Fortune's Favorites by Colleen McCullough
Fortune’s
Favorites
"FORTUNE SHINES"
Denver Rocky Mountain News
"WONDERFUL ... UNFORGETTABLE ...
AN IMPRESSIVE PIECE OF WORK ...
One of the most intriguing epics in history . . .
A fascinating and surprisingly fast-moving story
about some of the most interesting figures
in a most important era"
Virginian Pilot and Ledger-Star
"GLORIOUS ... AMBITIOUS ...
QUITE ENTERTAINING ...
Colleen McCullough has found her stride."
Washington Post Book World
"RIVETING ... FASCINATING ... A creative colossus . . . McCullough somehow manages
to highlight the individuals caught up
in the hurricane of history without trivializing
its scope or halting its momentum."
Baltimore Sun
"A COMPELLING STORY ... EXCITING ENTERTAINING ... INTRIGUING ... Artfully composed" Chicago Tribune
"BRILLIANT ... FRESH ...
OUTSTANDING ... REMARKABLE ...
A brightly illuminated panorama of world history ..
In McCullough's hands historical characters
become fascinating, complex and credible figures
who give the novel its real power...
They leave a lasting impression."
Cleveland Plain Dealer
"TRULY IMPRESSIVE ... Intrigue, political maneuvering, grandstanding, gossip,
sex both affectionate and calculated,
and wholesale slaughter . . . McCullough works
to charge history with the current of personality."
Booklist
"WONDROUS HISTORY...
Her characters have become more and more real,
more evil, more complex, braver and bolder."
Pasadena Star-News
"ROLLICKING GOOD FICTION ..
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED ...
McCullough's Roman saga is like a trip through time.
Her characters come alive"
Library Journal
"A TREASURE ... McCullough's genius as a writer is evident"
Baton Rouge Magazine
"EXCITING ... WITTY ... A MAJESTIC TALE .. McCullough brings order to the mighty tangle of battles and political strategies of ancient heavy weights-in the Forum Romanum or the tents of war." Kirkus Reviews
"WONDERFUL...
McCullough creates a rich landscape for her
history-shaping characters to roam . . .
She helps you understand and relate
to these people of long ago and far away."
Macon Telegraph
Other Avon Books by Colleen McCullough
the first man in rome the grass crown
the ladies of missalonghi
A creed for the third millennium
an indecent obsession
the thorn birds
tim
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Colleen
McCullough
Fortune’s
Favorites
AVON BOOKS NEW YORK
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."
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Copyright © 1993 by Colleen McCullough Front cover art by Paul Stinson Inside front cover art by Tom Hall Published by arrangement with the author Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 93-534 ISBN: 0-380-71083-8
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AVON TRADEMARK REG. U.S. PAT. OFF. AND IN OTHER COUNTRIES, MARCA REGISTRADA, HECHO EN U.S.A.
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For Lieutenant Colonel the Reverend A. Rebecca West
Femina Optima Maxima
The world's greatest woman
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LIST OF MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
MAPS
Italia: Topography and Roads viii
The Roman Near East (with particular reference
to the movements of Caesar and Verres) x-xi
Northern Italy and South-Central
Italian Gaul 20, 119, 569
East-Central Italy 26
Ofella's Siege of Praeneste; Sulla's Occupation
of Via Latina 135
Route of Samnites to Colline Gate of Rome 146
The Hellespont, the Propontis, the Thracian
Bosporus, Bithynia, Mysian Asia Province,
and Lesbos 392-393
The East (with emphasis upon the conquests
of Tigranes) 452-453
Pompey's Route Across the Alps 598-599
The Spains 606-607
The Wanderings of Spartacus 73-71 B.C. 800
Southwestern Italy 817
ILLUSTRATIONS
Some Events in the History of Rome Prior to
The First Man in Rome xii-xiii
Nicomedes III Epiphanes Philopator xiv
Young Pompey 2
Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix 184
Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius 284
Lucius Licinius Lucullus 438
Gaius Julius Caesar 496
Quintus Sertorius 592
Marcus Licinius Crassus 676
The Consul Pompey 840
The Well of the Comitia 949
Aurelia's Insula 978
Roman Magistrates 987
Shape of Toga 1018
Triclinium 1022
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Some Events in the History of Rome Prior to THE FIRST MAN IN ROME
(Note: All dates are B.C.)
ca. 1100 A refugee from Troy, Aeneas established himself in Latium.
Son. Iulus, became King of Alba Longa.
753-775 Romulus first King of Rome: built the Palatine city.
715-673 Numa Pompilius second King: created 100 senators, priestly colleges, made
10-month year a 12-month year.
673-642 Tullus Hostilius third King: built Senate House.
642-617 Ancus Marcius fourth King: built Wooden Bridge, fortified Janiculum, seized
salt flats at Ostia for Rome.
616-578 Tarquinius Priscus fifth King: built Circus Maximus, sewered central Rome,
enlarged Senate to 300, created Tribes and Classes, established the census
578-534 Servius Tullius sixth King: created pomerium, built Agger.
534-510 Tarquinius Superbus seventh King: finished temple of Jupiter Optimus
Maximus, destroyed Gabii. ___
509 Tarquinius Superbus expelled, monarchy abolished. THE REPUBLIC OF
ROME BEGINS. Brutus and Valerius first chief magistrates (called
praetors, not consuls).
508 Pontifex Maximus created to overpowe
500 Titus Larcius the first-ever dictator.
494 First secession of Plebs: 2 tribunes of the plebs and 2 plebeian aediles created.
471 Second secession of Plebs: Plebeian Assembly made tribal.
459 Number of tribunes of the plebs raised from 2 to 10.
456 Third secession of Plebs: plebeians granted land.
451 Decemviri codified the XII Tables of Roman Law.
449 Fourth secession of Plebs: lex Valeria Horatia defined sacrosanctity of tribunes
of the plebs.
447 Assembly of the People created: 2 quaestors created.
445 Leges Canuleiae: (a) replaced consuls with military tribunes owning consular
powers, (b) allowed marriage between patricians and plebeians.
443 Censors elected for the first time.
439 Maelius, would-be King of Rome, killed by Servilius Ahala.
421 Quaestors raised to 4, office opened to plebeians.
396 Introduction of pay for Rome's soldiers. It was not increased until Caesar
doubled it when dictator.
390 Gauls sacked Rome, Capitol saved by warning of geese.
367 The consulship restored. 2 curule aediles created.
366 First plebeian consul. Praetor urbanus created.
356 First plebeian dictator. Censorship opened to plebeians.
351 First plebeian censor.
343-341 First Samnite War. Rome concludes peace.
342 Leges Genuciae: (a) debt relief, (b) no man to hold same office more than once
in 10 years, (c) both consuls could be plebeian.
339 Leges Publiliae: (a) one censor had to be plebeian, (b) all laws passed in
Centuriate Assembly had to be sanctioned by Senate, (c) plebiscites were given some validity at law.
337 First plebeian praetor urbanus.
326-304 Second Samnite War (defeat at Caudine Forks, the yoke).
300 Leges Ogulniae: opened priestly colleges to plebeians.
298-290 Third Samnite War. Rome now established ascendancy.
289 Mint and tresviri monetales (3 minters) created.
287 lex Hortensia: plebiscites were now fully binding laws.
267 Quaestors raised from 6 to 8.
264 First gladiators fight in Rome (not at Circus!).
264-242 First Punic War (against Carthage). Peace gives Rome Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica as her first provinces.
253 First plebeian Pontifex Maximus.
242 Praetor peregrinus created, raising praetors to 2.
241 Centuriate Assembly reforms slightly decreased power of First Class. Last
2 tribes were created: total now 35.
227 Praetors raised from 2 to 4. Quaestors raised from 6 to 10.
218-201 Second Punic War. Hannibal in command of Carthaginians.
270-206 Scipio Africanus victorious in Spain.
202 Last old-style dictator was briefly in office.
197 The Spains became provinces: praetors 6, quaestors 12.
180 Lex Villia annalis regulated the curule magistracies.
171 First treason court set up temporarily.
169 Lex Voconia barred women from major inheritances in wills. Quarrel
between Senate and Knights: the censors refused to accept tenders from firms given contracts by previous censors. Profits were exorbitant. Censors were then nearly convicted of high treason by knights.
149 Lex Atinia automatically promoted tribunes of the plebs to the Senate. Lex
Calpurnia set up permanent extortion court.
149-146 Third Punic War. Africa became a Roman province.
147 Macedonia annexed as a Roman province.
144 Praetor Q. Martius Rex built Rome's first aqueduct.
139 Lex Gabinia introduced secret ballot at all elections.
137 Lex Cassia introduced secret ballot for court juries.
133 Tiberius Gracchus tribune of the plebs: murdered.
123 Gaius Gracchus tribune of the plebs.
122 Gaius Gracchus tribune of the plebs again.
121 Senate passed first-ever Ultimate Decree to deal with Gaius Gracchus: he
suicided, his followers were executed.
121 King Mithridates V of Pontus murdered by his wife. Young Mithridates
fled to mountains to hide.
120 Homelands of German Cimbri and Teutones inundated. The great
migration began.
129 Gaius Marius, tribune of the plebs, passed a lex Maria to narrow voting
gangways (making bribery more difficult).
125 Young Mithridates seized power, became King of Pontus.
113 The German Cimbri defeated Papirius Carbo in Noricum.
122 Rome declared war on Jugurtha of Numidia.
121 Rome reached peaceful agreement with Jugurtha.
110 Aulus Postumius Albinus invaded Numidia without any authorization: the
war against Jugurtha begins. . . .
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Synopses
It is my intention that Fortune's Favorites be read with full enjoyment as a complete, free-standing novel, without the necessity of having previously read The Grass Crown or The First Man in Rome. The synopses below provide a brief summary of those two books for the reader's convenience and enhanced enjoyment.
EVENTS CHRONICLED IN THE FIRST MAN IN ROME
The year is 110 b.c. More by accident than design, the Republic of Rome has begun to acquire her territorial empire, a process of expansion that has placed increasingly intolerable strains upon an antique constitution. This constitution had been designed to regulate the affairs of a small city-state and protect the interests of its ruling class, embodied still in 110 b.c. by the Senate.
The true profession of Rome was war, which she conducted superbly and had come to rely upon in order to maintain growth and a thriving economy; she also kept the various other nations within Italy in a subordinate position by denying their peoples the Roman citizenship and parity in commerce.
But the voice of the People had become louder, and a series of political demagogues like the Brothers Gracchi had arisen with the avowed intention of depriving the Senate of its power. Power was to be transferred to the People in the persons of a slightly lower echelon of Roman citizens, the knights, who were primarily wealthy businessmen. (Agitation for social change in the ancient world was never undertaken on behalf of the poor, but rather took the form of a struggle between the landed aristocracy and the commercial plutocracy.)
In 110 b.c. the forty-seven-year-old Gaius Marius was a relative nobody from the little Latin district of Arpinum. Thanks to his superlative military ability, he had managed to rise as far as the second-most-important position in elected government, the praetorship, and had accumulated vast riches. But Marius hungered to be consul (the top office), though he knew that his obscure birth and ancestry would not permit of his rising so high. The consulship belonged to the landed aristocrats of ancient family who had never grubbied their hands with making money in a commercial marketplace.
Then a chance meeting with an impoverished patrician (the most august class of these aristocrats) senator, Gaius Julius Caesar (grandfather of the great Caesar), enabled Marius to improve his chances of attaining the consulship. In return for funding the careers of old Caesar's two sons and providing a dowry for the younger of old Caesar's two daughters, Marius was given the elder daughter, Julia, in marriage. Thus ennobling Marius's family and greatly enhancing his electoral image.
Now married to Julia, in 109 b.c. Marius and his letter-writing friend Publius Rutilius Rufus went off to wage war against King Jugurtha of Numidia. But Marius was not the commander-in-chief; this position had gone to the aristocrat Metellus (who would later call himself Metellus Numidicus to commemorate his war against Numidia, but whom Marius called by a far more derogatory name, Piggle-wiggle). With Metellus Numidicus was his twenty-year-old son, Metellus Pius the Piglet.
The war in Africa went slowly, as Metel
However, before Marius left Africa, the Syrian prophetess Martha foretold that Marius would be consul of Rome an unprecedented seven times and would be called the Third Founder of Rome; but she also told him that his wife's nephew named Gaius would be the greatest Roman of all time. This child was as yet unborn. Marius believed in the prophecy implicitly.
Returned to Rome, Marius was elected the junior of the two consuls for 107 b.c. He then used the legislative body called the Plebeian Assembly to pass a law stripping command of the war against Jugurtha of Numidia from Metellus Numidicus Piggle-wiggle; that same command was given to him instead.
However, his chief problem was a source of troops. The six legions Metellus Numidicus had commanded in Africa were now earmarked for the use of the other consul of 107 b.c. Italy was literally without recruitable men to serve in Rome's armies: too many men had died uselessly in battle over the preceding fifteen years, thanks to a series of utterly incompetent generals of impeccably aristocratic background. And the important friends of Metellus Numidicus, outraged at Marius's taking the war against Jugurtha away from him, now ganged up to prevent Marius's finding new soldiers.
But Marius, an iconoclastic thinker, knew of a source of troops as yet untapped-the capite censi or Head Count, which was the propertyless lowest class of Roman citizens- and resolved to find his army among the Head Count. A revolutionary concept!
Rome's soldiers had always been required to own land and have sufficient wealth to fund their armaments and gear out of their own purses; it was this class of fairly prosperous farmers that had supplied Rome with her soldiers for centuries. Now these men had almost ceased to exist, and their smallholdings had come into the ownership of men in the Senate or the top ranks of knight-businessmen. Vast ranches called latifundia which ran on slave labor had come into being, thus depriving free men of employment.