The First Man in Rome (103 page)

It was nakedly obvious that Catulus Caesar just did not know what to say, could not find the perfect rejoinder to such brutal honesty. On the other hand, he was too proud to splutter inarticulate expostulations, and too sure of his ground to make no reply at all. So in the end he said, withcold dignity, "This is untenable, Lucius Cornelius!"

Sulla nodded. "I agree, it is untenable. In fact, our whole presence here in Tridentum is untenable. Tomorrow the Cimbri are going to find the hundreds of paths along the slopes of the mountains made by cattle, sheep, horses, wolves. Not
one
Anopaea, but hundreds of Anopaeas! You are not a Spartan, Quintus Lutatius, you're a Roman, and I'm surprised your memories of Thermopylae are Spartan rather than Roman! Didn't you learn how Cato the Censor used the Anopaea footpath to outflank King Antiochus? Or did your tutor feel Cato the Censor was too lowborn to serve as an example of anything beyond hubris? It's Cato the Censor at Thermopylae
I
 admire, not Leonidas and his royal guard, dying to the last man! The Spartans were willing to die to the last man simply to delay the Persians long enough for the Greek fleet to ready itself at Artemisium. Only it didn't work, Quintus Lutatius.
It
—
didn't
—
work!
The Greek fleet perished, and Leonidas died for nothing. And did Thermopylae influence the course of the war against the Persians? Of course it didn't! When the next Greek fleet won at Salamis, there was no prelude at Thermopylae. Can you honestly say you prefer the suicidal gallantry of Leonidas to the strategic brilliance of Themistocles?"

"You mistake the situation," said Catulus Caesar stiffly, his personal pride in tatters thanks to this red-haired Ulyssean trickster; for the truth was that he cared more to extricate himself with
dignitas
and
auctoritas
unimpaired than he did about the fate of either his army or the Cimbri.

"No, Quintus Lutatius,
you
mistake the situation," said Sulla. "Your army is now my army by right of mutiny. When Gaius Marius sent me here"—he dropped the name with dulcet clarity into the pool of silence—"I came with only one order. Namely, to make sure this army survives intact until Gaius Marius can take it into his personal care— and he cannot do that until he has defeated the Teutones. Gaius Marius is our commander-in-chief, Quintus Lutatius, and I am acting under his orders at this very moment. When his orders conflict with yours, I obey his orders, not yours. If I permit this foolhardy escapade to continue, this army will lie dead on the field of Tridentum. Well, there is not going to be a field of Tridentum. This army is going to retreat tonight. In one piece. And live to fight another day, when the chances of victory are infinitely better."

"I vowed no German foot would tread on Italian soil," said Catulus Caesar, "and I will not be forsworn."

"The decision isn't your to make, Quintus Lutatius, so you are not forsworn," said Sulla.

Quintus Lutatius Catulus Caesar was one of those old-guard senators who refused to wear a golden ring as an insignia of his senatorship; instead, he wore the ancient iron ring all senators had once worn, so when he moved his right hand imperiously at the ogling men filling the room, his index finger didn't flash a yellow beam—it wrote a dull grey blur upon the air. Utterly still until they saw that grey blur, the men now stirred, moved, sighed.

"Leave us, all of you," said Catulus Caesar. "Wait outside. I wish to speak alone with Lucius Cornelius."

The centurions turned and filed out, the tribunes of the soldiers followed, and Catulus Caesar's personal staff, and his senior legates. When only Catulus Caesar and Sulla remained, Catulus Caesar returned to his chair and sat down heavily.

He was caught in a cleft stick, and he knew it. Pride had led him up the Athesis; not pride in Rome or in his army, but that pride of person which had prompted him to announce no German foot should tread Italian soil—and then prevented his recanting, even for the sake of Rome or for his army. The further he had penetrated up the valley, the stronger his feeling became that he had blundered; and yet pride of person would not allow him to admit the blunder. Higher and higher up the river Athesis, lower and lower his spirits. So when he came to Tridentum and thought how like Thermopylae it was—though of course in strictly geographic terms it was not like Thermopylae at all—he conceived a
worthy
death for all concerned, and thereby salvaged his honor, that fatal personal pride. Just as Thermopylae rang down the ages, so too would Tridentum. The fall of the gallant few confronted with the overwhelming many.
Stranger, go tell the Romans that here we lie in obedience to their command!
With a magnificent monument, and pilgrimages, and immortal epic poems.

The sight of the Cimbri spilling into the northern end of the valley brought him to his senses, then Sulla completed the process. For of course he did have eyes, and there
was
a brain behind them, even if it was a brain too easily clouded by the vastness of his own
dignitas;
the eyes had taken note of the many terraces making giant steps out of the steep green slopes above, and the brain had understood how quickly the Cimbric warriors could outflank them. This was no gorge with cliffs; it was simply a narrow alpine valley unsuitable for deploying an army because its pastures sloped upward at an angle quite impossible for troops to take in rank and file, let alone wheel and turn in proper maneuvers.

What he hadn't been able to see was how to extricate himself from his dilemma without losing face, and at first Sulla's invasion of his pre-battle conference had seemed the perfect answer; he could blame it on a mutiny, and thunder in the House, and arrange for the treason trials of every officer involved, from Sulla down to the least centurion. But that solution hadn't lasted more than a very few moments. Mutiny was the most serious crime in the military manual, but a mutiny which saw him standing alone against every other officer in his entire army (he had quickly seen from their faces that none of the men who had been closeted with him when Sulla walked in would refuse to join the mutiny) smacked a great deal more of common sense overcoming monumental stupidity. If there had never been an Arausio—if Caepio and Mallius Maximus had not forever besmirched the concept of the Roman general's imperium in the eyes of the Roman People—and even some factions within the Senate—then it might have been different. As it was, he understood very quickly after Sulla's appearance that were he to continue to insist a mutiny had taken place, it was he himself who would suffer in the eyes of the Roman world, he himself who might well end in being arraigned in the special treason court set up by Saturninus.

Consequently, Quintus Lutatius Catulus Caesar drew a deep breath and embarked upon conciliation. "Let me hear no more talk of mutiny, Lucius Cornelius," he said. "There was no need for you to make your feeling so public. You should have come to see me privately. Had you only done so, matters could have been sorted out between the two of us alone."

"I disagree, Quintus Lutatius," said Sulla smoothly. "If I had come to you privately, you'd have sent me about my business. You needed an object lesson."

Catulus Caesar's lips tightened; he looked down his long Roman nose, a handsome member of a handsome clan, fair of hair and blue of eye, his hauteur armed for battle. "You've been with Gaius Marius far too long, you know," he said. "This sort of conduct doesn't accord with your patrician status."

Sulla slapped his hand against his leather skirt of straps so loudly its fringes and metal ornaments clattered. "Oh, for the sake of all the gods, let's forget this family claptrap, Quintus Lutatius! I'm fed up to vomit-point with exclusivity! And before you start ranting on about our mutual superior, Gaius Marius, let me remind you that when it comes to soldiering
and
generaling, he outshines us the way the Alexandrian lighthouse dims a single piddling candle! You're not a natural military man any more than I am! But where I have the advantage of you is that I learned my craft in apprenticeship to the lighthouse of Alexandria, so my candle burns brighter than yours!"

"That man is overrated!" said Catulus Caesar between his clenched teeth.

"Oh no, he's not! Bleat and bellow about it as hard as you like, Quintus Lutatius, Gaius Marius is the First Man in Rome! The man from Arpinum took on the lot of you single-handed, and beat you hollow."

"I'm surprised you're such an adherent—but I promise you, Lucius Cornelius, that I won't ever forget it."

"I'll bet you won't," said Sulla grimly.

"I do advise you, Lucius Cornelius, to change your loyalties somewhat in years to come," Catulus Caesar said. "If you don't, you'll never become praetor, let alone consul!"

"Oh, I do like naked threats!" said Sulla conversationally. "Who are you trying to fool? I have the birth, and if the time should come when it's to your advantage to woo me, woo me you will!" He looked at Catulus Caesar slyly. "One day, you know, I'll be the First Man in Rome. The tallest tree in the world, just like Gaius Marius. And the thing about trees so tall is that no one can chop them down.  When they fall, they fall because they rot from within."

Catulus Caesar did not answer, so Sulla flung himself into a chair and leaned forward to pour himself wine.

"Now about our mutiny, Quintus Lutatius. Disabuse yourself of any belief you might be cherishing that I don't have the gumption to follow this through to its bitterest end."

"I admit I don't know you at all, Lucius Cornelius, but I've got sufficient measure of your steel these last couple of months to understand there's very little you're unwilling to do to get your own way,'' said Catulus Caesar. He looked down at his old iron senator's ring as if he could draw inspiration from it. "I said before, and I say it again now, let there be no more talk of mutiny.'' He swallowed audibly. "I shall abide by the army's decision to retreat. On one condition. That the word 'mutiny' is never mentioned to anyone ever again."

"On behalf of the army, I agree," said Sulla.

"I would like to order the retreat personally. After that— I presume your strategy is already worked out?"

"It's absolutely necessary that you order the retreat personally, Quintus Lutatius. Including to the men waiting outside for us to emerge," said Sulla. "And yes, I do have a strategy worked out. A very simple strategy. At dawn the army will pull up stakes and move out as quickly as it possibly can. Everyone must be over the bridge and south of Tridentum before tomorrow's nightfall. The Samnite auxiliaries are lying closest to the bridge, therefore they can guard it until everyone else is over, then cross it themselves in last place. I need the entire corps of engineers immediately, because the moment the last Samnite is over the bridge, it must come down. The pity of it is that it's built on stone piers we won't have the opportunity to dismantle, so the Germans will be able to rebuild the bridge. However, they're not engineers, and that means the job will take them far longer than it would us, and their structure may fall apart a few times as Boiorix brings his people across. If he wants to go south, he has to cross the river here at Tridentum. So we must slow him down."

Catulus Caesar rose to his feet. "Then let's get this farce over and done with." He walked outside and stood calmly, completely in control of his outer self; the repairing of
dignitas
and
auctoritas
was already beginning. "Our position here is untenable, so I am ordering a full retreat," he said, crisply and clearly. "I have given Lucius Cornelius full instructions as to how to proceed, so you will take your orders from him. However, I wish to make it plain that the word 'mutiny' has never been spoken. Is that understood?"

The officers murmured assent, profoundly glad that the word "mutiny" could be forgotten.

Catulus Caesar turned to go back inside. "You are dismissed," he said over his shoulder.

As the group scattered, Gnaeus Petreius fell in beside Sulla, and walked with him toward the bridge. "That went pretty well, I consider, Lucius Cornelius. He did better than I thought he would. Better than others of his kind, I swear.''

"Oh, he has a brain behind all that grand manner," said Sulla easily. "But he's right, 'mutiny' is a word never spoken."

"You won't hear it from my lips!" said Petreius fervently.

It was fully dark, but the bridge was lit by torches, so they crossed its chinked logs without difficulty. At its far end Sulla ran ahead of the centurions and tribunes following him and Petreius, and turned round to face them.

"All troops ready to roll at the first sign of light," he said. "Corps of engineers and all centurions are to report to me here one hour before first light. Tribunes of the soldiers, come with me now."

"Oh, I'm glad we've got him!" said Gnaeus Petreius to his second centurion.

"So am I, but I'm not a bit glad we've got
him,"
said the second centurion, pointing in the direction of Marcus Aemilius Scaurus Junior, hurrying after Sulla and his fellow tribunes.

Petreius grunted. "I agree, he is a bit of a worry. Still, I'll keep an eye on him tomorrow. 'Mutiny' may be a word none of us has heard, but our men of Samnium aren't going to be misled by a Roman idiot, no matter who his father is."

*    *    *

At dawn the legions began to move out. The retreat began—as all maneuvers did among well-trained Roman troops—with remarkable silence and no confusion whatsoever. The legion farthest from the bridge crossed it first, then was followed by the legion next farthest from the bridge, so that the army in effect rolled itself up like a carpet. Luckily the baggage train and all the beasts of burden save a handful of horses reserved for the use of the most senior officers had been kept to the south of the village and the bridge; Sulla got these started down the road at first light well ahead of the legions, and had issued orders that half of the army would bypass the baggage train when it caught up, while the other half followed it all the way down to Verona. For if they got clear of Tridentum, Sulla knew the Cimbri wouldn't move fast enough to see their dust.