Fortune's Favorites

by Colleen McCullough

  "He's a coward!" said Brutus indignantly.

  Carbo made a rude noise. "Not that one! I'd rather call him strange. He's got no friends, haven't you ever noticed it? Nor a wife. But he doesn't have Gaius Marius's ambition, for which we all ought to thank our lucky stars. If he did, Brutus, he'd be senior consul."

  "Well, I think it's a pity he's left us in the lurch. His presence on the battlefield would have made all the difference. Aside from anything else, he knows how Sulla fights."

  Carbo belched, pressed his belly. “I think I'm going to retire and take an emetic. The young cub's prodigious assortment of food is too rich for my stomach."

  Brutus assisted the junior consul from the couch and led him off toward a screened corner of the hall behind the podium, where several servants tended an array of chamber pots and bowls for those in need.

  Flicking a scornful glance at Carbo's back, Caesar decided he had heard the most important conversation likely to take place at this consular inaugural feast. He kicked off his clogs, picked them up, and quietly stole away.

  Lucius Decumius was lurking in a sheltered corner of the Senate House vestibule, and appeared at Caesar's side the moment he had fully emerged from the doorway. His arms were full of more sensible garments-decent boots, a hooded cloak, socks, a pair of woolen breeches. Off came the regalia of the flamen Dialis. Behind Lucius Decumius loomed an awesome personage who took apex, laena and clogs from Lucius Decumius and stuffed them into a drawstringed leather bag.

  “What, back from Bovillae, Burgundus?'' asked Caesar, gasping with the cold as he struggled to pull on a laceless boot.

  "Yes, Caesar."

  "How goes it? All well with Cardixa?"

  "I am the father of another son."

  Lucius Decumius giggled. "I told you, Pavo my peacock! He will have given you a whole bodyguard by the time you're the consul!"

  "I will never be consul," said Caesar, and looked out at the shrouded end of the Basilica Aemilia, swallowing painfully.

  "Rubbish! Of course you'll get there," said Lucius Decumius, and reached up his mittened hands to cup Caesar's face. "Now you just stop all that gloomy business! There's not nothing in the whole world will stop you once you make up your mind to it, hear me?'' Down came the hands, one of them gesturing impatiently at Burgundus. "Go on, you great German lump! Clear a path for the master!"

  It went on as it had begun, that terrible winter, and seemed as if it would never end. The seasons were in fair company to the calendar after some years of Scaevola as Pontifex Maximus; he, like Metellus Dalmaticus, believed in keeping date and season in harmony, though the Pontifex Maximus between them, Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, had allowed the calendar to gallop ahead-it was ten days shorter than the solar year-because he despised finicky Greek habits, he had said.

  But finally in March the thaw set in, and Italy began to believe that warmth would return to countryside and house. Asleep since October, the legions stirred, woke into activity. Braving the deep snow of early March, Gaius Norbanus issued out of Capua with six of his eight legions and marched to join Carbo, who was back in Ariminum. He went straight past Sulla, who chose to ignore him; on the Via Latina and then the Via Flaminia, Norbanus could manage to move despite the snow, and soon reached Ariminum. His arrival plumped out Carbo's forces there to thirty legions and several thousand cavalry, an enormous burden for Rome-and the Ager Gallicus-to carry.

  But before leaving for Ariminum, Carbo had solved his most pressing problem: where the money to keep all these troops under arms would come from. Perhaps it was the melted gold and silver from the burned temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus stored as ingots in the Treasury gave him the idea, for certainly he commenced by seizing them, leaving in their stead a promissory note that Rome owed her Great God so many talents of gold and so many talents of silver. A large number of Rome's temples were rich in their own right, and since religion was. a part of the State and run by the State, Carbo and Young Marius took it upon themselves to "borrow" the money held in Rome's temples. In theory this was not unconstitutional, but in practice it was abhorrent, a solution to financial crises which was never put into effect. But out of the temple strong rooms came chest after chest after chest of coins: the single sestertius which was given at the birth of a Roman citizen's male or female child to Juno Lucina; the single denarius which was given upon maturation of a Roman citizen male child to Juventas; the many denarii donated to Mercury after a businessman wetted his laurel bough at the sacred fountain; the single sestertius which was given at the death of a Roman citizen to 'Venus Libitina; the sesterces which were donated by successful prostitutes to Venus Erucina–all this money and much more was commandeered to fund Carbo's war machine. Bullion too was taken, and any gold or silver temple gift not felt to be an artistic loss was melted down.

  The stammering praetor Quintus Antonius Balbus-not one of the noble Antonii-was given the job of minting new coins and sorting out the old. Sacrilegious many may have deemed it, but the value of the haul was staggering. Carbo was able to leave Young Marius in charge of Rome and the campaign in the south, and journey to Ariminum with an easy mind.

  Though neither camp was aware it shared something in common, both Sulla and Carbo had made a similar resolution-that this was one civil war would not wreck Italy, that every mouthful of provender for man and beast involved in the hostilities must be paid for in hard cash, that the amount of land ruined by army maneuvers must be kept to an absolute minimum. The Italian War had brought the whole country to the brink of extinction; the country could not afford another war like it, especially so soon. And this, both Sulla and Carbo knew.

  They were also aware that the war between them lacked in the eyes of ordinary people the nobility of purpose and ironclad reason which the Italian War had possessed in abundance. That had been a struggle between Italian states which wanted to be independent of Rome, and Rome which wanted the Italian states kept in a certain degree of vassalage. But what was this new conflict really all about? Simply, which camp would end in ruling and owning Rome. It was a struggle for ascendancy between two men, Sulla and Carbo, and no amount of propaganda either camp put out could really disguise that fact. Nor were the ordinary people of Rome and Italy fooled. Therefore the country could not be subjected to extreme hardship, nor the economic well-being of the Roman and Italian communities diminished.

  Sulla was borrowing from his soldiers, but the only ones Carbo could borrow from were the gods. And always at the back of each man's mind there loomed an awful dilemma: how, when the struggle was over, could the debt be paid back?

  None of this impinged upon the thoughts of Young Marius, the son of a fabulously wealthy man never brought up to care about money, be it the money to pay for some expensive personal trifle, or the money to pay the legions. If old Gaius Marius had talked to anyone about the fiscal side of war, it had been to Caesar during those months when Caesar had helped him recover from his second stroke. To his son, he had hardly talked at all. For by the time he had needed his son, Young Marius was of an age to be seduced more by the charms of Rome than by his father. To Caesar-nine years younger than his cousin-fell the lot of Gaius Marius's reminiscences. And Caesar had listened avidly to much the arrival of his priesthood had rendered worse than useless.

  When the thaw set in after the middle of March, Young Marius and his staff of legates moved from Rome to a camp outside the little town of Ad Pictas on the Via Labicana, a diverticulum which avoided the Alban Hills and rejoined the Via Latina at a place called Sacriportus. Here on a flat alluvial plain eight legions of Etrurian and Umbrian volunteers had been encamped since early winter, under as strict and intensive a training program as the cold made possible. Their centurions were all Marian veterans, and good at training, but when Young Marius arrived toward the end of March, the troops were still very green. Not that Young Marius cared; he genuinely believed that the greenest recruit would fight for him the way hardened soldiers had fought for his father. And he faced the task of stopping
Sulla with unimpaired confidence.

  There were men in his camp who understood far better than Young Marius the enormity of that task, but not one of them tried to enlighten their consul-commander. If taxed for a reason why, each one would probably have answered that beneath all his bluster, Young Marius did not have the internal resources to cope with so much truth. The figurehead, Young Marius must be cherished and protected, kept together.

  When intelligence reports arrived to inform him that Sulla was preparing to move, Young Marius cheered. For Sulla it seemed had detached eleven of his eighteen legions along with all save a few squadrons of cavalry, and sent this big force under the command of Metellus Pius the Piglet toward the Adriatic coast and Carbo in Ariminum. Which left Sulla with seven legions only, a smaller force than Young Marius owned.

  "I can beat him!" he said to his senior legate, Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus.

  Married to Cinna's elder girl, Ahenobarbus was committed to Carbo's side despite a natural inclination in Sulla's direction; he was very much in love with his beautiful red-haired wife, and sufficiently under her thumb to do whatever she wished. The fact that most of his close relatives were either sternly neutral or with Sulla he contrived to ignore.

  Now he listened to Young Marius in jubilant mood, and felt a much greater degree of unease; perhaps he ought to start thinking of how and where to flee if Young Marius didn't make good his boast and beat the old red fox, Sulla.

  On the first day of April, Young Marius in high fettle moved his army out of camp and marched through the ancient pylons at Sacriportus onto the Via Latina, heading southeast toward Campania and Sulla. He wasted no time, for there were two bridges to cross within five miles of each other, and he wanted to be clear of them before he encountered the enemy. No one offered him any advice as to the prudence of marching to meet Sulla rather than remaining where he was, and though he had traveled the Via Latina dozens of times, Young Marius did not have the kind of mind which remembered terrain or saw terrain in military terms.

  At the first bridge-spanning the Veregis he remained behind while his troops marched across in high spirits, and suddenly realized that the ground was better for fighting around the pylons of Sacriportus than in the direction he was going. But he didn't stop. At the second bridge–across the bigger, more torrential stream of the Tolerus–it finally dawned on him that he was steadily moving into country where his legions would find it difficult to maneuver. His scouts arrived to tell him that Sulla was ten miles down the road and rapidly passing the town of Ferentinum, whereupon Young Marius panicked.

  "I think we'd better go back to Sacriportus," he said to Ahenobarbus. "I can't hope to deploy the way I want to in this country, and I can't get past Sulla to more open ground. So we'll face him at Sacriportus. Don't you think that's best?"

  "If you think so," said Ahenobarbus, who was well aware of the effect an order to face about and retreat would have on these green troops, but decided not to say a word. "I'll give the command. Back to Sacriportus."

  "At the double!" cried Young Marius, his confidence oozing away moment by moment, and his sense of panic increasing.

  Ahenobarbus looked at him, astonished, but again elected to say nothing. If Young Marius wanted his army exhausted by some miles of run-trot-walk retreat, why should he argue? They couldn't win anyway.

  So back to Sacriportus the eight legions proceeded at the double, the thousands of young soldiers growing more bewildered as their centurions exhorted them to pick up their heels and move! Young Marius too became infected with this desperate hurrying, and rode among the ranks urging them on- without once thinking to inform them that they were not in retreat, merely moving to better ground on which to fight. The result was that both troops and commander arrived on that better ground in no mental or physical condition to make proper use of it.

  Like all his peers, Young Marius was tutored as to how to fight a battle, but until now he had simply assumed his father's acumen and skill would automatically swirl into his mind; but at Sacriportus, with legates and military tribunes all clustered about him looking at him to receive orders, he couldn't think, he couldn't find one single iota of his father's acumen and skill.

  "Oh," he said finally, "deploy the legions in checkered square-eight men deep on each side of each square, and keep two legions in line behind to serve as reinforcements."

  They were not adequate orders, but no one tried to force better orders out of him, and his thirsty, panting troops did not find their flagging spirits cheered by an address from Young Marius; instead of attempting to speak to them, he rode off to one side of the field and sat upon his horse with his shoulders hunched and his face betraying the depth of his dilemma.

  Discerning Young Marius's unadventurous battle plan from the top of a ridge between the Tolerus and Sacriportus, Sulla sighed, shrugged, and sent his five legions of veterans into action under the elder Dolabella and Servilius Vatia. The two best legions from Scipio Asiagenus's old army he held in reserve under Lucius Manlius Torquatus, while he himself remained on the ridge, attended by a squadron of cavalry deputed to form a messenger corps and carry the general's instructions to the battlefield at the gallop if a change in tactics should become necessary. With him was none other than old Lucius Valerius Flaccus Princeps Senatus, the Leader of the House; Flaccus had made up his mind during the worst of the winter, and quit Rome for Sulla halfway through February.

  * * *

  When he saw Sulla's army approaching, Young Marius underwent a return of his calm, though not of his optimism, and assumed personal command of his left wing without having any real idea of what he was doing or what he ought to do. The two armies met in midafternoon of that shortish day, and before the first hour was over the Etrurian and Umbrian farm boys who had enlisted so enthusiastically for Young Marius were fleeing the field in all directions away from where Sulla's veterans were chopping them into pieces with effortless ease. One of the two legions Young Marius had kept in reserve deserted en masse to Servilius Vatia, and stood quietly while the slaughter of their confederates went on scant paces away.

  It was the sight of that defected legion that finished Young Marius. Remembering that the formidable fortress town of Praeneste lay not far to the east of Sacriportus, he ordered a retreat into Praeneste. With something tangible to do, he fared better, and contrived to evacuate the troops of his left wing in reasonable order. Commanding Sulla's right, Ofella took after Young Marius with a swiftness and savagery Sulla, watching from his ridge, applauded heartily. For ten miles Ofella harried and harassed, cut off stragglers and cut them up, while Young Marius endeavored to save as many as he could. But when at last the enormous gates of Praeneste closed behind him, only seven thousand of his men had managed to stay with him.

  Young Marius's center had perished on the field almost to the last man, but his right wing, led by Ahenobarbus, succeeded in breaking off hostilities and making a run for Norba. This ancient stronghold of the Volsci, fanatically loyal to Carbo's cause, stood atop a mountain twenty miles to the southwest, and gladly opened the gates in its impregnable walls to receive Ahenobarbus's ten thousand men. But not to receive Ahenobarbus! Wishing his devastated soldiers the best of luck for the future, Ahenobarbus continued on for the coast at Tarracina and there took ship for Africa, the farthest place from Italy he could bear to think of with equanimity.

  Unaware that his senior legate had slipped away, Young Marius was satisfied with his Praenestian shelter; from this city Sulla would find it extremely difficult-if not impossible-to dislodge him. Some twenty-three miles from Rome, Praeneste occupied the heights of a spur of the Apennines, a site which had enabled it to withstand many assaults on its frowning walls through the centuries before Young Marius availed himself of its defenses. No army could take it from behind, where the outcrop on which it stood joined higher, more precipitous mountains; yet it could be provisioned from this direction, which made it impossible to starve out. Of springs there were aplenty within the citadel, and in vas
t caverns below the mighty shrine to Fortuna Primigenia for which Praeneste was most famous, there lay many medimni of wheat and oil and wine, other imperishable foods like hard cheeses and raisins, as well as apples and pears from the previous autumn's picking.

  Though its roots were Latin enough and its version of that language proudly held by its citizens to be the oldest and purest, Praeneste had never allied itself with Rome. It fought on the side of the Italian Allies during the Italian War, and still held defiantly that its citizenship was superior to Rome's-Rome was a parvenu place! Its fervent espousal of Young Marius was therefore logical enough; he seemed to the people of Praeneste the underdog facing Sulla's vengeful might, and being his father's son besides, was warmly welcomed. As thanks, he pressed his soldiers into forming forage parties and sent them out along the snake-paths behind the citadel to procure as much food as possible. Praeneste now had many extra mouths.

  "By summer Sulla will have moved on from sheer necessity, and then you can leave," said the city's chief magistrate.

  A prophecy not to bear fruit; less than a market interval after the battle of Sacriportus, Young Marius and the inhabitants of Praeneste witnessed the beginnings of a siege investment too monumental to be anything less than iron determination to see Praeneste fall. The tributaries which ran off the spur in the direction of Rome all entered the Anio River, whereas those which ran off the spur in the opposite direction all eventually entered the Tolerus River: Praeneste was a watershed. And now, with a speed the imprisoned onlookers found incredible, a great wall and ditch began to grow from the Anio side of the spur all the way around to the Tolerus side. When these siegeworks were completed, the only way in or out of Praeneste would be the snake-paths through the mountains behind. Provided, that is, that they were left unguarded.

  The news of Sacriportus flew to Rome before the sun had set upon that fatal day-but very secretly. General dissemination would have to wait upon hearsay. It came by special courier from Young Marius himself, for the moment he was inside Praeneste he dictated a hasty letter to Rome's urban praetor, Lucius Junius Brutus Damasippus. It said: