The Grass Crown

by Colleen McCullough

  Oh, thank every god there was for Young Sulla! Only with Young Sulla was there any solace at all. Foiled at every turn, the Sulla who would have erupted in some potentially lethal way was magically soothed, put back to sleep. Not for every piece of gold or silver in the world would Sulla have lowered himself in the eyes of his beloved son.

  And so as the year wore down toward its end, Sulla watched his chances disappear, endured being deprived of Metrobius and Aurelia, listened patiently to the pretentious prating of the young Cicero, and loved his son more and more and more. Details of his life before the death of his stepmother that Sulla had never thought to divulge to anyone of his own class were freely imparted to this wonderfully understanding and forgiving boy, who drank in the stories because they painted a picture of a life and a person Young Sulla would never know. The only facet of himself Sulla did not reveal was the naked clawed monster fit only to howl at the moon. That thing, he told himself, was gone forever.

  When the Senate apportioned the provinces out—which it did at the end of November that year—everything fell as Sulla had expected. Gaius Sentius was prorogued in Macedonia, Gaius Valerius Flaccus in Nearer Spain, Publius Scipio Nasica in Further Spain, while Asia Province went to Lucius Valerius Flaccus. Offered his choice of Africa, Sicily, or Sardinia and Corsica, Sulla gracefully declined. Better no governorship at all than to be relegated to a backwater. When the consular elections two years in the future came along, the voters would check up whereabouts the candidates had gone as praetorian governors, and the answer of Africa, Sicily, or Sardinia and Corsica would not impress one little bit.

  And then Fortune dropped her guise, stood revealed in all the blazing glory of her love for Sulla. In December there came a frantic letter from King Nicomedes of Bithynia, accusing King Mithridates of designs on all Asia Minor, but especially Bithynia. At almost the same moment, word came from Tarsus that Mithridates had invaded Cappadocia at the head of a large army, and was not stopping until all of Cilicia and Syria also lay within his fief. Expressing amazement, Scaurus Princeps Senatus advocated that a governor should be sent to Cilicia; troops Rome did not have to spare, but the governor should go well funded, and if necessary raise local troops. He was a hardheaded Roman, Scaurus, something Mithridates hadn't understood, deeming him comfortably under his control forever thanks to a packet of letters and a bag of gold. But Scaurus was quite capable of burning a packet of letters when a threat to Rome of this magnitude presented itself; Cilicia was vulnerable—and important. Though governors were not routinely sent there, Rome had come to regard Cilicia as hers.

  "Send Lucius Cornelius Sulla to Cilicia," said Gaius Marius when consulted. "He's a good man in a tight corner. He can train troops, equip them, and command them well. If anyone can salvage the situation, Lucius Cornelius can."

  "I've got a governorship!" said Sulla to his son when he came home from the meeting of the Senate in the temple of Bellona.

  "No! Where?" Young Sulla asked eagerly.

  "Cilicia. To contain King Mithridates of Pontus."

  "Oh, tata, that's wonderful!" Then the boy realized that this would mean a separation. For an infinitely small space of time his eyes betrayed grief, pain, then he drew a sobbing breath, and gazed at his father with that unbelievable respect and trust Sulla always found so touching, so hard to live up to. "I shall miss you, of course, but I am so very glad for you, Father." There. That was the adult emerging; Sulla was now father, not tata.

  Bright with unshed tears, the pale cold eyes of Lucius Cornelius Sulla looked upon his son, as respectful, as trusting, as the boy's had been. Then he smiled a smile of total love. "Ah! What's all this missing business?" he asked. "You don't think I'd go away without you, do you? You're coming with me."

  Another sobbing breath, a transformation into utter joy; Young Sulla's smile was enormous. "Tata! Do you mean it?"

  "I've never meant anything more, boy. We go together, or I don't go. And I'm going!"

  They left for the East early in January, which as the seasons went was still autumnal enough to make sailing feasible. With him Sulla took a small entourage of lictors (twelve, as his imperium was proconsular), clerks, scribes, and public slaves—his son, wild with excitement—and Ariobarzanes of Cappadocia, together with his mother, Laodice. His war chest was respectably filled, thanks to the efforts of Scaurus Princeps Senatus, and his mind was well primed, thanks to a long conversation with Gaius Marius.

  They crossed from Tarentum to Patrae in Greece, caught ship for Corinth, went overland to the Piraeus of Athens, and there bought passage on another ship bound for Rhodes. From Rhodes to Tarsus, Sulla was obliged to hire a ship, as the season was drawing on into winter, and commercial traffic had ceased. Thus it was that by the end of January the party arrived safely in Tarsus, having seen nothing en route save a few seaports and shipyards, and a great deal of sea.

  Nothing had changed in Tarsus since the visit of Marius three and a half years before, nor in Cilicia, still unhappily dwelling in limbo. The arrival of an official governor sat well with both Tarsus and Cilicia, and Sulla had no sooner taken up residence in the palace than he found himself inundated with helpful people, many of whom were not averse to the thought of some good army pay.

  However, Sulla knew the man he was after, and found it significant that he had not appeared to curry favor with the new Roman governor, but rather went about his normal business, which was to command the Tarsian militia. His name was Morsimus, and he had been recommended to Sulla by Gaius Marius.

  "As of now, you are relieved of your command," said Sulla in a friendly way to Morsimus when he came in answer to the governor's summons. "I need a local man to help me recruit, equip, and train four good legions of auxiliaries before the spring thaws open the passes to the interior. Gaius Marius says you're the man for this job. Do you think you are?"

  "I know I am," said Morsimus immediately.

  "The weather's good here, that's one thing," said Sulla briskly. "We can knock our soldiers into military condition all through the winter—provided, that is, that we can get the right material to train, and enough equipment to arm the right material no less adequately than the troops of Mithridates. Is it possible?"

  "Definitely," said Morsimus. "You'll find more thousands of eager recruits than you'll need. The army is a good provider for the young, and there hasn't really been an army here for—oh, many years! If Cappadocia had had less internal strife and less interference from Pontus and Armenia, she might have invaded and conquered us anytime. Luckily, Syria has been equally beleaguered. So here we've existed by sheer good luck."

  "Fortune," said Sulla, grinning his most feral grin, and threw his arm around his son's shoulders. "Fortune favors me, Morsimus. One day I shall call myself Felix." He gave Young Sulla a hug. "However, there's one extremely important thing I have to do before another day of sun goes by, even if it is winter sun."

  The Tarsian Greek looked puzzled. "Is it something I can assist you with, Lucius Cornelius?"

  "I imagine so. You can tell me whereabouts I can buy a good shady hat which won't fall apart in ten days," said Sulla.

  "Father, if you mean me to wear a hat, I won't," said Young Sulla as he walked with Sulla to the marketplace. "A hat! Only old farmers sucking straws wear hats."

  "And I," said Sulla, smiling.

  "You?"

  "When I'm on campaign, Young Sulla, I wear a big shady hat. Gaius Marius advised me to do so years ago, when we first went to Africa to fight King Jugurtha of Numidia. Wear it and don't take any notice of the jeers, he said—or words to that effect. After a while, everyone ceases to notice. I took his advice, because my skin is so fair I burn and burn and burn. In fact, after I made my reputation in Numidia, my hat became famous."

  "I've never seen you wear one in Rome," said his son.

  "In Rome I try to stay out of the sun. That's why I had a canopy erected over my praetor's tribunal last year."

  A silence fell; the narrow alley through which they were
walking suddenly opened out into a huge irregular square shaded by many trees, and filled with many booths and stalls.

  "Father?" asked a small voice.

  Sulla glanced sideways, surprised to find there was very little between his height and his son's; the Caesar blood was winning, Young Sulla would be tall.

  "Yes, my son?" he asked.

  "Please, may I have a hat too?"

  2

  When King Mithridates heard that a Roman governor had been sent to Cilicia and was busy raising and training local troops, he stared in blank amazement at his informant, Gordius, the new King of Cappadocia.

  "Who is this Lucius Cornelius Sulla?" he asked. "None of us knows anything about him, Great One, except that last year he was chief magistrate of the city of Rome, and that he has been a legate to several famous Roman generals—Gaius Marius in Africa against King Jugurtha, Quintus Lutatius Catulus Caesar in Italian Gaul against the Germans, and Titus Didius in Spain against the local savages," said Gordius, rattling off all this information in tones which indicated the names save for Gaius Marius meant little or nothing to him.

  They meant little or nothing to Mithridates too, yet one more time when the King of Pontus found himself regretting his lack of a geographical and historical education. It was left to Archelaus to expand the King's horizons.

  "He's no Gaius Marius, this Lucius Cornelius Sulla," said Archelaus thoughtfully, "but his experience is formidable, and we ought not underestimate him just because his name is one we don't know. Most of his time since he entered the Senate of Rome has been spent with the armies of Rome, though I do not think he has ever commanded an army in the field."

  "His name is Cornelius," said the King, chest swelling, "but is he a Scipio? What is this 'Sulla' business?"

  "Not a Scipio, Almighty King," said Archelaus. "However, he is a patrician Cornelius, rather than what the Romans call a New Man, a nobody. He is said to be—difficult."

  "Difficult?"

  Archelaus swallowed; he had come to the end of his information, and had no idea what Sulla's difficulty consisted of. So he guessed. "Not easy in negotiation, Great One. Not willing to see any side of things except his own."

  They were at the court in Sinope, the King's favorite city at any time, but in winter especially. Things had been fairly peaceful for some years; no courtiers or relatives had bitten the dust, Gordius's daughter Nysa had proven so satisfactory a consort that her father had found himself elevated to the throne of Cappadocia after the intervention of Tigranes, the King's brigade of sons were growing up, and Pontus's possessions along the Euxine on the east and north were prospering.

  But the memory of Gaius Marius was fading, and the King of Pontus was looking once more to the south and west; his ploy of using Tigranes in Cappadocia had worked, and Gordius was still king there, despite Scaurus's visit. All of benefit to Rome that the visit of Scaurus had achieved was the withdrawal of the army of Armenia from Cappadocia—always the intention of Mithridates anyway. Now at last it seemed as if Bithynia might fall into his grasp, for a year before, Socrates had come bleating to beg for asylum in Pontus, and had turned himself so thoroughly into a Mithridatic creature that the King decided he might safely be installed upon the Bithynian throne as a measure preliminary to outright invasion. This last Mithridates had intended to start in the spring, marching so swiftly westward that King Nicomedes the Third would find himself completely lost.

  The news now brought by Gordius gave him pause; dare he move to annex Bithynia or even seat Socrates upon its throne when not one, but two, Roman governors dwelt nearby? Four legions in Cilicia! It was said that Rome could beat the world with four good legions. Admittedly these were Cilician auxiliaries, not Roman soldiers, but the Cilicians were warlike and proud—had they not been, Syria would have retained possession of the place, weakened condition and all. Four legions numbered about twenty thousand actual fighting men. Whereas Pontus could field two hundred thousand. Numerically, no contest. Yet—yet—yet ... Who was this Lucius Cornelius Sulla? No one had heard of Gaius Sentius or his legate Quintus Bruttius Sura either, yet the two of them were sweeping the Macedonian border from Illyricum in the west to the Hellespont in the east, a devastating campaign which had the Celts and the Thracians reeling. No one was even sure anymore that the Romans would stay out of the lands of the Danubius River; this worried Mithridates, who planned to move down the western shores of the Euxine into the lands of the Danubius. The thought of finding Rome there when he arrived was not welcome.

  Who was Lucius Cornelius Sulla? Another Roman general of Sentius's caliber? Why send this particular man to garrison Cilicia when they had Gaius Marius and Catulus Caesar at home, two men who had beaten the Germans? One— Marius—had appeared alone and unarmed in Cappadocia, speaking words which had indicated he would be back in Rome keeping his eyes and ears on the doings of Pontus. So why wasn't it Gaius Marius in Cilicia? Why was it this unknown Lucius Cornelius Sulla? Rome seemed always to be able to produce a brilliant general. Was Sulla even more brilliant than Marius? Though armies aplenty did Pontus possess, brilliant generals he did not. After doing so well against the barbarians at the top of the Euxine Sea, Archelaus itched to try his luck against more formidable foes. But Archelaus was a cousin, he had the Blood Royal, he was a potential rival. The same could be said of his brother Neoptolemus and his cousin Leonippus. And what king could be sure of his sons? Their mothers hungered after power, their mothers were all potential enemies; so too were they when they reached an age to covet their father's throne of their own volition.

  If only he had been gifted with generalship! thought King Mithridates to himself, while his brown-flecked grape-green eyes roamed unseeingly over the faces of the men around him. But in that area, the heroic talents passed down to him from his ancestor Herakles had failed. Or had they? Come to think of it, Herakles had not been a general! Herakles had worked alone—against lions and bears, usurping kings, gods and goddesses, chthonic dogs, all manner of monsters. The sort of adversaries Mithridates himself might welcome. In the days of Herakles, generals had not been invented; warriors banded together, met other bands of warriors, got down from the chariots they seemed to tool everywhere, and fought hand-to-hand duels. Now that was the kind of war the King felt himself qualified to wage! But those days were gone forever, just like the chariots. Modern times were army times; generals were demigods who sat or stood somewhere elevated above the field and pointed, and gave orders, and nibbled reflectively at a hangnail while their eyes were busy, busy, overseeing each and every movement below. Generals seemed instinctively to know where the line was about to flag or fall back, where the Enemy was going to concentrate for a mass assault—and generals were born already understanding flanks, maneuvers, sieges, artillery, relief columns, formations, deployments, rank from file. All things Mithridates could not cope with, had no feeling for, interest in, talent at.

  And while his eyes roved sightlessly, everyone who watched the King watched him more closely than a hovering falcon the mouse in the grass below—not feeling like the falcon, but like the mouse. There he sat upon his chair of solid gold inlaid with a million pearls and rubies, clad (since this was a war council) in lion skin and a shirt of the softest, most flexible mail, every knitted link plated with gold. Glittering. Striking fear into every heart. No one stood against the King, no one knew how he stood with the King. Complete ruler of men, complex mixture of coward and braggart and groveler, savior and destroyer. In Rome, no one would have believed him, and everyone would have laughed. In Sinope, everyone believed him, and no one laughed.

  Finally the King spoke. "Whoever this Lucius Cornelius Sulla is, the Romans have sent him without an army to garrison a strange land and employ troops unfamiliar to him. Therefore I must assume this Lucius Cornelius Sulla is a worthy foe." He let his eyes rest upon Gordius. "How many of my soldiers did I send to your kingdom of Cappadocia in the autumn?"

  "Fifty thousand, Great King," said Gordius.

  "In the early sp
ring I will come to Eusebeia Mazaca myself, with a further fifty thousand. Neoptolemus will come with me as my general. Archelaus, you will go to Galatia with fifty thousand more men and garrison that place on its western border, in case the Romans are actually planning to invade Pontus on two fronts. My Queen will govern from Amaseia, but her sons will remain here in Sinope under guard, hostages against her good behavior. If she should plan anything treasonous, all her sons will be executed immediately," said King Mithridates.

  "My daughter does not dream of such things!" cried Gordius, aghast, worried that one of the King's minor wives would manufacture a treason which would see his grandsons dead before the truth could be established.

  "I have no reason to suppose she does," said the King. "It is a precaution I always take these days. When I am out of my own lands, the children of each of my wives are taken to a different city, and held against each wife's conduct in my absence. Women are odd cattle," the King went on thoughtfully. "They always seem to prize their children ahead of themselves."

  "You had better guard yourself against the one who does not," said a thin and simpering voice which emanated from a fat and simpering person.

  "I do, Socrates, I do," said Mithridates with a grin. He had developed a liking for this repellent client from Bithynia, if for no other reason than he could point with pride to the fact that no brother of his so repellent could possibly have survived into his late fifties. That no brother of his had survived to see twenty, repellent or not, was something he never bothered to think about. A soft lot, the Bithynians. If it hadn't been for Rome and Roman protection, Bithynia would have been gulped into the maw of Pontus a generation ago. Rome, Rome, Rome! Always it came back to Rome. Why couldn't Rome find a terrible war at the other end of the Middle Sea to keep her occupied for a decade or so? Then, by the time she managed to turn her eyes eastward again, Pontus would reign supreme, and Rome would have no choice but to confine her attentions to the west. The setting sun.