Marius began to read Rutilius Rufus’s letter out loud to Sulla, for once beyond caring how much he stumbled as he sorted the squiggles into words.
“The day wasn’t over before the People got the bit between their teeth. Manius Aquillius didn’t even have time to resume his seat before all ten tribunes of the plebs were off their bench and streaming out the door toward the rostra, with what looked like half of Rome jammed into the Comitia well, and the other half filling the whole of the lower Forum. Of course the whole House followed the tribunes of the plebs, leaving Scaurus and our dear friend Piggle-wiggle shouting to nothing more than a couple of hundred capsized stools.
“The tribunes of the plebs convened the Plebeian Assembly, and within no time flat, two plebiscites were tabled. It always amazes me that we can manage to trot out something better phrased and drafted in the twinkling of an eye than we can after several months of everyone and his uncle having a go at it. Just goes to show that everyone and his uncle do little else than fragment good laws into bad.
“Cotta had told me that Caepio was on his way to Rome as fast as he could to get his version in first, but intended to keep his imperium by staying beyond the pomerium and having his son and his agents go to work on his behalf inside the city. That way, he thought he would be safe and snug with his imperium wrapped protectively around him until his version of events became the official version. I imagine he thought—and no doubt correctly—that he’d manage to have his governorship prorogued, and so retain his imperium and his tenure of Gaul-across-the-Alps for long enough to let the stench dissipate.
“But they got him, did the Plebs! They voted overwhelmingly to strip Caepio of his imperium at once. So when he does reach the outskirts of Rome, he’s going to find himself as naked as Ulysses on the beach at Scheria. The second plebiscite, Gaius Marius, directed the electoral officer—me— to enter your name as a candidate for the consulship, despite your inability to be present in Rome for the elections.”
“This is the work of Mars and Bellona, Gaius Marius!” said Sulla. “A gift from the gods of war.”
“Mars? Bellona? No! This is the work of Fortune, Lucius Cornelius. Your friend and mine, Lucius Cornelius. Fortune!’ ‘
He read on.
“The People having ordered me to get on with the elections, I had little choice but to do so.
“Incidentally, after the plebiscites were tabled, none other than Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus—feeling a proprietary interest because he regards himself as the founder of our province of Gaul-across-the-Alps, I imagine—tried to speak from the rostra against the plebiscite allowing you to stand for consul in absentia. Well, you know how choleric that family are—arrogant lot of bad-tempered so-and-sos, all of them!— and Gnaeus Domitius was literally spitting with rage. When the crowd got fed up with him and shouted him down, he tried to shout the crowd down! I think being Gnaeus Domitius he had a fair chance of succeeding too. But something gave way inside his head or his heart, for he keeled over right there on the rostra as dead as last week’s roast duck. It rather put a damper on things, so the meeting broke up and the crowd went home. The important work was done, anyway.
“The plebiscites were passed the next morning, without one dissenting tribe. Leaving me to get the elections under way. I let no grass grow beneath my feet, I can tell you. A polite request to the College of Tribunes of the Plebs got everything going. They polled the new college within days. A very likely-looking and superior lot stood too, I imagine because of matters like warring generals. We have the late lamented Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus’s elder son, and the late lamented Lucius Cassius Longinus’s elder son. I gather Cassius is out to prove that not every member of his family is an irresponsible killer of Roman soldiers, so he ought to be good value as far as you’re concerned, Gaius Marius. And Lucius Marcius Philippus got in, and—ho-hum!—a Clodius of the Very Many Claudius-Clodius brigade. Ye gods, how they do breed!
“The Centuriate Assembly polled yesterday, with the result that—as I said a few columns back—Gaius Marius was returned as senior consul by every single century in the First Class, plus all of the Second Class required to make up the numbers. Certain senior senators would have loved to destroy your chances, but you are far too well known as a patron of honor and sincere supporter of big business (especially after your scrupulous honoring of all your promises in Africa). The voting knights had no qualms of conscience about details such as running for consul a second time within three years, or standing for consul in absentia.”
Marius looked up from the scroll exultantly. “How’s that for a mandate from the People, Lucius Cornelius? Consul a second time, and I didn’t even know I was standing!” He stretched his arms above his head as if reaching for the stars. “I shall bring Martha the prophetess to Rome with us. She shall see with her own eyes my triumph and my inauguration as consul on one and the same day, Lucius Cornelius! For I have just made up my mind. I’ll triumph on New Year’s Day.”
“And we’ll be off to Gaul,” said Sulla, more interested in this development by far. “That is, Gaius Marius, if you will have me.”
“My dear fellow, I couldn’t do without you! Or without Quintus Sertorius!”
“Finish the letter,” said Sulla, finding that he needed more time to assimilate all this staggering news before it became necessary to discuss it at length with Marius.
”So when I see you, Gaius Marius, it will be to hand over the trappings of my office to you. I wish I could say I was glad with every tiniest part of me. For Rome’s sake, it was vital that you be given the German command, but oh, I wish it could have been done in a more orthodox way! I think of the enemies you will add to those you have already made, and my whole body quails. You have caused too many changes in the way our lawmaking machinery functions. Yes, I know every single one was necessary if you were to survive. But, as it was said by the Greeks about their Odysseus, the strand of his life was so strong it rubbed all the life-strands it crossed until they snapped. I think Marcus Aemilius Scaurus Princeps Senatus has some right on his side in this present situation, for I acquit him of the narrow-minded bigotry of men like Numidicus Piggle-wiggle. Scaurus sees the passing of the old way Rome operated, as indeed do I. And yes, I understand Rome is busy building its own funeral pyre, that if the Senate could be trusted to leave you alone to deal with the Germans in your own way and your own time, none of these startling, extraordinary, unorthodox, and novel measures would be necessary. But I grieve nonetheless.”
Marius’s voice hadn’t wavered, nor his decision to read it all out to Sulla, even though the conclusion was less satisfying, and took the keenest edge off his pleasure.
“There’s a little more,” he said. “I’ll read it.”
“Your candidacy, I must add in closing, frightened all of honor and repute away. Some decent fellows had got as far as putting their names up for consul, but they all withdrew. As did Quintus Lutatius Catulus Caesar, declaring he wouldn’t work with you as his colleague any more than he would with his lapdog had it been elected. Consequently your colleague in the consulship is a man of straw. Which may not dismay you unduly, for he certainly won’t give you any battles. I know you’re dying to hear who he is, but grant me my little tittle! I would only say of him, he’s venal, though I think you already know that about him. His name? Gaius Flavius Fimbria.”
Sulla snorted. “Oh, I know him,” he said. “A visiting thrill seeker in the stews of a Rome that was mine, not his. And as crooked as a dog’s hind leg.” The white teeth showed, not the striking sight they would have been in a face even a little darker. “Which means, Gaius Marius, don’t let him cock that leg and piss on you.”
“I shall leap very fast and well to the side,” said Marius gravely. He stretched out his hand to Sulla, who took it at once. “A pledge, Lucius Cornelius. That we will beat the Germans, you and I.”
*
The army of Africa and its commander sailed from Utica to Puteoli toward the end of November, in high fettle. The sea was calm for
the time of year, and neither the North Wind, Septentrio, nor the Northwest Wind, Corus, disturbed their passage. Which was exactly what Marius expected; his career was in its ascendancy, Fortune was his to command as surely as his soldiers were. Besides, Martha the Syrian prophetess had predicted a quick smooth voyage. She was with Marius in his flagship, replete with honor and gummy cackles, an ancient bag of bones the sailors—a superstitious lot, always—eyed askance and avoided fearfully. King Gauda had not been keen to part with her; then she spat upon the marble floor in front of his throne and threatened to put the Evil Eye upon him and all his house. After that, he couldn’t get rid of her fast enough.
In Puteoli, Marius and Sulla were met by one of the brand-new Treasury quaestors, very brisk and anxious to have the tally of booty, but very deferential too. It pleased Marius and Sulla to be graciously helpful, and as they were possessed of admirable account books, everyone was pleased. The army went into camp outside Capua, surrounded by new recruits being drilled by Rutilius Rufus’s gladiatorial conscripts. Now Marius’s skilled centurions were put to helping. The saddest part, however, was the scarcity of these new recruits. Italy was a dry well, and would be until the younger generation turned seventeen in sufficient numbers to swell the ranks once more. Even the Head Count was exhausted, at least among the Roman citizens.
“And I very much doubt if the Senate will condone my recruiting among the Italian Head Count,” said Marius.
“They haven’t much choice,” said Sulla.
“True. If I push them. But right at the moment it’s not in my interests—or Rome’s interests—to push them.”
Marius and Sulla were splitting up until New Year’s Day. Sulla of course was free to enter the city, but Marius, still endowed with his proconsular imperium, could not cross the sacred boundary of the city without losing it. So Sulla was going to Rome, whereas Marius was going to his villa at Cumae.
*
Cape Misenum formed the formidable north headland of what was called Crater Bay, a huge and very safe anchorage dotted with seaports—Puteoli, Neapolis, Herculaneum, Stabiae, and Surrentum. A tradition so old it went back far before lore or memory held that once Crater Bay had been a gigantic volcano, which exploded and let the sea in. There was evidence of that volcanic activity, of course. The Fields of Fire lit up the night skies behind Puteoli sullenly as flames belched out of cracks in the ground, and mud pools boiled with sluggish plops, and vivid yellow encrustations of sulphur lay everywhere; vents roaring columns of steam popped up anywhere, and either closed up again or got bigger; and then there was Vesuvius—a rugged, almost sheer pinnacle of rock many thousands of feet high, said once to have been an active volcano—though no one knew when that might have been, for Vesuvius had slept peacefully throughout recorded history.
Two little towns lay one on either side of the narrow neck of Cape Misenum, along with a series of mysterious lakes. On the seaward side was Cumae, on the Crater Bay side was Baiae, and the lakes were of two kinds—one with water so pure and mildly warm it was perfect for growing oysters, one palpably hot and curling wisps of sulphur-tainted steam. Of all the Roman seaside resorts, Cumae was the most expensive, where Baiae was relatively undeveloped. In fact, Baiae seemed to be becoming a commercial fish-farming place, for half a dozen enthusiastic fellows were trying to devise a way to farm oysters, their leader the impoverished patrician aristocrat Lucius Sergius, who hoped to revive his family’s fortunes by producing and shipping cultivated oysters to Rome’s more affluent Epicureans and gastronomes.
Marius’s villa stood atop a great sea cliff at Cumae and looked out toward the islands of Aenaria, Pandataria, and Pontia, three peaks with slopes and plains at ever-increasing distance, like mountaintops poking through a sheet of pale-blue mist. And here in Marius’s villa, Julia waited for her husband.
It was over two and a half years since they had last seen each other; Julia was now almost twenty-four years old, and Marius was fifty-two. That she was desperately anxious to see him he knew, for she had come down from Rome to Cumae at a time of year when the seaside was squally and bitter, and Rome the most comfortable place to be. Custom forbade her traveling anywhere with her husband, especially if he was on any sort of official public business; she could not accompany him to his province, nor even on any of his journeys within Italy unless he formally invited her, and it was considered poor form to issue such invitations. In the summer, when a Roman nobleman’s wife went to the seaside, he came down to join her whenever he could, but they made their journeys separately; and if he fancied a few days on the farm or at one of his multiple villas outside Rome, he rarely took his wife with him.
Julia wasn’t exactly apprehensive; she had written to Marius once a week throughout his time away, and he had written back just as regularly. Neither of them indulged in gossip, so their correspondence tended to be brief and purely filled with family matters, but it was unfailingly affectionate and warm. Of course it was none of her business whether he might have had other women during his time away, and Julia was far too well bred and well trained to contemplate inquiring; nor did she expect him to tell her of his own accord. Such things were a part of the realm of men, and had nothing to do with wives. In that respect, as her mother, Marcia, had been careful to tell her, she was very lucky to be married to a man thirty years older than she was; for his sexual appetites—said Marcia—would be more continent than those of a younger man, just as his pleasure in seeing his wife again would be greater than that of a younger man.
But she had missed him acutely, not merely because she loved him, but also because he pleased her. In fact, she liked him, and that liking made the separations harder to bear, for she missed her friend as much as she missed her husband and lover.
When he walked into her sitting room unannounced, she got clumsily to her feet only to find that her knees would not support her, and collapsed back into her chair. How tall he was! How brown and fit and full of life! He didn’t look a day older—rather, he looked younger than she remembered. There was a wide white smile for her—his teeth were as good as ever—those fabulously lush eyebrows were glittering with points of light from the dark eyes hidden beneath them, and his big, well-shaped hands were stretched out to her. And she unable to move! What would he think?
He thought kindly, it seemed, for he walked across to her chair and drew her gently to her feet, not making any move to embrace her, merely standing looking down at her with that big wide white smile. Then he put his hands up to cup her face between them, and tenderly kissed her eyelids, her cheeks, her lips. Her arms stole round him; she leaned into him and buried her face in his shoulder.
“Oh, Gaius Marius, I am so glad to see you!” she said.
“No gladder than I to see you, wife.” His hands stroked her back, and she could feel them trembling.
She lifted her face. “Kiss me, Gaius Marius! Kiss me properly!’’
And so their meeting was everything each of them had looked forward to, warm with love, fraught with passion. Not only that; there was the delicious delight of Young Marius, and the private sorrow both parents could now indulge for the death of their second boy.
Much to his father’s gratified surprise, Young Marius was magnificent—tall, sturdy, moderately fair in coloring, and with a pair of large grey eyes which assessed his father fearlessly. Insufficient discipline had been administered, Marius suspected, but all that would change. A father, the scamp would soon discover, was not someone to be dominated and manipulated; a father was someone to reverence and respect, just as he, Gaius Marius, reverenced and respected his own dear father.
There were other sorrows than the dead second son; Julia he knew had lost her father, but he now learned through Julia’s sensitive telling that his own father was dead. Not before due time, and not until after the elections which had seen his oldest son become consul for the second time in such amazing circumstances. His death had been swift and merciful, a stroke that happened while the old man was busy talking to friends
about the welcome Arpinum was going to put on for its most splendid citizen.
Marius put his face between Julia’s breasts and wept, and was comforted, and afterward was able to see that everything happened at the right moment. For his mother, Fulcinia, had died seven years before, and his father had been lonely; if Fortune had not been kind enough to permit him the sight of his son again, the goddess had at least permitted him to know of his son’s extraordinary distinction.
“So there’s no point in my going to Arpinum,” said Marius to Julia later. “We’ll stay right here, my love.”
“Publius Rutilius is coming down soon. After the new tribunes of the plebs settle a bit, he said. I think he fears they may prove a difficult lot—some of them are very clever.’’
“Then until Publius Rutilius arrives, my dearest, sweetest, most beautiful and darling wife, we won’t even think about exasperating things like politics.”
*
Sulla’s homecoming was very different. For one thing, he journeyed toward it with none of Marius’s simple, unconcealed, eager pleasure. Though why that should be, he didn’t want to know, for, like Marius, he had been sexually continent during his two years in the African province—admittedly for reasons other than love of his wife, yet continent nevertheless. The brand-new and pristine page with which he had covered up his old life must never be sullied; no graft, no disloyalty to his superior, no intriguing or maneuvering for power, no intimations of fleshly weaknesses, no lessening of his Cornelian honor or dignitas.
An actor to the core, he had thrown himself absolutely into the new role his term as Marius’s quaestor had given him, lived it inside his mind as well as in all his actions, looks, words. So far it hadn’t palled, for it had offered him constant diversion, enormous challenges, and a huge satisfaction. Unable to commission his own imago in wax until he became consul, or sufficiently famous or distinguished in some other way to warrant it, he could still look forward to commissioning Magius of the Velabrum to make a splendid mounting for his war trophies, his Gold Crown and phalerae and torcs, and look forward to being there supervising the installation of this testament to his prowess in the atrium of his house. For the years in Africa had been a vindication; though he would never turn into one of the world’s great equestrians, he had turned into one of the world’s natural soldiers, and the Magius trophy in his atrium would stand there to tell Rome of this fact.