The Grass Crown

by Colleen McCullough

  "You may rest assured I will lend you my full support, Publius Sulpicius," the Great Man said. For a moment he said nothing more, then he added, apparently as an afterthought, "However, I will ask one favor of you—that you legislate to give me the command in the war against Mithridates."

  It seemed like a small price to pay; Sulpicius smiled. "I agree, Gaius Marius. You shall have your command," he said.

  Sulpicius convoked the Plebeian Assembly, and in contio put two prospective laws before it as separate bills. One called for the expulsion from the Senate of every member who was in debt to the tune of more than eight thousand sesterces; the other called for the return of all those men exiled by the Varian Commission in the days when Varius himself had prosecuted those he alleged had been in favor of the citizenship for Italy.

  Silver-tongued, golden-voiced, Sulpicius found exactly the right note. "Who do they think they are to sit in the Senate and make the decisions this body should be making, when hardly one of them isn't a poor man and hopelessly in debt?" he cried. "For all of you who are in debt, there is no relief—no way of hiding behind senatorial exclusivity, no easing of your burdens by understanding moneylenders who do not think it politic to push you too far! Yet for them inside the Curia Hostilia, trifling little matters like debts can be ignored until better times! I know because I am a senator—I hear what they say to each other, I see the favors done here and there for moneylenders! I even know who among those in the Senate lend money! Well, it is all going to stop! No man who owes money should have a seat in the Senate! No man ought to be able to call himself a member of that haughty and exclusive club if he is no better than the rest of Rome!"

  Shocked, the Senate sat up straight, astounded because it was Sulpicius acting like a demagogue. Sulpicius! The most conservative and valuable of men! It had been he who vetoed the recall of the Varian exiles back before the beginning of the year! Now here he was, recalling them! What had happened?

  Two days later Sulpicius reconvened the Plebeian Assembly and promulgated a third law. All the new Italian citizens and many thousands of Rome's freedman citizens were to be distributed evenly across the whole thirty-five tribes. Piso Frugi's two new tribes were to be abandoned.

  "Thirty-five is the proper number of tribes, there can be no more!" shouted Sulpicius. "Nor is it right that some tribes can hold as few as three or four thousand citizens, yet still have the same voting power in tribal assemblies as tribes like Esquilina and Suburana, each with more than a hundred thousand citizen members! Everything in Roman government is designed to protect the almighty Senate and the First Class! Do senators or knights belong to Esquilina or Suburana? Of course not! They belong to Fabia, to Cornelia, to Romilia! Well, let them continue to belong to Fabia, to Cornelia, to Romilia, I say! But let them share Fabia and Cornelia and Romilia with men from Prifernum, Buca, Vibinium—and let them share Fabia and Cornelia and Romilia with freedmen from Esquilina and Suburana!"

  This was greeted with hysterical cheers, having the full approval of all strata save the uppermost and the lowliest; the uppermost because it would lose power, the lowliest because its situation would not be changed in the least.

  "I don't understand!" gasped Antonius Orator to Titus Pomponius as they stood in the well of the Comitia surrounded by screaming, howling supporters of Sulpicius. "He's a nobleman! He hasn't had time to gather so many adherents! He's not a Saturninus! I—do—not—understand!"

  "Oh, I understand," said Titus Pomponius sourly. "He's attacked the Senate for debt. What this crowd here today is hoping for is simple. They think if they pass whatever laws Sulpicius asks them to pass, as a reward he'll legislate for the cancellation of debts."

  "But he can't do that if he's busy throwing men out of the Senate for being in debt for eight thousand sesterces! Eight thousand sesterces! It's a pittance! There's hardly a man in the whole city isn't in debt for at least that much!"

  "In trouble, Marcus Antonius?" asked Titus Pomponius.

  "No, of course not! But that can't be said for more than a handful—even men like Quintus Ancharius, Publius Cornelius Lentulus, Gaius Baebius, Gaius Atilius Serranus— ye gods, the best men on earth, Titus Pomponius! But who hasn't had trouble finding cash these past two years? Look at the Porcii Catones, with all that land in Lucania—not a sestertius of income thanks to the war. And the Lucilii too—southern landowners again." Marcus Antonius paused for breath, then asked, "Why should he legislate for the cancellation of debts when he's throwing men out of the Senate for debt?"

  "He hasn't any intention of cancelling debts," said Pomponius. "The Second and Third Classes are just hoping he will, that's all."

  "Has he promised them anything?"

  "He doesn't have to. Hope is the only sun in their sky, Marcus Antonius. They see a man who hates the Senate and the First Class as much as Saturninus did. So they hope for another Saturninus. But Sulpicius is vastly different."

  "Why?" wailed Antonius Orator.

  "I have absolutely no idea what maggot's in his mind," said Titus Pomponius. "Let's get out of this crowd before it turns on us and rends us limb from limb."

  On the Senate steps they met the junior consul, who was accompanied by his very excited son, just back from military duty in Lucania and still in a martial mood.

  "It's Saturninus all over again!" cried young Pompeius Rufus loudly. "Well, this time we will be ready for him— we're not going to let him get control of the crowds the way Saturninus did! Now that almost everybody is back from the war it's easy to get a trusty gang together and stop him—and that's what I'm going to do! The next contio he calls will turn out very differently, I promise you!"

  Titus Pomponius ignored the son in order to concentrate upon the father and other senators in hearing. "Sulpicius is not remotely another Saturninus," he said doggedly. "The times are different and Sulpicius's motives are different. Then, it was shortage of food. Now, it's the prevalence of debt. But Sulpicius doesn't want to be King of Rome. He wants them to rule Rome"—finger pointing at the Second and Third Classes jammed into the Comitia—"and that is very different indeed."

  "I've sent for Lucius Cornelius," said the junior consul to Titus Pomponius, Antonius Orator and Catulus Caesar, who had heard what Pomponius said and drifted over.

  "Don't you think you can control what's happening, Quintus Pompeius?" asked Pomponius, who was adept at asking awkward questions.

  "No, I don't," said Pompeius Rufus frankly.

  "What about Gaius Marius?" asked Antonius Orator. "He can control any crowd within Rome."

  "Not this time," said Catulus Caesar contemptuously. "In this instance, he's backing the rebellious tribune of the plebs. Yes, Marcus Antonius, it's Gaius Marius who has put Publius Sulpicius up to this!"

  "Oh, I don't believe that," said Antonius Orator.

  "I tell you, Gaius Marius is backing him!"

  "If that is really true," said Titus Pomponius, "then I would say a fourth law will appear on Sulpicius's agenda."

  "A fourth law?" asked Catulus Caesar, frowning.

  "He will legislate to remove the command of the war against Mithridates from Lucius Sulla. Then give it to Gaius Marius."

  "Sulpicius wouldn't dare!" cried Pompeius Rufus.

  "Why not?" Titus Pomponius stared at the junior consul. "I am glad you've sent for the senior consul. When will he be here?"

  "Tomorrow or the day after."

  Sulla arrived well before dawn the next morning, having driven to Rome the moment Pompeius Rufus's letter found him. Did any consul ever have so much bad news? asked Sulla of himself—first the massacre in Asia Province, now another Saturninus. My country is bankrupt, I have just put down one revolution, and against my name in the fasti will go the odium of having sold off State property. Not that any of it matters provided I can deal with it. And I can deal with it.

  "Is there a contio today?" he asked Pompeius Rufus, to whose house he had gone immediately.

  "Yes. Titus Pomponius says Sulpicius is going to put a l
aw forward to strip you of the command in the war against Mithridates and give it to Gaius Marius."

  All outward movement in Sulla stilled, even his eyes. "I am the consul, and the war was given to me legally," he said. "If Gaius Marius was well enough, he could have it gladly. But he isn't well enough. And he can't have it." He blew through his nose. "I suppose this means Gaius Marius is backing Sulpicius."

  "So everyone thinks. Marius hasn't appeared at any of the contiones yet, but it is true that I've seen some of his minions at work in the crowd among the lower Classes. Like that frightful fellow who leads a gang of Suburan roughnecks," said Pompeius Rufus.

  "Lucius Decumius?"

  "Yes, that's him."

  "Well, well!" said Sulla. "This is a new aspect of Gaius Marius, Quintus Pompeius! I didn't think he'd stoop to using tools like Lucius Decumius. Yet I very much fear that having his old age and his poor health pointed out to him so resoundingly in the House has given him to understand he's finished. But he doesn't want to be finished. He wants to go to war against Mithridates. And if that means he must turn himself into a Saturninus, he will."

  "There's going to be trouble, Lucius Cornelius."

  "I know that!"

  "No, I mean that my son and a lot of other sons of senators and knights are assembling a force to expel Sulpicius from the Forum," said Pompeius Rufus.

  "Then you and I had better be in the Forum when Sulpicius convenes the Plebeian Assembly."

  "Armed?"

  "Definitely not. We must try to contain this legally."

  When Sulpicius arrived in the Forum shortly after dawn, it was apparent that he had heard rumors of the band led by the junior consul's son, for he appeared in the midst of a huge escort of young men of the Second and Third Classes, all armed with clubs and small wooden shields; and to protect this inner escort he had surrounded them with a mass of men from what seemed the Fifth Class and the Head Count—ex-gladiators and crossroads college members. So huge was the "bodyguard" that young Quintus Pompeius Rufus's little army was dwarfed to the size of impotence.

  "The People," cried Sulpicius to a Comitia half filled by his "bodyguard" alone, "are sovereign! That is, the People are said to be sovereign! It's a convenient phrase trotted out by the members of the Senate and the leading knights whenever they need your votes. But it means absolutely nothing! It is hollow, it is a mockery! What responsibilities do you truly have in government? You are at the mercy of the men who call you together, the tribunes of the plebs! You don't formulate laws and promulgate them in this Assembly—you are simply here to vote on laws formulated and promulgated by the tribunes of the plebs! And with very few exceptions, who own the tribunes of the plebs? Why, the Senate and the Ordo Equester! And what happens to those tribunes of the plebs who declare themselves the servants of the sovereign People? I'll tell you what happens to them! They are penned up in the Curia Hostilia and smashed into pulp by tiles off the Curia Hostilia roof!"

  Sulla twisted his shoulders. "Well, that's a declaration of war, isn't it? He's going to make Saturninus a hero."

  "He's going to make himself a hero," said Catulus Caesar.

  "Listen!" said Merula flamen Dialis sharply.

  "It is time," Sulpicius was saying, "that the Senate and the Ordo Equester were shown once and for all who is sovereign in Rome! That is why I stand here before you— your champion—your protector—your servant. You are just emerging from three frightful years, years during which you were required to shoulder the bulk of the burden of taxes and land deprivation. You gave Rome most of the money to fund a civil war. But did anyone in the Senate ask you what you thought about war against your brothers, the Italian Allies?"

  "We certainly did ask!" said Scaevola Pontifex Maximus grimly. "They were more passionately for war than the Senate was!"

  "They're not about to remember that now," said Sulla.

  "No, they didn't ask you!" shouted Sulpicius. "They denied your brothers the Italians their citizenship, not yours! Yours is a mere shadow. Theirs is the substance ruling Rome! They couldn't allow the addition of thousands of new members into their exclusive little rural tribes—that would have given their inferiors too much power! So even after the franchise was granted to the Italians they made sure the new citizens were contained within too few tribes to affect electoral outcomes! But all of that ends, sovereign People, the moment you ratify my law to distribute the new citizens and the freedmen of Rome across the whole thirty-five tribes!"

  A wave of cheering broke out so loudly that Sulpicius was obliged to stop; he stood, smiling broadly, a handsome man in his middle thirties with a patrician look to him despite his plebeian rank—fine boned, fair in coloring.

  "There are also other ways in which you have been cheated, thanks to the Senate and the Ordo Equester," Sulpicius went on when the noise died down. "It is more than time that the prerogative—and it is no more than prerogative, for it is not law!—of conferring all military commands and directing all wars was removed from the Senate and the Senate's secret masters of the Ordo Equester! It is time that you—the backbone, the basis of everything truly Roman!— were given the tasks you should have under the law. Among those tasks is the right to decide whether or not Rome should go to war—and if it is to be war, who should command."

  "Here it comes," said Catulus Caesar.

  Sulpicius turned to level his finger at Sulla, who stood in the forefront of the crowd atop the Senate steps, his looks singling him out. "There is the senior consul! Elected senior consul by his peers, not yours! How long is it since even the Third Class was needed to cast a ballot in the consular elections?"

  Seeming to realize that he was in danger of drifting from his point, Sulpicius paused, came back to it. "The senior consul was given the command in a war so vital to the future of Rome that if that war is not conducted by the best man in Rome, Rome may well cease to exist. So who gave the command of the war against King Mithridates of Pontus to the senior consul? Who decided he was the best man in Rome to do the job? Why, the Senate and their secret masters of the Ordo Equester! Putting up their own, as always! Willing to jeopardize Rome in order to see a patrician nobleman put on the trappings of the general! For who is this Lucius Cornelius Sulla? What wars has he won? Do you know him, sovereign People? Well, I can tell you who he is! Lucius Cornelius Sulla stands there because he rode on Gaius Marius's back! Everything he has achieved he achieved by riding on Gaius Marius's back! He is said to have won the war against the Italians! But we all know that it was Gaius Marius dealt the first and hardest blows—had Gaius Marius not, then this man Sulla couldn't have gone on to victory!"

  "How dare he!" gasped Crassus Censor. "It was you and no one but you, Lucius Cornelius! You won the Grass Crown! You brought the Italians to their knees!" He drew in a great breath to shout this at Sulpicius, but shut his mouth when Sulla twisted his arm.

  "Leave be, Publius Licinius! If we start shouting at them, they'll turn on us and lynch us. I want this mess cleared up in a legal and peaceful way," said Sulla.

  Sulpicius was still hammering his point home. "Can this Lucius Cornelius Sulla address you, sovereign People? Of course he can't! He's a patrician! Too good for the likes of you! In order to give this precious patrician the command of the war against Mithridates, the Senate and the Ordo Equester passed over a far more qualified and able man! They passed over none other than Gaius Marius! Saying he was sick, saying he was old! But I ask you, sovereign People!—who have you seen every single day for the past two years walking through this city forcing himself to get well? Exercising, looking better every day? Gaius Marius! Who might be old, but is no longer sick! Gaius Marius! Who might be old, but is still the best man in Rome!"

  The cheering had broken out again, but not for Sulpicius. The crowd parted to reveal Gaius Marius walking down to the bottom of the Comitia well, briskly and on his own; Gaius Marius no longer needed to lean on his boy, who was not with him.

  "Sovereign People of Rome, I ask you to approve of a fourth law
in my program of legislation!'' Sulpicius shouted, beaming at Gaius Marius. "I propose that the command of the war against King Mithridates of Pontus be stripped away from the haughty patrician Lucius Cornelius Sulla, and given to your own Gaius Marius!"

  Sulla waited to hear no more. Asking that Scaevola Pontifex Maximus and Merula flamen Dialis accompany him, he walked home.

  Ensconced in his study, Sulla looked at them. "Well, what do we do?" he asked.

  "Why Lucius Merula and me?" was Scaevola's answer.

  "You're the heads of our religion," said Sulla, "and you know the law as well. Find me a way to prolong Sulpicius's campaign in the Comitia until the crowd gets tired of it— and him."

  "Something soft," said Merula thoughtfully.

  "Soft as kitten's fur," said Sulla, tossing back a cup of unwatered wine. "If it came to a pitched battle in the Forum, he'd win. He's no Saturninus! Sulpicius is a much cleverer man. He beat us to the violent alternatives. I did a rough count of the number in his guard, and came up with a figure not much short of four thousand. And they're armed. Clubs on the surface, but I suspect swords underneath. We can't field a civilian force capable of teaching them a lesson in a space as confined as the Forum Romanum.'' Sulla stopped, grimaced as if he tasted something sour and bitter; his pale cold eyes looked into nothing, "If I have to, Pontifex Maximus, flamen Dialis, I will pile Pelion on top of Ossa before I see our rightful privileges overturned! Including my own position! But let us first see if we can't defeat Sulpicius with his own weapon—the People."

  "Then," said Scaevola, "the only thing to do is to declare all the Comitial days between now and whenever you wish as feriae."