The Grass Crown

by Colleen McCullough

  "I will," said Metellus Pius.

  Marius caught up to them at a hobbling run, so anxious was he to cut this private conversation short. He looked, the Piglet thought, quite grotesque. There was something new and horribly simian about him, and a diminishing in that awesome air of power he had always radiated, even in the days when the Piglet's father had been his commander in Numidia, and the Piglet a mere cadet.

  "When do you and Gaius Marius plan to enter the city?" asked Catulus Caesar of Cinna as the two parties prepared to go their separate ways.

  Before Cinna could answer, Gaius Marius broke his silence with a contemptuous snort. "Lucius Cinna can enter as the lawful consul any time he likes," said Marius, "but I am waiting here with the army until the convictions against me and my friends have been legally quashed."

  Cinna could hardly wait for Metellus Pius and his escort to start walking away down the Tiber Island bridge before he said to Marius sharply, "What do you mean, you'll stay with the army until your conviction is quashed?"

  The old man stood there looking more inhuman than human; like Mormolyce or Lamia, a monstrous, wickedly intelligent tormentor from the Underworld. He was smiling, his eyes glittering through the tangled curtain of his brows, bushier than of yore because he had developed a habit of pulling at them.

  "My dear Lucius Cinna, it's Gaius Marius the army follows, not you! Were it not for me, the desertions would have been all the other way, and Octavius would have won. Think on that! If I enter the city still inscribed on the tablets as an outlaw under sentence of death, what's to stop you and Octavius agreeing to patch up your differences and carry out the sentence on me? What a pickle for me to be in! There I'd be, standing around with my cap of liberty in my hand, a privatus waiting for the consuls and the Senate—a body I no longer belong to!—to absolve me of my nonexistent crimes. Now I ask you—is that a fitting stance for Gaius Marius?" He patted Cinna patronizingly on the shoulder. "No, Lucius Cinna, you have your little moment of glory all to yourself! You enter Rome alone. I'll stay where I am. With the army I own. Because you don't."

  Cinna writhed. "Are you saying you'd use the army— my army!—against me? The lawful consul?"

  "Cheer up, it won't get as far as that," said Marius with a laugh. "Say, rather, that the army will be most concerned to see Gaius Marius gets his due."

  "And what exactly is Gaius Marius's due?"

  "On the Kalends of January, I will be the new senior consul. You of course will be my junior colleague."

  "But I can't be consul again!" gasped Cinna, horrified.

  "Rubbish! Of course you can! Now go away, do!" said Marius in the same tone he would have used to an importunate child.

  Cinna went to seek out Sertorius and Carbo, who had been present at the negotiations, and told them what Marius had said.

  "Don't say you weren't warned," said Sertorius grimly.

  "What can we do?" wailed Cinna, despairing. "He's right, the army belongs to him!"

  "Not my two legions," said Sertorius.

  "Insufficient to pit against him," said Carbo.

  "What can we do?" wailed Cinna again.

  "For the moment, nothing. Let the old man have his day—and his precious seventh consulship," said Carbo, teeth set hard together. "We'll worry about him after Rome is ours."

  Sertorius made no further comment; he was too busy trying to decide what his own future course ought to be. Somehow every last one of them was sounding meaner, nastier, smaller, more selfish, more grasping. They've caught the disease from Gaius Marius, and they're busy giving it to each other. As for myself, he thought, I am not sure I want to be a part of this sordid and unspeakable conspiracy for power. Rome is sovereign. But thanks to Lucius Cornelius Sulla, men have now got the idea that they can be sovereign over Rome.

  When Metellus Pius reported the gist of Cinna's advice about Octavius's staying out of sight to Octavius and the rest, every last one of them knew what was in the wind. This was one of the few conferences at which Scaevola Pontifex Maximus was present; it had not escaped notice that he was withdrawing as unobtrusively as possible into the background. Probably, thought Metellus Pius, because he can see victory for Gaius Marius looming, and remembers that his daughter is still affianced to Young Marius.

  Catulus Caesar sighed. "Well, I suggest that all the younger men quit Rome before Lucius Cinna enters. We will need all our younger boni for the future—these awful creatures like Cinna and Marius will not last forever. And one day Lucius Sulla is going to come home." He paused, then added, "I think we old fellows are better off staying in Rome and taking our chances. I for one have no desire to emulate Gaius Marius's odyssey, even were I guaranteed no Liris swamps."

  The Piglet looked at Mamercus. "What do you say?"

  Mamercus considered. "I think it imperative you should go, Quintus Caecilius, I really do. But for the moment I shall stay. I'm not such a big fish in Rome's pond."

  "Very well, I will go," said Metellus Pius with decision.

  "And I will go," said the senior consul Octavius loudly.

  Everyone turned to look at him, puzzled.

  "I will set myself up on a tribunal in the Janiculan garrison," Octavius said, "and wait there for whatever comes. That way, if they are determined to spill my blood, it will not pollute the air or the stones of Rome."

  No one bothered to argue. The massacre of Octavius's Day made this course inevitable.

  The following day at dawn Lucius Cornelius Cinna, in his toga praetexta and preceded by his twelve lictors, entered the city of Rome on foot across the bridges linking Tiber Island with either bank of the Tiber River.

  But, having heard where Gnaeus Octavius Ruso had gone from a friend in the confidence of those inside Rome, Gaius Marcius Censorinus gathered a troop of Numidian cavalry and rode for the fortress on the Janiculum. No one had authorized this sortie—indeed, no one knew of it, least of all Cinna. That Censorinus had taken it upon himself to do what he intended to do was Cinna's fault; those of wolfish disposition among Cinna's officers had come to the conclusion that once he entered the city, Cinna would knuckle under to men like Catulus Caesar and Scaevola Pontifex Maximus. That the whole campaign to return Cinna to authority in Rome would end as a dry and bloodless exercise. But Octavius at least would not escape, vowed Censorinus.

  Finding his entry to the stronghold uncontested (Octavius had dismissed the garrison), Censorinus rode into the outer stockade at the head of his five-hundred-strong troop.

  And there on the tribunal in the citadel forum sat Gnaeus Octavius Ruso, shaking his head adamantly in response to his chief lictor's pleas that he leave. Hearing the sound of many hooves, Octavius turned and arranged himself properly upon his curule chair, his lictors white-faced in fear.

  Gaius Marcius Censorinus ignored the attendants. Sword drawn, he came down from his horse, bounded up the tribunal steps, walked to where Octavius sat calmly, and fastened the fingers of his left hand in Octavius's hair. One powerful yank, and the senior consul—who did not fight back—came to his knees. While the terrified lictors looked on helplessly, Censorinus raised his sword in both hands and brought it down with all the force he could summon upon Octavius's bared neck.

  Two of the troopers took the dripping head, its face curiously peaceful, and fixed it upon a spear. Censorinus took it himself, then dismissed the squadron back to camp on the Vatican plain; on one point he was not prepared to disobey orders, and that concerned Cinna's edict that no soldiers of any kind were to cross the pomerium. Tossing his sword, helmet, and cuirass to his servant, he mounted his horse clad in his leather under-dress and rode straight to the Forum Romanum, carrying the shaft before him like a lance. Without a word he raised the spear on high and presented the head of Octavius to the unsuspecting Cinna.

  The consul's initial reaction was naked horror; he recoiled physically, both hands up with palms outward to fend this appalling gift off. Then he thought of Marius waiting across the river, and of all those eyes upon him and his kno
wn lieutenant Censorinus. He drew a sobbing breath, closed his eyes in pain, and faced the hideous consequences of his march upon Rome.

  "Fix it to the rostra," he said to Censorinus. Turning to the silent crowd, he shouted, "This is the only act of violence I condone! I vowed that Gnaeus Octavius Ruso would not live to see me resume my place as consul. He it was— together with Lucius Sulla!—who began this custom! They put the head of my friend Publius Sulpicius where this head is now. It is fitting that Octavius should continue the custom—as will Lucius Sulla when he returns! Look well on Gnaeus Octavius, People of Rome! Look well on the head of the man who brought all this pain and hunger and suffering into being when he slaughtered over six thousand men upon the Campus Martius in the midst of a legally convened assembly. Rome is avenged! There will be no more bloodshed! Nor was the blood of Gnaeus Octavius shed within the pomerium."

  Not quite the truth; but it would serve.

  Within the space of seven days the laws of Lucius Cornelius Sulla came tumbling down. A pale shadow of its old self, the Centuriate Assembly took its example from Sulla by legislating to pass the measures in a bigger hurry than the lex Caecilia Didia prima permitted. Its former powers restored, the Plebeian Assembly then met to elect new tribunes of the plebs, as they were already overdue. A spate of new legislation followed: the Italian and Italian Gallic citizens (but not the freedmen of Rome—Cinna had decided not to risk that) were distributed across the thirty-five tribes without let or hindrance or special provisos; Gaius Marius and his fellow fugitives were restored to their rightful positions and ranks; a proconsular imperium was now officially bestowed upon Gaius Marius; the two new tribes of Piso Frugi were abolished; all the men exiled under the original Varian Commission were recalled; and—last but not least— Gaius Marius was formally given command of the war in the East against King Mithridates of Pontus and his allies.

  The elections for the plebeian aediles were held in the Plebeian Assembly, after which the Assembly of the Whole People was convoked to elect curule aediles, quaestors, tribunes of the soldiers. Though they were three to four years off their thirtieth birthdays, Gaius Flavius Fimbria, Publius Annius and Gaius Marcius Censorinus were all elected quaestors and appointed immediately to the Senate, neither censor thinking it wise to protest.

  In an odor of extreme sanctity, Cinna ordered the Centuries to assemble to elect the curule magistrates; he convened his meeting on the Aventine outside the pomerium, as Sertorius was still sitting on the Campus Martius with two legions. A sad gathering of no more than six hundred men of the Classes, most of them senators and very senior knights, dutifully returned as consuls the only two names put up as candidates—Lucius Cornelius Cinna, and Gaius Marius in absentia. The form had been observed, the election was legal. Gaius Marius was now consul of Rome for the seventh time, and the fourth time in absentia. The prophecy was fulfilled.

  Cinna had his little moment of revenge nonetheless; when the consuls were elected, it was he who occupied the senior position, Gaius Marius the junior. Then came the praetorian elections. Only six names were put up to fill six positions, but again the form was observed, the vote could be said to be legal. Rome had her proper array of magistrates, even if there had been a dearth of candidates. Cinna could now concentrate upon trying to rectify the damage of the past few months—damage Rome could ill afford to sustain after the long war against the Italians and the loss of the East.

  Like an animal backed into a corner, the city remained still and vigilant during the remainder of December, while the armies packed around her shifted and redistributed. The Samnite contingents went back to Aesernia and Nola, the latter to lock themselves in again; for Gaius Marius had graciously given Appius Claudius Pulcher permission to remove himself and his old legion back to the siege of Nola. Though Sertorius had the legion, he persuaded its men to go back to work for a commander they despised, and saw it march for Campania without regret. Many of the veterans who had enlisted to help their old general now also returned to their homes, including the two cohorts who had sailed from Cercina with Marius the moment Marius had heard Cinna was moving.

  Reduced to one legion, Sertorius lay on the Campus Martius like a cat feigning deep sleep. He kept himself aloof from Gaius Marius, who had elected to keep his five-thousand-strong bodyguard of slaves and ex-slaves. What are you up to, you dreadful old man? asked Sertorius of himself. You have deliberately sent every decent element away, and retained that element which is committed to follow you into any atrocity.

  4

  Gaius Marius entered Rome at last on New Year's Day as her lawfully elected consul, riding a pure white horse, clad in a purple-bordered toga, and wearing an oak-leaf crown. At his side rode the hulking Cimbric slave Burgundus in beautiful golden armor, girt with a sword, and mounted upon a Bastamian horse so big its hooves were the size of buckets. And behind him walked five thousand slaves and ex-slaves, all clad in reinforced leather, and wearing swords—not quite soldiers, but not civilians either.

  Consul seven times! The prophecy was fulfilled. Nothing else lived inside Gaius Marius's head but those words as he rode between walls of cheering, weeping people; what did it really matter whether he was the senior or the junior consul, when the people welcomed their hero so passionately, so blindly? Did they care that he rode instead of walked? Did they care that he came from across the Tiber rather than from his house? Did they care that he hadn't stood the night watch for omens in the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus? Not one iota! He was Gaius Marius. What was required for other, lesser men was not required for Gaius Marius.

  Moving inexorably toward his fate, he arrived in the lower Forum Romanum and there found Lucius Cornelius Cinna waiting for him at the head of a procession comprising senators and a very few senior knights. Burgundus got Marius down from the pure white horse with a minimum of fuss, adjusted the folds of his master's toga—and, when Marius took the place in front of Cinna, stood beside him.

  "Come on, Lucius Cinna, let's get it over!" snapped Marius in loud tones, starting to walk. "I've done this six times before and you've done it once, so let's not turn it into a triumphal parade!"

  "Just a moment!" shouted the ex-praetor Quintus Ancharius, stepping out of his place among the men in purple-bordered togas who followed Cinna, and moving quickly to plant himself firmly in front of Gaius Marius. "You are in the wrong order, consuls. Gaius Marius, you are junior consul. You go after Lucius Cinna, not ahead of him. I also demand that you get rid of this great barbarian brute from our solemn deputation to the Great God, and order your bodyguard to leave the city or remove their swords."

  For a moment Marius looked as if he would strike Ancharius, or perhaps order his German giant to set the ex-praetor aside; then the old man shrugged, repositioned himself behind Cinna. But the slave Burgundus remained alongside him, and he had spoken no word commanding his bodyguard to leave.

  "On the first issue, Quintus Ancharius, you have a point of law," said Marius fiercely, "but on the second and third issues I will not yield. My life has been imperiled enough of late years. And I am infirm. 'Therefore my slave will remain by my side. My Bardyaei will remain in the Forum and wait to escort me after the ceremonies are over."

  Quintus Ancharius looked mutinous, but finally nodded and went back to his place; a praetor in the same year Sulla had been consul, he was an inveterate Marius-hater, and proud of it. Not unless he had been tied down would he have allowed Marius to get away with walking ahead of Cinna in the procession, especially after it dawned upon him that Cinna was going to accept this monumental insult. That he went back to his place was in reaction to the look of piteous appeal Cinna gave him; his gorge rose. Why should he fight a weak man's battles? Oh, prayed Quintus Ancharius, finish that war and come home soon, Lucius Sulla!

  The hundred-odd knights who led the procession had moved off the moment Marius commanded Cinna to walk, and had reached the temple of Saturn before realizing the two consuls and the Senate were still halted, apparently in argument. Thus t
he start of that pilgrimage to the home of the Great God on the Capitol was as ill-concerted as it was ill-omened. No one, including Cinna, had had the courage to point out that Gaius Marius had not kept watch through the night, as the new consuls were obliged to do; and Cinna said nothing to anyone about the dense black shape of some webbed and taloned creature he had seen fly across the wan sky as he stood his watch.

  Never had a New Year's Day consular inauguration been so quickly completed as that one, either, even the famous one when Marius had wanted to commence the consular ceremonies still garbed as a triumphing general. Less than four shortish daylight hours later, everything was over— sacrifices, the meeting of the Senate within the temple of the Great God, the feast which followed. Nor had any group of men in the past ever been so anxious to escape afterward. As the procession came down off the Capitol, every man saw the head of Gnaeus Octavius Ruso still rotting on its spear at the edge of the rostra, bird-tattered face turned to gaze up at the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus with empty sockets. A terrible omen. Terrible!

  Emerging from the alleyway between the temple of Saturn and the Capitol hillside, Gaius Marius spied Quintus Ancharius ahead of him, and hastened to catch up. When he put his hand upon Ancharius's arm the ex-praetor looked around, his startled surprise changing to revulsion when he saw who accosted him.

  "Burgundus, your sword," said Marius calmly.

  The sword was in his right hand even as he finished speaking; his right hand flashed up, and down. Quintus Ancharius fell dead, his face cloven from hairline to chin.

  No one tried to protest. As their shock dissipated, senators and knights scattered, running. Marius's legion of slaves and ex-slaves—still standing in the lower Forum—went in hot pursuit the moment the old man snapped his fingers.