The First Man in Rome (111 page)

"Well?"

"Well what?" asked Lucius Decumius.

"It's you wanted to discuss things," she pointed out.

"S'right, so it was." Lucius Decumius cleared his throat. "Now what precisely was you objecting to, madam?"

"Your presence under my roof."

"Now, now, that's a bit broad in scope, ain't it? I mean, we can come to some sort of arrangement—you tell me what you don't like, and I'll see if I can't fix it," said Decumius.

"The dilapidation. The filth. The noise. The assumption that you own the street as well as these premises, when neither is the truth," Aurelia began, ticking her points off on her fingers.
"And
your little neighborhood business! Terrorizing harmless shopkeepers into paying you money they can't afford! What a despicable thing to do!"

"The world, madam," said Decumius, leaning forward with great earnestness, "is divided into sheep and wolves. It's natural. If it weren't natural, there wouldn't be a lot more sheep than there are wolves, where we all know for every wolf there's at least a thousand sheep. Think of us inside here as the local wolves. We're not bad as wolves go. Only little teeth, a bite or two, no necks broken."

"That is a revolting metaphor," said Aurelia, "and it doesn't sway me one little bit. Out you go."

"Oh, deary me!" said Lucius Decumius, leaning backward. "Deary, deary me." He shot her a look. "Are they
really
all your cousins?''

"My father was the consul Lucius Aurelius Cotta. My uncle is the consul Publius Rutilius Rufus. My other uncle is the praetor Marcus Aurelius Cotta. My husband is the quaestor Gaius Julius Caesar.'' Aurelia sat back in her chair, lifted her head a little, closed her eyes, and said smugly, "And what is more, Gaius Marius is my brother-in-law."

"Well,
my
brother-in-law is the King of Egypt, ha ha!" said Lucius Decumius, supersaturated with names.

"Then I suggest you go home to Egypt," said Aurelia, not a bit annoyed at this feeble sarcasm. "The consul Gaius Marius
is
my brother-in-law."

"Oh, yes, and of course Gaius Marius's sister-in-law is going to be living in an insula way up the Subura's arse-end!" countered Lucius Decumius.

"This insula is
mine.
It's my dowry, Lucius Decumius. My husband is a younger son, so we live here in my insula for the time being. Later on, we'll be living elsewhere."

"Gaius Marius really is your brother-in-law?"

"Down to the last hair in his eyebrows."

Lucius Decumius heaved a sigh. "I like it here," he said, "so we'd better do some negotiating."

"I want you out," said Aurelia.

"Now look, madam, I do have
some
right on my side," said Lucius Decumius. "The members of this here lodge are the custodians of the crossroads shrine. Legitimate, like. You may think all them cousins means you own the State— but if we go, another lot are only going to move in, right? It's a crossroads college, madam, official on the urban praetor's books. And I'll let you in on a little secret." He leaned forward again.
"All
of us crossroads brethren are wolves!" He thrust his neck out, rather like a tortoise. "Now you and me can come to an agreement, madam. We keep this place clean, we slap a bit of paint on the walls, we tippy-toe around after dark, we help old ladies across the drains and gutters, we cease and desist our little neighborhood operation—in fact, we turn into pillars of society! How does that take your fancy?"

Try though she might to suppress it, that smile would tug at the corners of her mouth! "Better the evil I know, eh, Lucius Decumius?"

"Much
better!" he said warmly.

"I can't say I'd look forward to going through all of this again with a different lot of you," she said. "Very well, Lucius Decumius, you're on trial for six months." She got up and went to the door, Lucius Decumius escorting her. "But don't think for one moment that I lack the courage to get rid of you and break in a new lot," she said, stepping into the street.

Lucius Decumius walked with her down the Vicus Patricii, clearing a path for her through the crowds with magical ease. "I assure you, madam, we will be pillars of society."

"But it's very difficult to do without an income after you've grown used to spending it," said Aurelia.

"Oh, that's no worry, madam!" said Lucius Decumius cheerfully. "Rome's a big place. We'll just shift our income-making operation far enough away not to annoy you— the Viminal—the Agger—the factory swamps—plenty of places. Don't you worry your lovely little head about Lucius Decumius and his brothers of the sacred crossroads. We'll be all right."

"That's no kind of answer!" said Aurelia. "What's the difference between terrorizing our own neighborhood, and doing the same thing somewhere else?"

"What the eye don't see and the ear don't hear, the heart don't grieve about," he said, genuinely surprised at her denseness. "That's a fact, madam."

They had reached her front door. She stopped and looked at him ruefully. "I daresay you'll do as you see fit, Lucius Decumius. But don't ever let me find out whereabouts you've transferred your—operation, as you call it."

"Mum, madam, I swear! Mum, dumb, numb!" He reached past her to knock on her door, which was opened with suspicious alacrity by the steward himself. "Ah, Eutychus, haven't seen you in the brotherhood for a few days now," said Lucius Decumius blandly. "Next time madam gives you a holiday, I'll expect to see you in the lodge. We're going to wash the place out and give it a bit of a paint to please madam. Got to keep the sister-in-law of Gaius Marius happy, eh?"

Eutychus looked thoroughly miserable. "Indeed," he said.

"Oho, holding out on us, were you? Why didn't you tell us who madam was?" asked Lucius Decumius in tones of silk.

"As you will have noticed over the years, Lucius Decumius, I do
not
talk about my family at all," said Eutychus grandly.

"Wretched Greeks, they're all the same," said Lucius Decumius, giving his lank brown hair a tug in Aurelia's direction. "Good day to you, madam. Very nice to make your acquaintance. Anything the lodge can do to help, let me know."

When the door had closed behind her, Aurelia looked at the steward expressionlessly. "And what have you got to say for yourself?" she asked.

"Domina,
I
have
to belong!" he wailed. "I'm the steward of the landlords—they wouldn't
not
let me belong!"

"You realize, Eutychus, that I could have you flogged for this," said Aurelia, still expressionless.

"Yes," he whispered.

"A flogging is the established punishment, is it not?"

"Yes," he whispered.

"Then it is well for you that I am my husband's wife and my father's daughter," said Aurelia. "My father-in-law, Gaius Julius, put it best, I think. Shortly before he died he said that he could never understand how any family could live in the same house with people they flogged, be it their sons or their slaves. However, there are other ways of dealing with disloyalty and insolence. Never think I am not prepared to take the financial loss of selling you with bad references. And you know what that would mean. Instead of a price of ten thousand denarii on your head, it would be a thousand sesterces. And your new owner would be so vulgarly low he'd flog you unmercifully, for you would come to him tagged as a bad slave."

"I understand,
domina."

“Good! Go on belonging to the crossroads brotherhood— I can appreciate your predicament. I also commend you for your discretion about us." She went to move away, then stopped. "Lucius Decumius. Does he have a job?"

"He's the lodge caretaker," said Eutychus, looking more uneasy than ever.

"You're keeping something back."

"No, no!"

"Come on, give me all of it!"

"Well,
domina,
it's only a rumor," said Eutychus. "No one really
knows,
you understand. But he has been heard to say it himself—though that could be idle boasting. Or he could be saying it to frighten us."

"Saying
what!"

The steward blanched. "He says he's an assassin."

"Ecastor!
And who has he assassinated?" she asked.

"I believe he takes credit for that Numidian fellow who was stabbed in the Forum Romanum some years ago," said Eutychus.

"Will wonders never cease!" said Aurelia, and went off to see what her babies were doing.

"They broke the mould when they made her," said Eutychus to Cardixa.

The huge Gallic maidservant put out a hand and hurled it down on the pretty steward's shoulder much as a cat might have tethered a mouse by putting a paw on its tail. "They did indeed," she said, giving Eutychus an ostensibly friendly shake. "That's why we've
all
got to look after her."

It was not so very long after this that Gaius Julius Caesar came home from Italian Gaul bearing Marius's message from Vercellae. He simply knocked on the door and was admitted by the steward, who then helped Caesar's orderly in with his baggage while Caesar went to find his wife.

She was in the courtyard garden tying little gauze bags around the ripening grapes on Gaius Matius's arbor, and didn't bother to turn when she heard a footfall. "You wouldn't think the Subura was so full of birds, would you?" she asked whoever it was. "But this year I'm determined we'll get to eat the grapes, so I'm going to see if this works."

"I'll look forward to the grapes," said Caesar.

She spun round, her handful of gauze bags fluttering to the ground, her face transformed with joy. "Gaius Julius!"

He held out his arms, she ran into them. Never had a kiss been more loving, nor followed so quickly by a dozen more. The sound of applause brought them back to reality; Caesar looked up the height of the light-well to find the railings of the balconies lined with beaming people, and waved up to them.

"A great victory!" he called. "Gaius Marius has annihilated the Germans! Rome need never fear them again!"

Leaving the tenants to rejoice and spread the news through the Subura before either Senate or People were informed, Caesar slipped an arm about Aurelia's shoulders and walked with her into the narrow hallway which ran between the reception room and the kitchen area; he turned in the direction of his study, approving of the neatness, the cleanliness, the tasteful yet inexpensive decor. There were vases of flowers everywhere, a new side to Aurelia's housekeeping, he thought, and wondered anxiously if she could afford so many blooms.

"I have to see Marcus Aemilius Scaurus right away," he said, "but I wasn't going to go to his house before I visited mine. How good it is to be home!"

"It's wonderful," said Aurelia shakily.

"It will be more wonderful still tonight, wife, when you and I start making our first boy," he said, kissing her again. "Oh, I do miss you! No other woman has any appeal after you, and that's the truth. Is there any chance of a bath?"

"I saw Cardixa duck in there a moment ago, so I expect it's being run for you already." Aurelia snuggled against him with a sigh of pleasure.

"And you're sure it isn't too much for you, running our house, looking after our girls, and this whole barn of a place?" he asked. "I know you always tell me the agents took more commission than they should, but—”

"It is no trouble, Gaius Julius. This is a very orderly residence, and our tenants are superior," she said firmly. "I've even sorted out the little difficulty I had with the crossroads tavern, so that's very quiet and clean these days." She laughed up at him, passing it off casually, lightly. “You've no idea how co-operative and well behaved everyone is when they find out I'm Gaius Marius's sister-in-law!"

"All these flowers!" said Caesar.

"Aren't they beautiful? They're a perpetual gift I receive every four or five days."

His arms tightened about her. "Do I have a rival, then?"

"I don't think you'll be worried after you meet him," said Aurelia. "His name is Lucius Decumius. He's an assassin."

"A
what!"

"No, dearest love, I'm only joking," she soothed. "He says he's an assassin, I suspect to maintain his ascendancy over his fellow brethren. He's the caretaker of the tavern."

"Where does he get the flowers?"

She laughed softly.  "Never look a gift horse in the mouth," she said. "In the Subura, things are different."

3

It was Publius Rutilius Rufus who apprised Gaius Marius of events in Rome immediately after Caesar delivered the victory letter.

There's a very nasty feeling in the air, arising chiefly out of the fact that you've succeeded in what you set out to do, namely eliminate the Germans, and the People are so grateful that if you stand for the consulship, you'll get in yet again. The word on every highborn lip is "dictator" and the First Class at least is starting to sit up and echo it. Yes, I know you have many important knight clients and friends in the First Class, but you must understand that the whole of Rome's political and traditional structure is designed to depress the pretensions of men who stand above their peers. The only permissible "first" is the first among equals, but after five consulships, three of them
in absentia,
it is getting extremely difficult to disguise the fact that you tower over your so-called equals. Scaurus is disgusted, but him you could deal with if you had to. No, the real turd in the bottom of the punch bowl is your friend and mine, Piggle-wiggle, ably assisted by his stammering son, the Piglet.

From the moment you moved east of the Alps to join Catulus Caesar in Italian Gaul, Piggle-wiggle and the Piglet have made it their business to blow Catulus Caesar's contributions to the campaign against the Cimbri out of all proportion to the fact. So when the news of the victory at Vercellae came, and the House met in the temple of Bellona to debate things like triumphs and votes of thanksgiving, there were a lot of ears ready to listen when Piggle-wiggle got up to speak.

Briefly, he moved that only two triumphs be held—one by you, for Aquae Sextiae, and one by Catulus Caesar, for Vercellae! Completely ignoring the fact that you were the commander on the field of Vercellae,
not
Catulus Caesar! His argument is purely legalistic—two armies were involved, one commanded by the consul, you, and the other by the proconsul, Catulus Caesar. The amount of spoils involved, said Piggle-wiggle, was disappointingly small, and would look ridiculously inadequate were three triumphs to be celebrated. Therefore, since you hadn't yet celebrated the triumph voted you for Aquae Sextiae, why, you could have that, and Catulus Caesar could have the triumph he was entitled to for Vercellae. A second Vercellae triumph celebrated by you would be a superfluity.

Lucius Appuleius Saturninus got up at once to object, and was howled down. Since he is a
privatus
this year, he holds no office that might have compelled the Conscript Fathers to pay him more attention. The House voted two triumphs, yours to be solely for Aquae Sextiae–last year's battle, therefore less significant— and Vercellae—this year's battle, therefore the big one in everybody's eyes—solely the prerogative of Catulus Caesar. In effect, as the Vercellae triumph wends its way through the city, it will be telling the people that you had absolutely nothing to do with the defeat of the Cimbri in Italian Gaul, that Catulus Caesar was the hero. Your own idiocy in handing him most of the spoils and all the German standards captured on the field has clinched the matter. When your mood is expansive and your natural generosity is allowed to come to the fore, you commit your worst blunders, and that is the truth.

I don't know what you can do about it—the whole thing is cut and dried, officially voted upon, and recorded in the archives. I am very angry about it, but the Policy Makers (as Saturninus calls them) or the
boni
(as Scaurus calls them) have won the engagement resoundingly, and you will never quite have as much prestige for the defeat of the Germans as you ought. It amused us all those years ago at Numantia to perpetuate the mud bath Metellus took among his porky friends by tagging him with a porky nickname that also happens to be nursery slang for a little girl's genitalia, but it is my considered opinion now that the man is no piggle-wiggle—he's a full-grown
cunnus.
As for the Piglet, he's not going to be a little girl all his life, either. Another full-grown
cunnus.

Enough, enough, I'll give myself that apoplexy yet! I shall conclude this missive by telling you that Sicily is looking good. Manius Aquillius is doing a superb job, which only makes Servilius the Augur look smaller. However, he did what he promised: he indicted Lucullus in the new treason court. Lucullus insisted upon conducting his own defense, and did his cause no good with all those farting blow-my-nose-between-my-fingers knights, for he stood there with all that freezing hauteur of his showing, and the entire jury thought he was directing it at them. He was, he was! Another stubborn idiot, Lucullus. Naturally they condemned him—
DAMNO
written upon every tile, I believe. And the savagery of the sentence was unbelievable! His place of exile can be no closer to Rome than a thousand miles, which leaves him only two places of any size at all—Antioch or Alexandria. He has chosen to honor King Ptolemy Alexander over King Antiochus Grypus. And the court took everything he owned off him—houses, lands, investments, city property.

He didn't wait for them to hound him to leave. In fact, he didn't even wait to see how much his possessions fetched, but commended his trollop of a wife to the care of her brother, Piggle-wiggle–that'll punish him a little!—and left his elder son, now sixteen and a man in the eyes of the State, to his own devices. Interesting, that he didn't commend this very gifted boy to Piggle-wiggle's care, isn't it? The younger— now fourteen—is adopted. Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus.

Scaurus was telling me that both boys have vowed to prosecute Servilius the Augur as soon as Varro Lucullus is old enough to don the toga of manhood; the parting with their father was heartrending, as you might imagine. Scaurus says Lucullus will get himself to Alexandria, and then choose to die. And that both boys think that's what their
tata
will do too. What hurts the Licinii Luculli most is the fact that all this pain and poverty has been inflicted upon them by a jumped-up nobody New Man like Servilius the Augur. You New Men have not made yourselves any friends when it comes to Lucullus's sons.

Anyway, when the Lucullus boys are old enough to prosecute Servilius the Augur in tandem, it will be in the new extortion court as set up by yet another Servilius of relatively obscure origins, Gaius Servilius Glaucia. By Pollux, Gaius Marius, he can draft laws, that fellow! The setup is ironclad and novel, but it works. Back in the hands of the knights and so no consolation to governors, but workmanlike. Recovery of peculated property is now extended to the ultimate recipients as well as the original thieves—anyone convicted in the court cannot address any public meeting anywhere—men of the Latin Rights who successfully prosecute a malefactor will be rewarded with the full Roman citizenship—and there is now a recess inserted into the middle of the trial proceedings. The old procedure is a thing of the past, and the testimony of witnesses, as the few cases heard in it have proven, is now far less important than the addresses of the advocates themselves. A great boon to the great advocates.

And—last but not least—that peculiar fellow Saturninus has been in trouble again. Truly, Gaius Marius, I fear for his sanity. Logic is missing. As indeed I believe it is from his friend Glaucia. Both so brilliant, and yet—so unstable, so downright crazy. Or perhaps it is that they don't honestly know what they want out of public life. Even the worst demagogue has a pattern, a logic directed toward the praetorship and the consulship. But I don't see it in either of that pair. They hate the old style of government, they hate the Senate—but they have nothing to put in its place. Perhaps they're what the Greeks call exponents of anarchy? I'm not sure.

Anyway, the scales have recently tipped against King Nicomedes of Bithynia in the matter of the embassage from King Mithridates of Pontus. Our young friend from the remotenesses at the eastern end of the Euxine sent ambassadors acute enough to discover the secret weakness of all us Romans—money! Having got nowhere with their petition for a treaty of friendship and alliance, they began to buy senators. And they paid well, and Nicomedes had cause to worry, I can tell you.

Then Saturninus got up on the rostra and condemned all those in the Senate who were prepared to abandon Nicomedes and Bithynia in favor of Mithridates and Pontus. We had had a treaty with Bithynia for years, he said, and Pontus was Bithynia's traditional enemy. Money had changed hands, he said, and Rome for the sake of a few fatter senatorial purses was going to abandon her friend and ally of fifty years.

It is alleged—I wasn't there myself to hear him— that he said something like "We all know how expensive it can be for doddering old senators to marry frisky little fillies not out of the schoolroom, don't we? I mean, pearl necklaces and gold bracelets are a lot more expensive than a bottle of that tonic Ticinus sells in his Cuppedenis stall—and who's to say that a frisky young filly isn't a more effective tonic than Ticinus's?" Oh, oh, oh! He sneered at Piggle-wiggle as well, and asked the crowd, "What about our boys in Italian Gaul?"

The result was that several of the Pontic ambassadors were beaten up, and went to the Senaculum to complain. Whereupon Scaurus and Piggle-wiggle had Saturninus arraigned in his own treason court on a charge of sowing discord between Rome and an accredited embassage from a foreign monarch. On the day of the trial, our tribune of the plebs Glaucia called a meeting of the Plebeian Assembly, and accused Piggle-wiggle of having another try at getting rid of Saturninus, whom he hadn't been able to get rid of when he functioned as censor. And those hired gladiators Saturninus seems to be able to put his hands on when necessary turned up at the trial, ringed the jurors round, and looked so grim that the jury dismissed the case. The Pontic ambassadors promptly went home without their treaty. I agree with Saturninus—it would be a wretchedly paltry thing to do, to abandon our friend and ally of fifty years in favor of his traditional enemy just because his enemy is now far richer and more powerful.

No more, no more, Gaius Marius! I really only wanted to let you know about the triumphs ahead of the official dispatches, which the Senate won't rush to you in a hurry. I wish there was something you could do, but I doubt it.

"Oh yes, there is!" said Marius grimly when he had deciphered the letter. He drew a sheet of paper toward him and spent considerable time drafting a short letter of his own. Then he sent for Quintus Lutatius Catulus Caesar.

Catulus Caesar arrived bubbling with enthusiasm, for the hired courier who had carried Rutilius Rufus's Marius missive had also brought a letter from Metellus Numidicus to Catulus Caesar, and another from Scaurus to Catulus Caesar.

It was a disappointment to find Marius already aware of the two-triumph vote; Catulus Caesar had been dwelling rather voluptuously upon seeing Marius's face when he heard. However, that was a minor consideration. The triumph was the triumph.

"So I'd like to return to Rome in October, if you don't mind," Catulus Caesar drawled. "I'll celebrate my triumph first, since you as consul can't leave quite so early."

"Permission to go is refused," said Marius with cheerful civility. "We'll return to Rome together at the end of November, just as we planned. In fact, I've just sent a letter to the Senate on behalf of both of us. Like to hear it? I won't bore you with my writing—I'll read it out to you."

He took a small paper from his cluttered table, unfurled it, and read it to Catulus Caesar.

Gaius Marius, consul for the fifth time, thanks the Senate and People of Rome for their concern and consideration in respect of the matter of triumphs for himself and his second-in-command, the proconsul Quintus Lutatius Catulus. I commend the Conscript Fathers for their admirable thrift in decreeing only one triumph each for Rome's generals. However, I am even more concerned than the Conscript Fathers about the punitive cost of this long war. As is Quintus Lutatius. In respect of which, Gaius Marius and Quintus Lutatius Catulus will share one single triumph between them. Let all of Rome witness the accord and amity of the generals as they parade the streets together. Wherefore it is my pleasure to notify you that Gaius Marius and Quintus Lutatius Catulus shall triumph on the Kalends of December. Together. Long live Rome.

Catulus Caesar had gone white. "You're joking!" he said.

"
I
? Joke?" Marius blinked beneath his brows. "Never, Quintus Lutatius!"

"I—I—I refuse to consent!"

"You don't have any choice," said Marius sweetly. "They thought they had me beaten, didn't they? Dear old Metellus Numidicus Piggle-wiggle and his friends—and your friends! Well, you'll never beat me, any of you."

"The Senate has decreed two triumphs, and two triumphs it will be!" said Catulus Caesar, shaking.

"Oh, you could insist, Quintus Lutatius. But it won't look good, will it? Take your choice. Either you and I triumph together in the same parade, or you are going to look like one enormous fool. That's it."

And that was it. The letter from Marius went to the Senate, and the single triumph was announced for the first day of the month of December.