The First Man in Rome (53 page)

"It's an army of
cunni
all right," said Marius gravely.

"It so happens," drawled Aulus Manlius in his extremely upper-class accent, "that I can help you, Publius Vagiennius. I have a client from Tarquinia—Etruria, you know— who has been getting together a very exclusive and lucrative little business in the Cuppedenis markets—Rome, you know—selling snails. His name is Marcus Fulvius—not a noble Fulvius, you know—and I advanced him a little money to get himself started a couple of years ago. He's doing well. But I imagine he'd be very happy to come to some sort of agreement with you, looking at this magnificent—truly magnificent, Publius Vagiennius!—snail."

"You got a deal, Aulus Manlius," said the trooper.

"Now
will you show us the way up the mountain?" demanded Sulla, still impatient.

"In a moment, in a moment," said Vagiennius, turned to where Marius was lacing on his boots. "First I want to hear the general say my snail patch will be safe."

Marius finished with his boots and straightened up to look Publius Vagiennius in the eye. "Publius Vagiennius," he said, "you are a man after my own heart! You combine a sound business head with a staunchly patriotic spirit. Fear not, you have my word your snail patch will be kept safe. Now lead us to the mountain, if you please."

When the investigative party set out shortly thereafter, it had been augmented by the chief of engineers. They rode to save time, Vagiennius on his better horse, Gaius Marius on the elderly but elegant steed he saved mostly for parades, Sulla adhering to his preference for a mule, and Aulus Manlius and Quintus Sertorius and the engineer on ponies out of the general compound.

The fumarole represented no difficulties to the engineer. "Easy," he said, gazing up the chimney. "I'll build a nice wide staircase all the way up, there's room."

"How long will it take you?" asked Marius.

"I just happen to have a few cartloads of planks and small beams with me, so—oh, two days, if I work day and night," said the engineer.

"Then get to it at once," said Marius, gazing at Vagiennius with renewed respect. "You must be three parts goat to be able to climb up this," he said.

"Mountain born, mountain bred," said Vagiennius smugly.

"Well, your snail patch will be safe until the staircase is done," Marius said as he led the way back to the horses. "Once your snails come under threat, I'll deal with it myself."

Five days later the Muluchath citadel belonged to Gaius Marius, together with a fabulous hoard of silver coins, silver bars, and a thousand talents in gold; there were also two small chests, one stuffed with the finest, reddest
carbunculus
stones anyone had ever seen, and the other stuffed with stones no one had ever seen, long naturally faceted crystals carefully polished to reveal that they were deep pink at one end, shading through to dark green at the other.

"A fortune!" said Sulla, holding up one of the particolored stones the locals called
lychnites.

"Indeed, indeed!" gloated Marius.

As for Publius Vagiennius, he was decorated at a full assembly of the army, receiving a complete set of nine solid-silver
phalerae,
these being big round medallions sculpted in high relief and joined together in three rows of three by chased, silver-inlaid straps so that they could be worn on the chest over the top of the cuirass or mail shirt. He quite liked this distinction, but he was far better pleased by the fact that Marius had honored his word, and protected the snail patch from predators by fencing off a route for the soldiers to take to the top of the mountain. This passageway Marius had then screened with hides, so that the soldiers never knew what succulent goodies cruised rheumily through the cave of ferns. And when the mountain was taken, Marius ordered the staircase demolished immediately. Not only that, but Aulus Manlius had written off to his client the ignoble Marcus Fulvius, setting a partnership in train for when the African campaign was over, and Publius Vagiennius had his discharge.

"Mind you, Publius Vagiennius," said Marius as he strapped on the nine silver
phalerae,
"the four of us expect a proper reward in years to come—free snails for our tables, with an extra share for Aulus Manlius."

"It's a deal," said Publius Vagiennius, who had discovered to his sorrow that his liking for snails had permanently gone since his illness. However, he now regarded snails with the jealous eye of a preserver rather than a destroyer.

By the end of Sextilis the army was on its way back from the borderlands, eating very well off the land because the harvest was in. The visit to the edge of King Bocchus's realm had had the desired effect; convinced that once he had Numidia conquered, Marius was not going to stop, Bocchus decided to throw in his lot with his son-in-law, Jugurtha. He therefore hustled his Moorish army to the Muluchath River and there met Jugurtha, who waited until Marius was gone, then reoccupied his denuded mountain citadel.

The two kings followed in the wake of the Romans as they headed east, not in any hurry to attack, and keeping far enough back to remain undetected. And then when Marius was within a hundred miles of Cirta, the kings struck.

It was just on dusk, and the Roman army was busy pitching camp. Even so, the attack did not catch the men completely off-guard, for Marius pitched camp with scrupulous attention to safety. The surveyors came in and computed the four corners, which were staked out, then the whole army moved with meticulous precision into the future camp's interior, knowing by rote exactly where each legion was to go, each cohort of each legion, each century of each cohort. No one tripped over anyone else; no one went to the wrong place; no one erred as to the amount of ground he was to occupy. The baggage mule train was brought inside too, the noncombatants of each century took charge of each octet's mules and the century's cart, and the train attendants saw to stabling of the animals and storage of the carts. Armed with digging tools and palisade stakes from their backpacks, the soldiers, still completely armed, went to the sections of boundary always designated to them. They worked in their mail shirts and girt with swords and daggers; their spears were planted firmly in the ground and their shields propped against them, after which their helmets were hooked by their chin straps around the spears and over the fronts of the shields so that a wind could not blow the erections over. In that way, every man's helmet, shield, and spear were within reach while the laboring went on.

The scouts did not find the Enemy, but came in reporting all clear, then went to do their share of pitching camp. The sun had set. And in the brief lustrous dimness before darkness fell, the Numidian and Mauretanian armies spilled out from behind a nearby ridge and descended upon the half-finished camp.

All the fighting took place during darkness, a desperate business which went against the Romans for some hours. But Quintus Sertorius got the noncombatants kindling torches until finally the field was lit up enough for Marius to see what was happening, and from that point on, things began to improve for the Romans. Sulla distinguished himself mightily, rallying those troops who began to flag or panic, appearing everywhere he was needed—as if by magic, but in reality because he had that inbuilt military eye which could discern where the next weak spot was going to develop before it actually did. Sword blooded, blood up, he took to battle like a veteran—brave in attack, careful in defense, brilliant in difficulties.

And by the eighth hour of darkness, victory went to the Romans. The Numidian and Mauretanian armies drew off in fairly good order, yet left several thousands of their soldiers behind on the field, where Marius had lost surprisingly few.

In the morning the Roman army moved on, Marius having decided rest for his men was out of the question. The dead were properly cremated, and the Enemy dead were left for the vultures. This time the legions marched in square, with the cavalry disposed at front and at back of the compressed column, and the mules as well as the baggage mule train right in the middle. If a second attack occurred on the march, all the soldiers had to do was face outward in each square, while the cavalry was already placed to form wings. Each man now wore his helmet on his head, its colored horse's-tail plume fixed to its top; he carried his shield uncovered by its protective hide, and he also carried both his spears.

Not until Cirta was reached would vigilance be relaxed.

On the fourth day, with Cirta the coming night's destination, the kings struck again. This time Marius was ready. The legions formed into squares, each square formed part of a vaster square with the baggage in its middle, and then each small square dissolved into rank and file to double its thickness facing the Enemy. As always, Jugurtha counted upon his many thousands of Numidian horse to unsettle the Roman front; superb riders, they used neither saddle nor bridle, and wore no armor, relying for their punch and power upon fleetness, bravery and their deadly accuracy with javelin and long-sword. But neither his cavalry nor Bocchus's could break through into the center of the Roman square, and their infantry forces broke against a solid wall of legionaries undismayed by horse or foot.

Sulla fought in the front line with the leading cohort of the leading legion, for Marius was in control of tactics and the element of surprise was negligible; when Jugurtha's infantry lines finally broke, it was Sulla who led the charge against them, Sertorius not far behind.

Sheer desperation to be rid of Rome for once and for all kept Jugurtha in the battle too long. When he did decide to withdraw, it was already too late to do so, and he had no choice but to struggle on against a Roman force sensing victory. So the Roman victory when it came was complete, rounded, whole. The Numidian and Mauretanian armies were destroyed, most of their men dead on the field. Jugurtha and Bocchus got away.

Marius rode into Cirta at the head of an exhausted column, every man in it jubilant; there would be no more war on a grand scale in Africa—the least soldier knew it. This time Marius quartered his army within Cirta's walls, unwilling to risk exposure outside. His troops were billeted upon hapless Numidian civilians, and hapless Numidian civilians made up the work parties he sent out the next day to clean up the field of battle, burn the mountains of African dead, and bring in the far fewer Roman dead for the proper obsequies.

Quintus Sertorius found himself placed in charge of all the decorations which Marius intended to award at a special assembly of the army following the cremation of the fallen; he was also placed in charge of organizing the ceremony. As it was the first such ceremony he had ever attended, he had no idea how to go about his task, but he was intelligent and resourceful. So he found a veteran
primus pilus
centurion, and asked him.

"Now what you got to do, young Sertorius," said this old stager, "is get all of Gaius Marius's own decorations out, and display them on the general's dais so the men can see what sort of soldier he was. These are good boys of ours, Head Count or not, but they don't know nothing about the military life, and they don't come from families with a military tradition. So how do they know what sort of soldier Gaius Marius was? I do! That's because I been with Gaius Marius in every campaign he fought since—oh, Numantia."

"But I don't think he has his decorations with him," said Sertorius, dismayed.

"Course he has, young Sertorius!" said the veteran of a hundred battles and skirmishes. "They're his luck."

Sure enough, when applied to, Gaius Marius admitted that he did have his decorations along on the campaign. Looking a little embarrassed, until Sertorius told him of the centurion's remark about luck.

All of Cirta turned out to ogle, for it was an impressive ceremony, the army in full parade regalia, each legion's silver eagle wreathed with the laurels of victory, each maniple's standard of a silver hand wreathed with the laurels of victory, each century's cloth
vexillum
banner wreathed with the laurels of victory. Every man wore his decorations, but since this was a new army of new men, only a few of the centurions and a half-dozen soldiers sported armbands, neck rings, medallions. Of course Publius Vagiennius wore his set of silver
phalerae.

Ah, but Gaius Marius himself reigned supreme! So thought the dazzled Quintus Sertorius, standing waiting to be awarded his Gold Crown for a single combat upon the field; Sulla too was waiting to be awarded a Gold Crown.

There they were, ranged behind him on the high dais, Gaius Marius's decorations. Six silver spears for killing a man in single combat on six different occasions; a scarlet
vexillum
banner embroidered in gold and finished with a fringe of gold bullion for killing several men in single combat on the same occasion; two silver-encrusted shields of the old oval pattern for holding hotly contested ground against odds. Then there were the decorations he wore. His cuirass was of hardened leather rather than the normal silver-plated bronze of a senior officer, for over it he wore all his
phalerae
on their gold-encrusted harnesses—no less than three full sets of nine in gold, two on the front of the cuirass, one on the back; six gold and four silver torcs depended from little straps across shoulders and neck; his arms and wrists glittered with gold and silver
armillae
bracelets. Then there were his crowns. On his head he wore one
Corona Civica,
which was the crown of oak leaves awarded only to a man who had saved the lives of his fellows and held the ground on which he had done the deed for the rest of the battle. Two more oak-leaf crowns hung from two of the silver spears, indicating that he had won the
Corona Civica
no fewer than three times; on two more of the silver spears hung two Gold Crowns for conspicuous bravery, crowns made of gold hammered into the shape of laurel leaves; on the fifth spear hung a
Corona Muralis,
a gold crown with a crenellated battlement awarded for being the first man to scale the walls of an enemy town; and on the sixth spear hung a
Corona Vallaris,
a gold crown awarded for being the first man into an enemy camp.