The First Man in Rome by Colleen McCullough
When the legions had marched into camp outside Verona, Catulus Caesar knew the first thing he had to do was send word posthaste to Rome of the disaster up the Athesis; if he didn’t, he suspected Sulla would via Gaius Marius, so it was important that his be the first version Rome absorbed. With both the consuls in the field, a dispatch to the Senate was addressed to the Leader of the House, so to Marcus Aemilius Scaurus Princeps Senatus did Catulus Caesar send his report, including with it a private letter which more accurately detailed what had actually occurred. And he entrusted the report and letter, heavily sealed, to young Scaurus, son of the Princeps Senatus, ordering him to take the packet to Rome at the gallop.
“He’s the best horseman we’ve got,” Catulus Caesar said blandly to Sulla.
Sulla eyed him with the same ironic, superior derision he had shown during their interview about the mutiny. “You know, Quintus Lutatius, you own the most exquisitely refined kind of cruelty I’ve ever encountered,” Sulla said.
“Do you wish to countermand the order?” asked Catulus Caesar, sneering. “You have the clout to do so.”
But Sulla shrugged, turned away. “It’s your army, Quintus Lutatius. Do what you like.”
And he had done what he liked, sent young Marcus Aemilius Scaurus posthaste to Rome bearing the news of his own disgrace.
“I have given you this duty, Marcus Aemilius Junior, because I cannot think of a worse punishment for a coward of your family background than to bring to his own father the news of both a military failure and a personal failure,” said Catulus Caesar in measured, pontifical tones.
Young Scaurus—pallid, hangdog, pounds lighter in weight than he had been two weeks earlier—stood to attention and tried not to look at his general. But when Catulus Caesar named the task, young Scaurus’s eyes—a paler, less beautiful version of his father’s green—dragged themselves unwillingly to Catulus Caesar’s haughty face.
“Please, Quintus Lutatius!” he gasped. “Please, I beg of you, send someone else! Let me face my father in my own time!”
“Your time, Marcus Aemilius Junior, is Rome’s time,” said Catulus Caesar icily, the contempt welling up in him. “You will ride at the gallop to Rome, and give the Princeps Senatus my consular dispatch. A coward in battle you may be, but you are one of the best horsemen we possess, and you have a name sufficiently illustrious to procure you good mounts all the way. You need have no fear, you know! The Germans are well to the north of us, so you’ll find none to threaten you in the south.”
Young Scaurus rode like a sack of meal in the saddle for mile after mile after mile, down the Via Annia and the Via Cassia to Rome, a shorter journey but a rougher. His head bobbed up and down in time to the gait of his horse, his teeth clicking together in a kind of heartbeat, curiously comforting. At times he talked to himself.
“If I had any courage there to screw up, don’t you think I would have found it?’’ he asked the phantom listeners in wind and road and sky. “What can I do when there is no courage in me, Father? Where does courage come from? Why did I not receive my share? How can I tell you of the pain and fear, the terror I felt when those awful savages came shrieking and screaming like the Furies? I couldn’t move! I couldn’t even control my bowels, let alone my heart! It swelled up and up and up until it burst, until I fell down inanimate, glad I was dead! And then I woke to find myself alive after all, still full of terror—my bowels still loose—the soldiers who carried me to safety washing themselves free of my stinking shit in the river under my very eyes, with such contempt, such loathing! Oh, Father, what is courage? Where did my share go? Father, listen to me, let me try to explain! How can you blame me for something I do not possess? Father, listen to me!”
But Marcus Aemilius Scaurus Princeps Senatus did not listen. When his son arrived with the packet from Catulus Caesar he was in the Senate, and when he came home his son had bolted himself in his room, leaving a message with the steward for his father that he had brought a packet from the consul and would wait in his room until his father read it, and sent for him.
Scaurus chose to read the dispatch first, grim-faced, but thankful at least that the legions were safe. Then he read Catulus Caesar’s letter, lips uttering word after dreadful word out loud, shrinking further and further into his chair until he seemed but half his normal size, and the tears gathered in his eyes and fell with great blurry splashes onto the paper. Of course he had Catulus Caesar’s measure; that part did not surprise him, and he was profoundly thankful that a legate as strong and unafraid as Sulla had been on hand to protect those precious troops.
But he had thought his son would discover in the throes of a vital, last-ditch emergency that courage, that bravery Scaurus truly believed lived inside all men. Or all men named Aemilius, anyway. The boy was the only son he had sired—the only child, for that matter. And now his line would end in such disgrace, such ignominy—! Fitting it did, if such was the mettle of his son, his only child.
He drew a breath, and came to a decision. There would be no disguise, no coat of whitewash, no excuses, no dissimulation. Leave that kind of ploy to Catulus Caesar. His son was a proven coward; he had deserted his troops in their hour of gravest danger in a way more craven, more humiliating than mere flight—he had shit himself and fainted. His troops carried him to safety, when it should have been the other way around. The shame Scaurus resolved to bear with that courage he himself had always possessed. Let his son feel the scourge of a whole city’s scorn!
His tears dried, his face composed, he clapped his hands for his steward, and when the man came he found his master sitting erect in his chair, his hands folded loosely on the desk.
“Marcus Aemilius, your son is most anxious to see you,” said the steward, very aware something was wrong, for the young man was acting strangely.
“You may take a message to Marcus Aemilius Scaurus Junior,” said Scaurus stiffly, “to the effect that though I disown him, I will not strip him of our name. My son is a coward—a white-livered mongrel dog—but all of Rome shall know him a coward under our name. I will never see him again as long as I live, you will tell him. And tell him too that he is not welcome in this house, even as a beggar at its door. Tell him! Tell him I will never have him come into my presence again as long as I shall live! Go, tell him! Tell him!”
Shivering from the shock of it and weeping for the poor young man, of whom he was fond—and about whom he could have told the father any time during these past twenty years that his son had no courage, no strength, no internal resources—the steward went and told young Scaurus what his father had said.
“Thank you,” said young Scaurus, and closed his door, but did not bolt it.
When the steward ventured into his room several hours later because Scaurus had demanded to know whether his no-son had quit the house yet, he found young Scaurus dead upon the floor. The only quarry his sword deemed too unworthy to live turned out to be himself, so he bloodied it at last upon himself.
But Marcus Aemilius Scaurus Princeps Senatus remained true to his words. He refused to see his son, even in death. And in the Senate he gave the litany of the disasters in Italian Gaul with all of his customary energy and spirit, including the hideously frank, unvarnished story of his son’s cowardice and suicide. He didn’t spare himself, nor did he show grief.
When after the meeting Scaurus made himself wait on the Senate steps for Metellus Numidicus, he did wonder if perhaps the gods had meted out so much courage to him that there was none left in the family cupboard for his son, so great was the fund of courage it took to wait there for Metellus Numidicus while the senators hustled themselves past him, pitying, anxious, shy, unwilling to stop.
“Oh, my dear Marcus!” cried Metellus Numidicus as soon as there were no ears to hear. “My dear, dear Marcus, what can I possibly say?”
“About my son, nothing,” said Scaurus, a thin splinter of warmth piercing the icy wastes inside his chest; how good it was to have friends! “About the Germans, how do we manage to keep
“Oh, don’t worry your head about Rome,” said Metellus Numidicus comfortably. “Rome will survive. Panic today and tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, and by the next market day—business as usual! Have you ever known people to move because the place where they’re living is unusually prone to suffer earthquakes, or there’s a volcano belching outside the back door?”
“That’s true, they don’t. At least, not until a rafter falls down and squashes Granny, or the old girl falls into a pool of lava,” said Scaurus, profoundly glad to find that he could conduct a normal discussion, and even smile a little.
“We’ll survive, Marcus, never fear.” Metellus Numidicus swallowed, then demonstrated that he too was not without his share of courage by saying manfully, “Gaius Marius is still waiting for his share of the Germans to come. Now if he goes down to defeat—then we had better worry. Because if Gaius Marius can’t beat them, nobody can.”
Scaurus blinked, deeming Metellus Numidicus’s gesture so heroic he had better not comment; furthermore, he had better instruct his memory to forget for all eternity that Metellus Numidicus had ever ever ever admitted Gaius Marius was Rome’s best chance—and best general.
“Quintus, there is one thing I must mention about my son, and then we can close that book,” said Scaurus.
“What’s that?”
“Your niece—your ward, Metella Dalmatica. This wretched episode has caused you—and her—great inconvenience. But tell her she’s had a lucky escape. It would have been no joy to a Caecilia Metella to find herself married to a coward,” said Scaurus gruffly.
Suddenly he found himself walking alone, and turned to see Metellus Numidicus standing looking thunderstruck.
“Quintus? Quintus? Is anything the matter?” Scaurus asked, returning to his friend’s side.
“The matter?” asked Metellus Numidicus, returning to life. “Good Amor, no, nothing’s the matter! Oh, my dear, dear Marcus! I have just been visited by a splendid idea!”
“Oh?”
“Why don’t you marry my niece Dalmatica?”
Scaurus gaped. “I?”
“Yes, you! Here you are, a widower of long standing, and now with no child to inherit your name or your fortune. That, Marcus, is a tragedy,” said Metellus Numidicus in tones of great warmth and urgency. “She’s a sweet little girl, and so pretty! Come, Marcus, bury the past, start all over again! She’s very rich, into the bargain.”
“I’d be no better than that randy old goat Cato the Censor,” said Scaurus, just enough doubt in his voice to signal Metellus Numidicus that he might be won round if the offer was really a serious one. “Quintus, I am fifty-five years old!”
“You look good for another fifty-five years.”
“Look at me! Go on, look at me! Bald—a bit of a paunch—more wrinkled than Hannibal’s elephant—getting stooped—plagued by rheumatics and haemorrhoids alike— no, Quintus, no!”
“Dalmatica is young enough to think a grandfather exactly the right sort of husband,” said Metellus Numidicus. “Oh, Marcus, it would please me so much! Come on, what do you say?”
Scaurus clutched at his hairless pate, gasping, yet also beginning to feel a new wellspring trickle through him. “Do you honestly think it could work? Do you think I could have another family? I’d be dead before they grew up!”
“Why should you die young? You look like one of those Egyptian things to me—preserved well enough to last another thousand years. When you die, Marcus Aemilius, Rome will shake to her very foundations.”
They began to walk across the Forum toward the Vestal Steps, deep in their discussion, right hands waving emphasis.
“Will you look at that pair?” asked Saturninus of Glaucia. “Plotting the downfall of all demagogues, I’ll bet.”
“Coldhearted old shit, Scaurus,” said Glaucia. “How could he get up and speak that way about his own son?”
Saturninus lifted his lip. “Because family matters more than the individuals who make up family. Still, it was brilliant tactics. He showed the world his family’s not lacking in courage! His son almost lost Rome a legion, but no one is going to blame Marcus Aemilius, nor hold it against his family.”
*
By the middle of September the Teutones had passed through Arausio, and were nearing the confluence of the Rhodanus and the Druentia; spirits in the Roman fortress outside Glanum rose higher and higher.
“It’s good,” said Gaius Marius to Quintus Sertorius as they did a tour “of inspection.
“They’ve been waiting years for this,” said Sertorius.
“Not a bit afraid, are they?”
“They trust you to lead them well, Gaius Marius.”
The news of the fiasco at Tridentum had come with Quintus Sertorius, who had abandoned his Cimbric guise for the time being; he had seen Sulla in secret, and picked up a letter for Marius which described events graphically, and concluded by informing Marius that Catulus Caesar’s army had gone into a winter camp outside Placentia. Then came a letter from Publius Rutilius Rufus in Rome, giving Rome’s view of the affair.
I presume it was your personal decision to send Lucius Cornelius to keep an eye on our haughty friend Quintus Lutatius, and I applaud it heartily. There are all kinds of peculiar rumors floating about, but what the truth is, no one seems able to establish, even the boni. No doubt you already know through the offices of Lucius Cornelius—later on, when all this German business is over, I shall claim sufficient friendship with you to be given the true explanation. So far I’ve heard mutiny, cowardice, bungling, and every other military crime besides. The most fascinating thing is the brevity and—dare I say it?—honesty of Quintus Lutatius’s report to the House. But is it honest? A simple admission that when he encountered the Cimbri he realized Tridentum was not a suitable place for a battle, and so turned round and retreated to save his army, having first destroyed a bridge and delayed the German advance? There has to be more to it than that! I can see you smiling as you read.
This is a very dead place without the consuls. I was extremely sorry for Marcus Aemilius, of course, and I imagine you are too. What does one do when one finally realizes one has sired a son not worthy to bear one’s name? But the scandal died a quick death, for two reasons. The first, that everyone respects Scaurus (this is going to be a long letter, so you will forgive the use of the cognomen) enormously, whether they like him or not, and whether they agree with his politics or not. The second reason is far more sensational. The crafty old culibonia (how’s that for a pun?) provided everyone with a new talking point. He’s married his son’s betrothed, Caecilia Metella Dalmatica, now in the ward of Metellus Numidicus Piggle-wiggle. Aged seventeen, if you please! If it wasn’t so funny, I’d weep. Though I’ve not met her, I hear she’s a dear little thing, very gentle and thoroughly nice—a trifle hard to believe coming out of that stable, but I believe, I do believe! You ought to see Scaurus—how you’d chuckle! He’s positively prancing. I am seriously thinking of taking a prowl through Rome’s better-type schoolrooms in search of a nubile maiden to be the new Mrs. Rutilius Rufus!
We face a serious grain shortage this winter, O senior consul, just to remind you of the duties attached to your office the Germans have rendered it impossible for you to deal with. However, I hear that Catulus Caesar will be leaving Sulla in command at Placentia shortly, and will return to Rome for the winter. No news as far as you’re concerned, I’m sure. The business at Tridentum has strengthened your own candidacy in absentia for yet another consulship, but Catulus Caesar won’t be holding any elections until after you meet your Germans! It must be very difficult for him, hoping for Rome’s sake that you have a great victory, yet hoping for his own sake that you fall flat on your peasant podex. If you win, Gaius Marius, you will certainly be consul next year. It was a clever move, by the way, to free Manius Aquillius to stand for consul. The electorate was terrifically impressed when he came, declared his candidacy, and then said very firmly that he was going back to you to
Gaius Servilius Glaucia, boon companion of your quasi-client Saturninus—unkind comment, I know!— has announced that he will run for tribune of the plebs. What a great big furry grey cat among the pigeons he’ll be! Talking of Serviliuses and getting back to the grain shortage, Servilius the Augur continues to do abysmally in Sicily. As I told you in an earlier missive, he really did expect that Lucullus would meekly hand over everything he’d worked so hard to establish. Now the House gets a letter once every market day, as regular as a prune eater’s bowel movements, in which Servilius the Augur bemoans his lot and reiterates that he’ll be prosecuting Lucullus the minute he gets back to Rome. The slave-king is dead—Salvius or Tryphon, he called himself—and another has been elected, the Asian Greek named Athenion. He’s cleverer than Salvius/Tryphon. If Manius Aquillius gets in as your junior consul, it might be an idea to send him off to Sicily and end that business once and for all. At the moment King Athenion is ruling Sicily, not Servilius the Augur. However, my real complaint about the Sicilian mess is purely semantic. Do you know what that despicable old culibonia had the gall to say in the House the other day? Scaurus, I am referring to, may his pro-creative apparatus drop off from overuse in overjuice! “Sicily,” he roared, “is become a very Iliad of woes!” And everyone rushed up to him after the meeting and poured syrupy praise all over him for coining such a neat epigram! Well, as you know from my earlier missive, that’s my neat epigram! He must have heard me say it, rot his entire back and front everythings.