The tribal elections were held without the presence of the consul after the Senate conferred the task of scrutineer upon Metellus Pius the Piglet, who was a praetor and had come to Rome with Sulla. That the tribunes of the plebs were going to be a conservative lot was obvious when none other than Publius Sulpicius Rufus came in first and Publius Antistius not far behind him. Sulpicius had secured his release from Pompey Strabo; having made an excellent reputation in the field as a commander against the Picentes, Sulpicius now wished to make a political reputation. Rhetorical and forensic reputations he already possessed, having had a brilliant Forum career as a youth. Known as far and away the most promising orator among the younger men, like the dead Crassus Orator he affected the Asianic style, and was as gracefully calculated in his gestures as he was golden of voice, language, and rhetorical devices. His most famous case had been his prosecution of Gaius Norbanus for illegally convicting Caepio the Consul of Gold of Tolosa fame; that he had lost had not harmed his reputation in the least. A great friend of Marcus Livius Drusus's though he did not support enfranchisement for the Italians he had since Drusus's death drawn close to Quintus Pompeius Rufus, Sulla's running mate in the coming consular elections. That he was now the President of the College of Tribunes of the Plebs did not bode well for tribunician antics of demagogue kind. And, in fact, it looked as if not one of the ten who were elected was of the demagogue kind, nor was the election of the college followed by a spate of controversial new legislation. More promising was the installation of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer as a plebeian aedile; very rich, he was rumored to be planning wonderful games for the war-weary city. With the Piglet presiding again, the Centuries met on the Campus Martius to hear the consular and the praetorian candidates declare themselves. When Sulla and his colleague Quintus Pompeius Rufus announced a joint candidacy, the cheers were deafening. But when Gaius Julius Caesar Strabo Vopiscus Sesquiculus announced his intention to contest the consular elections, there was a stunned silence. "You can't!" said Metellus Pius in a winded voice. "You haven't been praetor yet!" "It is my contention that there is nothing on the tablets to prevent a man's seeking the consulship before he is praetor," said Caesar Strabo, and produced a screed so long that the audience groaned. "I have here a dissertation which I shall read from beginning to end to prove my contention beyond all argument." "Roll it up and don't bother, Gaius Julius Strabo!" called the new tribune of the plebs Sulpicius from the crowd below the candidates' platform. "I interpose my veto! You may not run." "Oh, come, Publius Sulpicius! Let us try the law for once instead of using it to try people!" cried Caesar Strabo. "I veto your candidacy, Gaius Julius Strabo. Come down from there and join your peers," said Sulpicius firmly. "Then I declare my candidacy for praetor!". "Not this year," Sulpicius said. "I veto that too." Sometimes the younger brother of Quintus Lutatius Catulus Caesar and Lucius Julius Caesar the censor could be vicious and his temper lead him into difficulties, but today Caesar Strabo merely shrugged, grinned, and walked down quite happily to stand with Sulpicius. "Fool! Why did you do that?" asked Sulpicius. "It might have worked if you hadn't been here." "I would have killed you first," said a new voice. Caesar Strabo turned, saw that the voice belonged to the young man Gaius Flavius Fimbria, and sneered. "Pull your head in! You couldn't kill a fly, you money-hungry cretin!'' "No, no!" said Sulpicius quickly, putting himself between them. "Go away, Gaius Flavius! Go on, go away! Shoo! Leave the governing of Rome to your seniors and your betters." Caesar Strabo laughed, Fimbria slunk away. "He's a nasty piece of work, young and all though he may be," said Sulpicius. "He's never forgiven you for prosecuting Varius." "I'm not surprised," said Caesar Strabo. "When Varius died, he lost his only visible means of support." There were to be no more surprises; once all the nominations for consul and praetor were in, everyone went home to wait with what patience he could muster for the appearance of the consul, Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo.
He did not return to Rome until almost the end of December, then insisted upon celebrating his triumph before he held any elections. That he had delayed his appearance in Rome was due to a brilliant idea he had conceived after the capture of Asculum Picentum. His triumphal parade (of course he was triumphing) would be a poor sort of affair; no spoils to display, no fascinatingly exotic floats depicting tableaux of sights and peoples alien to the inhabitants of Rome. At which point he had his brilliant idea. He would display thousands of male Italian children in his parade! His troops were put to scouring the countryside, and in time several thousand Italian boys aged between four and twelve were rounded up. So when he rode in his triumphal chariot along the prescribed route through the streets of Rome, he was preceded by a legion of little lads shuffling along; the sight was awesome, if only because it indicated how many Italian men had lost their lives through the agency of Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo. The curule elections were held a scant three days before the New Year. Lucius Cornelius Sulla was returned as senior consul, with his friend Quintus Pompeius Rufus as his junior colleague. Two men with red hair from opposite ends of the Roman nobleman spectrum. Rome looked forward to having a team in office for a change, and hoped that some of the damage due to the war would be repaired. It was to be a six-praetor year, which meant that most of the governors of overseas provinces were prorogued: Gaius Sentius and his legate Quintus Bruttius Sura in Macedonia; Publius Servilius Vatia and his legates Gaius Coelius and Quintus Sertorius in the Gauls; Gaius Cassius in Asia Province; Quintus Oppius in Cilicia; Gaius Valerius Flaccus in Spain; the new praetor Gaius Norbanus was sent to Sicily, and another new praetor, Publius Sextilius, was sent to Africa. The urban praetor was a very elderly man, Marcus Junius Brutus. He had a son just admitted to the Senate, but he had announced himself a candidate for praetor despite lifelong ill health because, he said, Rome needed decent men in office when so many decent men were in the field and unavailable. The praetor peregrinus was a plebeian Servilius of the Augur's family.
New Year's Day dawned bright and blue, and the omens of the night watch had been auspicious. It was perhaps not surprising that, after two years of dread and fear, all of Rome decided to turn out to watch the new consuls inaugurated. Everyone could see complete victory against the Italians looming, and there were many who hoped the new consuls would find the time now to deal with the city's appalling financial troubles. Returned to his house from the night watch, Lucius Cornelius Sulla had his purple-bordered toga draped around him, and with his own hands put on his Grass Crown. He sallied forth from his house to relish the novelty of walking behind no less than twelve togate lictors who carried on their shoulders the bundle of rods ritually bound with red leather thongs. Ahead of him went the knights who had chosen to escort him rather than his colleague, and behind him walked the senators, including his dear friend the Piglet. This is my day, he told himself as the huge crowd sighed and then voiced its approval at sight of the Grass Crown. For the first time in my life I have no rivals and no peers. I am the senior consul, I have won the war against the Italians, I wear the Grass Crown. I am greater than a king. The two processions originating at the houses of the new consuls joined up at the foot of the Clivus Palatinus where the old Porta Mugonia still stood, a relic of the days when Romulus had walled his Palatine city. From there, six thousand men wended their way in solemn order across the Velia and down the Clivus Sacer into the lower Forum, most of them knights with the narrow stripe the angustus clavus on their tunics, a thinned Senate following behind the consuls and their lictors. And everywhere spectators cheered; they were perched on the front walls of the Forum houses, the arcade and upper roofs of the basilicas, the roofs of those temples offering a view, every set of steps leading up onto the Palatine, all the temple vestibules and steps, the roofs of the Via Nova taverns and shops, the loggias of the great houses of Palatine and Capitol facing the Forum. People. People everywhere. Cheering the man wearing the Grass Crown, a wreath most of them had never seen. Sulla walked with a regal dignity he had not owned before, acknowledging the admiration by inclining his head ve
ry slightly only, no smile touching his lips, no smugness or glee in his eyes. This was the dream made real; this was his day. One of the things he found fascinating was that he actually saw individual people in the vast crowds a beautiful woman, an old man, a child perched on someone's shoulders, some outlandish foreigner and Metrobius. Almost he stopped, forced himself onward. Just a face in the crowd. Loyal and discreet as always. No sign of a special relationship showed on his darkly handsome face, save perhaps in his eyes, though no one except Sulla could have known it. Sad eyes. And then he was gone, he was behind. He was in the past. As the knights reached the area bordering the well of the Comitia and turned left to walk between the temple of Saturn and the vaulted arcade opposite housing the Twelve Gods, they paused, stopped, swung their heads toward the Clivus Argentarius and began to cheer in an acclamation far louder than that they had accorded Sulla. He heard but couldn't see, and was conscious of sweat crawling between his shoulder blades. Someone was stealing his crowd! For the crowd too had turned from every rooftop and tier of steps toward the same place, their cheers swelling amid a swaying sea of hands like water weeds. No greater effort had Sulla ever had cause to make than the one he made now no change in his expression, no diminution in the royal inclinations of his head, not even a flicker of feeling in his eyes. The procession started to move again; across the lower Forum he walked behind his lictors, never once craning his neck to verify what awaited him at the bottom of the Clivus Argentarius. What had stolen his crowd. Was stealing his day. His day! And there he was. Gaius Marius. Accompanied by the boy. Clad in toga praetexta. Waiting to join the ranks of the curule senators who immediately followed Sulla and Pompeius Rufus. Back in action again. Going to attend the inauguration of the new consuls, attend the meeting of the Senate afterward in the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus atop the Capitol, attend the feast in the same temple. Gaius Marius. Gaius Marius the military genius. Gaius Marius the hero. When Sulla drew opposite him, Gaius Marius bowed. Body filled with a howling rage he couldn't permit one single person to see even Gaius Marius Sulla turned and bowed to him. Whereupon the adulation reached fever pitch, the people screamed and shrieked with joy, every . face was wet with tears. Then after Sulla turned to the left to walk beside the temple of Saturn and ascend the Capitol hill, Gaius Marius took his place among the men with purple-bordered togas, the boy at his side. So much had he improved that he hardly dragged his left foot, could display his left hand holding up all those heavy folds of toga and let the people see that it was no longer clumped and deformed; as for his face he could afford to ignore the grimace his smile had become by not smiling. I will ruin you for this, Gaius Marius, thought Sulla. You knew this was my day! Yet you couldn't resist showing me that Rome still belongs to you. That I a patrician Cornelius! am less than the dust compared to you, an Italian hayseed with no Greek. That I do not have the love of the people. That I can never rise to your heights. Well, maybe all this is really so, Gaius Marius. But I will ruin you. You yielded to the temptation of showing me on my day. If you had chosen to return to public life tomorrow or the day after or any other day the rest of your life would be very different from the agony I will make it. For I will ruin you. Not by poison. Not by knife. I will make it impossible for your descendants ever to exhibit your imago in a family funeral procession, I will mar your reputation for all time. Somehow it got itself over and done with, that awful day. Looking pleased and proud, the new senior consul stood to one side in the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, the same hugely mindless grin on his face that the statue of the Great God wore, allowing the senators to pay homage to Gaius Marius just as if most of them didn't loathe him. When the realization dawned upon Sulla that Marius had done what he had done in all innocence that he hadn't stopped to think he might be stealing Sulla's day, only thought what a splendid day today would be to make his reappearance in the Senate the realization had no power to mollify Sulla's rage or soften his vow to ruin this terrible old man. Rather, the sheer thoughtlessness of it made Marius's action more intolerable still; in Marius's mind, Sulla mattered so little he never so much as loomed in the background of Marius's mirror of self. And for that, Marius would pay bitterly. "Huh-huh-how dared he!" whispered Metellus Pius to Sulla as the meeting concluded and the public slaves began to bring in the feast. "He duh-duh-did it deliberately!" "Oh yes, he did it deliberately," lied Sulla. "Are you guh-guh-going to let him geh-geh-get away with it?" Metellus Pius demanded, almost weeping. "Calm down, Piglet, you're stuttering," said Sulla, using that detested name, but in a manner the Piglet couldn't find detestable. "I refuse to let any of these fools see how I feel. Let them and him! think I approve wholeheartedly. I'm the consul, Piglet. He isn't. He's just a sick old man trying to snatch back an ascendancy he can never know again." "Quintus Lutatius is livid about it," said Metellus Pius, concentrating on his stammer. "See him over there? He just gave Marius a piece of his mind, and the old hypocrite tried to pretend he never meant it that way, would you believe it?" "I missed that," said Sulla, looking to where Catulus Caesar was talking with obviously furious hauteur to his brother the censor and to Quintus Mucius Scaevola, who looked unhappy. Sulla grinned. "He's picked the wrong audience in Quintus Mucius if he's saying insulting things about Gaius Marius." "Why?" asked the Piglet, curiosity getting the better of rage and indignation. "There's a marriage in the wind. Quintus Mucius is giving his daughter to Young Marius as soon as she's of age." "Ye gods! He can do much better than that!" Sulla lifted one brow. "Can he really, Piglet dear? Think of all that money!" When Sulla went home he declined all company save Catulus Caesar and Metellus Pius, though when the three of them reached his house he entered it alone, with a wave of farewell for his escort. The house was quiet and his wife not in evidence, for which Sulla was enormously glad; he didn't think he could have faced all that wretched niceness without murdering her. Hurrying to his study, he bolted its doors, pulled the shutters of the colonnade window closed. The toga fell to the floor in a milky puddle around his feet and was kicked aside indifferently; face now displaying what he felt, he crossed to the long console table upon which rested six miniature temples in perfect condition, paintwork fresh and bright, gilding rich. The five belonging to his ancestors he had paid to have refurbished just after he had entered the Senate; the sixth housed his own likeness, and had been delivered from the workshop of Magius of the Velabrum only the day before. Its catch was cunningly concealed behind the entablature of the front row of columns; when it was released, the columns divided in the midline as two opening doors. Inside he saw himself, a life-sized face and jaw connected to the anterior half of a neck, the whole complete with Sulla's ears; behind the ears were strings which held the mask in place while it was being worn, and which were hidden by the wig. Made of beeswax, the imago was brilliantly done, its skin tinted as white as Sulla's own, the brows and lashes both real of the exact brown he colored them upon occasions like meetings of the Senate or dinner parties within Rome. The beautifully shaped lips were slightly parted because Sulla always breathed through his mouth, and the eyes were uncanny replicas of his own; however, minute inspection revealed that the pupils were actually holes through which the actor donning the mask could see just about well enough to walk if he was guided. Only when it came to the wig had Magius of the Velabrum fallen down on exact verisimilitude, for nowhere could he find hair of the correct color. Rome was plentifully endowed with wigmakers and false hair, and various shades of blond or red were by far the most popular hues; the original owners of the hair were barbarians of Gallic or German blood forced to part with their locks by slave-dealers or masters in need of extra money. The best Magius had been able to do was definitely redder than Sulla's thatch, but the luxuriance and the style were perfect. For a long time Sulla stared at himself, not yet recovered from the amazement of discovering what he looked like to other people. The most flawless silver mirror gave no idea compared to this imago. I shall have Magius's team of sculptors do some portrait busts and a full-length statue in armor, h
e decided, quite delighted with how he looked to other people. Finally his mind returned to Marius's perfidy, and his gaze became abstracted; then he gave a little jump, hooked his forefingers around two horns on the front of the temple's floor. The head of Lucius Cornelius Sulla glided forward and out of the interior on the movable floor and sat, ready for someone to lift off its wig and lever the mask away from a base which was a clay mould of Sulla's face. Anchored to contours in its own image, shut away from the depredations of light and dust in its dark and airless temple home, the mask would last for generations after generations. Sulla put his hands to the head atop his own shoulders and took off his Grass Crown, placed it upon the image's wig. Even on the day the runners had been torn from the soil of Nola they had been browned and bedraggled, for they came from a field of battle and had been bruised, trodden, ground down. Nor had the fingers which had woven them into a twisted braid been skilled and dainty florist's fingers; they had belonged to the primus pilus centurion Marcus Canuleius, and were more used to wrapping themselves about a gnarled vine clava. Now, seven months later, the Grass Crown had withered to spindling strings sprouting hairlike roots, and the few blades left were dry, shrunken. But you're tough, my beautiful Grass Crown, thought Sulla, adjusting it upon the wig until it framed the face and hairline as it ought, back from the brow like a woman's tiara. Yes, you're tough. You were made of Italian grass and crafted by a Roman soldier. You will endure. Just as I will endure. And together we will make a ruin of Gaius Marius. The Senate met again the day after its consuls were inducted into office, summoned by Sulla. A new Princeps Senatus existed at last, appointed during the New Year's Day ceremonies. He was Lucius Valerius Flaccus, Marius's "man of straw" junior consul during that momentous year when Marius had been consul a sixth time, had his first stroke, and had been helpless to prevent Saturninus's running amok. It was not a particularly popular appointment, but there were so many restrictions and precedents and regulations that only Lucius Valerius Flaccus had qualified he was a patrician, the leader of his group of senators, a consular, a censor, and an interrex more times than any other patrician senator. No one had any illusions that he would fill the shoes of Marcus Aemilius Scaurus gracefully or formidably. Including Flaccus himself. Before the meeting was formally convened he had come to Sulla and begun to ramble on about problems in Asia Minor, but so muddled was his presentation and so incoherent his sentences that Sulla put him firmly aside and indicated that the auspices might be taken. Himself an augur now, he presided over the ceremonies in conjunction with Ahenobarbus Pontifex Maximus. And there's another doesn't look well, thought Sulla, sighing; the Senate was in a sorry state. Not all of Sulla's time since he had arrived in Rome at the beginning of December had been taken up in visits to friends, sittings for Magius of the Velabrum, idle chatter, a boring wife, and Gaius Marius. Knowing he would be consul, he had spent most of his time talking to those among the knights whom he respected or knew to be most able, in talking to senators who had remained in Rome throughout the war (like the new urban praetor Marcus Junius Brutus), and in talking to men like Lucius Decumius, member of the Fourth Class and caretaker of a crossroads college. Now he rose to his feet and proceeded to demonstrate to the House that he, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, was a leader who would not brook defiance. "Princeps Senatus, Conscript Fathers, I am not an orator," he said, standing absolutely still in front of his curule chair, "so you will get no fine speeches from me. What you will get is a plain statement of the facts, followed by an outline of the measures I intend to take to remedy matters. You may debate the issues if you feel you must but I take leave to remind you that the war is not yet satisfactorily concluded. Therefore I do not want to spend any more time in Rome than I must. I also warn you that I will deal harshly with members of this august body who attempt to hinder me for vainglorious or self-interested motives. We are not in a position to suffer the kind of antics performed by Lucius Marcius Philippus during the days before the death of Marcus Livius Drusus I hope you are listening, Lucius Marcius?" "My ears are absolutely flappingly wide open, Lucius Cornelius," drawled Philippus. A different man might have chosen to flatten Philippus with a well-chosen phrase or two; Lucius Cornelius Sulla did it with his eyes. Even as the titters broke out, those eerie pale orbs were roaming the tiers searching for culprits. Expectation of a verbal exchange was stifled at birth, the laughter ceased abruptly, and everyone discovered valid reasons for leaning forward and looking intensely interested. "None of us can be unaware how straitened the financial affairs of Rome are, both public and private. The urban quaestors have reported to me that the Treasury is empty, and the tribunes of the Treasury have given me a figure for the debt Rome owes to various institutions and individuals in Italian Gaul. The figure is in excess of three thousand silver talents and is increasing every day for two reasons: the first because Rome is still forced to buy from these institutions and individuals; the second because the principal outstanding remains unpaid, the interest remains unpaid, and we are not always able to pay the interest upon the unpaid interest. Businesses are foundering. Those who have lent money in the private sector cannot collect either debts or interest or interest upon unpaid interest. And those who have borrowed money are in worse condition still." His eyes rested reflectively upon Pompey Strabo, who sat in the right-hand front row near Gaius Marius, looking in apparent unconcern at his own nose; here, Sulla's eyes seemed to be saying to the rest of the House, is a man who should have taken a little time off from his martial activities to do something about Rome's spiraling financial crisis, especially after his urban praetor died. "I therefore request that this House send a senatus consultum to the Assembly of the Whole People in their tribes, patrician and plebeian, asking for a lex Cornelia to the following effect: that all debtors, Roman citizens or no, be obliged to pay simple interest only that is, interest upon the principal only at the rate agreed to by both parties at the time the loan was made. The levying of compound interest is forbidden, and the levying of simple interest at a higher rate than originally agreed to is forbidden." There were murmurs now, particularly from those who had been lending money, but that invisible menace Sulla radiated kept the murmurs low. He was undeniably Roman all the way back to the very beginning. He had the will of a Gaius Marius. But he had the air of a Marcus Aemilius Scaurus. And somehow nobody, even Lucius Cassius, contemplated for one moment treating Lucius Cornelius Sulla in the way Aulus Sempronius Asellio had been treated. He just wasn't the kind of person other men speculated about murdering. "No one wins in a civil war," said Sulla levelly. "The war we are currently concluding is a civil war. It is my personal view that no Italian can ever be a Roman. But I am Roman enough to respect those laws which have recently been enacted to make Romans out of Italians. There will be no booty, there will be no compensation paid to Rome of sufficient magnitude to put so much as one layer of silver sows upon the bare floor of the temple of Saturn." "Edepol! Does he think that's oratory?" asked Philippus of anyone in hearing. "Tace!" growled Marius. "The Italian treasuries are as empty as ours," Sulla went on, ignoring the little exchange below him. "The new citizens who will appear on our rolls are as debt-ridden and impoverished as genuine Romans. At such a time, a new start has to be made somewhere. To promulgate a general cancellation of debts is unthinkable. But nor can debtors be squeezed until they die from it. In other words, it is only fair and equitable that both sides of the lending equation be accommodated. And that is what my lex Cornelia will attempt." "What about Rome's debt to Italian Gaul?" asked Marius. "Is the lex Cornelia to cover this as well?" "Most definitely, Gaius Marius," said Sulla pleasantly. "We all know Italian Gaul is very rich. The war in the peninsula didn't touch it, and it has made a great deal of money out of the war in the peninsula. Therefore it and its businessmen can well afford to abandon measures like compound interest. Thanks to Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, all of Italian Gaul south of the Padus is now fully Roman, and the major centers north of the river have been endowed with the Latin Rights. I think it only fair that Ita
lian Gaul be treated like every other group of Romans and Latins." "They won't be so happy to call themselves Pompey Strabo's clients after they hear about this lex Cornelia in Italian Gaul," whispered Sulpicius to Antistius with a grin. But the House approved with an outburst of ayes. "You are introducing a good law, Lucius Cornelius," said Marcus Junius Brutus suddenly, "but it doesn't go far enough. What about those cases where litigation is inevitable, yet one or both parties in litigation have not the money to lodge sponsio with the urban praetor? Though the bankruptcy courts are closed, there are many cases the urban praetor is empowered to decide without the encumbrances of a proper hearing. If, that is, the sum in question has been lodged in his keeping. But as the law stands at the moment, if the sum in question is not lodged, the urban praetor's hands are tied, he cannot hear the case nor give a finding. Might I suggest a second lex Cornelia waiving lodgment of sponsio in cases of debt?" Sulla laughed, clapped his hands together. "Now that is the sort of thing I want to hear, praetor urbanus! Sensible solutions to vexing questions! By all means let us promulgate a law waiving sponsio at the discretion of the urban praetor!" “Well, if you're going to go that far, why not just reopen the bankruptcy courts?" asked Philippus, very much afraid of any law to do with debt collection; he was perpetually in debt, and one of Rome's worst payers. "For two reasons, Lucius Marcius," said Sulla, answering as if he thought Philippus's remark had been serious rather than ironic. "The first is that we do not yet have sufficient magistrates to staff the courts and the Senate is so thin of members that special judges would be hard to find, given that they must have a praetor's knowledge of the law. The second is that bankruptcy is a civil procedure, and the so-called bankruptcy courts are entirely staffed by special judges appointed at the discretion of the urban praetor. Which goes straight back to reason number one, does it not? If we cannot staff the criminal courts, how can we hope to staff the more flexible and discretionary hearings of civil offenses?" "So succinctly put! Thank you, Lucius Cornelius," said Philippus. "Don't mention it, Lucius Marcius and I mean, don't mention it. Again. Understood?" There was further debate, of course; Sulla had not expected to see his recommendations adopted without argument. But even among the senatorial moneylenders opposition was halfhearted, as everyone could appreciate that collecting some money was better than collecting none, and Sulla had not attempted to abolish interest entirely. "I will see a division," said Sulla when he thought they had talked enough and he was tired of further time-wasting. The division went his way by a very large majority; the House prepared a senatus consultum commending both Sulla's new laws to the Assembly of the People, a body to which the consul could present his case himself, patrician though he was. The praetor Lucius Licinius Murena, a man more famous for his breeding of freshwater eels for the banquet table than his political activity, then proposed that the House consider the recall of those sent into exile by the Varian Commission when it had been under the aegis of Quintus Varius. "Here we are awarding the citizenship to half of Italy, while the men condemned for supporting this enfranchisement are still without their citizenships!" cried Murena passionately. "It's time they came home, they're exactly the Romans we need!" Publius Sulpicius bounced off the tribunician bench and faced the consul's chair. "May I speak, Lucius Cornelius?" "Speak, Publius Sulpicius." "I was a very good friend of Marcus Livius Drusus's, though I was never keen on the enfranchisement of Italy. However, I deplored the way Quintus Varius conducted his court, and all of us must ask ourselves how many of his victims were his victims for no other reason than that he disliked them personally. But the fact remains that his court was legally created and conducted its actual proceedings according to the law. At this present moment the same court is still functioning, albeit in the opposite manner. It is the only court open. Therefore we must conclude that it is a legally constituted body, and that its findings must stand. I hereby notify this House that if any attempt is made to recall any persons sentenced by the Varian Commission, I will interpose my veto," said Sulpicius. "As will I," said Publius Antistius. "Sit down, Lucius Licinius Murena," said Sulla gently. Murena sat down, crushed, and shortly afterward the House ended its first ordinary sitting with the consul Sulla in the chair. As he was making his way out of the chamber, Sulla found himself detained by Pompey Strabo. "A private word in your ear, Lucius Cornelius." "Certainly," said Sulla heartily, resolving to prolong the conversation; he had seen Marius lurking in wait for him and wanted nothing to do with Marius, yet knew he couldn't ignore him without good excuse. "As soon as you've regulated Rome's financial affairs to your satisfaction," said Pompey Strabo in that toneless yet menacing voice of his, "I suppose you'll get round to dealing with who gets what command in the war." "Yes, Gnaeus Pompeius, I do expect to get round to that," said Sulla easily. "I suppose it ought by rights to have been discussed yesterday when the House ratified all the provincial governorships, but as you've probably gathered from my speech today I look on this conflict as a civil war, and would rather see the commands debated in a regular meeting." "Oh well, yes, I see your point," said Pompey Strabo, not in the manner of one abashed by the crassness of his question, but rather in the manner of one who had no idea of protocol. "In which case?" asked Sulla politely, noticing out of the corner of his eye that Marius had dragged himself off in the company of Young Caesar, who must have waited patiently outside the doors. "If I include the troops Publius Sulpicius brought from Italian Gaul the year before last as well as the troops Sextus Julius brought from Africa I have ten full legions in the field," said Pompey Strabo. "As I'm sure you'll appreciate, Lucius Cornelius since I imagine you're in similar circumstances yourself most of my legions haven't been paid in a year.'' Down went the corners of Sulla's mouth in a rueful smile. "I do indeed know what you mean, Gnaeus Pompeius!" "Now to some extent I've canceled that debt out, Lucius Cornelius. The soldiers got everything Asculum Picentum had to offer, from furniture to bronze coins. Clothes. Women's trinkets. Paltry, down to the last Priapus lamp. But it made them happy, as did the other occasions when I was able to give them whatever was there to be had. Paltry stuff. But enough for common soldiers. So that's one way I was able to cancel the debt." He paused, then said, "But the other way affects me personally." "Indeed?" "Four of those ten legions are mine. They were raised among the men of my own estates in northern Picenum and southern Umbria, and to the last soldier they're my clients. So they don't expect to be paid any more than they expect Rome to pay them. They're content with whatever pickings they can glean." Sulla was looking alert. "Do go on!" "Now," said Pompey Strabo reflectively, rubbing his chin with his big right hand, "I'm quite happy with things the way they are. Though some things will change because I'm not consul anymore." "Things like, Gnaeus Pompeius?" "I'll need a proconsular imperium, for one thing. And my command in the north confirmed.'' The hand which had caressed his jaw now swept in a wide circle. "You can have all the rest, Lucius Cornelius. I don't want it. All I want is my own corner of our lovely Roman world. Picenum and Umbria." "In return for which, you won't send the Treasury a wages bill for four of your ten legions, and will reduce the bill you send in on behalf of the other six?'' "You're wide awake on all counts, Lucius Cornelius." Out went Sulla's hand. “You've got a deal, Gnaeus Pompeius! I'd give Picenum and Umbria to Saturninus if it meant Rome didn't have to find the full wages for ten legions." "Oh, not to Saturninus, even if his family did originally come from Picenum! I'll look after them better than he would." "I'm sure you will, Gnaeus Pompeius." Thus it was that when the question of apportioning out the various commands for the concluding operations of the war against the Italians came up in the House, Pompey Strabo got what he wanted without opposition from the consul with the Grass Crown. Or opposition from anyone else. Sulla had lobbied strenuously. Though Pompey Strabo was not a man of Sulla's kind he utterly lacked subtlety or sophistication he was known to be as dangerous as a bear at bay and as ruthless as an oriental potentate, to both of which he bore a strong resemblance. The tale of his doings in Asculum Picentum had filt
ered back to Rome through a medium as novel as it was unexpected; an eighteen-year-old contubernalis named Marcus Tullius Cicero had written an account of them in a letter to one of his only two living preceptors, Quintus Mucius Scaevola, and Scaevola had not been silent, though his loquaciousness was more because of the literary merit in the letter than Pompey Strabo's vile and monstrous behavior. "Brilliant!" was Scaevola's verdict on the letter, and, "What else can one expect from such a blood-and-guts butcher?" on the letter's contents. Though Sulla retained supreme command in the southern and the central theaters, actual command in the south went to Metellus Pius the Piglet; Gaius Cosconius had sustained a minor wound which turned septic, and had retired from active service. The Piglet's second-in-command was Mamercus Aemilius Lepidus Livianus, who had relented and got himself elected a quaestor. As Publius Gabinius was dead and his younger brother, Aulus, was too young to be given a senior command, Lucania went to Gnaeus Papirius Carbo, generally felt to be an excellent choice. In the midst of this debate rendered more enjoyable by the knowledge that Rome had basically won the war already Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus Pontifex Maximus died. This meant proceedings had to be suspended in House and Comitia and the money found for a State funeral for one who was, at the time of his death, far richer than Rome's Treasury. Sulla conducted the election for his successor and for his priesthood in a mood of bitter resentment, for when he had assumed the consul's curule chair he had also assumed the largest part of the responsibility for Rome's fiscal problems, and it angered him to pay out good money for one in no need of it. Nor, before Ahenobarbus Pontifex Maximus, had there been any need to stand the expense of an election; he it was as a tribune of the plebs who carried the lex Domitia de sacerdotiis, the law changing the manner of appointing priests and augurs from an internal co-optation to an external election. Quintus Mucius Scaevola already a priest became the new Pontifex Maximus, which meant that Ahenobarbus's priesthood went to a new member of the College of Pontifices, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius the Piglet. At least in that respect, thought Sulla, some justice was done. When Metellus Piggle-wiggle had died, his priesthood had been voted to the young Gaius Aurelius Cotta, a fine example of how election to office could destroy a family's right to offices which had always been hereditary. The obsequies over, business resumed in Senate and Comitia. Pompey Strabo asked for and got his legates Poplicola and Brutus Damasippus, though his other legate, Gnaeus Octavius Ruso, announced himself better able to serve Rome within Rome, a statement which everyone took to mean he would seek the consulship at the end of the year. Cinna and Cornutus were left to continue their operations in the lands of the Marsi, and Servius Sulpicius Galba remained in the field against the Marrucini, the Vestini, and the Paeligni. "All in all, a good assortment," said Sulla to his consular colleague, Quintus Pompeius Rufus. The occasion was a family dinner at the Pompeius Rufus mansion to celebrate the fact that Cornelia Sulla was pregnant again. This news had not smitten Sulla with the joy it obviously did Aelia and all the Pompeii Rufi, but it did resign him to family duties like finally setting eyes on his granddaughter, who according to her other grandfather, his fellow consul was the most exquisitely perfect baby ever born. Now five months old, Pompeia was certainly beautiful, Sulla had to admit to himself. She had masses of dark red curls, black brows and black lashes so long and thick they were like fans, and enormous swamp-green eyes. Her skin was creamy, her mouth a sweet red bow, and when she smiled she displayed a dimple in one rosy cheek. Though Sulla admitted that he was no expert on babies, to him Pompeia seemed a very sluggish and stupid sort of child who only became animated when something gold and glittery was dangled under her nose. An omen, thought Sulla, chuckling silently. His daughter was happy, so much was evident; on a far distant plane this quite pleased Sulla, who didn't love her, but was prone to like her when she didn't do anything to annoy him. And sometimes in her face he would catch an echo of her dead brother, some swift expression or lifting of her eyes, and then he would remember that her brother had loved her very much. How unfair life was! Why did it have to be Cornelia Sulla, a useless girl, who grew up in the bloom of health, and Young Sulla die untimely? It ought to have been the other way around. In a properly ordered world, the paterfamilias would have been offered a choice. He never dredged his two German sons sired when he had lived among the Germans out of the back of his mind, never longed to see them or thought of them in any way as replacements for that beloved dead son of Julilla's. For they were not Roman, and their mother was a barbarian. Always it was Young Sulla, always an emptiness impossible to fill. And there she was under his nose, the daughter he would have given over to death in less than one beat of his heart, could he only have Young Sulla back. "How delightful to see everything turn out so well," said Aelia to him as they walked home, unattended by a servant escort. Because Sulla's thoughts were still revolving around life's unfairness in taking his son from him and leaving him only a useless girl, poor Aelia could not have made an unwiser remark. He struck back instantly, with total venom. "Consider yourself divorced as of this moment!" he hissed. She stopped in her tracks. "Oh, Lucius Cornelius, I beg of you, think again!" she cried, stunned at this thunderbolt. "Find another home. You don't belong in mine." And Sulla turned to walk off toward the Forum, leaving Aelia standing on the Clivus Victoriae completely alone. When she recovered sufficiently from the blow to be able to think, she too turned around, but not to walk to the Forum. She went back to the house of Quintus Pompeius Rufus. "Please, may I see my daughter?" she asked the slave on door duty, who looked at her in bewilderment. Scant moments before he had let out a lovely woman wrapped in a glow of content now here she was again looking as if she was going to die, so grey and blighted was her face. When he offered to take her to his master, she asked if she might go to Cornelia Sulla's sitting room instead, see her daughter in private and without disturbing anyone else. "What is it, Mama?" Cornelia Sulla asked lightly as she came through the door. And stopped at sight of that terrible face, and asked again, but in a very different tone, "What is it, Mama? Oh, what is it?" "He's divorced me," said Aelia dully. "He told me I didn't belong in his home, so I didn't dare go home. He meant it." "Mama! Why? When? Where?" "Just now, on the street." Cornelia Sulla sat down limply beside her stepmother, the only mother she had ever known beyond vague memories of a thin complaining wisp who was more attached to her wine cup than her children. Of course there had been nearly two years of Grandmother Marcia, but Grandmother Marcia hadn't wanted to be a mother again and had reigned over the nursery harshly, without love. So when Aelia had come to live with them, both Young Sulla and Cornelia Sulla had thought her utterly wonderful and loved her as a mother. Taking Aelia's cold hand, Cornelia Sulla looked into the vortex of her father's mind, those frightful and stunningly quick changes of mood, the violence which could come leaping out of him like lava out of a volcano, the coldness which gave no hope or light to human heart. "Oh, he is a monster!" said his daughter between her teeth. "No," said Aelia tiredly, "just a man who has never been happy. He doesn't know who he is, and he doesn't know what he wants. Or perhaps he does know, but dare not be it and want it. I've always known he'd end in divorcing me. Yet I did think he'd give me some warning a change in his manner or or something! You see, he was finished with me inside his mind before ever anything could begin. So when the years went by, I started to hope it doesn't matter. All considered, I've had a longer run than I expected to." "Cry, Mama! You'll feel better." But what came out was a humorless laugh. "Oh no. I cried too much after our boy died. That was when he died too." "He's not going to give you anything, Mama. I know him! He's a miser. He won't give you a thing." "Yes, I am aware of that." "But you do have a dowry." "I gave him that a long time ago." Cornelia Sulla drew herself up with great dignity. "You will live with me, Mama. I refuse to desert you. Quintus Pompeius will see the justice of it." "No, Cornelia. Two women in a single house is one too many, and you already have the second one in the person of your mother-in-law. A very nice woman. She loves you. But she wo
n't thank you for wishing a third woman on her." "But what can you do?" the young woman cried. "I can stay here tonight in your sitting room, and think about my next step tomorrow," said Aelia calmly. "Don't tell your father-in-law yet, please. This will be a very awkward situation for him, you know. If you must, tell your husband. I must write Lucius Cornelius a note to say where I am. Could you have someone take it round straight away?" "Of course, Mama." The daughter of any other man might have added words to the effect that in the morning he was sure to change his mind, but not Sulla's daughter; she knew her father better. With the dawn came an answer from Sulla. Aelia broke its seal with steady hands. "What does he say?" asked Cornelia Sulla tensely. " 'I divorce you on the grounds of barrenness.' " "Oh, Mama, how unfair! He married you because you were barren!" "You know, Cornelia, he's very clever," said Aelia with some admiration. "Since he has chosen to divorce me on those grounds, I have no redress at law. I can't claim my dowry, I can't ask for a pension. I've been married to him for twelve years. When I married him I was still of an age to bear children. But I had none with my first husband, and none with him. No court would uphold me." "Then you must live with me," said Cornelia Sulla in determined tones. "Last night I told Quintus Pompeius what had happened. He thinks it would work out well if you were to live here. If you were not so nice, perhaps it wouldn't. But it will work out. I know it!" "Your poor husband!" said Aelia, smiling. "What else could he say? What else can his poor father say when he is told? They're both good men, and generous ones. But I know what I'm going to do, Cornelia, and it's by far the best thing." "Mama! Not " Aelia managed a laugh. "No, no, of course I wouldn't do that, Cornelia! You'd be haunted by it for the rest of your life! I so much want you to have a wonderful life, dearest girl of mine." She sat up straighter, looked purposeful. "I'm going to your grandmother Marcia, at Cumae." "Grandmother? Oh no, she's such a stick!" "Nonsense! I stayed with her for three months last summer, and I had a most pleasant time. She writes to me often these days, mostly because she's lonely, Cornelia. At sixty-seven, she's afraid of being completely abandoned. It is a terrible fate to have no one there but slaves when you die. Sextus Julius didn't visit her often, yet when he died she felt it keenly. I don't think Gaius Julius has seen her in four or five years, and she doesn't get on with Aurelia or Claudia. Or her grandchildren." "That's what I mean, Mama. She's so crotchety and hard to please. I know! She looked after us until you came." "As a matter of fact, she and I get along together very well. We always did. And we were friends long before I married your father. It was she who recommended me to your father as a suitable wife. So she owes me a favor. If I go to live with her, I will be wanted, I will have a useful job to do, and I will be under no sort of obligation to her. Once I'm over the shock of this divorce, I think I'll enjoy both the life and her company," said Aelia firmly. This perfect solution plucked out of what had seemed to be an empty bag was received with genuine gratitude by the consul Pompeius Rufus and his family. Though no member of his family would have denied Aelia a permanent home, they could now offer her a temporary one with honest pleasure. "I don't understand Lucius Cornelius!" said the consul Pompeius Rufus to Aelia a day later. "When I saw him I tried to bring the matter of this divorce up, if only to explain why it was that I am sheltering you. And he he turned on me with such a look on his face! I dried up! I tell you, I dried up. Terrible! I thought I knew him. The trouble is, I must continue to like him for the sake of our joint office. We promised the electors we'd work together in close harmony, and I can't go back on that promise." "Of course you can't," said Aelia warmly. "Quintus Pompeius, it has never been my intention to turn you against Lucius Cornelius, believe me! What happens between husband and wife is a very private thing, and to all outside eyes it must seem inexplicable when a marriage terminates for no apparent reason. There are always reasons, and usually they're adequate. Who knows? Lucius Cornelius might genuinely wish for other children. His only son is dead, he has no heir. And he really doesn't have much money, you know, so I understand the dowry. I will be all right. If you could arrange to have someone carry this letter to Cumae for me and wait for a reply from Marcia, we'll know very soon what arrangements I can make." Quintus Pompeius looked at the ground, face redder than his hair. "Lucius Cornelius has sent round your clothes and belongings, Aelia. I am very sorry." "Well, that's good news!" said Aelia, maintaining her calm. "I was beginning to think he'd thrown them away." "All of Rome is talking." She lifted her eyes to his. "About what?" "This divorce. His cruelty to you. It isn't being received well." Quintus Pompeius Rufus cleared his throat. "You happen to be one of the most liked and respected women in Rome. The story is everywhere, including your penniless state. In the Forum this morning he was booed and hissed." “Oh, poor Lucius Cornelius!" she said sadly. “He would have hated that." "If he did, he didn't show it. He just walked on as if nothing was happening." Quintus Pompeius sighed. "Why, Aelia? Why?" He shook his head. "After so many years, it doesn't make sense! If he wanted another son, why didn't he divorce you after Young Sulla died? That's three years ago now."
2. The Grass Crown Page 67
