The First Man in Rome

by Colleen McCullough

  *

  Under Cotta’s leadership, the missing senatorial embassage had ventured back across the river in their boat the moment the Germans turned back into the north, and began to search that awful carnage for survivors. With their lictors and servants counted in, they numbered twenty-nine all told, and labored without regard for their safety should the Germans return. As the time passed, no one came to help them.

  Drusus had come to his senses with darkness, lain half-conscious through the night, and with the dawn recovered enough to crawl in search of water, his only thought; the river was three miles away, the camp almost as far, so he struck off to the east, hoping to find a stream where the ground began to rise. Not more than a few feet away he found Quintus Sertorius, who flapped a hand at sight of him.

  “Can’t move”,” said Sertorius, licking cracked lips. “Leg dead. Waiting for someone. Thought it would be German.”

  “Thirsty,” croaked Drusus. “Find water, then be back.”

  The dead were everywhere, acres upon acres of them, but they chiefly lay behind the route of Drusus’s unsteady walk in search of water, for he had fallen in the true front line at the very beginning of the battle, and the Romans had not advanced an inch, only fallen back and back and back. Like himself, Sertorius had remained in the front line; had he lain among the tumbled heaps and mounds of Roman dead scant feet to his rear, Drusus would never have seen him.

  His heavy Attic helmet gone, Drusus was bareheaded; a little puff of wind came and blew one single strand of hair across the great lump above his right eye, and so swollen, so stretched was the skin and tissue beneath, so bloodied the frontal bone, that the touch of that single strand of hair brought Drusus to his knees in agony.

  But the will to live is very strong. Drusus climbed sobbing to his feet and continued his walk east, and even remembered that he had nothing in which to carry water, and that there would be some like Sertorius in sore need of water. Groaning with the immensity of the pain produced by bending over, he pulled the helmets off two dead Marsic soldiers and walked on, carrying the helmets by their chin straps.

  And there among the field of Marsic dead stood a little water donkey, blinking its gentle, long-lashed eyes at the carnage, but unable to move away because its halter was wound round and round the arm of a man buried beneath other corpses. It had tried to tug itself free, but only succeeded in tightening the rope until tubes of blackening flesh protruded between the coils. Still wearing his dagger, Drusus cut the rope where it entered the lifeless arm and tied it to his sword belt, so that if he fainted the donkey would not be able to get away. But at the moment he found it, it was very glad to see a living man, and stood patiently while Drusus slaked his thirst, then was quite happy to follow wherever Drusus led.

  On the outskirts of the huge confusion of bodies around the water donkey were two moving legs; amid renewed groans from Drusus that the donkey echoed sadly, Drusus managed to shove sufficient of the dead aside to uncover a Marsic officer who was still very much alive. His bronze cuirass was stove in along its right side just below and in front of the man’s right arm, and a hole in the middle of the great dent oozed pink fluid rather than blood.

  Working as delicately as he could, Drusus got the officer out of the press of bodies onto a patch of trampled grass and began to unbuckle the cuirass where its front and back plates met along the left side. The officer’s eyes were closed, hut a pulse in his neck was beating strongly, and when Drusus pried the shell of the cuirass off the chest and abdomen it had been designed to protect, he cried out sharply.

  Then, “Go easy!” said an irritable voice in purest Latin.

  Drusus stopped for a moment, then resumed unbuckling the leather underdress. “Lie still, you fool!” he said. “I’m only trying to help. Want some water first?”

  “Water,” echoed the Marsic officer.

  Drusus fed it to him out of a helmet, and was rewarded with the unshuttering of two yellow-green eyes, a sight that reminded him of snakes; the Marsi were snake worshipers, and danced with them, and charmed them, and even kissed them tongue to tongue. Easy to believe, looking at those eyes.

  “Quintus Poppaedius Silo,” the Marsic officer said. “Some irrumator about eight feet tall caught me on the hop.’’ He closed his eyes; two tears rolled down his bloodied cheeks. “My men—they’re all dead, aren’t they?”

  “Afraid so,” said Drusus gently. “Along with mine— and everybody else’s, it seems. My name is Marcus Livius Drusus. Now hold on, I’m going to lift your jerkin off.”

  The wound had stanched itself, thanks to the woolen tunic the force of the German long-sword had pushed into its narrow mouth; Drusus could feel broken pieces of ribs moving under his hands, but cuirass, leather jerkin, and ribs had managed to prevent the blade invading the interior of chest and belly.

  “You’ll live,” said Drusus. “Can you get up if I help you? I have a comrade back in my own legion who needs me. So it’s either stay here and make your own way to me when you can, or come with me now on your own two feet.” Another lone strand of hair blew across his pulped right forehead, and he screamed with the pain of it.

  Quintus Poppaedius Silo considered the situation. “You’ll never cope with me in your state,” he said. “See if you can give me my dagger, I’m going to cut a bit off the bottom of my tunic and use it to bind this gash. Can’t afford to start bleeding again in this Tartarus.”

  Drusus gave him the dagger and moved off with his donkey.

  “Where will I find you?” Silo asked.

  “Over yonder, next legion down,” said Drusus.

  Sertorius was still conscious. He drank gratefully, then managed to sit up. His wound was actually the worst of the three of them, and clearly he could not be moved until Drusus got help from Silo. So for the time being Drusus sank down next to Sertorius and rested, moving only when Silo appeared an hour later. The sun was getting up into the sky, and it was growing hot.

  “The two of us will have to move Quintus Sertorius far enough away from the dead to give his leg less chance of being infected,” said Silo. “Then I suggest we rig up some sort of shade shelter for him, and see if there’s anyone else alive out here.”

  All this was done with frustrating slowness and too much pain, but eventually Sertorius was made as comfortable as possible, and Drusus and Silo set off on their quest. They hadn’t gone very far when Drusus became nauseated, and sank down in a retching huddle on the battered dusty ground, each convulsion of diaphragm and stomach coming amid frantic screams of agony. In little better case, Silo subsided near him, and the donkey, still tethered to Drusus’s belt, waited patiently.

  Then Silo rolled over and inspected Drusus’s head. He grunted. “If you can stand it, Marcus Livius, I think your pain might be much less if I broke open that lump with my knife and let some of the fluid out. Are you game?”

  “I’d brave the hydra-headed monster if I thought it might fix me up!” gasped Drusus.

  Before he applied the tip of his dagger to the lump, Silo muttered some charm or incantation in an ancient tongue Drusus could not identify; not Oscan, for that he understood well. A snake spell, that’s what he’s whispering, thought Drusus, and felt oddly comforted. The pain was blinding. Drusus fainted. And while he was unconscious Silo squeezed as much of the dammed-up blood and fluid out of the lump as he could, mopping up the mess with a chunk he tore off Drusus’s tunic, and then helping himself to another chunk as Drusus stirred, came around.

  “Feel any better?” asked Silo.

  “Much,” said Drusus.

  “If I bind it, you’ll only hurt more, so here, use this to mop up the muck when it blinds you. Sooner or later it will stop draining.” Silo glanced up into the pitiless sun. “We’ve got to move into some shade, or we won’t last— and that means young Sertorius won’t last either,” he said, getting to his feet.

  The closer they staggered to the river, the more signs that men lived among the carnage began to appear; faint cries for hel
p, movements, moans.

  “This is an offense against the gods,” said Silo grimly. “No battle was ever worse planned. We were executed! I curse Gnaeus Mallius Maximus! May the great light-bearing Snake wrap himself around Gnaeus Mallius Maximus’s dreams!”

  “I agree, it was a fiasco, and we were no better generaled than Cassius’s men at Burdigala. But the blame has to be apportioned fairly, Quintus Poppaedius. If Gnaeus Mallius is guilty, how much more so is Quintus Servilius Caepio?” Oh, how that hurt to say! His wife’s father, no less.

  “Caepio? What did he have to do with it?” asked Silo.

  The head wound was feeling much better; Drusus found he could turn to look at Silo easily. “Don’t you know?” he asked.

  “What does any Italian ever know about Roman command decisions?” Silo spat derisively on the ground. “We Italians are just here to fight. We don’t get a say in how we are to fight, Marcus Livius.”

  “Well, since the day he arrived here from Narbo, Quintus Servilius has refused to work with Gnaeus Mallius.” Drusus shivered. “He wouldn’t take orders from a New Man.”

  Silo stared at Drusus; yellow-green eyes fixed on black eyes. “You mean Gnaeus Mallius wanted Quintus Servilius here in this camp?”

  “Of course he did! So did the six senators from Rome. But Quintus Servilius wouldn’t serve under a New Man.”

  “You’re saying it was Quintus Servilius who kept the two armies separate?” Silo couldn’t seem to believe what he was hearing.

  “Yes, it was Quintus Servilius.” It had to be said. “He is my father-in-law, I am married to his only daughter. How can I bear it? His son is my best friend, and married to my sister—fighting here today with Gnaeus Mallius—dead, I suppose.” The fluid Drusus mopped from his face was mostly tears. “Pride, Quintus Poppaedius! Stupid, useless pride!’’

  Silo had stopped walking. “Six thousand soldiers of the Marsi and two thousand Marsic servants died here yesterday—now you tell me it was because some overbred Roman idiot bore a grudge against some underbred Roman idiot?” The breath hissed between Silo’s teeth, he shook with rage. “May the great light-bearing Snake have them both!”

  “Some of your men may be alive,” said Drusus, not to excuse his superiors, but in an effort to comfort this man, whom he knew he liked enormously. And he was awash in pain, pain that had nothing to do with any physical wound, pain all bound up in a terrible grief. He—Marcus Livius Drusus—who had not known any of life’s realities until now—wept for shame at the thought of a Rome led by men who could cause so much pain all for the sake of a class-conscious quarrel.

  “No, they’re dead,” said Silo. “Why do you think it took me so long to join you where Quintus Sertorius lay? I went among them looking. Dead. All dead!”

  “And mine,” said Drusus, weeping still. “We took the brunt of it on the right, and not a cavalry trooper to be seen.”

  It was shortly after that they saw the senatorial party in the distance, and called for help.

  *

  Marcus Aurelius Cotta brought the tribunes of the soldiers into Arausio himself, plodding the five miles behind oxen because the pace and the kind of cart made it an easier journey; his fellows he left trying to organize some kind of order out of the chaos. Marcus Antonius Meminius had managed to persuade some of the local Gallic tribesmen who lived on farmsteads around Arausio to go out to the battlefield and do what they could to help.

  “But,” said Cotta to Meminius when he arrived at the local magistrate’s villa, “this is the evening of the third day, and somehow we have to dispose of the dead.”

  “The townspeople are gone, and the farmers convinced the Germans will be back—you’ve no idea how hard I had to talk to get anyone to go out there and help you,” said Meminius.

  “I don’t know where the Germans are,” said Cotta, “and I can’t work out why they headed back into the north. But so far, I haven’t seen a sign of them. Unfortunately I don’t have anyone to send out to scout, the battlefield is more important.”

  “Oh!” Meminius clapped his hand to his brow. “A fellow came in about four hours ago, and from what I can gather—I can’t understand him—he’s one of the German interpreters who were attached to the cavalry camp. He has Latin, but his accent is too thick for me. Would you talk to him? He might be willing to scout for you.”

  So Cotta sent for the German, and what he learned changed everything.

  “There has been a terrible quarrel, the council of thanes is split, and the three peoples have gone their separate ways,” the man said.

  “A quarrel among the thanes, you mean?” asked Cotta.

  “Well, between Teutobod of the Teutones and Boiorix of the Cimbri, at least in the beginning,” said the interpreter. “The warriors went back to get the wagons started, and the council met to divide the spoils. There was much wine taken from the three camps of the Romans, and the council drank it. Then Teutobod said he had had a dream while he rode back to the wagons of his people, and was visited by the great god Ziu, and Ziu told him that if his people kept marching south into the Roman lands, the Romans would inflict a defeat upon them that would see all the warriors, the women, and the children slain or sold into slavery. So Teutobod said he was going to take the Teutones to Spain through the lands of the Gauls, not the lands of the Romans. But Boiorix took great exception to this, accused Teutobod of cowardice, and announced that the Cimbri would go south through the Roman lands, no matter what the Teutones did.’’

  “Are you sure of all this?” Cotta asked, hardly able to believe it. “How do you know? From hearsay? Or were you there?”

  “I was there, dominus.”

  “Why were you there? How were you there?”

  “I was waiting to be taken to the Cimbri wagons, since I am Cimbric. And they were all very drunk, so no one noticed me. I found I did not want to be a German anymore, so I thought I would learn what I could, and escape.”

  “Go on, then, man!” said Cotta eagerly.

  “Well, the rest of the thanes joined in the argument, and then Getorix, who leads the Marcomanni and Cherusci and Tigurini, proposed that the matter be settled by remaining among the Aedui and Ambarri. But no one except his own people wanted to do that. The Teutonic thanes sided with Teutobod, and the Cimbric thanes with Boiorix. So the council ended yesterday with the three peoples all wanting different things. Teutobod has ordered the Teutones to travel into far Gaul, and make their way to Spain through the lands of the Cardurci and Petrocorii. Getorix and his people are going to stay among the Aedui and Ambarri. And Boiorix is going to lead the Cimbri to the other side of the great river Rhodanus, and travel to Spain along the outskirts of the Roman lands, rather than through them.”

  “So that’s why there’s been no sign of them!” said Cotta.

  “Yes, dominus. They will not be coming south through the Roman lands,” said the German.

  Back went Cotta to Marcus Antonius Meminius, and told him the news, smiling broadly.

  “Spread the word, Marcus Meminius, and as quickly as possible! For you must get all those bodies burned, otherwise your ground and your water will be contaminated, and disease will do more damage to the people of Arausio than the Germans could,” said Cotta. He frowned, chewed his lip. “Where is Quintus Servilius Caepio?”

  “Already on his way to Rome, Marcus Aurelius.”

  “What?”

  “He left with his son to bring the news to Rome as quickly as he could,” said Meminius, puzzled.

  “Oh, I’ll just bet he did!” said Cotta grimly. “Is he going by road?”

  “Of course, Marcus Aurelius. I gave him four-mule gigs out of my own stables.”

  Cotta stood up, bone tired but filled with new vigor. “I will bring the news of Arausio to Rome,” he said. “If I have to grow wings and fly, I’ll beat Quintus Servilius, I swear it! Marcus Meminius, give me the best horse you can find. I start for Massilia at the crack of dawn.”

  He rode at the gallop for Massilia, unescort
ed, commandeered a fresh horse in Glanum, and another in Aquae Sextiae, and got to Massilia seven hours after leaving Arausio. The great seaport founded by the Greeks centuries before had heard not one word about the great battle fought four days earlier; Cotta found the city—so sleek and Greek, sowhite and bright — in a fever of apprehension at the coming of the Germans.

  The house of the ethnarch pointed out to him, Cotta walked in with all the arrogance and haste of a Roman curule magistrate on urgent business. As Massilia enjoyed ties of friendship with Rome without submitting to Roman rule, Cotta could have been politely shown the door. But of course he was not. Especially after the ethnarch and a few of his councillors living close by had heard what Cotta had to say.

  “I want the fastest ship you’ve got, and the best sailors and oarsmen in Massilia,” he said. “There’s no cargo to slow the ship down, so I’ll carry two spare teams of oarsmen in case we have to row against the wind and into a head sea. Because I swear to you, Ethnarch Aristides, that I will be in Rome in three days, if it means rowing the whole way! We’re not going to hug the coast — we’re going. in as straight a line for Ostia as the best navigator in Massilia can sail. When’s the next tide?”

  “You will have your ship and your crew by dawn , Marcus Aurelius, and that happens to coincide with the tide,” said the ethnarch gently. He coughed with great delicacy. “Who will be paying?”

  Typical Massiliote Greek, thought Cotta, but didn’t say so aloud. “Write me out a bill,” he said. “The Senate and People of Rome will be paying.”

  The bill was written at once; Cotta looked down at the outrageous price and grunted. “It’s a tragedy,” he said to Ethnarch Aristides, “when bad news costs enough to fight another war against the Germans. I don’t suppose you’d lop a few drachmae off?”

  “I agree, it is a tragedy,” said the ethnarch smoothly. “However, business is business. The price stands, Marcus Aurelius. Take it or leave it.”