FOR WANT OF THE HAMMER

[tuareg109]

FOR WANT OF THE HAMMER

TABLE OF CONTENTS & LIST OF CONSULS

PROLOGUE PART 1​

It was only just mid-morning, and Gaius Marius and Publius Rutilius Rufus were already finding it hard to contain their boredom. They had made several rounds of the camp after morning assembly and drill, and then again after their small breakfast of porridge. Then they'd seen Quintus Catius up on one of the towers, and joined him to look down into Numantia.

Grey arrows indicate Scipio Aemilianus's campaign against the Celtiberians, 619 AVC​

The city had been--and certainly still was--an eerily quiet place. No cries of merchants or curses of men and mothers greeted the Roman ears; there was nothing to sell, and mothers clung children tightly to their breasts indoors, fearful of Roman arrows.
Since their commander, the Proconsular governor of Hispania Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus, had completely circumvallated the city, the Roman ballistae could fire bolts a quarter of a mile into the city--far enough to reach the center.

Marius shivered as he remembered the first time he'd seen one used--fired into a solid, seething crowd in the town square, enough worn out by hunger to attempt a break out. The bolt had gone through five men and pinned them to a stone building, all a quarter of a mile away.
Thus Marius had been profoundly grateful that the only people visible in Numantia were darting quickly from house to house on some business or other, and that Quintus Catius and his colleagues on the siegeworks hadn't had to use their weapons today.

And yet, it didn't make the boredom easier. More than enjoying direct, open battle, Gaius Marius reveled in it. He didn't enjoy the blood, the screams, the suffering, and the death; however, that was all Fortuna's say, and he would not stop her from taking what was hers.
No, what Gaius Marius loved was the line, the rank and the file, the command given out and obeyed; he enjoyed more than anything the bugle calls. Watching a battle from a hill--which he'd done only once, as a Military Tribune green to command--he'd seen it all fall into place. The superb organization of the armies of Rome; the moving caterpillar of the barbarian lines, men more likely to strike their own comrades than Roman necks.
Here, this, was what he was born to do. And he'd fallen into it with a fervor that had pleased Scipio Aemilianus immensely; here was a subordinate who did his job purely. There was no grovelling or brown-nosing or malingering from Gaius Marius; the young man was simply dedicated to his beloved work.

And, now that he had no work cut out for him, life in the siegeworks was becoming boring. Brief, early afternoon forays to the other side of the cavalry camp for a gallop with Publius Rutilius and young Prince Jugurtha, or to the Durius upriver of Numantia--to avoid the odium of dead Celtiberian bodies and fecal matter--didn't quite cut it for Gaius Marius. As an elected Military Tribune he had command, of course. The only problem was that, during a siege, there were really no commands to issue. The siege continued until such a time as the situation changed.

Gaius Marius had even appealed to Scipio Aemilianus, who had stoutly refused. "I understand your plight, Gaius Marius," said Scipio Aemilianus one of the many hot, dry summer afternoons in the hills. No aristocratic drawler, Scipio Aemilianus was so patrician on both sides--birth and adoptive, patrician squared!--that Gaius Marius the country bumpkin's son from Arpinum was of the same social standing in his eyes as the long-ennobled Plebeian clans; simply, Scipio Aemilianus wasn't interested in basing his opinions of others on birth and class. So he treated Gaius Marius as his merits and intelligence demanded: kindly and with respect.

"I understand your plight, but you must understand that we are at war. Any siege can be a boring business unless you're one of the more enthusiastic engineers, and yet battle--through sally or relief or trickery in the day or night--can break out at any time. We must be prepared, and that means having our best young men available to lead. I'm proud to say that you're the foremost among them."

Gaius Marius had sighed and said not without respect, "Yes, Sir. I'll limit my outdoors activities."

Scipio Aemilianus had nodded briskly and smiled. "You do that, excellent. And invited Prince Jugurtha of Numidia to your forays; though not Roman, he's an excellent young man that we should hope to bring into the fold." He then watched Gaius Marius leave quickly--well, everything a natural soldier did was quick and efficient--and then dropped his eyes to the Senate dispatches he'd been perusing.

Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus, commander of the Siege of Numantia​

And so Gaius Marius and Publius Rutilius Rufus were rounding the city again when Publius Rutilius stopped in his tracks, then half-ran to catch up to Gaius Marius.

"Huh? What is it, Publius?"

"Nothing nothing, an itch."

Gaius Marius gave Publius Rutilius a skeptical glance, and backtracked a few steps. He knew when his friend was trying to keep them out of trouble. Publius Rutilius rolled his eyes and waited for the worst. Gaius Marius broke out into a smile and whispered "Aha, there he is!"

Quintus Caecilius Metellus leaned against the duty officer's table by the camp gate talking to that same duty officer, Marcus Junius Silanus. Both were plebeian nobles of ancient lineage, and both viewed Publius Rutilius as an upstart, Gaius Marius as a peasant nobody, and Jugurtha as a third, far worse, element--a barbarian!

Gaius Marius's teeth gnashed when he saw the two of them, thick as thieves and stuck with easy jobs with no responsibilities--according to their merits, of course! And yet they would likely rise higher in the Cursus Honorum that Gaius Marius ever would, solely due to the names of their fathers. Gaius Marius had a personality that bordered on abrasive, and he liked to showcase it; tall and big and blustering, with wide shoulders and bushy black eyebrows, Gaius Marius could probably push through life by being abrasive, all the way to the top job.

Publius Rutilius Rufus's teeth gnashed when Gaius Marius's did, but not for the same reasons. Publius Rutilius couldn't help but follow the young man his own age around; the charisma, the brain, the ambition! Gaius Marius's loud approval of the politics of Tiberius Gracchus attracted Publius Rutilius in every philosophical way. The only catch was the consequences.
Publius Rutilius too had his own share of ambition. His father had been a Tribune of the Plebs; his grandfather a Novus Homo who had become Praetor. The gens Rutilia had barely any political allies, and no stalwart allies-by-marriage, to speak of. Were Publius Rutilius Rufus to incur the enmity of the vast Caecilii Metelli clan, or the less widespread but more ancient Junii, his family's line in politics--begun so doggedly and with such hard labor by his grandfather Publius--would be over. So Publius Rutilius Rufus tended to tread carefully and get butterflies in his stomach when Gaius Marius concocted a storm of casual insults to Quintus Caecilius Metellus.

So Publius Rutilius Rufus had no choice but to follow Gaius Marius with every misgiving, and see him march up to the duty officer's table and slam his large hands flat on its top. Quintus Caecilius Metellus blinked and half-stood, whereas Marcus Junius Silanus--made of duller stuff still--opened his mouth and looked up. "What do you want?"

"Is that the proper formula, soldier?" Marius barked, and all conversations within fifty feet stopped at once. "I don't care if your daddy had to grovel at Scipio Aemilianus's feet to get you personally appointed; I was elected by the Roman people, and as such I will be respected!"

Marcus Junius gulped back his anger--still too confused to become fully formed--and began "What's your busi--" when

"Come off it, Gaius Marius!" Quintus Caecilius Metellus barked after his blinking attack in as loud a voice as Marius's, if not so deep. "You come barging in here, disturbing the peace with your atrocious Latin, and expect to be respected? Turn around and approach with consciousness of your station--as a peasant Samnite supplicating to a noble Roman." And Quintus Caecilius delivered a sweet smile onto both Gaius Marius and Marcus Junius--sarcastic in the first case, and supporting in the latter.

Marcus Junius took the hint and continued the argument, as men began to slide closer and crane their necks to see. They were soldiers without a battle, and any conflict pitting the popular Gaius Marius--of similar origin as many of them--against the haughty and--to them--worthless Quintus Caecilius was worth watching. The possibility of a real, physical fight was even better.

"Gaius Marius," said Marcus Junius softly--which was oddly enough his tone when any situation became serious, "please come back when you are fit to report. You are either drunk or sunstruck. Why not swim naked in the river with your barbarian friend?" Though the word barbarian used by many men was simply descriptive, the use of it by this particular Junius in any tone indicated insult.

"You call me a peasant," Gaius Marius picked up loudly, "and my good loyal friend a barbarian! Well, you're just a couple of heavy-handed light-headed pippina! I doubt that you have the brains between you to organize a dinner party for one!"

"You'd know," said Quintus Caecilius wistfully, "about dinner parties." Reminiscently he added, "Wasn't that your father who sold us that lamb for my cousin's marriage party, in the Boarium? I was fascinated with the brutishness of the man, being only a child and ignorant of such filth, and so I followed him to a whorehouse, where your mother led a child about my age with your coloring, and your eyebrows, and your name, and I thought--"

Whatever Quintus Caecilius had thought was interrupted. He had been gazing up at the clouds as if remembering a glorious event, and didn't see Gaius Marius's body dip a little as his legs compressed into springs--and launch himself into Quintus Caecilius. They tumbled into poor Marcus Junius the duty officer, and became tangled in the dry-packed dirt of the camp. Men rushed in from all sides--mostly to watch. Publius Rutilius, being of average physique himself, didn't have the muscle to muscle through the first responders, who were busy betting on the outcome, which was heavily in favor of Gaius Marius.

He didn't see big, sleek Jugurtha--an inch taller than even Gaius Marius, who was quite tall for a Roman--crash through the crowd, which was thinner from the gates. For the Numidians in their cavalry camp just outside the gates had heard the yells, and Jugurtha had been among the first to notice. His pale blue eyes--striking and ominous in the dark Berber face he had inherited from his mother--moved men more efficiently than shoves. He dived under the table like a panther, in full equestrian gear, and didn't stop moving until Gaius Marius was struggling against his one strong arm and Quintus Caecilius down on the ground under the other.

"Stop this Gaius, you idiot! Don't you know the damage you're doing?" He locked eyes then with the onlooking Publius Rutilius, and managed a rueful and knowing grin, which was returned.

"Idiot, is it? Why you, you...!" Gaius Marius whipped up into a frenzy--by himself or by any other man--took some time to cool down.

What did calm him down, and rather quickly too, was the sound of hoofbeats from inside the camp. Only the most official messengers and the most senior legates were allowed horses inside the infantry camp. That meant--

"You! All you men! Disperse, go back to your discussions," Scipio Aemilianus said in loud, clear, angry Latin. The assembled men stared up at him for perhaps two or three seconds, before quickly turning and striding back to their positions. They knew enough not to incur the wrath of this legendary commander.

"You! All you idiots! You absolute women! To my tent, all of you." He said this all in Greek, so that for the most part only Jugurtha and the Military Tribunes understood.

Several hours later it was a bit past noon.

Quintus Caecilius Metellus and Marcus Junius Silanus had left with their pride smarting--and not much else. They had, after all, only reacted to rudeness. And though all the soldiers had asserted that it was Gaius Marius was in the right, Scipio Aemilianus had come to distrust the rankers when it came to their opinion of Gaius Marius.

Publius Rutilius Rufus had left with the lesson that he should have acted sooner, and an apology to the bruised Quintus and Marcus. Without Gaius Marius's presence in the room, his apology was much more sincere than it could have been.

Prince Jugurtha of Numidia, all of twenty three years old, was commended for breaking the fight up, and yet advised to leave Roman conflicts to Romans in the future. He left with an annoyed look at the last man waiting outdoors under the hot sun: Gaius Marius.

Gaius Marius marched in after the smirking duty officer called him in. It wasn't that this young officer--also about Marius's age--named Spurius Dellius took any side; the whole issue was simply hilarious to him. Gaius Marius smirked back and raised his hand as if to slap Spurius, but the other young man only barely contained his giggles, rolling his eyes and weakly waving the equally amused Gaius Marius into Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus's presence.

Scipio Aemilianus knew very well what Gaius Marius's potential was, and knew very well that the middle course must be steered to bring him there. Antagonizing the powerful Caecilii Metelli would bring ruin onto Gaius Marius; passively accepting his place allotted by society would prove equally ruinous. Scipio Aemilianus was a patriot, and what he wanted most of all was to mold this brilliant young commander with potential in both soldiery and lawmaking into the best he could be, for Rome's sake.
He had to confess that he didn't like the haughty plebeians like young Quintus Metellus and Marcus Silanus much; he liked them even less than haughty men of his own impeccably patrician background, for these young plebeian men couldn't even claim to be descended from the Republic's forefathers, or ancient kings in Latium or Etruria or Campania.
So Scipio Aemilianus had decided to speak to Gaius Marius last, with his rage at this childish display ebbing.

"Sit, Gaius Marius." Though it was said sternly, Marius noted a hint of tiredness. Dealing with our foolery must drive him mad, thought Marius. Well, at least it's something to do in this forsaken place.

"Yes, Sir," Gaius Marius said, and sat.

"I recall that I said before that I understand your boredom." Without a pause for effect, Scipio Aemilianus continued. "I do not, however, understand your behavior today. You show a lack of maturity, intelligence, and command--yes, I said command, don't give me those silly doe eyes--command of your senses and your emotions." Now he paused for effect, giving Gaius Marius the time to reflect that he must be quite angry. His usually florid speech had given way to very simply oratory. Gaius Marius sat up straighter, dreading what might come.

"I am not," said Scipio Aemilianus sternly, "ejecting you from this army. I'm not even going to punish you." Gaius Marius's caterpillar eyebrows flew up and began to undulate curiously; after tearing his eyes off of them, Scipio continued, "You need a healthy diversion to develop your sense of who you are. You need some time away from the isolation and violence of this camp. You need a command in which you make the decisions."

The eyebrows stopped and Gaius Marius's ears perked up. Now it was Scipio's turn to raise his eyebrows, and Gaius Marius breathed, "Please continue, Sir." It was a dream come true.

"Oh, it's 'Please' now, is it?" Scipio cracked a smile. He dived into the job without further preamble: "You're to take a century of men downriver, to the ford crossing the Durius about three miles away. You will relieve the force of Aulus Egilius, who has been holding the crossing and watching for Numantian siege-dodgers swimming down the river. You'll be taking the Fourth Legion's Twelfth Century, under Centurion Gaius Corfidius. Yours will be all the ultimate executive decisions, but I expect you to fully use the advice of Gaius Corfidius and his Optio Lucius Potitius Gallus; they are both very experienced."

"Sir...I...THANK YOU!" Gaius Marius burst out. As a Military Tribune, he hadn't expected to see any independent command; that was for the more intelligent and ambitious Centurions. He hadn't expected any independence until becoming a Propraetor and governing a province--whenever that might have been. Now here was his chance to prove himself.

Scipio's tight smile betrayed his pleasure at Gaius Marius's combined pleasure and disbelief. "Run along now, Gaius. Corfidius and Potitius were informed as soon as I made my decision about what to do with you--just before seeing Quintus Caecilius after this morning's events." Now the smile faded. "Any more silly antics, Gaius Marius--and I mean it!--and I'll have to remove you from command. You're better off staying a country squire in Arpinum than drawing the enmity of the Caecilii Metelli in Rome."

Gaius Marius swallowed and nodded. Quintus Caecilius was insignificant now, a flea, now that Gaius Marius had his command. "I won't let you down, Sir."

A bust commonly held to be of an older Gaius Marius​

Yay, my first TL! What do you all think of this first part of the prologue?

Please point out any stylistic or grammatical mistakes or inconsistencies; I won't have it in others' writing, and I'd appreciate an utter lack of it in my own.

Kudos to whoever can guess the POD (not yet arrived)!

EDIT: In hindsight, some may not know what AVC means. AVC means Ab Vrbe Condita, or Ab Urbe Condita; After the Founding of Rome.
1 AVC is commonly held to be 753 BC, so 619 AVC is 134 BC.

 

[Malta]

Hmmm. A surprise out of left field. Anything with Amazigh I support.

 

[tuareg109]

FOR WANT OF THE HAMMER

PROLOGUE PART 2​

The sun broke over the eastern part of the Iberian Chain on a clear, cloudless sky as Gaius Marius marched with his century, down river to rendezvous with Aulus Egilius. His order being given, Gaius Marius knew that he could now do as he wished, within reason. Oh, what he would give to see Quintus Caecilius's face falling into horror after learning that his absence at Morning Assembly was due to independent command, and not some uncharacteristic tardiness. Oh, the letters of flaming anger that would race between Numantia and Rome, between Quintus and his father and brother and uncle and cousins!

This broad smile endeared even more to this century, which was predisposed toward liking him already from other centuries' talking of his eminent suitability. He was a man's man, and he didn't tolerate weakness or malingering; he was the soldier's friend, a champion of the people, and he understood them innately. He would never waste their lives upon the field.

Indeed, one reason that Gaius Marius had set out so early, not sleeping the entire night himself, was to have more time to get to know Corfidius's Century. Gaius Marius was Military Tribune to Publius Cornelius Scipio, and so served with Scipio's legion; he knew the name of every man in it or attached to it. Corfidius's Century was in the Fourth Legion, under Scipio's friend and legate Lucius Furius Philus, and energetic and warmhearted man who had also quite naturally and inadvertently endeared himself to the men.

The day promised to be nice and hot and beautiful, with cool breezes coming down from the mountains at intervals; Gaius Marius continued with his stories and jokes to the men. A hundred men on a Roman road, even at the easy pace Gaius Marius was setting, will make three miles in less than an hour. They reached the ford well before the height of the sun, and there Gaius Marius met Aulus Egilius.

A camp--tiny by Roman standards, about 6000 square feet--had been erected to house Aulus Egilius and his men. No Roman force, no matter how little the apparent danger, spent the night or the idle day without fortifications; here in Hispania, there was little reason to hope for no danger.

Gaius Marius halted his Century a hundred paces from one of the camp's two gates--no Roman camp had only one way of entrance (or escape). "Ave!" he shouted, and a head popped up over the wall.

"Ave!" it called. "What is your business?"

"Military Tribune Gaius Marius here with orders from Proconsul Publius Cornelius Scipio to relieve the Century of Aulus Egilius from its duties, and to permit its safe return to permanent camp."

The head disappeared and, after a few short moments, the gates swung outward. Since the camp was much too small to have two hundred men milling about, Gaius Marius marched in with only Gaius Corfidius and Lucius Potitius accompanying him. They were met just inside the gates by Aulus Egilius himself. A grizzled veteran like Corfidius and Potitius, Aulus Egilius eyed Gaius Marius with interest.

Aulus Egilius in other circumstances, on parade with full sets of silver phalerae on his chest​

"Welcome to my camp, Gaius Marius. It's nothing special, no, but my boys do well." With serious faces they gave the Roman salute, and Corfidius and Potitius repeated the gesture to Aulus Egilius. "Now," Egilius's lips quivered upward slightly, "would you take some wine while I read your missives?" Gaius Marius nodded consent and reflected on the need for wine here. Downriver of Numantia, the water would be foul; at Scipio's camp the men had the luxury of just taking a ten minute walk to the fresh clean river north of Numantia. Here the men had no such option, so they were not so clean either. Yet Scipio had taken care of them; the wine was well watered, and mules must carry fresh barrels every day.

Aulus Egilius had of course read the missive quickly, and now sipped quietly with Gaius Marius and his subordinates in his tent, seated on ordinary wooden camp stools. "An interesting position you're in, young man; I daresay if old Scipio says you have promise, then you have promise." Gaius Marius grinned a little bashfully and didn't say anything; his way with the soldiers was just natural.

Gaius Corfidius, seeing his minor discomfort, broke in. "Is there anything, Aulus, that we should know about the enemy? When they attack, from what direction, where they fritter themselves off to, why? Anything else special?" Gaius Corfidius was a man who enjoyed command because he loved to see his soldiers thrive, and yet was patient and sensitive enough to know that Gaius Marius was destined for higher circles, and that Corfidius yielding to him now--and he really was a very likable man--could either bring rewards, or simply a better general for Roma--which was a reward in itself.

"Hmmm," Aulus Egilius leaned back to look at all three men more evenly. "Our main job is to watch the swimmers going under the walls and surviving our razors--ingenious idea of Scipio's, but it's horrible to see one of the poor buggers all cut up, floating by in shit and blood and moaning his head off." Aulus Egilius jerked out of this reminisce and grinned, "Never mind that though. The ones that do pass under have to also get through our siege lines, and that means that they're almost right here, and that we can see them. Most of those boys are tired and hungry, and this ford is a perfect place for them to rest their feet or climb out. We just have five men watching the ford at any time, and the bowmen do the rest. No hassle."

"And the trouble?" Gaius Marius asked after a slight pause. "The General would have sent me somewhere else if this was a completely peaceful job."

"Very good, Gaius Marius. Of course there's some trouble, and you're just the young firebrand the beat that trouble dead. It seems that not all of these Celtiberian bastards ran from Termantia to Uxama Argaela, and are now holed up in Numantia waiting for the sword. No indeed, some of them crept through these forests and mountains of theirs and are attacking us from the west. It's only twenty men or so, but every mule dead is a loss."

He pointed to the hills to the west, opposite the direction from which Gaius Marius had come and across the river, and said, "They come from the hills healthy and well fed; their stores could last years, I guess. They swim across the river and get our mules and our messengers. Bastards can't leave the poor animals alone. Funny, that I'm more angry when the mules die, but how can I help it?"

Corfidius and Potitius exchanged glances behind Gaius Marius's back--all of Aulus Egilius's attention was on Gaius Marius; the man had clearly cracked a bit under the strain of seeing all the bloodshed and the bodies in the river. Maybe this was why they were relieving him.

Gaius Marius obviously thought the same, for he nodded gently and said, "We'll take care of the bastards, Aulus. I'll make sure of that."

"Good!" They shook hands again at Aulus's quick instigation, and he put his Century into marching order with the customary Roman efficiency, Marius noted proudly. No matter what his mental state, Aulus Egilius was still dependable. Gaius Marius sent Lucius Potitius out quickly to move his Century off the road to make way for Aulus's Century, while he climbed up a ladder onto the rampart with Gaius Corfidius and paced the perimeter.

Aulus Egilius's Century leaving the Camp on the Durius​

"Bit cracked," was Gaius Marius's laconic comment. After no answer from Gaius Corfidius, he asked, "What would you do?"

Corfidius thought for a few moments and then parroted, "Well, what would you do, Gaius Marius?"

Gaius Marius allowed himself one quick laugh. "Ah, but isn't that the best teacher? Reflection." In this time they had completed a circuit of the camp, and his men had begun setting up their tents in the camp. "I'd have the men share night watch and ford watch duties, with the best archers excused, of course, for their specialty. But I'd take the twenty very best, very fastest fighters, and I'd drill them hard so that when the bastards hit, we can follow them out into the hills and harry their backsides until they burn." He was savagely grinning at this point.

"And an ambush?" Gaius Corfidius asked dubiously. "They'd lure us out and there stand a hundred Celtiberians howling for Roman blood."

Gaius Marius's grin didn't fade. "Aulus Egilius never followed them out, why would the Celtiberians think that I would? They won't waste their time and energy trekking all the way down the mountain to set up an ambush that's completely unsure." Gaius Marius swung sideways the begin his descent down a ladder.

Gaius Corfidius made a face and, staring mock-ignorantly into the sky, said, "Seems as if yo--" but stopped because of the ripping, toppling noise he heard. He looked down and rushed to the edge, but it was too late. The ladder Gaius Marius had chosen was both slipshod in its construction and of poor quality wood; additionally, termites had begun to eat into its base and Aulus Egalius's men, not wanting to venture out into the eerie forests to chop wood for more, simply avoided it and never told their superiors about it--a remarkable achievement for such a small, intertwined group of men.

In any case, Gaius Marius's stature and weight brought it toppling down, and he hit his head hard on the dry hard-packed Spanish dirt. Gaius Corfidius rushed to the next ladder but descended it gingerly, ready for anything. While it held his weight, he still jumped the last eight feet to the ground and sprinted like a young man to where Gaius Marius lay, not two feet from a soft tent that would have cushioned his fall and surrounded by the entire Century, weapons and gates and defenses all forgotten.

"What's happe--"

"Is he--"

"Move your head, can I see--"

"Let me through!" Corfidius shouted in panic. Would Scipio or Philus ever let him hear--or feel, through lack of promotions--the end of it? If...if the worst had occurred.

The paltry group moved aside for him willingly enough, but as soon as he saw Gaius Marius, Corfidius knew what the rankers too had seen. His head seemed to crane up but also looked low, as if hunched into his shoulders; his neck was broken, his eyes were glazed, and breath of no kind issued from his lungs.

The Military Tribune Gaius Marius was dead.

 

[St. Just]

Ah, so Gaius Marius is dead! Interesting...

 

[Grouchio]

I thought Gaius Marius was the one who just got killed! Either way, the Cimbri are going to have fun with this. Please read my recap for more information!

 

[EarlofChatham]

Fantastic. This is a remarkably well written TL. You had me liking Marius (which of course was the idea), but I guess that wasn't too much a stretch as I've always been more of a Marian than a Sullan.

 

[SlyDessertFox]

Great start. Jugurtha is going to love this POD.

 

[tuareg109]

Either way, the Cimbri are going to have fun with this. Please read my recap for more information!

And how! Yes, I've already read your recaps, and they're great! Thanks for compiling all that information into a concise, very organized few posts.

Fantastic. This is a remarkably well written TL. You had me liking Marius (which of course was the idea), but I guess that wasn't too much a stretch as I've always been more of a Marian than a Sullan.

Thank you.

Great start. Jugurtha is going to love this POD.

Oh, oh yes!

 

[tuareg109]

FOR WANT OF THE HAMMER

NUMIDIA PART 1, 644 AVC​

Quintus Caecilius Metellus eyed Utica, the main port of Africa Province, with distaste. It wasn't that he hadn't wanted this campaign; quite to the contrary, he had successfully convinced the Senate--not that that was so hard, with his brother Lucius Caecilius Metellus Dalmaticus Pontifex Maximus and Marcus Aemilius Scaurus Princeps Senatus arguing his case--to let him immediately depart for Africa Province to continue the war against Jugurtha, instead of being forced to stay in Rome and attend to consular duties.

Marcus Junius Silanus will love those duties, he reflected with a grin. He'll take the double workload and not complain for one second, for he loves it. No, Quintus Caecilius's dissatisfaction was that he was Consul so late, six years past the usual time. In the time since the death of Gaius Gracchus, the Republic's political climate had been decidedly conservative, and year after year the old aristocratic names were voted into the offices of Aedile, Praetor, and Consul.
Quintus Caecilius had run for Consul in his proper time, at the age of 40, in 638 AVC; however, having the support of his stellar older brother Lucius Caecilius and his cousins hadn't been enough to get him in, for Quintus Caecilius had few great accomplishments of his own. Most of his place in society had been assured by ancestors and relatives going before him.

And yet Quintus Caecilius believed that he could do the job best; he'd always believed that. When he'd heard of Gaius Marius's death by accident, he'd grieved briefly for a fellow Roman dead--and then reflected that he could have done the job much better, and why hadn't Scipio Aemilianus sent him?
He sighed most of all that Spurius Postumius Albinus--the previous year's Consul--and his younger brother and Quaestor, Aulus, had left him such a mess.

Spurius Postumius Albinus had been one of the most vocal supporters of Jugurtha's cousin and legitimate King of Numidia, Adherbal. King Jugurtha, the proud and handsome and fierce bastard son of Prince Mastanbal and a Gaetuli tribeswoman had proved himself so well in Numantia and in other conflicts that his uncle King Micispa, father of Adherbal, had adopted him, and preferred him as successor over his own sons!

Well, that threw his sons, Adherbal and Hiempsal, into a towering rage; when Micipsa died and Jugurtha used his considerable influence with both the nobles and the tribes--being half-Berber himself--to oust his cousins, Adherbal and Hiempsal had run off to their power base: Rome. Adherbal and Hiempsal, in line with Micipsa's policy, had catered to Roman merchant interests in Numidia; for that was how the Republic liked to expand: it began with trade and money, and the domination of it.

King Jugurtha, no hater of Romans, had appealed to the Senate. The merchants, he said, loved him, and he was an effective ruler. Blood ties with the tribes meant that there were no raids against Roman caravans. Letters from the merchants and bankers based in Africa Province and in Numidia confirmed this; King Jugurtha was left alone to do Rome's work for them.

Prince Hiempsal died of natural illness in Rome in 636 AVC, and then Prince Adherbal, a much more forceful and effective man, took control of the efforts to be restored to his father's throne. He caught the eye of Spurius Postumius Albinus, who was looking several years in advance for a good campaign during his consulship; he was looking for riches and, more importantly, influence and glory for the family, for the gens Postumia hadn't produced a Consul in several decades, and Spurius wanted to fix this fact.

Spurius Postumius--with many letters to influential people and with the testimony of a few important men who had made enemies of Jugurtha in Numantia--had convinced the Senate to send a commission to Numidia, to ascertain the situation. Spurius Postumius of course headed it, and went along with two Quaestors and several clerks and backbencher Senators; there they poked and prodded, and insulted every man not a Roman citizen, and accomplished their work. King Jugurtha was aware enough of his nobility and intelligence to be offended, and he closed his borders and his trade to any Romans.

Prince Adherbal, gleeful at this overreaction, urged Spurius Postumius to get the Senate to declare war; Jugurtha, however, stole a march on him, so to speak, and appeared just outside Rome with servants, a hundred men as bodyguard, and his loyal maternal half-brother Bomilcar, to plead his case to the Senate.
Jugurtha explained the situation quite logically, and Adherbal and Spurius Postumius watched in horror, as it seemed as if King Jugurtha would get his Treaty of Peace and Friendship. Then, seemingly out of the blue, a savior appeared: Gaius Mamilius, Tribune of the Plebs for that year, accused all of Jugurtha's supporters of accepting bribes from him. Not caring enough for Numidia to face odious charges of corruption and bribe-taking, the Senators backed away from Jugurtha's cause, and he was left to pick up the pieces and head back to Numidia.

Ten talents of silver were transferred from Spurius Postumius's bankers to Gaius Mamilius's, and two hundred pounds of Jugurtha transferred themselves from Rome to his capital of Cirta, where he prepared for war--but not before sending an assassin to bury a dagger between Prince Adherbal's ribs.

Spurius Postumius's long-labored-for plans began to fall around his ears, until Prince Gauda, Jugurtha's legitimate half-brother, escaped his close, comfortable confinement in Cirta to Rome, and presented himself as Adherbal's replacement. Though Gauda was nowhere near as physically or mentally impressive as either Adherbal or Jugurtha, he was a dream come true for the nearly-ruined Spurius Postumius. With this new prince, Jugurtha's preparations for war, and the expulsion of all Roman merchants from Numidian lands, Spurius Postumius had his consulship.

And with it, Quintus Caecilius thought, frowning, he did absolutely nothing. Spurius Postumius had sat in Utica, the capital of Roman Africa, with his thumb up his ass; too ignorant and afraid to confront Jugurtha on the field, he was left with hundreds of complaints from the grain farmers up the fertile Bagradas valley, and the grain merchants who made good gold shipping this grain to Rome every year, when Jugurtha crossed the low Aurasius Mons, and began to devastate the province.

Roman Africa in 100 BC (653 AVC). Note that, in 109 BC (644 AVC), Jugurtha's Numidia stretched from Rusaddir to Dougga​

Spurius Postumius hied himself off shamefaced to Rome in October, to the disappointment of all his supporters; in Utica he left an overwhelmed Quaestor in his younger brother, Aulus, and the spitting mad Prince Gauda. It was in these last few months of the year, with the nervous Aulus--so Jugurtha's spies truthfully told him--in command, that King Jugurtha struck.

Very simply, he lured Aulus Postumius Albinus and his paltry, unused men, aching for combat, onto the plain just outside of Utica. There, with insults and rude gestures, King Jugurtha let Aulus lose control, and then simply annihilated the Romans. He captured Aulus with five cohorts intact--half a legion--and, to prove that he wasn't the monster the Postumii had made him out to be, didn't slaughter them for invading his lands and disrespecting his tradesmen. He simply made them pass under the yoke.

Which made every inordinately proud Roman's--which meant every Roman alive--breath hiss between his teeth. For an army to pass under the yoke was worse than for it to be annihilated; they were humiliated, and it was Aulus Postumius's fault. Spurius Postumius, career and fortune fallen, loudly proclaimed that since he was officially the commanding officer, he was responsible; he was stripped of his citizenship for incompetence and bribe-taking, and sent into exile. He settled not uncomfortably in Massilia, blistering at the winds of Fortuna, but secure in the knowledge that his little brother still had the chance to bring that same Fortuna onto their side.

So Quintus Caecilius, elected just before Spurius Postumius's trial, put forward that he would like to finish Jugurtha; he was given the job. He, his brother, and his cousins began recruiting among their clients and in the countryside--mostly in Etruria--and ended up with five solid legions of seasoned men of property who hadn't done all their campaigns yet, mixed with a legion of raw recruits. These he sprinkled among the veterans, and ended up with six legions at about regular strength--30,000 men.

He had sent these into Numidia in stages with his Quaestor and son of his good friend, Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, garrisoning all of them at Utica, which was to be his headquarters and the center of his campaign. Quintus Caecilius sailed into Utica harbor in February, knowing that time was of the essence; a few good victories and the alleviation of pressure on the grain farmers would see his command prorogued into the next year, and he would be able to match his brother's Dalmaticus with an agnomen of his own: Numidicus.

He viewed Utica with distaste, but also with excitement. Here was a tough job that he could nevertheless do well; it would bring him fame and riches, and put him on a level equal with his brother Lucius--always older and better.

Quintus Caecilius Metellus's fleet sailing along the African coast​

So I hope the infodumping doesn't bother you guys; I just had to give an explanation, otherwise future events and character development wouldn't make any sense.

What do you think of this deviation from the central Roman sphere of things?

 

[Malta]

Hah. Jugurtha knows just how to play the Romans. The first round goes to him but will the second? Rome is a rather long term threat.

 

[tuareg109]

FOR WANT OF THE HAMMER

NUMIDIA PART 2, 644 AVC​

"The Quaestor has come to see you."

The Quinti Caecilii Metelli (father and son) had been ensconced comfortably in the governor's house in Utica, which overlooked the neat, Phoenician row of whitewashed buildings and the busy harbor, when the Quaestor Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus arrived from Thapsus.

Both Quintus Caeciliuses were poring over the reports of Africa's finances and taxes; the war with Jugurtha had thrown them into disarray, and it had taken four days for father and son--both quite adept at math and financing--to get halfway through the mess of papers, which could be relevant or irrelevant, valid or invalid, legible or illegible.

Quintus Caecilius the Consul set down the paper he was holding and stood up immediately, stretching enormously and glad for this diversion. "Send him in, Lucius." The Roman soldier turned away to obey; Quintus Caecilius had seen the havoc that African (a mix of native Berber, Numidian, and Phoenician people) servants--spies for Jugurtha, mostly--had wreaked on the legions of the Postumii Albini, and would not make the same mistakes.

Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus strode in, and Quintus Caecilius moved around the desk to greet him. He had been in Africa since November, recruiting auxiliaries among the tribes--a necessary evil--and putting the uproarious small African farmers and large Roman farmers both in their place; it was now early February, and Gnaeus Domitius had badly missed company of senatorial quality for more than three months. "Quintus Caecilius, Consul! How are you, Sir?" His skin and hair were almost the same shade of dark red; he had spent all winter outdoors with face exposed on the flat riverside plains that characterized Roman Africa.

Geography of modern Tunisia, about a third of which was part of Roman Africa in 644 AVC​

"No need for such formalities, Gnaeus! Come, sit."

As Gnaeus Domitius moved further into the room, Quintus Caecilius Junior stood up quickly. Almost the youthful image of his father, he only lacked the typically large eyes of the Caecilii Metelli; he had the shifty grey eyes of the Licinii, from his mother's side. Young Quintus Caecilius followed the pattern of the doggedly determined, stalwart, and aristocratically arrogant Caecilii Metelli; upon closer inspection, he was harder working than most. Instead of rising to meet the Quaestor at the door, he had waited, calculating and assessing the finances, until the last second; not to be considered rude, he pushed the papers aside with a quiet sigh and turned to the conversation.

"Gnaeus Domitius, Gnaeus Domitius! So fit, so brown! How's provincial life treating you?"

"Cousin, cousin," Gnaeus Domitius rolled his eyes. "Let me tell you, these provincial peasants, and their sheep--well, very scared sheep, I can tell you that much," he said with a grin. "There are the African provincials, and then there are the Romans, who are almost as bad! To seed, half of them, and going native too! It's good for them that Jugurtha's breathing down their necks; otherwise they'd all weigh 300 pounds."

"Yes, well, we'll fix that," said Quintus Caecilius surely. With Gnaeus Domitius, one never knew when a small complaint might burst into one of his famous tirades. "What of Jugurtha? His army? What are the tribes saying?"

Gnaeus Domitius hinged onto this last question. "Oh and the tribes! Our interpreters can't understand half of what they're saying, and the other half is bound to be Jugurtha's lies! They're up in the mountains and hills, dancing their shaman dances around the fires; their sheep are even worse off, and you can't even blame them once you see the women."

Quintus Caecilius chuckled to humor Gnaeus Domitius--he wasn't really one for vulgarity or any implied acts of distaste--and prompted, "What about Jugurtha? Are you sure that these are lies?"

"Oh," Gnaeus Domitius's hand flapped, "sure. The tri--"

At this moment the guard-servant, Lucius, entered with a jug of wine and three silver cups on a tray. Quintus Caecilius Junior waved him away and poured for Gnaeus Domitius first, his father second, and himself last. Gnaeus Domitius downed his cup in one breath--having just ridden all day and not having sated his thirst at the door--and Quintus Junior poured again.

"Ah," Gnaeus Domitius smacked his lips in content and admired the cup. "Sure beats drinking out of these stinking leather canteens," he said, slapping his own, hanging beside his waist; its contents sloshed around as if in complaint. "Ah, where was I? Ah, so the tribes are certainly hiding something. On a good, clear, dry day--about half the days this winter--farmers around Thapsus and Hadrumentum have reported large movements in the hills. Of course, it takes us half a day to organize the men and get everybody out there; by then, the buggers are gone."

Roman Africa in pink​

"You're sure it's not a mirage of some sort?" asked Quintus the Consul, remembering well the natural phenomena of the dry country in Hispania.

"No no, Quintus. There are thousands of tracks, rocks and bushes disturbed, horse droppings. The leavings of an army. I just could never help but feel we were heading into an ambush--why else posture near enough to be seen, but far enough to be out of safe reach?"

"Sound reasoning," Quintus Senior reasoned, nodding and answering the rhetorical question.

Gnaeus Domitius frowned. "Yes, and then there's more proof. His attacks on the Bagradas valley and areas north of the mountains have stopped, and only tribal raids continue in the south, as has been the case since time immemorial. The only movements we've seen are those posturings near Thapsus and Hadrumentum. It makes me think that he's up to something...something devious."

Quintus Junior, young and uncorrupted enough to want to think the best of everyone, said, "Perhaps Jugurtha wants to show his good will. With Spurius Postumius--the man who caused all his trouble with Rome--gone, he wants to show us that he means no harm."

Quintus Senior and Gnaeus Domitius both shook their heads vehemently, and the former harshly said, "Son, you should know better. Jugurtha is a barbarian, he wouldn't hesitate to slit your throat if he stood here. What's more is he made Romans pass under the yoke! He could have done that idiot Aulus Postumius and his legions a greater service by slaughtering them to a man; I would not live with such humiliation to my name."

The son, chastised into silence, nodded for them to go on with the conversation. After a slight pause, the embarrassed Gnaeus Domitius said, "Yes, Jugurtha's certainly up to a wily trick; did you know him well in Numantia, Quintus Caecilius?"

"No," Quintus Caecilius frowned, "but I know a few men in Rome who did--somewhat. As well as one can know a barbarian, in any case. I'll write letters to them, in any case; I might even invite the best over, to enjoy this house as guests or even to serve in this campaign as advisors."

King Jugurtha of Numidia, from the mind of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Senior​

"Good idea," said Gnaeus Domitius earnestly. "I've asked some of the African farmers--a more honest and Roman-like bunch than the tribesmen, I tell you--and they say that Jugurtha is distant from their colleagues on the other side of the border as well. Seems to spend more time in the mountains, with the tribes."

"I sense, cousin," said Quintus Senior, face brightening, "a way to erode Jugurtha's authority in the fertile northern part of his--I mean Gauda's, really--kingdom."

King Jugurtha's Numidia, stretching from the Mulucha River in the west to Zama in the east​

Gnaeus Domitius smiled ferally and said, "We can set out for the border next nundinum! It should take us three days at a decent pace. We can start there, and work our way into the country, convincing the ordinary people not to support Jugurtha; after all, he's the bastard of a tribe of raiders that devastate their hard-worked fields, and he's thick as a thief with them to boot."

Quintus Senior returned the same feral smile. "Cousin Gnaeus, I like the way you think."


4 updates in a little over 48 hours? I like it!

 

[Grouchio]

This is going to end deliciously for Jugurtha...

 

[altwere]

I can't wait to see what's in store

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

I'm definitely following this one.

 

[tuareg109]

FOR WANT OF THE HAMMER

DIVERSIONS PART 1, 644 AVC​

Said Publius Rutilius Rufus to Quintus Caecilius Metellus in a letter written in the middle of Sextilis [August]:

Ah, many apologies Quintus Caecilius Metellus! So much has been happening recently; both political and social life in dear Roma are roaring by at full spate. The dog days of summer are still at their height, and yet there is no typical lull in activity in all spheres of life; ah, where shall I begin? To not distract you with the heavier news of political and military matters, I shall begin with the social.

To start off, all doubts I had about joining you as a Legate in Numidia are allayed; the disturbing news of Jugurtha's continued military inaction--even after the six months since your first letter!--seemed eerie from the start. Then when I got your second letter...well, all of Rome was talking about it for weeks; an utter outrage. The whole city is burning with hatred and fury at both Jugurtha's actions and its own impotence; my hand shakes as I write, even after two months of knowing the news. That Jugurtha would actually wantonly slaughter every living Roman--man, woman, and child--within his borders simply sickens me. He is clearly a changed man since Numantia; I daresay we Romans had not enough influence on him.

In any case, back to purely social issues. The first reason that I wish to join you is to counter Jugurtha as effectively as possible by using all that I know of him--and of who he used to be. The second reason makes for an undoubtedly interesting story.

The dismay of Quintus Caecilius (and you, dear reader) upon discovering the length of Publius Rutilius's missive​

You know, no doubt, being the conscious aristocrat that you are, who Lucius Cornelius Sulla is. Any Roman not in the First Class would assume him to be a plebeian Cornelius, given his very fair coloring and penuriousness, and the descendant of some Gallic or German freedman. He is, of course, the descendant of an unfortunate line of foolish, wasteful, and hideously drunken Cornelii Sullae; that he, being a thoroughly intelligent and decent fellow, was too proud to beg for a loan from one of his distant Cornelian cousins--either Nasica or Lentulus--did much to raise my pitying opinion of him, yet little to alleviate his anguish. Simply imagine, the anguish of being a patrician Cornelius, penniless and not even owning one slave in the city of your forefathers. The mind boggles.

Gah, enough of those emotions! My point is, where Fortuna abandoned the Sullae some time around the Pyrrhic War, it found this Lucius Cornelius Sulla again, and gave him wings on his feet. Like Mercury he has risen from owning about 100 sesterces to his name to qualifying for entry into the Senate well above the standard of 1,000,000 sesterces. Now, how did Fortuna gift Lucius Cornelius with such wealth? He had been living with his stepmother Clitumna--who married his drunkard of a father apparently out of silly love--in her house on the Palatine, with her free non-citizen houseguest Nicopolis--who some (many) say was also Lucius Cornelius's mistress. In fact, not a few maintain that Clitumna was also his mistress, but that's beside the point. First, Clitumna's principal heir Lucius Gavius Stichus the Slaver died of a wretched abdominal disease over the course of a month; he died looking like a skeleton, or so the famed Athenodorus Siculus--the best doctor money can buy, for Clitumna loved her nephew dearly--told me.

Well, Clitumna was prostrated, and nothing Marcia--the wife of my dear friend Gaius Julius Caesar, and Clitumna's neighbor--could do helped whatsoever. Then Nicopolis up and died at the beginning of Maius, of massive kidney and liver inflammation. No, Quintus Caecilius! I can hear you from here, your lips scraping together as you scowl at the suspiciousness of it all, and assure you that Gaius Julius assures me that all is well; Lucius Cornelius is above reproach in this matter.

It was at this time that we learned that Nicopolis had left every penny she owned to Lucius Cornelius--and she owned many pennies! Inherited from her long-late husband, a Roman soldier who acquired much plunder tramping all over Macedonia and Illyria against the barbarians; and invested cleverly in businesses and land all over Italy; it all went to Lucius Cornelius, who now qualified as an equestrian, which put him on level with not too few patricians--those of them that prefer commerce to administration, in any case. But no, Lucius Cornelius aimed high, and he bided his time, continuing to invest and try to accrue the capital to run for Quaestor--for he's one year overdue.

Clitumna--fifty years old and aging, the poor lonely old dear--was now bereft of good friend Nicopolis and nephew and heir Lucius Gavius; prostrated with grief and suffering the beginning of our deadly summer, she took a furlough to her airy, healthy villa at Circei--and promptly threw herself off the cliffs there! It makes for a morbid, exciting, and undoubtedly inspiring tale: a penniless patrician Cornelius rising into his rightful place through the gruesome, unfortunate, and grief-filled deaths of three social non-entities. Black humor, low theater; whatever you might deride it as, I find it intriguing!

Well, with Gaius Julius Caesar the kind, helpful, understanding neighbor--and the executor of the Last Wills and Testaments of Nicopolis and Clitumna, to boot--accompanying him, and with all paperwork in order, Lucius Cornelius Sulla presented himself at the Censors' Tribunal in the Forum on the thirteenth of Quintilis. With a cursory perusing of the paperwork--a mere formality, with such an honest eminent as Gaius Julius present, and with the news of Lucius Cornelius's new fortune (estimated at a respectable, low-mid 5,000,000 sesterces and 1,500 iugera of good land) all over the Palatine--the Censors Marcus Aemilius Scaurus and Marcus Livius Drusus shook Lucius Cornelius's hands warmly, welcoming him into the Senate's warm--dare I say womb-like?--fold. No doubt they expect that he, being a patrician Cornelius so recently destitute, will work as hard as possible to preserve the rights of the nobility, to prevent his hardships from ever happening to another nobleman--something that you, I daresay, quite approve of!

Another thing about Lucius Cornelius that you'll be very interested to learn: he seems to have taken an interest in your daughter Caecilia Metella, and accompanies her perhaps once per nundinum to the Porticus Margaritaria, where they speak at some length about many social and political matters, I am told. Your daughter--not lacking brains, of course--seems to attract Lucius Cornelius immensely. Her brains, allied with the possible alliance by marriage to your powerful family, and thus the entire conservative bloc of the Senate, seems to appeal wildly to this young favorite of Fortuna.

After being introduced to him by Gaius Julius, I've invited him over to dinner--and been invited by him--several times, and I can say that I like him immensely, Quintus Caecilius, and you will too. Your eminent brother Lucius thinks the same, as he'll tell you in his own--probably much shorter--letter; and I seriously urge you to consider him as a husband for your eligible young daughter. In addition, I believe that he can serve you best as Quaestor next year. My reasons have already been listed above: his intelligence, his decency, his loyalty to his own class and the concept of Roma; they all recommend him. In addition, he seems to have other, more unusual talents at his disposal. Trust me, Quintus Caecilius, I have a gut feeling about this. Ask for him as your personal Quaestor for next year, and he can't not get in; only two years late into his public career, we'll make an eminent, involved Senator of him yet.

Lucius Cornelius Sulla, 655 AVC, at the age of 42​

Now for the political news.

Your fellow Consul, Marcus Junius Silanus, was confronted by the elusive Germans on the first of Sextilis, just two weeks ago; those same Germans, in fact, who disastrously defeated Gnaeus Papirius Carbo at Noreia in Noricum some three years ago. Gnaeus Papirius's army was completely destroyed by the Germans, and yet they elusively turned away; quite an anomaly to us power-grabbing Romans, eh?

In any case, your colleague Marcus Junius met the same fate. He barely managed to escape with his life, 30,000 propertied Roman and Italian men lie dead in Gallia Provincia, and the Germans again turned back and headed into the wilderness of Gallia Comata, where they loaf off of the indignant Celtic tribes. All of Rome is shivering in fear and anticipation of what might happen; Marcus Junius's incompetent carcass is safe in Rome, and yet Rome is not safe. The good roads of your Quaestor's father Gnaeus Domitius and this year's Censor Marcus Aemilius Scaurus ensure that the Germans will have an easy march straight into Italy, should they choose to take it.

I can see that you're riveted, reading this, and am both delighted and depressed to let you know that this letter won't continue much longer. The bulk of the political activity this year has been spent organizing a prosecution and defense of Marcus Junius Silanus for his actions before and during the Battle in Gallia Transalpina, as it's come to be called. The old eminents, with their glory days behind them, are leading the prosecution, referencing Marcus Junius's general witlessness and complete incompetence--never mind that they supported him for junior Consul! A loose organization of New Men, oratorically inclined backbenchers looking to shake things up a bit, and members of the gens Junia are leading the defense.

Despite the absence of any other activity--the Tribunes of the Plebs are unnaturally quiet this year--events are progressing quickly. So far it looks to be your brother Lucius Pontifex Maximus, Censor Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, Censor Marcus Livius Drusus, Gnaeus Domitius the father, Lucius Domitius the son, your brother-in-law Lucius Licinius Lucullus, and Quintus Mucius Scaevola Augur--deep breath!--versus young Decimus Junius Brutus--cousin of Marcus, Quintus Lutatius Catulus Caesar--a surprise there, but the fight must be fair, and one Spurius Dellius--Quaestor and Curator of the Grain Supply four years ago, and an aspiring New Man if I ever saw one.

The Prosecution​

This case will be fun to watch--like a seven-foot tall German slave fighting one of those fabled tiny Indian fellows.

Well, and that's all the news I have. I've experienced much ire from my friends and relatives due to the length of my letters, and so I tell you, Quintus Caecilius, in no uncertain terms: I don't care! There are simply things that you need to know, now that you haven't been in Rome for these past five months or so.

No need to write a third time unless something urgent comes up; I'm leaving for Numidia in early September, to get an early start on all the work. You can quiz me all you want about Lucius Cornelius and about other events when I arrive; hopefully I can persuade you much more easily in person to request the brilliant young man as your Quaestor for next year, when your command is prorogued.

Until then, your good friend, Publius Rutilius Rufus.


Lucius Caecilius Metellus Dalmaticus Pontifex Maximus strolled the short distance on the Palatine to the house of Censor Marcus Aemilius Scaurus. The weather was perfect: sunny, warm, with a cool breeze coming through periodically, and a perfect sky devoid of clouds. The Censor's house was in extremely good taste, being of medium size and drab in color on the outside; a nobleman of Marcus Aemilius's caliber had no reason to be ostentatious, for his very name indicated both wisdom and splendor.

Marcus Aemilius Scaurus Princeps Senatus in 650 AVC, at the age of 60​

The doorman let him in without a word and he was led by the aging steward to the study. Lucius Caecilius could find the way blind, but formalities must be observed; who was he to barge in unannounced, as if he lived here? The steward disappeared into the study and emerged only a few seconds later. "You may enter, Sir."

Lucius Caecilius entered to find Marcus Aemilius Scaurus sitting and reading from a small stack of papers, with his censorial colleague Marcus Livius Drusus leaning over his shoulder and joining in the literary pursuit. Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus Senior sat at leisure in the client's chair across the desk from the two readers, idly waiting for something to happen; at Lucius Caecilius's apparition he rose cheerfully. "Ah, the last old boy is here!"

This comment made Lucius Caecilius grin as they shook hands. The four of them in this small study--too cramped for four, but just right for three--were some of the most powerful men in the Roman Republic. Lucius Caecilius was the Pontifex Maximus, and the other three men were Pontiffs in their own right; two of the men were currently Censors, and the other two had been Censors; all had been Consuls; Ahenobarbus and Scaurus had built two of the most famous roads to crisscross Italy; Scaurus had expanded Rome's hold in Hispania, Metellus in Dalmatia, Ahenobarbus in Gallia Cisalpina, and Drusus in Macedonia and Thrace.

It made him blink, not really in surprise or pride, but more with determination. They were here because they were powerful, and they were going to correct a grievous wrong. Marcus Junius Silanus would not escape with his mistakes unaddressed; every man should be held accountable for his actions, whether on purpose or not. His resolve thus hardened, he greeted his fellow Conscript Fathers grimly, and they pursued the grim business with fervor.

All four of them had been dealing with long, vaguely- or poorly-worded and long-winded documents for decades; this prosecution was a treat compared to some of the things they'd had to do, and--in the case of the Censors--still had to do, for building contractors were not known for eloquence or oratory.

"Hmm," said Lucius Caecilius, making the others stop and turn their heads his way. "Here's a man--about our age!--who was Primus Pilus Centurion in the legion Marcus Junius personally commanded. He's apparently the only Primus Pilus who survived, and he's willing to testify on behalf of the prosecution of Marcus Junius's 'idiocy and incompetence', as he puts it." Lucius Caecilius's eyebrows rose and he muttered, "Well, we'll have to alter that working, I think."

"What's his name?" asked Ahenobarbus.

"Lucius Potitius Gallus. Owns 200 iugera of land near Mutina. Never heard of him, probably some freedman's grandson."

Drusus frowned. "We'll have to do better than that. No doubt what he'll say is true, but the jury will want some notable. Though he's a Primus Pilus, and no man rises to that rank without merit, we need a man of greater substance. A businessman of sorts, if we can find him. Come on, there must be a businessman with connections among these survivors."

They quieted down and continued perusing when Marcus Aemilius Scaurus sat up straighter and cleared his throat. "I got it. I know this man well." He locked eyes with Ahenobarbus and said, "Quintus Catius."

The straight, neutral line that was Ahenobarbus's mouth curved up into a smile. "Ah, old Quintus the Engineer! Oh boy, the jury will go wild for him; there must be fifty Senators that know him from their time serving as clerks to me during my censorship." He explained, upon seeing the querying expressions of Drusus and Metellus, "When I let the contracts for the Via Domitia, Quintus Catius was at the front of the line. I was going to use several different contractors, to make construction faster, but his company was large enough and his work of high enough quality that, in question of the Via Domitia, I let exclusively to him. He did a great job."

Roman roads in Italy. The Via Aemilia Scauri goes from Pisa (the confluence of the Via Clodia and Via Cassia) to Genua to Placentia. The Via Domitia leads from Genua through Narbo Martius to Hispania​

"And six years ago, too," Scaurus put in. "As soon as the consular tribunal opened in January, Quintus Catius came up with excellent references from Ahenobarbus here and several other magistrates and property owners all over Italy. I hired him right away, and work on the new Via Aemilia Scauri began right away. He must have volunteered...well, I don't know why he would have volunteered this year."

Ahenobarbus looked up and to the right, confused and frowning, as if pondering the existence of the ceiling. Drusus and Metellus, bewildered, locked eyes and grinned with great amusement as Scaurus's eyes dropped to the paper in his hands. "Ah, this is his son, completing his campaigns!" Now all four men nodded in realization. "Well, that's just as good! The son of an honest, wealthy man with many connections; his son heads the business half the time, plenty of the Senators and clerks involved in the contracts will know him."

"Gentlemen," said Drusus, "we're on our way to kicking Marcus Junius's incompetent ass out of Rome!"


So...what do you guys think about the looooong letter and the old men's dickering?

Again, any pointing out of misspellings, grammatical errors, and inconsistencies would be greatly appreciated.

 

[tuareg109]

FOR WANT OF THE HAMMER

DIVERSIONS PART 2, 644 AVC​

Lucius Cornelius Sulla sat with the letter from Ostia in his hand, eyes open and utterly still. He didn't move or blink, just breathed in and out slowly and calmly through his nose. His face was a mask of neutrality, but inside he was reeling, jubilant.

Lucius Cornelius, you are on your way at last!

The letter was not so important in and of itself; all it indicated was that the captain returning to Africa to pick up more of the grain harvest to bring to Rome would be willing to take him along. The excitement was that he was going at all. Oh, the thrill of it all!

Six months ago he had been nothing, the slave-less, property-less plaything of two vulgar, manipulative women. Clitumna took care of him, but only for his services; Nicopolis, likewise, provided a diversion for the well-off and bored Clitumna. Sulla supposed that he should feel lucky she had married his father and promptly jumped into his own bed, and that she had left all she owned to him, but the thought of how he'd had to debase himself--he, a patrician Cornelius, living with two loose women!--still had the power to make him shudder, and the urge to soak in the hottest bath possible.

The kitchen, which Clitumna's slaves had used often for cooking only, now spent half its time as a place to heat up a massive cauldron of water that was then carried by four huge Celtic slaves to Sulla's bathtub. Speaking of Clitumna's slaves, they were all gone now, sold to discreet dealers promising removal to locations far away; what they had heard and seen in Clitumna's house while Sulla had been a member of the Head Count had the potential to utterly destroy Sulla's public career.

Killing Lucius Gavius Stichus had been relatively easy for a man of Sulla's cunning. With a month-long illness involving much vomit and diarrhea, all the signs indicated some kind of bowel disease; no doctor would suspect some subtle and rare poison--one he'd likely never heard of.

Nicopolis's death was truly the gift of Fortuna. After the long early spring rains, during which every member of the family had been miserably cooped inside Clitumna's house for a month, he and Nicopolis--leaving the still-depressed Clitumna at home--had gone out on a furlough, a picnic in the hills. There, after the rain, grew the most delectable mushrooms; Nicopolis had chanced to pick out the small, unassuming one known aptly as The Destroyer. Sulla, with his not limited knowledge of botany, had stared with eyes wide as Fortuna led her fortune to him; for he was sure that she'd left him at least something--who else did she have?

Modern geographer's depiction of Nicopolis​

Dying of massive and painful inflammations of the liver, kidneys, and heart tissue, poison was ruled out immediately; what poison was known to have such an exaggerated and obvious effect, and who could have wanted her dead? Her death was assumed to be natural, and that was where Fortuna and Sulla's high cunning worked together to bring him the death of Clitumna. After Nicopolis's death, Clitumna was even more depressed than usual; Sulla worried constantly for her--and act, for Sulla was a born actor--in public, and made snide little double entendres and generally mistreated her in private. He managed to get her sorry carcass off to Circei, along with the servants that she like the least, during the hot and humid early part of the summer.

The social situation, the weather, and Clitumna's grief together did their work; she flung herself off of the cliffs there, and Lucius Cornelius Sulla entered the Senate. His neighbor Gaius Julius had set all the paperwork in order, and satisfied himself of Sulla's innocence in the three fortunate deaths; from teenage prostitute and adult manual laborer to Quaestor to the Proconsul of Africa, Lucius Cornelius's star had risen notably.

Noted by all, indeed, for he had by now enjoyed several dinners with the mutual friend of Gaius Julius and Quintus Caecilius: Publius Rutilius Rufus. Through him were introductions to half the backbenchers, and most of the major players. And Caecilia Metella--well, she was intelligent, at least.

Now that Lucius Cornelius was embarking on his career, there could be none of the old diversions: no actors and actresses, no musicians, no whores, no bum-boys--which Sulla preferred to women whether bum- or not, no dancing girls, none of the low, vulgar, explicit theater he had so enjoyed for the last fifteen years of his life. No wild, loud, drunken parties that devolved into two distinct groups: the people in the corner smoking heady Oriental drugs, and the people in the corner enjoying each other and themselves immensely, whether in pairs or in large groups.

What Sulla really enjoyed was drama, but there could be none of that unacceptable drama for the rest of his life; he must leave that behind him. He would have drama in the army, and the courts, and the Senate to think about from now on. Drowsy, stuffy viewings of the boring, long-winded highbrow plays of Livus Andronicus and Gnaeus Naevius and talks with the Republic's leading lights on unimportant matters were likely to fill his days. Where before he could spend about a minute counting every coin he owned, he now had to spend at least an hour a week going through his bankers' and investees' letters, as well as the practical and bald missives from the overseers of his new land, whose lives hadn't changed at all now that Sulla was their employer instead of Clitumna.

Contemporary depiction of Roman comedy​

Now it was November and, with all his affairs in order and being Quintus Caecilius's requested Quaestor, Sulla would leave for Africa in about two nundinae, and begin his military career. He had bought the typical Centurion's armor, produced by one of the dozen smithies and leather workshops located in the city; and he'd been supplied with the Quaestor's sash and pins and accouterments of rank after being elected.

Support for Quintus Caecilius and the war in Africa being high, Sulla had come in at the top of the polls; however, the electors always loved to mix things up, and the man polling second was none other than Gaius Memmius, who as Tribune of the Plebs two years ago caused a stir by going even further than Gaius Mamilius, and accusing even more men of corruption with Jugurtha. He was against any needless foreign war, and wanted to wrestle power from the aristocrats to the people. Though minds had begun to change in the twelve years since Gaius Gracchus's suicide, many of the equestrians, and plebs of the Third Class and higher, viewed Gaius Memmius as another potential Gaius Gracchus, and treaded warily lest the violence and misfortune defining that recent era should come back like a specter to haunt them.

Still, Gaius Memmius was polled second, first of all those who hadn't been specially requested, and so became Curator of the Grain Supply. A powerful position to occupy, but also useful for opponents for gathering evidence of hoarding and price manipulation; a Grain Curator could acquire many illegal coins by manipulating the price of grain, and Gaius Memmius would have to tread carefully to avoid a hard prosecution at the end of next year.

Lucius Licinius Lucullus in 649 AVC, at the age of 36​

"Where are you going, wife?" Lucius Licinius Lucullus asked Caecilia Metella Calva coolly, which was how he usually spoke to her. He had seen her bustling busily from one end of the house to the other, passing the open door of his study several times. He had gotten that aching, dreadful feeling in the pit of his stomach again, as he did whenever she prepared to go out.

The slaves--bodyguard and litter carriers--continued their movements and preparation, grinning at each other, as Metella Calva appeared in the door of the study. She tossed her hair and gave a dazzling smile, "Oh, out shopping!"

Lucius Licinius's eyes closed. How could he deal with this any longer? She was discrete, and didn't brag about her affairs; if it hadn't been for the social grapevine, he wouldn't even know--he wouldn't even know that she cheated on him with sweaty day laborers and slaves. Slaves. Metella Calva, the member of a long-noble, aristocratic, and very conservative family, and wife of the noble Lucius Licinius Lucullus, enjoyed--there was no other word for it--fucking slaves.

"Have fun," he gritted between his teeth; when he opened his eyes, she was gone. He had to bear the humiliation, of course, for he needed the alliance with the Caecilii Metelli for both himself and for his sons. He was elected Quaestor for next year, requested by the junior Consul for next year Servius Sulpicius Galba, who aimed to pacify and bring order back to Gallia Provincia after Marcus Junius Silanus's shocking loss, and to prepare--and possibly bring battle to--the Germans. Servius Sulpicius was a patrician aristocrat, but he knew his own limitations; his expertise was in the areas of organization and logistics, while his Legates were the most talented military men he knew, and would for the most part conduct his campaign for him.

Gallia Provincia in yellow, Servius Sulpicius's command in 645 AVC [please ignore the three other provinces; they are barbarian land]​

The senior Consul for next year, Quintus Hortensius, had talents that lay more in the legal and administrative fields; he would stay in Rome to lead the Senate and arbitrate conflicts. More--or less, depending on your view--importantly, he would oversee the trial of Marcus Junius Silanus, now that it was clear that the organization of the cases and the opening moves would occur early in the year; the trial would be over by summer of that year, 645 AVC, and all Rome would be abuzz with it.

Without the influence and support of the Caecilii Metelli, Lucullus would never have been elected Quaestor; he wouldn't have had to worry about political maneuverings, because he would have been a nobody. The grandson of a New Man bearing the same name, and the son of one much less ambitious and intelligent than that grandfather, Lucius Licinius Lucullus had the brains and aristocratic mindset to reach the top in the Rome of 645 AVC. His only hindrance and hope was his marriage; it made him into a cuckold and laughingstock, and yet it kept the Caecilii Metelli firmly on his side; they took care of their own.

Divorcing Caecilia Metella--even with such a valid reason--would mean both alienating the Caecilii Metelli, and losing face to the world by admitting that his wife was cheating on his; as things stood, the fact was just a well-circulated rumor. Even with another Caecilia Metella--the daughter of this year's Consul in Africa instead of his sister--available, the Caecilii Metelli would be offended, and would certainly not want such an immoral, scandalous woman on their hands; for once he divorced Caecilia Metella, she would go back to living with her paterfamilias, her elder brother Lucius Pontifex Maximus.

In any case, he reflected with a sigh, only one man was being considered for the hand of Caecilia Metella, and he would get it: Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Lucius Lucullus had been elected sixth among the ten Quaestors--scandal and family connections had negated each other with the electors; Lucius Sulla was first of all of them, due solely to personal merit--for he had never made connections as a young man, or practiced oratory in the law courts, or done his campaigns as a Cadet or Military Tribune. Lucius Sulla had a clean slate and should have been unknown; his status as an erstwhile-impoverished patrician, and the story of his being a favorite of Fortuna, had made him more notable than Lucullus, who had made connections and tramped the law courts and served his time in the legions.

His jealousy and the unfairness of it, as well as his resentment towards his uncontrollable wife, wanted to make him weep. "Is mother gone again?"

He raised his head and saw his elder son, Lucius, at the door of his study. Nine years old now, he looked just like the typical Lucius Lucullus. Thankful for that, if nothing else--that Caecilia Metella hadn't cheated him in the birth of his sons, Lucius Lucullus smiled and patted his knee. "Come here, son. Mama's out shopping." He couldn't bear to tell the boy the truth now; it would be less damaging when he reached adulthood and understood the evil ways of women.

"I hate when she goes," the boy said, not moving. "It's not proper, for her to go without you." Though he knew this, the boy also knew something of politics; sensing that his father was powerless, he didn't press the question, instead saying cutely, and quite on purpose, "Can I go to Gallia with you and fight the Germans?"

Lucius Lucullus gave a thin smile that disguised his anguish. Now that his son had juxtapositioned the two thoughts, he had to combine them: how licentious would his wife be, with him completely absent for the year? Well, it was done now; he was elected and couldn't back out.

Lucius Lucullus swallowed the horror and said, "No no, son; we don't want them to run away, we want them to fight." He was Quaestor this year, at the age of 32. In a little under 8 years, he would run for Consul after being Praetor; both offices were guaranteed with the support of the Caecilii Metelli. Then, on January 1st of his Consulship, he would divorce Caecilia Metella, and not look back. Being a notable and memorable Praetor and Consul, and governing good healthy provinces as Propraetor and Proconsul, with a bias toward the equestrians, would endear him to them, and give him many clients; without the aristocrats' support, that was the only way to go. They would help his sons, as would the Caecilii Metelli--just because he would divorce Caecilia Metella, didn't mean that his sons wouldn't be family to the Caecilii Metelli. His sons would have solid support from the Third Class straight up through the top of the First....

An idea began to form in Lucius Licinius Lucullus's head.

 

[Grouchio]

I wonder how Jugurtha will handle Sulla...

 

[tuareg109]

FOR WANT OF THE HAMMER

NUMIDIA PART 3, 645 AVC

The northern third of modern Tunisia, most of which was Africa Province in 645 AVC. The Medjerda River is the Romans' Bagradas​

Lucius Cornelius Sulla sat astride his horse on the hill near Mactaris [Makthar], gazing out over the valley. He rode just ahead of the three legions led by Publius Rutilius Rufus, which had left Utica two days ago and made good time on the good Roman roads; the rough, honey-colored natives with their hooked noses and jet-black hair walked or ran to the side of the road from the fields and rocky hills to see them pass. Most of the men were tilling the Earth now that several months had passed since harvest, in order to aid the rich, fertile soil in soaking up the rain that for the most part only fell during the winter. The boys and youngest men herded the sheep and goats that thrived in the rocky, inhospitable hills that were a bit removed from the rivers. The landscape was cut up into swathes of brown and white, quite striking to see after the natural moisture of Italy.

The natives were a simple people, for the most part worshiping the Punic gods like Melkart and Baal-Ammon; their only taste of Roman culture indeed came from the legions marching past, and the odd messenger or hated tax collector. All of the men had long, thick black wiry beards trimmed--likely with knives or shears--in a simple kind of style. Both men and women wore modest but airy robes, and there were indeed more women than men lining the road; fields where the absent men labored were far from the thoroughfare, no doubt hidden from bandits and Romans alike.

It was the second of January. Having arrived in Utica a week ago, Lucius Cornelius had wasted no time learning as much as there was to know about soldiering and governing; he was starting late by about ten or fifteen years, and needed to learn fast to make an impression on the electors when he ran for Praetor--as he planned to run--in four years. Quintus Caecilius had been relieved at his willingness to work hard, as it allowed him to focus on more important things; ex-Quaestor Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, on the other hand, was utterly delighted to dump all his work on Sulla's shoulders. Sulla didn't mind--much. Gnaeus Domitius could laugh when Sulla was the First Man in Rome and Gnaeus was stuck as a Propraetor with an odious, inefficient governorship on his record.

Quintus Caecilius Junior had also been delighted--at finding an equally hardworking, quiet soul. Sulla, the ultimate actor, had seen a chance to increase his influence and reach, and soon planned to make Quintus Caecilius Junior the first man in the faction he would set up. In fact, the methods that Sulla used to gain Quintus Junior's trust and hero-worship were the same he would have used to seduce him sexually; Sulla being a Senator now, and his future hinging on the support of the conservatives, that option was hardly available to him. In any case, Quintus Junior didn't quite attract him: small grey eyes, a straight un-Roman nose, and a small and severe mouth; Quintus Caecilius also didn't have the same passion for people that Sulla had. He was loyal, and yet had his own ideas about how things should be run; he had a great brain between his ears, and yet would be glad to use it to advance the fortunes of one he liked; he was creative and flexible, but a miserable conversationalist at best.

No, as a comrade and subordinate Quintus Junior took the cake, but for Sulla the best friend he had in Africa was Publius Rutilius Rufus. Glad to see his friend after three months of absence--for Publius Rutilius left for Africa in early September, whereas Sulla left near the end of December--they caught up on "hold times", and Rufus inquired with a knowing grin after Caecilia Metella's health in Quintus Caecilius's presence, which got Sulla to naturally swing the conversation into Quintus Caecilius's direction. Delighted at this brilliant--both Publius Rutilius and his brother Lucius Pontifex Maximus had been correct--man's interest, Quintus Caecilius simply awaited the day that Sulla would sue for his daughter's hand.

Quintus Junior, perceiving this easily through the conversation, was delighted at the prospect of having Sulla as a brother-in-law. He'd lain awake at night sometimes, envisioning the horror of having to be closely associated with that timid coward Scaurus Junior, or dull Marcus Livius Junior, or pimply and awkward and bow-legged and ugly--one could just go on!--Quintus Servilius Caepio Junior. Now faced with becoming Sulla's brother-in-law, Quintus smiled at the thought of being his right-hand man; for he knew that Sulla would be the First Man in Rome, and his own ambition and intelligence indicated that he was the quintessential right-hand man.

All this had occurred within Sulla's first few days in Africa; the next few had been spent preparing for the expedition into the farthest-flung hills of Africa, and thence into Numidia. Now, not ten days into his Quaestura, Sulla was marching with three legions, one of his good friends, and an excellent minion-subordinate. He was getting to know the Military Tribunes and Centurions, and knew perhaps two hundred rankers by sight.

Of course, every man in the three legions knew who he was. Dim, confused rumors diffusing through the grapevine left conflicting stories in camp: He'd killed his nephew and stepmother to come into money. No, it was his mother and mistress. No, fool, his stepmother's nephew was sick, then the mistress died suspiciously; the stepmother was murdered by one of Sulla's actor friends. The rankers could believe what they wished, but the mysteriousness about both his personal Fortuna and his appearance did mean that he was known on sight to every Roman in the six legions of the Proconsul, even after only a few days in Africa.

Sulla's snow white skin--not helped by a life thus far lived mostly indoors--had begun to burn to a crisp on the first day of the march. Reaction to discomfort being regarded as unmanly--and Sulla tended to agree with that assessment--he bore it out stoically until some of his admirers--not a few men--in the legions begged him to wear a wide hat and hide the skin of his arms under sleeves. After some minutes he agreed to the hat article, but refused the sleeves; he wanted to get some color, at least, to avoid this inconvenience in the future.

So Sulla turned, distinct in his wide-brimmed hat and still unstable atop a horse--for his father had never had the means to teach him to ride--and saw Quintus Junior riding up the hill toward him, dirt disturbed behind him. Though the winter rains meant that there was none of the harsh, choking dust to float up and disturb Roman lungs on the march, there was also no Roman road so far into the hills. Not wanting to leave anything unfinished, Scipio Aemilianus's engineers couldn't just let a road peter out in the hills; a road led from point A to point B, so the nearest Roman road wound from Utica up the Bagradas valley to Siliana, then across to Sicca [El Kef] and Bulla Regia [Jendouba], whereupon it became the Bagradas road again, with a diversion to Beja before journeying downriver to Utica once more.

Off road the legions traveled more slowly, but of course were more likely to encounter any evidence of Jugurtha.

Jugurtha in the Roman exaggerated--note the corona--style he adopted while participating in the Siege of Numantia, 620 AVC​

"Aave, Lucius Cornelius," said Quintus Junior with the exaggerated and elongated "A" unique to the soldiers' jargon.

"Aave yourself, Little Piggy," said Sulla endearingly. Sulla, like most Romans, enjoyed the ironic and bizarre; it was no small humor that such a disciplined, temperate young man as Quintus Junior should be called "pig".

Quintus Junior blushed at this name, but more in pride than embarrassment. If only his father knew that he was being called that! He would think it an insult, but Piglet knew it was not; Lucius Cornelius and he were great friends, and it was a nickname to be worn with pleasure. He decided to let his blush answer the greeting and said, sweeping his hand over the horizon, "It's all dry little farms from here on out. Mostly goat tracks, not a dirt road like this one to be seen."

It took all of Sulla's acting powers not to roll his eyes. Of all the things to talk about, the young man talks the lie of the land, which we already got from the scouts and the Berber guides; what a poor conversationalist! Well, nervous like a virgin I suppose. So Sulla smiled sweetly and said, "I see that, Piglet. The real issue is, where is Jugurtha? If his men are bivouacking all over the hills between here and Thapsus, what are they eating?"

"Grain, dates, camels...." Quintus Junior listed Africa and Numidia's major sources of food.

"No, Piglet, stop thinking of food you glutton!" cried Sulla, grinning. He nudged his horse to the crest of the hill and began down the other side, entering a completely new watershed. Piglet followed hastily and Sulla said, "The farmers are Berber, so Jugurtha won't harm them or rob them of their livelihood; I'm sure all the farms we'll find will be intact. His tribesmen--acting as they've always done--don't raid enough in the south of our Province to sustain an army. So what are his men eating? Rocks and the odd desert fox aren't enough to feed the estimated 10,000 men that are out there," Sulla pointed ahead, south, into the scrubland.

Geography of Mauretania, Numidia, and Africa Province. Sulla and Piglet are just above the N in AURES MTNS.​

Metellus Piglet gazed out there almost wistfully, and thought hard while he and Sulla rode along in silence. Sulla waited patiently, for it was crucial to give Piglet the proper mixture of paternal impatience and friendly teaching. After about a minute Metellus Piglet looked over into Sulla's eyes. "There's the desert," he said uncertainly.

Sulla's pale blond eyebrows rose--looking very striking in a red-burnt face--and he said, "And?"

"Well...the Berbers sure do know how to move through the desert."

"Hurrah!" shouted Sulla, aching for theater. "Logic strikes again! Jugurtha's mother was of the Gaetuli tribe, and they travel through the desert like a Ligurian travels over Alps, or we Romans on our fine roads; Jugurtha's using them to get supplies over the Tell Atlas and into the desert. When enough Numidians and Gaetuli--and some of the wilder tribes--are assembled to the south of Africa Province, Jugurtha will lead a pincer attack."

"Why doesn't he just strike along the Bagradas or the coast and wear us out before attacking from the south?"

"Why would he risk his men against six legions, when he can get at us split up--as we are now! I think he's also lulling us into a false sense of security. Your father thinks he has time to organize and scout and learn, and that Jugurtha is afraid; in reality, King Jugurtha is anything but afraid, and has learned all there is to learn about his own country. He'll build up his forces slowly, let the Senate forget about Africa--maybe in favor of the Germans--and force your father to come home, and then strike when they send some sissy incompetent like Spurius Postumius was, or Quintus Hortensius is likely to be."

It was amusing for Sulla to see how quickly Quintus Junior's face went from gleeful at the insult to Spurius Postumius into a hurt grimace at the mention of his uncle Quintus Hortensius. They rode on in silence down the valley with the army cresting the hill above them; Sulla laughing internally at the effect of his words upon Piglet, and young Quintus still mentally digesting them.

Bronze head of King Gauda of Numidia, Friend and Ally of Rome, at the age of 25, in 633 AVC​

King Gauda of Numidia, having spent many years in Rome, was quite adept at Latin and addicted to the theater. The might of the heroes and their throes in peril, the utter evil and audacity of the villains, the irony in the comedic plays; these characteristics drew him irresistibly, for he saw his own life in its terms. He was the hero, born to the great Prince Mastanbal. His cousins, both legitimate and rightful kings but drooling idiots under whom Numidia suffered, had been killed by the demon-snake Jugurtha, who now occupied the once-good land and had turned it into a desert.

King Gauda often fantasized of coming back to the heart of Numidia, in his mind a dry canyon in the heart of the Tell Atlas Mountains, and shoving a silver spear through Jugurtha's scaly breast. The evil would be defeated, and the dry land would become fertile once more--Gauda had spent almost his entire life in either the manufactured gardens at Cirta or on the fertile soil of Italy, and believed that all natural land should be so plentiful.

These ideas danced through his head every time he went to the theater in Utica, which was often. Plays were staged by bored soldiers or Africans with a good smattering of Latin, and attended by those same soldiers, or visiting equestrians and grain merchants. They left Gauda's mind tingling and his sense of conscience raging at the injustice.

As usual after a play, he hustled to the Roman Baths to be rid of the sweat of exertion and excitement, for he shouted and stamped along with the rest to support the hero and to see the foul villain slain. Then he strode more slowly back in the Theater's direction, to the house of the Governor, bordering the Forum on the Clivus Decumanus.

Plan of Roman Utica. The bottom half of the city (in the upper picture) was much less developed in 645 AVC than depicted in the picture; Gauda's Theater is in the upper right​

He passed between the Roman guards without a word--for he was known on sight--and into the study of Quintus Caecilius Metellus without announcing himself. Quintus Caecilius noticed him, but didn't pause in his penning of a letter to Quintus Mucius Scaevola Augur. This one thing--entering unannounced--was in Quintus Caecilius's opinion the worst of Prince Gauda's many faults; it was such a highhanded, utterly barbarian thing to do, and Quintus Caecilius had tried to explain it to the somewhat dimwitted and confused noble more than once.

"But Quintus Caecilius," he had bleated, entreating, "I am the King of Numidia! You have no secrets before me, and the only reason you are here is to install me onto my throne."

Were Sulla in control, he would have simply had Gauda's throat slit--blamed on Jugurtha, of course--and found a likely-looking peasant to present as Gauda's long-lost brother or cousin. However, Quintus Caecilius was in control, and he had morals; though he didn't have the heart to admit to Gauda that the only reason he was in Numidia was to gain an agnomen and supplant his brother, he also didn't have the stomach to chastise Gauda like a child, or to murder him. So he simply pretended that he didn't see him, and hoped that he would go away.

The only problem was, he never did. "Ah, Quintus Caecilius, I'm so glad that you are in!"

Quintus Senior laid down his bronze pen and sighed. "Ah, yes, so am I of course. Come in, King Gauda," he said, never failing to add the "King" after Gauda's very first tearful tirade more than one year ago.

Gauda strode in happily and sat down in the client's chair, which nobody had told him the purpose of. Had he known, he would never have dropped his adamant refusal to sit on a chair less ornate than Quintus Caecilius's magnificent ivory curule chair--which all senior magistrates (Praetors and Consuls) and promagistrates (Propraetors and Proconsuls) had the right and duty to use.

After Gauda said nothing for a few moments, Quintus Senior spread his hands. "Well? What did you come to see me about?"

"Hmmm, of course, well...I have some ideas on how to defeat our evil enemy, Jugurtha." Gauda rubbed the end of his nose and continued, "I know that you wish a quick end to this war, and you know that I want to be King de facto as well as de jure as soon as possible--why not recall Publius Rutilius and march along the coast with all six legions?"

No tact. No tact at all. "As you well know, King Gauda," began Quintus Senior tiredly, for he'd had this conversation several times before, "Jugurtha's power is in the mountains and deserts--ground he knows well, and that we don't--and ours is in the valleys and by the sea, which he also happens to know well. We can't just march along the coast and expect him to give battle at a disadvantage. He'll just crawl behind our rears and cut us off, raiding our defenseless Africa Province while our backs are turned."

Gauda nodded slowly. "Oh. I see the sensibility of your reasoning."

"...Of course," said Quintus Senior after a ten second pause. It took most of his willpower not to quip, "dismissed," to this Prince, for he was the only official reason for Quintus's war. While he didn't care a fig for what happened to Africa and Numidia after his governorship, Quintus Senior did care that Gauda--his main reason for war--remain alive and well, and with a positive opinion of him.

"I'll be taking my leave now," said Gauda, extricating himself obviously. "I have matters to attend to."

Quintus Caecilius nodded woodenly, "Of course, King Gauda." He bent down and continued his letter of legal questions and counsel, shaking his head.

Outside in the hallway, King Gauda met Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, an appointed Military Tribune now that his illustrious term as Quaestor had run out. Glad that the period of great responsibility and accountability were behind him, he spent most of his days at Utica and Thapsus aping work, and his nights in the Dining Houses--as the brothels were euphemistically called--with the other Military Tribunes. "Gnaeus Domitius! I was just telling--"

Gnaeus Domitius strode past him without a word, scowling. King Gauda was left standing there, looking puzzled.

 

[tuareg109]

Questions, comments, concerns, criticisms, complaints, queries?

I'm not going to keep begging for comments from here on out, but criticism is much better than silence to me!

Just saying.

 

[SlyDessertFox]

Typhus is really good. I can't really think of any criticisms. The characters are very well done, good grammar and spelling...and an amazing story. My only complaint is Sulla's head isn't on jugurthas spear yet