The First Man in Rome by Colleen McCullough
Before the unlucky time. But every time is the unlucky time for me, thought Livia Drusa. However, she did not say it.
4
Wrote Publius Rutilius Rufus to Gaius Marius in June before the news of the capture of Jugurtha and the end of the war in Africa had reached Rome:
We have had a very uneasy winter, and a rather panic-stricken spring. The Germans are definitely on the move, and south at that, into our province along the river Rhodanus. We had been getting urgent letters from our Gallic allies the Aedui since before the end of last year, saying that their unwanted guests the Germans were going to move on. And then in April came the first of the Aeduan deputations to tell us that the Germans had cleaned out the Aeduan and Ambarric granaries, and were loading up their wagons. However, they had given out their destination as Spain, and those in the Senate who think it wiser to play down the threat of the Germans were quick to spread the news.
Luckily Scaurus is not of their number, nor is Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus. So pretty soon after Gnaeus Mallius and I began our consulship, there was a strong faction urging that a new army be recruited for any emergency, and Gnaeus Mallius was directed to assemble six new legions.
Rutilius Rufus found himself stiffening as if to ward off a Marian tirade, and smiled ruefully.
Yes, I know, I know! Hold on to your temper, Gaius Marius, and let me put my case before you start jumping up and down upon my poor head—and I do not mean that lump of bone and flesh on top of my neck! It should by rights have been me directed to recruit and command this new army; I am well aware of it. I am the senior consul, I have had a long and highly successful military career, and am currently even enjoying some degree of fame because my manual of military practice has been published at last. Whereas my junior colleague, Gnaeus Mallius, is almost completely untried.
Well, it’s all your fault! My association with you is general knowledge, and your enemies in the House would sooner, I think, that Rome perish under a flood tide of Germans than gratify you and yours in any way. So Metellus Numidicus Piggle-wiggle got up and made a magnificent speech to the effect that I was far too old to lead an army, and that my undeniable talents could be better used if I remained in Rome to govern. They followed him like sheep the leader who betrays them to the slaughter, and passed all the necessary decrees. Why did I not fight them? I hear you ask. Oh,Gaius Marius, I am not you! I just do not have that streak of destructive hatred for them that you have, nor do I have your phenomenal energy. So I contented myself with insisting that Gnaeus Mallius be provided with some truly able and experienced senior legates. And at least this has been done. He has Marcus Aurelius Scaurus to back him up—yes, I did say Aurelius, not Aemilius. All he shares in common with our esteemed Leader of the House is a cognomen. However, I suspect that his military ability is considerably better than the famous Scaurus’s. At least, for Rome’s sake and Gnaeus Mallius’s sake, I hope so!
And, all told, Gnaeus Mallius has done fairly well. He elected to recruit among the Head Count, and could point to your African army as proof of the Head Count’s effectiveness. By the end of April, when the news came that the Germans would be heading south into our Roman province, Gnaeus Mallius had six legions enlisted, all of Roman or Latin Head Count. But then the delegation arrived from the Aedui, and for the first time the House had definite estimates of the actual number of Germans involved in the migration. We discovered, for instance, that the Germans who killed Lucius Cassius in Aquitania—we knew they numbered about a quarter of a million—were only about a third of the total number, if that. So according to the Aedui, something like eight hundred thousand German warriors, women, and children are at present traveling toward the Gallic coast of the Middle Sea. It mazes the mind, does it not?
The House gave Gnaeus Mallius the authority to recruit four more legions, bringing his force up to a total of ten legions plus five thousand cavalry. And by this, the news of the Germans was out all over Italy, try though the House did to calm everyone down. We are very, very worried, especially because we have not so far actually won one engagement against the Germans. From the time of Carbo, our history has been defeat. And there are those, especially among the ordinary people, who are now saying that our famous adage that six good Roman legions can beat a quarter of a million undisciplined barbarians is so much merda. I tell you, Gaius Marius, the whole of Italy is afraid! And I, for one, do not blame Italy.
I imagine because of the general dread, several of our Italian Allies reversed their policy of recent years, and have voluntarily contributed troops to Gnaeus Mallius’s army. The Samnites have sent a legion of light-armed infantry, and the Marsi have sent a wonderful legion of standard Roman-style infantry. There is also a composite auxiliary legion from Umbria, Etruria, and Picenum. So, as you may imagine, our fellow Conscript Fathers are like the cat which got to the fish—very smug and self-satisfied. Of the four extra legions, three are being paid for and kept up by the Italian Allies.
That is all positive. But there is an opposite side, of course. We have a frightful shortage of centurions, which means that none of the newly enlisted Head Count troops have undergone a proper training program, and the one legion of Head Count men in the last four legions just put together is almost totally unprepared. His legate Aurelius suggested that Gnaeus Mallius split the experienced centurions up evenly among his seven Head Count legions, and that means no more than 40 percent of the centurions in any one legion have undergone anything like battle conditions. Military tribunes are well and good, but I do not need to tell you that it is the centurions who hold the centuries and cohorts together.
Quite frankly, I fear for the result. Gnaeus Mallius is not a bad sort of fellow, but I do not think him capable of waging war against the Germans. This opinion Gnaeus Mallius himself reinforced, when he got up in the House at the end of May and said that he couldn’t ensure every man in his force would know what to do on a battlefield! There are always men who don’t know what to do on a battlefield, but you don’t get up in the House and say so!
And what did the House do? It sent orders to Quintus Caepio in Narbo to transfer himself and his army across to the Rhodanus immediately, and join up with Gnaeus Mallius’s army when it reaches the Rhodanus. For once the House didn’t procrastinate—the message went off by mounted courier, and got from Rome to Narbo in less than two weeks. Nor did Quintus Servilius procrastinate in answering! We got his answer yesterday. And what an answer it was.Naturally the senatorial orders had said that Quintus Caepio would subordinate himself and his troops to the imperium of the year’s consul. All perfectly normal and aboveboard. Last year’s consul may have a proconsular imperium, but in any joint enterprise, the consul of the year takes the senior command.
Oh, Gaius Marius, that did not sit well with Quintus Caepio! Did the House honestly think that he—a patrician Servilius directly descended from Gaius Servilius Ahala, the savior of Rome—would act as the subordinate of an upstart New Man without a single face in an ancestral cupboard, a man who had only reached the consulship because no one of better origins had stood for election? There were consuls and there were consuls, said Quintus Caepio. Yes, I swear to you that he really did say all this! In his year the field of candidates had been respectable, but in this present year the best Rome could do was a broken-down old minor noble (me) and a presumptuous parvenu with more money than taste (Gnaeus Mallius). So, Quintus Caepio’s letter ended, he would certainly march at once for the Rhodanus—but by the time he got there, he expected to find a senatorial courier waiting for him with the news that he would be the supreme commander in this joint venture. With Gnaeus Mallius working as his subordinate, he was sure, said Quintus Caepio, that all would go superbly.
His hand was beginning to cramp; Rutilius Rufus laid his reed pen down with a sigh, and sat massaging his fingers, staring frowningly into nothing. Presently his eyelids began to droop, and his head fell forward, and he dozed; when he woke with a jerk, his hand at least felt better, so he resumed his writing.
Oh, such a long, long letter! But no one else will give you an honest account of what has happened, and you must know it all. Quintus Caepio’s letter had been directed to Scaurus Princeps Senatus rather than to me, and of course you know our beloved Marcus Aemilius Scaurus! He read the whole dreadful letter out to the House with every evidence of ghoulish enjoyment. In fact, he drooled. Oh, and did it put the cat among the pigeons! There were purple faces, flying fists, and a brawl between Gnaeus Mallius and Metellus Piggle-wiggle which I stopped by calling in the lictors from the Curia vestibule—an action which Scaurus did not appreciate. Oh, what a day for Mars! A pity we couldn’t bottle all that hot air and just blow the Germans away with the most poisonous weapon Rome can manufacture.
The upshot of it was that there will indeed be a courier waiting for Quintus Caepio on the banks of the Rhodanus—but the new orders will be exactly the same as the old ones. He is to subordinate himself to the legally elected consul of the year, Gnaeus Mallius Maximus. Such a pity the silly fool dowered himself with a cognomen like Maximus, isn’t it? A bit like awarding yourself a Grass Crown after your men saved you, not the other way around. Not only is it the height of crassness to give yourself a pat on the back, but if you are not a Fabius, the cognomen Maximus is horribly presumptuous. Of course he maintains his great-grandmother was a Fabia Maxima, and his grandfather used it, but all I know is that his father never did. And I doubt the Fabia Maxima story very much.
Anyway, here I am like a war-horse turned out to pasture, itching to be in Gnaeus Mallius’s shoes, and burdened instead with earthshaking decisions like whether we can afford to give the State granaries a new coat of pitch inside this year, after paying to equip seven new Head Count legions. Would you believe that with the whole of Rome talking Germans, Germans, Germans, the House argued for eight days about that one? Drive a man insane, it would!
I do have an idea, though, and I’m going to implement it. Come victory or defeat in Gaul, I’m going to implement it. With not one man left in all Italy whom I would call a centurion’s bootlaces, I am going to recruit drill instructors and other training personnel from the gladiator schools. Capua is full of gladiator schools—and the best ones at that—so what could be more convenient, considering that Capua is also our base camp for all new troops? If Lucius Tiddlypuss can’t hire enough gladiators to put on a good show at his granddad’s funeral, hard luck! Rome’s need is greater than Lucius Tiddlypuss’s, say I! This plan also tells you that I am going to continue to recruit among the Head Count.
I’ll keep you informed, of course. How goes it in the land of the lotus-eaters, sirens, and enchanted isles? Not managed to put leg-irons on Jugurtha yet? It isn’t far off, I’ll bet. Metellus Numidicus Piggle-wiggle is in a trifle of a dither these days, actually. He can’t make up his mind whether to concentrate on you or on Gnaeus Mallius. Naturally he gave a magnificent speech supporting Quintus Servilius’s elevation to commander-in-chief. It gave me inordinate pleasure to sink his case with a few well-placed shafts.
Ye gods, Gaius Marius, how they do get me down! Trumpeting the feats of their wretched ancestors when what Rome needs right now is a living, breathing military genius! Hurry up and come home, will you? We need you, for I am not up to battling the whole of the Senate, I just am not.
There was a postscriptum:
There have been a couple of peculiar incidents in Campania, by the way. I don’t like them, yet I fail to see why they happened, either. At the beginning of May there was a slave revolt at Nuceria—oh, easily put down, and all it really meant was that thirty poor creatures from all over the world were executed. But then three days ago another revolt broke out, this time in a big holding camp outside Capua for low-grade male slaves waiting for buyers in need of a hundred wharf laborers or quarry fodder or treadmill plodders. Almost 250 slaves were involved this time. It was put down at once, as there were several cohorts of recruits in camp around Capua. About fifty of the insurgents perished in the fighting, and the rest were executed forthwith. But I don’t like it, Gaius Marius. It’s an omen. The gods are against us at the moment; I feel it in my bones.
And a second postscriptum:
Some sad news for you has this very moment come to hand. As my letter to you was already arranged through Marcus Granius of Puteoli to go on his fast packet sailing for Utica at the end of the week, I have volunteered to tell you what has happened. Your much-loved father-in-law, Gaius Julius Caesar, died this afternoon. As you know, he has been suffering from a malignancy in the throat for some time. And this afternoon he fell on his sword. He chose the best alternative, as I’m sure you will agree. No man should linger to be a burden to his loved ones, especially when it detracts from his dignity and integrity as a man. Is there one among us who prefers life to death when life means lying in one’s own excrement, or being cleaned of that excrement by a slave? No, when a man cannot command either his bowels or his gorge, it is time to go. I think Gaius Julius would have chosen to go sooner, except that he worried about his younger son, who as I’m sure you know married recently. I went to see Gaius Julius only two days ago, and he managed to whisper through the thing choking him that all his doubts about the suitability of young Gaius Julius’s marriage were now allayed, for the beautiful Aurelia—the darling of my own heart, I admit—was just the right wife for his boy. So it is ave atque vale, Gaius Julius Caesar.
At the very end of June the consul Gnaeus Mallius Maximus left on the long march north and west, his two sons on his personal staff, and all twenty-four of the elected tribunes of the soldiers for that year distributed among seven of his ten legions. Sextus Julius Caesar, Marcus Livius Drusus, and Quintus Servilius Caepio Junior marched with him, as did Quintus Sertorius, taken on as a junior military tribune. Of the three Italian Allied legions, the one sent by the Marsi was the best trained and most soldierly legion of all ten; it was commanded by a twenty-five-year-old Marsic nobleman’s son named Quintus Poppaedius Silo—under supervision by a Roman legate, of course.
Because Mallius Maximus insisted upon lugging enough State-purchased grain to feed his entire force for two months, his baggage train was huge and his progress painfully slow; by the end of the first sixteen days he hadn’t even reached the Adriatic at Fanum Fortunae. Talking very hard and passionately, the legate Aurelius then managed to persuade him to leave his baggage train in the escort of one legion, and push on with his nine others, his cavalry, and light baggage only. It had proven very difficult to convince Mallius Maximus that his troops were not going to starve before they got to the Rhodanus, and that sooner or later the heavy baggage would arrive safely.
Having a much shorter march over level ground, Quintus Servilius Caepio reached the huge river Rhodanus ahead of Mallius Maximus. He took only seven of his eight legions with him—the eighth he shipped to Nearer Spain—and no cavalry, having disbanded it the previous year as an unnecessary expense. Despite his orders and the urging of legates, Caepio had refused to move from Narbo until an expected overseas communication from Smyrna came. Nor was he in a good mood; when he could be deflected from complaining about the disgraceful tardiness of this contact between Smyrna and Narbo, he complained about the in-sensitivity of the Senate in thinking that he would yield supreme command of the Grand Army to a mushroom like Mallius Maximus. But in the end, he was obliged to march without his letter, leaving explicit instructions behind in Narbo that it was to be forwarded as soon as it came.
Even so, Caepio still beat Mallius Maximus to their targetdestination comfortably. At Nemausus, a small trading town on the western outskirts of the vast salt marshes around the delta of the Rhodanus, he was met by the Senate’s courier, who gave him the Senate’s new orders.
It had never occurred to Caepio that his letter would fail to move the Conscript Fathers, especially when none other than Scaurus read it out to the House. So when he opened the cylinder and scanned the Senate’s brief reply, he was outraged. Impossible! Intolerable! He, a patrician Servilius, tugging his forelock at the
Roman intelligence reported that the Germans were now on their way south, rolling along through the lands of the Celtic Allobroges, inveterate Roman-haters caught in a cleft stick; Rome was the enemy they knew, the Germans the enemy they didn’t know. And the Druidic confraternity had been telling every tribe in Gaul for two years now that there wasn’t room for the Germans to settle anywhere in Gaul. Certainly the Allobroges were not about to yield enough of their lands to make a new homeland for a people far more numerous than they were themselves. And they were close enough to the Aedui and the Ambarri to know well what a shambles the Germans had made out of the lands of these intimidated tribes. So the Allobroges retreated into the towering foothills of their beloved Alps, and concentrated upon harrying the Germans as much as they could.
The Germans breached the Roman province of Gaul-across-the-Alps to the north of the trading post of Vienne late in June, and surged on, unopposed. The whole mass, over three quarters of a million strong, traveled down the eastern bank of the mighty river, for its plains were wider and safer, less exposed to the fierce highland tribes of central Gaul and the Cebenna.