But as the center of gravity rose along with the sambuca bridge, the distribution of weight changed. The host ships lashed together began to split apart. Ropes snapped with little explosions, the towers began to totter, the deck to heave and buckle, the ascending bridge to sway like a dancer's scarf. Then the two ships bearing all of this began to capsize toward the midline. Decking, towers, bridge, soldiers, sailors, artificers, and treadmill slaves fell into the water between the rolling vessels amid a cacophony of screams, grinding crunches, roars—and hysterical cheers from the jubilant Rhodians atop their walls—cheers soon changing into paroxysms of mocking laughter.
"I never want to hear the name of Rhodes mentioned again!" said the King as his mighty galley bore him back to Halicarnassus. "It's too close to winter to continue this petty campaign against a pack of idiots and fools. My armies marching into Macedonia and my fleets along the coast of Greece need my closer attention. I also want every engineer who had anything to do with the design of that ridiculous sambuca dead—no, not dead! Tongues out, eyes out, hands off, balls off, and begging bowls!"
So furious was the King at this humiliation that he visited Lycia with an army and attempted to besiege Patara. But when he felled a grove of trees sacred to Latona, the mother of Apollo and Artemis came to him in a dream and warned him to stop. Next day the King handed over the investment to his underlings—the hapless Pelopidas was placed in command—and took his fascinating albino bride Monima to Hierapolis. There, cavorting and frolicking in the hot mineral pools amid petrified crystal waterfalls tumbling down the cliffs, he succeeded in forgetting all about the laughter of Rhodes—and Chian ships which gave him the fright of his life.
IX (88-87 B.C.)
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1
The news of the massacre of Asia Province’s Roman and Latin and Italian residents reached Rome ahead of the news that Mithridates had invaded the province—and reached Rome in record time. Just nine days after the last day of Quinctilis, the Princeps Senatus Lucius Valerius Flaccus was convening the House in the temple of Bellona outside the pomerium because this was to do with a foreign war. To those present he read out a letter from Publius Rutilius Rufus in Smyrna.
I am sending this by a specially commissioned fast ship to Corinth, and onward to Brundisium by another just as fast, trusting that the rebellion in Greece does not prevent its passage. The courier has been instructed to ride from Brundisium to Rome at the gallop, night and day. The large sum of money this is costing has been given to me by my friend Miltiades, the ethnarch of Smyrna, who begs only that the Senate and People of Rome remember his service to them when, as must happen, Asia Province belongs to Rome again.
It may be that you do not know as yet of the invasion of King Mithridates of Pontus, who now rules both Bithynia and our Roman Asian province. Manius Aquillius is dead under the most hideous circumstances, and Gaius Cassius is fled I know not where. A quarter of a million Pontic soldiers are west of the Taurus, the Aegean is completely covered by Pontic fleets, and Greece has allied itself with Pontus against Rome. I very much fear that Macedonia is totally isolated.
But that is not the worst of it. On the last day of Quinctilis, every Roman and Latin and Italian in the Asia Province, Bithynia, Pisidia, and Phrygia was massacred by order of King Mithridates of Pontus. Their slaves were also massacred. The number of dead, I believe, is something like eighty thousand citizens and seventy thousand slaves—one hundred and fifty thousand altogether. That I did not suffer the same fate is due to my non-citizen status, though I believe the King issued a warning that I—by name!—was not to be touched. A nice sop to the hound of Hades. What can the sparing of my old life do to offset the brutal hacking into pieces of Roman women and little babies? They were torn from altars still crying on the gods and their bodies lie rotting unburied, again by order of the King of Pontus. This barbarian monstrosity now fancies himself the king of the world, and is boasting that he will be on Italian soil before the year is out.
No one is left east of Italy to gainsay his boast save our people in Macedonia. But I despair of Macedonia. Though I have not been able to confirm it, there is news that King Mithridates has mounted a land expedition against Thessalonica which has already penetrated west of Philippi without a shred of opposition. I know more about activities in Greece, where a Pontic agent named Aristion has snatched all power in Athens and persuaded most of Greece to declare for Mithridates. The isles of the Aegean are in Pontic hands, the fleets are gigantic. When Delos fell, another twenty thousand of our people were put to death.
Please, I beg of you, regard my letter as deliberately brief and understated, and do what you can to prevent this frightful barbarian Mithridates crowning himself the King of Rome. It is that serious.
"Oh, we don't need this!" said Lucius Caesar to his brother Catulus Caesar.
"We may not need it, but we've got it," said Gaius Marius, eyes sparkling. "A war against Mithridates! I knew it had to come. Surprising, really, that it's been so long."
"Lucius Cornelius is on his way to Rome," said the other censor, Publius Licinius Crassus. "I'll breathe easier then."
"Why?" demanded Marius fiercely. "We shouldn't have summoned him! Let him finish the Italian war."
"He is the senior consul," said Catulus Caesar. "The Senate cannot make far-reaching decisions without his presence in the chair."
"Tchah!" said Marius, and lumbered away.
"What's the matter with him?" asked Flaccus Princeps Senatus.
"What do you think, Lucius Valerius? He's an old war-horse snuffing the scent of just the right kind of war—a foreign one," said Catulus Caesar.
"But surely he can't think he's going to it," said Publius Crassus the censor. "He's too old and sick!"
"Of course he thinks he's going," said Catulus Caesar.
The war in Italy was over. Though the Marsi never did formally surrender, among all the peoples who had taken up arms against Rome they were the most devastated; hardly a Marsian male was left alive. In February, Quintus Poppaedius Silo fled to Samnium, and joined Mutilus within Aesernia. Mutilus he found so severely wounded that he was incapable ever again of leading an army. He was paralyzed from the waist down.
"I must pass the leadership of Samnium on to you, Quintus Poppaedius," Mutilus said.
"No!" cried Silo. "I don't have your way with troops— especially Samnite troops—nor do I have your skill as a general."
“There's no one else. My Samnites have elected to follow you."
"Do the Samnites really want to continue the war?"
"Yes," said Mutilus. "But in the name of Samnium, not Italia."
"I can understand that. But surely there is one Samnite left to lead them!"
"Not one, Quintus Poppaedius. It has to be you."
"Very well, then," said Silo, sighing.
What neither of them discussed was the ruin of their hopes for independent Italia. Nor did they discuss what both of them knew—that if Italia was finished, Samnium could not possibly win.
In May the last rebel army sallied out of Aesernia under the command of Quintus Poppaedius Silo. It numbered thirty thousand infantry and a thousand horse, and was further augmented by a force of twenty thousand manumitted slaves. Most of the infantry had been wounded in one battle or another and fetched up in Aesernia because it was the only secure place left to go; Silo had brought the cavalry with him and managed to get through the Roman lines around the city. All of which made this sally inevitable; Aesernia could not long continue to feed so many mouths.
As every marching man knew, it was a last-ditch stand; no one really expected to win. The most they could hope for was to make every death count. But then when Silo's soldiers took Bovianum and killed the Roman garrison there, they began to feel better. Perhaps there was a chance after all? Metellus Pius and his army were sitting before Venusia on the Via Appia, so to Venusia they would go.
And there outside Venusia the last battle of the war took place, a curious rounding o
ut of the events which had started with the death of Marcus Livius Drusus. For on the field of Venusia there met in single combat the two men who had loved Drusus best—his friend Silo and his brother Mamercus. While the Samnites died in thousands, no match for the fit and experienced Romans, Silo and Mamercus slogged hand to hand until Silo fell. Mamercus stood looking down at the Marsian with tears in his eyes, sword raised. He hesitated.
"Finish me, Mamercus!" gasped Quintus Poppaedius Silo. "You owe me that for killing Caepio. I will walk in no triumph held by the Piglet!"
"For killing Caepio," said Mamercus, and finished him. Then wept desolately for Drusus, Silo, and the bitterness of victory.
"It's done," said Metellus Pius the Piglet to Lucius Cornelius Sulla, who had come to Venusia the moment he heard of the battle. "Venusia capitulated yesterday."
"No, it is not done," said Sulla grimly. "It won't be done until Aesernia and Nola submit."
"Have you considered," ventured the Piglet rather timidly, "that if we were to lift the sieges at Aesernia and Nola, life in those two places would go back to normal and everyone would probably pretend nothing had ever happened?"
"I'm sure you're right," said Sulla, "which is why we will not lift the siege at either place. Why should they get away with it? Pompey Strabo didn't let Asculum Picentum get away with it. No, Piglet, Aesernia and Nola stay the way they are. For all eternity if necessary."
"I hear Scato is dead, and the Paeligni surrendered."
"Correct, except that you have it the wrong way round," said Sulla with a grin. "Pompey Strabo accepted the surrender of the Paeligni. Scato fell on his sword rather than be a part of it."
"So it really is the end!" said Metellus Pius in wonder.
"Not until Aesernia and Nola submit."
* * *
The news of the massacre of the Romans and Latins and Italians of Asia Province reached Sulla in Capua, which town he had made his base, thus releasing Catulus Caesar to go back to Rome for a well-deserved rest; he had besides inherited Catulus Caesar's secretary, the prodigy Marcus Tullius Cicero, and found Cicero so efficient that Catulus Caesar wasn't necessary.
Cicero found Sulla as terrifying as he had found Pompey Strabo, though for different reasons. And missed Catulus Caesar acutely.
"Lucius Cornelius, will it be possible for me to have my discharge toward the end of the year?" Cicero asked. "Though I will have served in time not quite two years, I have added up my campaigns, and will have served in ten."
"I'll see," said Sulla, who felt about Cicero as a person much as Pompey Strabo had felt. "For the moment I can't spare you. No one else knows as much about the place as you, now that Quintus Lutatius has gone to Rome to rest."
But there never is a rest, thought Sulla, galloping to Rome in a four-mule gig. No sooner do we put one conflagration out than another bursts into flames. And this will make the war against Italy look like two twigs smoldering.
Every senior senator converged upon Rome for the Senate hearing on Asia Province, even Pompey Strabo; perhaps a hundred and fifty men gathered in the temple of Bellona outside the pomerium on the Campus Martius.
"Well, we know Manius Aquillius is dead. Presumably that means his two fellow commissioners are dead," said Sulla to the House in conversational tones. "However, it seems Gaius Cassius escaped, though we've heard nothing from him. What I can't understand is why we've heard not one squeak from Quintus Oppius in Cilicia. Presumably Cilicia too is lost. It is a sad business when Rome has to depend upon a civilian exile for news like this."
"I imagine it means Mithridates struck like lightning," said Catulus Caesar, brow furrowed.
"Or else," said Marius shrewdly, "there's been funny business going on between all our official representatives."
That provoked no replies, but a great deal of thought; some certain loyalty united the body at all times, but it was not possible to mix as consistently as members of the Senate did without everyone's knowing what everyone else was really like. And everyone knew what Gaius Cassius and the three commissioners were really like.
"Then Quintus Oppius at least should have been in contact," said Sulla, echoing everyone else's thoughts. "He's a man of great honor, he wouldn't let Rome go in ignorance a moment longer than he could help. I think we must presume Cilicia too is lost."
"We'll have to get word to Publius Rutilius somehow, and ask for more information," said Marius.
"I imagine that if any of our people survived, they'll start to reach Rome by the end of Sextilis," said Sulla. "We'll get more information then."
"I interpret Publius Rutilius's letter as meaning no one at all survived," said Sulpicius from the tribunician bench. He groaned, clenched his fists. "Mithridates made absolutely no distinction between an Italian and a Roman!"
"Mithridates is a barbarian," said Catulus Caesar.
But that answer was too pat for Sulpicius, who had seemed for many moments to have turned to stone when Flaccus Princeps Senatus had read Rutilius Rufus's letter out two days before.
"He made no distinction," Sulpicius said again. "Why he made no distinction is beside the point! Irrelevant! The Italians of Asia Province paid the same price as the Romans and the Latins of Asia Province. They're just as dead. Their women and children and slaves are just as dead. He made no distinction!"
"Oh, pull your head in, Sulpicius!" cried Pompey Strabo, who wanted to get down to business. "You're becoming a wheel in a rut.''
"I will have order," said Sulla pleasantly. "We are not here in Bellona to investigate reasons or distinctions. We're here to decide what to do."
"War!" said Pompey Strabo instantly.
"Is that how everyone feels, or only some?" asked Sulla.
The House cried out unanimously for war.
"We have sufficient legions in the field," said Metellus Pius, "and they're properly equipped. At least in that respect we're better prepared than we usually are. We can ship twenty legions to the east tomorrow."
"We can't, you know," said Sulla levelly. "In fact, I doubt if we can ship one legion, let alone twenty."
The House fell silent.
"Conscript Fathers, where are we to find the money? With the war against Italy over, we have no choice except to disband our legions. Because we can't afford to pay them a moment longer! While Rome was imperiled within Italy, every man of Roman or Latin ancestry was obliged to take the field. We can say that the same holds true for a foreign war, especially as Asia Province is already swallowed by the aggressor and eighty thousand of our people are dead. But the fact remains that at this moment the Homeland is not directly under threat. And the men in our armies are tired. They've been paid at last—but it took everything we own to pay them. Which means they must be demobilized, sent home. Because we do not have even the prospect of enough money to pay them for another campaign!"
Sulla's words sank into the silence, intensified it.
Then Catulus Caesar sighed. "Let us put considerations of money to one side for a moment," he said. "More important by far is the fact that we have to stop Mithridates!"
"Quintus Lutatius, you haven't listened!" cried Sulla. "There is no money for a campaign!"
Catulus Caesar assumed his haughtiest look, and said, "I move that Lucius Cornelius Sulla be given the command against Mithridates. Once the matter of command is attended to, we can attend to money."
"And I give notice that I will move that Lucius Cornelius Sulla not be given the command against Mithridates!" roared Gaius Marius. "Let Lucius Cornelius Sulla remain in Rome to worry about money! Money! As if it is time to worry about money when Rome faces certain extinction! The money will be found. It always is. And King Mithridates has plenty of it, so it's he will wind up paying in the long run. Conscript Fathers, we cannot give the command in this campaign to a man who worries about money! You must give this campaign to me!"
"You are not well enough, Gaius Marius," said Sulla without any expression on his face or in his voice.
"I'm well enough to k
now that money is of no moment!" snapped Marius. "Pontus is the German threat all over again! And who won against the Germans? Gaius Marius! Fellow members of this august body, you must give the command in this war to me! I am the only man here who can win it!"
Up from his seat rose Flaccus Princeps Senatus, a mild man not famous for his courage. "If you were young enough and well enough, Gaius Marius, no more fervent adherent would you have than I. But Lucius Cornelius is right. You are not well enough. You are too old. You have had two strokes. We cannot give the command in this war to a man who is likely to be felled again at just the moment when his talents are likely to be most needed. We do not know what causes a stroke, Gaius Marius, but we do know that a man who has had one stroke will go on to have more. As you have. As you will! No, Conscript Fathers, as your Princeps Senatus I say that we cannot even consider Gaius Marius to lead this campaign. I second the motion that the command be given to our senior consul, Lucius Cornelius."
"Fortune will see me through," said Marius stubbornly.
"Gaius Marius, accept the opinion of the Princeps Senatus in the spirit in which it was tendered," said Sulla calmly. "No one holds you lightly, least of all me. But facts are facts. This House cannot run the risk of entrusting the conduct of any war to one who has had two strokes and is now seventy years old."
Marius subsided, but it was plain he had not reconciled himself to the House opinion; he sat with both hands grappled around his knees and the right corner of his mouth turned down to match the left.
"Lucius Cornelius, will you take the command?" asked Quintus Lutatius Catulus Caesar.