The Grass Crown

by Colleen McCullough

  Metellus Pius made it look convincing; to the watchers on the heights it appeared all through the hours of night that the fortification of Sulla's camp went on at frantic pace.

  "They've decided to take the gorge off us, no doubt of it," said Duilius. "Fools! They're shut in here for the duration." He too sounded contented.

  But the rising of the sun showed Duilius his mistake. Behind the huge mounds of rock and earth thrown up against the sides of the cliffs, there were no soldiers at all; having baited the Samnite bull, the Roman wolf had slunk away. To the east, not to the west. From his vantage point Duilius could see the rear of Sulla's column dwindling to a pall of dust on the road to Aesernia. And there was nothing he could do about it, for his orders were explicit; he was to garrison the Melfa Gorge, not pursue a formidable little force down onto the shelterless plains. The best he could do in this situation was to send a warning to Aesernia.

  Even that recourse proved useless. Sulla punched a hole in the lines of the besiegers and got his expedition inside the city with scarcely a casualty.

  "He's too good," was the next Italian message, this time from Gaius Trebatius, commanding the Samnite siege, to Gaius Papius Mutilus, attacking Acerrae. "Aesernia is too sprawling to enclose with the number of men I have; I couldn't spread myself out enough to prevent his getting in, nor compress myself enough to keep him from spreading his invaders. Nor do I think I can prevent his getting out if he decides he wants to."

  The beleaguered city, Sulla soon discovered, was cheerful and undistressed; there were ten cohorts of good soldiers inside, those deserted by Scipio Asiagenes and Acilius having been joined by refugees from Venafrum and then Beneventum. The city also had a competent commander in the person of Marcus Claudius Marcellus.

  "The supplies and extra arms you've brought us are welcome," said Marcellus. "We will survive here for many moons to come."

  "Do you plan to stay here yourself, then?"

  Marcellus nodded, grinned fiercely. "Of course! Having been driven out of Venafrum, I am determined I will not budge from Latin Aesernia." His smile faded. "All the Roman citizens of Venafrum and Beneventum are dead, killed by the townsfolk. How much they hate us, the Italians! Especially the Samnites."

  "Not without reason, Marcus Claudius." Sulla shrugged. "But that's in the past and for the future. All which concerns us is victory in the field—and holding on to those towns which are defiant Roman outposts in a sea of Italians." He leaned forward. "This is a war of the spirit too. The Italians must be taught that Rome and Romans are inviolate. I sacked every settlement between the Melfa Gorge and Aesernia, even if it was only a pair of cottages. Why? To demonstrate to the Italians that Rome can operate behind enemy lines and take the fruits of Italian soil to revictual places like Aesernia. If you can hold out here, my dear Marcus Claudius, you too will teach the Italians a lesson."

  "While ever I can, I will hold Aesernia," said Marcellus, meaning every word.

  Thus when Sulla quit the city he left in a mood of quiet confidence; Aesernia would continue to withstand its siege. He marched through Italian territory in the open, trusting to his luck, that magical bond he had with the goddess Fortune, for he had no idea of the whereabouts of every Samnite or Picentine army. And his luck held, even when he marched past towns like Venafrum, where he actively encouraged his soldiers to shout and gesture insults up at the watchers on the walls. When his troops strolled through the gates of Capua they were singing, and the whole of Capua turned out to cheer.

  Lucius Caesar, Sulla was informed, had marched to Acerrae the moment Mutilus pulled some of his troops out to follow what had seemed like a major deployment against the siege of Aesernia; but—as luck would have it—Mutilus himself had remained at Acerrae. Leaving Catulus Caesar to ensure that his men enjoyed a well-earned rest, Sulla straddled a mule and trotted off to locate his general.

  He found him in an ill humor, and bereft of the Numidian cavalry Sextus Caesar had transported across the seas.

  "Do you know what Mutilus did?" demanded Lucius Caesar the moment he set eyes upon Sulla.

  "No," said Sulla, leaning casually against a pillar made of captured enemy spears and resigning himself to a litany of complaints.

  "When Venusia capitulated and the Venusini joined Italia, the Picentine Gaius Vidacilius found an enemy hostage living in Venusia—I'd completely forgotten he was there, and so I suppose had everyone else. Oxyntas, one of the sons of King Jugurtha of Numidia. So Vidacilius sent the Numidian here to Acerrae. When I attacked, I used my Numidian cavalry as an advance guard. And do you know what Mutilus did? He put a purple robe and a diadem on Oxyntas, and paraded him! The next thing I knew, there were my two thousand horse-troopers on their knees to an enemy of Rome!" Lucius Caesar's hands clawed at the air.

  "To think what it cost to bring them all this way! A futile exercise, futile!"

  "What did you do?"

  "I rounded them up, force-marched them to Puteoli, and sent them home to Numidia. Let their king deal with them!"

  Sulla straightened. "That was good thinking, Lucius Julius," he said sincerely, turning to stroke the column of captured spears. "Come now, obviously you haven't suffered a military disaster, despite the appearance of Oxyntas! You've won a battle here."

  Natural pessimism began to thaw, though Lucius Caesar could not quite summon up a smile. "Yes, I won a battle— for what it's worth. Mutilus attacked three days ago, I presume after he got word of your successful penetration through the besiegers at Aesernia. I tricked him by leading my forces out the back gate of my camp, and we killed six thousand Samnites."

  "And Mutilus?"

  "Withdrew immediately. For the moment, Capua is safe."

  "Excellent, Lucius Julius!"

  "I wish I thought so," said Lucius Caesar dolefully.

  Suppressing a sigh, Sulla asked, "What else has happened?"

  "Publius Crassus has lost his oldest boy before Grumentum, and was shut up inside the town for a long while. But the Lucanians are as fickle as they are lacking in discipline, luckily for Publius Crassus and his middle boy. Lamponius drew his men off to somewhere else, and Publius and Lucius Crassus got out." The commander-in-chief heaved an enormous sigh. "Those fools in Rome wanted me to drop everything and appear in Rome for no better reason than to supervise the choosing of a consul suffectus to replace Lupus until the elections. I told them where to go, and recommended that they rely upon their urban praetor—there's nothing in Rome Cinna can't deal with." He sighed yet again, sniffed, bethought himself of something else. "Gaius Coelius in Italian Gaul has dispatched a beautiful little army under Publius Sulpicius to assist Pompey Strabo in getting his conceited Picentine arse out of Firmum Picenum. I wish Publius Sulpicius good luck in dealing with that cross-eyed semi-barbarian! I must say, however, Lucius Cornelius, that you and Gaius Marius were right about young Quintus Sertorius. At the moment he's governing Italian Gaul completely on his own, and doing better than Gaius Coelius. Coelius has gone off to Gaul-across-the-Alps in a hurry."

  "What's going on there?"

  “The Salluvii have gone on a headhunting spree.'' Lucius Caesar grimaced. “What hope have we ever got of civilizing these people when several hundred years of exposure to Greeks and Romans haven't even made an impression? The moment they thought we weren't looking, back came the old barbarian habits. Headhunting! I sent Gaius Coelius a personal message instructing him to be utterly merciless. We can't afford a major uprising in Gaul-across-the-Alps."

  "So young Quintus Sertorius is holding the fort in Italian Gaul," said Sulla. An extraordinary expression of mingled weariness, impatience, and bitterness settled on his face. "Well, what else could one expect? The Grass Crown before he was thirty."

  "Jealous?" asked Lucius Caesar slyly.

  Sulla twisted. "No, I'm not jealous! Good luck to him, and may he prosper! I like that young man. I've known him since he was a cadet with Marius in Africa."

  Lucius Caesar made an inarticulate noise and slumped back into hi
s gloom.

  "Has anything else happened?" prompted Sulla.

  "Sextus Julius Caesar took his half of the troops he brought back from overseas and headed up the Via Appia to Rome, where I gather he intends to spend the winter." Lucius Caesar did not care very much for his cousin. "He's sick, as usual. Luckily he's got his brother Gaius with him—between them they make one decent man."

  "Ah! So my friend Aurelia will have a husband for a little while," said Sulla, smiling tenderly.

  "You know, Lucius Cornelius, you're odd! What on earth does that matter?"

  "It matters not at all. But you are right nonetheless, Lucius Julius. I am odd!"

  Lucius Caesar saw something in Sulla's face that made him decide to change the subject. "You and I are off again very soon."

  "Are we? Upon what deed? To where?"

  "Your move on Aesernia convinced me that Aesernia is the key to this whole theater of war. Mutilus is heading there himself, having lost here—or so your intelligence system tells me. I think we must head there too. It mustn't fall."

  "Oh, Lucius Julius!" cried Sulla in despair. "Aesernia is no more than a spiritual thorn in the Italian paw! While ever it holds out, the Italians must doubt their ability to win this war. But beyond that, Aesernia has no importance! Besides which, it is very well provisioned, and it has a very capable and determined commandant in Marcus Claudius Marcellus. Let it sit there thumbing its nose at the besiegers and don't worry about it! The only route available if Mutilus has withdrawn into the interior is the Melfa Gorge. Why risk our precious soldiers in that trap?"

  Lucius Caesar reddened. "You got through!"

  "Yes, I did. I tricked them. It can't work a second time."

  "I will get through," said Lucius Caesar stiffly.

  "How many legions?"

  "All we have. Eight."

  "Oh, Lucius Julius, forget this scheme!" Sulla pleaded. "It would be smarter and wiser to concentrate upon driving the Samnites out of western Campania for good! With eight legions working as one unit, we can take all the ports off Mutilus, reinforce Acerrae, and take Nola. Nola to the Italians is more important than Aesernia is to us!"

  The general's lips thinned in displeasure. "I am in the command tent, Lucius Cornelius, not you! And I say, Aesernia."

  Sulla shrugged, gave up. "As you say, of course."

  Seven days later Lucius Julius Caesar and Lucius Cornelius Sulla moved out toward Teanum Sidicinum with eight legions, the entire force available in the southern theater. Every atom of superstition Sulla had in him was screaming in alarm, but he had no choice save to do as he was told. Lucius Caesar was the general. More's the pity, thought Sulla as he walked at the head of his two legions—the same he had taken to Aesernia—and surveyed the great column ahead of him snaking up and down the low hills. Lucius Caesar had placed Sulla at the tail of the march, far enough away from himself to ensure that Sulla could not share his bivouacs or his conversations. Metellus Pius the Piglet was now elevated to share Lucius Caesar's bivouacs and conversations, a promotion which had not pleased him in the least. He wanted to stay with Sulla.

  At Aquinum the general sent for Sulla, and threw him a letter rather contemptuously. How have the mighty fallen! thought Sulla, remembering how in Rome at the beginning of all this, it had been he to whom Lucius Caesar had turned for advice, it had been he who became Lucius Caesar's "expert." Now Lucius Caesar regarded himself as the expert.

  "Read that," said Lucius Caesar curtly. "It's just come in from Gaius Marius."

  Courtesy normally prompted the man who had received a letter to read it out to those with whom he shared it later on; aware of this, Sulla smiled wryly to himself and laboriously worked his way through Marius's communication.

  As the northern commander-in-chief, Lucius Julius, I believe the time has come to inform you of my plans. I write this on the Kalends of Sextilis, in camp near Reate.

  It is my intention to invade the lands of the Marsi. My army is finally in peak condition, and I am absolutely confident it will acquit itself in the same magnificent fashion as all my armies in the past have done, for the sake of Rome and the sake of their general.

  Oho! thought Sulla, hackles rising. I've never heard the old boy express himself in quite those terms before! "For the sake of Rome and the sake of their general.'' Now what gnat is whining round in his mind? Why is he linking himself personally to Rome? My army! Not Rome's army, but my army! I wouldn't have noticed it—we all say it—except for his reference to himself as their general. This communication will go into the archives of the war. And in it, Gaius Marius is putting himself on an equal footing with Rome!

  Quickly Sulla lifted his head, glanced at Lucius Caesar; but if the southern commander-in-chief had spotted the phrase, he was pretending he had not. And so much subtlety, decided Sulla, Lucius Caesar did not have. He went back to deciphering Marius's letter.

  I think you will agree with me, Lucius Julius, that we need a victory—a complete and decisive victory— in my theater. Rome has called our war against the Italians the Marsic War, so we must defeat the Marsi in the field, if at all possible break the Marsi beyond recovery.

  Now I can do that, my dear Lucius Julius, but in order to do it, I need the services of my old friend and colleague, Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Plus two more legions. I understand completely that you can ill afford to lose Lucius Cornelius—not to mention two legions. If I did not consider it imperative that I ask, I would not ask this favor of you. Nor, I assure you, is this transfer of personnel a permanent one. Call it a loan, not a gift. Two months is all I need.

  If you can see your way clear to granting my petition, Rome will fare the better for your kindness to me. If you cannot see your way clear, then I must sit down again in Reate and think of something else.

  Sulla raised his head and stared at Lucius Caesar, his brows climbing. "Well?" he asked, putting the letter down on Lucius Caesar's desk carefully.

  "By all means go to him, Lucius Cornelius," said Lucius Caesar indifferently. “I can deal with Aesernia without you. Gaius Marius is right. We need a decisive victory in the field against the Marsi. This southern theater is a shambles anyway. It's quite impossible to contain the Samnites and their allies or get enough of them together in one place to inflict a decisive defeat upon them. All I can do here is engage in demonstrations of Roman strength and persistence. There will be no decisive battle in the south, ever. It is in the north that must happen."

  Up went Sulla's hackles yet again. One of the two generals was thinking of himself in the same breath as Rome, the other was in a permanent slough of despond, incapable of seeing any light in east or west or south. Lucky perhaps that he could see a little glow in the north! How can we succeed in Campania with a man like Lucius Caesar in command? asked Sulla of himself. Ye gods, why is it that I am never quite senior enough? I'm better than Lucius Caesar! I may well be better than Gaius Marius! Since I entered the Senate I have spent my life serving lesser men— even Gaius Marius is a lesser man because he isn't a patrician Cornelius. Metellus Piggle-wiggle, Gaius Marius, Catulus Caesar, Titus Didius, and now this chronically depressed scion of an ancient house! And who is it goes from strength to strength, wins the Grass Crown, and ends up governing a whole province at the ripe old age of thirty? Quintus Sertorius. A Sabine nobody. Marius's cousin!

  "Lucius Caesar, we will win!" said Sulla very seriously. "I tell you, I can hear the wings of Victory in the air all around us! We'll grind the Italians down to so much powder. Beat us in a battle or two the Italians may, but beat us in a war, they cannot! No one can! Rome is Rome, mighty and eternal. I believe in Rome!"

  "Oh, so do I, Lucius Cornelius, so do I!" said Lucius Caesar testily. "Now go away! Make yourself useful to Gaius Marius, for I swear you are not very useful to me!"

  Sulla got to his feet, and was actually as far as the outer doorway of the house Lucius Caesar had commandeered when he turned back. So intent had he been upon the letter that Lucius Caesar's physical appearance hadn't had
the power to deflect his attention away from Gaius Marius. Now a fresh fear filled him. The general was sallow, lethargic, shivering, sweating.

  "Lucius Julius, are you well?" Sulla demanded.

  "Yes, yes!"

  Sulla sat down again. "You're not, you know."

  "I am well enough, Lucius Cornelius."

  "See a physician!"

  "In this village? It would be some filthy old woman prescribing decoctions of pig manure and poultices of pounded spiders."

  "I'll be going past Rome. I'll send you the Sicilian."

  "Then send him to Aesernia, Lucius Cornelius, because that is where he'll find me." Lucius Caesar's brow shone with sweat. "You are dismissed."

  Sulla lifted his shoulders, got up. "Be it on your own head. You've got the ague."

  And that, he reflected, going through the door onto the street without turning back this time, was that. Lucius Caesar was going to enter the Melfa Gorge in no fit state to organize a harvest dance. He was going to be ambushed, and he was going to have to retire to Teanum Sidicinum a second time to lick his wounds, with too many precious men lying dead in the bottom of that treacherous defile. Oh, why were they always so pigheaded, so obtuse?

  Not very far down the street he encountered the Piglet, looking equally grim.

  "You've got a sick man in there," said Sulla, jerking his head toward the house.

  "Don't rub it in!" cried Metellus Pius. "At the best of times he's quite impossible to cheer up, but in the grip of an ague—I despair! What did you do to make him stiffen up and ignore you?"

  "Told him to forget Aesernia and concentrate on driving the Samnites out of western Campania.''

  "Yes, that would account for it, with our commander-in-chief in his present state,'' said the Piglet, finding a smile.

  The Piglet's stammer had always fascinated Sulla, who said now, "Your stammer's pretty good these days."

  "Oh, why did you have to suh-suh-say that, Lucius Cornelius? It's only all ruh-ruh-right as long as I don't think about it, cuh-cuh-curse you!"