Mutilus had heard the news of the battle at the Colline Gate a day after, and wept so loudly that Bastia came to see what was the matter with him.
"Lost, all lost!" he cried to her, forgetting the way she had insulted and tormented him, only seeing the one person left to whom he was bound by ties of family and time. "My army is dead! Sulla has won! Sulla will be King of Rome and Samnium will be no more!"
For perhaps as long as it would have taken to light all the wicks of a small chandelier, Bastia stared at the devastated man upon his couch. She made no move to comfort him, said no words of comfort either, just stood very still, eyes wide. And then a look crept into them of knowledge and resolution; her vivid face grew cold and hard. She clapped her hands.
"Yes, domina?” asked the steward from the doorway, gazing in consternation at his weeping master.
"Find his German and ready his litter," said Bastia.
"Domina?" the steward asked, bewildered.
"Don't just stand there, do as I say! At once!"
The steward gulped, disappeared.
Tears drying, Mutilus gaped at his wife. “What is this?''
"I want you out of here," she said through clenched teeth. "I want no part of this defeat! I want to keep my home, my money, my life! So out you go, Gaius Papius! Go back to Aesernia, or go to Bovianum-or anywhere else you have a house! Anywhere but this house! I do not intend to go down with you."
"I don't believe this!" he gasped.
"You'd better believe it! Out you go!"
"But I'm paralyzed, Bastia! I am your husband, and I'm paralyzed! Can't you find pity in you, if not love?"
"I neither love you nor pity you," she said harshly. "It was all your stupid, futile plotting and fighting against Rome took the power out of your legs-took away your use to me-took away the children I might have had-and all the pleasure in being a part of your life. For nearly seven years I've lived here alone while you schemed and intrigued in Aesernia-and when you did condescend to visit me, you stank of shit and piss, and ordered me about-oh no, Gaius Papius Mutilus, I am done with you! Out you go!"
And because his mind could not encompass the extent of his ruin, Mutilus made no protest when his German attendant took him from the couch and carried him through the front door to where his litter stood at the bottom of the steps. Bastia had followed behind like an image of the Gorgon, beautiful and evil, with eyes that could turn a man to stone and hissing hair. So quickly did she slam the door that the edge of his cloak caught in it and pulled the German up with a jerk. Shifting the full weight of his master to his left arm, the German began to tug at the cloak to free it.
On his belt Gaius Papius Mutilus wore a military dagger, a mute reminder of the days when he had been a Samnite warrior. Out it came; he pressed the top of his head against the wood of the door and cut his throat. Blood sprayed everywhere, drenched the door and pooled upon the steps, soaked the shrieking German, whose cries brought people running from up and down the narrow street. The last thing Gaius Papius Mutilus saw was his Gorgon wife, who had opened the door in time to receive the final spurt of his blood.
"I curse you, woman!" he tried to say.
But she didn't hear. Nor did she seem stricken, frightened, surprised. Instead, she held the door wide and snapped at the weeping German, "Bring him in!" And inside, when her husband's corpse was laid upon the floor, she said, "Cut off his head. I will send it to Sulla as my gift."
Bastia was as good as her word; she sent her husband's head to Sulla with her compliments. But the story Sulla heard from the wretched steward compelled by his mistress to bring the gift did not flatter Bastia. He handed the head of his old enemy to one of the military tribunes attached to his staff, and said without expression, "Kill the woman who sent me this. I want her dead."
And so the tally was almost complete. With the single exception of Marcus Lamponius of Lucania, every powerful enemy who had opposed Sulla's return to Italy was dead. Had he wished it, Sulla could indeed have made himself undisputed King of Rome.
But he had found a solution more to the liking of one who firmly believed in all the traditions of a Republican mos maiorum, and thus rode through the middle of the Circus Maximus absolutely free of kingly intent.
He was old and ill, and for fifty-eight years he had done battle against a mindless conspiracy of circumstances and events which had succeeded time and time again in stripping from him the pleasures of justice and reward, the rightful place in Rome's scheme of things to which birth and ability entitled him. No choice had he been offered, no opportunity to pursue his ascent of the cursus honorum legally, honorably. At every turn someone or something had blocked him, made the straight and legal way impossible. So here he was, riding in the wrong direction down the length of the empty Circus Maximus, a fifty-eight-year-old wreck, his bowels knotted with the twin fires of triumph and loss. Master of Rome. The First Man in Rome. Vindication at last. And yet the disappointments of his age and his ugliness and his approaching death curdled his joy with the sourest sadness, destroyed pleasure, exacerbated pain. How late, how bitter, how warped was this victory. ...
He didn't think of the Rome he now held at his mercy with love or idealism; the price had been too high. Nor did he look forward to the work he knew he had to do. What he most desired was peace, leisure, the fulfillment of a thousand sexual fantasies, head-spinning drunken binges, total freedom from care and from responsibility. So why couldn't he have those things? Because of Rome, because of duty, because he couldn't bear the thought of laying down his job with so much work undone. The only reason he rode in the wrong direction down the length of the empty Circus Maximus lay in the knowledge that there was a mountain of work to be done. And he had to do it. There was literally no one else who could.
He chose to assemble Senate and People together in the lower Forum Romanum, and speak to both from the rostra. Not with complete truth-was it Scaurus who had called him politically nonchalant? He couldn't remember. But there was too much of the politician in him to be completely truthful, so he blandly ignored the fact that it had been he who pinned up the first head on the rostra-Sulpicius, to frighten Cinna.
"This hideous practice which has come into being so very recently that I was urban praetor in a Rome who did not know of it"-he turned to gesture at the row of speared heads-"will not cease until the proper traditions of the mos maiorum have been totally restored and the old, beloved Republic rises again out of the ashes to which it has been reduced. I have heard it said that I intend to make myself King of Rome! No, Quirites, I do not! Condemn myself to however many years I have left of intrigues and plots, rebellions and reprisals? No, I will not! I have worked long and hard in the service of Rome, and I have earned the reward of spending my last days free of care and free of responsibilities-free of Rome! So one thing I can promise you, Senate and People both-I will not set myself up as King of Rome, or enjoy one single moment of the power I must retain until my work is over."
Perhaps no one had really expected this, even men as close to Sulla as Vatia and Metellus Pius, but as Sulla went on, some men began to understand that Sulla had shared his secrets with one other-the Princeps Senatus, Lucius Valerius Flaccus, who stood on the rostra with him, and did not look surprised at one word Sulla was saying.
"The consuls are dead," Sulla went on, hand indicating the heads of Carbo and Young Marius, "and the fasces must go back to the Fathers, be laid upon their couch in the temple of Venus Libitina until new consuls are elected. Rome must have an interrex, and the law is specific. Our Leader of the House, Lucius Valerius Flaccus, is the senior patrician of the Senate, of his decury, of his family." Sulla turned to Flaccus Princeps Senatus. "You are the first interrex. Please assume that office and acquit yourself of all its duties for the five days of your interregnum."
"So far, so good," whispered Hortensius to Catulus. "He has done exactly what he ought to do, appoint an interrex."
“Tace!'' growled Catulus, who was finding it difficult to understand ev
ery word Sulla was saying.
"Before our Leader of the House takes over the conduct of this meeting," Sulla said slowly and carefully, "there are one or two things I wish to say. Rome is safe under my care, no one will come to any harm. Just law will be returned. The Republic will go back to its days of glory. But those are all things which must come from the decisions of our interrex, so I shall not dwell upon them any further. What I do want to say is that I have been well served by fine men, and it is time to thank them. I will start with those who are not here today. Gnaeus Pompeius, who has secured the grain supply from Sicily, and has thereby guaranteed that Rome will not be hungry this winter. . . Lucius Marcius Philippus, who last year secured the grain supply from Sardinia, and this year had to contend with the man who was sent against him, Quintus Antonius Balbus. He did contend with Antonius, who is dead. Sardinia is safe.... In Asia I left three splendid men behind to care for Rome's richest and most precious province-Lucius Licinius Murena, Lucius Licinius Lucullus, and Gaius Scribonius Curio.... And here standing with me are the men who have been my loyalest followers through times of hardship and despair-Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius and his legate, Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus-Publius Servilius Vatia-the elder Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella-Marcus Licinius Crassus ..."
"Ye gods, the list will be endless!" grumbled Hortensius, who loathed listening to any man save himself speak, especially one whose rhetoric was as unskilled as Sulla's.
"He's finished, he's finished!" said Catulus impatiently. "Come on, Quintus, he's calling the Senate to the Curia, he'll tell these Forum fools no more! Come on, quickly!"
But it was Lucius Valerius Flaccus Princeps Senatus who took the curule chair, surrounded only by the skeletal body of magistrates who had remained in Rome and survived. Sulla sat off to the right of the curule podium, probably about where he ought to have ordinarily placed himself in the front row of consulars, ex-censors, ex-praetors. He had not, however, changed out of his armor, and that fact told the senators that he was by no means relinquishing his control of the proceedings.
"On the Kalends of November," said Flaccus in his wheezing voice, "we almost lost Rome. Had it not been for the valor and promptness of Lucius Cornelius Sulla, his legates, and his army, Rome would now be in the power of Samnium, and we would be passing under the yoke just as we did after the Caudine Forks. Well, I need go no further on that subject! Samnium lost, Lucius Cornelius won, and Rome is safe."
"Oh, get on with it!" breathed Hortensius. "Ye gods, he's growing more senile every day!"
Flaccus got on with it, fidgeting a little because he was not comfortable. "However, even with the war over, Rome has many other troubles to plague her. The Treasury is empty. So are the temple coffers. The streets are thin of business, the Senate thin of numbers. The consuls are dead, and only one praetor is left of the six who commenced at the beginning of the year." He paused, drew a deep breath, and launched heroically into what Sulla had ordered him to say. "In fact, Conscript Fathers, Rome has passed beyond the point where normal governance is possible. Rome must be guided by the most able hand. The only hand capable of reaching out and drawing our beloved Lady Roma to her feet. My term as interrex is five days long. I cannot hold elections. I will be succeeded by a second interrex who will also serve for five days. He will be expected to hold elections. It may not lie in his power to do so, in which case a third interrex will have to try. And so on, and so forth. But this sketchy governance will not do, Conscript Fathers. The time is one of the acutest emergency, and I see only one man present here capable of doing what has to be done. But he cannot do what has to be done as consul. Therefore I propose a different solution-one which I will ask of the People in their Centuries, the most senior voting body of all. I will ask the People in their Centuries to draft and pass a lex rogata appointing and authorizing Lucius Cornelius Sulla the Dictator of Rome."
The House stirred; men looked at each other, amazed.
"The office of Dictator is an old one," Flaccus went on, "and normally confined to the conduct of a war. In the past, it has been the Dictator's job to pursue a war when the consuls could not. And it is over one hundred years since the last Dictator was put into power. But Rome's situation today is one she has never experienced before. The war is over. The emergency is not. I put it to you, Conscript Fathers, that no elected consuls can put Lady Roma back on her feet. The remedies called for will not be palatable, will incur huge resentments. At the end of his year in office, a consul can be compelled to answer to the People or the Plebs for his actions.
He can be charged with treason. If all have turned against him he may be sent into exile and his property confiscated. Knowing himself vulnerable to such charges in advance, no man can produce the strength and resolution Rome needs at this moment. A Dictator, however, does not fear retribution from People or Plebs. The nature of the office indemnifies him against all future reprisals. His acts as the Dictator are sanctioned for all time. He is not prosecutable at law on any charge. Bolstered by the knowledge that he is immune, that he cannot be vetoed by a tribune of the plebs or condemned in any assembly, a Dictator can utilize every ounce of his strength and purpose to put matters right. To set our beloved Lady Roma on her feet."
"It sounds wonderful, Princeps Senatus," said Hortensius loudly, "but the hundred and twenty years which have elapsed since the last Dictator took office have spoiled your memory! A Dictator is proposed by the Senate, but must be appointed by the consuls. We have no consuls. The fasces have been sent to the temple of Venus Libitina. A Dictator cannot be appointed."
Flaccus sighed. "You were not listening to me properly, Quintus Hortensius, were you? I told you how it could be done. By means of a lex rogata passed by the Centuries. When there are no consuls to act as executives, the People in their Centuries are the executive. The only executive, as a matter of fact-the interrex must apply to them to execute his only function-which is to organize and hold curule elections. The People in their tribes are not an executive. Only the Centuries."
"All right, I concede the point," said Hortensius curtly. "Go on, Princeps Senatus."
"It is my intention to convoke the Centuriate Assembly at dawn tomorrow. I will then ask it to formulate a law appointing Lucius Cornelius Sulla the Dictator. The law need not be very complicated-in fact, the simpler it is, the better. Once the Dictator is legally appointed by the Centuries, all other laws can come from him. What I will ask of the Centuries is that they formally appoint and authorize Lucius Cornelius Sulla the Dictator for however long it may take him to fulfill his commission; that they sanction all his previous deeds as consul and proconsul; that they remove from him all official odium in form of outlawry or exile; that they guarantee him indemnity from all his acts as Dictator at any time in the future; that they protect his acts as Dictator from tribunician veto and any Assembly's rejection or negation, from the Senate and People in any form or through any magistrates, and from appeal to any Assembly or body or magistrates."
"That's better than being King of Rome!" cried Lepidus.
"No, it is simply different," said Flaccus stubbornly; he had taken some time to get into the spirit of what Sulla wanted from him, but he was now well and truly launched. "A Dictator is not answerable for his actions, but he does not rule alone. He has the services of the Senate and all the Comitia as advisory bodies, he has his Master of the Horse, and he has however many magistrates he chooses to see elected beneath him. It is the custom for consuls to serve under the Dictator, for instance."
Lepidus spoke up loudly. "The Dictator serves for six months only," he said. "Unless my hearing has suddenly grown defective, what you propose to ask of the Centuries is that they appoint a Dictator with no time limit to his office. Not constitutional, Princeps Senatus! I am not against seeing Lucius Cornelius Sulla appointed the Dictator, but I am against his serving one moment longer than the proper term of six months."
"Six months won't even see my work begun," said Sulla without rising from his stool. “Believe me
, Lepidus, I do not want the wretched job for one single day, let alone for the rest of my life! When I consider my work is finished, I will step down. But six months? Impossible."
"How so?" asked Lepidus.
"For one thing," Sulla answered, "Rome's finances are in chaos. To right them will take a year, perhaps two years. There are twenty-seven legions to discharge, find land for, pay out. The men who supported the lawless regimes of Marius, Cinna and Carbo have to be sought out and shown that they cannot escape just punishment. The laws of Rome are antiquated, particularly with regard to her courts and her governors of provinces. Her civil servants are disorganized and prey to both lethargy and cupidity. So much treasure, money and bullion were robbed from our temples that the Treasury still contains two hundred and eighty talents of gold and one hundred and twenty talents of silver, even after this year's profligate waste. The temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus is a cinder." He sighed loudly. "Must I go on, Lepidus?"
“All right, I concede that your task will take longer than six months. But what's to stop your being reappointed every six months for however long the job takes?" asked Lepidus.
Sulla's sneer was superlatively nasty without his teeth, despite the fact that those long canines were missing. "Oh, yes, Lepidus!" he cried. "I can see it all now! Half of every six-month period would have to be spent in conciliating the Centuries! Pleading, explaining, excusing, drawing pretty pictures, pissing in every knight-businessman's purse, turning myself into the world's oldest and saddest trollop!" He rose to his feet, fists clenched, and shook both of them at Marcus Aemilius Lepidus with more venom in his face than most men there had seen since he had quit Rome to go to war with King Mithridates. "Well, comfortable stay-at-home Lepidus, married to the daughter of a traitor who did try to set himself up as King of Rome, I will do it my way or not at all! Do you hear me, you miserable pack of self-righteous stay-at-home fools and cravens? You want Rome back on her feet, but you want the undeserved right to make the life of the man who is undertaking to do that as miserable and anxious and servile as you possibly can! Well, Conscript Fathers, you can make up your minds to it right here and now-Lucius Cornelius Sulla is back in Rome, and if he has a mind to it, he can shake her rafters until she falls down in ruins! Out there in the Latin countryside I have an army that I could have brought into this city and set on your despicable hides like wolves on lambs! I did not do that. I have acted in your best interests since first I entered the Senate. And I am still acting in your best interests. Peacefully. Nicely. But you are trying my patience, I give all of you fair warning. I will be Dictator for as long as I need to be Dictator. Is that understood? Is it, Lepidus?"