The Grass Crown

by Colleen McCullough

  Supported by Cicero, his weeping son walked down the Vicus Sub Aggere below the double rampart of the Agger, heading for Venus Libitina to arrange for his father's funeral. Had this been held in Picenum on Pompey Strabo's enormous estates, it would have been almost as large as the parade of a triumphing general, but the son was as shrewd as he was capable, and understood that the obsequies must be kept as simple as possible given the circumstances; the men were upset enough, and the inhabitants of the Quirinal, Viminal, and upper Esquiline hated the dead leader intensely, blaming his camp for the diseases currently decimating them.

  "What will you do?" asked Cicero as the grove of cypresses sheltering the booths of the Guild of Undertakers came into view.

  "I'm going home to Picenum," said Pompey amid terrible heaves of chest and shoulders, eyes and nose running. "My father was wrong to come—I told him not to come! Let Rome perish, I said! But he wouldn't listen. He said he had to protect my birthright, he had to make sure Rome was still Rome against the day when it would be my turn to be consul."

  "Come into the city with me and stay for a while in my house," said Cicero, in tears himself; much though he had loathed and feared Pompey Strabo, he was not proof against the son's desolation. "Gnaeus Pompeius, I've met Accius! He came to Rome to produce his new play for the ludi Romani, and then when the trouble arose between Lucius Cinna and Gnaeus Octavius, he said he was too old to make the journey back to Umbria while there was so much unrest. I suspect he likes the present atmosphere of high drama is closer to the truth! Please, come and stay with me for a while. You're closely related to the great Lucilius—you'd so much enjoy Accius. And it would take your mind off all this chaotic horror."

  "No," said Pompey, still weeping. "I'm going home."

  "With your army?"

  "It was my father's army. Rome can have it."

  The two young men were some hours on their doleful errand, so did not return to the villa just outside the Colline Gate wherein Pompey Strabo had taken up residence until well after noon. No one—least of all the grief-stricken Pompey—had thought to mount a guard within the spacious grounds; the general was dead, there was nothing of value within. Of servants there were few thanks to the inroads of disease, but when son and friend had left, they had already laid Pompey Strabo out upon his bed, two female slaves keeping vigil.

  Now Pompey and Cicero found the place utterly deserted—still, silent, seemingly untenanted. And when they entered the room wherein Pompey Strabo lay, they discovered him gone.

  Pompey whooped triumphantly. "He's alive!" he cried, face suffused with incredulous joy.

  "Gnaeus Pompeius, your father is dead," said Cicero, whose emotions were not engaged upon the father's account at all, and who therefore retained his good sense. "Come, calm yourself! You know he was dead when we left. We washed him, we dressed him. He was dead!"

  The joy died, but not to be replaced by a new outbreak of tears. Instead, the fresh young face hardened to stone. "What is it then? Where is my father?"

  "The servants are gone, even those who were ill, I think," said Cicero. "The first thing we had better do is search the place."

  The search revealed nothing, yielded no clues as to where the body of Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo had gone. The one growing ever stonier, the other ever more bewildered, Pompey and Cicero left the villa to gather its silence fast around it, and stood outside on the Via Nomentana looking both ways.

  "Do we go to the camp or the gate?" asked Cicero.

  Both lay within scant paces. Pompey wrinkled his brow as he thought, then made up his mind.

  “We'll go to the general's tent. Perhaps the men removed him to lie in state there," he said.

  They had turned and were walking campward when someone shouted.

  "Gnaeus Pompeius! Gnaeus Pompeius!"

  Back they swung toward the gate, to see a disheveled Brutus Damasippus waving at them as he ran.

  "Your father!" he panted, reaching Pompey.

  "What about my father?" Pompey asked, very cool, very calm.

  "The people of Rome stole his body saying they were going to drag it behind an ass through every street in the city!" said Brutus Damasippus. "One of the women keeping vigil came to tell me, and like a fool I just ran! I suppose thinking I'd catch them. Luckily I saw you—otherwise they'd probably be dragging me as well." He looked at Pompey with as much respect as he would have accorded the father. "What do you want me to do?" he asked.

  "Bring two cohorts of soldiers to me here at once," Pompey said curtly. "Then we'll go inside and look for him."

  Cicero didn't ask why, nor did Pompey say a word while they waited. The ultimate insult had been done Pompey Strabo, and there could be no doubt why; it was the only way left to the people of the northeastern city to express their contempt and disgust for one they deemed the author of their woes. The more crowded parts of Rome all received their water from the aqueducts, but the upper Esquiline, Viminal and Quirinal, less populous, relied heavily on local spring water.

  When Pompey led his cohorts through the Colline Gate and into its very large marketplace, he found the whole area deserted. Nor was a soul on the streets beyond, even in the meanest alley leading to the lower Esquiline. One by one the narrow thoroughfares were combed, Damasippus taking a cohort toward the Agger, the two young men working in the opposite direction. Three hours later Pompey's contingent found their dead general sprawled on the lower Alta Semita outside the temple of Salus.

  Well, thought Cicero to himself, the place they chose to leave him says everything. Outside the temple of Good Health.

  "I shall not forget," said Pompey, looking down at the naked and mangled body of his father. "When I am consul and embark upon my building program, nothing will I give to the Quirinal!"

  When Cinna heard of the death of Pompey Strabo, he breathed a sigh of relief. Then when he heard how the body of Pompey Strabo had been dragged through the streets of the city, he whistled softly. So all was not happy within Rome! Nor apparently were Rome's military defenders popular with the ordinary people. Happily he settled to wait for the surrender he now expected would come within hours.

  But it did not come. Seemingly Octavius had decided that only if the ordinary people boiled into open revolt would he surrender.

  Quintus Sertorius came to report late on that same day, his left eye covered by a blood-soaked bandage.

  “What's happened to you?'' demanded Cinna, dismayed.

  "Lost my eye," said Sertorius briefly.

  "Ye gods!"

  "Lucky for me it's my left one," said Sertorius stoically. "I can still see on my sword side, so it shouldn't inconvenience me much in a battle."

  "Sit down," said Cinna, pouring wine. He watched his legate closely, deciding there was little in this life capable of throwing Quintus Sertorius off balance. Then, when Sertorius was settled, Cinna sat down himself, sighing. "You know, Quintus Sertorius, you were quite right," he said slowly.

  "About Gaius Marius, you mean?"

  "Yes." Cinna turned the cup between his hands. "I am no longer in total command. Oh, I'm respected among the senior ranks! I mean the men. The soldiers. The Samnite and other Italian volunteers. It's Gaius Marius they follow, not me."

  "It was bound to happen. In the old days it wouldn't have mattered a rush. No fairer-minded, more farsighted man than Gaius Marius ever lived. But this isn't that Gaius Marius," said Sertorius. A bloody tear slid from beneath his bandage, and was wiped away. "No worse thing could have happened to him at his age and in his infirmity than this exile. I've seen enough of him to know that he's simply counterfeiting an interest in the job—what he's really interested in is his revenge on those who exiled him. He's surrounded himself with the worst specimens of legate I've seen in years—Fimbria! A complete wolfshead. As for his personal legion—he calls it his bodyguard and refuses to admit it's an official part of his army—it's composed of as vicious and rapacious a collection of slaves and ex-slaves as any Sicilian slave rebel leader might hope for. But
he's not lost his mental acuteness, Lucius Cinna, so much as he's lost his moral acuteness. He knows he owns your armies! And I very much fear he intends to use them for his personal advancement, not Rome's welfare. I am only here with you and your forces for one big reason, Lucius Cinna—I cannot condone the illegal dismissal of a consul during his year in office. But I cannot condone what I suspect Gaius Marius is planning to do, so it may well be that you and I will have to part company."

  Cinna's hackles were rising; he stared at Sertorius in dawning horror. "You mean he's set on a bloodbath?"

  "I believe so. Nor do I think anyone can stop him."

  "But he can't do that! It is absolutely essential that I enter Rome as rightful consul—restore peace—prevent further shedding of blood—and try to get our poor Rome on her feet again."

  "The best of luck," said Sertorius dryly, and stood up. "I'll be on the Campus Martius, Lucius Cinna, and I intend to stay there. My men will follow me, so much you can count on. And I support the reinstallation of the legally elected consul! I do not support any faction led by Gaius Marius."

  "Stay on the Campus Martius, by all means. But please, I beg you, come to whatever negotiations ensue!"

  "Don't worry, I wouldn't miss that fiasco for anything," said Sertorius, and departed, still wiping his left cheek.

  The next day, however, Marius packed up his camp and led his legions away from Rome toward the Latin plains. The death of Pompey Strabo had brought home a lesson; that so many men temporarily crowded around such a large city bred frightful disease. Better, Marius decided, to draw his men into the fresh air and unpolluted water of the countryside, and there pillage the grain and other foodstuffs they needed from the various granaries and barns dotted all over the Latin plains. Aricia, Bovillae, Lanuvium, Antium, Ficana, and Laurentum all fell, though none had offered resistance.

  Hearing of Marius's departure, Quintus Sertorius privately wondered whether the real reason behind Marius's withdrawal was a reflexive movement to safeguard himself and his men from Cinna. Mad he might be, but a fool he was not.

  It was now the end of November. Everyone on both sides—or all three sides might have been a more accurate assessment—knew that Gnaeus Octavius Ruso's "true" government of Rome was doomed. The dead Pompey Strabo's army had flatly refused to accept Metellus Pius as its new commander, then marched over the Mulvian Bridge to offer its services to Gaius Marius. Not to Lucius Cinna.

  The death toll from disease now stood at over eighteen thousand people, many of them from the ranks of Pompey Strabo's legions. And the granaries within Rome were now completely empty. Sensing the beginning of the end, Marius brought his five-thousand-strong bodyguard of slaves and ex-slaves back to the southern flank of the Janiculum. Significantly, he did not bring the rest of his army with him, neither the Samnites, the Italians nor the remnants of Pompey Strabo's forces. Thus ensuring his own safety? wondered Quintus Sertorius. Yes, it very much looked as if Marius was deliberately keeping the bulk of his own men in reserve.

  On the third day of December a treating party crossed the Tiber via the two bridges connecting through Tiber Island. It consisted of Metellus Pius the Piglet (who was its official leader), the censor Publius Crassus, and the Brothers Caesar. Waiting for them at the end of the second bridge was Lucius Cinna. And Gaius Marius.

  "Greetings, Lucius Cinna," said Metellus Pius, outraged to see Marius present, especially as he was attended by that vile wretch Fimbria, and a gigantic German in ostentatious golden armor.

  "Do you address me as the consul or as a private citizen, Quintus Caecilius?" asked Cinna coldly.

  As Cinna said this, Marius rounded on him furiously and snarled, "Weakling! Spineless idiot!"

  Metellus Pius swallowed. "As consul, Lucius Cinna," he said.

  Whereupon Catulus Caesar rounded on the Piglet furiously and snarled, "Traitor!"

  "That man is not consul! He is guilty of sacrilege!" cried the censor Crassus.

  "He doesn't need to be consul, he's the victor!" shouted Marius.

  Clapping his hands over his ears to shut out the heated exchanges between all present save himself and Cinna, Metellus Pius turned on his heel in anger and stalked back across the bridges into Rome.

  When he reported what had happened to Octavius, Octavius too flew at the hapless Piglet. "How dared you admit he's consul? He is not consul! Cinna is nefas! snapped Octavius.

  "The man is consul, Gnaeus Octavius, and will continue to be consul until the end of this month," said Metellus Pius coldly.

  "A fine negotiator you turned out to be! Don't you even understand that the worst thing any of us can do is to acknowledge Lucius Cinna as true consul?" asked Octavius, wagging one finger at the Piglet much as a schoolmaster might chastise a student.

  The Piglet lost his temper. "Then you go and do better!" he said tightly. "And don't you point your finger at me! You're little better than a jumped-up nobody! I am a Caecilius Metellus, and not Romulus himself points a finger at me! Whether it suits your ideas or not, Lucius Cinna is consul. If I go back again and he asks me the same question again, I will give him the same answer!"

  His unhappiness and discomfort, present since the very beginning of his tenure of the curule chair, now became intolerable; the flamen Dialis and suffect consul Merula drew himself up and faced his colleague Octavius and the enraged Metellus Pius with all the dignity he could muster. "Gnaeus Octavius, I must resign as consul suffectus," he said quietly. "It is not fitting that the priest of Jupiter be a curule magistrate. The Senate, yes. Imperium, no."

  Speechless, the rest of the group watched Merula leave the lower Forum—where this exchange had taken place— and walk up the Via Sacra toward his State House.

  Catulus Caesar then looked at Metellus Pius. "Quintus Caecilius, would you assume the military high command?" he asked. "If we made your appointment official, perhaps both our men and our city might take on a new lease of life."

  But Metellus Pius shook his head firmly. "No, Quintus Lutatius, I will not. Our men and our city have no heart for this cause, between disease and hunger. And—though it gives me no joy to say it—their uncertainty as to who is in the right. I hope none of us wants another battle through the streets of Rome—Lucius Sulla's was one too many. We must come to terms! But with Lucius Cinna. Not with Gaius Marius."

  Octavius looked around the faces of his treating party, lifted his shoulders, shrugged, sighed in defeat. "All right then, Quintus Caecilius. All right. Go back and see Lucius Cinna again."

  Back went the Piglet, accompanied only by Catulus Caesar and his son, Catulus. It was now the fifth day of December.

  This time they were received in greater state. Cinna had set up a high platform and sat atop it in his curule chair while the treating party stood below and were forced to look up at him. With him on the dais—though unseated and standing behind him—was Gaius Marius.

  "First of all, Quintus Caecilius," said Cinna loudly, "I bid you welcome. Secondly, I assure you that Gaius Marius's status is that of an observer only. He understands that he is a privatus, and cannot speak during formal negotiations."

  "I thank you, Lucius Cinna," said the Piglet with equally stiff formality, "and inform you that I am authorized to treat only with you, not with Gaius Marius. What are your conditions?"

  "That I enter Rome as Rome's consul."

  "Agreed. The flamen Dialis has already stepped down."

  "No future retaliations will be tolerated."

  "None will be made," said Metellus Pius.

  "The new citizens from Italy and Italian Gaul will be given tribal status across the full thirty-five."

  "Agreed absolutely."

  "The slaves who deserted from service under Roman owners to enlist in my armies are to be guaranteed their freedom and the full citizenship," said Cinna.

  The Piglet froze. "Impossible!" he snapped. "Impossible!"

  "It is a condition, Quintus Caecilius. It must be agreed to along with the rest," Cinna maintained.

&
nbsp; "I will never consent to free and enfranchise slaves who deserted their legal masters!"

  Catulus Caesar stepped forward. "A word with you in private, Quintus Caecilius?" he asked delicately.

  It took Catulus Caesar and his son a long time to persuade the Piglet this particular condition must be met; that in the end Metellus Pius yielded was only because he too could see Cinna was adamant—though he wondered on whose behalf, his own or Marius's? There were few slaves in Cinna's forces, but Marius's were riddled with them, according to reports.

  "All right, I agree to that stupidity about the slaves," said the Piglet ungraciously. "However, there is one point on which I must set the terms."

  "Oh?" from Cinna.

  "There can be no bloodshed," said the Piglet strongly. "No disenfranchisements, no proscriptions, no banishments, no trials for treason, no executions. In this business, all men have done as their principles and convictions have dictated. No man ought to be penalized for adhering to his principles and convictions, no matter how repugnant they may seem. That goes as much for those who have followed you, Lucius Cinna, as it does for those who followed Gnaeus Octavius."

  Cinna nodded. "I agree with you wholeheartedly, Quintus Caecilius. There must be no revenge."

  "Will you swear to that?" asked the Piglet slyly.

  Cinna shook his head, blushing. "I cannot, Quintus Caecilius. The most I can guarantee is that I will do my personal utmost to see that there are no treason trials, no bloodshed, no confiscations of men's property."

  Metellus Pius turned his head slightly to look directly at the silent Gaius Marius. "Are you implying, Lucius Cinna, that you—the consul!—cannot control your own faction?"

  Cinna flinched, but said steadily, "I can control it."

  "Then will you swear?"

  "No, I will not swear," said Cinna with great dignity, red face betraying his discomfort. He rose from his chair to signify that the meeting was over, and accompanied Metellus Pius down to the Tiber Island bridge. For a few precious moments he and the Piglet were alone. "Quintus Caecilius," he said urgently, "I can control my faction! Just the same, I would rest easier if Gnaeus Octavius is kept out of the Forum—kept completely out of sight! In case. A remote possibility. I can control my faction! But I would rather Gnaeus Octavius was not on display. Tell him!"