1. First Man in Rome

by Colleen McCullough

  Four days after Sulla returned to Clitumna's house, Lucius Gavius Stichus came down with a digestive disorder which prostrated him; alarmed, Clitumna called in half a dozen of the Palatine's most fashionable doctors, all of whom diagnosed an attack of food poisoning. "Vomiting, colic, diarrhoea a classic picture," said their spokesman, the Roman physician Publius Popillius. "But he hasn't eaten anything the rest of us haven't!" protested Clitumna, her fears unallayed. "In fact, he isn't eating nearly as well as the rest of us, and that's what's worrying me most!" "Ah, domina, I think you are quite wrong," lisped the nosiest of them, Athenodorus Siculus, a practitioner with the famous Greek investigative persistence; he had wandered off and poked into every room opening off the atrium, then into the rooms around the peristyle-garden. "Surely you are aware that Lucius Gavius has half a sweetmeat shop in his study?" "Pish!" squeaked Clitumna. "Half a sweetmeat shop, indeed! A few figs and pastries, that's all. In fact, he hardly ever touches them." The six learned medical men looked at each other. ' 'Domina, he eats them all day and half the night, so your staff tell me," said Athenodorus the Greek from Sicily. "I suggest you persuade him to give up his confectioneries. If he eats better foods, not only will his digestive troubles clear up, but his general level of health will improve." Lucius Gavius Stichus was privy to all this, lying on his bed too weak from the violence of his purging to defend himself, his slightly protruding eyes jumping from one face to another as the conversation jumped from one speaker to another. "He has pimples, and his skin is a bad color," said a Greek from Athens. "Does he exercise?" "He doesn't need to," said Clitumna, the first hint of doubt appearing in her tone. "He rushes about from place to place in the course of his business, it keeps him constantly on the run, I do assure you!" "What is your business, Lucius Gavius?" asked the Spaniard. "I'm a slaver," said Stichus. Since all save Publius Popillius had started life in Rome as slaves, more jaundice appeared suddenly in their eyes than they could find in Lucius Gavius's, and they moved away from his vicinity under pretext that it was time to leave. "If he wants something sweet, then let him confine himself to the honeyed wine," said Publius Popillius. "Keep him off solid foods for a day or two more, and then when he's feeling hungry again, let him have a normal diet. But mind I said normal, domina! Beans, not sweetmeats. Salads, not sweetmeats. Cold collations, not sweetmeats." Stichus's condition did improve over the next week, but he never got fully well. Eat nothing but nourishing and wholesome foods though he did, still he suffered from periodic bouts of nausea, vomiting, pain, and dysentery, none as severe as his initial attack, all debilitating. He began to lose weight, just a little at a time, so that no one in the house really noticed. By the end of summer he couldn't drag himself as far as his office in the Porticus Metelli, and the days he fancied lying on a couch in the sun grew fewer and further apart. The fabulous illustrated book Sulla had given him ceased to interest him, and food of any kind became an ordeal to consume. Only the honeyed wine could he tolerate, and not always even that. By September every medical practitioner in Rome had been called to see him, and many and varied were the diagnoses, not to mention the treatments, especially after Clitumna began to resort to quacks. "Let him eat what he wants," said one doctor. "Let him eat nothing and starve it out," said another. "Let him eat nothing but beans," said a doctor of the Pythagorean persuasion. "Be consoled," said the nosy Greek doctor, Athenodorus Siculus. "Whatever it is, it's obviously not contagious. I believe it is a malignancy in the upper bowel. However, make sure those who come in physical contact with him or have to empty his chamber pot wash their hands thoroughly afterward, and don't let them near the kitchen or the food." Two days later, Lucius Gavius Stichus died. Beside herself with grief, Clitumna fled Rome immediately after the funeral, begging Sulla and Nicopolis to come with her to Circei, where she had a villa. But though Sulla escorted her down to the Campanian seashore, he and Nicopolis refused to leave Rome. When he returned from Circei, Sulla kissed Nicopolis and moved out of her suite of rooms. "I'm resuming tenancy of the study and my own sleeping cubicle," he said. "After all, now that Sticky Stichy is dead, I'm the closest thing she has to a son." He was sweeping the lavishly illustrated scrolls into a burning bucket; face twisting in disgust, he held up one hand to Nicopolis, who was watching from the doorway of the study. "Look at that! Not an inch of this room that isn't sticky!" The carafe of honeyed wine stood in a caked ring on the priceless citrus-wood console against one wall. Lifting it, Sulla looked down at the permanently ingrained mark amid the exquisite whorls of the wood, and hissed between his teeth. "What a cockroach! Goodbye, Sticky Stichy!" And he pitched the carafe through the open window onto the peristyle colonnade. But it flew farther than that, and broke into a thousand shards on the plinth of Sulla's favorite statue, Apollo pursuing the dryad Daphne. A huge star of syrupy wine marred the smooth stone, and began to trickle down in long runnels which soaked into the ground. Darting to the window to look, Nicopolis giggled. "You're right," she said. "What a cockroach!" And sent her little serving maid Bithy to clean the pedestal with rag and water. No one noticed the traces of white powder adhering to the marble, for it too was white. The water did its work: the powder vanished. "I'm glad you missed the actual statue," said Nicopolis, sitting on Sulla's knee, both of them watching Bithy as she washed away. "I'm sorry," said Sulla, but looked very pleased. "Sorry? Lucius Cornelius, it would have ruined all that wonderful paintwork! At least the plinth is plain marble." His upper lip curled back to show his teeth. "Bah! Why is that I seem permanently surrounded by tasteless fools?" he asked, tipping Nicopolis off his lap. The stain was completely gone; Bithy wrung out her rag and emptied her basin into the pansies. "Bithy!" Sulla called. "Wash your hands, girl, and I mean wash them properly! You don't know what Stichus died of, and he was very fond of honeyed wine. Go on, off you go!" Beaming because he noticed her, Bithy went.

  7

  "I discovered a most interesting young man today," said Gaius Marius to Publius Rutilius Rufus. They were sitting in the precinct of the temple of Tellus on the Carinae, for it lay next door to Rutilius Rufus's house, and on this windy autumn day it offered some welcome sun. "Which is more than my peristyle does," Rutilius Rufus had explained as he conducted his visitor toward a wooden bench in the grounds of the spacious but shabby-looking temple. "Our old gods are neglected these days, especially my dear neighbor Tellus," he meandered on as they settled themselves. "Everyone's too busy bowing and scraping to Magna Mater of Asia to remember Rome is better served by her own earth goddess!" It was to avert the looming homily upon Rome's oldest, most shadowy and mysterious gods that Gaius Marius chose to mention his encounter with the interesting young man. His ploy worked, of course; Rutilius Rufus was never proof against interesting people of any age or either sex. "Who was that?" he asked now, lifting his muzzle to the sun in shut-eyed pleasure, old dog that he was. "Young Marcus Livius Drusus, who must be all of oh, seventeen or eighteen?" "My nephew Drusus?" Marius turned his head to stare. "Is he?" "Well, he is if he's the son of the Marcus Livius Drusus who triumphed last January and intends to seek election as one of the censors for next year," said Rutilius Rufus. Marius laughed, shook his head. "Oh, how embarrassing! Why don't I ever remember such things?" "Probably," said Rutilius Rufus dryly, "because my wife, Livia who, to refresh your bucolic memory, was the sister of your interesting young man's father has been dead these many years, and never went out, and never dined with me when I entertained. The Livius Drususes have a tendency to break the spirits of their womenfolk, unfortunately. Nice little thing, my wife. Gave me two fine children, but never an argument. I treasured her." "I know," said Marius uncomfortably, disliking being caught out would he never get them all straight? But old friend though Rutilius Rufus was, Marius couldn't remember ever meeting his shy little wife. "You ought to marry again," he said, very enamored of marriage these days. "What, just so you don't look so conspicuous? No, thank you! I find sufficient outlet for my passions in writing letters." One dark blue eye came open, peered at Marius. "Anywa
y, why do you think so highly of my nephew Drusus?" "In the last week I've been approached by several groups of Italian Allies, all from different nations, and all bitterly complaining that Rome is misusing their soldier levies," said Marius slowly. "In my opinion they have good grounds for complaint. Almost every consul for a decade and more has wasted the lives of his soldiers and with as little concern as if men were starlings, or sparrows! And the first to perish have been Italian Allied troops, because it's become the custom to use them ahead of Romans in any situation where lives are likely to be lost. It's a rare consul who genuinely appreciates that the Italian Allied soldiers are men of property in their nations and are paid for by their nations, not by Rome." Rutilius Rufus never objected to a roundabout discussion; he knew Marius far too well to assume that what he spoke of now bore no relationship to the nephew Drusus. So he answered this apparent digression willingly. "The Italian Allies came under Rome's military protection to unify defense of the peninsula," he said. "In return for donating soldiers to us, they were accorded special status as our allies and reaped many benefits, not the least of which was a drawing-together of the nations of the peninsula. They give their troops to Rome so that we all fight in a common cause. Otherwise, they'd still be warring one Italian nation against another and undoubtedly losing more men in the process than any Roman consul has lost." "That is debatable," said Marius. "They might have combined and formed one Italian nation instead!" "Since the alliance with Rome is a fact, and has been a fact for two or three hundred years, my dear Gaius Marius, I fail to see where you're going at the moment," Rutilius said. "The deputations who came to see me maintain that Rome is using their troops to fight foreign wars of absolutely no benefit to Italy as a whole," Marius said patiently. "The original bait we dangled before the Italian nations was the granting of the Roman citizenship. But it's nearly eighty years since any Italian or Latin community has been gifted with the citizenship, as you well know. Why, it took the revolt of Fregellae to force the Senate to make concessions to the Latin Rights communities!" "That is an oversimplification," said Rutilius Rufus. "We didn't promise the Italian Allies general enfranchisement. We offered them gradual citizenship in return for consistent loyalty Latin Rights first." "Latin Rights mean very little, Publius Rutilius! At best, they offer a rather tawdry second-class citizenship no vote in any Roman elections." "Well, yes, but in the fifteen years since Fregellae's revolt, you must admit things have improved for those with the Latin Rights," Rutilius Rufus said stubbornly. "Every man holding a magistracy in a Latin Rights town now automatically gains the full Roman citizenship for himself and his family." "I know, I know, and that means there is now a considerable pool of Roman citizens in every Latin Rights town an ever-growing pool, at that! Not to mention that the law provides Rome with new citizens of exactly the right type men of property and great local importance men who can be trusted to vote the right way in Rome," jeered Marius. Up went Rutilius Rufus's brows. "And what's wrong with that?" he asked. "You know, Publius Rutilius, open-minded and progressive though you are in many ways, at heart you're as stuffy a Roman nobleman as Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus!" snapped Marius, still hanging on to his temper. "Why can't you see that Rome and Italy belong together in an equal union?" "Because they don't," said Rutilius Rufus, his own sense of placid well-being beginning to fray. "Really, Gaius Marius! How can you sit here inside the walls of Rome advocating political equality between Romans of Rome and Italians? Rome is not Italy! Rome didn't stumble by accident into first place in the world, nor did she do it on Italian troops! Rome is different." "Rome is superior, you mean," said Marius. "Yes!" Rutilius Rufus seemed to swell. "Rome is Rome. Rome is superior." "Hasn't it ever occurred to you, Publius Rutilius, that if Rome admitted the whole of Italy even Italian Gaul of the Padus too! into its hegemony, Rome would be enhanced?" Marius asked. "Rubbish! Rome would cease to be Roman," said Rutilius. "And therefore, you imply, Rome would be less." "Of course." "But the present situation is farcical," Marius persevered. "Italy is a checkerboard! Regions with the full citizenship, regions with the Latin Rights, regions with mere Allied status, all jumbled up together. Places like Alba Fucentia and Aesernia holding the Latin Rights completely surrounded by the Italians of the Marsi and the Samnites, citizen colonies implanted in the midst of the Gauls along the Padus how can there be any real feeling of unity, of oneness with Rome?" "Seeding Roman and Latin colonies through the Italian nations keeps them in harness to us," said Rutilius Rufus. "Those with the full citizenship or the Latin Rights won't betray us. It wouldn't pay them to betray us, considering the alternative." "I think you mean war with Rome," said Marius. "Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say that," Rutilius Rufus said. "More that it would entail a loss of privilege the Roman and Latin communities would find insupportable. Not to mention a loss of social worth and standing." "Dignitas is all," said Marius. "Precisely." "So you believe the influential men of these Roman and Latin communities would carry the day against the thought of alliance with the Italian nations against Rome?" Rutilius Rufus looked shocked. "Gaius Marius, why are you taking this position? You're no Gaius Gracchus, and you are certainly no reformer!" Marius got to his feet, paced up and down in front of the bench several times, then swung to direct those fierce eyes beneath their even fiercer brows upon the much smaller Rutilius, huddled in a distinctly defensive pose. "You're right, Publius Rutilius, I'm no reformer, and to couple my name with that of Gaius Gracchus is laughable. But I am a practical man, and I have, I flatter myself, more than my fair share of intelligence. Besides which, I am not a Roman of the Romans as everyone who is a Roman of the Romans is at great pains to point out to me. Well, it may be that my bucolic origins endow me with a kind of detachment no Roman of the Romans can ever own. And I see trouble in our checkerboard Italy. I do, Publius Rutilius, I do! I listened to what the Italian Allies had to say a few days ago, and I smelled a change in the wind. For Rome's sake, I hope our consuls in the next few years are wiser in their use of Italian troops than the consuls of the previous decade." "So do I, if not for quite the same reasons," said Rutilius Rufus. "Poor generalship is criminal, especially when it ends in wasting the lives of soldiers, Roman or Italian." He looked up at the looming Marius irritably. "Do sit down, I beg you! I'm getting a pain in the neck." "You are a pain in the neck," said Marius, but sat down obediently, stretching his legs out. "You're gathering clients among the Italians," said Rutilius Rufus. "True." Marius studied his senator's ring, made of gold rather than of iron, for only the oldest senatorial families kept up the tradition of an iron ring. "However, I'm not alone in that activity, Publius Rutilius. Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus has enlisted whole towns as his clients, mainly by securing remissions of their taxes." "Or even securing removal of their taxes, I note." "Indeed. Nor is Marcus Aemilius Scaurus above client gathering among the Italians of the north," said Marius. "Yes, but admit he's less feral than Gnaeus Domitius," Rutilius Rufus objected; he was a Scaurus partisan. "At least he does good works for his client towns drains a swamp, or erects a new meeting-house." "I concede the point. But you mustn't forget the Caecilius Metelluses in Etruria. They're very busy." Rutilius Rufus sighed a long-suffering sigh. "Gaius Marius, I wish I knew exactly what you're taking such an inordinately long time to say!" "I'm not sure myself," said Marius. "Only that I sense a groundswell among the Famous Families, a new awareness of the importance of the Italian Allies. I don't think they're conscious of this importance in any way spelling danger to Rome, only acting on some instinct they don't understand. They smell something in the wind?" "You certainly smell something in the wind," said Rutilius Rufus. "Well, you're a remarkably shrewd man, Gaius Marius. And anger you though I may have done, I have also taken due note of what you've said. On the surface of it, a client isn't much of a creature. His patron can help him far more than he can help his patron. Until an election, or a threatened disaster. Perhaps he can assist only by refusing to support anyone acting against the interests of his patron. Instincts are significant, I agree with you. They'r
e like beacons: they light up whole fields of hidden facts, often long before logic can. So maybe you're right about the groundswell. And maybe to enlist all the Italian Allies as clients in the service of some great Roman family is one way of dealing with this danger you insist is looming. I don't honestly know." "Nor do I," said Marius. "But I'm gathering clients." "And gathering wool," said Rutilius Rufus, smiling. "We started out, as I remember, to discuss my nephew Drusus." Marius folded his legs beneath his knees and pushed himself to his feet so quickly the action startled Rutilius Rufus, who had resumed his shut-eyed repose. "That we did! Come, Publius Rutilius, we may not be too late for me to show you an example of the new feeling about the Italian Allies among the Famous Families!" Rutilius got up. "I'm coming, I'm coming! But where?" "To the Forum, of course," said Marius, setting out down the slope of the temple precinct toward the street. As they walked, Marius spoke. "There's a trial in progress, and if we're lucky we'll arrive before it ends." "I'm surprised you noticed," said Rutilius Rufus dryly; Marius was not usually prone to pay attention to Forum trials. "I'm surprised you haven't been attending it every day," Marius countered. "After all, it's the debut of your nephew Drusus as an advocate." "No!" said Rutilius Rufus. "He made his debut months ago, when he prosecuted the chief tribune of the Treasury for recovery of certain funds which had mysteriously gone missing." "Oh." Marius shrugged, speeded up his pace. "Then that accounts for what I thought was your delinquency. However, Publius Rutilius, you really ought to follow young Drusus's career more closely. If you had, my remarks about the Italian Allies would have made more sense to you." "Enlighten me," said Rutilius Rufus, beginning to labor just a little; Marius always forgot his legs were longer. "I noticed because I heard someone speaking the most beautiful Latin in an equally beautiful voice. A new orator, I thought, and stopped to see who it was. Your young nephew Drusus, no less! Though I didn't know who he was until I asked, and I'm still embarrassed that I didn't associate the name with your family." "Who's he prosecuting this time?" asked Rutilius Rufus. "That's the interesting thing, he's not prosecuting," said Marius. "He's defending, and before the foreign praetor, if you please! It's an important case; there's a jury." "Murder of a Roman citizen?" "No. Bankruptcy." "That's unusual," panted Rutilius Rufus. "I gather it's some sort of example," said Marius, not slowing down: "The plaintiff is the banker Gaius Oppius, the defendant a Marsic businessman from Marruvium called Lucius Fraucus. According to my informant a real professional court-watcher Oppius is tired of bad debts among his Italian accounts, and decided it was time he made an example of an Italian here in Rome. His object is to frighten the rest of Italy into keeping up what I suspect are exorbitant interest payments." "Interest," huffed Rutilius Rufus, "is set at ten percent." "If you're a Roman," said Marius, "and preferably a Roman of the upper economic classes." "Keep on going, Gaius Marius, and you'll wind up like the Brothers Gracchi very dead." "Rubbish!" "I would much rather go home," said Rutilius Rufus. "You're getting soft," said Marius, glancing down at his trotting companion. "A good campaign would do wonders for your wind, Publius Rutilius." "A good rest would do wonders for my wind." Rutilius Rufus slowed down. "I really don't see why we're doing this." "For one thing, because when I left the Forum your nephew still had a good two and a half hours left in which to sum up his case," said Marius. "It's one of the experimental trials you know, to do with changing trial procedures. So the witnesses were heard first, then the Prosecution was allowed two hours to sum up, and the Defense three hours, after which the foreign praetor will ask the jury for its verdict." "There's nothing wrong with the old way," said Rutilius. "Oh, I don't know, I thought the new way made the whole process more interesting for the spectators," said Marius. They were descending the slope of the Clivus Sacer, the lower Forum Romanum just ahead, and the figures in the foreign praetor's court had not changed their distribution while Marius had been away. "Good, we're in time for the peroration," said Marius. Marcus Livius Drusus was still speaking, and his audience was still listening in rapt silence. Obviously well under twenty years of age, the shaveling advocate was of average height and stocky physique, black-haired and swarthy of complexion: not an advocate who would transfix by sheer physical presence, though his face was pleasant enough. "Isn't he amazing?" asked Marius of Rutilius in a whisper. "He's got the knack of making you think he's speaking to you personally, not to anyone else." He had. Even at the distance for Marius and Rutilius Rufus stood at the back of the large crowd his very dark eyes seemed to look deeply into their eyes, and into their eyes alone. "Nowhere does it say that the fact a man is a Roman automatically puts him in the right," the young man was saying. "I do not speak for Lucius Fraucus, the accused I speak for Rome! I speak for honor! I speak for integrity! I speak for justice! Not the kind of lip-service justice which interprets a law in its most literal sense, but the kind of justice which interprets a law in its most logical sense. The law should not be a huge and weighty slab which falls upon a man and squashes him into a uniform shape, for men are not uniform. The law should be a gentle sheet which falls upon a man and shows his unique shape beneath its blanketing sameness. We must always remember that we, the citizens of Rome, stand as an example to the rest of the world, especially in our laws and our courts of law. Has such sophistication ever been seen elsewhere? Such drafting? Such intelligence? Such care? Such wisdom? Do not even the Greeks of Athens admit it? Do not the Alexandrians? Do not the Pergamites?" His rhetorical body language was superb, even with the severe disadvantages of his height and physique, neither lending itself to the toga; to wear the toga superlatively, a man had to be tall, wide of shoulder, and narrow of hip, and move with consummate grace. Marcus Livius Drusus did not qualify on any point. And yet he worked wonders with his body, from the smallest wiggle of a finger to the largest sweep of his whole right arm. The movements of his head, the expressions on his face, the changes in his walk everything so good! "Lucius Fraucus, an Italian from Marruvium," he went on, "is the ultimate victim, not the perpetrator. No one including Lucius Fraucus! disputes the fact that this very large sum of money advanced by Gaius Oppius is missing. Nor is it disputed that this very large sum of money must be restored to Gaius Oppius, together with the interest the loan has incurred. One way or another, it will be repaid. If necessary, Lucius Fraucus is willing to sell his houses, his lands, his investments, his slaves, his furniture all he possesses! More than enough to constitute restitution!" He walked up to the front row of the jury and glared at the men in its middle ranks. "You have heard the witnesses. You have heard my learned colleague the Prosecutor. Lucius Fraucus was the borrower. But he was not the thief. Therefore, say I, Lucius Fraucus is the real victim of this fraud, not Gaius Oppius, his banker. If you condemn Lucius Fraucus, conscript members of the jury, you subject him to the full penalty of the law as it applies to a man who is not a citizen of our great city, nor a holder of the Latin Rights. All of Lucius Fraucus's property will be put up for forced sale, and you know what that means. It will fetch nowhere near its actual value, and indeed might not even fetch enough to make restitution of the full sum." This last was said with a most speaking glance toward the sidelines, where the banker Gaius Oppius sat on a folding chair, attended by a retinue of clerks and accountants. "Very well! Nowhere near its actual value! After which, conscript members of the jury, Lucius Fraucus will be sold into debt-bondage until he has made up the difference between the sum demanded and the sum obtained from the forced sale of all his property. Now, a poor judge of character in choosing his senior employees Lucius Fraucus may be, but in the pursuit of his business, Lucius Fraucus is a remarkably shrewd and highly successful man. Yet how can he ever make good his debt if, propertyless and disgraced, he is handed over into bondage? Will he even be of use to Gaius Oppius as a clerk?'' The young man was now concentrating every scrap of his vigor and will upon the Roman banker, a mild-looking man in his fifties, who seemed entranced by what the young man said. "For a man who is not a Roman citizen, conviction upon a criminal charge leads to one t
hing before all others. He must be flogged. Not chastised by the rods, as a Roman citizen is a little sore, perhaps, but chiefly injured in his dignity. No! He must be flogged! Laid about with the barbed whip until nothing of skin and muscle is left, and he is maimed for life, scarred worse than any mine slave." The hairs stood up on the back of Marius's neck; for if the young man was not looking straight at him one of the biggest mine owners in Rome then his eyes were playing tricks. Yet how could young Drusus have found a latecomer at the very back of such a huge crowd? "We are Romans!" the young man cried. "Italy and its citizens are under our protection. Do we show ourselves to be mine owners of men who look to us as an example? Do we condemn an innocent man on a technicality, simply because his is the signature on the document of loan? Do we ignore the fact that he is willing to make complete restitution? Do we, in effect, accord him less justice than we would a citizen of Rome? Do we flog a man who ought rather to wear a dunce's cap upon his head for his foolishness in trusting a thief? Do we create a widow of a wife? Do we create orphans of children with a loving father? Surely not, conscript members of the jury! For we are Romans. We are a better brand of men!" With a swirl of white wool the speaker turned and quit the vicinity of the banker, thus establishing an instant in which all eyes left the banker to follow, dazzled; all eyes, that is, save those of several jurymen in the front row, looking no different from the rest of the fifty-one members of the panel. And the eyes of Gaius Marius and Publius Rutilius Rufus. One juror gazed woodenly at Oppius, drawing his forefinger across the base of his throat as if it itched. The response followed instantly: the faintest shake of the great banker's head. Gaius Marius began to smile. "Thank you, praetor peregrinus," said the young man as he bowed to the foreign praetor, suddenly seeming stiff and shy, no longer possessed by whatever invaded him when he orated. "Thank you, Marcus Livius," said the foreign praetor, and directed his glance toward the jury. "Citizens of Rome, please inscribe your tablets and permit the court your verdict." There was a general movement throughout the court; the jurors all produced small squares of pale clay and pencils of charcoal. But they didn't write anything, instead sat looking at the backs of the heads in the middle of their front row. The man who had ghosted a question at Oppius the banker took up his pencil and drew a letter upon his clay tablet, then yawned mightily, his arms stretched above his head, the tablet still in his left hand, the multiple folds of his toga falling back toward his left shoulder as the arm straightened in the air. The rest of the jurors then scribbled busily, and handed in their tablets to the lictors who were going among them. The foreign praetor did the counting himself; everyone waited, scarcely breathing, for the verdict. Glancing at each tablet, he tossed it into one of two baskets on the desk in front of him, most into one, a few into the other. When all fifty-one had been dealt with, he looked up. "ABSOLVO." he said. "Forty-three for, eight against. Lucius Fraucus of Marruvium, citizen of the Marsic nation of our Italian Allies, you are discharged by this court, but only on condition that you make full restitution as promised. I leave you to arrange matters with Gaius Oppius, your creditor, before this day is over." And that was that. Marius and Rutilius Rufus waited for the crowds to finish congratulating the young Marcus Livius Drusus. Finally only the friends of Drusus were left clustered about him, very excited. But when the tall man with the fierce eyebrows and the little man everyone knew to be Drusus's uncle bore down on the group, everyone melted away bashfully. "Congratulations, Marcus Livius," said Marius, extending his hand. "I thank you, Gaius Marius." "Well done," said Rutilius Rufus. They turned in the direction of the Velia end of the Forum and began to walk. Rutilius Rufus left the conversation to Marius and Drusus, pleased to see his young nephew was maturing so magnificently as an advocate, but well aware of the shortcomings beneath that stolidly stocky exterior. Young Drusus, thought his Uncle Publius, was a rather humorless pup, brilliant but oddly blighted, who would never have that lightness of being which could discern the shape of coming grotesqueries, and so as his life went on would fail to sidestep much of life's pain. Earnest. Dogged. Ambitious. Incapable of letting go once his teeth were fixed in a problem. Yes. But, for all that, Uncle Publius told himself, young Drusus was an honorable pup. "It would have been a very bad thing for Rome if your Italian client had been convicted," Marius was saying. "Very bad indeed. Fraucus is one of the most important men in Marruvium, and an elder of his Marsic nation. Of course he won't be nearly so important once he's paid back the money he owes Gaius Oppius, but he'll make more," said Drusus. They had reached the Velia when "Do you ascend the Palatine?" young Drusus asked, pausing in front of the temple of Jupiter Stator. "Certainly not," said Publius Rutilius Rufus, emerging from his thoughts. "Gaius Marius is coming home to dine with me, nephew." Young Drusus bowed to his seniors solemnly, then began to ascend the slope of the Clivus Palatinus; from behind Marius and Rutilius Rufus emerged the unprepossessing form of Quintus Servilius Caepio Junior, young Drusus's best friend, running to catch up with young Drusus, who must have heard him, but didn't wait. "That's a friendship I don't like," said Rutilius Rufus, standing watching the two young men dwindle in size. "Oh?" "They're impeccably noble and terrifically rich, the Servilius Caepios, but as short on brains as they're long on hauteur, so it's not a friendship between equals," said Rutilius Rufus. "My nephew seems to prefer the peculiar style of deference and sycophancy young Caepio Junior offers to a more stimulating not to mention deflating! kind of fellowship with others among his peers. A pity. For I fear, Gaius Marius, that Caepio Junior's devotion will give young Drusus a false impression of his ability to lead men." "In battle?" Rutilius Rufus stopped in his tracks. "Gaius Marius, there are other activities than war, and other institutions than armies! No, I was referring to leadership in the Forum." Later in that same week Marius came again to call upon his friend Rutilius Rufus, and found him distractedly packing. "Panaetius is dying," explained Rutilius, blinking back his tears. "Oh, that's too bad!" said Marius. "Where is he? Will you reach him in time?" "I hope so. He's in Tarsus, and asking for me. Fancy his asking for me, out of all the Romans he taught!" Marius's glance was soft. "And why shouldn't he? After all, you were his best pupil." "No, no," said the little man, seeming abstracted. "I'll go home," said Marius. "Nonsense," said Rutilius Rufus, leading the way to his study, a hideously untidy room which seemed to be overfilled with desks and tables piled high with books, most of them at least partially unrolled, some anchored at one end and cascading onto the floor in a welter of precious Egyptian paper. "Garden," said Marius firmly, perceiving no place to roost amid the chaos, but well aware that Rutilius Rufus could put his hand on any book he owned in scant moments, no matter how buried it appeared to the uninitiated eye. "What are you writing?'' he asked, spotting a long screed of Fannius-treated paper on a table, already half-covered with Rutilius Rufus's unmistakable hand, as neat and easy to read as his room was disorganized. "Something I'll have to consult you about," said Rutilius, leading the way outside. "A manual of military information. After our talk about the inept generals Rome has been fielding of late years, I thought it was time someone competent produced a helpful treatise. So far it's been all logistics and base planning, but now I move on to tactics and strategy, where you shine far brighter than I do. So I'm going to have to milk your brains." "Consider them milked." Marius sat down on a wooden bench in the tiny, sunless, rather neglected garden, on the weedy side and with a fountain that didn't work. "Have you had a visit from Metellus Piggle-wiggle?" he asked. "As a matter of fact, I have, earlier today," said Rutilius, coming to rest on a bench opposite Marius's. "He came to see me this morning too." "Amazing how little he's changed, our Quintus Caecilius Metellus Piggle-wiggle," laughed Rutilius Rufus. "If there'd been a pigsty handy, or my fountain was worthy of its name, I think I might have tossed him in all over again.'' "I know how you feel, but I don't think that's a good idea," said Marius. "What did he have to say to you?" "He's going to stand for consul." "If we ever have any elections, that is! What on earth possessed those tw
o fools to try to stand a second time as tribunes of the plebs when even the Gracchi came to grief?" "It shouldn't delay the Centuriate elections or the People's elections, for that matter," said Rutilius Rufus. "Of course it will! Our two would-be second-termers will cause their colleagues to veto all elections," said Marius. "You know what tribunes of the plebs are like once they get the bit between their teeth, no one can stop them." Rutilius shook with laughter. "I should think I do know what tribunes of the plebs are like! I was one of the worst. And so were you, Gaius Marius." "Well, yes___" "There'll be elections, never fear," said Rutilius Rufus comfortably. "My guess is that the tribunes of the plebs will go to the polls four days before the Ides of December, and all the others will follow just after the Ides." "And Metellus Piggle-wiggle will be consul," said Marius. Rutilius Rufus leaned forward, folding his hands together. "He knows something." "You are not wrong, old friend. He definitely knows something we don't. Any guesses?" "Jugurtha. He's planning a war against Jugurtha." "That's what I think too," said Marius. "Only is he going to start it, or is Spurius Albinus going to?" "I wouldn't have said Spurius Albinus had the intestinal fortitude. But time will tell," Rutilius said tranquilly. "He offered me a job as senior legate with his army." "He offered me the same position." They looked at each other and grinned. "Then we'd better make it our business to find out what's going on," said Marius, getting to his feet. "Spurius Albinus is supposed to arrive here any day to hold the elections, no one having told him there aren't going to be any elections for some time to come." "He'd have left Africa Province before the news could have reached him, anyway," said Rutilius Rufus, bypassing the study. "Are you going to accept Piggle-wiggle's offer?" "I will, if you will, Gaius Marius." "Good!" Rutilius opened the front door himself. "And how is Julia? I won't have a chance to see her." Marius beamed. "Wonderful beautiful glorious!" "You silly old geezer," said Rutilius, and pushed Marius into the street. "Keep your ear to the ground while I'm away, and write to me if you hear any martial stirrings." "I will. Have a good trip." "In autumn? It'll be a charnel house on board ship and I might drown." "Not you," said Marius, grinning. "Father Neptune wouldn't have you, he wouldn't be game to spoil Piggle-wiggle's plans."