The First Man in Rome (120 page)

"Don't tempt the gods," said Scaurus. "They do love a challenge from men, Lucius Appuleius!"

"I'm not afraid of the gods, Marcus Aemilius! The gods are on my side," said Saturninus, and left the meeting.

"I tried to tell him," said Sulla, passing Scaurus and Catulus Caesar. "He's riding a half-mad horse for a fall."

"So's that one," said Catulus Caesar to Scaurus after Sulla was out of earshot.

"So is half the Senate, if only we knew it," said Scaurus, lingering to look around him. "This truly is a beautiful temple, Quintus Lutatius! A credit to Metellus Macedonicus. But it was a lonely place today without Metellus Numidicus." Then he shrugged his shoulders, cheered up. "Come, we'd better catch our esteemed junior consul before he bolts to the very back of his warren. He can perform the sacrifice to Mars as well as to Jupiter Optimus Maximus—if we make it an all-white
suovetaurilla,
that should surely buy us divine approval to hold the curule candidacy ceremony on the Campus Martius!"

"Who's going to foot the bill for a white cow, a white sow, and a white ewe?" asked Catulus Caesar, jerking his head to where Metellus Piglet and Caepio Junior were standing together. "Our Treasury quaestors will squeal louder than all three of the sacrificial victims."

"Oh, I think Lucius Valerius the white rabbit can pay," said Scaurus, grinning. "He's got access to Mars!"

On the last day of November a message came from Gaius Marius, convening a meeting of the Senate for the next day in the Curia Hostilia. For once the current turmoil in the Forum Romanum couldn't keep the Conscript Fathers away, so agog were they to see what Gaius Marius was like. The House was packed and everyone came earlier than the dawn did on the Kalends of December to be sure they beat him, speculations flying as they waited.

He walked in last of the entire body, as tall, as broad-shouldered, as proud as he had ever been, nothing in his gait to suggest the cripple, his left hand curled normally around the folds of his purple-bordered toga. Ah, but it was there for all the world to see upon his poor face, its old beetling self on the right side, a mournful travesty on the left.

Marcus Aemilius Scaurus Princeps Senatus put his hands together and began to applaud, the first clap echoing about the ancient hall's naked rafters and bouncing off the ruddy bellies of the terracotta tiles which formed both ceiling and roof. One by one the Conscript Fathers joined in, so that by
the time Marius reached his curule chair the whole House was thundering at him. He didn't smile; to smile was to accentuate the clownlike asymmetry of his face so unbearably that every time he did it, whoever watched grew moist in the eyes, from Julia to Sulla. Instead, he simply stood by his ivory seat, nodding and bowing regally until the ovation died away.

Scaurus got up, smiling broadly. "Gaius Marius, how
good
it is to see you! The House has been as dull as a rainy day these last months. As Leader of the House, it is my pleasure to welcome you home."

"I thank you, Princeps Senatus—Conscript Fathers—my fellow magistrates," Marius said, his voice clear, not one slurred word. In spite of his resolve, a slight smile lifted the right side of his mouth upward, though the left corner stayed dismally slumped. "If it is a pleasure for you to welcome me home, it cannot be one tenth the pleasure it is to me to
be
home! As you can see, I have been ill."

He drew a long breath everyone could hear; and hear the sadness in its quaver halfway through. "And though my illness is past, I bear its scars. Before I call this House to order and we get down to business which seems sorely in need of our attention, I wish to make a statement. I will not be seeking re-election as consul—for two reasons. The first, that the emergency which faced the State and resulted in my being allowed the unprecedented honor of so many consecutive consulships is now conclusively, finally, positively over. The second, that I do not consider my health would enable me to perform my duties properly. The responsibility I must bear for the present chaos here in Rome is manifest. If I had been here in Rome, the senior consul's presence would have helped. That is why there
is
a senior consul. I do not accuse Lucius Valerius or Marcus Aemilius or any other official of this body. The senior consul must lead. I have not been able to lead. And that has taught me that I cannot seek re-election. Let the office of senior consul pass to a man in good health."

No one replied. No one moved. If his twisted face had indicated this was in the wind, the degree of stunned shock every last one of them now felt was proof of the ascendancy he had gained over them during the past five years. A Senate without Gaius Marius in the consul's chair? Impossible! Even Scaurus Princeps Senatus and Catulus Caesar sat shocked.

Then came a voice from the back tier behind Scaurus. "Guh-guh-good!" said Metellus Piglet. "Now my fuh-fuh-father can cuh-cuh-cuh-come home."

"I thank you for the compliment, young Metellus," Marius said, looking directly up at him. "You infer that it is only I who keeps your father in his exile on Rhodes. But such is not the case, you know. It is the law of the land keeps Quintus Caecilius Metellus Numidicus in exile. And I strictly charge each and every member of this august body to remember that! There will be no decrees or plebiscites or laws upset because I am not consul!"

"Young fool!" muttered Scaurus to Catulus Caesar. "If he hadn't said that, we could quietly have brought Quintus Caecilius back early next year. Now he won't be allowed to come. I really think it's time young Metellus was presented with an extra name."

"What?" asked Catulus Caesar.

"Puh-Puh-Puh-Pius!" said Scaurus savagely. "Metellus Pius the pious son, ever striving to bring his
tata
home! And stuh-stuh-stuffing it up!"

It was extraordinary to see how quickly the House got down to business now that Gaius Marius was in the consul's chair, extraordinary too to feel a sense of wellbeing permeating the members of the House, as if suddenly the crowds outside couldn't matter the way they had until Gaius Marius reappeared.

Informed of the change in venue for the presentation of the curule candidates, Marius simply nodded consent, then curtly ordered Saturninus to call the Plebeian Assembly together and elect some magistrates; until this was out of the way, no other magistrates could be elected.

After which, Marius turned to face Gaius Servilius Glaucia, sitting in the urban praetor's chair just behind and to his left. "I hear a rumor, Gaius Servilius," he said to Glaucia, "that you intend to seek the consulship on the grounds of invalidities you have allegedly found in the
lex Villia.
Please do not. The
lex Villia annalis
unequivocally says that a man must wait two years between the end of his praetorship and the beginning of any consulship."

"Look at who's talking!" gasped Glaucia, staggered to find opposition in the one senatorial corner where he had thought to find support. "How can you stand there so brazenly, Gaius Marius, accusing me of thinking of breaking the
lex Villia
when you've broken it in fact for the last five years in a row? If the
lex Villia
is valid, then it
unequivocally
states that no man who has been consul may seek a second consulship until ten years have elapsed!"

"I did not
seek
the consulship beyond that once, Gaius Servilius," said Marius levelly. "It was bestowed upon me—and three times
in absentia
!—because of the Germans. When a state of emergency exists, all sorts of customs—even laws!—come tumbling down. But when the danger is finally over, whatever extraordinary measures were taken must cease."

"Ha ha ha!" said Metellus Piglet from the back row, this being an interjection in perfect accord with his speech impediment.

"Peace has come, Conscript Fathers," said Marius as if no one had spoken, "therefore we return to normal business and normal government. Gaius Servilius, the law forbids you to stand for the consulship. And as the presiding officer of the elections, I will not allow your candidacy. Please take this as fair warning. Give up the notion gracefully, for it does not become you. Rome needs lawmakers of your undeniable talent. For you cannot make the laws if you break the laws."

"I told you so!" said Saturninus audibly.

"He can't stop me, and nor can anyone else," said Glaucia, loudly enough for the whole House to hear him.

"He'll stop you," said Saturninus.

"As for you, Lucius Appuleius," Marius said, turning now to look at the tribunes' bench, "I hear a rumor that you intend to seek a third term as a tribune of the plebs. Now that is not against the law. Therefore I cannot stop you. But I can ask you to give up the notion. Do not give our meaning of the word 'demagogue' a new interpretation. What you have been doing during the past few months is not customary political practice for a member of the Senate of Rome. With our immense body of laws and our formidable talent for making the cogs and gears of government work in the interests of Rome as we know it, there is no necessity to exploit the political gullibility of the lowly. They are innocents who should not be corrupted. It is our duty to look after them, not to use them to further our own political ends."

"Are you finished?" asked Saturninus.

"Quite finished, Lucius Appuleius." And the way Marius said it, it had many meanings.

So that was over and done with, he thought as he walked home with the crafty new gait he had developed to disguise a tiny tendency to foot-drop on the left side. How odd and how awful those months in Cumae had been, when he had hidden away and seen as few people as possible because he couldn't bear the horror, the pity, the gloating satisfaction. Most unbearable of all were those who loved him enough to grieve, like Publius Rutilius. Sweet and gentle Julia had turned into a positive tyrant, and flatly forbidden anyone, even Publius Rutilius, to say one word about politics or public business. He hadn't known of the grain crisis, he hadn't known of Saturninus's wooing of the lowly; his life had constricted to an austere regimen of diet, exercise, and reading the Classics. Instead of a nice bit of bacon with fried bread, he ate baked watermelon because Julia had heard it purged the kidneys, both the bladders, and the blood of stones; instead of walking to the Curia Hostilia, he hiked to Baiae and Misenum; instead of reading senatorial minutes and provincial dispatches, he plodded through Isocrates and Herodotus and Thucydides, and ended in believing none of them, for they didn't read like men who acted, only like men who read.

But it worked. Slowly, slowly, he got better. Yet never again would he be whole, never again would the left side of his mouth go up, never again would he be able to disguise the fact that he was weary. The traitor within the gates of his body had branded him for all the world to see. It was this realization which finally prompted his rebellion; and Julia, who had been amazed that he remained docile for so long, gave in at once. So he sent for Publius Rutilius, and returned to Rome to pick up what pieces he could.

Of course he knew Saturninus would not stand aside, yet felt obliged to give him the warning; as for Glaucia, his election would never be allowed, so that was no worry. At least the elections would go ahead now, with the tribunes of the plebs set for the day before the Nones and the quaestors on the Nones, the day they were supposed to enter office. These were the disturbing elections, for they had to be held in the Comitia of the Forum Romanum, where the crowd milled every day, and shouted obscenities, and pelted the togate with filth, and shook their fists, and listened in blind adoration to Saturninus.

Not that they hissed or pelted Gaius Marius, who walked through their midst on his way home from that memorable meeting feeling nothing but the warmth of their love. No one lower than the Second Class would ever look unkindly upon Gaius Marius; like the Brothers Gracchi, he was a hero. There were those who looked upon his face, and wept to see it ravaged; there were those who had never set eyes on him in the flesh before, and thought his face had always been like that, and admired him all the more; but none tried to touch him, all stepped back to make a little lane for him, and he walked proudly yet humbly through them reaching out to them with heart and mind. A wordless communion. And Saturninus, watching from the rostra, wondered.

"The crowd is an awesome phenomenon, isn't it?" Sulla asked Marius over dinner that evening, in the company of Publius Rutilius Rufus and Julia.

"A sign of the times," said Rutilius.

"A sign that we've failed them," said Marius, frowning. "Rome needs a rest. Ever since Gaius Gracchus we've been in some kind of serious trouble—Jugurtha—the Germans— the Scordisci—Italian discontent—slave uprisings—pirates—grain shortages—the list is endless. We need a respite, a bit of time to look after Rome rather than ourselves. Hopefully, we'll get it. When the grain supply improves, at any rate."

"I have a message from Aurelia," said Sulla.

Marius, Julia, and Rutilius Rufus all turned to look at him curiously.

"Do you see her, Lucius Cornelius?" Rutilius Rufus the watchful uncle demanded.

"Don't get clucky, Publius Rutilius, there's no need!

Yes, I see her from time to time. It takes a native to sympathize, which is why I go. She's stuck down there in the Subura, and it's my world too," he said, unruffled. "I still have friends there, so Aurelia's on my way, if you know what I mean."

"Oh dear, I should have asked her to dinner!" said Julia, distressed at her oversight. "Somehow she tends to be forgotten."

"She understands," said Sulla. "Don't mistake me, she loves her world. But she likes to keep a little abreast of what's happening in the Forum, and that's my job. You're her uncle, Publius Rutilius, you tend to want to keep the trouble from her. Where I tell her everything. She's amazingly intelligent."

"What's the message?" asked Marius, sipping water.

"It comes from her friend Lucius Decumius, the odd little fellow who runs the crossroads college in her insula, and it goes something like this—if you think there have been crowds in the Forum, you haven't seen anything yet. On the day of the tribunician elections, the sea of faces will become an ocean."