The Grass Crown (102 page)

“I don’t trust the People,” said Sulla to the leaders of the Senate, a body so small now that only its leaders were left. “The moment I’m safely overseas, a new Sulpicius is likely to appear. So I intend to pass legislation which will make that impossible.”

He had entered Rome on the Ides of November, dangerously late in the year for a massive program of new laws. Since the lex Caecilia Didia had stipulated that three market days must elapse between the first contio addressing a new law and its ratification, there was every chance that Sulla’s term as consul would be over before he had succeeded in his aims. To make matters worse, the other lex Caecilia Didia forbade the tacking together of unrelated items in one law. And the one way legally open to him to get his program finished in time was perhaps the most perilous course of all; to present every one of his new laws to the Whole People in one contio, and have them discussed together. Thus enabling everyone to see his ultimate design from the beginning.

It was Caesar Strabo who solved Sulla’s dilemma.

“Easy,” said that cross-eyed worthy when applied to. “Add another law to your list, and promulgate it first of the lot. Namely, a law waiving the provisions of the lex Caecilia Didia prima for your laws only.”

“The Comitia would never pass it,” said Sulla.

“Oh, they will—if they see enough soldiers!” said Caesar Strabo cheerfully.

He was quite right. When Sulla convoked the Assembly of the Whole People—which contained patricians as well as plebeians—he discovered it was very willing to legislate on his behalf. Thus the first law presented to it was one waiving the provisions of the lex Caecilia Didia prima in the case of his laws alone; since it covered itself as well, the first lex Cornelia of Sulla’s program was promulgated and passed on one and the same day. The time was now getting toward the end of November.

One by one, Sulla introduced six more laws, their order of presentation extremely carefully worked out; it was vital that the People not see his ultimate design until it was too late for the People to do anything about unraveling it. And during all this he strove assiduously to avoid any hint of confrontation between his army and the residents of Rome, understanding very well that the People mistrusted him because of those soldiers.

However, since he cared not a jot for the love of the People, only that they obey him, he decided that it would do no harm to institute a whispering campaign within Rome—if his laws were not passed, the city would undergo a bloodbath of epic proportions. For when his own neck was at stake Sulla would stop at nothing. As long as the People did as they were told, they were at complete liberty to hate Sulla as passionately as he had come to hate them. What he could not allow to happen, of course, was that bloodbath; did it happen, his career would be over forever. But, understanding the mechanics of fear, Sulla foresaw no bloodbath. And he was right.

His second lex Cornelia seemed innocuous enough. It commanded that three hundred new members be added to the Senate, which contained only forty men. Its wording was deliberately designed to avoid the stigma attached to laws recalling expelled or exiled senators, for the new senators were to be appointed by the censors in the normal way; the censors were not directed to reinstall any senator expelled for debt. As the fund to get the expelled senators out of debt was working as smoothly under Catulus Caesar as Capua had for the duration of the war, there could be no impediment to the censors’ reinstating expelled senators. Also, the inroads made upon the Senate by the deaths of so many members would finally be properly repaired. Catulus Caesar had been given the unofficial job of keeping pressure upon the censors, which meant that the Senate would be better than full strength very soon, Sulla was sure. Catulus Caesar was a formidable man.

The third lex Cornelia began to reveal Sulla’s fist clenched and menacing. It repealed the lex Hortensia, a law which had been on the tablets for a full two hundred years. Under the provisions of Sulla’s new law, nothing could be brought before the tribal assemblies unless it had first received the stamp of the Senate’s approval. This not only muzzled the tribunes of the plebs, it muzzled the consuls and praetors as well; if the Senate did not issue a senatus consultum, neither the Plebeian Assembly nor the Assembly of the Whole People could legislate. Nor could the tribal assemblies alter the wording of any senatus consultum.

Sulla’s fourth lex Cornelia came down from the Senate to the Assembly of the Whole People as a senatus consultum. It strengthened the top-heaviness of the Centuries by removing the modifications to this body which it had undergone during the early days of the Republic. The comitia centuriata was now returned to the form it had enjoyed during the reign of King Servius Tullius, when its votes were skewed to give the First Class very nearly fifty percent of the power. Under Sulla’s new law, the Senate and the knights were henceforward to be as strong as ever they were during the time of the kings.

The fifth lex Cornelia showed Sulla’s sword out and ready. It was the last one in his program to be promulgated and passed in the Assembly of the Whole People. In future no discussion or voting on laws could take place in the tribal assemblies. All legislation had to be discussed and passed by Sulla’s new top-heavy Centuriate Assembly, where the Senate and the Ordo Equester could control everything, particularly when they were closely united—as they always were in opposition to radical change or the conveyance of privileges to the lower Classes. From now on, the tribes possessed virtually no power, either in the Assembly of the Whole People or in the Plebeian Assembly. And the Assembly of the Whole People passed this fifth lex Cornelia knowing it was passing a sentence of extinction upon itself; it could elect those magistrates it was empowered to elect, but could do nothing else. To conduct a trial in a tribal assembly required the passage of a law first.

All the laws of Sulpicius were still on the tablets, still nominally valid. But of what use were they? What did it matter if the new citizens of Italy and Italian Gaul and the freedman citizens of the two urban tribes were to be distributed across the entire thirty-five tribes? The tribal assemblies could not pass laws, could not conduct trials.

There was a weakness, and Sulla was aware of it. Had he not been anxious to leave for the East he could have worked to overcome it, but it wasn’t something he could achieve in the time he had at his disposal. It concerned the tribunes of the plebs. He had managed to draw their teeth; they couldn’t legislate, they couldn’t put men on trial. But he could not manage to pull out their claws—oh, such claws! They still had the powers the Plebs had invested upon them when they were first created. And among those powers was the power of the veto. In all his legislation, Sulla had been careful not to direct any of it at the magistrates themselves, only at the institutions in which the magistrates functioned. Technically he had done nothing overtly treasonous. But to remove the power of the veto from the tribunes of the plebs could be construed as treasonous. As going against the mos maiorum. Tribunician powers were almost as old as the Republic. They were sacred.

In the meantime, the program of laws concluded itself. Not in the Forum Romanum, where the People were accustomed to present themselves and where the People saw what was going on. The sixth and the seventh leges Corneliae were presented to the Centuriate Assembly on the Campus Martius—surrounded by Sulla’s army, now encamped there.

The sixth law did what Sulla would have found difficult to do in the Forum; it repealed all of Sulpicius’s legislation on the grounds that it had been passed per vim—with violence—and during lawfully declared feriae—religious holidays.

The last law was actually a trial process. It indicted twenty men on charges of treason. Not the new treasons of Saturninus’s quaestio de maiestate, but the far older and more inflexible treason of the Centuries, perduellio. Gaius Marius, Young Marius, Publius Sulpicius Rufus, Marcus Junius Brutus the urban praetor, Publius Cornelius Cethegus, the Brothers Granii, Publius Albinovanus, Marcus Laetorius, and some twelve others were named. The Centuriate Assembly condemned them all. And perduellio carried the death sentence; exile was not enough for the Centuries. Even worse, death could be meted out at the moment of apprehension, it did not require formality.

From none of his friends and from none of the leaders of the Senate did Sulla encounter I” opposition—except, that is, from the junior consul. Quintus Pompeius Rufus just kept getting more and more depressed, and ended in saying flatly that he could not countenance the execution of men like Gaius Marius and Publius Sulpicius.

Knowing that he had no intention of executing Marius—though Sulpicius would have to go—Sulla tried at first to jolly Pompeius Rufus out of his megrims. When that didn’t work, he harped upon the death of young Quintus Pompeius at the hands of Sulpicius’s mob. But the harder Sulla talked, the more obstinate Pompeius Rufus became. It was vital to Sulla that no one see a rift in the concord of those in power and so busily legislating the tribal assemblies out of existence. Therefore, he decided, Pompeius Rufus would have to be removed from Rome and from the sight of those soldiers who so offended his fragile sensitivities.

One of the most fascinating changes at work within Sulla concerned this new exposure to supreme power; it was a change he recognized for what it was, and relished it, cherished it. Namely, that he was able to find more satisfaction and release from inner torment by enacting laws to ruin people than ever in the days when he had had to resort to murder. To manipulate the State into ruining Gaius Marius was infinitely more enjoyable than administering a dose of the slowest poison to Gaius Marius, better even than holding Gaius Marius’s hand while he died; this new aspect of statecraft set Sulla on a different plane, shot him up into heights so rarefied and exclusive that he could feel himself looking a long way down at the frantic gyrations of his puppets, a god upon Olympus, as free from moral as from ethical restraints.

And so he set out to dispose of Quintus Pompeius Rufus in a completely new and subtle way, a way which exercised his mental faculties and spared him a great deal of anxiety. Why run the risk of getting caught murdering when it was possible to have other people murder on your behalf?

“My dear Quintus Pompeius, you need a spell in the field,” said Sulla to his junior colleague with great earnestness and warmth. “It has not escaped me that ever since the death of our dear boy you’ve been morose, too easily upset. You’ve lost your ability to be detached, to see the enormity of the design we weave upon the loom of government. The smallest things cast you down! But I don’t think a holiday is the answer. What you need is a spell of hard work.”

The rather faded eyes rested upon Sulla’s face with a huge and genuine affection; how could he not be grateful that his term as consul had allied him to one of history’s outstanding men? Who could have guessed it in the days when their alliance had been formed? “I know you’re right, Lucius Cornelius,” he said. “Probably about everything. But it’s very hard for me to reconcile myself to what has happened. And is still happening. If you feel there is some job I can do usefully, I’d be very glad to do it.”

“There’s one extremely important thing you can do—a job only the consul can succeed in doing,” said Sulla eagerly.

“What?”

“You can relieve Pompey Strabo of his command.”

An unpleasant shiver attacked the junior consul, who now looked at Sulla apprehensively. “But I don’t think Pompey Strabo wants to lose his command any more than you did!”

“On the contrary, my dear Quintus Pompeius. I had a letter from him the other day. In it he asked if it could be arranged that he be relieved of his command. And he specifically asked that his relief be you. Fellow Picentine and all the rest of it—you know! His troops don’t like generals who aren’t Picentines,” said Sulla, watching the gladness spread over the junior consul’s face. “Your chief job will be to see to their discharge, actually. All resistance in the north is at an end, there’s no further need for an army up there, and certainly Rome can’t afford to continue paying for one.” Sulla adopted a serious mien. “This is not a sinecure I’m offering you, Quintus Pompeius. I know why Pompey Strabo wants to be replaced all of a sudden. He doesn’t want the odium of discharging his men. So let another Pompeius do it!”

“That I don’t mind, Lucius Cornelius.” Pompeius Rufus squared his shoulders. “I’d be grateful for the work.”

The Senate issued a senatus consultum the next day to the effect that Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo was to be relieved of his command and replaced by Quintus Pompeius Rufus. Whereupon Quintus Pompeius Rufus left Rome immediately, secure in the knowledge that none of the condemned fugitives had yet been apprehended; he would not be contaminated by the foulness of it after all.

“You may as well act as your own courier,” said Sulla, handing him the Senate’s order. “Just do me one favor, Quintus Pompeius—before you give Pompey Strabo the Senate’s document, give him this letter from me and ask him to read it first.”

Since Pompey Strabo at that time was in Umbria in the company of his own legions and encamped outside Ariminum, the junior consul traveled on the Via Flaminia, the great north road which crossed the watershed of the Apennines between Assisium and Cales. Though it was not yet winter, the weather at those heights was freezingly cold, so Pompeius Rufus journeyed warmly inside a closed carpentum, and with sufficient luggage to fill a mule-drawn cart. As he knew he was going to a military posting, his only escorts were his lictors and a party of his own slaves. As the Via Flaminia was one of the roads home, he had no need to avail himself of hostelries along the way. He knew all the owners of large houses en route, and stayed with them.

In Assisium his host, an old acquaintance, was obliged to apologize for the standard of accommodation he offered.

“Times have changed, Quintus Pompeius!” he sighed. “I have had to sell so much! And then—as if I didn’t already have too many troubles!—I am invaded by a plague of mice!”

Thus Quintus Pompeius Rufus went to bed in a room he remembered as being more richly furnished than it now was, and colder than of yore due to the pillaging of its window shutters by a passing army in need of firewood. For a long time he lay sleepless listening to the scurryings and squeakings, thinking of what was going on in Rome and full of fear because he couldn’t help but feel Lucius Cornelius had gone too far. Far too far. There was going to be a reckoning. Too many generations of tribunes of the plebs had strutted up and down the Forum Romanum for the Plebs to lie down under this insult Sulla was offering them. The moment the senior consul was safely abroad all his laws would tumble. And men like himself, Quintus Pompeius Rufus, would bear the blame—and the prosecutions.

His breath clouding the icy air, he got up at dawn and sought his clothes, shivering, teeth chattering. A pair of breeches to cover himself from waist to knees, a long-sleeved warm shirt he could tuck inside the breeches, two warm tunics over the top of that; and two tubes of greasy wool, nether ends sealed, to cover his feet and his legs up to the knees.

But when he picked up his socks and sat on the edge of the bed to draw them on, he discovered that during the night the mice had eaten the richly smelly nether ends of the socks completely away. Flesh crawling, he held them up to the grey light of the unshuttered window and gazed at them sightlessly, filled with horror. For he was a superstitious Picentine, he knew what this meant. Mice were the harbingers of death, and mice had eaten off his feet. He would fall. He would die. It was a prophecy.

His body servant found him another pair of socks and knelt to smooth them up over Pompeius Rufus’s legs, alarmed at the still and voiceless effigy sitting on the edge of the bed. The man understood the omen well, prayed it was untrue.

“Domine, it is nothing to worry about,” he said.

“I am going to die,” said Pompeius Rufus.

“Nonsense!” said the slave heartily, helping his master to his feet. “I’m the Greek! I know more about the gods of the Underworld than any Roman! Apollo Smintheus is a god of life and light and healing, yet mice are sacred to him! No, I think the omen means you will heal the north of its troubles.”

“It means I will die,” said Pompeius Rufus, and from that interpretation he would not be budged.

He rode into Pompey Strabo’s camp three days later more or less reconciled to his fate, and found his remote cousin living in some state in a big farmhouse.

“Well, this is a surprise!” said Pompey Strabo genially, holding out his right hand. “Come in, come in!”

“I have two letters with me,” said Pompeius Rufus, sitting in a chair and accepting the best wine he had sampled since leaving Rome. He extended the little rolls of paper. “Lucius Cornelius asked if you would read his letter first. The other is from the Senate.”

A change came over Pompey Strabo the moment the junior consul mentioned the Senate, but he said nothing, nor produced an expression which might have illuminated his feelings. He broke Sulla’s seal.

It pains me, Gnaeus Pompeius, to be obliged by the Senate to send your cousin Rufus to you under these circumstances. No one is more appreciative than I of the many, many services you have done Rome. And no one will be more appreciative than I if you can do Rome yet one more service—-one of considerable import to all our future careers.

Our mutual colleague Quintus Pompeius is a sadly shattered man. From the moment of his son’s death—my own son-in-law, and father of my two grandchildren—our poor dear friend has been suffering an alarming decline. As his presence is a grave embarrassment, it has become necessary for me to remove him. You see, he cannot find it in himself to approve of the measures I have been forced—I repeat, forced—to take in order to preserve the mos maiorum.

Now I know, Gnaeus Pompeius, that you fully approve of these measures of mine, as I have kept you properly informed and you have communicated with me regularly yourself. It is my considered opinion that the good Quintus Pompeius is in urgent and desperate need of a very long rest. It is my hope that he will find this rest with you in Umbria.

I do hope you will forgive me for my telling Quintus Pompeius about your anxiety to be rid of your command before your troops are discharged from service. It relieved his mind greatly to know that you will welcome him gladly.

Pompey Strabo laid Sulla’s piece of paper down and broke the official Senate seal. What he thought as he read did not appear on his face. Finished deciphering it—like Sulla’s note, he kept his voice too low and slurred for Pompeius Rufus to hear—he put it on his desk, looked at Pompeius Rufus, and smiled broadly.

“Well, Quintus Pompeius, yours is indeed a welcome presence!” he said. “It will be a pleasure to shed my duties.”

Expecting rage frustration, indignation, despite Sulla’s assurances, Pompeius Rufus gaped. “You mean Lucius Cornelius was right? You don’t mind? Honestly?”

“Mind? Why should I mind? I am delighted,” said Pompey Strabo. “My purse is feeling the pinch.”

“Your purse?”

“I have ten legions in the field, Quintus Pompeius, and I’m paying more than half of them myself.”

’Are you?”

“Well, Rome can’t.” Pompey Strabo got up from his desk. “It’s time the men who aren’t my own were discharged, and it’s a task I don’t want. I like to fight, not write things. Haven’t got good enough eyesight, for one. Though I did have a cadet in my service who could write superbly. Actually loved doing it! Takes all sorts, I suppose.” Pompey Strabo’s arm went round Pompeius Rufus’s shoulders. “Now come and meet my legates and my tribunes. All men who’ve served under me for a long time, so take no notice if they seem upset. I haven’t told them of my intentions.”

The astonishment and chagrin Pompey Strabo hadn’t shown was clearly written on the faces of Brutus Damasippus and Gellius Poplicola when Pompey Strabo gave them the news.

“No, no, boys, it’s excellent!” cried Pompey Strabo. “It will also do my son good to serve some other man than his father. We all get far too complacent when there are no changes in wind direction. This will freshen everybody up.”

That afternoon Pompey Strabo paraded his army and permitted the new general to inspect it.

“Only four legions here—my own men,” said Pompey Strabo as he accompanied Pompeius Rufus down the ranks. “The other six are all over the place, mostly mopping up or loafing. One in Camerinum, one in Fanum Fortunae, one in Ancona, one in Iguvium, one in Arretium, and one in Cingulum. You’ll have quite a lot of traveling to do as you discharge them. There doesn’t seem much point in bringing them all together just to give them their papers.”

“I won’t mind the traveling,” said Pompeius Rufus, who was feeling somewhat better. Perhaps his body servant was in the right of it, perhaps the omen didn’t indicate his death.

That night Pompey Strabo held a small banquet in his warm and commodious farmhouse. His very attractive young son was present, as were the other cadets, the legates Lucius Junius Brutus Damasippus and Lucius Gellius Poplicola, and four unelected military tribunes.

“Glad I’m not consul anymore and have to put up with those fellows,” said Pompey Strabo, meaning the elected tribunes of the soldiers. “Heard they refused to go to Rome with Lucius Cornelius. Typical. Stupid oafs! All got inflated ideas of their importance.”

“Do you really approve of the march on Rome?” asked Pompeius Rufus a little incredulously.

“Definitely. What else could Lucius Cornelius do?”

“Accept the decision of the People.”

“An unconstitutional spilling of the consul’s imperium? Oh, come now, Quintus Pompeius! It wasn’t Lucius Cornelius acted illegally, it was the Plebeian Assembly and that traitorous cunnus Sulpicius. And Gaius Marius. Greedy old grunt. He’s past it, but he hasn’t even got the sense left to realize that. Why should he be allowed to act unconstitutionally without anyone’s saying a word against him, while poor Lucius Cornelius stands up for the constitution and gets shit thrown at him from every direction?”

“The People never have loved Lucius Cornelius, but they most certainly don’t love him now.”

“Does that worry him?” asked Pompey Strabo.

“I don’t think so. I also think it ought to worry him.”

“Rubbish! And cheer up, cousin! You’re out of it now. When they find Marius and Sulpicius and all the rest, you won’t be blamed for their execution,” said Pompey Strabo. “Have some more wine.”