2. The Grass Crown Read online

I have been ill, Lucius Cornelius, but am now fully recovered. The doctors called my malady all manner of abstruse things, but my own private diagnosis was boredom. However, I have thrown off both malady and ennui, for things in Rome are more promising. First off, your candidacy for praetor is already being bruited about. Reactions among the electors are excellent, you will be pleased to know. Scaurus continues to be supportive of you a circumscribed way of saying he did not find you at fault in that old matter of his wife, I imagine. Stiff-necked old fool! He should have been big enough to have admitted it openly at the time instead of virtually forcing you into what I always think of as an exile. But at least Spain has done the trick! Had Gaius Marius only obtained the kind of support from Piggle-wiggle that you are receiving from Titus Didius, his task would have been both easier and more direct. Now to the international news. Old Nicomedes of Bithynia has died at last, aged, we believe, somewhere in the vicinity of ninety-three. His long-dead Queen's son now no chicken himself at sixty-five has succeeded to the throne. But a younger son aged fifty-seven by name of Socrates (the elder's name is Nicomedes, and he will rule as the third of that name), has lodged a complaint with the Senate in Rome demanding that Nicomedes the Third be deposed, and himself elevated. The Senate is deliberating the matter with extreme turgidity, deeming foreign affairs unimportant. There has also been a little bit of a stir in Cappadocia, where the Cappadocians apparently have haled their boy-king off his throne and replaced him with a fellow whom they call the ninth Ariarathes. But the ninth Ariarathes died recently in suspicious circumstances, so we are told; the boy-king and his regent, Gordius, are back in control not without some aid from Mithridates of Pontus and a Pontic army. When Gaius Marius came back from that part of the world he made a speech to the House warning us that King Mithridates of Pontus is a dangerous young man, but those who bothered to turn up to that particular meeting contented themselves with dozing all the way through Gaius Marius's statement, and then Scaurus Princeps Senatus got up and said he thought Gaius Marius was exaggerating. It appears that the young King of Pontus has been wooing Scaurus with a spate of terrifically polite letters written in immaculate Greek and absolutely larded with quotations from Homer, Hesiod, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides not to mention Menander and Pindar. Therefore Scaurus has concluded he must be a nice change from your average oriental potentate, keener on reading the Classics than on driving a spike up through his grandmother's posterior fundamental orifice. Whereas Gaius Marius contends that this sixth Mithridates called Eupator, of all things! starved his mother to death, killed the brother who was King under the mother's regency, killed several of his uncles and cousins, and then finished things off by poisoning the sister to whom he was married! A nice sort of fellow, you perceive, very up on the Classics! Politically Rome is saturated with lotus-eaters, for I swear nothing happens. On the court front things have been more interesting. For the second year in a row the Senate sent out its special courts to enquire into the illegal mass enrollment of Italian nationals, and as was the case last year found it impossible to trace most of the men who had put down their names. However, there have been several hundred victories, which means several hundred poor bleeding wretches have been entered against Rome's debit account. I tell you, Lucius Cornelius, one gets a chill on the back of the neck if one is stranded without a dozen stout fellows at one's back in any Italian locality! Never have I encountered such looks, such I suppose the word is passive lack of co-operation from the Italians. It is probably many years since they loved us at all, but since these courts were established and began their dirty work of flogging and dispossessing, the Italians have learned to hate us. The one cheering factor is that the Treasury is starting to bleat because the fines levied haven't even begun to cover the cost of sending ten lots of expensive senators out of Rome. Gaius Marius and I intend to move a motion in the House toward the end of the year, to the effect that the quaestiones of the lex Licinia Mucia be abandoned as futile and far too costly to the State. A very new and very young sprig of the plebeian house Sulpicius, one Publius Sulpicius Rufus, actually had the gall to prosecute Gaius Norbanus in the treason court for unlawfully driving Quintus Servilius Caepio of aurum Tolosanum and Arausio fame into exile. The charge, alleged Sulpicius, was inadmissible in the Plebeian Assembly; it should have been tried in the treason court. This young Sulpicius, I add, is a constant companion of the present Caepio's, which shows extremely poor taste on his part. Anyway, Antonius Orator acted for the defense and made, I personally think, the finest speech of his entire career. With the result that the jury voted solidly for absolution and Norbanus thumbed his nose at Sulpicius and Caepio. I enclose a copy of Antonius Orator's speech for your delectation. You will enjoy it. Concerning the other Orator, Lucius Licinius Crassus, the husbands of his two daughters have fared oppositely in the nursery. Scipio Nasica's son, Scipio Nasica, now has a son, called Scipio Nasica. His Licinia is breeding superbly, as there is already a daughter. But the Licinia who married Metellus Pius the Piglet has had no luck at all. The Piglet nursery is full of echoes because Licinia Piglet is not full. And my niece Livia Drusa had a girl toward the end of last year a Porcia, of course, and boasting a head of hair that would set six haystacks on fire. Livia Drusa continues to be besotted by Cato Salonianus, whom I find a really pleasant sort of fellow, actually. Now in Livia Drusa, Rome really has a breeder! I wander about, but what does it matter? Our aediles this year are curiously linked. My nephew Marcus Livius is one of the plebeian aediles, his colleague a fabulously rich nonentity named Remmius, whereas his brother-in-law Cato Salonianus is a curule aedile. Their games will be splendid. Family news. Poor Aurelia is still living alone in the Subura, but we hope to see Gaius Julius home at last next year or the year after, at the latest. His brother Sextus is a praetor this year, and it will soon be Gaius Julius's turn. Of course Gaius Marius will honor his promise, bribe heavily if he has to. Aurelia and Gaius Julius have the most remarkable son. Young Caesar, as they call him, is now five years old, and can already read and write. What is more, he reads immediately! Give him a piece of gibberish you wrote down yourself not moments before and he rattles it off without pausing for breath! I have never known a grown man who could do that yet there he stands, all of five years old, making fools of the best of us. A stunning-looking child too. But not spoiled. Aurelia is too hard on him, I think. I can think of nothing else, Lucius Cornelius. Make sure you hurry home. I know in my bones that there is a praetor's curule chair waiting for you.

  Lucius Cornelius Sulla hurried home as bidden, half of him alight with hope, the other half convinced something would happen to mar his chances. Though he longed with every cord that tied his heart to visit his lover of many years, Metrobius, he did not, nor was he at home to Metrobius when that star of the tragic theater came as a client to call. This was his year. If he failed, the goddess Fortune had turned her face away forever, so he would do nothing to annoy that lady; she was especially prone to dislike it when her favorites engaged in love affairs which mattered too much. Goodbye, Metrobius. He did, however, call upon Aurelia as soon as he had spent a little time with his children, who had grown up so much that he wanted to weep; four years of their little lives stolen from him by a foolish girl he still hankered after! Cornelia Sulla was thirteen years old, and had enough of her dead mother's fragile beauty to turn heads already, allied as it was to Sulla's richly waving red-gold hair. She was regularly menstruating, so Aelia said, and the budding breasts beneath her plain gown confirmed. The sight of her made Sulla feel old, a sensation entirely new and most unwelcome; but then she gave him Julilla's bewitching smile and ran into his arms and stood almost on his level to cover his face with kisses. His son was twelve, an almost pure Caesar in physical type golden hair and blue eyes, long face, long bumpy nose, tall and slender yet well muscled. And in the boy Sulla found at last the friend he had never owned; a love so perfect, pure, innocent, heart-whole, that he found himself thinking of nothing and no one else when he should have been concentra
ting upon charming the electors. Young Sulla though still in the purple-bordered toga of childhood and wearing the magical talisman of the bulla around his neck on a chain to ward off the Evil Eye accompanied his father everywhere, standing gravely off to one side and listening intently to whatever was said between Sulla and his acquaintances. Then when they went home they sat together in Sulla's study and talked about the day, the people, the mood in the Forum. But Sulla did not take his son with him to the Subura; he walked alone, surprised when every now and then someone in the crowd greeted him, or clapped him on the shoulder; at last he was beginning to be known! Taking these encounters as a good omen, he knocked on Aurelia's door with greater optimism than he had experienced as he left the Palatine. And, sure enough, Eutychus the steward admitted him immediately. Possessing no sense of shame, he felt at no disadvantage as he waited in the reception room; when he saw her emerge from her workroom he simply held out his hand with a smile. A smile she returned. How little she had changed. How much she had changed. What was her age now? Twenty-nine? Thirty? Helen of Troy, yield up your laurels, he thought; here is beauty personified. The purple eyes were larger, their black lashes as dense, the skin as thick and creamy as ever, that indefinable air of immense dignity and composure more marked. "Am I forgiven?" he asked, taking her hand and squeezing it. "Of course you are, Lucius Cornelius! How could I continue to blame you for a weakness in myself?" "Shall I try again?" he asked irrepressibly. "No, thank you," she said, taking a seat. "Some wine?" "Please." He looked around. "Still alone, Aurelia?" "Still alone. And perfectly happy, I do assure you." "You are the most self-sufficient person I have ever met. If it hadn't been for that one little episode, I'd be tempted to think you inhuman or superhuman! so I'm glad it happened. One could not maintain a friendship with a genuine goddess, could one?" "Or a genuine demon, Lucius Cornelius,'' she countered. He laughed. "All right, I yield!" The wine came, was poured. Sipping at his cup, he looked at her across its brim, her face rayed by the fizzing little purple bubbles the slightly effervescent wine gave off. Perhaps it was the peace and contentment of his new friendship with his son allowed his eyes an extra measure of vision, pierced the lucent windows of her mind and dived into the depths beyond, there to discover layer upon layer of complexities, contingencies, conundrums, all logically put away in carefully sorted categories. "Oh!" he said, blinking, "There isn't a facade to you at all! You are exactly what you seem to be." "I hope so," she said, smiling. "We mostly aren't, Aurelia." "Certainly you aren't." "So what do you think exists behind my facade?" But she shook her head emphatically. "Whatever I think, Lucius Cornelius, I shall keep to myself. Something tells me it is safer.'' "Safer?" She shrugged. "Why that word? I don't honestly know. A premonition? Or something from long ago, more likely. I don't have premonitions, I'm not giddy enough." “How are your children?'' he asked, changing the subject to something safer. "Would you like to see for yourself?" "Why not? My own have surprised me, that much I can tell you. I confess I shall find it hard to be civil to Marcus Aemilius Scaurus. Four years, Aurelia! They're almost grown up, and I was not here to see it happen." "Few Roman men of our class are, Lucius Cornelius," she said placidly. "In all likelihood you would have gone away even had that business with Dalmatica never happened. Just enjoy your children while you can; and don't think harshly of what cannot now be altered." The fine fair brows he darkened artificially lifted quizzically. "There is so much about my life that I would change! That's the trouble, Aurelia. So much I regret." "Regret it if you must, but don't let it color today or tomorrow," she said, not mystically, but practically. "If you do, Lucius Cornelius, the past will haunt you forever. And as I have told you several times before you still have a long course to run. The race has hardly commenced.'' "You feel that?" "Completely." And in trooped her three children, Caesars all. Julia Major called Lia was ten years old and Julia Minor called Ju-ju was almost eight. Both girls were tall, slender, graceful; they looked like Sulla's dead Julilla, save that their eyes were blue. Young Caesar was six. Quite how he contrived to give the impression that his beauty was greater than that of his sisters, Sulla didn't know, only felt it. A totally Roman beauty, of course; the Caesars were totally Roman. This was the boy, he remembered, who Publius Rutilius Rufus had said could read at a glance. That indicated an extraordinary degree of intelligence. But many things might happen to Young Caesar to damp down the fires of his mind. "Children, this is Lucius Cornelius Sulla," said Aurelia. The girls murmured shy greetings, whereas Young Caesar turned on a smile which caught at Sulla's breath, stirred him in a way he hadn't felt since his first meeting with Metrobius. The eyes looking directly at him were very like his own palest blue surrounded by a dark ring. They blazed intelligence. Here am I as I might have been had I known a mother like the wonderful Aurelia and never known a drunkard like my father, thought Sulla. A face to set Athens on fire, and a mind too. "They tell me, boy," said Sulla, "that you're very clever.'' The smile became a laugh. "Then you haven't been talking to Marcus Antonius Gnipho," Young Caesar said. "Who's he?" "My tutor, Lucius Cornelius." "Can't your mother teach you for two or three more years?" "I think I must have driven her mad with my questions when I was a little boy. So she got a tutor for me." "Little boy? You're still that." "Littler," said Young Caesar, not at all daunted. "Precocious," said Sulla dismissively. "Not that word, please!" "Why not, Young Caesar? What do you know, at six, about the nuances in a word?" "About that one, enough to know that it's almost always applied to haughty little girls who sound exactly like their grandmothers," said Young Caesar sturdily. "Ahah!" said Sulla, looking more interested. "That's not got out of a book, is it? So you have eyes which feed your clever mind with information, and from it you make deductions." "Naturally," said Young Caesar, surprised. "Enough. Go away now, all of you," said Aurelia. The children went, Young Caesar smiling at Sulla over his shoulder until he caught his mother's eye. "If he doesn't burn out, he'll either be an adornment to his class or a thorn in its paw," said Sulla. "Hopefully an adornment," said Aurelia. "I wonder?" And Sulla laughed. "You're standing for praetor," said Aurelia, changing the subject, sure Sulla had had enough of children.. "Yes." "Uncle Publius says you'll get in." "Let us hope he's more like Teiresias than Cassandra, then!" He was like Teiresias; when the votes were counted, not only was Sulla a praetor, but as he was returned at the top of the poll he was also praetor urbanus. Though under normal circumstances the urban praetor's duties were almost entirely involved with the courts and with those petitioning for litigation, he was empowered (if both the consuls were absent or unfit to govern) to act in loco consularis to defend Rome and command its armies in case of attack, to promulgate laws, to direct the Treasury. The news that he was to be urban praetor dismayed Sulla greatly. The urban praetor could not be away from Rome for more than ten days at a time; the office denied Sulla a bolt-hole, he was forced to remain inside Rome among all the temptations of his old life and in the same house as a woman he despised. However, he now had a form of support never before so much as imagined, in the person of his son. Young Sulla would be his friend, Young Sulla would be in attendance on him in the Forum, Young Sulla would be at home each evening to talk to, to laugh with. How like his first cousin Young Caesar he was! To look at, anyway. And the lad had a good mind, even if not in Young Caesar's class. Sulla had a strong feeling that he wouldn't have liked his son nearly as much were he as clever as Young Caesar. The elections had produced a bigger shock than Sulla's topping the praetors' poll, a shock not without its amusing side for those not directly affected. Lucius Marcius Philippus had announced his candidacy for consul, convinced he was the jewel in an uninspiring field. But first place went to the younger brother of the censor Lucius Valerius Flaccus, one Gaius Valerius Flaccus. That was all right, perhaps; at least a Valerius Flaccus was a patrician, his family influential! But the junior consul was none other than that ghastly New Man, Marcus Herennius! Philippus's howls of outrage could be heard in Carseoli, vowed the Forum frequenters, chuckling. Everyone knew where the f
ault lay, including Philippus in those remarks of Publius Rutilius Rufus during his speech advocating a kinder lex Licinia Mucia. Until then, the world had forgotten how Gaius Marius had bought Philippus after he had been elected a tribune of the plebs. But insufficient time had elapsed between that speech and Philippus's consular candidacy for people to forget all over again. "I'll get Rutilius Rufus for this!" vowed Philippus to Caepio. "We'll both get him," said Caepio, also smarting.

  5

  Scant days before the end of that year Livia Drusa gave birth to a boy, Marcus Porcius Cato Salonianus Junior a skinny, screeching baby with the Catonian red hair, a long neck, and a nose which sat in the middle of his homely newborn face like a huge hooked beak, utterly inappropriate. He had presented as a footling breech and refused to co-operate, with the result that his emergence into the world was arduously long, his mother both cut and torn by the time the midwives and doctors extricated him from the birth canal. "But, domina," said Apollodorus Siculus, "he is quite without harm no bruises, no swellings, no blueness." A slight smile crossed the little Greek physician's face. "If his behavior at birth is anything to go by, domina, be warned! He will grow up to be a difficult man." Too exhausted to do more than smile wanly, Livia Drusa found herself hoping she would have no more children; this was the first time she had suffered enough during labor to feel negative afterward. It was some days before her other children were permitted to see her, days during which Cratippus was obliged to administer the household unaided, as Livia Drusa was now its mistress. Servilia predictably came no further than the door, refusing to acknowledge her new half brother. Lilla sternly indoctrinated these days by her elder sister tried to stay aloof, but succumbed to her mother's coaxing and ended in kissing the thin, wriggling mite tucked into Livia Drusa's arm. Porcia called Porcella was too young at fourteen months to be invited to this puerperal visit, but Young Caepio, now turned three, was. His reaction was ecstatic. He couldn't get enough of this new baby brother, demanding to hold him, to cuddle him, to kiss him. "He's going to be mine," said Young Caepio, digging his heels in as his nursemaid attempted to drag him away. "I give him to you, little Quintus," said Livia Drusa, enormously grateful that one of Young Cato's siblings had taken to him wholeheartedly. "You shall have full charge of him." Though she hadn't come into the room, Servilia lingered in the doorway until Lilla and Young Caepio. were removed, then edged just a few feet closer to the bed. Her eyes rested upon her mother derisively, her sore spirit finding satisfaction in Livia Drusa's haggard face, weary look. "You're going to die," Servilia said, looking smug. Livia Drusa's breath caught. "Nonsense!" she said sharply. "You will die," the ten-year-old insisted. "I have wished it to happen, so it will. It did to Aunt Servilia Caepionis when I wished her dead!" "To say things like that is as silly as it is unkind," said the mother, heart knocking frantically. "Wishes cannot make things happen, Servilia. If they do happen and you have wished, it is a coincidence, no more. Fate and Fortune are responsible, not you! You are just not important enough to engage the attention of Fate and Fortune." "It's no use, you can't convince me! I have the Evil Eye! When I ill-wish people, they die," said the child gleefully, and disappeared. Livia Drusa lay silent, eyes closed. She didn't feel well; she hadn't felt well since Young Cato was born. Yet believe that Servilia was responsible, she could not. Or so she told herself. But over the next few days, Livia Drusa's condition deteriorated alarmingly. A wet-nurse had to be found for Young Cato, who was removed from his mother's room, whereupon Young Caepio pounced and took charge of him. Apollodorus Siculus clucked. "I fear for her life, Marcus Livius," he said to Drusus. "The bleeding is not profuse, but it is remorseless, and nothing seems to help. She has a fever, and there is a foul discharge mixed with the blood." "Oh, what is the matter with my life?" cried Drusus, rubbing the tears out of his eyes. “Why is everyone dying?'' A question of course that could not be answered; nor did Drusus take credence of Servilia's ill-wishing when Cratippus, who loathed the child, reported it to him. Nevertheless, Livia Drusa's condition continued to deteriorate. The worst thing, thought Drusus, was that there was no other woman in the house of higher status than slaves. Cato Salonianus was with his wife as much as possible, but Servilia had to be kept away, and it seemed to both Drusus and Cato that Livia Drusa looked for something or someone who was not there. Servilia Caepionis, probably. Drusus wept. And made up his mind what to do. On the following day he went to visit a house into which he had never stepped; the house of Mamercus Aemilius Lepidus Livianus. His brother. Though his father had told him Mamercus was no son of his. So long ago! Would he be received? "I want to speak to Cornelia Scipionis," he said. The door warden, whose mouth had been open to say that the master of the house was not home, shut it, nodded instead. Drusus was conducted to the atrium, and there waited a short time. He literally did not recognize the elderly woman who stumped in, grey hair pulled back in an unflattering bun, clothes drab and chosen without regard for color schemes, body stout, face scrubbed and rather ugly; she looked, he thought, very like the busts of Scipio Africanus which dotted the Forum. Which was not surprising, given that she was closely related to him. "Marcus Livius?" she asked in a lovely mellow deep voice. "Yes," he said, completely at a loss how to proceed. "How like your father you are!" she said, but without evidence of dislike. She sat down on the edge of a couch, and indicated a chair opposite. "Seat yourself, my son." "I suppose you're wondering what brings me here," he said, and felt a huge lump grow in his throat. His face worked, he struggled desperately to preserve his composure. "Something very serious," she said, "so much is obvious." "It's my sister. She's dying." A change came over her, she got immediately to her feet. "Then we have no time to waste, Marcus Livius. Let me only tell my daughter-in-law what's amiss, then we'll go." He didn't even know that she had a daughter-in-law; nor might she know his wife was dead. His brother Mamercus he knew slightly from seeing him around the Forum, but they never spoke; the ten years between them meant that Mamercus was not yet old enough to enter the Senate. But, it seemed, he was married. "You have a daughter-in-law," he said to his mother as they left the house. "Just recently," said Cornelia Scipionis, beautiful voice suddenly colorless. "Mamercus married one of the sisters of Appius Claudius Pulcher last year." "My wife died," he said abruptly. "Yes, I heard that. I'm sorry now I didn't come to see you. But I didn't honestly think I'd be a welcome face in time of grief, and I have a great deal of pride. Too much pride, I know." "I take it I was supposed to come to you." "Something like that." "I didn't think of it." Her face twisted. "That's understandable," she said evenly. "It's interesting that you'd climb down for the sake of your sister, but not for yourself.'' "That's the way of the world. Or our world, at any rate." "How long has my daughter got?" "We don't know. The doctors think very little time now, but she's fighting it. Yet she has some great fear too. I don't know what, or why. Romans are not afraid of dying." "Or so we tell ourselves, Marcus Livius. But beneath the show of fearlessness, there's always a terror of the unknown." "Death isn't an unknown." "Do you not think so? Perhaps it's rather that life is sweet." "Sometimes." She cleared her throat. "Can you not call me Mama?" "Why should I? You left home when I was just ten years old, and my sister five." "I couldn't live with that man a moment longer." "I'm not surprised," he said dryly. "He wasn't the sort of person to put up with a cuckoo in his nest." "Your brother Mamercus, you mean?" "Who else?" "He is your full brother, Marcus Livius." "That's what my sister keeps telling her daughter about her son," said Drusus. "But one look at Young Caepio is enough to tell the biggest fool whose son he really is." "Then I suggest you look more closely at Mamercus. He's a Livius Drusus to the life, not a Cornelius Scipio." She paused, added, "Or an Aemilius Lepidus." They had come to the house of Drusus. After the door warden admitted them, Cornelia Scipionis gazed about her in awe. "I never saw this house," she said. "Your father had truly wonderful taste." "It's a pity he didn't have a truly wonderful warmth," said Drusus bitterly. The mother glanced sideways at him, but said nothing.

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