The Grass Crown (96 page)

No one said a word.

The creature disappeared. “Good!” said Sulla cheerfully. “Now I have more happy news for you, just in case you think that’s the end of it.”

Catulus Caesar sighed. “I am all agog, Lucius Cornelius. Pray tell us.”

“I shall take my own four legions with me, plus two of the legions Gaius Marius trained and Lucius Cinna is presently using. The Marsi are a spent force, Cinna doesn’t need troops. Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo will do whatever he wants to do, and as long as he refrains from sending in wages bills, I for one do not intend to waste time arguing with him. That means there are still some ten legions to demobilize—and pay out. With money we certainly will not have,” said Sulla. “For that reason, I intend to legislate to pay out these soldiers with land in Italian areas whose populations we have virtually extirpated. Pompeii. Faesulae. Hadria. Telesia. Grumentum. Bovianum. Six empty towns surrounded by reasonable farming land. Districts which will belong to the ten legions I have to discharge.”

“But that’s ager publicus!” cried Lucius Caesar.

“Not yet, it isn’t. Nor is it going to become public land,” said Sulla. “It’s going to the soldiers. Unless, that is, you intend to change your pious and devout minds about the temples of Rome?” he asked sweetly.

“We cannot,” said Scaevola Pontifex Maximus.

“Then when my legislation is promulgated you had better swing both the Senate and the People on my side,” said Sulla.

“We will uphold you,” said Antonius Orator.

“And, while we’re on the subject of ager publicus,” Sulla went on, “don’t start declaring it while I’m away. When I come back with my legions, I will want more deserted Italian districts to settle them on.”

In the end, Rome’s finances did not stretch to six legions. Sulla’s army was determined at five legions and two thousand horse, not a man or an animal more. When all the gold was put together it weighed nine thousand pounds—not even two hundred talents. A pittance indeed, but the best a bankrupt Rome could do. Sulla’s war chest didn’t even extend to the commissioning of one single fighting galley; it would barely cover the cost of hiring transports to get his men to Greece, the destination he thought he would prefer to western Macedonia. Not, however, that he intended to make settled plans until he heard more about the situation in Asia Minor and Greece. His mind inclined the way it did because in Greece lay the richest temples.

And at the end of September, Sulla was finally able to leave Rome to join his legions in Capua. He had interviewed his trusted and devoted military tribune, Lucius Licinius Lucullus, and asked him if he would be willing to stand for election as a quaestor if Sulla asked for his services by name. Delighted, Lucullus indicated that he would, whereupon Sulla sent him ahead to Capua as his deputy until he could come himself. Mired down in auctioning State property and in organizing his six soldier colonies, it seemed throughout the month of September that Sulla would never manage to get away. That he did was due to iron will and ruthless driving of his senatorial colleagues, all of whom were fascinated; somehow Sulla had always escaped their attention as a potential high leader.

“Overshadowed by Marius and Scaurus,” said Antonius Orator.

“No, he just didn’t have a reputation,” said Lucius Caesar.

“And whose fault was that?” sneered Catulus Caesar.

“Mostly Gaius Marius’s, I suppose,” said his brother.

“He certainly knows what he wants,” said Antonius Orator.

“That he does,” said Scaevola, and shivered. “I would hate to get on the wrong side of him!”

Which was exactly what Young Caesar was thinking as he lay in his ceiling hiding place and watched and listened to his mother and Lucius Cornelius Sulla talking.

“I’m off tomorrow, Aurelia, and I don’t like going away without seeing you,” he said.

“I don’t like your going without seeing me,” she answered.

“No Gaius Julius?”

“He’s off with Lucius Cinna among the Marsi.”

“Picking up the pieces,” nodded Sulla.

“You’re looking very well, Lucius Cornelius, in spite of all your difficulties. I take it this marriage is turning out happily.”

“Either that, or I’m becoming more uxorious.”

“Rubbish! You’ll never be uxorious.”

“How is Gaius Marius taking his defeat?”

Aurelia pursed her lips. “Not without much grumbling to the family,” she said. “You are not terribly popular with him.”

“I didn’t expect to be. But he surely admits that I acted in a temperate way, didn’t chase after the command with slavering tongue and frenzied lobbying.”

“You didn’t need to,” said Aurelia, “and that’s why he’s so upset. He isn’t used to Rome’s having an alternative war leader. Until you won the Grass Crown, he was always the only one. Oh, his enemies in the Senate were very powerful and thwarted him most of the time, but he knew he was the only one. He knew in the end they would have to use him. Now he’s old and sick, and there’s you. He’s afraid you’ll take away his support among the knights.”

“Aurelia, he’s finished! Not without honor, not without great fame. But it’s over for him. Why can’t he see that?”

“I suppose were he younger and in better mental condition, he would see it. The trouble is that his strokes have affected his mind—or so Julia thinks.”

“She’d know more surely and sooner than anyone else,” said Sulla, and rose to go. “How is your family?”

“Very well.”

“Your boy?”

“Irrepressible. Unquenchable. Indomitable. I try to keep his feet on the earth, but it’s very difficult,” said Aurelia.

But my feet are on the ground, Mama! thought Young Caesar, wriggling out of his nest as soon as Sulla and Aurelia disappeared. Why is it that you always think me a feather, a crystal dandelion ball floating in the wind?

Thinking that Sulla would not waste time getting himself and his troops across the Adriatic ahead of winter’s unfavorable winds, Publius Sulpicius struck his first blow against the established order of things halfway through October. Of preparation he had little save within his own mind; for someone without love for demagogues, it was impossible to cultivate the art of the demagogue. He had, however, taken the precaution of seeking an interview with Gaius Marius and asking for Marius’s support. No lover of the Senate, Gaius Marius! Nor was Sulpicius disappointed in his reception. After listening to what Sulpicius proposed to do, Marius nodded.

“You may rest assured I will lend you my full support, Publius Sulpicius,” the Great Man said. For a moment he said nothing more, then he added, apparently as an afterthought, “However, I will ask one favor of you—that you legislate to give me the command in the war against Mithridates.”

It seemed like a small price to pay; Sulpicius smiled. “I agree, Gaius Marius. You shall have your command,” he said.

Sulpicius convoked the Plebeian Assembly, and in contio put two prospective laws before it as separate bills. One called for the expulsion from the Senate of every member who was in debt to the tune of more than eight thousand sesterces; the other called for the return of all those men exiled by the Varian Commission in the days when Varius himself had prosecuted those he alleged had been in favor of the citizenship for Italy.

Silver-tongued, golden-voiced, Sulpicius found exactly the right note. “Who do they think they are to sit in the Senate and make the decisions this body should be making, when hardly one of them isn’t a poor man and hopelessly in debt?” he cried. “For all of you who are in debt, there is no relief—no way of hiding behind senatorial exclusivity, no easing of your burdens by understanding moneylenders who do not think it politic to push you too far! Yet for them inside the Curia Hostilia, trifling little matters like debts can be ignored until better times! I know because I am a senator—I hear what they say to each other, I see the favors done here and there for moneylenders! I even know who among those in the Senate lend money! Well, it is all going to stop! No man who owes money should have a seat in the Senate! No man ought to be able to call himself a member of that haughty and exclusive club if he is no better than the rest of Rome!”

Shocked, the Senate sat up straight, astounded because it was Sulpicius acting like a demagogue. Sulpicius! The most conservative and valuable of men! It had been he who vetoed the recall of the Varian exiles back before the beginning of the year! Now here he was, recalling them! What had happened?

Two days later Sulpicius reconvened the Plebeian Assembly and promulgated a third law. All the new Italian citizens and many thousands of Rome’s freedman citizens were to be distributed evenly across the whole thirty-five tribes. Piso Frugi’s two new tribes were to be abandoned.

“Thirty-five is the proper number of tribes, there can be no more!” shouted Sulpicius. “Nor is it right that some tribes can hold as few as three or four thousand citizens, yet still have the same voting power in tribal assemblies as tribes like Esquilina and Suburana, each with more than a hundred thousand citizen members! Everything in Roman government is designed to protect the almighty Senate and the First Class! Do senators or knights belong to Esquilina or Suburana? Of course not! They belong to Fabia, to Cornelia, to Romilia! Well, let them continue to belong to Fabia, to Cornelia, to Romilia, I say! But let them share Fabia and Cornelia and Romilia with men from Prifernum, Buca, Vibinium—and let them share Fabia and Cornelia and Romilia with freedmen from Esquilina and Suburana!”

This was greeted with hysterical cheers, having the full approval of all strata save the uppermost and the lowliest; the uppermost because it would lose power, the lowliest because its situation would not be changed in the least.

“I don’t understand!” gasped Antonius Orator to Titus Pomponius as they stood in the well of the Comitia surrounded by screaming, howling supporters of Sulpicius. “He’s a nobleman! He hasn’t had time to gather so many adherents! He’s not a Saturninus! I—do—not—understand!”

“Oh, I understand,” said Titus Pomponius sourly. “He’s attacked the Senate for debt. What this crowd here today is hoping for is simple. They think if they pass whatever laws Sulpicius asks them to pass, as a reward he’ll legislate for the cancellation of debts.”

“But he can’t do that if he’s busy throwing men out of the Senate for being in debt for eight thousand sesterces! Eight thousand sesterces! It’s a pittance! There’s hardly a man in the whole city isn’t in debt for at least that much!”

“In trouble, Marcus Antonius?” asked Titus Pomponius.

“No, of course not! But that can’t be said for more than a handful—even men like Quintus Ancharius, Publius Cornelius Lentulus, Gaius Baebius, Gaius Atilius Serranus—ye gods, the best men on earth, Titus Pomponius! But who hasn’t had trouble finding cash these past two years? Look at the Porcii Catones, with all that land in Lucania—not a sestertius of income thanks to the war. And the Lucilii too—southern landowners again.” Marcus Antonius paused for breath, then asked, “Why should he legislate for the cancellation of debts when he’s throwing men out of the Senate for debt?”

“He hasn’t any intention of cancelling debts,” said Pomponius. “The Second and Third Classes are just hoping he will, that’s all.”

“Has he promised them anything?”

“He doesn’t have to. Hope is the only sun in their sky, Marcus Antonius. They see a man who hates the Senate and the First Class as much as Saturninus did. So they hope for another Saturninus. But Sulpicius is vastly different.”

“Why?” wailed Antonius Orator.

“I have absolutely no idea what maggot’s in his mind,” said Titus Pomponius. “Let’s get out of this crowd before it turns on us and rends us limb from limb.”

On the Senate steps they met the junior consul, who was accompanied by his very excited son, just back from military duty in Lucania and still in a martial mood.

“It’s Saturninus all over again!” cried young Pompeius Rufus loudly. “Well, this time we will be ready for him—we’re not going to let him get control of the crowds the way Saturninus did! Now that almost everybody is back from the war it’s easy to get a trusty gang together and stop him—and that’s what I’m going to do! The next contio he calls will turn out very differently, I promise you!”

Titus Pomponius ignored the son in order to concentrate upon the father and other senators in hearing. “Sulpicius is not remotely another Saturninus,” he said doggedly. “The times are different and Sulpicius’s motives are different. Then, it was shortage of food. Now, it’s the prevalence of debt. But Sulpicius doesn’t want to be King of Rome. He wants them to rule Rome”—finger pointing at the Second and Third Classes jammed into the Comitia—“and that is very different indeed.”

“I’ve sent for Lucius Cornelius,” said the junior consul to Titus Pomponius, Antonius Orator and Catulus Caesar, who had heard what Pomponius said and drifted over.

“Don’t you think you can control what’s happening, Quintus Pompeius?” asked Pomponius, who was adept at asking awkward questions.

“No, I don’t,” said Pompeius Rufus frankly.

“What about Gaius Marius?” asked Antonius Orator. “He can control any crowd within Rome.”

“Not this time,” said Catulus Caesar contemptuously. “In this instance, he’s backing the rebellious tribune of the plebs. Yes, Marcus Antonius, it’s Gaius Marius who has put Publius Sulpicius up to this!”

“Oh, I don’t believe that,” said Antonius Orator.

“I tell you, Gaius Marius is backing him!”

“If that is really true,” said Titus Pomponius, “then I would say a fourth law will appear on Sulpicius’s agenda.”

“A fourth law?” asked Catulus Caesar, frowning.

“He will legislate to remove the command of the war against Mithridates from Lucius Sulla. Then give it to Gaius Marius.”

“Sulpicius wouldn’t dare!” cried Pompeius Rufus.

“Why not?” Titus Pomponius stared at the junior consul. “I am glad you’ve sent for the senior consul. When will he be here?”

“Tomorrow or the day after.”

Sulla arrived well before dawn the next morning, having driven to Rome the moment Pompeius Rufus’s letter found him. Did any consul ever have so much bad news? asked Sulla of himself—first the massacre in Asia Province, now another Saturninus. My country is bankrupt, I have just put down one revolution, and against my name in the fasti will go the odium of having sold off State property. Not that any of it matters provided I can deal with it. And I can deal with it.

“Is there a contio today?” he asked Pompeius Rufus, to whose house he had gone immediately.

“Yes. Titus Pomponius says Sulpicius is going to put a law forward to strip you of the command in the war against Mithridates and give it to Gaius Marius.”

All outward movement in Sulla stilled, even his eyes. “I am the consul, and the war was given to me legally,” he said. “If Gaius Marius was well enough, he could have it gladly. But he isn’t well enough. And he can’t have it.” He blew through his nose. “I suppose this means Gaius Marius is backing Sulpicius.”

“So everyone thinks. Marius hasn’t appeared at any of the contiones yet, but it is true that I’ve seen some of his minions at work in the crowd among the lower Classes. Like that frightful fellow who leads a gang of Suburan roughnecks,” said Pompeius Rufus.

“Lucius Decumius?”

“Yes, that’s him.”

“Well, well!” said Sulla. “This is a new aspect of Gaius Marius, Quintus Pompeius! I didn’t think he’d stoop to using tools like Lucius Decumius. Yet I very much fear that having his old age and his poor health pointed out to him so resoundingly in the House has given him to understand he’s finished. But he doesn’t want to be finished. He wants to go to war against Mithridates. And if that means he must turn himself into a Saturninus, he will.”

“There’s going to be trouble, Lucius Cornelius.”

“I know that!”

“No, I mean that my son and a lot of other sons of senators and knights are assembling a force to expel Sulpicius from the Forum,” said Pompeius Rufus.

“Then you and I had better be in the Forum when Sulpicius convenes the Plebeian Assembly.”

“Armed?”

“Definitely not. We must try to contain this legally.”

When Sulpicius arrived in the Forum shortly after dawn, it was apparent that he had heard rumors of the band led by the junior consul’s son, for he appeared in the midst of a huge escort of young men of the Second and Third Classes, all armed with clubs and small wooden shields; and to protect this inner escort he had surrounded them with a mass of men from what seemed the Fifth Class and the Head Count—ex-gladiators and crossroads college members. So huge was the “bodyguard” that young Quintus Pompeius Rufus’s little army was dwarfed to the size of impotence.

“The People,” cried Sulpicius to a Comitia half filled by his “bodyguard” alone, “are sovereign! That is, the People are said to be sovereign! It’s a convenient phrase trotted out by the members of the Senate and the leading knights whenever they need your votes. But it means absolutely nothing! It is hollow, it is a mockery! What responsibilities do you truly have in government? You are at the mercy of the men who call you together, the tribunes of the plebs! You don’t formulate laws and promulgate them in this Assembly—you are simply here to vote on laws formulated and promulgated by the tribunes of the plebs! And with very few exceptions, who own the tribunes of the plebs? Why, the Senate and the Ordo Equester! And what happens to those tribunes of the plebs who declare themselves the servants of the sovereign People? I’ll tell you what happens to them! They are penned up in the Curia Hostilia and smashed into pulp by tiles off the Curia Hostilia roof!”

Sulla twisted his shoulders. “Well, that’s a declaration of war, isn’t it? He’s going to make Saturninus a hero.”

“He’s going to make himself a hero,” said Catulus Caesar.

“Listen!” said Merula flamen Dialis sharply.

“It is time,” Sulpicius was saying, “that the Senate and the Ordo Equester were shown once and for all who is sovereign in Rome! That is why I stand here before you—your champion—your protector—your servant. You are just emerging from three frightful years, years during which you were required to shoulder the bulk of the burden of taxes and land deprivation. You gave Rome most of the money to fund a civil war. But did anyone in the Senate ask you what you thought about war against your brothers, the Italian Allies?”

“We certainly did ask!” said Scaevola Pontifex Maximus grimly. “They were more passionately for war than the Senate was!”

“They’re not about to remember that now,” said Sulla.

“No, they didn’t ask you!” shouted Sulpicius. “They denied your brothers the Italians their citizenship, not yours! Yours is a mere shadow. Theirs is the substance ruling Rome! They couldn’t allow the addition of thousands of new members into their exclusive little rural tribes—that would have given their inferiors too much power! So even after the franchise was granted to the Italians they made sure the new citizens were contained within too few tribes to affect electoral outcomes! But all of that ends, sovereign People, the moment you ratify my law to distribute the new citizens and the freedmen of Rome across the whole thirty-five tribes!”

A wave of cheering broke out so loudly that Sulpicius was obliged to stop; he stood, smiling broadly, a handsome man in his middle thirties with a patrician look to him despite his plebeian rank—fine boned, fair in coloring.

“There are also other ways in which you have been cheated, thanks to the Senate and the Ordo Equester,” Sulpicius went on when the noise died down. “It is more than time that the prerogative—and it is no more than prerogative, for it is not law!—of conferring all military commands and directing all wars was removed from the Senate and the Senate’s secret masters of the Ordo Equester! It is time that you—the backbone, the basis of everything truly Roman!—were given the tasks you should have under the law. Among those tasks is the right to decide whether or not Rome should go to war—and if it is to be war, who should command.”