Fortune's Favorites (21 page)

The countryside between Rome and Campania was not easy. On the coast it deteriorated into the Pomptine Marshes, through which from Campania the Via Appia traveled a mosquito-ridden straight line until near Rome it ran up against the flank of the Alban Hills. These were not hills at all, but quite formidable mountains based upon the outpourings of an old volcano which had cut up and elevated the original alluvial Latin plain. The Alban Mount itself, center of that ancient subterranean disturbance, reared between the Via Appia and the other, more inland road, the Via Latina. South of the Alban Hills another high ridge continued to separate the Via Appia from the Via Latina, thus preventing interconnection between these two major arteries all the way from Campania to a point very near Rome. For military travel the more inland Via Latina was always preferred over the Via Appia; men got sick when they marched the Via Appia.

It was therefore preferable that Sulla station himself on the Via Latina-but at a place where he could, if necessary, transfer his forces rapidly across to the Via Appia. Both roads traversed the outer flanks of the Alban Hills, but the Via Latina did so through a defile which chopped a gap in the eastern escarpment of the ridge and allowed the road to travel onward to Rome in the flatter space between this high ground and the Alban Mount itself. At the point where the defile opened out toward the Alban Mount, a small road curved westward round this central peak, and joined the Via Appia quite close to the sacred lake of Nemi and its temple precinct.

Here in the defile Sulla sat himself down and proceeded to build immense fortified walls of tufa blocks at each end of the gorge, enclosing the side road which led to Lake Nemi and the Via Appia within his battlements. He now occupied the only place on the Via Latina at which all progress could be stopped from both directions. And, his fortifications completed within a very short time, he posted a series of watches on the Via Appia to make sure no enemy tried to outflank him by this route, from Rome as well as from Campania. All his provisions were brought along the side road from the Via Appia.

By the time the Samnite/Lucanian/Capuan host reached the site of Sacriportus, everyone was calling this army “the Samnites” despite its composite nature (enhanced because remnants' of the legions scattered by Pompey and Crassus had tacked themselves on to such a strong, well-led force). At Sacriportus the host chose the Via Labicana, only to discover that Ofella had by now contained himself within a second line of fortifications, and could not be dislodged. Shining from its heights with a myriad colors, Praeneste might as well have been as far away as the Garden of the Hesperides. After riding along every inch of Ofella's walls, Pontius Telesinus, Marcus Lamponius and Tiberius Gutta could discern no weakness, and a cross-country march by seventy thousand men with nowhere positive to go was impossible. A war council resulted in a change of strategy; the only way to draw Ofella off was to attack Rome herself. So to Rome on the Via Latina the Samnite army would go.

Back they marched to Sacriportus, and turned onto the Via Latina in the direction of Rome. Only to find Sulla sitting behind his enormous ramparts in complete control of the road. To storm his position seemed far easier than storming Ofella's walls, so the Samnite host attacked. When they failed, they tried again. And again. Only to hear Sulla laughing at them as loudly as had Ofella.

Then came news at once cheering and depressing; those left at Clusium had sallied out and engaged Pompey. That they had gone down in utter defeat was depressing, yet seemed not to matter when compared to the message that the survivors, some twenty thousand strong, were marching south under Censorinus, Carrinas and Brutus Damasippus. Carbo himself had vanished, but the fight, swore Brutus Damasippus in his letter to Pontius Telesinus, would go on. If Sulla's position were stormed from both sides at once at the exact same moment, he would crumble. Had to crumble!

“Rubbish, of course,” said Sulla to Pompey, whom he had summoned to his defile for a conference as soon as he had been notified of Pompey's victory at Clusium. “They can pile Pelion on top of Ossa if they so choose, but they won't dislodge me. This place was made for defense! Impregnable and unassailable.”

“If you're so confident, what need can you have for me?” the young man asked, his pride at being summoned evaporating.

The campaign at Clusium had been short, grim, decisive; many of the enemy had died, many were taken prisoner, and those who got away were chiefly distinguished for the quality of the men who led their retreat; there had been no senior legates in the ranks of those who surrendered, a great disappointment. The defection of Carbo himself had not been known to Pompey until after the battle was over, when the story of his nocturnal flight was told with tears and bitterness to Pompey's men by tribunes, centurions and soldiers alike. A great betrayal.

Hard on the heels of this had come Sulla's summons, which Pompey had received with huge delight. His instructions were to bring six legions and two thousand horse with him; that Varro would tag along, he took for granted, whereas Crassus and Torquatus were to remain at Clusium. But what need had Sulla for more troops in a camp already bursting at the seams? Indeed, Pompey's army had been directed into a camp on the shores of Lake Nemi and therefore adjacent to the Via Appia!

“Oh, I don't need you here,” said Sulla, leaning his arms on the parapet of an observation tower atop his walls and peering vainly in the direction of Rome; his vision had deteriorated badly since that illness in Greece, though he disliked owning up to it. “I'm getting closer, Pompeius! Closer and closer.”

Not normally bashful, Pompey found himself unable to ask the question he burned to ask: what did Sulla intend when the war was over? How could he retain his authority, how could he possibly protect himself from future reprisals? He couldn't keep his army with him forever, but the moment he disbanded it he would be at the mercy of anyone with the strength and the clout to call him to account. And that might be someone who at the present moment called himself a loyal follower, Sulla's man to the death. Who knew what men like Vatia and the elder Dolabella really thought? Both of them were of consular age, even if circumstances had conspired to prevent their becoming consul. How could Sulla insulate himself? A great man's enemies were like the Hydra-no matter how many heads he succeeded in cutting off, there were always more busily growing, and always sporting bigger and better teeth.

“If you don't need me here, Sulla, where do you need me?” Pompey asked, bewildered.

“It is the beginning of Sextilis,” said Sulla, and turned to lead the way down the many stairs.

Nothing more was said until they emerged at the bottom into the controlled chaos beneath the walls, where men busied themselves in carrying loads of rocks, oil for burning and throwing down upon the hapless heads of those trying to scale ladders, missiles for the onagers and catapults already bristling atop the walls, stocks of spears and arrows and shields.

“It is the beginning of Sextilis?'' Pompey prompted once they were out of the activity and had begun to stroll down the side road toward Lake Nemi.

“So it is!” said Sulla in tones of surprise, and fell about laughing at the look on Pompey's face.

Obviously he was expected to laugh too; Pompey laughed too. “Yes, it is,” he said, and added, “the beginning of Sextilis.”

Controlling himself with an effort, Sulla decided he had had his fun. Best put the young would-be Alexander out of his misery by telling him.

“I have a special command for you, Pompeius,” he said curtly. “The rest will have to know about it-but not yet. I want you well away before the storm of protest breaks-for break, it will! You see, what I want you to do is something I ought not to ask of any man who has not been at the very least a praetor.”

Excitement growing, Pompey stopped walking, put his hand on Sulla's arm and turned him so that his face was fully visible; bright blue eyes stared into white-blue eyes. They were now standing in a rather pretty dell to one side of the unsealed road, and the noise of so much industry to front and back was muted by great flowering banks of summer brambles, roses and blackberries.

“Then why have you chosen me, Lucius Cornelius?” Pompey asked, tones wondering. “You have many legates who fit that description-Vatia, Appius Claudius, Dolabella- even men like Mamercus and Crassus would seem more appropriate! So why me?”

“Don't die from curiosity, Pompeius, I will tell you! But first, I must tell you exactly what it is I want you to do.”

“I am listening,” said Pompey with a great show of calm.

“I told you to bring six legions and two thousand cavalry. That's a respectable army. You are going to take it at once to Sicily, and secure the coming harvest for me. It's Sextilis, the harvest will begin very soon. And sitting for the most part in Puteoli harbor is the grain fleet. Hundreds upon hundreds of empty vessels. Ready-made transports, Pompeius! Tomorrow you will take the Via Appia and march for Puteoli before the grain fleet can sail. You will bear my mandate and have sufficient money to pay for the hiring of the ships, and you will have a propraetorian imperium. Post your cavalry to Ostia, there's a smaller fleet there. I've already sent out messengers to ports like Tarracina and Antium, and told all the little shipowners to gather in Puteoli if they want to be paid for what would under normal circumstances be an empty voyage out. You'll have more than enough ships, I guarantee you.”

Had he once dreamed of a meeting between himself and an equally godlike man called Lucius Cornelius Sulla? And been crushed to abject misery because he had found a satyr, not a god? But what did the look of a man matter, when he held in both hands such a store of dreams? The scarred and drunken old man whose eyes were not even good enough to see Rome in the distance was offering him the whole conduct of a war! A war far away from interference, against an enemy he would have all to himself... Pompey gasped, held out his freckled hand with its short and slightly crooked fingers, and clasped Sulla's beautiful hand.

“Lucius Cornelius, that's wonderful! Wonderful! Oh, you can count on me! I'll drive Perperna Veiento out of Sicily and give you more wheat than ten armies could eat!”

“I'm going to need more wheat than ten armies could eat,” said Sulla, releasing his hand; despite his youth and undeniable attractions, Pompey was not a type who appealed to Sulla physically, and he never liked to touch men or women who didn't appeal to him physically. “By the end of this year, Rome will be mine. And if I want Rome to lie down for me, then I'll have to make sure she's not hungry. That means the Sicilian grain harvest, the Sardinian grain harvest-and, if possible, the African grain harvest too. So when you've secured Sicily, you'll have to move on to Africa Province and do what you can there. You won't be in time to catch the loaded fleets from Utica and Hadrumetum-I imagine you'll be many months in Sicily before you can hope to deal with Africa. But Africa must be subdued before you can come home to Italy. I hear that Fabius Hadrianus was burned to death in the governor's palace during an uprising in Utica, but that Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus-having escaped from Sacriportus!-has taken over and is holding Africa for the enemy. If you're in western Sicily, it's a short distance from Lilybaeum to Utica by sea. You ought to be able to wrap up Africa. Somehow you don't have the look of a failure about you.”

Pompey was literally shivering in excitement; he smiled, gasped. “I won't fail you, Lucius Cornelius! I promise I will never fail you!”

“I believe you, Pompeius.” Sulla sat down on a log, licked his lips. “What are we doing here? I need wine!”

“Here is a good place, there's no one to see us or listen to us,” said Pompey soothingly. “Wait, Lucius Cornelius. I'll fetch you wine. Just sit there and wait.”

As it was a shady spot, Sulla did as he was told, smiling at some secret joke. Oh, what a lovely day it was!

Back came Pompey at a run, yet breathing as if he hadn't run at all. Sulla grabbed at the wineskin, squirted liquid into his mouth with great expertise, actually managing to swallow and take in air at the same time. Some moments elapsed before he ceased to squeeze, put the skin down.

“Oh, that's better! Where was I?”

“You may fool some people, Lucius Cornelius, but not me. You know precisely where you were,” said Pompey coolly, and sat himself on the grass directly in front of Sulla's log.

“Very good! Pompeius, you're as rare as an ocean pearl the size of a pigeon's egg! And I can truly say that I am very glad I'll be dead long before you become a Roman headache.” He picked up the wineskin again, drank again.

“I'll never be a Roman headache,” said Pompey innocently. “I will just be the First Man in Rome-and not by mouthing a lot of pretentious rubbish in the Forum or the Senate, either.”

“How then, boy, if not through stirring speeches?”

“By doing what you're sending me off to do. By beating Rome's enemies in battle.”

“Not a novel approach,” said Sulla. “That's the way I've done it. That's the way Gaius Marius did it too.”

“Yes, but I'm not going to need to snatch my commissions,” said Pompey. “Rome is going to give me every last one on her very knees!”

Sulla might have interpreted that statement as a reproach, or even as an outright criticism; but he knew his Pompey by this, and understood that most of what the young man said arose out of egotism, that Pompey as yet had no idea how difficult it might be to make that statement come true. So all Sulla did was to sigh and say, “Strictly speaking, I can't give you any sort of imperium. I'm not consul, and I don't have the Senate or the People behind me to pass my laws. You'll just have to accept that I will make it possible for you to come back and be confirmed with a praetor's imperium.”

“I don't doubt that.”

“Do you doubt anything?”

“Not if it concerns me directly. I can influence events.”

“May you never change!” Sulla leaned forward, clasped his hands between his knees. “All right, Pompeius, the compliments are over. Listen to me very carefully. There are two more things I have to tell you. The first concerns Carbo.”