has done this!”
“If I were in his boots, Julia, I’d have done the same.”
“You’d never lead an army on Rome!”
“I’m not so sure. In all fairness to him, the provocation was overmastering. If he hadn’t done this, he’d be finished. And men like Lucius Cornelius and I can’t accept that fate, we just can’t. The luck of it was that he had the army and the magistracy. I didn’t. But if our places had been reversed—I think I would have done what he did. It was a brilliant move, you know. And in all the history of Rome, there are only two men with the courage to have done it— Lucius Cornelius and me.” He kissed her again, then released her. “Go home now, Julia, and wait for me. If Lucius Cornelius takes our house away, go to your mother in Cumae. Marcus Granius has more money of mine by far than I’ve asked him for, so apply to him if you’re in need. In Rome, apply to Titus Pomponius.” He thrust her away. “Now go, Julia, go!”
She went, looking back over her shoulder; but Marius had turned to speak to Lucius Decumius, and wasn’t watching. Her heart swelled with pride. That was how it should be! When important things needed to be done in a hurry, a man ought not to waste his time looking longingly after his wife. Strophantes and six strong servants were hovering near the gate to escort her home; Julia looked where she was going, and stepped out purposefully.
“Lucius Decumius, you’ll have to hire horses for us. I don’t ride comfortably these days, but a gig would be too noticeable,” Marius was saying. He looked at his son. “Did you get the bag of gold I save for emergencies?’’
“Yes. And a bag of silver denarii. I have the letter to Marcus Granius for you, Lucius Decumius.”
“Good. Give Lucius Decumius some of the silver too.”
*
And so did Gaius Marius escape from Rome, he and his son riding hired horses, and leading an ass.
“Why not a boat across the river and a port in Etruria?” asked Young Marius.
“No, I think that’s the way Publius Sulpicius will go. I’d rather head for Ostia, it’s closest,” said Marius, a little easier in himself because that awful pricking numbness was not so pronounced—or was it that he was getting used to it?
It was not yet fully dark when they rode into the outskirts of Ostia and saw the town walls looming ahead of them.
“No gate guards, Father,” said Young Marius, whose vision these days was better than Marius’s.
“Then we’ll get ourselves inside before orders come to post some, my son. We’ll go down to the dockside and see what’s what.”
Marius selected a prosperous-looking wharf tavern, and left Young Marius minding the horses and the ass in the darkest shadows while he went to hire a ship.
Obviously Ostia had not yet heard the news that Rome had fallen, though everyone was talking about Sulla’s historic march; the whole complement of the inn recognized Marius as soon as he walked through the door, but no one acted as if he was a known fugitive.
“I have to get away to Sicily in a hurry,” said Marius, paying for wine for everybody. “Any chance of a good ship ready to sail?’’
“You can have mine for a price,” said one salty-looking man, leaning forward. “Publius Murcius at your service, Gaius Marius.”
“If we can sail tonight, Publius Murcius, it’s a deal.”
“I can up anchor just before midnight,” said Murcius.
“Excellent!”
“I’ll need to be paid in advance.”
Young Marius came in shortly after his father had concluded his bargain; Marius rose to his feet, smiled around the room, and said, “My son!” before drawing Young Marius outside onto the docks.
“You’re not coming with me,” he said as soon as they were alone. “I want you to find your own way to Aenaria. The risk to you if you come with me is far greater. Take the ass and both horses and ride for Tarracina.”
“Father, why not come with me? Tarracina would be safer.’’
“I’m too infirm to ride so far, Young Marius. I’ll take ship from here and hope the winds behave.” He kissed his son, a mere peck. “Take the gold. Leave me the silver.”
“Half and half, Father, or none at all.”
Marius sighed. “Gaius Marius Junior, why couldn’t you have told me you killed Cato the Consul? Why did you deny it?”
His son stared, flabbergasted. “You’d ask me that? At a time like this? Is it so important?”
“To me it is. If Fortune has deserted me, we may never meet again. Why did you lie to me?”
Young Marius smiled ruefully, looking the image of Julia. “Oh, Father! One never knows what you want to hear! It’s as simple as that. We all try to tell you what we think you want to hear. That’s the penalty you pay for being a Great Man! It seemed more sensible to me to deny it in case you were in one of those moods when you insist upon doing the proper, ethical thing. In which instance, you wouldn’t have wanted me to admit the deed—it would have meant you would have had no choice but to indict me. If I guessed wrongly, I’m sorry. You didn’t give me any help, you know, you were closed up tighter than a snail in dry weather.”
“I thought you were behaving like a spoiled child!”
“Oh, Father!” Young Marius shook his head, tears shining in his eyes. “No child is spoiled who is the son of a Great Man. Think what I have to measure up to! You stride across our world like a Titan and we all scurry about between your feet wondering what you want, how best to please you. None of those around you is your equal, in brains or competence. And that includes me. Your son.”
“Then kiss me again, and go now.” The embrace this time was heartfelt; Marius had never thought to like Young Marius so much. “You were absolutely right, by the way.”
“Right about what?”
“To kill Cato the Consul.”
Young Marius waved his hand about in deprecation. “I know that! I’ll see you on Aenaria by the Ides of December.”
“Gaius Marius! Gaius Marius!” called a fretful voice.
Marius turned back toward the tavern.
“If you’re ready, we’ll go out to my ship now,” said Publius Murcius, still in that fretful voice.
Marius sighed. Clearly his instincts were right to tell him this voyage was somehow doomed; the salty-looking character was a wet fish, not a lusty pirate.
The ship, however, was reasonable in that it was well built and seaworthy, though how it would perform in the open waters between Sicily and Africa if the worst came to the worst and they had to go further than Sicily, Gaius Marius didn’t know. The ship’s chief disadvantage was undoubtedly its captain, Murcius, who did nothing save complain. But they put out across the mud flats and sandbars of that unsuitable harbor just before midnight and turned to follow a stiff northeasterly breeze, just right for sailing down the coast. Creaking and wallowing because Murcius hadn’t loaded enough ballast in lieu of a cargo, the ship crept along about two miles offshore. The crew at least was cheerful; nobody needed to man the very few oars, and the two big unwieldy rudder oars lay in a following sea.
Then as dawn broke the wind veered through half a circle, and came from the southwest at half gale force.
“Wouldn’t it?” demanded Murcius peevishly of his passenger. “We’ll be blown straight back to Ostia.”
“There’s gold says you won’t, Publius Murcius. And there’s more gold says you’ll make for Aenaria.” Murcius’s only answer was a suspicious glance, but the lure of gold was too much to resist; so the sailors, suddenly as full of woes as their master, took up the oars as soon as the big square sail was reefed in.
*
Sextus Lucilius—who happened to be the first cousin of Pompey Strabo—was hoping to be elected a tribune of the plebs for the coming year. As conservative as his family’s traditions demanded, he looked forward with pleasure to vetoing any and all of those radical fellows sure also to be elected. But when Sulla marched into Rome and took up residence adjacent to the swamps of the Palus Ceroliae, Sextus Lucilius was one of the many men who wondered how it would change his own plans. Not that he objected to Sulla’s action; as far as he was concerned, Marius and Sulpicius deserved to be strangled in the bottom chamber of the Tullianum—or, even better, to be hurled from the Tarpeian Rock. What a sight that would be, to watch Gaius Marius’s bulky body go flapping down onto the needle rocks below! One either loved or hated the old mentula, and Sextus Lucilius hated him. Had he been pressed as to why he hated him, he would have answered that without Gaius Marius there could have been no Saturninus and—more recent crime by far—no Sulpicius.
Of course he sought out the busy consul Sulla and pledged his support enthusiastically, including his services as a tribune of the plebs for the coming year. Then Sulla rendered the Plebeian Assembly a hollow thing; the hopes of Sextus Lucilius were temporarily dashed. The fugitives were condemned, however, which made him feel a little better— until he discovered that, with the single exception of Sulpicius, absolutely no attempt was being made to apprehend them. Including Gaius Marius, bigger miscreant by far than Sulpicius! When Lucilius complained to Scaevola Pontifex Maximus, he got a cold stare.
“Try not to be stupid, Sextus Lucilius!” said Scaevola. “It was necessary to remove Gaius Marius from Rome, but how can you even imagine Lucius Cornelius wants that death on his hands? If we have all deplored his leading an army against Rome, how do you think the vast majority of people in Rome would react to his killing Gaius Marius, death sentence or not? The death sentence is there because Lucius Cornelius had no choice but try the fugitives perduellio in the Centuries, and conviction for perduellio automatically carries the death sentence. All Lucius Cornelius wants is a Rome without the presence of Gaius Marius in it! Gaius Marius is an institution, and no one in his right senses kills an institution. Now go away, Sextus Lucilius, and don’t bother plaguing the consul with such utter foolishness!”
Sextus Lucilius went away. He didn’t bother trying to see Sulla. He even understood what Scaevola had said; no one in Sulla’s position would want to be responsible for executing Gaius Marius. But the fact remained that Gaius Marius had been convicted of perduellio by the Centuries, and was at large when he ought to be hunted down and killed. Apparently with impunity! To get away free! Provided he didn’t enter Rome or any large Roman town, he could do precisely what he wanted. Secure in the knowledge that no one executed an institution!
Well, thought Sextus Lucilius, you have reckoned without me, Gaius Marius! I am happy to go down in the history books as the man who terminated your nefarious career.
With that, Sextus Lucilius went out and hired fifty ex-cavalry troopers in need of a little money—not a difficult thing to do in a time when everyone was short of money. He then commissioned them to search out Gaius Marius. When they found him, they were to kill him on the spot. Perduellio.
In the meantime, the Plebeian Assembly went ahead and elected its tribunes of the plebs. Sextus Lucilius stood as a candidate and was voted in, as the Plebs always liked to have one or two extremely conservative tribunes; the sparks would fly.
Emboldened by his election, impotent though his new office was, Sextus Lucilius called in the leader of his troopers and gave him a little talk.
“I’m one of the few men in this city who isn’t hard up,” he said, “and I am willing to put up an additional sum of one thousand denarii if you bring me the head of Gaius Marius. Just his head!”
The troop leader—who would cheerfully have decapitated his whole family for a thousand denarii—saluted with alacrity. “I will definitely do my best, Sextus Lucilius,” he said. “I know the old man isn’t north of the Tiber, so I’ll start searching to the south.”
*
Sixteen days after leaving Ostia, the ship captained by Publius Murcius gave up its uneven battle against the elements and put in to port at Circei, a scant fifty miles down the coast from Ostia. The sailors were exhausted, water was low.
“Sorry, Gaius Marius, but it has to be done,” said Publius Murcius. “We can’t go on battling a sou’wester.”
There seemed little point in protesting; Gaius Marius nodded. “If you must, you must. I’ll stay on board.”
This answer seemed a most peculiar one to Publius Murcius, and made him scratch his head. Once on shore, he understood. All of Circei was talking about the events in Rome and the perduellio condemnation of Gaius Marius; outside Rome, names like Sulpicius were hardly known, but Gaius Marius was famous everywhere. The captain returned to his ship quickly.
Looking wretched but determined, Murcius faced his passenger. “I’m sorry, Gaius Marius, I’m a respectable man with a ship to keep up and a business to run. Never in my life have I smuggled a cargo, and I’m not going to start now. I’ve paid my port dues and my excise taxes, there’s no one in Ostia or Puteoli can say otherwise. And I can’t help but think there’s a message from the gods for me in this awful unseasonable wind. Get your things and I’ll help you into the skiff. You’ll just have to find another ship. I didn’t say a word about your being on board, but sooner or later my sailors will talk. If you get going now and don’t try to hire another ship here, you’ll be all right. Go to Tarracina or Caieta, try there.”
“I thank you for your consideration in not betraying me, Publius Murcius,” said Marius graciously. “How much do I owe you for my journey this far?”
Additional remuneration Murcius refused. “What you gave me in Ostia is enough,” he said. “Now please go!”
Between Murcius and the two slaves left on board, Marius managed to get over the side of the ship into the skiff, where he sat looking very old and defeated. He had brought no slave or attendant with him, and Publius Murcius fancied that over the sixteen days he had been a passenger, Marius’s limp had worsened. A complaining man of flat moods though he was, the captain found himself unable to land Marius where he might be apprehended, so they beached the skiff well to the south of Circei and waited several hours until one of the two slaves came back with a hired horse and a parcel of food.
“I am really sorry,” said Publius Murcius dolefully after he and both slaves had exhausted themselves getting Marius up into the saddle. “I’d like to help you further, Gaius Marius, but I dare not.” He hesitated, then blurted it out. “You’ve been convicted of Great Treason, you see. When you’re caught, you have to be killed.”
Marius looked winded. “Great Treason? Perduellio?”
“You and all your friends were tried in the Centuries, and the Centuries convicted you.”
“The Centuries!” Marius shook his head, dazed.
“You’d better go,” said Murcius. “Good luck.”
“You’ll have better luck yourself now you’re rid of the cause of your misfortunes,” said Marius. He kicked his horse in the ribs and trotted off into a grove of trees.
I was right to leave Rome, he thought. The Centuries! He is determined to see me dead. Whereas for the last twelve days at least I have been deeming myself a fool to have left Rome. Sulpicius was right, I had become convinced of it. Too late to turn back now, I kept telling myself. Now I learn I was right all along! I wasn’t dreaming of trials in the Centuries! I just knew Sulla, and I thought he’d have us done to death secretly. I didn’t think him so great a fool as to try me! What does he know that I do not know?
As soon as he was clear of habitation Marius got down from his horse and began to walk; his malady made riding an ordeal, but the animal was useful for carrying his little hoard of gold and coins. How far to Minturnae? Thirty-five miles or thereabouts if he kept clear of the Via Appia. Swampy country alive with mosquitoes, but fairly deserted. Knowing Young Marius was going there, Tarracina he decided to avoid. Minturnae would do nicely—large, placid, prosperous, and almost untouched by the Italian war.
The journey took him four days, four days during which he ate very little once the parcel of food was gone; only a bowl of pulse porridge from an old woman living alone, and some bread and hard cheese he shared with a vagabond Samnite who volunteered to do the shopping if Marius provided the money. Neither the old woman nor the Samnite had cause to regret their charity, as Marius left a little gold with each of them.
Left side feeling like a lead weight he had to drag everywhere with him, he plodded on until the walls of Minturnae appeared at last in the distance. But as he drew closer, approaching from the wooded countryside, he saw a troop of fifty armed men trotting down the Via Appia. Concealed among some pines, he watched as they passed through the gate into the town. Luckily Minturnae’s port lay outside the fortifications, so Marius was able to bypass the walls and reach the dockside area undetected.
Time to get rid of the horse; he untied his moneybag from the saddle, slapped the beast sharply, and watched it frisk away. Then he entered a small but prosperous-looking tavern nearby.
“I am Gaius Marius. I am condemned to death for Great Treason. I am more tired than I have ever been in my life. And I need wine,” said Marius, voice booming.
Only six or seven men were inside. Every face turned to look, every mouth dropped open. Then chairs and stools scraped, he was surrounded by men who wanted to touch him for luck, not in anger.
“Sit down, sit down!” said the proprietor, beaming. “Are you really Gaius Marius?”
“Don’t I fit the general description? Only half a face and older than Cronus, I know, but don’t tell me you don’t know Gaius Marius when you see him!”
“I know Gaius Marius when I see him,” said one of the drinkers, “and you are Gaius Marius. I was there in the Forum Romanum when you spoke up for Titus Titinius.”
“Wine. I need wine,” said Gaius Marius.
He was given it, then more when he drained his cup in a single gulp. After that came food; while he ate he regaled the men with the story of Sulla’s invasion of Rome and his own flight. Of the implications of perduellio conviction he did not need to speak; be he Roman, Latin, or Italian, every man in the peninsula knew about Great Treason. By rights those who listened should have been hustling him to the town magistrates for execution—or doing it themselves. Instead, they heard the weary Marius out and then helped him up a rickety ladder to a bed. The fugitive fell upon it and slept for ten hours.
When he woke he discovered that someone had laundered his tunic and his cloak, washed his boots inside and out; feeling better than he had since leaving Murcius’s ship, Marius scrambled down the ladder to find the tavern crammed.
“They’re all here to see you, Gaius Marius,” said the proprietor, coming forward to take his hand. “What an honor you do us!”
“I am a condemned man, innkeeper, and there must be half a hundred parties of troopers looking for me. I saw one such ride through the gates of your town yesterday.”
“Yes, they’re in the forum with the duumviri right at this moment, Gaius Marius. Like you, they’ve had a sleep, and now they’re busy throwing their weight around. Half Minturnae knows you’re here, but you needn’t worry. We won’t give you up. Nor will we tell the duumviri, who are both the sort of man adheres to the letter of the law. Best they don’t know. If they did, they’d probably decide you ought to be executed, little though they’d relish the task.”
“I thank you,” said Marius warmly.
A short, plump little man who had not been present eleven hours earlier came up to Marius, hand outstretched. “I am Aulus Belaeus, and I am a merchant of Minturnae. I own a few ships. You tell me what you need, Gaius Marius, and you will have it.”
“I need a ship prepared to take me out of Italy and sail to wherever in the world I can find asylum,” said Marius.
“That’s not a difficulty,’’ said Belaeus promptly. “I have just the right lady sitting at her moorings in the bay. As soon as you’ve eaten, I’ll take you out to her.”
“Are you sure, Aulus Belaeus? It’s my life they’re after. If you help me, your own life might be forfeit.”
“I’m ready to take that risk,” said Belaeus tranquilly.
An hour later Marius was rowed out to a stout grain-carrier more used by far to adverse winds and heavy seas than Publius Murcius’s little coastal trader.
“She’s fresh from a refit after discharging her African grain cargo in Puteoli. I was intending to return her to Africa as soon as the winds were right,” said Belaeus, assisting his guest on board via a stout wooden stern ladder more like a set of steps. “Her holds are full of Falernian wine for the African luxury market, she’s in good ballast, and she’s well provisioned. I always keep my ships ready—one never knows about winds and weather.’’ This was said with a singularly affectionate smile for Gaius Marius.
“I don’t know how to thank you, except to pay you well.”
“This is an honor, Gaius Marius. Don’t strip me of it by trying to pay me, I beg you. I shall dine for the rest of my days on this story—how I, a merchant from Minturnae, helped the great Gaius Marius elude his pursuers.”
“And I shall not cease to be grateful, Aulus Belaeus.”
Belaeus descended to his skiff, waved goodbye, and had himself rowed the short distance to shore.
Even as he landed at the jetty closest to his ship, the fifty troopers who had been enquiring through the town came riding onto the dockside. Ignoring Belaeus—whom they did not at first connect with the ship at that moment hauling anchor—the hirelings of Sextus Lucilius looked across the water at the men leaning over the vessel’s side, and saw the unmistakable face of Gaius Marius.
The leading trooper spurred forward, cupped his hands round his mouth and shouted, “Gaius Marius, you are under arrest! Captain, you are harboring a fugitive from Roman justice! In the name of the Senate and People of Rome, I order you to put about and deliver Gaius Marius to me!”
On the ship, these hollered words were dismissed with a snort; the captain went placidly on with his preparations to sail. But Marius, looking back to see the good Belaeus taken by the troopers, swallowed painfully.
“Captain, stop!” he cried. “Your employer is now in the custody of men who really want me. I must go back!”
“It isn’t necessary, Gaius Marius,” said the captain. “Aulus Belaeus can look after himself. He gave you into my charge and told me to get you away. I must do as he says.”
“You will do as I say, captain. Put about!”
“If I did that, Gaius Marius, I’d never command another ship. Aulus Belaeus would use my guts for rigging.”
“Put about and put me in a boat, captain. I insist! If you won’t return me to the dockside, then row me ashore in some place where I have a chance to get away.” Marius stared fiercely, scowled. “Do it, captain! I insist!”
Much against his better judgment, the captain obeyed; there was something about Marius when he said he insisted that told all men this was a general used to being obeyed.
“I’ll set you ashore in the thick of the marshes, then,” said the unhappy captain. “I know the area well. There’s a safe path will take you back into Minturnae, where I suggest you hide until the troopers pass on. Then I’ll bring you on board again.”
Over the side once more, into yet another rowboat; this time, however, the fugitive departed from the far side of the vessel and used it to conceal his movements from the troopers, still calling across the water that Gaius Marius must be returned.
Alas for Marius, the leader of the troop was a very far-sighted man; as the lighter came into view heading into the southern distance, he recognized Marius’s head between the six rowers bent to their task.
“Quick!” he shouted. “On your horses, men! Leave that stupid fellow, he’s not important. We’re going to follow that boat by land.”
It proved easy to do so, for a well-used track outlined the contour of the bay through the salt marshes which festered around the mouth of the Liris River; the troopers actually gained ground on the lighter rapidly, only losing sight of it when it disappeared into the rushes and reeds growing on the Liris mud flats.
“Keep going, we’ll find the old villain!”
Sextus Lucilius’s hirelings did indeed find him, two hours later, and just in time. Marius had abandoned his clothes and was floundering waist-deep in a patch of gluey black mud, exhausted and sinking. To pull him out wasn’t easy, but there were plenty of hands to help, and eventually the sucking mud parted reluctantly with its victim. One of the men took off his cloak and went to wrap it about Marius, but the leader stopped him.
“Let the old cripple go naked. Minturnae should see what a fine fellow the great Gaius Marius is! The whole town knew he was here. They’ll suffer for sheltering him.”
So the old cripple walked naked in the midst of the troopers, stumbling, limping, falling, all the way back to Minturnae; and the troopers didn’t care how long it took to make the journey. As they neared the town and houses began to cluster along the track, the leader called loudly to everyone to come and see the captured fugitive Gaius Marius, who would soon lose his head in the Minturnae forum. “Come one, come all!” the leader shouted.
At midafternoon the troopers rode into the forum with most of the town accompanying them, too stunned, too amazed to protest at the way the great Gaius Marius was being treated, and aware he was condemned for Great Treason. Yet a slow dull anger grew in the backs of their minds— surely Gaius Marius could not commit Great Treason!
The two chief magistrates were waiting at the foot of the meeting-hall steps surrounded by a guard of town beadles, hastily called up to let these arrogant Roman officials see that Minturnae was not entirely at their mercy, that if necessary Minturnae could fight back.
“We caught Gaius Marius about to sail away in a Minturnaean ship,” said the leader of the troop ominously. “Minturnae knew he was here, and Minturnae helped him.”
“Minturnae cannot be held responsible for the actions of a few Minturnaeans,” said the senior town magistrate stiffly. “However, you now have your prisoner. Take him and go.”
“Oh, I don’t want all of him!” said the leader, grinning. “I just want his head. You can keep the rest. There’s a nice stone bench over there will do the job. We’ll just lean him against it, and his head will be off in a trice.”
The crowd gasped, growled; the two magistrates looked grim, their beadles restless.
“On whose authority do you presume to execute in the forum of Minturnae a man who has been consul of Rome six times—a hero?” asked the senior duumvir. He looked the leader up and down, the troop up and down, determined to make them feel a little of what he had felt when they had accosted him so arrogantly shortly after dawn. “You don’t seem like Roman cavalry. How do I know you are who you say you are?”
“We’ve been hired specifically to do this job,” said the leader, growing steadily more uneasy as he saw the faces in the crowd and the beadles shifting their scabbards to come at their swords.
“Hired by whom? The Senate and People of Rome?” asked the duumvir in the manner of an advocate.
“That’s right.”
“I do not believe you. Show me proof.”
“This man is condemned of perduellio! You know what that means, duumvir. His life is forfeit in every Roman and Latin community. I’m not authorized to bring the whole man back to Rome alive. I’m authorized to bring back his head.”
“Then,” said the senior magistrate calmly, “you will have to fight Minturnae to get that head. Here in our town we are not common barbarians. A Roman citizen of Gaius Marius’s standing is not decapitated like a slave or a peregrinus.”
“Strictly speaking he’s not a Roman citizen!” said the leader savagely. “However, if you want the job done nicely, then I suggest you do it yourselves! I’m off to Rome to bring you back all the proof you need, duumvir! I’ll be back in three days. Gaius Marius had better be dead, otherwise this whole town will have to answer to the Senate and People of Rome. And in three days I will take the head from Gaius Marius’s dead body, according to my orders.”
Throughout all this, Marius had been standing swaying in the midst of the troopers, a ghastly apparition whose plight had moved many to tears. Angry at being cheated, one of the troopers drew his sword to cut Marius down, but the crowd was suddenly all among the horses, hands reaching for the fugitive to draw him out of reach of swords, ready to fight. As were the beadles.
“Minturnae will pay!” snarled the leader.
“Minturnae will execute the prisoner according to his dignitas and auctoritas,” said the senior magistrate. “Now leave!”
“Just one moment!” roared a hoarse voice. Gaius Marius came forward among a host of Minturnaean men. “You may have fooled these good country people, but you don’t fool me! Rome has no cavalry to hunt condemned men down—neither Senate nor People hires it, only individuals. Who hired you?”
So evocative of old times under the standards was the power in Marius’s voice that the leader’s tongue had answered before his prudence could prevent it. “Sextus Lucilius,” he said.
“Thank you!” said Marius. “I will remember.”
“I piss on you, old man!” said the leader scornfully, and pulled his horse’s head around with a vicious jerk. “You have given me your word, magistrate! When I return I expect Gaius Marius to be a dead man and his head ready for lopping!”
The moment the troop had ridden off, the duumvir nodded to his beadles. “Put Gaius Marius in confinement,” he said.
The magistrate’s men plucked Marius from the middle of the crowd and escorted him gently to a single cell beneath the podium of the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, normally only used to shut up a violent drunkard for the night, or imprison someone gone mad until more permanent arrangements could be made.
As soon as Marius had been led away the crowd knotted into clusters suddenly talking urgently, none going any further than the taverns around the perimeter of the square. And here Aulus Belaeus, who had witnessed the whole incident, began to move among the groups, himself talking urgently.
*
Minturnae owned several public slaves, but among them was one extremely useful fellow whom the town had bought from an itinerant dealer two years before, and never regretted paying the hefty price of five thousand denarii asked. Then eighteen years old, now twenty, he was a gigantic German of the Cimbric nation, by name of Burgundus. He stood a full head higher than the few men of six feet Minturnae owned, and his thews were mighty, his strength of that breathtaking kind undamped by brilliance of intellect or oversensitivity of spirit—not surprising in one who had been six years old when he was taken after the battle of Vercellae and subjected ever since to the life of the enslaved barbarian. Not for him, the privileges and emoluments of the polished Greek who sold himself into slavery because it increased his chances of prosperity; Burgundus was paid a pittance, lived in a dilapidated wooden hut on the edge of town, and thought he had been visited by the magic wagon of the goddess Nerthus when some woman sought him out, curious to see what sort of lover a barbarian giant made. It never occurred to Burgundus to escape, nor did he find his lot an unhappy one; on the contrary, he had enjoyed his two years in Minturnae, where he felt quite important and knew himself valued. In time, he had been given to understand, his stips would be increased and he would be allowed to marry, to have children. And if he continued to work well, his children would be deemed free.
The other public slaves were put to weeding and sweeping, painting, washing down buildings and other kinds of maintenance, but Burgundus alone inherited the jobs requiring heavy labor or more than normal human strength. It was Burgundus who cleared the Minturnaean drains and sewers when they blocked after floods, Burgundus who removed a flyblown carcass of horse or ass or other big animal from an inconvenient place, Burgundus who took down trees considered dangerous, Burgundus who went after a savage dog, Burgundus who dug ditches single-handed. Like all huge creatures, the German was a gentle and docile man, aware of his own strength and in no need to prove it to anyone; aware too that if he aimed a playful blow at someone, that someone could well die as the result of it. He had therefore developed a technique to handle drunken sailors and overly aggressive little men determined to conquer him, and sported a few scars because of his forbearance—but also sported a kindly enough reputation in the town.
Having been maneuvered into the unenviable task of executing Gaius Marius and determined they would do their duty in as Roman a way as possible (and also aware that this duty would not be popular with the inhabitants of the town), the magistrates sent for Burgundus the handyman at once.
He, in ignorance of the events in Minturnae that day, had been piling huge stones in a heap below the walls on the Via Appia side of town, preparatory to beginning some repairs. And, fetched by a fellow slave, walked in the direction of the forum with his long, deceptively slow strides while the other public servant half-ran to keep up with him.
The senior magistrate was waiting for him in a lane outside the forum, a lane which backed onto the meeting hall and the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus; if the job was to be done without incurring a riot it would have to be done at once, and without the knowledge of the crowd in the forum.
“Ah, Burgundus, just the man I need!” said the duumvir (whose colleague, a less forceful man, had mysteriously disappeared). “In the cella below our capitol is a prisoner.’’ He turned away and threw the rest over his shoulder in a casual, unconcerned manner. “You will strangle him. He’s a traitor under sentence of death.”
The German stood quite still, then lifted his hands and looked at their vastness in wonder; never before had he been called upon to kill a man. Kill a man with those hands. It would be as easy for him as for any other man to wring a chicken’s neck. Of course he had to do as he was told, that went without saying; but suddenly the sense of comfortable well-being he had enjoyed in Minturnae blew away in a lonely wind. He was to become the town executioner as well as being made to do everything else unpalatable. Filled with horror, his usually placid blue eyes took in the back of the capitol, the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. Where the prisoner he had been told to strangle was located. A very important prisoner, it seemed. One of the Italian leaders in the war?
Burgundus drew in a deep breath, then plodded toward the far side of the temple’s podium, where the door to the little labyrinth beneath was located. To enter, he had not only to dip his head, but to bend almost double. He found himself inside a narrow stone hall, off which several doors opened on either side; at its far end an iron grille covered a slit made to let in light. In this gloomy place were kept the town’s records and archives, local laws and statutes, the treasury, and, behind the first door to the left, the rare man or woman the duumviri had ordered detained until whatever troubled them had passed and they could be released.
Made of oak three fingers thick, this door was an even smaller one than the entranceway; Burgundus pulled back the bolt, crouched, and squeezed himself into the cell. Like the hall the room was illuminated by a barred opening, this one high up on the back wall of the temple base, where noises emanating from within were least liable to be heard from the forum. It gave barely enough light to see, especially because the eyes of Burgundus were not yet accustomed to the dimness.
Straightening as much as possible, the German giant distinguished a greyish-black lump, vaguely man-shaped; whoever it was rose to his feet and faced his executioner.
“What do you want?” the prisoner demanded loudly, his voice full of authority.
“I have been told to strangle you,” said Burgundus simply.
“You’re a German!” said the prisoner sharply. “Which tribe? Come on, answer me, you great gawk!”
This last was uttered even more sharply, for Burgundus was now beginning to see more clearly, and what had caused him to hesitate over his reply was the sight of a pair of fierce fiery eyes.
“I am from the Cimbri, domine.”
The large and naked man with the terrible eyes seemed visibly to swell. “What? A slave—and one whom I conquered into the bargain!—presumes to kill Gaius Marius!
Burgundus flinched and whimpered, threw his arms up to cover his head, cowered away.
“Get out!” thundered Gaius Marius. “I’ll not meet my death in any mean dungeon at the hands of any German!”
Wailing, Burgundus fled, leaving cell door and outer door ajar, and erupted into the open space of the forum.
“No, no!” he cried to those in the square, tears falling down his face in rivers. “I cannot kill Gaius Marius! I cannot kill Gaius Marius! I cannot kill Gaius Marius!”
Aulus Belaeus came striding across from the opposite side of the forum, took the giant’s writhing hands gently. “It’s all right, Burgundus, that won’t be asked of you. Stop crying now, there’s the good boy! Enough!”
“I can’t kill Gaius Marius!” Burgundus said again, wiping his runny nose on his arm because Belaeus still held his hands. “And I can’t let anyone else kill Gaius Marius either!”
“No one is going to kill Gaius Marius,” said Belaeus firmly. “It’s all a misunderstanding. Now calm yourself, and make yourself useful. Go across to Marcus Furius and take the wine and the robe he’s holding. Offer Gaius Marius both. Then you may take Gaius Marius to my house and wait there with him.”
Like a child the giant quietened, beamed upon Aulus Belaeus, and lolloped off to do as he was told.
Belaeus turned to face the crowd, gathering again; his eyes were fixed upon the duumviri, both rushing from the meeting hall, and his stance was aggressive.
“Well, citizens of Minturnae, are you going to allow our lovely town to inherit the detestable task of killing Gaius Marius?”
“Aulus Belaeus, we have to do this!” said the senior magistrate, arriving breathless. “It is Great Treason!”
“I don’t care if it’s every crime on the statutes!” said Aulus Belaeus. ‘ ‘Minturnae cannot execute Gaius Marius!’’
The crowd was yelling its heartfelt support for Aulus Belaeus, so the magistrates convened a meeting then and there to discuss the matter. The result was a foregone conclusion; Gaius Marius was to go free. Minturnae could not possibly make itself responsible for the death of a man who had been consul of Rome six times and saved Italy from the Germans.
“So,” said Aulus Belaeus contentedly to Gaius Marius a little later, “I am pleased to be able to tell you that I will put you back on my ship with the best wishes of all Minturnae, including our silly hidebound magistrates. And this time your ship will sail without your being dragged back to shore, I promise you.”
Bathed and fed, Marius was feeling much better. “I have received much kindness since I fled Rome, Aulus Belaeus, but none so great as the kindness Minturnae has shown me. I shall never forget this place.” He turned to give the hovering Burgundus the best smile his poor paralyzed face could produce. “Nor will I forget that I was spared by a German. Thank you.”
Belaeus rose to his feet. “I’d like to permit my house the honor of having you stay, Gaius Marius, but I won’t rest easy until I see your ship sailing out of the bay. Let me escort you to the docks immediately. You can sleep on board.”
When they came out of the street door to Belaeus’s house, most of Minturnae was waiting to walk with them to the harbor; a cheer went up for Gaius Marius, who stood acknowledging it with regal dignity. Then everyone proceeded to the shore with lighter hearts and more importance than in years. On the jetty Marius embraced Aulus Belaeus publicly.
“Your money is still on board,” said Belaeus, tears in his eyes. “I have sent extra clothing out for you—and a much better brand of wine than my captain normally drinks! I am also sending the slave Burgundus with you, since you have no attendants. The town is afraid to keep him in case the troopers come back and some local fool talks. He doesn’t deserve to die, so I bought him for your use.”
“I accept Burgundus with pleasure, Aulus Belaeus, but on no account worry about those fellows. I know who hired them—a man with no authority and no clout, trying to win a reputation for himself. At first I suspected Lucius Sulla, and that would have been far more serious. But if the consul has troopers out looking for me, they haven’t reached Minturnae yet. That lot were commissioned by a glory-seeking privatus.” The breath hissed between Marius’s teeth. “He’ll keep, Sextus Lucilius!”
“My ship is yours until you can come home again,” said Belaeus, smiling. “The captain knows. Luckily his cargo is Falernian, so it will only improve until he can unload it. We wish you well.”
“And I wish you well, Aulus Belaeus. I will never forget you,” said Gaius Marius.
And finally the day of excitement was over; the men and women of Minturnae stood on the docks and waved until the ship dropped below the horizon, then trooped home feeling as if they had won a great war. Aulus Belaeus walked home last of all, smiling to himself in the dying light; he had conceived a wonderful idea. He would find the greatest painter of murals in all the peninsula and instruct him to trace the story of Gaius Marius in Minturnae through a series of magnificent pictures. They would adorn the new temple of Marica in its lovely grove of trees. After all, she was the sea-goddess who gave birth to Latinus—whose daughter Lavinia married Aeneas and produced Iulus—so she had a special significance for Gaius Marius, married to a Julia. Marica was also the patroness of the town. No greater deed had Minturnae done than to decline to kill Gaius Marius; and in the years to come, all of Italy would know of it because of the frescoes in the temple of Marica.
*
From that time onward Gaius Marius was never in danger, though long and wearisome were his travels. In Aenaria nineteen of the fugitives were reunited, and waited then in vain for Publius Sulpicius. After eight days they decided sorrowfully that he would never come, and sailed without him. From Aenaria they braved the open waters of the Tuscan Sea and saw no land until they came to the northwestern cape of Sicily, where they put in at the fishing port of Erycina.
There in Sicily Marius had hoped to remain, not wanting to venture any further from Italy than he needed; though his physical health was remarkably good considering all that had befallen him, even he himself was aware that all was not well inside his mind. He forgot things, and sometimes every word said to him sounded like the bar-bars of Scythians or Sarmatians; he smelled unidentifiable yet repellent odors, and endured fishing-nets coming down across his eyes to mar his vision, or would grow unbearably hot, or wonder where he was; his temper frayed, he imagined slights and insults.
“Whatever it is inside of us that makes us think, be it in our chests as some say, or in our heads as Hippocrates says—and I believe it must be inside our heads because I think with my eyes and ears and nose, so why should they be as far away from the source of thought as they are from heart or liver?” he rambled one day to his son while they waited in Erycina to hear from the governor. His voice trailed away, he knitted his huge brows in a fierce frown, pulled at them constantly. “Let me start again.. .. Something is chewing my mind away a little bit at a time, Young Marius. I know whole books still, and when I force myself to it, I can think straight—I can conduct meetings, I can do anything I ever could in the past. But not always. And it’s changing in ways I don’t understand. At times I’m not even conscious of the changes. .. . You must allow me these vaguenesses and crotchets. I have to conserve my mental strength because one day soon I will be consul for the seventh time. Martha said I would be, and she was never wrong. Never wrong ... I told you that, didn’t I?”
Young Marius swallowed, forced the lump in his throat away. “Yes, Father, you did. Many times.”
“Did I ever tell you she prophesied something else?”
The grey eyes came round to rest upon the father’s battered and twisted face, very high in its color these days. Young Marius sighed softly, wondering whether Marius’s mind was rambling again, or if this was still a lucid period. “No, Father.”
“Well, she did. She said I wasn’t going to be the greatest man Rome would ever produce. Do you know who she said would be the very greatest Roman of them all?”
“No, Father. But I’d like to know.” Not even a ray of hope stole into Young Marius’s heart; he knew it would not be he. The son of a Great Man is all too aware of his own deficiencies.
“She said it would be Young Caesar.”
“Edepol!’’
Marius wriggled, giggled, suddenly chillingly eldritch. “Oh, don’t worry, my son! He won’t be! I refuse to let anyone be greater than I am! That’s why I’m going to nail Young Caesar’s star to the bottom of the deepest sea.”
His son got to his feet. “You’re tired, Father. I’ve noticed that these moods and difficulties you have are much worse when you’re tired. Come and sleep.”
*
The governor of Sicily was Gaius Marius’s client Gaius Norbanus, who was in Messana dealing with an attempted invasion of Sicily by Marcus Lamponius and a force of rebel Lucanians and Bruttians. Sent as quickly as possible down the Via Valeria to Messana, Marius’s messenger came back with the governor’s answer in thirteen days.
Though I am acutely aware of my cliental obligations to you, Gaius Marius, I am also governor propraetore of a Roman province, and I am honor bound to observe my duty to Rome ahead of my duty to my patron. Your letter arrived after I had received an official directive from the Senate notifying me that I can offer you and the other fugitives no kind of succor. I am actually instructed to hunt you down and kill you if possible. That of course I cannot do; what I can do is to order your ship to leave Sicilian waters.
Privately I wish you well, and hope that somewhere you find shelter and safety, though I doubt you will find it in any Roman territory. I should tell you that Publius Sulpicius was apprehended in Laurentum. His head adorns the rostra in Rome. A vile deed. But you will understand my position better when I tell you that the head of Sulpicius was fixed to the rostra by none other than Lucius Cornelius Sulla himself. No, not an order. He did the deed personally.
“Poor Sulpicius!” said Marius, blinking away easy tears. Then he squared his shoulders and said, “Very well, on we go! We’ll see how we are received in the African province.”
But there too they were permitted no entry; the governor Publius Sextilius had also received orders, and could do no more for the fugitives than to advise them to go somewhere else before duty prompted him to hunt them down and kill them.
On they went to Rusicade, the port serving Cirta, capital of Numidia. King Hiempsal now ruled Numidia; the son of Gauda, he was a better man by far. When the King got Marius’s letter he was at his court in Cirta, not far from Rusicade. Impaled on the horns of the biggest dilemma his tenure of the kingdom had yet given him, he dithered for some time—Gaius Marius had put his father on the throne, yet Gaius Marius might also be the man who put the son off it. For Lucius Cornelius Sulla also had some claim to pre-eminence in Numidia.
After some days of cogitation, he moved himself and part of his court to Icosium, far west of Roman presence, and bade Gaius Marius and his colleagues sail to join him there. The King allowed them to move ashore, placing several comfortable villas at their disposal. He also entertained them frequently in his own house, large enough to be called a small palace, though not nearly as commodious as his establishment in Cirta. As a consequence of this restricted space, the King left some of his wives and all of his concubines behind, taking with him to Icosium only his queen, Sophonisba, and two minor wives, Salammbo and Anno. An educated individual in the best traditions of Hellenistic monarchs, he kept no sort of oriental state, but rather allowed his guests to mingle freely among all the members of his household—sons, daughters, wives. Which unfortunately led to complications.
Young Marius was now twenty-one years of age, and finding his feet as a man. Very fair and very handsome, he was also a fine physical specimen; too restless to settle himself to any mental task, he sought release in hunting, something King Hiempsal did not enjoy. However, his junior wife Salammbo did. The African plains teemed with wildlife—elephants and lions, ostrich and gazelle, antelope and bear, panther and gnu—and Young Marius spent his days out learning how to hunt animals he had never seen before. With Princess Salammbo as his guide and preceptress.
Perhaps thinking the public nature of these expeditions and the number of people involved in staffing them were sufficient protection to ensure the virtue of his junior wife, King Hiempsal saw no harm in sending Salammbo out with Young Marius; perhaps too he was grateful to have this overactive creature off his hands for days at a time. Himself closeted with Marius (who had markedly improved in his thinking since coming to Icosium), talking over old times, learning the stories of those campaigns in Numidia and Africa against Jugurtha, Hiempsal took copious notes for the archives of his family, and made bold to dream of an era when one of his sons or grandsons might actually be deemed grand enough to marry a Roman noblewoman. He had no illusions, Hiempsal; call himself royal he might, rule a big rich land he might, but in the eyes of the Roman nobility, he and his were less than the dust.
Of course the secret was not kept. One of the King’s minions reported to him that the days Salammbo spent with Young Marius were innocent enough, but the nights an entirely different matter. This revelation threw the King into a panic; on the one hand he could not ignore the unchastity of his wife, but on the other hand he could not do what he would normally have done—execute the cuckolder. So he salvaged what dignity he could out of the affair by informing Gaius Marius that the situation was too delicate to allow the fugitives to stay any longer, and asking Marius to sail as soon as his ship was properly provisioned.
“Young fool!” said Marius as they walked down to the harbor. “Weren’t there enough ordinary women available? Did you have to pilfer one of Hiempsal’s wives?”
Young Marius grinned, tried to look contrite, and failed.
“I’m sorry, Father, but she really was delicious. Besides, I didn’t seduce her—she seduced me.”
“You could have turned her down, you know.”
“I could have,” said Young Marius impenitently, “but I didn’t. She really was delicious.”
“You’re using the correct tense, my son. Was is right. The stupid woman has parted company with her head because of you.”
Knowing perfectly well that Marius was only annoyed because they were now obliged to move on, that otherwise he would have been pleased his boy could lure a foreign queen into indiscretion, Young Marius continued to grin. Salammbo’s fate worried neither of them; she knew the penalty for being caught would be on her own head.
“That’s too bad,” said Young Marius. “She really was—’’
“Don’t say it!” his father interrupted sharply. “If you were smaller or I could balance on one leg, I’d put my boot so far up your arse I kicked your teeth out! We were comfortable.”
“Kick me if you like,” said Young Marius, bending over and presenting his rear to his father jokingly, legs wide, head between his knees. Why should he fear to do it? His crime was the sort a father could forgive his son with pleasure; and besides, in all his life Young Marius had never felt his father’s hand, let alone his foot.
Whereupon Marius gestured to the faithful Burgundus, who slid his arm around Marius’s waist and took his weight. Up came the right leg; Marius planted his heavy boot hard and accurately right inside the sensitive crevice between the son’s buttocks. That Young Marius did not pass out was purely due to pride; the pain was truly frightful. For some days he remained in agony, talking very hard to persuade himself that his father’s action had not been deliberate malice, that he had misgauged the intensity of his father’s feelings about the incident with Salammbo.