The Grass Crown (50 page)

By the end of June the law was on the tablets. The public grain in all future years was to be sold at five sesterces the modius, and the quaestors attached to the Treasury were planning their first issue of debased coins, as were the viri monetales who would supervise the actual minting. It would take a little time, of course, but the concerned officials estimated that by September one in every eight new denarii would be silver-plated. There were grumblings. Caepio never ceased to shout his protests, the knights were not entirely happy with the way Drusus was heading, and Rome’s lowly suspected that they were being fobbed off in some way their rulers had not divulged. But Drusus was no Saturninus, and the Senate was grateful for it. When he held a contio in the Plebeian Assembly, he insisted upon decorum and legality; if either became at risk, he suspended his meeting at once. Nor did he fly in the face of the augurs, or employ strong-arm tactics.

The end of June saw an enforced cessation in Drusus’s program, as official summer had arrived; the Senate broke off its meetings, as did the Comitia. Glad of the respite—he found himself increasingly fatigued by less and less activity—Drusus too quit Rome. His mother and the six children in her care he sent to his sumptuous villa on the sea at Misenum, while he traveled first to see Silo, then Mutilus, and accompanied both of them all over Italy.

He couldn’t help but notice that the Italian nations of the central peninsula were ready to put themselves on a war footing; as he rode down some dusty track with Silo and Mutilus, he saw whole legions of well-equipped troops engaged in training maneuvers far from Roman or Latin settlements. But he said nothing, asked no questions, believing implicitly that none of this martial practice would be needed. In an unprecedented spate of legislation, he had succeeded in convincing the Senate and the Plebeian Assembly that reform was necessary in the major law courts, the Senate, the ager publicus, and the grain dole. No one—not Tiberius Gracchus, Gaius Gracchus, Gaius Marius, or Saturninus—had done what he had done, introduce so much contentious, legislation without violence, senatorial opposition, knight rejection. Because they believed him, they respected him, they trusted him. He knew now that when he made his intentions public about general enfranchisement for Italy, they would let him lead them, even if they did not precisely follow him. It would be done! And as a consequence he, Marcus Livius Drusus, would hold one quarter of the population of the Roman world as his clients, for the oath of personal allegiance to him had been sworn from one end of the Italian peninsula to the other, even in Umbria and Etruria.

About eight days before the Senate reconvened on the Kalends of September, Drusus arrived at his villa in Misenum to enjoy a little rest before the hardest work began. His mother, he had discovered, was as great a joy to him as she was a comfort—witty, clever, well read, easygoing, almost masculine in her appreciation of what was, after all, a man’s world. She took a keen interest in politics, and had followed Drusus’s program of laws with pride and pleasure. Her liberal Cornelian background predisposed her to a certain radicalism, yet the essential conservatism of that same Cornelian background approved of her son’s masterly grasp on the realities of Senate and People. No force or violence, no battering ram of threats, no other weapons than a golden voice and a silver tongue. That was what great politicians should be! That was how Marcus Livius Drusus was, and she congratulated herself that he never got it from his pigheaded, stiff-necked, misunderstanding father. No, he got it from her.

“Well, you’ve dealt brilliantly with the law, the land, and the lowly,” she said neatly. “What next, if anything?”

He drew a breath, looked at her directly, sternly. “I will legislate the full Roman citizenship for every last man in Italy.”

Paler than her bone-colored dress, she cried, “Oh, Marcus Livius! They’ve let you have your way so far, but they won’t let you have your way in this!”

“Why not?” he asked, surprised; he had got quite used to thinking these days that he could do what no one else could do.

“The guarding of the citizenship has become a task given to Rome by the gods,” she said, still pallid. “Not if Quirinus himself appeared in the middle of the Forum and ordered them to dole it out to everyone, would they consent!” Out went her hand to grasp his arm. “Marcus Livius, Marcus Livius, give it up! Don’t try!” She shivered. “I beg you, don’t try!”

“I have sworn to do it, Mama—and do it I will!”

For a long moment she searched his dark eyes, her own less remarkable orbs filled with fear for him. Then she sighed, shrugged. “Well, I won’t talk you out of it, I can see that. You’re not the great-grandnephew of Scipio Africanus for nothing. Oh, my son, my son, they’ll kill you!”

One peaked brow went up. “Why should they, Mama? I am no Gaius Gracchus, no Saturninus. I proceed absolutely within the law—I threaten neither man nor mos maiorum.”

Too upset to continue this particular conversation, she got up quickly. “Come and see the children, they’ve missed you.”

If that was an exaggeration, it wasn’t a large one. Drusus had achieved a measure of popularity among the children.

That a quarrel was in progress became obvious as they neared the children’s playroom.

“I’m going to kill you, Young Cato!” the two adults heard Servilia say as they entered.

“Enough of that, Servilia!” Drusus said sharply, sensing something serious in the girl’s tone. “Young Cato is your half brother, and inviolate.”

“Not if I get him alone for long enough, he isn’t,” said Servilia ominously.

“You won’t ever get him alone, Miss Knobby-nose!” said Young Caepio, pushing himself in front of Young Cato.

“I do not have a knobby nose!” said Servilia angrily.

“You do so too!” said Young Caepio. “It’s a horrible little nose with a horrible little knob on the end, ugh, erk, brrh!”

“Be quiet!” cried Drusus. “Do you ever do anything save fight?”

“Yes!” said Young Cato loudly. “We argue!”

“How can we not, with him here?” asked Drusus Nero.

“You shut up, Nero Black-face!” said Young Caepio, leaping to Young Cato’s defense.

“I am not a black-face!”

“Are, are, are!” shouted Young Cato, fists clenched.

“You’re no Servilius Caepio!” said Servilia to Young Caepio. “You’re the descendant of a red-haired Gallic slave, you were foisted on us Servilii Caepiones!”

“Knobby nose, knobby nose, ugly horrible knobby nose!”

“Tacete!” yelled Drusus.

“Son of a slave!” hissed Servilia.

“Daughter of a dullard!” cried Porcia.

“Freckledy-face porky!” said Lilla.

“Sit down over here, my son,” said Cornelia Scipionis, quite unruffled by this nursery brawl. “When they’ve finished, they’ll pay attention to us.”

“Do they always bring up ancestry?” asked Drusus above the cries and shouts.

“With Servilia here, of course,” said their avia.

The girl Servilia, figure formed at thirteen and blessed with a lovely, secretive face, ought to have been segregated from the younger children two or three years earlier, but had not been, as part of her punishment. After witnessing some of the contents of this quarrel, Drusus found himself wondering if he had been wrong to keep her in the nursery.

Servililla-Lilla, now just turned twelve, was also maturing fast. Prettier than Servilia yet not as attractive, her dark and roguish, open face told everyone what sort of person she was. The third member of the senior group, and very much aligned with them against the junior group, was Drusus’s adopted son, Marcus Livius Drusus Nero Claudianus; nine years old, handsome in the mould of the Claudii—who were dark and dour—he was not a clever boy, alas, but he was pleasant and docile.

Then came Cato’s brood, for Drusus could never think of Young Caepio as Caepio’s child, no matter how Livia Drusa had insisted. He was so like Cato Salonianus—the same slenderly muscular build, the promise of tall stature, the shape of his head and ears, the long neck, long limbs—and the bright red hair. Though his eyes were light brown, they were not Caepio’s eyes, for they were widely spaced, well opened, and deeply set within their bony orbits. Of all six children, Young Caepio was Drusus’s favorite. There was a strength about him, a need to shoulder responsibility, and this appealed to Drusus; now aged three quarters past five, the child would converse with Drusus like an old, tremendously wise man. His voice was very deep, the expression in his reddish eyes always serious and thoughtful. Of smiles he produced few, save when his little brother, Young Cato, did something he found amusing or touching; his affection for Young Cato was so strong it amounted to outright paternalism, and he would not be separated from him.

Porcia called Porcella was almost due to turn four. A homely child, she was just beginning to develop freckles everywhere, big splotchy brown freckles which made her the object of contemptuous teasing from her older half sisters, who disliked her intensely, and made her poor little life a secret misery of sly pinches, kicks, bites, scratches, slaps. The Catonian beak of a nose ill became her, but she did have a beautiful pair of dark grey eyes, and by nature she was a nice person.

Young Cato was three quarters past two, a veritable monster both in looks and essence. His nose seemed to grow faster than the rest of him, beaked with a Roman bump rather than a Semitic hook, and was out of keeping with the rest of his face, which was strikingly good-looking-exquisite mouth, lovely luminous and large light grey eyes, high cheekbones, good chin. Though broad shoulders hinted that he might develop a nice body later on, he was painfully thin because he evinced absolutely no interest in food. By nature he was obnoxiously intrusive, with the kind of mentality Drusus, for one, abominated most; a lucid and reasonable answer to one of his loud and hectoring questions only provoked more questions, indicating that Young Cato was either dense, or too stubborn to see another point of view. His most endearing characteristic—and he needed an endearing characteristic!—was his utter devotion to Young Caepio, from whom he refused to be parted, day or night; when he became absolutely intolerable, a threat to take his brother away from him produced immediate docility.

Not long after Young Cato’s second birthday, Silo had paid his last visit to Drusus; Drusus was now a tribune of the plebs, and Silo had felt it unwise to show Rome that their friendship was as strong as ever. A father himself, Silo had always liked to see the children whenever he was a guest in Drusus’s house. So he had paid attention to the little spy, Servilia, and flattered her, yet could be detached enough to laugh at her contempt for him, a mere Italian. The four middle children he loved, played with them, joked with them. But Young Cato he loathed, though he was hard put to give Drusus a logical reason for detesting a two-year-old.

“I feel like a mindless animal when I’m with him,” said Silo to Drusus. “My senses and instincts tell me he is an enemy.”

It was the child’s Spartan endurance got under his skin, admirable trait though Spartan endurance was. When he saw the tiny little fellow stand tearless and firm-jawed after a nasty injury, physical or mental, Silo found his hackles rising along with his temper. Why is this so? he would ask himself, and could never arrive at an answer that satisfied him. Perhaps it was because Young Cato never bothered to hide his contempt for mere Italians. That of course was the malign influence of Servilia. Yet when he encountered the same sort of treatment from her, he could brush it off. Young Cato, he concluded, was just not the sort of person anyone would ever be able to brush off.

One day, goaded beyond endurance by Young Cato’s harsh and badgering questions to Drusus—and his lack of appreciation for Drusus’s patience and kindness—Silo picked the child up and held him out the window above a rock garden full of sharp stones.

“Be reasonable, Young Cato, or I’ll drop you!” Silo said.

Young Cato hung there doggedly silent, as defiant and in control of his fate as ever; no amount of shaking, pretended dropping, or other threats served to loosen the child’s tongue or determination. In the end Silo put him down, the loser of the battle, shaking his head at Drusus.

“Just as well Young Cato is a baby,” he said. “If he were a grown man, Italy would never persuade the Romans!”

On another occasion, Silo asked Young Cato whom he loved.

“My brother,” said Young Cato.

“And who next after him?” Silo asked.

“My brother.”

“But who next-best after your brother?”

“My brother.”

Silo turned to Drusus. “Does he love no one else? Not you? Not his avia, your mother?”

Drusus shrugged. “Apparently, Quintus Poppaedius, he loves no one but his brother.”

Silo’s reaction to Young Cato was very much the reaction of most people; certainly Young Cato did not provoke fondness.

The children had permanently polarized into two groups, the seniors allied against Cato Salonianus’s brood, and the nursery resounded perpetually to the cries and screeches of battle. It might logically have been presumed that the Servilian-Livians outweighed, outranked and outdid the much smaller Catonians, but from the time Young Cato turned two years old and could add his minuscule bulk to the fray, the Catonians gained the ascendancy. No one could cope with Young Cato, who couldn’t be pummeled into submission, shouted into submission, argued into submission. A slow learner when it came to facts Young Cato might be, but he was the absolute quintessence of a natural enemy—indefatigable, constant, carping, loud, remorseless, monstrous.

“Mama,” said Drusus to his mother, summing the nursery up, “we have gathered together every disadvantage Rome possesses.”

Other men than Drusus and the Italian leaders had also worked through that summer; Caepio In had lobbied the knights assiduously, Varius and Caepio combined had managed to harden Comitial resistance to Drusus, and Philippus, his tastes always outrunning his purse, allowed himself to be bought by a group of knights and senators whose latifundia holdings represented the major part of their assets.

Of course no one knew what was coming, but the House knew that Drusus had lodged a request to speak at the meeting on the Kalends of September, and was consumed with curiosity. Many among the senators, carried away by the force of Drusus’s oratory earlier in the year, were now wishing Drusus had talked less well; the initial flush of senatorial supportive enlightenment had dissipated, so that the men who gathered in the Curia Hostilia on the first day of September were resolved to close their ears to Drusus’s magic.

Sextus Julius Caesar was in the chair, September being one of the months during which he held the fasces, which meant the preliminary rites were scrupulously observed. The House sat and rustled restlessly while the omens were consulted, the prayers said, the sacrificial mess cleared away. And when the House finally settled down to business, everything taking precedence over a speech from a tribune of the plebs was dealt with extremely quickly.

Time. It was time. Drusus rose from the tribunician bench below the dais on which sat the consuls, the praetors and the curule aediles, and walked to his usual spot up by the great bronze doors, which—as on previous occasions—he had asked be shut.

“Revered fathers of our country, members of the Senate of Rome,” he began softly, “several months ago I spoke in this House of a great evil in our midst—the evil of the ager publicus. Today I intend to speak about a much greater evil than the ager publicus. One which, unless crushed, will see the end of us. The end of Rome.

“I mean, of course, the people who dwell side by side with us in this peninsula. I mean the people we call Italians.”

A wave of sound passed through the white ranks on either side of the House, more like a rising wind in trees than human voices, or like a swarm of wasps in the distance. Drusus heard it, understood its import, continued regardless.

“We treat them, these thousands upon thousands of people, like third-class citizens. Literally! The first-class citizen is the Roman. The second-class citizen holds the Latin Rights. And the third-class citizen is the Italian. He who is considered unworthy of any right to participate in our Roman congress. He who is taxed, flogged, fined, evicted, plundered, exploited. He whose sons are not safe from us, he whose women are not safe from us, he whose property is not safe from us. He who is called upon to fight in our wars and fund the troops he donates us, yet is expected to consent to his troops being commanded by us. He who, if we had lived up to our promises, would not have to endure the Roman and Latin colonies in his midst—for we promised full autonomy to the Italian nations in return for troops and taxes, then tricked them by seeding our colonies within their borders—thus taking the best of their world off them, as well as withholding our world from them.”

The noise was increasing, though as yet it did not obscure what Drusus was saying; a storm coming closer, a swarm coming closer. Drusus found his mouth dry, had to pause to lick and swallow in the most natural manner he could summon. There must be no obvious nervousness. He pressed on.

“We of Rome have no king. Yet within Italy, every last one of us acts like a king. Because we like the sensation it gives us, we like to see our inferiors crawl about under our regal noses. We like to play at kings! Were the people of Italy genuinely our inferiors, there might be some excuse for it. But the truth is that the Italians are not inferior to us in any natural way. They are blood of our blood. If they were not, how could anyone in this House cast aspersions upon another member of this House for his ’Italian blood’? I have heard the great and glorious Gaius Marius called an Italian. Yet he conquered the Germans! I have heard the noble Lucius Calpurnius Piso called an Insubrian. Yet his father died gallantly at Burdigala! I have heard the great Marcus Antonius Orator condemned because he took the daughter of an Italian as his second wife. Yet he overcame the pirates, and was a censor!”

“He was indeed a censor,” said Philippus, “and while he was a censor, he permitted thousands and thousands of Italians to enroll themselves as Roman citizens!”

“Do you mean to imply, Lucius Marcius, that I connived at it?” asked Antonius Orator in a dangerous voice.

“I most certainly do, Marcus Antonius!”

Antonius Orator rose to his feet, big and burly. “Step outside, Philippus, and repeat that!” he cried.

“Order! Marcus Livius has the floor!” said Sextus Caesar, beginning to wheeze audibly. “Lucius Marcius and Marcus Antonius, you are both out of order! Sit down and be silent!”

Drusus resumed. “I repeat. The Italians are blood of our blood. They have been no mean part of our successes, both within Italy and abroad. They are no mean soldiers. They are no mean farmers. They are no mean businessmen. They have riches. They have a nobility as old as ours, leading men as educated as ours are, women as cultured and refined as ours are. They live in the same kind of houses as we do. They eat the same kind of food as we do. They have as many connoisseurs of wine as we do. They look like us.”

“Rubbish!” cried Catulus Caesar scornfully, and pointed at Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo from Picenum. “See him? Snub nose and hair the color of sand ! Romans may be red, Romans may be yellow, Romans may be white, but Romans are not sandy! He’s a Gaul, not a Roman! And if I had my way, he and all the rest of the un-Roman mushrooms glowing in the dark of our beloved Curia Hostilia would be pulled up and thrown out! Gaius Marius, Lucius Calpurnius Piso, Quintus Varius, Marcus Antonius for marrying beneath him, every Pompeius who ever marched down from Picenum with a straw between his teeth, every Didius from Campania, every Pedius from Campania, every Saufeius and Labienus and Appuleius—get rid of the lot, I say!”

The House was in an uproar. Either by name or by inference, Catulus Caesar had managed to insult a good third of its members; but what he said sat very well with the other two thirds, if only because Catulus Caesar had reminded them of their superiority. Caepio alone did not beam quite as widely as he ought—Catulus Caesar had singled out Quintus Varius.

“I will be heard!” Drusus shouted. “If we sit here until darkness falls, I will be heard!”

“Not by me, you won’t!” yelled Philippus.

“Nor by me!” shrieked Caepio.

“Marcus Livius has the floor! Those who refuse to allow him to speak will be ejected!” cried Sextus Caesar. “Clerk, go outside and bring in my lictors!”

Off scurried the head clerk, in marched Sextus Caesar’s twelve lictors in their white togas, fasces shouldered.

“Stand here on the back of the curule dais,” said Sextus Caesar loudly. “We have an unruly meeting, and I may ask you to eject certain men.” He nodded to Drusus. “Continue.”

“I intend to bring a bill before the concilium plebis giving the full Roman citizenship to every man from the Arnus to Rhegium, from the Rubico to Vereium, from the Tuscan Sea to the Adriatic Sea!” said Drusus, shouting now to make himself heard. “It is time we rid ourselves of this frightful evil—that one man in Italy is deemed better than another man—that we of Rome can keep ourselves exclusive! Conscript Fathers, Rome is Italy! And Italy is Rome! Let us once and for all admit that fact, and put every man in Italy upon the same footing!”

The House boiled into madness, men shouting “No, no, no!,” feet stamping, roars of outrage, boos and hisses, stools flying to crash on the floor around Drusus, fists shaking at Drusus from every tier on either side.

But Drusus stood unmoving and uncowed. “I will do it!” he screamed. “I—will—do—it!”

“Over my dead body!” howled Caepio from the dais.

Now Drusus moved, swung to face Caepio. “If necessary, it will be over your dead body, you overbred cretin! When have you ever had speech or congress with Italians, to know what sort of men they are?” Drusus yelled, trembling with anger.

“In your house, Drusus, in your house! Talking sedition! A nest of them, all dirty Italians! Silo and Mutilus, Egnatius and Vidacilius, Lamponius and Duronius!”

“Never in my house, and never sedition!”

Caepio was on his feet, face purple. “You’re a traitor, Drusus! A blight on your family, an ulcer on the fair face of Rome! I’ll bring you to trial for this!”

“No, you festering scab, it’s I who will bring you to trial! What happened to all that gold from Tolosa, Caepio? Tell this House that! Tell this House how enormous and prosperous your business enterprises are, and how unsenatorial!” Drusus shouted.

“Are you going to let him get away with this?” roared Caepio, turning from one side of the chamber to the other, hands outstretched imploringly. “He’s the traitor! He’s the viper!”

Through all of this exchange Sextus Caesar and Scaurus Princeps Senatus had been calling for order; Sextus Caesar now gave up. Snapping his fingers at his lictors, he adjusted his toga and stalked out of the meeting behind his escort, looking neither to left nor to right. Some of the praetors followed him, but Quintus Pompeius Rufus leaped from the dais in the direction of Catulus Caesar at precisely the same moment as Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo came at Catulus from the far side of the House. Both meant murder, fists doubled, faces ugly. However, before either Pompeius could reach the sneering, haughty Catulus Caesar, Gaius Marius stepped into the fray. Shaking his fierce old head, he grabbed at Pompey Strabo’s wrists and bore them down, while Crassus Orator restrained the furious Pompeius Rufus. The Pompeii were hauled unceremoniously from the chamber, Marius gathering in Drusus as he went, Antonius Orator helping. Catulus Caesar remained standing beside his stool, smiling.

“They didn’t take that too well,” said Drusus, drawing in big deep breaths.

The group had sought the bottom of the Comitia well wherein to shelter and compose itself; within moments a small crowd of angry and indignant partisans had joined it.

“How dared Catulus Caesar say that about us Pompeians!” yelled Pompey Strabo, clutching at his remote cousin Pompeius Rufus as if at a spar in a tempestuous sea. “If I had to put a color on his hair, I’d call it sandy!”

“Quin tacetis, the lot of you!” said Marius, eyes seeking Sulla in vain; until today, at any rate, Sulla had been one of Drusus’s most enthusiastic supporters, hadn’t missed a single meeting during which Drusus had spoken. Where was he now? Had today’s events put him off? Was he perhaps bowing and scraping to Catulus Caesar? Common sense said that was unlikely, but even Marius had not expected such a violent House. And where was Scaurus Princeps Senatus?

“How dared that licentious ingrate Philippus imply that I fiddled the census?” demanded Antonius Orator, ruddy face a richer red. “He backed down soon enough when I invited him to say the same thing outside, the worm!”

“When he accused you, Marcus Antonius, he also accused me!” said Lucius Valerius Flaccus, lifted out of his normal torpor. “He will pay for that, I swear he will!”

“They didn’t take it at all well,” said Drusus, his mind not able to deviate from its beaten track.

“You surely didn’t expect them to, Marcus Livius,” said the voice of Scaurus from behind the group.

“Are you still with me, Princeps Senatus?” Drusus asked when Scaurus elbowed his way to the center of the group.

“Yes, yes!” cried Scaurus, flapping his hands. “I agree it’s time we did the logical thing, if only to avert a war,” he said. “Unfortunately most people refuse to believe the Italians could ever mount a war against Rome.”

“They’ll find out how wrong they are,” said Drusus.

“They will that,” said Marius. He looked about again. “Where is Lucius Cornelius Sulla?”

“Gone off on his own,” said Scaurus.

“Not to one of the opposition?”

“No, just off on his own,” said Scaurus with a sigh. “I very much fear he hasn’t been terribly enthusiastic about anything since his poor little son died.”

“That’s true,” said Marius, relieved. “Still, I did think this fuss might have stimulated him.”

“Nothing can, save time,” said Scaurus, who had also lost a son, in many ways more painfully than Sulla.

“Where do you go from this, Marcus Livius?” asked Marius.

“To the Plebeian Assembly,” said Drusus. “I’ll call a contio for three days hence.”

“You’ll be opposed more strongly still,” said Crassus Orator.

“I don’t care,” said Drusus stubbornly. “I have sworn to get this legislation through—and get it through I will!”

“In the meantime, Marcus Livius,” said Scaurus soothingly, “the rest of us will keep working on the Senate.”

“You ought to do better among those Catulus Caesar insulted, at least,” said Drusus with a faint smile.

“Unfortunately, many of them will be the most obdurately against giving the citizenship away,” said Pompeius Rufus, grinning. “They would all have to speak to their Italian aunties and cousins again, after pretending they don’t have any.”

“You seem to have recovered from the insult!” snapped Pompey Strabo, who clearly hadn’t.

“No, I haven’t recovered at all,” said Pompeius Rufus, still grinning. “I’ve just tucked it away to take out on those who caused it. There’s no point taking my anger out On these good fellows.”

Drusus held his contio on the fourth day of September. The Plebs gathered eagerly, looking forward to a rousing meeting, yet feeling safe to gather; with Drusus in charge, there would be no violence. However, Drusus had only just launched into his opening remarks when Lucius Marcius Philippus appeared, escorted by his lictors and followed by a large group of young knights and sons of senators.

“This assembly is illegal! I hereby demand that it be broken up!” cried Philippus, shoving through the crowd behind his lictors. “Move along, everybody! I order you to disperse!”

“You have no authority in a legally convened meeting of the Plebs,” said Drusus calmly, looking unruffled. “Now go about your proper business, junior consul.”