The First Man in Rome

by Colleen McCullough

  So Marius’s triumphal parade Sulla kept businesslike and brisk, thinking to himself that when his triumph came, he’d make it so big it took three days to travel the ancient route, just like Aemilius Paullus. For to expend time and splendor upon a triumph was the mark of the aristocrat, anxious to have the people share in the treat; whereas to expend time and splendor upon the feast in the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus that followed was the mark of the peasant, anxious to impress a privileged few.

  Nevertheless, Sulla succeeded in making the triumphal parade memorable. There were floats showing all the highlights of the African campaigns, from the snails of Muluchath to the amazing Martha the Syrian prophetess; she was the star of the pageant displays, reclining on a purple-and-gold couch atop a huge float arranged as a facsimile of Prince Gauda’s throne room in Old Carthage, with an actor portraying Gaius Marius, and another actor filling Gauda’s twisted shoes. On a lavishly ornamented flat-topped dray, Sulla caused all of Marius’s personal military decorations to be carried. There were cartloads of plunder, cartloads of trophies consisting of enemy suits of armor, cartloads of important exhibits—all of these arranged so that the onlookers could see and exclaim over individual items—plus cartloads of caged lions, apes and bizarre monkeys, and two dozen elephants to walk flapping their vast ears. The six legions of the African army were all to march, but had to be deprived of spears and daggers and swords, carrying instead wooden staves wreathed in victory laurels.

  “And pick up your heels and march, you cunni!” cried Marius to his soldiers on the scuffed sward of the Villa Publica as the parade was ready to move off. “I have to be on the Capitol by the sixth hour myself, so I won’t be able to keep an eye on you. But no god will help you if you disgrace me—hear me, fellatores?’

  They loved it when he talked to them obscenely; but then, reflected Sulla, they loved him no matter how he talked to them.

  *

  Jugurtha marched too, clad in his kingly purple robes, his head bound for the last time with the tasseled white ribbon called the diadem, all his golden jeweled necklaces and rings and bracelets flashing in the early sun, for it was a perfect winter’s day, neither unspeakably cold nor inconveniently windy. Both Jugurtha’s sons were with him, purple clad too.

  When Marius had returned Jugurtha to Rome Jugurtha could hardly believe it, so sure had he been when he and Bomilcar quit Rome that he would never, never be back.

  The terracotta city of the brilliant colors—painted columns, vivid walls, statues everywhere looking so lifelike the observer expected them to start orating or fighting or galloping or weeping. Nothing whitely African about Rome, which did not build much in mud brick anymore, and never whitewashed its walls, but painted them instead. The hills and cliffs, the parklike spaces, the pencil cypresses and the umbrella pines, the high temples on their tall podiums with winged Victories driving four-horsed quadrigae on the very crests of the pediments, the slowly greening scar of the great fire on the Viminal and upper Esquiline. Rome, the city for sale. And what a tragedy, that he’d not been able to find the money to buy it! How differently things might have turned out, had he.

  Quintus Caecilius Metellus Numidicus had taken him in, an honored houseguest who yet was not permitted to step outside the house. It had been dark when they smuggled him in, and there for months he had remained, disbarred from the loggia which overlooked the Forum Romanum and the Capitol, limited to pacing up and down the peristyle-garden like the lion he felt himself. His pride would not let him go to seed; every day he ran in one spot, he touched his toes, he shadowboxed, he lifted himself up until his chin touched the bough he had chosen as a bar. For when he walked in Gaius Marius’s triumphal parade, he wanted them to admire him, those ordinary Romans—wanted to be sure they took him for a formidable opponent, not a flabby Oriental potentate.

  With Metellus Numidicus he had kept himself aloof, declining to pander to one Roman’s ego at the expense of another’s—a great disappointment to his host, he sensed at once. Numidicus had hoped to gather evidence that Marius had abused his position as proconsul. That Numidicus got nothing instead was a secret pleasure to Jugurtha, who knew which Roman he had feared, and which Roman he was glad had been the one to beat him. Certainly Numidicus was a great noble, and had integrity of a sort, but as a man and a soldier he couldn’t even reach up to touch Gaius Marius’s bootlaces. Of course, as far as Metellus Numidicus was concerned, Gaius Marius was little better than a bastard; so Jugurtha, who knew all about bastardy, remained committed to Gaius Marius in a queer and pitiless comradeship.

  On the night before Gaius Marius was to enter Rome in triumph and as consul for the second time, Metellus Numidicus and his speech-bereft son had Jugurtha and his two sons to dinner. The only other guest was Publius Rutilius Rufus, for whom Jugurtha had asked. Of those who had fought together at Numantia under Scipio Aemilianus, only Gaius Marius was absent.

  It was a very odd evening. Metellus Numidicus had gone to enormous lengths to produce a sumptuous feast—for, as he said, he had no intention of eating at Gaius Marius’s expense after the inaugural meeting of the Senate in the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus.

  “But there’s scarcely a crayfish or an oyster left to buy, or a snail, or anything extra-special,” said Numidicus as they prepared to dine. “Marius cleaned the markets out.”

  “Can you blame him?” asked Jugurtha, when Rutilius Rufus would not.

  “I blame Gaius Marius for everything,” said Numidicus.

  “You shouldn’t. If you could have produced him from your own ranks of the high nobility, Quintus Caecilius, well and good. But you could not. Rome produced Gaius Marius. I don’t mean Rome the city or Rome the nation—I mean Roma, the immortal goddess, the genius of the city, the moving spirit. A man is needed. A man is found,” said Jugurtha of Numidia.

  “There are those of us with the right birth and background who could have done what Gaius Marius has done,” said Numidicus stubbornly. “In fact, it ought to have been me. Gaius Marius stole my imperium, and tomorrow is reaping my rewards.” The faint look of incredulity on Jugurtha’s face annoyed him, and he added, a little waspishly, “For instance, it wasn’t really Gaius Marius who captured you, King. Your captor had the right birth and ancestral background—Lucius Cornelius Sulla. It could be said—and in the form of a valid syllogism!—that Lucius Cornelius ended the war, not Gaius Marius.” He drew a breath, and sacrificed his own claim to pre-eminence upon the more logical aristocratic altar named Lucius Cornelius Sulla. “In fact, Lucius Cornelius has all the earmarks of a right-thinking, properly Roman Gaius Marius.”

  “No!” scoffed Jugurtha, aware that Rutilius Rufus,. was watching him fixedly. “He’s a pard with very different spots, that one. Gaius Marius is straighter, if you know what I mean.”

  “I don’t have the remotest idea what you mean,” said Numidicus stiffly.

  “I know exactly what you mean,” said Rutilius Rufus, and smiled delightedly.

  Jugurtha grinned the old Numantia grin at Rutilius Rufus. “Gaius Marius is a freak,” he said, “a perfect fruit from an overlooked and ordinary tree growing just outside the orchard wall. Such men cannot be stopped or deflected, my dear Quintus Caecilius. They have the heart, the guts, the brains, and the streak of immortality to surmount every last obstacle set in their way. The gods love them! On them, the gods lavish all of Fortune’s bounty. So a Gaius Marius travels straight, and when he is compelled to walk crookedly, his path is still straight.”

  “How right you are!” said Rutilius Rufus.

  “Luh-Luh-Lucius Cor-Cor-Cornelius is buh-buh-buh-better!” young Metellus Piglet said angrily.

  “No!” said Jugurtha, shaking his head for emphasis. “Our friend Lucius Cornelius has the brains... and the guts... and maybe the heart... but I don’t think he has the streak of immortality inside his mind. The crooked way feels natural to him; he sees it as the straighter way. There’s no war elephant about a man who’s happier astride a mule. Oh, brave as a bul
l! In a battle, there’s no one quicker to lead a charge, or form up a relief column, or dash into a gap, or turn a fleeing century around. But Lucius Cornelius doesn’t hear Mars. Where Gaius Marius never not hears Mars. I presume, by the way, that ‘Marius’ is some Latin distortion of ‘Mars’? The son of Mars, perhaps? You don’t know? Nor do you want to know, Quintus Caecilius, I suspect! A pity. It’s an extremely powerful-sounding language, Latin. Very crisp, yet rolling.”

  “Tell me more about Lucius Cornelius Sulla,” said Rutilius Rufus, choosing a piece of fresh white bread and the plainest-looking egg.

  Jugurtha was wolfing down snails, not having tasted one since his exile began. “What’s to tell? He’s a product of his class. Everything he does, he does well. Well enough that nine out of ten witnesses will never be able to fathom whether he’s a natural at what he’s doing, or just a very intelligent and thoroughly schooled unnatural. But in the time I spent with him, I never got a spark out of him that told me what was his natural bent—or his proper sphere, for that matter. Oh, he will win wars and run governments, of that I have no doubt—but never with the spirit side of his mind.” The garlic-and-oil sauce was slicked all over the guest of honor’s chin; he ceased talking while a servant scrubbed and polished shaven and bearded parts, then belched enormously, and continued. “He’ll always choose expedience, because he’s lacking in the sticking power only that streak of immortality inside the mind can give a man. If two alternatives are presented to Lucius Cornelius, he’ll pick the one he thinks will get him where he wants to be with the least outlay. He’s just not as thorough as Gaius Marius—or as clear-sighted, I suspect.”

  “Huh-huh-huh-how duh-duh-do you know so muh-muh-muh-much about Luh-Luh-Luh-Lucius Cornelius?” asked Metellus Piglet.

  “I shared a remarkable ride with him once,” said Jugurtha reflectively, using a toothpick. “And then we shared a voyage along the African coast from Icosium to Utica. We saw a lot of each other.” And the way he said that made all the others wonder just how many meanings it contained. But no one asked.

  The salads came out, and then the roasts. Metellus Numidicus and his guests set to again, and with relish, save for the two young princes Iampsas and Oxyntas.

  “They want to die with me,” Jugurtha explained to Ru-tilius Rufus, low-voiced.

  “It wouldn’t be countenanced,” said Rutilius Rufus.

  “So I’ve told them.”

  “Do they know where they’re going?”

  “Oxyntas to the town of Venusia, wherever that might be, and Iampsas to Asculum Picentum, another mystery town.”

  “Venusia’s south of Campania, on the road to Brundisium, and Asculum Picentum is northeast of Rome, on the other side of the Apennines. They’ll be comfortable enough.”

  “How long will their detention last?” Jugurtha asked.

  Rutilius Rufus pondered that, then shrugged. “Hard to tell. Some years, certainly. Until the local magistrates write a report to the Senate saying they’re thoroughly indoctrinated with Roman attitudes, and won’t be a danger to Rome if they’re sent home.”

  “Then they’ll stay for life, I’m afraid. Better they die with me, Publius Rutilius!”

  “No, Jugurtha, you can’t say that with complete assurance. Who knows what the future holds for them?”

  “True.”

  The meal went on through more roasts and salads, and ended with sweetmeats, pastries, honeyed confections, cheeses, the few fruits in season, and dried fruits. Only Iampsas and Oxyntas failed to do the meal justice.

  “Tell me, Quintus Caecilius,” said Jugurtha to Metellus Numidicus when the remains of the food were borne away, and unwatered wine of the best vintage was produced, “what will you do if one day another Gaius Marius should appear—only this time with all Gaius Marius’s gifts and vigor and vision—and streak of immortality inside his mind!—wearing a patrician Roman skin?”

  Numidicus blinked. “I don’t know what you’re getting at, King,” he said. “Gaius Marius is Gaius Marius.”

  “He’s not necessarily unique,” said Jugurtha. “What would you do with a Gaius Marius who came from a patrician family?”

  “He couldn’t,” said Numidicus.

  “Nonsense, of course he could,” said Jugurtha, rolling the superb Chian wine around his tongue.

  “I think what Quintus Caecilius is trying to say, Jugurtha, is that Gaius Marius is a product of his class,” said Rutilius Rufus gently.

  “A Gaius Marius may be of any class,” Jugurtha insisted.

  Now all the Roman heads were shaking a negative in unison. “No,” said Rutilius Rufus, speaking for the group. “What you are saying may be true for Numidia, or for any other world. But never true of Rome! No patrician Roman could ever think or act like Gaius Marius.”

  So that was that. After a few more drinks the party broke up, Publius Rutilius Rufus went home to his bed, and the inhabitants of Metellus Numidicus’s house scattered to their various beds. In the comfortable aftermath of excellent food, wine, and company, Jugurtha of Numidia slept deeply, peacefully.

  When he was woken by the slave appointed to serve his needs as valet about two hours before the dawn, Jugurtha got up refreshed and invigorated. He was permitted a hot bath, and great care was devoted to his robing; his hair was coaxed into long, sausagelike curls with heated tongs, and his trim beard curled and then wound about with strings of gold and silver, the clean-shaven areas of cheeks and chin scraped closely. Perfumed with costly unguents, the diadem in place, and all his jewelry (which had already been catalogued by the Treasury clerks, and would go to the dividing of the spoils on the Campus Martius the day after the triumph) distributed about his person, King Jugurtha came out of his chambers the picture of a Hellenized sovereign, and regal from fingertips to toes to top of head.

  “Today,” he said to his sons as they traveled in open sedan chairs to the Campus Martius, “I shall see Rome for the first time in my life.”

  Sulla himself received them amid what seemed a chaotic confusion lit only by torches; but dawn was breaking over the crest of the Esquiline, and Jugurtha suspected the turmoil was due only to the number of people assembled at the Villa Publica, that in reality a streamlined order existed.

  The chains placed on his person were merely token; where in all Italy could a Punic warrior-king go?

  “We were talking about you last night,” said Jugurtha to Sulla conversationally.

  “Oh?” asked Sulla, garbed in glittering silver cuirass and pteryges, silver greaves cushioning his shins, a silver Attic helmet crested with fluffy scarlet feathers, and a scarlet military cloak. To Jugurtha, who knew him in a broad-brimmed straw hat, he was a stranger. Behind him, his personal servant carried a frame upon which his decorations for valor were hung, an imposing enough collection.

  “Yes,” said Jugurtha, still conversationally. “There was a debate about which man actually won the war against me—Gaius Marius or you.”

  The whitish eyes lifted to rest on Jugurtha’s face. “An interesting debate, King. Which side did you take?”

  “The side of right. I said Gaius Marius won the war. His were the command decisions, his the men involved, including you. And his was the order which sent you to see my father-in-law,’ Bocchus.” Jugurtha paused, smiled. “However, my only ally was my old friend Publius Rutilius. Quintus Caecilius and his son both maintained that you won the war because you captured me.”

  “You took the side of right,” said Sulla.

  “The side of right is relative.”

  “Not in this case,” said Sulla, his plumes nodding in the direction of Marius’s milling soldiers. “I will never have his gift of dealing with them. I have no fellow feeling for them, you see.”

  “You hide it well,” said Jugurtha.

  “Oh, they know, believe me,” said Sulla. “He won the war, with them. My contribution could have been done by anyone of legatal rank.” He drew a deep breath. “I take it you had a pleasant evening, King?”

  “
Most pleasant!” Jugurtha jiggled his chains, and found them very light, easy to carry. “Quintus Caecilius and his stammering son put on a kingly feast for me. If a Numidian was asked which food he would want the night before he died, he would always ask for snails. And last night I had snails.”

  “Then your belly’s nice and full, King.”

  Jugurtha grinned. “Indeed it is! The right way to go to the strangler’s loop, I’d say.”

  “No, that’s my say,” said Sulla, whose toothy grin was far darker in his far fairer face.

  Jugurtha’s own grin faded. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m in charge of the logistics of this triumphal parade, King Jugurtha. Which means I’m the one to say how you die. Normally you’d be strangled with a noose, that’s true. But it isn’t regulation, there is an alternative method. Namely, to shove you down the hole inside the Tullianum, and leave you to rot.” Sulla’s grin grew. “After such a kingly meal—and especially after trying to sow discord between me and my commanding officer—I think it would be a pity if you weren’t permitted to finish digesting your snails. So there will be no strangler’s noose for you, King! You can die by inches.”

  Luckily his sons were standing too far away to hear; the King watched as Sulla flicked a salute of farewell to him, then watched as the Roman strode to his sons, and checked their chains. He gazed around at the panic all about him, the seething masses of servants doling out head wreaths and garlands of victory laurel leaves, the musicians tuning up their horns and the bizarre horse-headed trumpets Ahenobarbus had brought back from Long-haired Gaul, the dancers practising last-moment twirls, the horses snuffling and blowing snorting breaths as they stamped their hooves impatiently, the oxen hitched to carts in dozens with horns gilded and dewlaps garlanded, a little water donkey wearing a straw hat ludicrously wreathed in laurel and its ears poking up rampant through holes in the crown, a toothlessly raddled old hag with swinging empty breasts and clad from head to foot in purple and gold being hoisted up onto a pageant dray, where she spread herself on a purple-draped litter like the world’s greatest courtesan, and stared stared stared straight down into his eyes with eyes like the Hound of Hades—surely she should have had three heads…