Our Eternal Curse I (5 page)

One month passed and the memory
of the homecoming parade was fading from the people’s minds.  Sulla attended
the Senate every day listening intently to the debates about war with the
Italian tribes, a few Senators were on the side of peace but the majority were
arrogant men who believed in the supreme power of Rome above all else and they
shouted for war.

Marius was also in the Senate
each day with half of his face drooping and his body supported by an unknown
young aristocratic boy by the name of Julius Caesar.  An advocate of peace on
this occasion Marius was trying to convince his fellow Senators not to enter a
war with the rest of Italy.  He spoke constantly about the benefits of reform. 
“Let them have Roman citizenship it will make us stronger in the long term,”
was his argument but a majority of the highborn men were deaf to his pleadings.

The pompous Senators were
convinced that the primitive Italians could not match the discipline and might
of Rome.  Sulla himself had told them that the tribes were factional, unable to
organize or even agree on anything.  It was Sulla who met with the tribes three
years earlier and the Senate had great faith in his report.

Frustrated by what he heard
Marius told them, “War was an obvious mistake.’ He believed that Italians were
exactly the same as Romans and he said so in the Senate. “We can’t expect them
to keep paying our taxes and sending their young men to fight in our armies
without giving them citizenship in return!”

“
How dare you compare dignified Romans with Italian
riffraff!” shouted his opposition like the self-important men they were.

“
Many of my own armies were made up of Italian
conscripts and they were excellent soldiers!” bellowed Marius.  “Sulla’s belief
that the Italian tribes cannot organize themselves for lack of great leadership
is simply wrong. I trained them I know how capable they are.”  Then pausing in
consideration Marius measured his next words against the consequences of their
meaning, “Sulla was my second-in-command for many years and he knows it too!”

The house erupted at the
implication.  “You are jealous of Sulla!” they shouted.  “You have a vendetta
against him!  What could he possible stand to gain?”  cried others.

The curious thing was Marius did
not understand Sulla’s motive.  He had not been able to ask him why he
deliberately misled the consuls after his now infamous parley with the Marsi
because he departed for war in the East on the very same day.  When he returned
after three years Sulla would not meet with him and when questioned in the
Senate he categorically denied any wrongdoing.  Marius knew he was lying but
could simply offer no proof.

Clearly frustrated with the
state of affairs, his own decrepit condition and Sulla’s connivances Marius
shouted, “You are all behaving like sheep!  You are being led headlong into a
war that we are ill prepared for!’

The Senators burst into floods
of laughter and guffaws when he added, “Sulla has lied to the Senate about the
strength of the tribes and mark my words well, sooner or later you will come
running to me for help!”

Sulla laughed along with the
others, he had won, the Senators wanted war, there was nothing Marius could do
to stop it and when the Senate sent word to the Italians that they had been
denied citizenship on the grounds of inferiority, an alliance of tribes led by
the Marsi declared war.  With great bravado the Senators fell about laughing
and joked about the stupidity of such a disorganized rabble provoking the power
of Rome.

When the Marsic war eventually
started it created celebration in Rome.  Armies marched through the streets
outside the city walls with drums beating and great circular trumpets
sounding.  The people waved and cheered because they had absolute confidence in
the information coming from the Senate.  This war would be well and truly over
in six months and Rome would soon put an end to the atrocities being leveled
upon expatriated Romans.

Marius insisted that he be
placed in charge of the army but as with his warnings all his demands were
ignored.  Laughing at Marius was now a common pastime in the Senate and the
place fairly broke up when he told them he intended to raise and fund his own
army.

“
The old man must be mad,” they teased. “Save your
money for retirement our legions will crush the ‘ities’ like insects,” shouted
laughing Senators across the floor of the house and Marius could do nothing but
prepare for the carnage that he knew was about to be unleashed by their rank
stupidity.

News of the first battle sent a
shockwave through Rome which was felt by everyone of its disbelieving
populace.  The army of Gaius Perperna had been defeated in a rocky gorge on the
Via Valeria, a busy road that stretched east from Rome to the seaport of
Aternum.  Four thousand Roman soldiers were killed and six thousand ran away
shamefully discarding their swords, helmets and armor as they went.  As always
in the Roman army decimation followed shame.  Each ten men drew lots. The loser
was then beaten to death by the nine who were closer than his brothers, thus
six hundred more legionaries followed the four thousand to their graves.

“
Just very bad luck,” said the Senators to the
worried people who stood outside the Senate building.  “We have more men in the
field, fear not the next battle will be ours.”

Defeat was always bad for the
morale of Romans citizens but the next one proved devastating.  The news was
terrible in itself but its delivery method heightened the impact it had on the
population of Rome.  The Commander in Chief of the great army in the north
Publius Rutilius Lupus was returned to Rome with he and his officers tied
unceremoniously across the back of their horses and the combination of these
two terrible defeats shook the Senators out of their complacency.  Rome had
gone from having two state-funded armies in the north to none within a month. 
They all considered Sulla to be their best general but by way of clipping his
wings his army had been sent to deal with the Southern tribes so at this moment
nothing but the debilitated Marius stood between Rome and the vindictive Marsi.

It was lucky for Rome that
Marius had carried out his threat so laughed at in the Senate and funded his
own army.  Predicting the incompetence of the two northern generals Marius took
the precaution of training his ten thousand men while the others had ran off to
war completely unprepared.  It was Marius who found the carnage left by the
Marsi and it was very apparent that Lupus had simply walked his poorly trained
army headlong into a major defeat on a bridge over the fast flowing Velinus
River.  This patrician Roman was of such high caste he was simply unable to
believe that the Italian rebels posed a real threat and much like Perperna he
died because of his own stupidity.  Of the ten thousand ill-prepared and
unlucky soldiers unfortunate enough to be with him that day only 2000
survived.  Roman bodies were jammed against obstructions in the river; many
thousands of others had simply washed away.

Marius knew very well the
dramatic impact that sending the bodies of Lupus and his officers back to Rome
would have on the people.  He had performed his melodramatics as a way of
shaking them out of their complacency.  Even the slowest Senator would now be
forced to take him and the war seriously.  The Senate contained many blowhards
but the majority were not complete fools, they understood what Marius had done
and why he had done it.

“
Why didn’t we place Marius in charge in the first
place?” shouted the very same Senators who had so callously jeered and booed
him.  They had ardently refused to give him a command but now they prayed to
their Gods for the old man to deliver a victory.  “This broken old fool”, as
they once referred to him, was all that stood to prevent the demise of
themselves, or even of Rome herself.

Now the citizens of Rome were coming
to the Senate every day.  They stood outside and badgered the unfortunate
Senators as they came and went.  The people wanted to know what was being done
to win this terrible war.  “Why did you not give the tribes Roman status?” they
shouted with passion in their voices.  “Because of you they will kill us all!”

How the Senators hated the
accursed mob they represented.  It was like herding a flight of birds following
first one breeze then another.  When they believed Rome
would
win
against the Italians they shouted for war but now that the conflict
could
be lost not one of them could remember being an advocate of Roman
dignitas
. 
Now the people were all afraid and the Senators cursed Marius for making his
point so very well.  They had no choice but to fund the training of a further
ten thousand soldiers and make “The Father of Rome” head of the northern army. 
The people would have rebelled if the Senate hadn’t replaced the dead Lupus
with Marius but as always they found a way to spite the latter.  He was made
Joint Chief with Quintus Servilious Caepio a far lesser man and this further
splitting of the army was the Senate’s typically spiteful way of teaching
Marius a lesson for delivering Lupus home in such a provocative manner.

After the promotion of Marius,
Sulla’s dispatches to the Senate seethed with anger.  It was he who should have
been given the prestigious north.  Marius was an old slandering fool of a
broken man and as for Caepio he was a complete nincompoop.  Sulla was kicking
himself for being such a good general his strategy had been to build strong
fortifications and spend time training his new men.  He had wrongly assumed
that Perperna and Lupus would do the same giving him ample time to win in the
south and return to the north before all of the good land was taken.  His
extremely fit, well-disciplined army was ready to do his work but it was such a
great shame that the land he liberated for himself would be in the south and
not close to Rome as he had been planning for years.

A year after the war began
another disaster befell Rome when the hurriedly raised army of Caepio was
completely annihilated by the men of the Marsi.  Ten thousand fighting men, two
more full legions of Roman soldiers were butchered to a man.  Caepio’s head was
personally severed by the Marsi leader Quintus Poppaedius then mounted on a
spear to be paraded before the cheering Marsi army and this was simply too much
for Rome to bear.  Now absolutely no one had any doubt that this was a real war
and the stakes were as high as they could possibly be.  Marius was immediately
given complete control of the northern theatre and the men who cowered in the
Senate had to admit that he was still the best leader Rome had; now even his
enemies wanted him to defend them.

As each day passed Marius grew
stronger, looked younger and felt more alive.  War was good for him the Senate
was too slow fighting was not a democratic procedure he was in charge and he
possessed complete unshakeable confidence in his own ability to command an army
and win great victories in battle.

With the help of his 20-year-old
son Marius worked hard on repairing his stroke-damaged body regaining most of
the feeling in his leg and arm.  His face still hung limp on one side affecting
his speech slightly but his mind was always razor sharp.

After playing cat and mouse for
many months following the death of Caepio, Marius caught the Marsi in a perfect
trap.  His losses were small in comparison with the 15 000 Marsi dead and 5000
captured.  Their best legions were beaten and a very damaging psychological
blow had been struck against the Italians.

The evening after his victory
Marius supped with his officers to celebrate the battle and while laying on
their couches each told stories of valor whilst eating wonderful food and
drinking vast quantities of wine.

The talking laughing and even
singing went on late into the night and at the time of the explosion in his
brain none of the men who would have gladly given their life to save his even
knew that Marius was in danger.  The second stroke came when everyone was too
drunk to notice, all of his officers were laying in a stupor and looked to be
in exactly the same condition as their beloved General.

They found him in the morning
laying exactly as he had the night before.  Realizing what had happened the
senior legate sent for the physicians but the best the armies of Rome had to
offer could do nothing to cure his condition.  They could stem battlefield
bleeding from an artery after amputating mangled legs and arms but a malady of
the brain was completely beyond their field of expertise.  Other than making
him comfortable the surgeons could do Marius no discernible good so he was
returned to Rome for more specialized care.

His soldiers cried when they
heard the news, openly weeping without shame.  They all knew that Marius was
not just their best hope of survival he was the best hope for the survival of
Roman civilization.

Lying on his back in a wagon
drawn by four horses Marius was escorted by his proud cavalry.  They all desperately
wanted to reduce his discomfort by wrapping him in blankets and moving slowly
but despite their best efforts his journey could be nothing other than a
miserable one.

Gaius Marius the Younger or
Young Gaius as he was known collapsed in grief and shock when given the news of
his father’s stroke and a terrible sadness befell him as he rode his horse
slowly at the side of the wagon.  His head bowed; his face expressionless and
his mind deep in lamenting thought Young Gaius contemplated Rome’s misfortune as
his father bounced his way home.

When they reached the city most
of the people turned out to welcome Marius home and while still lying on his
back he traveled through the streets in the spontaneously decorated wagon.  The
people removed the horses and pulled it themselves as a sign of respect.  They
were happy because of the victory over the Marsi but sad because the war was by
no means over and the one leader that everybody had complete faith in was no
longer in the field of battle.

Marius could hear the cheering
but was unable to see the gathering because his eyes looked directly upwards. 
Young Gaius rode in the wagon with him in order to keep his face clear of the
flowers being cast into the wagon in their thousand.  Fighting back tears the
boy took it upon himself to deliver a commentary of the events unfolding around
them, ‘everyone has come on to the streets to greet you father,’ he said but
the only people Marius could see were the one’s standing on the roofs of the
buildings.  He felt completely let down by his body this was no way for a man
such as him to be seen.

The people who cried and
lamented his misfortune loved him completely but they were not great like
Marius.  In times of war mere mortals need a functioning hero and within days
they found a willing one in Sulla.  His less prestigious southern theatre of
the war became the most active in the second year and as always he gave a
brilliant account of himself.

As with all wars this one was
devastating and went on for far too long.  Most armies surrender when defeat is
inevitable but the Italians were fighting for their homes in their homeland. 
Each man knew what would happen to him and his family in return for rebelling
against their benefactor.  They had absolutely nowhere else to go and with no
incentive to surrender they fought to their deaths taking far too many Roman
soldiers with them.  Even after defeat was inevitable the tribes kept sending
their able-bodied men against a very angry Roman war machine.

Things became even more vicious
as the physically hardened but mentally worn-out Roman armies moved through the
countryside.  They found in far too many towns that the Roman population of
merchants, landowners, governors and the much hated tax collectors had been
mercilessly killed along with their families.  Roman men, women and children
put to the sword, burned alive, or worse.

Not just individuals but whole
towns were put on trial for their mistreatment of Roman citizens.  Military
leaders had jurisdiction on the field of battle and they passed sentences on
the spot.  In the towns which committed the most horrendous atrocities entire
populations were put to death.  Other townsfolk were banished and made to
wander the countryside.  People without a homeland cast out with no food or
water.  All of their valuable possessions confiscated and their homes and other
belongings burned to the ground before their eyes.  Women were raped by
legionaries with the approval of their officers, it was time for retribution
and Rome was a past master at administering that.  Many pathetic refugees
eventually died of starvation many more traveled throughout the empire trying
to start new lives wherever they could.  They were all of them forever more
known as traitors and none of them would ever be forgiven by Rome.