1. First Man in Rome Read online

  Publius Vagiennius, who hailed from back-country Liguria and was serving in an auxiliary squadron of cavalry, found himself with a great deal more to do than he liked to do after Gaius Marius established camp along the banks of the river Muluchath. Luckily the plain was covered with a long, dense growth of native grass turned silver by the summer sun, so that grazing for the army's several thousand mules was not a problem. However, horses were fussier eaters than mules, and nudged half-heartedly at this hard strappy ground cover with the result that the cavalry's horses had to be moved to the north of the citadel mountain in the midst of the plain, to a place where underground soaks had stimulated the growth of more tender grasses. If the commander were other than Gaius Marius, thought Publius Vagiennius resentfully the whole of the cavalry might have been permitted to camp separately, in close proximity to decent grazing for their horses. But no. Gaius Marius wanted no temptations offered the dwellers in the Muluchath citadel, and had issued orders that every last man had to camp within the main compound. So every day the scouts had first to ascertain that no Enemy lurked in the vicinity; then the cavalry troopers were allowed to lead their horses out to graze, and every evening were obliged to lead their horses back again to the camp. This meant every horse had to be hobbled to graze, otherwise catching it would have been impossible. Every morning therefore Publius Vagiennius had to ride one of his two mounts and lead the other across the plain from the camp to the good grass, hobble them for a good day's browsing, and plod the five miles back to the camp, where (it seemed to him, at any rate) his hours of leisure had just begun when it was time to plod out to pick up his horses again. Added to which, not a cavalry trooper born liked walking. However, there was nothing to say a man had to walk back to camp after turning his animals out to graze; therefore Publius Vagiennius made some adjustments to his schedule. Since he rode bareback and without a bridle only a fool would leave his precious saddle and bridle parked in open country for the day he got into the habit of slinging a water bag over his shoulder and a lunch pouch on his belt when starting out from the camp. Then, having liberated his two animals close to the base of the citadel mountain, he would retire to a shady spot to while away his day. On his fourth trip, he settled comfortably with water bag and lunch pouch in a fragrant flower-filled dell surrounded by sheer crags, sat down with his back against a grassy shelf, closed his eyes, and dozed. Then came a moist little puff of wind spinning dizzily down the funnels and grooves of the mountain, and on its breath a very strong, curious smell. A smell which made Publius Vagiennius, eyes gleaming excitedly, sit up with a jerk. For it was a smell he knew. Snails. Big, fat, juicy, sweet, succulent, ambrosiac snails! In the towering coastal alps of Liguria and in the higher alps behind whence came Publius Vagiennius there were snails. He had grown up on snails. He had become addicted to putting garlic in everything he ate thanks to snails. He had become one of the world's most knowledgeable connoisseurs of snails. He dreamed one day of breeding snails for the market, even of producing a brand-new breed of snails. Some men's noses were tuned to wines, other men's noses were tuned to perfumes, but the nose of Publius Vagiennius was tuned to snails. And that whiff of snails which came borne on the wind off the citadel mount told him that somewhere up aloft dwelled snails of an unparalleled deliciousness. With the industry of a pig on the trail of truffles, he got to work following the evidence of his olfactory apparatus, prowling the flanges of rock for a way up to the snail colony. Not since coming to Africa with Lucius Cornelius Sulla in September of the year before had he so much as tasted a snail. African snails were held to be the best in the world, but wherever they lived he hadn't found out, and those which came into the markets of Utica and Cirta went straight to the tables of the military tribunes and the legates if they didn't go straight to Rome, that is. Anyone less motivated would not have found the ancient fumarole, its volcanic vapors long since spent, for it lay behind a seemingly uninterrupted wall of basalt formed in tall columnar crystals; nose down, Publius Vagiennius sniffed his way around an optical illusion and found a huge chimney. During the passage of millions of years of inactivity, dust blown in by winds had filled the vent to the level of the ground outside and was piling up against the leeward wall higher and higher, but it was still possible for a man to gain access to the interior of this natural cavity. It measured some twenty feet across, and perhaps two hundred feet upward there gleamed a patch of sky. The walls were vertical, and to almost all observers appeared unscalable. But Publius Vagiennius was an alpine man; he was also a snail gastronome on the track of a superlative taste experience. So he climbed the fumarole not without difficulty, but certainly without ever being in real danger of falling. And at its top he emerged onto a grassy shelf perhaps a hundred feet long and fifty feet wide at its widest point, which was where the chimney came to its termination. Because all of this occurred on the north face of the rugged volcanic outcrop actually the eroded remnant of the lava plug, for the outer mountain itself had disappeared aeons before the shelf was permanently wet from seepage, some of which dripped over the rim of the fumarole, but most of which ran down the rocks on the outside at the point where the shelf sloped to form a fissure. A great crag some hundred feet above overhung most of the shelf, and the cliff between shelf and overhang was hollowed out into an open-fronted cave wet with seepage, a wonderful wall of ferns, mosses, liverworts, and sedges; at one place so much water was being squeezed out of the rock by the enormous pressures of the upper mountain that a tiny rivulet twinkled and fell with copious splashes along its way, and ran off with the other seepage over the edge of the shelf. Clearly this was the reason why the grass on the plain at the northern base of the outcrop was sweeter. Where the great cave now yawned had once been a deposit of mud agglomerate which penetrated much deeper into the lava plug, gathered water, and emerged to the surface only to be greedily chewed away by wind and frosts. One day, the expert mountain man Publius Vagiennius knew, the basalt crag teetering so ominously overhead would become undermined enough to break off; shelf and cave would be buried, as would the old volcanic chimney. The great cave was perfect snail country, permanently damp, a pocket of humid air in a notoriously dry land, stuffed with all the decayed plant matter and minute dead insects snails adored, always shady, protected from the brunt of the winds by a crag from below that reared up much higher than the shelf for a third of its length, and curved outward, thus deflecting the winds. The whole place reeked of snails, but not snails of any kind known to Publius Vagiennius, said his nose. When he finally saw one, he gaped. Its shell was as big as the palm of his hand! Having seen one, he soon distinguished dozens, and then hundreds, none of them shorter in the shell than his index finger, some of them longer than his outstretched hand. Hardly believing his eyes, he climbed up into the cave, scouted it with ever-increasing amazement, and finally arrived at its far edge, where he found a way up and up and up; not a snake path, he thought in amusement, but a snail path! The path dived into a crevice which opened into a smaller, more enclosed, ferny cave. The snails kept getting more numerous. And then he found himself around the side of the overhang, discovered it was in itself over a hundred feet thick, kept on climbing until, with a heave, he came out of Snail Paradise into Snail Tartarus, the dry and windswept lava plug atop the overhang. He gasped, panicked, ducked quickly behind a rock; for there not five hundred feet above him was the fortress. So easy was the incline he could have walked up it without a staff, and so low was the citadel wall he could have pulled himself over it without a helping shove from beneath. Publius Vagiennius descended back to the snail path, got down into the lower reaches of the cave, and there paused to pop half a dozen of the largest snails into the bloused chest section of his tunic, each well wrapped in wet leaves. Then he began the serious descent, hindered by his precious cargo yet inspired by it to superhuman feats of rock climbing. And finally emerged into his little flower-filled dell. A long drink of water, and he felt better; his snails were snug, slimy, safe. Not intending to share them with anyone, h
e transferred them from his tunic to his lunch pouch, complete with wet leaves and a few chunks of much drier humus collected in the dell, moistened from his water bag. The lunch pouch he tied securely to prevent the snails' escape, and put it in a shady place. The next day he dined superbly, having brought a kettle with him in which to steam two of his catches, and some good oil-and-garlic sauce. Oh, what snails! Size in a snail most definitely did not mean toughness. Size in a snail simply meant additional nuances of flavor and more to eat with a lot less fiddling about. He dined on two snails each day for six days, making one more trip up the fumarole to fetch down the second half dozen. But on the seventh day his conscience began to gnaw at him; had he been a more introspective sort of fellow, he might have come to the conclusion that his pangs of conscience were increasing in linear proportion to his pangs of snail-sated indigestion. At first all he thought was that he was a selfish mentula, to hoard the snails entirely for himself when he had good friends among his squadron's members. And then he began to think about the fact that he had discovered a way to scale the mountain. For three more days he battled his conscience, and finally suffered from an attack of gastritis which quite killed all his appetite for snails and made him wish he had never heard of them. That made up his mind. He didn't bother about reporting to his squadron commander; he went straight to the top. Roughly in the center of the camp, where the via praetoria connecting the main and rear gates intersected with the via principalis connecting the two side gates, sat the general's command tent and its flagpole, with an open space on either flank for assemblies. Here, in a hide structure substantial enough to warrant a proper wooden framework, Gaius Marius had his command headquarters and his living quarters; under the shade of a long awning which extended in front of the main entrance was a table and chair, occupied by the military tribune of the day. It was his duty to screen those wanting to see the general, or to route inquiries about this or that to the proper destinations. Two sentries stood one to either side of the entrance, at ease but vigilant, the monotony of this duty alleviated by the fact that they could overhear all conversation between the duty tribune and those who came to see him. Quintus Sertorius was on duty, and enjoying himself enormously. Solving conundrums of supply, discipline, morale, and men appealed to him, and he loved the increasingly complex and responsible tasks Gaius Marius gave him. If ever there was a case of hero worship, it existed in Quintus Sertorius, its object Gaius Marius; the embryonic master-soldier recognizing the mature form. Nothing Gaius Marius could have asked of him would have seemed a distasteful chore to Quintus Sertorius, so where other junior military tribunes loathed desk duty outside the general's tent, Quintus Sertorius welcomed it. When the Ligurian horse trooper lurched up with the gait peculiar to men who straddle horses with their legs hanging down unsupported all their lives, Quintus Sertorius regarded him with interest. Not a very prepossessing sort of fellow, he had a face only his mother could have thought beautiful, but his mail shirt was buffed up nicely, his soft-soled Ligurian felt riding shoes were adorned with a pair of sparkling spurs, and his leather knee breeches were respectably clean. If he smelled a little of horses, that was only to be expected; all troopers did, it was ingrained, and had nothing to do with how many baths they took or how often they washed their clothes. One pair of shrewd brown eyes looked into another pair, each liking what it saw. No decorations yet, thought Quintus Sertorius, but then, the cavalry hadn't really seen any action yet, either. Young for this job, thought Publius Vagiennius, but a real neat-looking soldier, if ever I saw one typical Roman foot-slogger, though; no taste for horses. "Publius Vagiennius, Ligurian cavalry squadron," said Publius Vagiennius. "I'd like to see Gaius Marius." "Rank?" asked Quintus Sertorius. "Trooper," said Publius Vagiennius. "Your business?" "That's private." "The general," said Quintus Sertorius pleasantly, "doesn't see ordinary troopers of auxiliary cavalry, especially escorted by no one save themselves. Where's your tribune, trooper?" "He don't know I'm here," said Publius Vagiennius, looking mulish. "My business is private." "Gaius Marius is a very busy man," said Quintus Sertorius. Publius Vagiennius leaned both hands on the table and thrust his head closer, almost asphyxiating Sertorius with the smell of garlic. "Now listen, young sir, you tell Gaius Marius I've got a proposition of great advantage to him but I'm not going to spill it to anyone else, and that's final." Keeping his eyes aloof and his face straight while he was dying to burst out laughing, Quintus Sertorius got to his feet. "Wait here, trooper," he said. The interior of the tent was divided into two areas by a leather wall sliced up its center to form a flap. The back room formed Marius's living quarters, the front room his office. This front room was by far the bigger of the two, and held an assortment of folding chairs and tables, racks of maps, some models of siege-works the engineers had been playing with regarding Muluchath Mountain, and portable sets of pigeonholed shelves in which reposed various documents, scrolls, book buckets, and loose papers. Gaius Marius was sitting on his ivory curule chair to one side of the big folding table he called his personal desk, with Aulus Manlius, his legate, on its other side, and Lucius Cornelius Sulla, his quaestor, between them. They were clearly engaged in the activity which they detested most, but which was dear to the hearts of the bureaucrats who ran the Treasury going through the accounts and keeping the books. That this was a preliminary conference was easy to see for a Quintus Sertorius; if it had been serious, several clerks and scribes would also have been in attendance. "Gaius Marius, I apologize for interrupting you," said Sertorius, rather diffidently. Something in his tone made all three men lift their heads to look at him closely. "You're forgiven, Quintus Sertorius. What is it?" asked Marius, smiling. "Well, it's probably a complete waste of your time, but I've got a trooper of Ligurian cavalry outside who insists on seeing you, Gaius Marius, but won't tell me why." "A trooper of Ligurian cavalry," said Marius slowly. "And what does his tribune have to say?" "He hasn't consulted his tribune." "Oh, top secret, eh?" Marius surveyed Sertorius shrewdly. "Why should I see this man, Quintus Sertorius?" Quintus Sertorius grinned. "If I could tell you that, I'd be a lot better at my job," he said. "I don't know why, and that's an honest answer. But I don't know, I'm probably wrong, but I think you should see him, Gaius Marius. I've got a feeling about it." Marius laid down the paper in his hand. "Bring him in." The sight of all the Senior Command sitting together did not even dent Publius Vagiennius's confidence; he stood blinking in the dimmer light, no fear on his face. "This is Publius Vagiennius," said Sertorius, preparing to leave again. "Stay here, Quintus Sertorius," said Marius. "Well now, Publius Vagiennius, what have you to say to me?" "Quite a lot," said Publius Vagiennius. "Then spit it out, man!" "I will, I will!" said Publius Vagiennius, uncowed. "The thing is, I'm just going through my options first. Do I lay my information, or put up my business proposition?" "Does one hinge upon the other?" asked Aulus Manlius. "It most certainly do, Aulus Manlius." "Then let's have the business proposition first," said Marius, poker-faced. "I like the oblique approach." "Snails," said Publius Vagiennius. All four Romans looked at him, but no one spoke. "My business proposition," said Publius Vagiennius patiently. "It's snails. The biggest, juiciest snails you ever seen!" "So that's why you reek of garlic!" said Sulla. "Can't eat snails without garlic," said Vagiennius. "How can we help you with your snails?" asked Marius. "I want a concession," said Vagiennius, "and I want a introduction to the right people in Rome to market them." "I see." Marius looked at Manlius, Sulla, Sertorius. No one was smiling. "All right, you've got your concession, and I imagine between us we can scrape up the odd introduction. Now what's the information you want to lay?" "I found a way up the mountain." Sulla and Aulus Manlius sat up straight. ''You found a way up the mountain," said Marius slowly. "Yes." Marius got up from behind the table. "Show me," he said. But Publius Vagiennius backed away. "Well, I will, Gaius Marius, I will! But not until we sort out my snails." "Can't it wait, man?" asked Sulla, looking ominous. "No, Lucius Cornelius, it can't!" said Publius Vagiennius, thereby demonstrating that he knew all
the names of the Senior Command when he saw them. "The way to the top of the mountain goes straight through the middle of my snail patch. And it's my snail patch! The best snails in the whole world too! Here." He unslung his lunch pouch from its rather incongruous resting place athwart his long cavalry sword, opened it, and carefully withdrew an eight-inch-long snail shell, which he put on Marius's desk. They all looked at it fixedly, in complete silence. Since the surface of the table was cool and sleek, after a moment or two the snail ventured out, for it was hungry, and it had been jolted around inside Publius Vagiennius's lunch pouch for some time, deprived of tranquillity. Now it rabbited out of its hat as snails do, not emerging like a tortoise, but rather jacking its shell up into the air and expanding into existence under it via slimy amorphous lumps. One such lump formed itself into a tapering tail, and the opposite lump into a stumpy head which lifted bleary stalks into the air by growing them out of nothing. Its metamorphosis complete, it began to chomp quite audibly upon the mulch Publius Vagiennius had wrapped around it. "Now that," said Gaius Marius, "is what I call a snail!" "Rather!" breathed Quintus Sertorius. "You could feed an army on those," said Sulla, who was a conservative eater, and didn't like snails any more than he liked mushrooms. "That's it!" yelped Publius Vagiennius. "That's just it! I don't want them greedy mentulae" his audience winced "pinching my snails! There's a lot of snails, but five hundred soldiers'd see the end of them! Now I want to bring them to some place handy to Rome and breed them, and I don't want my snail patch ruined either. I want that concession, and I want my snail patch kept safe from all the cunni in this here army!" "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.