1. First Man in Rome

by Colleen McCullough

  Two white oxen and one white bull were Marius's share of the sacrifices that day, but only the oxen belonged to his triumph. He left his four-horse chariot at the foot of the steps up to the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, and ascended them alone. Inside the main room of the temple he laid his laurel branch and his laurel wreaths at the foot of the statue of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, after which his lictors filed inside and their laurel wreaths too were offered to the god. It was just noon. No triumphal parade had ever gone so quickly; but the rest of it which was the bulk of it was proceeding at a more leisurely pace, so the people would have plenty of time to see the pageants, floats, booty, trophies, soldiers. Now came the real business of Marius's day. Down the steps to the assembled senators came Gaius Marius, face painted red, toga purple and gold, tunic embroidered with palm fronds, and in his right hand the ivory scepter. He walked briskly, his mind bent upon getting the inauguration over, his costume a minor inconvenience he could endure. "Well, let's get on with it!" he said impatiently. Utter silence greeted this directive. No one moved, no one betrayed what he was thinking by an expression on his face. Even Marius's colleague Gaius Flavius Fimbria and the outgoing consul Publius Rutilius Rufus (Gnaeus Mallius Maximus had sent word that he was ill) just stood there. "What's the matter with you?" Marius asked testily. Out of the crowd stepped Sulla, no longer martial in his silver parade armor, but properly togate. He was smiling broadly, his hand outstretched, every inch of him the helpful and attentive quaestor. "Gaius Marius, Gaius Marius, you've forgotten!" he cried loudly, reaching Marius and swinging him round with unexpected strength in his grip. "Get home and change, man!" he whispered. Marius opened his mouth to argue, then he caught a secret look of glee on Metellus Numidicus's face, and with superb timing he put his hand up to his face, brought it down to look at its reddened palm. "Ye gods!" he exclaimed, face comical. "I do apologize, Conscript Fathers," he said as he moved toward them again. "I know I'm in a hurry to get to the Germans, but this is ridiculous! Please excuse me. I'll be back as soon as I possibly can. The general's regalia even triumphal! cannot be worn to a meeting of the Senate within the pomerium." And as he marched away across the Asylum toward the Arx, he called over his shoulder, "I thank you, Lucius Cornelius!" Sulla broke away from the silent spectators and ran after him, not something every man could do in a toga; but he did it well, even made it look natural. "I do thank you," said Marius to him when Sulla caught up. "But what on earth does it really matter? Now they've all got to stand around in the freezing wind for an hour while I wash this stuff off and put on my toga praetexta!" "It matters to them," said Sulla, "and I do believe it matters to me too." His shorter legs were moving faster than Marius's. "You're going to need the senators, Gaius Marius, so please don't antagonize them any further today! They weren't impressed at being obliged to share their inauguration with your triumph, to start with. So don't rub their noses in it!" "All right, all right!" Marius sounded resigned. He took the steps that led from the Arx to the back door of his house three at a time, and charged through the door so violently that its custodian fell flat on his face and started to shriek in terror. "Shut up, man, I'm not the Gauls and this is now, not three hundred years ago!" he said, and started to yell for his valet, and his wife, and his bath servant. "It's all laid out ready," said that queen among women, Julia, smiling peacefully. "I thought you'd arrive in your usual hurry. Your bath is hot, everyone is waiting to help, so off you go, Gaius Marius." She turned to Sulla with her lovely smile. "Welcome, my brother. It's turned cold, hasn't it? Do come into my sitting room and warm yourself by the brazier while I find you some mulled wine." "You were right, it is freezing," said Sulla, taking the beaker from his sister-in-law when she came back bearing it. "I've got used to Africa. Chasing after the Great Man, I thought I was hot, but now I'm perished." She sat down opposite him, head cocked inquisitively. "What went wrong?" she asked. "Oh, you are a wife," he said, betraying his bitterness. "Later, Lucius Cornelius," she said. "Tell me what went wrong first." He smiled wryly, shaking his head. "You know, Julia, I do love that man as much as I can love any man," he said, "but at times I could toss him to the Tullianum strangler as easily as I could an enemy!" Julia chuckled. "So could I," she said soothingly. "It is quite normal, you know. He's a Great Man, and they're very hard to live with. What did he do?" "He tried to participate in the inauguration wearing his full triumphal dress," said Sulla. "Oh, my dear brother! I suppose he made a fuss about the waste of time, and antagonized them all?" asked the Great Man's loyal but lucid wife. "Luckily I saw what he was going to do even through all that red paint on his face." Sulla grinned. "It's his eyebrows. After three years with Gaius Marius, anyone except a fool reads his mind from the antics of his eyebrows. They wriggle and bounce in code well, you'd know, you're certainly no fool!" "Yes, I do know," she said with an answering grin. "Anyway, I got to him first, and yelled out something or other to the effect that he'd forgotten. Phew! I held my breath for a moment or two, though, because it was on the tip of his tongue to tell me to take a running jump into the Tiber. Then he saw Quintus Caecilius Numidicus just waiting, and he changed his mind. What an actor! I imagine everyone except Publius Rutilius was fooled into thinking he had genuinely forgotten what he was wearing." "Oh, thank you, Lucius Cornelius!" said Julia. "It was my pleasure," he said, and meant it. "More hot wine?" "Thank you, yes." When she returned, she bore a plate of steaming buns as well. "Here, these just came out of the pot. Yeasty and filled with sausage. They're awfully good! Our cook makes them for Young Marius all the time. He's going through that dreadful stage where he won't eat anything he should." "My two eat anything that's put in front of them," Sulla said, face lighting up. "Oh, Julia, they're lovely! I never realized anything living could be so so perfect*" "I'm rather fond of them myself," said their aunt. "I wish Julilla was," he said, face darkening. "I know," said Julilla's sister softly. "What is the matter with her? Do you know?" "I think we spoiled her too much. Father and Mother didn't want a fourth child, you know. They'd had two boys, and when I came along they didn't mind a girl to round the family out. But Julilla was a shock. And we were too poor. So then when she grew up a little, everyone felt sorry for her, I think. Especially Mother and Father, because they hadn't wanted her. Whatever she did, we found an excuse for. If there was a spare sestertius or two, she got them to fritter away, and was never chided for frittering them away. I suppose the flaw was there all along, but we didn't help her to cope with it where we should have taught her patience and forbearance, we didn't. Julilla grew up fancying herself the most important person in the world, so she grew up selfish and self-centered and self-excusing. We are largely to blame. But poor Julilla is the one who must suffer.'' "She drinks too much," said Sulla. "Yes, I know." "And she hardly ever bothers with the children." The tears came to Julia's eyes. "Yes, I know." "What can I do?" "Well, you could divorce her," said Julia, the tears now trickling down her face. Out went Sulla's hands, smeared with the contents of a bun. "How can I do that when I'm going to be away from Rome myself for however long it takes to defeat the Germans? And she's the mother of my children. I did love her as much as I can love anyone." "You keep saying that, Lucius Cornelius. If you love you love! Why should you love any less than other men?" But that was too near the bone. He closed up. "I didn't grow up with any love, so I never learned how," he said, trotting out his conventional excuse. "I don't love her anymore. In fact, I think I hate her. But she's the mother of my daughter and my son, and until the Germans are a thing of the past at least, Julilla is all they have. If I divorced her, she'd do something theatrical go mad, or kill herself, or triple the amount of wine she drinks or some other equally desperate and thoughtless alternative." "Yes, you're right, divorce isn't the answer. She would definitely damage the children more than she can at present." Julia sighed, wiped her eyes. "Actually there are two troubled women in our family at the moment. May I suggest a different solution?" "Anything, please!" cried Sulla. "Well, my mother's the second troubled woman, you see.
She isn't happy living with Brother Sextus and his wife and their son. Most of the trouble between her and my Claudian sister-in-law is because my mother still regards herself as the mistress of the house. They fight constantly. Claudians are headstrong and domineering, and all the women of that family are brought up to rather despise the old female virtues, where my mother is the exact opposite," Julia explained, shaking her head sadly. Sulla tried to look intelligent and at ease with all this female logic, but said nothing. Julia struggled on. "Mama changed after my father's death. I don't suppose any of us ever realized how strong the bond was between them, or how heavily she relied on his wisdom and his direction. So she's become crotchety and fidgety and fault finding oh, sometimes intolerably critical! Gaius Marius saw how unhappy the situation was at home, and offered to buy Mama a villa on the sea somewhere so poor Sextus could have peace. But she flew at him like a spitting cat, and said she knew when she wasn't wanted, and may she be treated like an oath breaker if she gave up residence in her house. Oh, dear!" "I gather you're suggesting that I invite Marcia to live with Julilla and me," said Sulla, "but why should this suggestion appeal to her when the villa by the sea didn't work?" "Because she knew Gaius Marius's suggestion was simply a way of getting rid of her, and she's far too cantankerous these days to oblige poor Sextus's wife," said Julia frankly. "To invite her to live with you and Julilla is quite different. She would be living next door, for one thing. And for another, she'd be wanted. Useful. And she could keep an eye on Julilla." "Would she want to?" Sulla asked, scratching his head. "I gather from what Julilla's said that she never comes to visit at all, in spite of the fact she's living right next door." "She and Julilla fight too," said Julia, beginning to grin as her worry faded. "Oh, do they! Julilla only has to set eyes on her coming through the front door, and she orders her home again. But if you were to invite her to make her home with you, then Julilla can't do a thing." Sulla was grinning too. "It sounds as if you're determined to make my house a Tartarus," he said. Julia lifted one brow. "Will that worry you, Lucius Cornelius? After all, you'll be away." Dipping his hands in the bowl of water a servant was holding out to him, Sulla lifted one of his own brows. "I thank you, sister-in-law." He got up, leaned over, and kissed Julia on the cheek. "I shall see Marcia tomorrow, and ask her to come and live with us. And I will be absolutely outspoken about my reasons for wanting her. So long as I know my children are being loved, I can bear being separated from them." "Are they not well cared for by your slaves?" Julia asked, rising too. "Oh, the slaves pamper and spoil them," said their father. "I will say this, Julilla acquired some excellent girls for the nursery. But that's to make them into slaves, Julia! Little Greeks or Thracians or Celts or whatever other nationality the nurserymaids might happen to be. Full of outlandish superstitions and customs, thinking first in other languages than Latin, regarding their parents and relatives as some sort of remote authority figures. I want my children reared properly in the Roman way, by a Roman woman. It ought to be their mother. But since I doubt that will happen, I cannot think of a better alternative than their stouthearted Marcian grandmother." "Good," said Julia. They moved toward the door. "Is Julilla unfaithful to me?" he asked abruptly. Julia didn't pretend horror or experience anger. "I very much doubt that, Lucius Cornelius. Wine is her vice, not men. You're a man, so you deem men a far worse vice than wine. I do not agree. I think wine can do your children more damage than infidelity. An unfaithful woman doesn't stop noticing her children, nor does she burn her house down. A drunken woman does." She flapped her hand. "The important thing is, let's put Mama to work!" Gaius Marius erupted into the room, respectably clad in purple-bordered toga and looking every inch the consul. "Come on, come on, Lucius Cornelius! Let's get back and finish the performance before the sun goes down and the moon comes up!" Wife and brother-in-law exchanged rueful smiles, and off went the two men to the inauguration.