1. First Man in Rome Read online

  Bomilcar the half brother sat quietly, waiting for Jugurtha to abandon his brooding. He had news to impart, but he knew his king better than to broach it while the storm signs were showing. A wonderful man, Jugurtha. So much innate ability! And how hard had his lot been because of the accident of his low birth. Why did heredity matter so much? The Punic Carthaginian blood in all the Numidian nobility was very marked in Jugurtha, but so too was the Berber blood he got from his mother. Both were Semitic peoples, but the Berber had lived far longer in North Africa than the Punic. In Jugurtha the two strains of Semite were perfectly married. From his mother's Berber fairness he had inherited his light grey eyes, his straight nose, and his long, gaunt-cheeked face, and from her too he had inherited his height. But from his father Mastanabal's Punic blood came his corkscrew-curled black locks, his dense black body hair, his swarthy skin, and his big-boned frame. Perhaps that was why he was so impressive: the eyes were a shock to see in one so dark, and frightening too. Hellenized by centuries of exposure to the Greeks, the Numidian upper classes wore Greek dress, which did not really suit Jugurtha, who looked his best in helmet and cuirass and greaves, sword at his side, war-horse champing. A pity, thought Bomilcar, that the Romans in Rome had never seen the King garbed for war; and then he shivered, horrified at the thought. A temptation of fate, to think that! Better offer the goddess Fortuna a sacrifice tomorrow, that the Romans never did see Jugurtha garbed for war. The King was relaxing; his face had softened. Awful, to have to banish this hard-earned peace, burden him with a fresh worry. But better he should hear it from his loyalest baron, his own brother, than have the news blurted out to him by some idiot agent avid to cause a maximum of consternation. "My lord king?" asked Bomilcar tentatively. The grey eyes turned his way immediately. "Yes?" "I heard a rumor yesterday, at the house of Quintus Caecilius Metellus." That flicked Jugurtha on the raw, of course; Bomilcar could go where he liked inside Rome, for he wasn't an anointed king. It was Bomilcar who was invited to dine, not Jugurtha. "What?" asked the King curtly. "Massiva has turned up here in Rome. What's more, he's managed to interest the consul Spurius Postumius Albinus in his case, and intends to have Albinus petition the Senate.'' The King sat up quickly, swinging his chair around so he could look directly into Bomilcar's face. "I wondered where the miserable little worm had wriggled off to," he said. "Now I know, don't I? But why him, and not me? Albinus must know I'll pay him more than Massiva ever could." "Not according to my sources," said Bomilcar uneasily. "I suspect they've made a deal which depends upon Albinus's being awarded Africa Province as his governorship. You're stuck here in Rome; Albinus hies himself off to Africa Province with a neat little army, a quick march across the border to Cirta, and all hail King Massiva of Numidia! I imagine King Massiva of Numidia will be very willing to pay Albinus pretty much what he asks." "I've got to get home!" the King cried. "I know! But how, tell me how?" "You don't think there's any chance I could sway Albinus? I've still got money on hand, I can get more!" Bomilcar shook his head emphatically. "The new consul does not like you," he said. "You neglected to send him a gift on his birthday, which was last month. Massiva didn't neglect to send him a gift. In fact, he sent Albinus a gift when he was elected consul, then another for the birthday.'' "That's my agents, curse them!" Jugurtha bared his teeth. "They're beginning to think I'm going to lose, so they're not even trying." He chewed his lip, wet it with his tongue. "Am I going to lose?" Bomilcar smiled. "You? Never!" "I don't know.. . . Massiva! Do you realize I'd forgotten all about him? I thought he was in Cyrenaica with Ptolemy Apion." Jugurtha shrugged, visibly pulled himself together. "It might be a false rumor. Who exactly told you?" "Metellus himself. He'd know. His ear's permanently to the ground these days, he's planning to run for consul next year. Not that he approves of the deal Albinus is making. If he did, he'd not have breathed a word of it to me. But you know Metellus one of the upright virtuous Romans, not a bribe in mind. And he dislikes seeing kings camped on Rome's doorstep." "Metellus can afford the luxury of virtuous uprightness!" said Jugurtha tartly. "What Caecilius Metellus isn't as rich as Croesus? They've carved up Spain and Asia between them. Well, they'll not carve up Numidia! Nor will Spurius Postumius Albinus, if I have anything to do with it." The King sat stiff in his chair. "Massiva is definitely here?" "According to Metellus, yes." "We must wait until we hear which consul is going out to govern Africa, and which to Macedonia." Bomilcar snorted derisively. "Don't tell me you believe in the lots!" "I don't know what I believe about the Romans," said the King somberly. "Maybe I think it's already decided, maybe I wonder if the drawing of the lots isn't that one time they're laughing at us, and actually have left it up to chance. So I will wait, Bomilcar. When I hear the result of the lots, I'll decide what to do." With that, he turned his chair around again, and went back to his contemplation of the rain.

  4

  There had been three children in the old white stuccoed farmhouse near Arpinum: Gaius Marius was the eldest, then came his sister, Maria, and finally a second son, Marcus Marius. It was naturally expected that they would grow up to take a prominent place in the life of the district and its town, but no one dreamed any of the three would venture farther afield. They were rural nobility, old-fashioned bluff and hearty country squires, the Mariuses, seemingly destined forever to be important people only within their little domain of Arpinum. The idea that one of them would enter the Senate of Rome was unthinkable; Cato the Censor made sufficient stir because of his rustic origins, yet he had come from a place no farther afield than Tusculum, a mere fifteen miles from Rome's Servian Walls. So no Arpinate squire imagined that his son could become a Roman senator. It wasn't a matter of money, for there was plenty of money; the Mariuses were most comfortably off. Arpinum was a rich locality many square miles in area, and most of its land was owned among three families the Mariuses, the Gratidiuses, and the Tullius Ciceros. When an outsider was needed as wife or husband of a Marius or a Gratidius or a Tullius Cicero, feelers went out not to Rome but to Puteoli, where the Granius family lived; the Graniuses were a prosperous clan of seagoing merchants who had originally hailed from Arpinum. Gaius Marius's bride had been arranged for him when he was still a little boy, and she waited patiently in the Granius household at Puteoli to grow up, for she was even younger than her betrothed. But when Gaius Marius fell in love, it was not with a woman. Or a man. He fell in love with the army a natural, joyous, spontaneous recognition of the life's partner. Enrolled as a cadet on his seventeenth birthday and lamenting the fact that there were no important wars going on, he nonetheless managed to serve continuously in the ranks of the most junior officers of the consul's legions until, aged twenty-three, he was posted to the personal staff of Scipio Aemilianus before Numantia, in Spain. It hadn't taken him long to befriend Publius Rutilius Rufus and Prince Jugurtha of Numidia, for they were all the same age, and all stood very high in the esteem of Scipio Aemilianus, who called them the Terrible Trio. None of the three was from the highest circles of Rome. Jugurtha was a complete outsider, Publius Rutilius Rufus's family hadn't been in the Senate more than a hundred years and had not so far managed to reach the consulship, and Gaius Marius was from a family of country squires. At this time, of course, none of the three was a bit interested in Roman politics; all they cared about was soldiering. But Gaius Marius was a very special case. He was born to be a soldier, but more than that; he was born to lead soldiers. "He just knows what to do and how to do it," said Scipio Aemilianus, with a sigh that might perhaps have been envy. Not that Scipio Aemilianus didn't know what to do and how to do it, but he had been listening to generals talk in the dining room since his early boyhood, and only he really knew the degree of innate spontaneity his own soldiering contained. Very little, was the truth. Scipio Aemilianus's great talent lay in his organization, not in his soldiering. He believed that if a campaign was thoroughly thrashed out in the planning room even before the first legionary was enlisted, soldiering had not much to do with the outcome. Where Gaius Marius was a natural. At sevente
en he had still been rather small and thin; a picky eater and a crochety child always, he had been pampered by his mother and secretly despised by his father. Then he lashed on his first pair of military boots and buckled the plates of a good plain bronze cuirass over his stout leather underdress. And grew in mind and body until he was bigger than everyone else physically, intellectually, in strength and courage and independence. At which point his mother began to reject him and his father swelled with pride in him. In Gaius Marius's opinion there was no life like it, to be an integral part of the greatest military machine the world had ever known the Roman legion. No route march was too arduous, no lesson in swordplay too long or too vicious, no humiliating task humiliating enough to stem the rising tide of his huge enthusiasm. He didn't care what they gave him to do, as long as he was soldiering. It was at Numantia too that he met a seventeen-year-old cadet who had come from Rome to join Scipio Aemilianus's own select little band at Scipio Aemilianus's express request. This lad was Quintus Caecilius Metellus, the younger brother of that Caecilius Metellus who would, after a campaign against the tribesmen of the Dalmatian hills of Illyricum, adopt the last name of Dalmaticus and get himself appointed Pontifex Maximus, highest priest in the State religion. Young Metellus was a typical Caecilius Metellus: a plodder, with no spark or flair for the work on hand, yet determined to do it and unshakably convinced he could do it superbly well. Though loyalty to his class prevented Scipio Aemilianus's saying so, perhaps the seventeen-year-old expert at everything irritated him, for not long after young Metellus arrived at Spanish Numantia, Scipio Aemilianus handed him over to the tender mercies of the Terrible Trio Jugurtha, Rutilius Rufus, and Marius. Not old enough themselves to feel pity, they were as resentful as they were displeased at being given this self-opinionated millstone. And they took it out on young Metellus, not cruelly, just toughly. While Numantia held out and Scipio Aemilianus was busy, the lad put up with his lot. Then Numantia fell. Was torn down, extirpated. And everyone from highest officer to merest ranker soldier was allowed to get drunk. The Terrible Trio got drunk. So did young Quintus Caecilius Metellus, for it happened to be his birthday; he turned eighteen. And the Terrible Trio thought it a great joke to throw the birthday boy into a pigsty. He came out of the muck sober, spitting mad and spitting spite. "You you pathetic upstarts! Who do you think you are? Well, let me tell you! You're nothing but a greasy foreigner, Jugurtha! Not fit to lick a Roman's boots! And you're a jumped-up favor currier, Rutilius! As for you, Gaius Marius, you're nothing more than an Italian hayseed with no Greek! How dare you! How dare you! Don't you appreciate who I am? Don't you understand who my family is? I am a Caecilius Metellus, and we were kings in Etruria before Rome was ever thought of! For months I've suffered your insults, but no more! Treating me like an underling, as if I were the inferior! How dare you! How dare you!" Jugurtha and Rutilius Rufus and Gaius Marius hung rocking gently on the pigsty fence, blinking like owls, faces slack. Then Publius Rutilius Rufus, who was that rare individual capable of scholarship as profound as his soldiering was practical, put a leg over the top of the fence and managed to balance himself astride it, a huge smile growing. "Don't mistake me, I really do appreciate everything you're saying, Quintus Caecilius," he said, "but the trouble is that you've got a big fat pig turd on your head instead of a crown, O King of Etruria!" Out came a giggle. "Go and have a bath, then tell us again. We'll probably manage not to laugh." Metellus reached up and brushed his head furiously, too enraged to take sensible advice, especially when it was tendered with such a smile. "Rutilius!" he spat. "What sort of name is that, to adorn the Senate rolls? Oscan nobodies, that's who you are! Peasants!" "Oh, come now!" said Rutilius Rufus gently. "My Etruscan is quite good enough to translate the meaning of 'Metellus' into Latin, you know." He twisted where he sat on the fence and looked at Jugurtha and Marius. "It means, freed from service as a mercenary," he said to them gravely. That was too much. Young Metellus launched himself at Rutilius Rufus and brought him crashing down into the aromatic mire, where the two of them rolled and wrestled and thumped without enough traction to harm each other until Jugurtha and Marius decided it looked good in there, and dived in after them. Howling with laughter, they sat in the mud amid the more impudent pigs, which in the manner of impudent pigs couldn't resist investigating them thoroughly. When the Terrible Trio stopped sitting on Metellus and rubbing muck all over him, he floundered to his feet and escaped. "You'll pay for this!" he said through his teeth. "Oh, pull your head in!" said Jugurtha, and broke into fresh paroxysms of mirth.