Fortune's Favorites (2 page)

More or less recovered from his stroke, Marius called a meeting of the Senate for the first day of December of 100 B.C. to see what could be done to stop Saturninus, who now planned to run for a third term as a tribune of the plebs, while his friend Glaucia ran for consul. Neither candidacy was precisely illegal, but both were highly disapproved of because they flouted custom.

Matters came to a head during the consular elections when Glaucia murdered another candidate. Marius convened the Senate, which passed its Ultimate Decree (a form of martial law); the Senate and its supporters went home to get their arms, and battle was joined in the Forum Romanum. Saturninus and Glaucia had thought that the lowest classes, threatened with starvation, would rise up in revolt. But the lowest classes were not willing to do so. Quietly they went home instead. Using Sulla as his right-hand man, Marius defeated the consequently limited forces Saturninus had at his disposal. Saturninus sought asylum in the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, but was forced to surrender when Sulla cut off the water supply to the Capitol.

Glaucia committed suicide, but Saturninus and the rest of his close friends were imprisoned in the Senate House until they could be tried for treason-a trial everybody in the Senate knew would fracture Rome's already tottering constitutional framework. Sulla solved the problem by secretly leading a small band of young aristocrats onto the roof of the Senate House, from which vantage point they killed Saturninus and his friends by bombarding them with tiles torn from the roof. Saturninus's grain law was repealed, but Marius-now fifty-seven years old-had to face the fact that his political career had ground to a halt. Consul six times, it seemed he would never fulfill the prophecy by being consul a seventh time. But Sulla hoped to be elected praetor in a year's time. He decided he would therefore have to withdraw from Marius, now politically odious, in order to preserve his own career.

During these ten years, the private lives and loves of Marius and Sulla fared differently.

Marius's marriage to Julia prospered. They had a son born in 109 B.C., their only child, who was called Young Marius. Old Caesar died, but not before he saw both his sons firmly placed for future political and military eminence. His younger son, Gaius, married a rich and beautiful daughter of the Famous Family Aurelius Cotta, one Aurelia, and sensibly the young couple took up residence in Aurelia's apartment house in the Subura, a district of Rome in evil repute. They had two girls, and finally in 100 B.C. a son (the great Caesar) who was of course, as Marius immediately recognized, the child of the prophecy-the greatest Roman of all time. Marius resolved that he would try to foil this part of his cherished foretelling.

Sulla's marriage to old Caesar's younger girl, Julilla, was not a happy one, mostly due to Julilla's febrile and overly dramatic nature. Two children were born of it, a daughter and a son. Loving Sulla obsessively, Julilla was aware she did not hold all of Sulla's heart, though she had no idea of his true sexual inclinations. Unhappiness prompted her to drink, and as time went on she became completely dependent upon her wine.

Then a rare event took place; the young Greek actor Metrobius came to visit Sulla in his house. Sight of Metrobius broke down Sulla's resolve never again to become physically involved with him. Unbeknownst to them, Julilla witnessed their lovemaking. And immediately committed suicide. Later on Sulla married a charming and childless widow of excellent family, one Aelia, to provide his children with a mother.

Scaurus Princeps Senatus had a son who was guilty of cowardice while serving with the army of Catulus Caesar in northern Italy. Disgusted, Scaurus disowned the young man, who committed suicide. Whereupon Scaurus, now close to sixty years of age, promptly married his son's fiancée, the seventeen-year-old daughter of Metellus Numidicus's older brother; she was known as Dalmatica. No one asked her what she thought of this union.

And young Marcus Livius Drusus, eminently aristocratic son of a famous man, in 105 B.C. arranged a double wedding; he married the sister of his best friend, the patrician Quintus Servilius Caepio, while Caepio married Drusus's sister, Livia Drusa. Drusus's union was childless, but Caepio and Livia Drusa produced two girls, the elder of whom, Servilia, was to grow up to be the mother of Brutus and the mistress of the great Caesar.

The year is 98 B.C., almost two years after the events which closed The First Man in Rome-but two years of relative uneventfulness.

Sulla was absolutely bored by the charm and goodness of his second wife, Aelia, and plagued by his hunger for two other people-the young Greek actor Metrobius and the nineteen-year-old wife of Marcus Aemilius Scaurus Princeps Senatus, Dalmatica. But as ambition and a sense of destiny still ruled every other passion in Sulla, he steadfastly refused to see Metrobius or to begin an affair with Dalmatica.

Unfortunately Dalmatica was not so self-disciplined, and made a public spectacle of herself by advertising her unrequited love for Sulla. Scaurus, humiliated, demanded that Sulla quit Rome to stop the gossip, but deeming himself guiltless and Scaurus unreasonable, Sulla refused. He intended to seek election as praetor, which meant he had to stay in Rome. Well aware Sulla was innocent, old Scaurus nonetheless blocked his election as a praetor-and confined Dalmatica to her house.

Thwarted in his political career, Sulla decided to go to Nearer Spain as the legate of its warlike governor, Titus Didius. Scaurus had won. Before he left, Sulla made advances to Aurelia, wife of Gaius Julius Caesar, and was rejected; furious, he went to see Metellus Numidicus (just returned from exile) and murdered him. Far from blaming Sulla for his father's death, Metellus Pius the Piglet continued to admire and trust him.

The family Caesar was prospering. Both of old Caesar's sons, Sextus and Gaius, had advanced under Marius's patronage, though this meant Gaius was away from home most of the time. His wife, Aurelia, managed her apartment house and efficiently saw to the welfare and education of her two daughters and her precious little son, Young Caesar, who from a very early age demonstrated startling intelligence and ability. The one aspect of Aurelia which caused misgivings in all her relatives and friends was her liking for Sulla, who visited her because he admired her.

Still in political eclipse, Gaius Marius took his wife, Julia, and his son, Young Marius, on a long holiday to the east, there to visit various parts of Anatolia.

Having reached Cilician Tarsus, Marius learned that King Mithridates of Pontus had invaded Cappadocia, murdered its young monarch, and put one of his own many sons on its throne. Leaving wife and son in the care of nomads, Marius rode virtually alone for the Cappadocian capital, where fearlessly he confronted King Mithridates of Pontus.

Captious and cunning, Mithridates was a curious mixture of coward and hero, braggart and mouse; he commanded vast forces and had expanded his kingdom mightily at the expense of all his neighbors save Rome. By forging a marital alliance, Mithridates had arrived at complete agreement with Tigranes, the King of Armenia; the two kings planned to unite, defeat Rome, and end in ruling the world between them.

All of these vaunting plans disintegrated when Mithridates met Marius, a solitary figure who yet had the confidence to order the King of Pontus out of Cappadocia. Though he could have had Marius killed, instead Mithridates clipped his tail between his legs and took his army back to Pontus, while Marius rejoined his wife and son and resumed his holiday.

Matters in Italy were coming to a head. Rome was suzerain over the various semi-independent nations which made up the checkerboard of peninsular Italy. Her Italian Allies, as they were called, had long existed in an unequal partnership with Rome, and were well aware Rome considered them inferiors. They were called upon to provide and pay for soldiers whom Rome used in her foreign wars, yet Rome had ceased to reward the Italian Allies with gifts of the Roman citizenship, and denied Italians parity in trade, commerce, and all the other benefits accruing to full Roman citizens. The leaders of the various Italian peoples were now clamoring with increasing vigor and resolution for equal status with Rome.

Marcus Livius Drusus had a friend, Quintus Poppaedius Silo, who was an Italian of high estate; the leader of his people, the Marsi, Silo was determined to see all the Marsi become full Roman citizens. And Drusus sympathized with him. A great Roman aristocrat of enormous wealth and political clout, Drusus was sure that with his assistance the Italians would gain the longed-for franchise and equality.

But matters within Drusus's own family were to undermine Drusus's resolve. His sister, Livia Drusa, was unhappily married to Drusus's best friend, Quintus Servilius Caepio (Caepio had taken to physically abusing her); then she met Marcus Porcius Cato, fell in love with him, and began an affair. Already the mother of two girls, Livia Drusa became pregnant by Cato and bore a son who she managed to convince Caepio was his child. Then her eldest girl, Servilia, accused Livia Drusa of infidelity with Cato, and precipitated a family crisis. Caepio divorced Livia Drusa and disowned all three children; Drusus and his wife stood by her. Livia Drusa then married Cato and gave him two more children, Porcia and Young Cato (the future Cato Uticensis). While all this was going on, Drusus had struggled to convince the Senate of the justice of Italian claims to the citizenship, but after Livia Drusa's scandal he found his task far more difficult, thanks to Caepio's sudden and bitter enmity.

In 96 B.C. Drusus's wife died. In 93 B.C. Livia Drusa died. Her five children passed fully into Drusus's care. In 92 B.C. Cato died. Only the estranged Caepio and Drusus were left.

Though considered too old for the office, Drusus decided the only way to obtain equality for the Italians was to become a tribune of the plebs and coax the Plebeian Assembly into granting the franchise against obdurate opposition from the Senate. An impressively patient and intelligent man, he did very well. But some of the senatorial diehards (including Scaurus, Catulus Caesar and Caepio) were absolutely determined he would not succeed. On the very eve of victory, Drusus was assassinated in the atrium of his own house. The time was late in 91 B.C.

The five children of Livia Drusa plus his own adopted son, Drusus Nero, witnessed the horror of his lingering death. Only Caepio was left to those young people, but Caepio refused to have anything to do with them. So they passed into the care of Drusus's mother and his younger brother, Mamercus Aemilius Lepidus Livianus. In 90 B.C. Caepio died, and in 89 B.C. Drusus's mother died. Now only Mamercus remained. When his wife refused to shelter the children Mamercus was forced to leave them to grow up in Drusus's house. He put them in the charge of a spinster relative and her formidable mother.

Sulla had returned from Nearer Spain in time to be elected urban praetor for 93 B.C. In 92 B.C. (while Drusus struggled to bring about the franchise for all of Italy) Sulla was sent to the east to govern Cilicia. There he discovered that Mithridates, emboldened by five years of Roman inertia, had once again invaded Cappadocia. Sulla led his two legions of Cilician troops into Cappadocia, ensconced them inside a superbly fortified camp, and proceeded to run military rings around Mithridates, despite the King's overwhelming superiority in numbers. For the second time Mithridates was forced to look a solitary Roman in the eye and hear himself curtly ordered to go home. For the second time Mithridates clipped his tail between his legs and took his army back to Pontus.

But the son-in-law of Mithridates, King Tigranes of Armenia, was still at large and intent upon war. Sulla led his two legions to Armenia, becoming the first Roman to cross the Euphrates on a military mission. On the Tigris near Amida, Sulla found and warned Tigranes; then on the Euphrates at Zeugma he hosted a conference between himself, Tigranes and ambassadors from the King of the Parthians. A treaty was concluded whereby everything to the east of the Euphrates was to remain the concern of the Parthians and everything to the west of the Euphrates was to become the concern of Rome. Sulla was also the subject of a prophecy by a famous Chaldaean seer: he would be the greatest man between Oceanus Atlanticus and the Indus River, and would die at the height of his fame and prosperity.

With Sulla was his son by the dead Julilla. This boy- in his middle teens-was the light of Sulla's life. But after Sulla's return to Rome (where he found the Senate indifferent to his deeds and to his magnificent treaty), Young Sulla died tragically. The loss of the boy was a terrible blow to Sulla, who severed the last vestige of his relationship with the Caesars, except for his sporadic visits to Aurelia. On these visits he now encountered her son, Young Caesar, who impressed Sulla.

The Italian War broke out with a series of shattering defeats for Rome. At the beginning of 90 B.C. the consul Lucius Caesar took over the southern theater of war (in Campania), with Sulla as his senior legate. The northern theater (in Picenum and Etruria) was commanded by several men in turn, all of whom proved to be woefully inadequate.

Gaius Marius hungered to command the northern theater, but his enemies in the Senate were still too strong. He was forced to serve as a mere legate, and to suffer many indignities at the hands of his commanders. But one by one these commanders went down in defeat (and, as in the case of Caepio, died), while Marius plodded on training the troops, very raw and timorous. Waiting his chance. When it came he seized it immediately, and in association with Sulla (loaned to him) won for Rome the first significant victory of the war. Then on the day following this victory Marius suffered his second stroke-far worse than his first-and was forced to withdraw from the conflict. This rather pleased Sulla, for Marius refused to take Sulla seriously as a general, though Sulla generaled all the victories in the southern theater-always in the name of someone else.

In 89 B.C. the war took a better turn for Rome, especially in the southern theater. Sulla was awarded Rome's highest military decoration, the Grass Crown, by his troops before the city of Nola, and most of Campania and Apulia were subjugated. The two consuls of 89 B.C., Pompey Strabo and a Cato, fared very differently. Cato the Consul was murdered by Young Marius to avoid a military defeat; Marius procured his son's freedom by bribing the commander left in charge, Lucius Cornelius Cinna. Cinna, an honorable man despite this bribe, was to remain Marius's adherent ever after-and Sulla's enemy.

The senior consul of 89 B.C., Pompey Strabo, had a seventeen-year-old son, Pompey, who adored his father and insisted on fighting at his side. In 90 B.C. they had besieged the city of Asculum Picentum, wherein the first atrocity of the Italian War had taken place. With them was the seventeen-year-old Marcus Tullius Cicero, a most inept and unwilling warrior whom Pompey sheltered from his father's wrath-and contempt. Cicero was never afterward to forget Pompey's kindness, which dictated much of his political orientation. When Asculum Picentum fell in 89 B.C., Pompey Strabo executed every male inhabitant and banished every female and child with no more than the clothes they wore on their backs; the incident stood out in the annals of a terrible war.

But by 88 B.C., when Sulla was finally elected consul with a Quintus Pompeius Rufus as his colleague, Rome was victorious in the war against her Italian Allies. Not without yielding much she had gone to war to prevent: the Italians were-in name at least-given the full Roman franchise.

Sulla's daughter by Julilla, Cornelia Sulla, was very much in love with her cousin Young Marius, but Sulla forced her to marry the son of his colleague in the consulship; she bore this young man a girl, Pompeia (later the second wife of the great Caesar), and a boy.

Now ten years old, Young Caesar was sent by his mother to help his Uncle Marius recover from the effects of that maiming second stroke, and eagerly learned whatever he could from Marius about the art of war. Well aware of the prophecy, Marius's exposure to the boy only reinforced his determination to curtail Young Caesar's future military and political career.

Angered by an innocuous remark made by his boring wife Aelia, Sulla suddenly divorced her–for barrenness. Old Scaurus had died, so Sulla then married his widow, Dalmatica. Most of Rome censured Sulla for his conduct toward Aelia (who was much admired), but Sulla didn't care.

Knowing that Rome was fully occupied in her war against the Italian Allies, King Mithridates of Pontus invaded the Roman province of Asia in 88 B.C. and murdered every Roman and Italian man, woman and child living there. The death toll was eighty thousand, plus seventy thousand of their slaves.

When Rome heard the news of this mass slaughter, the Senate met to discuss who would lead an army to the east to deal with King Mithridates. Deeming himself recovered from his stroke, Marius shouted that the command against Mithridates must be given to him. A peremptory demand which the Senate wisely ignored. Instead, that body awarded the command to the senior consul, Sulla. An affront Marius did not forgive; Sulla now joined the list of his declared enemies.

Understanding that he was capable of defeating Mithridates, Sulla accepted the command with great content, and prepared to leave Italy. But the Treasury was empty and Sulla's funds far too slender, even after much public land around the Forum Romanum had been sold to pay for his army; the wealth Sulla needed to pay for his war was to come from plundering the temples of Greece and Epirus. Sulla's army was relatively tiny.

In that same year, 88 B.C., another tribune of the plebs of enduring fame arose-Sulpicius. A conservative man, he turned radical only after the King of Pontus slaughtered the inhabitants of Asia Province-because he realized that a foreign king had not made any distinction between a Roman and an Italian-he had killed both. Sulpicius decided the Senate was to blame for Rome's unwillingness to grant the full citizenship to all Italians, and decided the Senate would have to go. There could be no difference between a Roman and an Italian if a foreign king could find no difference. So Sulpicius proceeded to pass laws in the Plebeian Assembly which expelled so many men from the Senate that it could no longer form a quorum. With the Senate rendered impotent, Sulpicius then proceeded to boost the electoral and political power of the new Italian citizens. But all this took place amid bloody riots in the Forum Romanum, and the young husband of Sulla's daughter, Cornelia Sulla, was killed.