The Grass Crown (100 page)

At the Esquiline Gate he made no pretense of hesitation. He sent his unnumbered legion into Rome on the run, not to filter through its streets but to ascend the Servian Walls and man the great double rampart of the Agger; this ran from the Colline Gate to the Esquiline Gate, which meant that Sulla’s own men were now in touch with the men of Pompeius Rufus. One legion handily placed along the Agger, Sulla then brought the first two cohorts of the Second Legion into the great marketplace which lay inside the Porta Esquilina, and stationed the other cohorts immediately outside it. Rome was contained. It now depended upon Publius Sulpicius and Gaius Marius as to what would happen next.

The Esquiline Mount was not a suitable place for military maneuvers. The streets leading into the Forum Esquilinum were narrow, perpetually congested, any widening stuffed with booths, stalls, carts, wagons; and the great marketplace was home to merchants, idlers, washerwomen, slaves fetching water, people eating and drinking, ox-carts, panniered asses, peddlers, low-cost schools and a forest of stalls. There were lanes and alleys aplenty leading into the Forum Esquilinum, but two big streets also terminated here—the Clivus Suburanus coming uphill from the Subura, and the Vicus Sabuci coming uphill from the area of manufactories and workshops south and east of the swamp called Palus Ceroliae. Yet here on this unsuitable ground was the battle for Rome fought, about an hour after Sulla entered the city.

The Esquiline Forum itself had been ruthlessly cleared, of course; where the markets had been there now stood still and watchful lines of soldiers at easy attention. Clad in full armor, Sulla sat his mule to one side of his army’s vexillum and the standards of the consul’s Second Legion. At the end of an hour a curious hum began to drown out the cries and noises emanating from the streets leading to the square, growing louder and louder as its source approached, until it could be distinguished as the yells of a great body of men spoiling for a fight.

They erupted into the Esquiline Forum from the mouth of every alley and lane, the spearhead of Sulpicius’s “bodyguard” plus the slaves and freedmen Gaius Marius and his son had rounded up, largely through the efforts of Lucius Decumius and the other leaders of the crossroads colleges which dotted Rome. And stopped short at the sight of rank upon rank of Roman legionaries, their silver standards flashing, drummers and trumpeters clustered beside their general waiting—quite placidly, it seemed—for his orders.

“Trumpeter, play, swords out and shields to the front,” said Sulla in a clear calm voice.

A single trumpet brayed; it was followed immediately by the soft screech of a thousand swords being drawn from their scabbards, the thump of shields brought round and engaged.

“Drummers, play, hold ranks and wait to be attacked,” said Sulla, his voice carrying easily to the unruly crowd of defenders.

The drums began, a hollow rattle that went on and on and on, more unsettling by far to the mob which faced the soldiers than the sound of war cries would have been.

Then the mob parted. Out in front stepped Gaius Marius, sword in hand, helmet on head, a scarlet general’s cape streaming behind his shoulders; beside him was Sulpicius, behind him Young Marius.

“Charge!” roared Marius, and emitted a shrill whoop.

His men tried to obey, but could not gain sufficient impetus in that restricted space to budge Sulla’s front line, which fended them off contemptuously with shields alone, keeping swords by sides.

“Trumpeters, play, engage the enemy,” said Sulla, leaned in his saddle sideways and himself grasped the silver eagle of the Second.

With an enormous effort of will and only to please their general—for no man now the time had come truly wanted to draw blood—the soldiers of Sulla lifted their swords and fought back.

No tactics or maneuvers were possible. The Forum Esquilinum became a struggling mass of tightly packed men who slogged without direction or control. Within minutes the First Cohort had forced its way into the Clivus Suburanus and the Vicus Sabuci, the Second Cohort followed suit, and more cohorts were streaming in disciplined files through the Esquiline Gate, sheer weight and training pushing back the civilians fighting for Marius and Sulpicius. Sulla on his mule moved forward to see what if anything he could do, the only person present with sufficient height to see above the masses of bobbing heads. And discovered that in every street and lane the residents of the tall buildings leaning over them were raining missiles down upon his soldiers—clay pots, logs of wood, bricks, stools. Some, thought the Sulla who had once lived in just such an insula, were genuinely angry at the invasion of their city; but others simply couldn’t resist the temptation to chuck things from on high into the wonderful free-for-all below.

“Find me some lighted torches,” he said to the aquilifer who ought to have been carrying his legion’s silver eagle.

The torches came very quickly, robbed from the square,

“Sound every trumpet and drum, top volume,” said Sulla.

In this confined space overhung with insulae the noise was maddening; activity stopped for the precious moments Sulla needed.

“If one more object is thrown, I will fire this city!” he screamed at the top of his voice, took a torch and hurled it high into the air. It dropped neatly through a window, and was followed by more torches. Every head disappeared, the missiles ceased.

Satisfied, he returned his attention to the fight, sure there would be no further bombardment. The insula dwellers now understood this was no circus, it was serious. A fight was one thing—a fire quite another. Everyone feared fire more than war.

He called up a cohort not yet engaged and sent it off into the Vicus Sabuci under orders to turn right into the Vicus Sobrius and right again into the Clivus Suburanus, there to take the city mob in the rear.

This proved the turning point; the undisciplined rabble flagged, stopped, then panicked, leaving Marius shouting that any slave who continued to fight would be freed, and Sulpicius—no coward—still fighting a rearguard action with Young Marius inside the Esquiline Forum. But soon Marius, Sulpicius and Young Marius too turned and fled, heading down the Clivus Pullius with Sulla’s troops in hot pursuit, Sulla at their head with the silver eagle in his hand.

At the temple of Tellus on the Carinae—where there was a precinct, therefore some space—Marius attempted to halt his polyglot force and rally it to return to the fight. But it refused to behave professionally, its members weeping, flinging swords and clubs away before running off toward the Capitol. Even within the streets of a city, soldiers were better.

When Marius, Young Marius, and Sulpicius suddenly disappeared, the fighting stopped completely. Sulla rode his mule down the Vicus Sandalarius to the great common land of the swamps below the Carinae, where the Via Sacra met the Via Triumphalis. There he halted and had his trumpeters and drummers call the Second to its standards. And there a few soldiers caught in the act of looting were brought before Sulla by their centurions.

“You were well warned—not so much as a turnip from a field,” he said to them. “No legionary of Rome plunders Rome.”

He then had the guilty men executed on the spot, a salutary lesson for the watching ranks.

“Send for Quintus Pompeius and Lucius Lucullus,” he said after the soldiers had been dismissed to an ordered ease.

Neither Pompeius Rufus nor Lucullus had had to do any work, and certainly no fighting.

“That’s good,” said Sulla to them. “I am the senior consul, it is purely my responsibility. If mine was the only force engaged, then the blame is firmly at my door.”

He could be so fair, thought Lucullus, looking at him in wonder; and then he could turn around and invade Rome. A complex man. No, that wasn’t quite the right word. Sulla was a man of mood changes so opposite and so strong that one never knew how he was going to react. Nor did one ever know what might set him off. Except, suspected Lucullus, Sulla himself.

“Lucius Licinius, leave seven cohorts of the First across the river to keep Transtiberim quiet. Send three cohorts of the First to guard the granaries of the Aventine and the Vicus Tuscus against citizen looting. The Third will garrison all the most sensitive points along the river. Put one cohort at the Port of Rome, the Campus Lanatarius, the Piscinae Publicae, the Porta Capena, the Circus Maximus, the Forum Boarium, the Forum Holitorium, the Velabrum, the Circus Flaminius, and the Campus Martius. Yes, that’s ten places for ten cohorts.”

He turned to the junior consul. “Quintus Pompeius, keep the Fourth outside the Colline Gate and make sure they continue to watch for any legions which might come down the Via Salaria. Bring my other legion down off the Agger and disperse its cohorts among the northern and eastern hills—Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline. And put two cohorts in the Subura.”

“Do we garrison the Forum Romanum and the Capitol?”

Sulla shook his head emphatically. “Most definitely not, Lucius Licinius. I’ll not copy Saturninus and Sulpicius. The Second can stand duty below the Capitol slopes and around the Forum—but out of sight of either place. I want the People to feel they’re safe when I call a meeting.”

“Do you remain here?” asked Pompeius Rufus.

“Yes. Lucius Licinius, another job for you. Have some heralds go through the city proclaiming that any missile thrown from an insula will be treated as an act of war against the lawful consuls, and the insula will be fired on the spot. Have other heralds follow the first lot to proclaim that a meeting for all the People will be held in the Forum at the second hour of day.” Sulla paused to think if that was all, decided it was, and said, “As soon as you have everything in train, both of you will report back to me here.”

The primus pilus centurion of the Second, Marcus Canuleius, appeared and stood in the background where Sulla could see him, looking perfectly content; that’s a splendid sign, thought Sulla, relieved. It means my soldiers are still my soldiers.

“Any sign of them, Marcus Canuleius?” he asked.

The centurion shook his head, its great sideways plume of bright red horsehair riding his helmet like a fan. “No, Lucius Cornelius. Publius Sulpicius was seen crossing the Tiber in a boat, which may mean he’s heading for a port somewhere in Etruria. Gaius Marius and his son are thought to be heading for Ostia. The urban praetor, Marcus Junius Brutus, has also fled.”

“The fools!” exclaimed Lucullus, surprised. “If they ’genuinely felt they had the law on their side, they ought to have remained in Rome. Surely they know their chances are better if they debate you in the Forum!”

“You’re quite right, Lucius Licinius,” said Sulla, pleased that his legate had interpreted events in this way. “Panic, I think,” he said. “If either Marius or Sulpicius had stopped to reason his course properly, he would have seen the wisdom of staying in Rome. But I am always lucky, you know. Luckily for me they chose to leave the city.” Luck, nothing, he thought to himself. Both Marius and Sulpicius knew that if they had remained, I would have had no choice other than to have them secretly killed. If there’s one thing I cannot afford, it is to debate either of them in the Forum. They’re the popular heroes, not me. Still, their flight is a two-edged sword. It means I don’t have to find a way to kill them in an apparently blameless manner—but it does mean I will have to incur the odium of procuring a sentence of exile on them.

All through the night wakeful soldiers patrolled the streets and open spaces of Rome, campfires burning in any small spot where one could be kindled, the tramp of hobnailed caligae a sound which no sleepless Roman had ever heard beneath his windows. But the city pretended to sleep, and got up shivering in a chilly dawn to the sounds of heralds crying that Rome was at peace in the custody of her lawfully elected consuls, and that at the second hour of daylight the consuls would hold a meeting from the rostra.

The meeting was surprisingly well attended, even by the many supporters of Marius and Sulpicius in the Second and Third and Fourth Classes. The First Class was there in entirety while the Head Count stayed away; the Fifth Class also stayed away.

“Ten, fifteen thousand,” said Sulla to Lucullus and Pompeius Rufus as he walked down the slope of the Clivus Sacer from the Velia. He was clad in his purple-bordered toga, as was Pompeius Rufus, and Lucullus wore his plain white toga with the senator’s broad stripe on the right shoulder of his tunic; there was to be no hint of armed might, nor any soldier on display. “It’s vital that every word I say be heard by every man present, so make sure that heralds are properly stationed to relay my words out to the periphery of the crowd.”

Preceded by their lictors, the consuls cleaved their way through the throng and mounted the rostra, where Flaccus Princeps Senatus and Scaevola Pontifex Maximus waited. To Sulla, this was a confrontation of enormous importance, for as yet he had seen no member of the skeletal Senate, nor had any idea whether men like Catulus Caesar, the censors, the flamen Dialis, or the two on the rostra would be with him now he had asserted the ascendancy of the army over peaceful institutions of government.

They weren’t happy, so much was plain. Both were tied in some measure to Marius, Scaevola because he had a daughter affianced to Young Marius, Flaccus because he had only attained the consulship and the censorship thanks to Marius’s support at the polls. Now was not the time to have a prolonged conversation with them, but he couldn’t not say anything to them either.

“Are you with me?” he asked curtly.

Scaevola drew a quivering breath. “Yes, Lucius Cornelius.”

“Then listen to what I have to say to the crowd. It will answer all your questions and doubts too.” He looked toward the Senate steps and podium, where Catulus Caesar stood with the censors, Antonius Orator, and Merula flamen Dialis. Catulus Caesar gave him a ghost of a wink. “Listen well!” Sulla called.

He turned then to face the lower Forum—which meant his back was to the Senate House—and began to speak. His appearance had been greeted with no cheers, but no boos or hisses either. Which meant he faced an audience prepared to listen, and not entirely because in every side street and piece of vacant ground stood his soldiers.