1. First Man in Rome Read online

  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. What a man! thought Quintus Sertorius, mentally cataloguing these talismans. Yes, the only awards he hadn't won were the naval crown, given for valor in a sea battle Marius had never fought at sea, so that omission was logical and the Corona Graminea, the simple wreath of common grass awarded to a man who literally by his own valor and initiative saved a whole legion, or even a whole army. The grass crown had been given only a handful of times during the whole history of the Republic, the first time to the legendary Lucius Siccius Dentatus, who had won no less than twenty-six different crowns but only one Corona Graminea. To Scipio Africanus during the second war against Carthage. Sertorius frowned, dredging up the rest of the winners. Oh, Publius Decius Mus had won it during the first Samnite war! And Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosis Cunctator had won it for stalking Hannibal up and down Italy, thus preventing Hannibal's gaining the confidence to attack Rome herself. Then Sulla was called to receive his Gold Crown, and a full set of nine gold phalerae as well, for his valor during the first of the two battles against the kings. How pleased he looked, how enhanced. Quintus Sertorius had heard that he was a cold sort of fellow, and had a cruel streak; but not once in their time together in Africa had he seen evidence to substantiate these accusations, and surely if they were true, Gaius Marius would not have liked him as well as he clearly did. For of course Quintus Sertorius did not understand that when life was going well, and was enjoyable, and held enough mental and physical challenge, coldness and cruelty could be buried, however temporarily; he also did not understand that Sulla was quite shrewd enough to know Gaius Marius was not the man to whom to show the baser, darker side of himself. In fact, Lucius Cornelius Sulla had been on his very best behavior ever since Marius had asked for him as his quaestor and had not found it at all difficult to be so, either. "Oh!" Quintus Sertorius jumped. He had been so deep in his thoughts that he hadn't heard his name called, and got a dig in the ribs from his servant, almost as proud of Quintus Sertorius as Quintus Sertorius was of himself. Up onto the dais he stumbled, and stood there while the great Gaius Marius placed the Gold Crown on his head, then suffered the cheers of the army, and had his hand shaken by Gaius Marius and Aulus Manlius. And after all the tores and bracelets and medallions and banners were handed out, and some of the cohorts got group awards of gold or silver wreaths for their standard poles, Gaius Marius spoke. "Well done, men of the Head Count!" he cried, the dazed recipients of decorations standing gathered around him. "You have proven yourselves braver than the brave, more willing than the willing, harder working than the hardworking, more intelligent than the intelligent! There's many a naked standard pole which now can be adorned with the decorations won by its owners! When we walk in triumph through Rome, we'll give them all something to look at! And in future, let no Roman say that the men of the Head Count don't care enough about Rome to win battles for her!"