1. First Man in Rome

by Colleen McCullough

  We now move from the Forum Romanum to Sicily, where all sorts of things have been happening, none of them good, some of them blackly amusing, and some downright incredible. As you know, but I shall refresh your memory anyway because I loathe ragged stories, the end of last year's campaigning season saw Lucius Licinius Lucullus sit down in front of the slave stronghold of Triocala, to starve the rebels out. He'd thrown terror into them by having a herald retell the tale of the Enemy stronghold which sent the Romans a message saying they had food enough to last for ten years, and the Romans sent the reply back that in that case, they'd take the place in the eleventh year. In fact, Lucullus did a magnificent job. He hemmed in Triocala with a forest of siege ramps, towers, shelter sheds, rams, catapults, and barricades, and he filled in a huge chasm which lay like a natural defense in front of the walls. Then he built an equally magnificent camp for his men, so strongly fortified that even if the slaves could have got out of Triocala, they couldn't have got into Lucullus's camp. And he settled down to wait the winter out, his men extremely comfortable, and he himself sure that his command would be prorogued. Then in January came the news that Gaius Servilius Augur was the new governor, and with the official dispatch came a letter from our dear Metellus Numidicus Piggle-wiggle, which filled in the nasty details, the scandalous way in which the deed had been done by Ahenobarbus and his arse-boy the Augur. You don't know Lucullus all that well, Gaius Marius. But I do. Like so many of his kind, he presents a cool, calm, detached, and insufferably haughty face to the world. You know, "I am Lucius Licinius Lucullus, a noble Roman of most ancient and prestigious family, and if you're very lucky, I might deign to notice you from time to time." But underneath the facade is a very different man thin-skinned, fanatically conscious of slights, filled with passion, awesome in rage. So when Lucullus got the news, he took it on the surface with exactly the degree of calm and composed resignation you might expect. Then he proceeded to tear out every last piece of artillery, the siege ramp, the siege tower, the tortoise, the shelter sheds, the rubble-filled defile, the walled-in mountain shelves, everything. And he burned the lot he could burn, and carried every bucketload of rubble, fill, earth, whatever, far away from Triocala in a thousand different directions. After which he demolished his own camp, and destroyed the materials it contained too. You think that's enough? Not for Lucullus, who was only just getting started! He destroyed every single record of his administration in both Syracuse and Lilybaeum, and he marched his seventeen thousand men to the port of Agrigentum. His quaestor proved terrifically loyal, and connived at everything Lucullus wanted to do. The pay had come for his army, and there was money in Syracuse from spoils taken after the battle of Heracleia Minoa. Lucullus then proceeded to fine every non-Roman citizen in Sicily for putting too much strain upon Publius Licinius Nerva, the previous governor, and added that money to the rest. After which he used some of the new shipment of money which had arrived for the use of Servilius the Augur in hiring a fleet of ships to transport his soldiers. On the beach at Agrigentum he discharged his men, and gave them every last sestertius he had managed to scrape up. Now Lucullus's men were a motley collection, and proof positive that the Head Count in Italy is as exhausted these days as all the other classes when it comes to providing troops. Aside from the Italian and Roman veterans he'd got together in Campania, he had a legion and a few extra cohorts from Bithynia, Greece, and Macedonian Thessaly it was his demanding these from King Nicomedes of Bithynia which had led the King to say he had no men to give, because the Roman tax farmers had enslaved them all. A rather impertinent reference to our freeing the Italian Allied slaves Nicomedes thought his treaty of friendship and alliance with us should extend the emancipation to Bithynian slaves! Lucullus rolled him up, of course, and got his Bithynian soldiers. Now the Bithynian soldiers were sent home, and the Roman and Italian soldiers were sent home to Italy and Rome. With their discharge papers. And having removed every last trace of his governorship from the annals of Sicily, Lucullus himself sailed away. The moment he was gone, King Tryphon and his adviser Athenion spilled out of Triocala, and began to plunder and pillage Sicily's countryside all over again. They are now absolutely convinced that they'll win the war, and their catch-cry is "Instead of being a slave, own a slave!" No crops have been planted, and the cities are overflowing with rural refugees. Sicily is a very Iliad of woes once more. Into this delightful situation came Servilius the Augur. Of course he couldn't believe it. And started to bleat in letter after letter to his patron, Ahenobarbus Pipinna. In the meantime, Lucullus arrived back in Rome, and began to make preparations for the inevitable. When Ahenobarbus taxed him in the House with deliberate destruction of Roman property siegeworks and camps especially Lucullus simply looked down his nose and said he thought the new governor would want to start in his own way. He himself, said Lucullus, liked to leave everything the way he found it, and that was precisely what he had done in Sicily at the end of his term he had left Sicily the way he had found it. Servilius the Augur's chief grievance was the lack of an army he had simply assumed Lucullus would leave his legions behind. But he hadn't bothered to make a formal request of Lucullus about the troops. So Lucullus maintained that in the absence of any request from Servilius the Augur, his troops were his to do what he wanted with. And he felt they were due for discharge. "I left Gaius Servilius Augur a new tablet, wiped clean of everything I might have done," said Lucullus in the House. "Gaius Servilius Augur is a New Man, and New Men have their own ways of doing everything. I considered therefore that I was doing him a favor.'' Without an army there's very little Servilius the Augur can do in Sicily, of course. Nor, with Catulus Caesar sifting what few recruits Italy can drop into his net, is there any likelihood of another army for Sicily this year. Lucullus's veterans are scattered far and wide, most of them with plump purses, and not anxious to be found. Lucullus is well aware he's left himself wide open to prosecution. I don't think he honestly cares. He's had the infinite satisfaction of completely destroying any chance Servilius the Augur might have had to steal his thunder. And that matters more to Lucullus than avoiding prosecution. So he's busy doing what he can to protect his sons, for it's plain he thinks Ahenobarbus and the Augur will utilize Saturninus's new knight-run treason court to initiate a suit against him, and secure a conviction. He has transferred as much of his property as he possibly can to his older son, Lucius Lucullus, and given out his younger son, aged thirteen now, to be adopted by the Terentii Varrones. There is no Marcus Terentius Varro in this generation, and it's an extremely wealthy family. I heard from Scaurus that Piggle-wiggle who is very upset by all this, as well he might be, for if Lucullus is convicted, he'll have to take his scandal-making sister, Metella Calva, back says the two boys have taken a vow to have their revenge upon Servilius the Augur as soon as they're both of age. The older boy, Lucius Lucullus Junior, is particularly bitter, it seems. I'm not surprised. He looks like his father on the outside, so why not on the inside as well? To be cast into disgrace by the overweening ambition of the noisome New Man Augur is anathema. And that's all for the moment. I'll keep you informed. I wish I could be there to help you with the Germans, not because you need my help, but because I'm feeling left out of it.

  * * *

  It was well into April of the calendar year before Marius and Sulla had word that the Germans were packing up and beginning to move out of the lands of the Atuatuci, and another month before Sertorius came in person to report that Boiorix had kept the Germans together as a people sufficiently to ensure his plan was going to be put into effect. The Cimbri and the mixed group led by the Tigurini started off to follow the Rhenus, while the Teutones wandered southeast down the Mosa. "We have to assume that in the autumn the Germans will indeed arrive in three separate divisions on the borders of Italian Gaul," said Marius, breathing heavily. "I'd like to be there in person to greet Boiorix himself when he comes down the Athesis, but it isn't sensible. First, I have to take on the Teutones and render them impotent. Hopefully the Teutones will travel
the fastest of the three groups, at least as far as the Druentia, because they don't have any alpine territory to cross until later. If we can beat the Teutones here and do it properly then we ought to have time to cross the Mons Genava Pass and intercept Boiorix and the Cimbri before they actually enter Italian Gaul.'' "You don't think Catulus Caesar can deal with Boior on his own?" asked Manius Aquillius. "No," said Marius flatly. Later, alone with Sulla, he enlarged upon his feelings about his junior colleague's chances against Boiorix; for Quintus Lutatius Catulus was leading his army north to the Athesis as soon as it was trained and equipped. "He'll have about six legions, and he has all spring and summer to get them into condition. But a real general he's not," said Marius. "We must hope Teutobod comes earliest, that we beat Teutobod, cross the Alps in a tearing hurry, and join up with Catulus Caesar before Boiorix reaches Lake Benacus." Sulla raised an eyebrow. "It won't happen that way," he said, voice certain. Marius sighed. "I knew you were going to say that!" "I knew you knew I was going to say that," said Sulla, grinning. "It isn't likely that either of the two divisions traveling without Boiorix himself will make better time than the Cimbri. The trouble is, there's not going to be enough time for you to be in each place at the right moment." "Then I stay here and wait for Teutobod," said Marius, making up his mind. "This army knows every blade of grass and twig of tree between Massilia and Arausio, and the men need a victory badly after two years of inaction. Their chances of victory are very good here. So here I must stay." "I note the 'I,' Gaius Marius," said Sulla gently. "Do you have something else for me to do?" "I do. I'm sorry, Lucius Cornelius, to cheat you of a well-deserved chance to swipe a few Teutones, but I think I must send you to serve Catulus Caesar as his senior legate. He'll stomach you in that role; you're a patrician," said Marius. Bitterly disappointed, Sulla looked down at his hands. ' 'What help can I possibly be when I'm serving in the wrong army?" "I wouldn't worry so much if I didn't see all the symptoms of Silanus, Cassius, Caepio, and Mallius Maximus in my junior consul. But I do, Lucius Cornelius, I do! Catulus Caesar has no grasp either of strategy or of tactics he thinks the gods popped them into his brain when they ordained his high birth, and that when the time comes, they'll be there. But it isn't like that, as you well know!" "Yes, I do," said Sulla. "If Boiorix and Catulus Caesar meet before I can get across Italian Gaul, Catulus Caesar is going to commit some ghastly military blunder, and lose his army. And if he's allowed to do that, I don't see how we can win. The Cimbri are the best led of the three branches, and the most numerous. Added to which, I don't know the lie of the land anywhere in Italian Gaul on the far side of the Padus. If I can beat the Teutones with less than forty thousand men, it's because I know the country." Sulla tried to stare his superior out of countenance, but those eyebrows defeated him. "But what do you expect me to do?" he asked. "Catulus Caesar is wearing the general's cape, not Cornelius Sulla! What do you expect me to do?" Marius's hand went out and closed fast about Sulla's arm above the wrist. "If I knew that, I'd be able to control Catulus Caesar from here," he said. "The fact remains, Lucius Cornelius, that you survived over a year of living among a barbarian enemy as one of them. Your wits are as sharp as your sword, and you use both superbly well. I have no doubt that whatever you might have to do to save Catulus Caesar from himself, you will do." Sulla sucked in a breath. "So my orders are to save his army at all costs?" "At all costs." "Even the cost of Catulus Caesar?" "Even the cost of Catulus Caesar."

  Spring wore itself out in a smother of flowers and summer came in as triumphantly as a general on his victory parade, then stretched itself out, hot and dry. Teutobod and his Teutones came steadily down through the lands of the Aedui and into the lands of the Allobroges, who occupied all the area between the upper Rhodanus and the Isara River, many miles to the south. They were warlike, the Allobroges, and had an abiding hatred for Rome and Romans; but the German host had journeyed through their lands three years earlier, and they did not want the Germans as their overlords. So there was hard fighting, and the Teutonic advance slowed down. Marius began to pace the floor of his command house, and wonder how things were with Sulla, now a part of Catulus Caesar's army in Italian Gaul, camped along the Padus. Catulus Caesar had marched up the Via Flaminia at the head of six understrength new legions late in June; the manpower shortage was so acute he could recruit no more. When he got to Bononia on the Via Aemilia, he took the Via Annia to the big manufacturing town of Patavium; this was well to the east of Lake Benacus, but a better route for an army on the march than the side roads and lanes and tracks with which Italian Gaul was mostly provided. From Patavium he marched on one of these poorly kept-up side roads to Verona, and there established his base camp. Thus far Catulus Caesar had done nothing Sulla could fault, yet he understood better now why Marius had transferred him to Italian Gaul and what he had thought at the time was the lesser task. Militarily it might well be yet Marius, Sulla thought, had not mistaken the cut of Catulus Caesar. Superbly aristocratic, arrogant, overconfident, he reminded Sulla vividly of Metellus Numidicus. The trouble was, the theater of war and the enemy Catulus Caesar faced were very much more dangerous than those Metellus Numidicus had faced; and Metellus Numidicus had owned Gaius Marius and Publius Rutilius Rufus as legates, besides harboring the memory of a salutary experience in a pigsty at Numantia. Whereas Catulus Caesar had never encountered a Gaius Marius on his way up the chain of military command; he had served his requisite terms as a cadet and then as a tribune of the soldiers with lesser men engaged in lesser wars Macedonia, Spain. War on a grand scale had always eluded him. His reception of Sulla had not been promising, as he had sorted out his legates before leaving Rome, and when he reached Bononia found Sulla waiting for him with a directive from the commander-in-chief, Gaius Marius, to the effect that Lucius Cornelius Sulla was appointed senior legate and second-in-command. The action was arbitrary and highhanded, but of course Marius had had no choice; Catulus Caesar's manner toward Sulla was freezing, and his conduct obstructive. Only Sulla's birth stood him in good stead, but even that was weakened by his past history of low living. There was also a tiny streak of envy in Catulus Caesar, for in Sulla he saw a man who had not only seen major actions in major theaters, but had also pulled off a brilliant coup in spying on the Germans. Had he only known of Sulla's real role in that spying, he would have been even more mistrustful and suspicious of Sulla than he already was. In fact, Marius had displayed his usual genius in sending Sulla rather than Manius Aquillius, who might also have proven his worth as a watchdog-cum-guardian; for Sulla grated on Catulus Caesar's nerves, rather as if out of the corner of Catulus Caesar's eye he was always conscious that a white pard stalked him yet when he turned to confront the thing, it wasn't there. No senior legate was ever more helpful; no senior legate was ever more willing to take the burdens of day-to-day administration and supervision of the army from a busy general's shoulders. And yet and yet Catulus Caesar knew something was wrong. Why should Gaius Marius have sent this fellow at all, unless he was up to something devious? It was no part of Sulla's plan to settle Catulus Caesar down, allay his fears and suspicions; on the contrary, what Sulla aimed to do was keep Catulus Caesar fearful and suspicious, and thus gain a mental ascendancy over him which when necessary if necessary he could bring to bear. And in the meantime he made it his business to get to know every military tribune and centurion in the army, and a great many of the ranker soldiers as well. Left to his own devices by Catulus Caesar in the matter of routine training and drilling once camp was established near Verona, Sulla became the senior legate everyone below the rank of legate knew, respected, trusted. It was very necessary that this happen, in case he was obliged to eliminate Catulus Caesar. Not that he had any intention of killing or maiming Catulus Caesar; he was enough of a patrician to want to protect his fellow noblemen, even from themselves. Affection for Catulus Caesar he could not feel; affection for that man's class he did.

  The Cimbri had done well under the leadership of Boiorix, who had guided both his own division and
that of Getorix as far as the confluence of the Danubius with the Aenus; at that point he left Getorix with a relatively short journey to complete on his own, while the Cimbri turned south down the Aenus. Soon they were passing through the alpine lands peopled by a tribe of Celts called the Brenni, after the first Brennus. They controlled the Pass of Brennus, the lowest of all the passes into Italian Gaul, but were in no condition to prevent Boiorix and his Cimbri from using it. In late Quinctilis of the calendar, the Cimbri reached the Athesis River where it joined the Isarcus, the stream they had followed down from the Pass of Brennus. Here in verdant alpine meadows they spread out a little, and looked up to the height of the mountains against a rich and cloudless sky. And here the scouts Sulla had sent out discovered them. Though he had thought himself prepared for every contingency, Sulla hadn't dreamed of the one he now was called upon to cope with; for he didn't yet know Catulus Caesar well enough to predict how he would react to the news that the Cimbri were at the head of the Athesis Valley and about to invade Italian Gaul. "So long as I live, no German foot will touch Italian soil!" said Catulus Caesar in ringing tones when the matter was discussed in council. "No German foot will touch Italian soil!" he said again, rising majestically from his chair and looking at each of his senior officers in turn. "We march." Sulla stared. "We march?" he asked. "We march where?" "Up the Athesis, of course," said Catulus Caesar, with a look on his face that said he considered Sulla a fool. "I shall turn the Germans back across the Alps before an early snow makes that impossible." "How far up the Athesis?" Sulla asked. "Until we meet them." "In a narrow valley like the Athesis?" "Certainly," said Catulus Caesar. "We'll be in much better case than the Germans. We're a disciplined army; they're a vast and unorganized mob. It's our best chance." "Our best chance is where the legions have room to deploy," said Sulla. "There's more than enough room along the Athesis for as much deployment as we'll need." And Catulus Caesar would hear no further argument. Sulla left the council with mind reeling, the plans he had formulated to deal with the Cimbri all worse than useless; he had rehearsed how he would go about feeding whichever one of his alternatives would work the best to Catulus Caesar so that Catulus Caesar thought the scheme was his. Now Sulla found himself with no plan, and could formulate no plan. Not until he managed to persuade Catulus Caesar to change his mind. But Catulus Caesar would not change his mind. He uprooted the army and made it march upstream along the Athesis where that river flowed a few miles to the east of Lake Benacus, the biggest of the exquisite alpine lakes which filled the laps of the foothills of the Italian Alps. And the further the little army it contained twenty-two thousand soldiers, two thousand cavalry, and some eight thousand noncombatants marched northward, the narrower and more forbidding the valley of the Athesis grew. Finally Catulus Caesar reached the trading post called Tridentum. Here three mighty alps reared up, three jagged broken fangs which had given the area its name of Three Teeth. The Athesis now ran very deep and fast and strong, for its sources lay in mountains where the snows never melted fully, and so fed the river all year round. Beyond Tridentum the valley closed in even more, the road which wound down it to the village petering out where the river roared in full spate beneath a long wooden bridge set on stone piers. Riding ahead with his senior officers, Catulus Caesar sat his horse gazing around him, and nodding in satisfaction. "It reminds me of Thermopylae," he said. "This is the ideal place to hold the Germans back until they give up and turn north again." "The Spartans holding Thermopylae all died," said Sulla. Catulus Caesar raised his brows haughtily. "And what does that matter, if the Germans are pushed back?" "But they're not going to turn back, Quintus Lutatius! Turn back at this time of year, with nothing but snow to their north, their provisions low, and all the grass and grain of Italian Gaul not many miles away to their south?" Sulla shook his head vehemently. "We won't stop them here," he said. The other officers stirred restlessly; all of them had caught Sulla's jitters since the march up the Athesis began and their common sense screamed that Catulus Caesar's actions were foolish. Nor had Sulla concealed his jitters from them; if he had to prevent Catulus Caesar from losing his army, he would need the support of Catulus Caesar's senior staff. "We fight here," Catulus Caesar said, and would not be budged. His mind was full of visions of the immortal Leonidas and his tiny band of Spartans; what did it matter if the body died untimely, when the reward was enduring fame? The Cimbri were very close. It would have been impossible for the Roman army to have marched further north than Tridentum, even if Catulus Caesar had wished it. Despite this, Catulus Caesar insisted upon crossing the bridge with his whole force, and putting it into camp on the wrong side of the river, in a place so narrow the camp stretched for miles north to south, for each legion was strung behind its neighbor, with the last legion bivouacking near the bridge. "I have been atrociously spoiled," said Sulla to the primus pilus centurion of the legion closest to the bridge, a sturdy steady Samnite from Atina named Gnaeus Petreius; his legion was Samnite too, composed of Samnite Head Count, and classified as an auxiliary. "How've you been spoiled?" asked Gnaeus Petreius, staring at the flashing water from the side of the bridge; it had no railing, just a low kerb made from logs. "I've soldiered under none but Gaius Marius," Sulla said. "Half your luck," said Gnaeus Petreius. "I was hoping I'd get the chance." He grunted, a derisive sound. "But I don't think any of us will, Lucius Cornelius." They were standing with a third man, the commander of the legion, who was an elected tribune of the soldiers. None other than Marcus Aemilius Scaurus Junior, son of the Leader of the House and a keen disappointment to his doughty father. Scaurus Junior turned now from his own contemplation of the river to look at his chief centurion. "What do you mean, none of us will?" he asked. Gnaeus Petreius grunted again. "We're all going to die here, tribunus." "Die? All of us? Why?" "Gnaeus Petreius means, young Marcus Aemilius," said Sulla grimly, "that we have been led into an impossible military situation by yet another highborn incompetent." "No, you're quite mistaken!" cried young Scaurus eagerly. ' 'I noticed that you didn't seem to understand Quintus Lutatius's strategy, Lucius Cornelius, when he explained it to us." Sulla winked at the centurion. "You explain it, then, tribunus militum! I'm all agog." "Well, there are four hundred thousand Germans, and only twenty-four thousand of us. So we can't possibly face them on an open battlefield," said young Scaurus, emboldened by the intent stares of these two Military Men. "The only way we can possibly beat them is to squeeze them up into a front no wider than our own army can span, and hammer at that front with all our superior skill. When they realize we won't be budged why, they'll do the usual German thing, and turn back." "So that's how you see it," said Gnaeus Petreius. "That's how it is!" said young Scaurus impatiently. "That's how it is!" said Sulla, beginning to laugh. "That's how it is," said Gnaeus Petreius, laughing too. Young Scaurus stood watching them in bewilderment, their amusement filling him with fear. "Please, why is it so funny?" Sulla wiped his eyes. "It's funny, young Scaurus, because it's hopelessly naive." His hand went up, swept the mountain flanks on either side like a painter's brush. "Look up there! What do you see?" "Mountains," said young Scaurus, bewilderment increasing. "Footpaths, bridle tracks, cattle trails, that's what we see!" said Sulla. "Haven't you noticed those frilly little terraces that make the mountains look like Minoan skirts? All the Cimbri have to do is take to the heights along the terraces and they'll outflank us in three days and then, young Marcus Aemilius, we'll be between the hammer and the anvil. Squashed flatter than a beetle underfoot." Young Scaurus turned so white that Sulla and Petreius moved automatically to make sure he didn't pitch overboard into the water, for nothing falling into that stream would survive. "Our general has made a bad plan," said Sulla harshly. "We should have waited for the Cimbri between Verona and Lake Benacus, where we would have had a thousand alternatives to trap them properly, and enough ground to spring our trap." "Why doesn't someone tell Quintus Lutatius, then?" young Scaurus whispered. "Because he's just another stiff-rumped consul," said Sulla. "He doesn't want to hear anything except
the gibberish inside his own head. If he were a Gaius Marius, he'd listen. But that's a non sequitur Gaius Marius wouldn't have needed telling! No, young Marcus Aemilius, our general Quintus Lutatius Catulus Caesar thinks it best to fight as at Thermopylae. And if you remember your history, you'll know that one little footpath around the mountain was enough to undo Leonidas." Young Scaurus gagged. "Excuse me!" he gasped, and bolted for his tent. Sulla and Petreius watched him weave along trying to hold his gorge. "This isn't an army, it's a fiasco," said Petreius. "No, it's a good little army," Sulla contradicted. "The leaders are the fiasco.'' "Except for you, Lucius Cornelius." "Except for me." "You've got something in your mind," Petreius said. "Indeed I do." And Sulla smiled to show his long teeth. "Am I allowed to ask what it is?" "I think so, Gnaeus Petreius. But I'd rather answer you at dusk, shall we say? In the assembly forum of your own Samnite legion's camp," said Sulla. "You and I are going to spend the rest of the afternoon summoning every primus pilus and chief cohort centurion to a meeting there at dusk." He calculated swiftly under his breath. "That's about seventy men. But they're the seventy who really count. Now on your way, Gnaeus Petreius! You take the three legions at this end of the valley, and I'll hop on my trusty mule and take the three at the far end." The Cimbri had arrived that same day just to the north of Catulus Caesar's six legions, boiling into the valley far ahead of their wagons to be brought up short by the ramparts of a Roman camp. And there remained, boiling, while the word flew through the legions and sightseers made their way north to peer over the wicker breastworks at the chilling sight of more men than any Roman had ever seen and gigantic men at that. Sulla's meeting in the assembly forum of the Samnite legion's camp took very little time. When it was over, there was still sufficient light in the sky for those who attended it to follow Sulla across the bridge and into the village of Tridentum, where Catulus Caesar had established his headquarters in the local magistrate's house. Catulus Caesar had called a meeting of his own to discuss the arrival of the Cimbri, and was busy complaining about the absence of his second-in-command when Sulla walked into the crowded room. "I would appreciate punctuality, Lucius Cornelius," he said frigidly. "Please sit down, then we can get down to the business of planning our attack tomorrow." "Sorry, but I haven't time to sit down," said Sulla, who wasn't wearing a cuirass, but was clad in his leather undersuit and pteryges, and had sword and dagger belted about him. "If you have more important things to do, then go!" said Catulus Caesar, face mottling. "Oh, I'm not going anywhere," said Sulla, smiling. "The important things I have to do are right here in this room, and the most important thing of all is that there will be no battle tomorrow, Quintus Lutatius." Catulus Caesar got to his feet. "No battle? Why?" "Because you have a mutiny on your hands, and I'm its instigator.'' Sulla drew his sword. “Come in, centuriones!'' he called. "It'll be a bit of a crush, but we'll all fit." None of the original inhabitants of the room said a word, Catulus Caesar because he was too angry, the rest either because they were too relieved not all the senior staff were happy about the projected battle of the morrow or too bewildered. Seventy centurions filed through the door and stood densely packed behind and to both sides of Sulla, thus leaving about three feet of vacant space between themselves and Catulus Caesar's senior staff who were now all standing, literally with their backs against the wall. "You'll be thrown off the Tarpeian Rock for this!" said Catulus Caesar. "If I have to, so be it," said Sulla, and sheathed his sword. "But when is a mutiny really a mutiny, Quintus Lutatius? How far can a soldier be expected to go in blind obedience? Is it true patriotism to go willingly to death when the general issuing the orders is a military imbecile?" It was nakedly obvious that Catulus Caesar just did not know what to say, could not find the perfect rejoinder to such brutal honesty. On the other hand, he was too proud to splutter inarticulate expostulations, and too sure of his ground to make no reply at all. So in the end he said, with cold dignity, "This is untenable, Lucius Cornelius!" Sulla nodded. "I agree, it is untenable. In fact, our whole presence here in Tridentum is untenable. Tomorrow the Cimbri are going to find the hundreds of paths along the slopes of the mountains made by cattle, sheep, horses, wolves. Not one Anopaea, but hundreds of Anopaeas! You are not a Spartan, Quintus Lutatius, you're a Roman, and I'm surprised your memories of Thermopylae are Spartan rather than Roman! Didn't you learn how Cato the Censor used the Anopaea footpath to outflank King Antiochus? Or did your tutor feel Cato the Censor was too lowborn to serve as an example of anything beyond hubris? It's Cato the Censor at Thermopylae I admire, not Leonidas and his royal guard, dying to the last man! The Spartans were willing to die to the last man simply to delay the Persians long enough for the Greek fleet to ready itself at Artemisium. Only it didn't work, Quintus Lutatius. It didn't work! The Greek fleet perished, and Leonidas died for nothing. And did Thermopylae influence the course of the war against the Persians? Of course it didn't! When the next Greek fleet won at Salamis, there was no prelude at Thermopylae. Can you honestly say you prefer the suicidal gallantry of Leonidas to the strategic brilliance of Themistocles?" "You mistake the situation," said Catulus Caesar stiffly, his personal pride in tatters thanks to this red-haired Ulyssean trickster; for the truth was that he cared more to extricate himself with dignitas and auctoritas unimpaired than he did about the fate of either his army or the Cimbri. "No, Quintus Lutatius, you mistake the situation," said Sulla. "Your army is now my army by right of mutiny. When Gaius Marius sent me here" he dropped the name with dulcet clarity into the pool of silence "I came with only one order. Namely, to make sure this army survives intact until Gaius Marius can take it into his personal care and he cannot do that until he has defeated the Teutones. Gaius Marius is our commander-in-chief, Quintus Lutatius, and I am acting under his orders at this very moment. When his orders conflict with yours, I obey his orders, not yours. If I permit this foolhardy escapade to continue, this army will lie dead on the field of Tridentum. Well, there is not going to be a field of Tridentum. This army is going to retreat tonight. In one piece. And live to fight another day, when the chances of victory are infinitely better." "I vowed no German foot would tread on Italian soil," said Catulus Caesar, "and I will not be forsworn." "The decision isn't your to make, Quintus Lutatius, so you are not forsworn," said Sulla. Quintus Lutatius Catulus Caesar was one of those old-guard senators who refused to wear a golden ring as an insignia of his senatorship; instead, he wore the ancient iron ring all senators had once worn, so when he moved his right hand imperiously at the ogling men filling the room, his index finger didn't flash a yellow beam it wrote a dull grey blur upon the air. Utterly still until they saw that grey blur, the men now stirred, moved, sighed. "Leave us, all of you," said Catulus Caesar. "Wait outside. I wish to speak alone with Lucius Cornelius." The centurions turned and filed out, the tribunes of the soldiers followed, and Catulus Caesar's personal staff, and his senior legates. When only Catulus Caesar and Sulla remained, Catulus Caesar returned to his chair and sat down heavily. He was caught in a cleft stick, and he knew it. Pride had led him up the Athesis; not pride in Rome or in his army, but that pride of person which had prompted him to announce no German foot should tread Italian soil and then prevented his recanting, even for the sake of Rome or for his army. The further he had penetrated up the valley, the stronger his feeling became that he had blundered; and yet pride of person would not allow him to admit the blunder. Higher and higher up the river Athesis, lower and lower his spirits. So when he came to Tridentum and thought how like Thermopylae it was though of course in strictly geographic terms it was not like Thermopylae at all he conceived a worthy death for all concerned, and thereby salvaged his honor, that fatal personal pride. Just as Thermopylae rang down the ages, so too would Tridentum. The fall of the gallant few confronted with the overwhelming many. Stranger, go tell the Romans that here we lie in obedience to their command! With a magnificent monument, and pilgrimages, and immortal epic poems. The sight of the Cimbri spilling into the northern end of the valley brought him to his senses, then Su
lla completed the process. For of course he did have eyes, and there was a brain behind them, even if it was a brain too easily clouded by the vastness of his own dignitas; the eyes had taken note of the many terraces making giant steps out of the steep green slopes above, and the brain had understood how quickly the Cimbric warriors could outflank them. This was no gorge with cliffs; it was simply a narrow alpine valley unsuitable for deploying an army because its pastures sloped upward at an angle quite impossible for troops to take in rank and file, let alone wheel and turn in proper maneuvers. What he hadn't been able to see was how to extricate himself from his dilemma without losing face, and at first Sulla's invasion of his pre-battle conference had seemed the perfect answer; he could blame it on a mutiny, and thunder in the House, and arrange for the treason trials of every officer involved, from Sulla down to the least centurion. But that solution hadn't lasted more than a very few moments. Mutiny was the most serious crime in the military manual, but a mutiny which saw him standing alone against every other officer in his entire army (he had quickly seen from their faces that none of the men who had been closeted with him when Sulla walked in would refuse to join the mutiny) smacked a great deal more of common sense overcoming monumental stupidity. If there had never been an Arausio if Caepio and Mallius Maximus had not forever besmirched the concept of the Roman general's imperium in the eyes of the Roman People and even some factions within the Senate then it might have been different. As it was, he understood very quickly after Sulla's appearance that were he to continue to insist a mutiny had taken place, it was he himself who would suffer in the eyes of the Roman world, he himself who might well end in being arraigned in the special treason court set up by Saturninus. Consequently, Quintus Lutatius Catulus Caesar drew a deep breath and embarked upon conciliation. "Let me hear no more talk of mutiny, Lucius Cornelius," he said. "There was no need for you to make your feeling so public. You should have come to see me privately. Had you only done so, matters could have been sorted out between the two of us alone." "I disagree, Quintus Lutatius," said Sulla smoothly. "If I had come to you privately, you'd have sent me about my business. You needed an object lesson." Catulus Caesar's lips tightened; he looked down his long Roman nose, a handsome member of a handsome clan, fair of hair and blue of eye, his hauteur armed for battle. "You've been with Gaius Marius far too long, you know," he said. "This sort of conduct doesn't accord with your patrician status." Sulla slapped his hand against his leather skirt of straps so loudly its fringes and metal ornaments clattered. "Oh, for the sake of all the gods, let's forget this family claptrap, Quintus Lutatius! I'm fed up to vomit-point with exclusivity! And before you start ranting on about our mutual superior, Gaius Marius, let me remind you that when it comes to soldiering and generaling, he outshines us the way the Alexandrian lighthouse dims a single piddling candle! You're not a natural military man any more than I am! But where I have the advantage of you is that I learned my craft in apprenticeship to the lighthouse of Alexandria, so my candle burns brighter than yours!" "That man is overrated!" said Catulus Caesar between his clenched teeth. "Oh no, he's not! Bleat and bellow about it as hard as you like, Quintus Lutatius, Gaius Marius is the First Man in Rome! The man from Arpinum took on the lot of you single-handed, and beat you hollow." "I'm surprised you're such an adherent but I promise you, Lucius Cornelius, that I won't ever forget it." "I'll bet you won't," said Sulla grimly. "I do advise you, Lucius Cornelius, to change your loyalties somewhat in years to come," Catulus Caesar said. "If you don't, you'll never become praetor, let alone consul!" "Oh, I do like naked threats!" said Sulla conversationally. "Who are you trying to fool? I have the birth, and if the time should come when it's to your advantage to woo me, woo me you will!" He looked at Catulus Caesar slyly. "One day, you know, I'll be the First Man in Rome. The tallest tree in the world, just like Gaius Marius. And the thing about trees so tall is that no one can chop them down. When they fall, they fall because they rot from within." Catulus Caesar did not answer, so Sulla flung himself into a chair and leaned forward to pour himself wine. "Now about our mutiny, Quintus Lutatius. Disabuse yourself of any belief you might be cherishing that I don't have the gumption to follow this through to its bitterest end." "I admit I don't know you at all, Lucius Cornelius, but I've got sufficient measure of your steel these last couple of months to understand there's very little you're unwilling to do to get your own way,'' said Catulus Caesar. He looked down at his old iron senator's ring as if he could draw inspiration from it. "I said before, and I say it again now, let there be no more talk of mutiny.'' He swallowed audibly. "I shall abide by the army's decision to retreat. On one condition. That the word 'mutiny' is never mentioned to anyone ever again." "On behalf of the army, I agree," said Sulla. "I would like to order the retreat personally. After that I presume your strategy is already worked out?" "It's absolutely necessary that you order the retreat personally, Quintus Lutatius. Including to the men waiting outside for us to emerge," said Sulla. "And yes, I do have a strategy worked out. A very simple strategy. At dawn the army will pull up stakes and move out as quickly as it possibly can. Everyone must be over the bridge and south of Tridentum before tomorrow's nightfall. The Samnite auxiliaries are lying closest to the bridge, therefore they can guard it until everyone else is over, then cross it themselves in last place. I need the entire corps of engineers immediately, because the moment the last Samnite is over the bridge, it must come down. The pity of it is that it's built on stone piers we won't have the opportunity to dismantle, so the Germans will be able to rebuild the bridge. However, they're not engineers, and that means the job will take them far longer than it would us, and their structure may fall apart a few times as Boiorix brings his people across. If he wants to go south, he has to cross the river here at Tridentum. So we must slow him down." Catulus Caesar rose to his feet. "Then let's get this farce over and done with." He walked outside and stood calmly, completely in control of his outer self; the repairing of dignitas and auctoritas was already beginning. "Our position here is untenable, so I am ordering a full retreat," he said, crisply and clearly. "I have given Lucius Cornelius full instructions as to how to proceed, so you will take your orders from him. However, I wish to make it plain that the word 'mutiny' has never been spoken. Is that understood?" The officers murmured assent, profoundly glad that the word "mutiny" could be forgotten. Catulus Caesar turned to go back inside. "You are dismissed," he said over his shoulder. As the group scattered, Gnaeus Petreius fell in beside Sulla, and walked with him toward the bridge. "That went pretty well, I consider, Lucius Cornelius. He did better than I thought he would. Better than others of his kind, I swear.'' "Oh, he has a brain behind all that grand manner," said Sulla easily. "But he's right, 'mutiny' is a word never spoken." "You won't hear it from my lips!" said Petreius fervently. It was fully dark, but the bridge was lit by torches, so they crossed its chinked logs without difficulty. At its far end Sulla ran ahead of the centurions and tribunes following him and Petreius, and turned round to face them. "All troops ready to roll at the first sign of light," he said. "Corps of engineers and all centurions are to report to me here one hour before first light. Tribunes of the soldiers, come with me now." "Oh, I'm glad we've got him!" said Gnaeus Petreius to his second centurion. "So am I, but I'm not a bit glad we've got him," said the second centurion, pointing in the direction of Marcus Aemilius Scaurus Junior, hurrying after Sulla and his fellow tribunes. Petreius grunted. "I agree, he is a bit of a worry. Still, I'll keep an eye on him tomorrow. 'Mutiny' may be a word none of us has heard, but our men of Samnium aren't going to be misled by a Roman idiot, no matter who his father is."