FOR WANT OF THE HAMMER

[SlyDessertFox]

FOR WANT OF THE HAMMER

THE WOE OF AFTERMATH, 648 AVC​

The carrion birds circled overhead, swooping closer and closer, descending down toward the ground, until they alighted upon some twisted limb or a raised head, and began to feast. The Germans, so numerous, had taken some hours to sift through the Roman items and take what they wanted, and the sound and physical presence of thousands of walking, talking men had driven the birds away until their departure into the hills. Now no man moved, and the birds feasted; the stench drew their fellows from far afield.

The shadows were lengthening and the sun preparing to duck behind the hills when Marcus Livius Drusus came awake. The dull ache of his head had interrupted his sleep and now he looked about himself, neck creaking in protest. He gritted his teeth and tried to sit up, but the effort brought a rush of blood to his head that made him grunt in pain and lay back down. Water. It was his only thought, to get to water. He saw the twisted bodies and smelled that gut-turning stench, but those stimuli had little effect on him. More awake now, eyes rolling and dry tongue filling dry mouth, he sat up.

He screamed with the pressure it put in his head, and he heard some bodies near him shifting. Somebody else. Somebody else alive. How had he fallen? He remembered shuffling and fighting and shouting along with his men, a succession of images—the man next to him getting his arm chopped off, a German slipping in the jellied mud and getting stomped on, a six-foot pale mass jumping at him with upraised swords, crooked brown teeth spitting words in a harsh language.... Drusus stood quickly, knowing that he had to do it that way, and swayed on his feet. All right, all right—he retched, bile filling his throat and mouth and dribbling down his chin and neck and armor. He leaned forward, spitting out as much as he could; it hadn’t done anything to help his dry mouth.

Swaying on his feet, he looked around. He was the only one up. The Roman bodies were strewn all around him, a few missing helmets or cuirasses, and with no Germans in sight; they’d taken their dead, as always before. How had they lost? Water! In the distance but not too far away—maybe half a mile, he judged—was a water donkey. He began a shuffling walk toward it, aching legs and shoulders protesting at every step; the battle had lasted hours, and he’d had no proper rest. As he passed one cohort he heard a particularly alive groan off to his left, and he stepped as gingerly as he could over a few bodies to find Quintus Caecilius Metellus propped up with his arms to the size, atop a few dead bodies. “Drusus,” sighed Metellus.

“Piglet,” Drusus dropped to his knees and hugged his friend close. “Oh, oh my Gods.”

“No talk,” whispered Piglet. “Water.”

“Water. Get water, then be back,” Drusus nodded, standing again. He felt only a bit stronger now, but he knew how desperate his situation was. He was the only standing man among a few hundred—maybe even a thousand—wounded, and he needed water, and he needed food. But the Germans would have taken all their food, how would he get everybody out alive? His jaw set; some would die here crying for water, or for their mothers.

He got to the unmolested donkey, which hadn’t fled only because it was still tied to the dead noncombatant’s arm. It had tried to pull away, though, and the rope dug into swollen rotting purple-black flesh. Now it stood placidly, very happy to see a living man; Drusus untied it from the man’s arm and tied it to his own, so that the donkey would stay if he fell. Having thus secured it, he took a skin of water from the sack at its side, tearing it open and sucking greedily. The cool, clean water flooded into his mouth and throat like a river through the desert, unsticking his tongue from the rest of his mouth and washing the acid down back into his stomach. He drank and drank until his stomach was distended; then he stopped and swayed, belching.

After three belches it came up in a tide, and mostly clear, warm fluid cascaded onto his sandals. Groaning, he crouched and retched again, until all the water was out of him. “Better,” he groaned and, standing and unstoppering another skin of water, took slow sips. “Much better.” Though he was wounded and addled he still remembered his directions, and headed right back to Metellus. “Drink slowly, or else it’ll all come back up,” he said hoarsely.

Piglet heeded him and was soon able to stand. He too had gotten a head wound, though it had been glancing. “Cato chopped the man’s arm off as he hit me,” he explained, “I saw it.” They were standing there, where Piglet had lain, not quite sure what to do.

“Where’s Cato now?”

Piglet pointed to a body that had been laying close to his own; Drusus turned it over and saw the open grey eyes and wavy brown hair of Cato. Below that the young man’s face was an open, angry red gash split from ear to ear by a sword. Drusus put two of his fingers on the man’s eyelids and pushed them down. “Poor lad.”

“We were on the left, we got the main charge.” Piglet had begun walking to the right. “More should be alive to the right.” Drusus, without a better idea, followed him. Most of the men they found were too far gone, out of horrendous wounds or too long without water, to be revived; most of them wouldn’t make it. They picked their way through the carnage with the donkey following. After a while Piglet stopped; they were about where the center of the line had been. “I feel as though I’m being watched.”

Drusus looked around and gave a heavy sigh. “There.” Two crossed eyes stared at him from in between the tangled limbs of two bodies; it was Gaius Julius Caesar Strabo Vopiscus, dead as death. Holding his hand was big brother Lucius Julius Caesar. As they neared the right of the line they heard a peculiar noise akin to the sound of the wind around a tent at night. “What’s that.”

They went on as it got louder and louder, and then saw four limbs flailing weakly in the air, almost hidden by bodies. They picked their way there as quickly as they could and dragged the bodies off. It was Sextus Julius Caesar, who had the wheezes, with no nose, half his chin gone, a horrific bruise spreading over his face, and a mouthful of blood. The yellow hair was dark and plastered to the brow with sweat and the blue eyes stared out consciously and with intelligence; he knew exactly what was happening.

“My Gods, that’s not a bruise; his face is purple from wheezing,” said Drusus. Caesar nodded, looking wildly from one man to the other and then doubling over in pain; the pain eased and he resumed with the flailing limbs.

“So much pain,” Piglet said in a choked voice. “He can’t live like this, he won’t survive.” After debating for a while and deciding who should do it, Drusus volunteered. When it was over, Piglet said, “There. One battle and now there’s only one Julius Caesar of our generation.”

Drusus shivered. “I’m the only Livius Drusus of my generation.” To this Piglet had no reply, and they walked on.

“It’s cold,” said Drusus, shivering; the sun had disappeared behind the hills and shadow was covering everything. At least it was a full moon, and they would for the most part be able to see. “We’ve got to find whoever else can walk.” Because of how wide the line was, they missed quite a few men on their first pass, and even on their next few passes; now they found Lucius Aurelius Cotta, who could walk but whose left elbow had shattered, and Gaius Claudius Pulcher, who had taken a sword to the ribs. Luckily for Pulcher, the linen tunic he’d been wearing had been driven into the wound and had staunched it very well; still, Drusus could feel little bits of rib moving about as he inspected the young man.

Now the going went slow, for every step took Pulcher an eternity of main and ragged breathing to complete, and they finally reached the left end of the field again. “Oh oh oh,” shivered Cotta, trying to hug himself and moaning when the crushed bones of his elbow grated together. “I’m cold.”

“Let’s go back to the camp,” sighed Drusus dejectedly, disappointed that he’d only found four men alive, and none of them centurions. “We might find food and cloaks there.”

They turned and began to trudge up the hill when suddenly Drusus saw a form lying at ease, as if sleeping, on the ground. Its face was pale, as if reflecting the moonlight, and its hair of golden fire spread out about it like a halo. “Lucius Cornelius!” Drusus jogged forward, pulling the donkey with him, and bent down. Sulla breathed slowly and deeply, and didn’t seem to have a head wound; he truly looked as though he was sleeping. Drusus shook him, trying to wake him up, but his head lolled left and right and jostled up and down. Piglet knelt and felt his brow.

“That’s one bastard of a fever,” he said grimly. Drusus put his hand there and drew it back almost immediately. “Ow, that’s hot.”

“Well, what’s wrong with him?” asked Cotta.

Piglet undid his cuirass and pointed at a hole just under Sulla’s ribcage and aligned vertically with his heart. “Looks like a spear passed clean through him,” he sighed. “I doubt any doctor’s see a man survive this; it’s through his liver.”

“Lucius Cornelius will survive it,” said Cotta. “He wants to live too much, he’s different.”

Piglet turned to stare at Cotta. “Lucius Aurelius, this kind of wound...a man just doesn’t survive it. It just won’t happen.”

“He’ll survive it,” said Cotta willfully. “The Gods won’t let him die.”

Piglet turned his head to stare at Drusus. After a while Drusus shrugged. “If he lives, all the better for us. Come on Piglet, we’ll carry him to open ground, and then we’ll make a litter.”


So uh yeah having the flu and a 103.4 degree fever sucks. I couldn’t concentrate enough to write, so I’m sorry about that. What do you all think of this update? Too garbled? Too rambling? That’s sort of my opinion of it; oh well.

 

[altwere]

Na it was fine. It fit the mood.

 

[Grouchio]

If Sulla dies the defeat will be complete.

 

[altwere]

Some how Sulla will live and his having survived getting a spear through his body will be taken as an omen. I work in an ED and you'd be surprised what people survive. I had one man come in with a fence post through his abdomen. The EMTs had had to cut the ends of to get him in the ambulance.

 

[Grouchio]

Some how Sulla will live and his having survived getting a spear through his body will be taken as an omen. I work in an ED and you'd be surprised what people survive. I had one man come in with a fence post through his abdomen. The EMTs had had to cut the ends of to get him in the ambulance.

Howabout without modern medicine and a possible infection, eh?

 

[altwere]

For Sulla Confossius if his bowel is cut he's probably toast . If it was missed he has a chance. Hopefully the pieces of cloth and metal were pushed through. If they pour wine in the wound and keep it clean he could survive, but it sounds like he already has a high fever.
Confossius, a new cognomen for Sulla? the pierced.

 

[Lars Porsenna]

Confossius, a new cognomen for Sulla? the pierced.

Meh, sounds a bit too homoerotic to me. It definitely invites political slanders.

Great TL, by the way! I voted for this in the Turtledove Awards.

 

[SlyDessertFox]

FOR WANT OF THE HAMMER

RUNNING THE GAUNTLET PART 2, 648 AVC​

Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus hunched his shoulders and pulled his cloak tighter about himself as the heavy drizzle became a light rain. It was now mid-late February, two and a half months after his tribunal debut, and most of his opponents were calming down. He—well, specifically Metellus Nepos—had agents and gossip-gatherers everywhere, and he knew mostly which senators and equestrians—such as Titus Pomponius and the elder Caecilii Metelli—thought he was simply full of hot air, and which few very perceptive and intelligent men—Lucius Licinius Crassus Orator, to name one—still suspected some hidden mischief on his part.

After the extraordinarily violent and bloody struggles of last year, which had stretched political normalcy and constitutionality to their breaking points, everybody from the Fourth Class up was profoundly glad that Ahenobarbus and Saturninus and Crassus Orator and all the other tribunes were being as civil to each other as could be expected. Every time Ahenobarbus had convoked the Plebs and spoke of bipartisanship and good will and stringent religious observance, and every time Crassus Orator had called a meeting and spoken of tradition and the senate and necessary measures to avoid bloodshed, his political enemies (and enemies among the tribunes) had listened, and mostly agreed, and heartily applauded.

Well, that was going to change in a few days.

The light rain was developing into a heavy rain, and water streamed around Ahenobarbus’s plain foul-weather boots as he ascended the clivus which led up to the Quirinal Hill, which was the typical place one would expect the residence of a New Man such as Saturninus to be. As he emerged onto a wider and wealthier street from in between the two precarious insulae crowding the clivus, the great firmament of the sky revealed itself in its entirety. It was as if a dense grey sea of clouds had immersed the Earth; the street-fog thickened, and Rome was isolated from the rest of the world.

The rain was just trickling down onto Ahenobarbus’s toga from the folds of the cloak surrounding him when he reached the portico of his destination. After a perfunctory knock the door was opened after a few seconds by a sad-looking doorman with half-lidded eyes; the man poked his head out, saw the rain and the dreary weather, and sighed. The guest was summarily admitted.

The doorman took his thick military sagum—a souvenir of his quaestorship in Africa and his services as a military tribune before that—from him and left, returning with towels and a soft, warm, woolen robe that Ahenobarbus immediately put on over his toga; despite the relative warmth indoors compared to outside, it was still February, and cold and raining besides. Thus groomed, he was conducted by the doorman into Saturninus’s study.

The man was bent at the waist with his arms, folded, resting on the windowsill. The extended eaves above the windows protected him from the rain, and he was seemingly unaffected by the cold. He straightened and turned when he heard the door opening, and his smile reached those warm yellow eyes. “Gnaeus Domitius, welcome!” He strode around the desk and clasped his guest’s hands in his own, then turned and arranged the guest’s chair so that it stood tangentially to the desk instead of perpendicularly—the position for a friend instead of a client. “Please, have a seat.”

As he sat Ahenobarbus noted that this room was darker than the vestibule and atrium he had passed through on the way; those were illuminated by bright and expensive oil lamps, whereas this room was dimly lit by dwindling candles. Papers were arranged in a meticulous order on the desk but, considering the room’s level of light and his position at the window, Saturninus hadn’t been poring over them.

“So gloomy, Gnaeus,” said Saturninus after a pause.

He shrugged, resting his chin on his hand and his elbow on the arm of the chair; his eyes widened when he gazed hatefully at the window, and then his they snapped to his host. “I’m freezing here, man! Could you at least draw the curtains?”

Saturninus giggled and nodded amiably, “I’ll do one better.”

With the wooden shutters closed and the curtains drawn, the room began to feel warmer. Ahenobarbus sniffed and said, “Then, we’re finally ready to do it.” Seeing Saturninus’s big, flashy smile he asked, “How can you be so giddy?” His stomach had been rolling into knots since they had agreed on it two days ago, and his heart beat fast and hard in his chest when he thought about it.

“The waiting is over!” the host lilted happily, running long, thin fingers through brown hair. “It’s do or die, now.”

“Do or die,” the guest nodded, accepting that fact. He frowned and bit his fingers one by one. “The next day of good weather.” The host nodded, and he said, having finished his fingers, “I’m hungry.”

Lucius giggled again, “But then, aren’t you always?” He leaned his head back and shouted, “Aristides!” The steward, a chubby balding man, appeared at the door after a few seconds. “Is dinner ready?”

“The cook and his servants have only just begun, Dominus,” said the man, rubbing his hands together. He should have known that dinner would be expected immediately, with such a voracious man as Gnaeus Domitius expected.

“Never mind; bring some hot rolls and oil for us to snack on. Also some wine!” he shouted just before the door closed. “Too nervous, that man; always in a hurry.”

“That’s how it should be,” growled Ahenobarbus, whose temper frayed quickly and whose slaves were expected to be as lively as the most obedient young legionary. The slaves had been in a constant mode of panic when Ahenobarbus’s father was alive, and when the three of them—father, son, and brother Lucius—had lived in the same house; their near-daily tirades against each other, or against some slave, or against some political opponent, could be heard halfway across the Palatine. The Livius Drusus household in particular, situated just above that of the Ahenobarbi, had gotten an earful. Apparently they had softened after the death of his father; little brother Lucius living alone was not a hard taskmaster. That had all changed after Ahenobarbus had won his case in the courts and been swept home on waves of public adoration. Brother Lucius had gone to live with Drusus, and Ahenobarbus had pushed his way into his home after waiting more than a minute for the doorman. The slaves were living an easy, lax life, and wasting his money, his inheritance, on the best wines and the most delicate gourmet foods. Well, that had been fixed quickly!

Aristides came back after a few minutes’ absence armed with a large silver flagon full of steaming mulled wine, two simple, elegant silver cups, and a small basket with a warm, mouth-watering scent wafting from it. Ahenobarbus’s fingers nipped at the basket and filched a roll before the basket was even on the table, and then he was eating, taking large mouthfuls with his eyes closed and savoring the taste.

When he finished the second roll Aristides had already left and Saturninus was gazing at him with that amused twinkle in his eyes. Gnaeus’s own blue-green eyes stared back. “What?” he demanded.

“Nothing. Nothing at all,” Lucius chuckled, closing his eyes and shaking his head. “Ah, it’s all coming to a head, Gnaeus. Maybe tomorrow, maybe in two days, maybe in a week, we’ll make our move.”

“Now, I’m no coward,” he said around the first mouthful of the third roll, “but I have a...a weird feeling about this.”

“It’s just the anticipation,” said Saturninus lightly. “Most of it’s over now, but the important bit has yet to come....”


The sound of rain barraging the world in steady, regular sheets sounded throughout the city. Roof tiles, gardens, and flagstones were all hit by the millions of tiny projectiles, and the city tried to sleep under the attack. Market gardeners and horticulturists rejoiced that at least the cold and wet would prevent their wares from rotting, and that a myriad of mushrooms would push through the ground and sell well; stable masters and herders rushed to get their animals and those animals’ sensitive, softening hooves indoors; bakers and blacksmiths shrugged, glad for cool relief from the fierce heat of their forges and ovens; children’s lessons held out of doors were cancelled and those kids gasped from boredom, private one-on-one indoors lessons continued and those (wealthier) kids gasped under the weight of knowledge they were to learn; laborers and lifters all over the city worked on and, though some inevitably died of sickness, most earned their keep and went home clean for the first time in weeks; artists, sculptors, actors, and whores had even more of a reason to stay indoors and drink the days away; and incidental or permanent couples coupled everywhere, playing the age-old game of “Hide the Sausage”.

The Flamen Dialis for one had had a delightful, love-filled game of “Hide the Sausage” with his wife last night, and was now sitting in his study and finishing up the master catalog of religions and cults. It had taken two months of walking all over the city, visiting and speaking with cult leaders, deputizing lictors to ask random people about any cults they might know of, and writing and organization—along with the hundred other, more official, duties he had—to create the master catalog.

The pontiffs—Scaurus and father-in-law Scipio Nasica most of all—had offered a few times to help, but the Flamen Dialis had declined. After a month of his labor they had admitted frankly that they now knew that they wouldn’t have been able to keep up; the hunger for work had transformed an onerous burden into a side project pursued at headlong pace.

The volume of paperwork and the amount of people involved had necessitated a second desk in the study; the two desks were pushed against the wide, windowed wall, and the Flamen Dialis sat with his back to the door. Three more chairs were tucked under the desks to either side of him, and papers sat even on these. Another day and the extra desk and extra chairs would be removed; he was almost done, and he knew that this catalog would create wonder and sensation among the highbrow religious people of Rome, and especially among the more involved pontiffs and augurs. It would also clearly make him the most proactive and serious Flamen Dialis in a long time, perhaps in all of Roman history! It was no error to be proud in oneself, and Gaius Julius knew that he deserved it.

The master catalog, the very first painstakingly written copy of hundreds of notes, references, and transcriptions scrawled in a hundred different hands, lay face down on the desk a foot in front of him; the last few pages of the index were yet to be completed by him. After that, he would be done. The master catalog would then be copied again by him—a week’s worth of solitary pursuit—and sent to the publishing house of Gaius Fannius, who was the cousin of one of his lictor-friends; there it would be copied in a hundred different hands over several weeks, and then disseminated among the highest religious officials and sold to anybody interested—probably not that many.

He wasn’t worried, though, that the catalog probably wouldn’t sell too well. It was his duty to Rome, according to the Lex Domitia de rebus divinis [thank you Dathi THorfinnsson], to scrutinize the religions of the city and to create this catalog. A more ambitious project that he would love to pursue was the cataloging, and then standardization of, and then organization of, and then the census of, every cult and religion in Italia, and even the provinces. Sadly, because he was forbidden to stay one night outside of Rome, it was impossible, and no other man had the interest—or frankly the intellect—to do so.

A knock came on the study door, and Gaius Julius called, “Come in.” He set his pen down, capped the inkwell, and cracked his sore fingers as the door opened behind him. He stood and turned. “Oh. You may leave us, Kallias.”

The steward left, closing the door after him, and Julilla stood there with her hands on her hips, frowning. More worried than angry, his brief time as Flamen Dialis had taught him how to be stolid, and even frigid, at almost all times; her combative stance had no effect on him as he pulled a chair out and set it tangentially to the desk. “Please sit, sister.”

She huffed as she brushed past him, and sat heavily. He stood behind his chair, fingertips touching the tabletop, and surveyed the desk to make sure that all was in order. Satisfying himself, he drew his chair out and turned in to face hers directly. Then he sat slowly, leaned into the comfortable chair with a sigh, and began. “I apologize, dear sister,” he smiled, shaking his head. “I get so caught up in this work, and I must ensure that all goes as it should. I’m almost done now, you know.”

She surveyed him with narrowed eyes, pink lips pursed and normally honey-colored skin appearing wan in the warm lamplight. Though Publius Cornelius Sissina provided her with everything she needed, there were things she wanted that he would not give; wine, for example, eluded her, and the big Gallic girl that was clearly in his employ accompanied her to every dinner party and all-female gathering. Her husband’s brother, too, was in relative isolation, and was being forced by his fear of the gods to shape up, train, stop drinking and whoring, and eventually join the legions of Spurius Dellius as a requested military tribune.

What nonsense, she thought. My brother’s wasting his time cataloging children’s stories when he could be doing something useful, and my Lucius is going to waste his life away at playing soldier because he believes children’s boogeyman tales.

“Julilla,” he said after she didn’t answer, voice at once hard instead of soft, commanding instead of requesting, “I’m not going to take your shit. I’m your brother, and I’m doing what any sane person would do. Should I have left you pregnant, thrown out of our house and perhaps become a whore in disgrace? A literal whore, not a fancy picky-choosy bitch such as Metella Calva, but a hole for every sailor, the second leavings of every gutter scum in the Subura! Don’t delude yourself; no man worth anything would have you, for to be a patrician woman and yet a whore is to be the lowest creature in all existence. Even were you a plebeian it would be hard enough; this way, nobody above the Fifth Class will have you, and all will know you for who you are because of your face. You are a Julia; there’s no doubt about it.”

Her eyes had widened and her mouth was now slack; her brother had never talked to her like this before. In fact, nobody had ever talked to her like this before. Her mother and father had of course chastened her before, and been stern with her, but this speech was so vulgar, so scathing, so real...and coming from her brother, who’d never said a mean thing to her ever before.

He continued when he saw that the effect was working. “Or maybe I should have said and done nothing, and allowed you to abort the child you carry? Then you would have killed a Roman person, a baby no less, and in your own womb, and disgusted all our Gods by it; you would have ruined the lives of every Julius Caesar. That includes mama, papa, me, Sextus, Julia, our cousins Quintus Lutatius and Lucius and Gaius Strabo. Our houses would have fallen into ruin, this recent recovery would have been reversed, and even our slaves would have suffered, for they are our property and complicit in all of our sins.”

Normally kind, deep blue eyes were alive with a hidden fire, and the fury and heat of his belief and passion scared her. But he was not right, she did not believe. She only knew that he was serious, and feared that he might kill her if she declined his offer of peace.

“What do you say then, Julilla?” His voice was not steel anymore, but it still held the edge of bronze. “Will you honor your family and Rome by obeying your husband and being at least an adequate wife—for with your moping and complaints you have not even been adequate—or will you continue your farcical behavior, and doom us all?”

If we were the only two people alive in the world right now, he would simply kill me. If I say no, he will kill me.

Gaius Julius was aware of this, too, and it scared him. He wanted to reach out with his strong, elegant Julian hands and wrap them around her neck, squeezing until the yellow eyes popped out of their sockets and the little raspberry tongue lolled in the open air. Despite the chill in the air, he felt sweat of fear and anxiety form all over his body.

Her mouth, already open in shock, formed the words. Tears in her eyes at having to swallow her pride formed. A heat of shame and embarrassment reddened her face as she said, “Alright, Gaius, alright. I’ll be adequate.”


So, I’m experimenting with a new(er) writing style here. I think it’s especially evident in the beginning, though I think I degrade to my earlier style in the second section. What do you all think?

@altwere and Grouchio: HAHAHAHAHAHAH! SULLA? DYING? AHAHAHAHAHAHA! What do you think this is, a non-fiction work? No, the great man survives, of course.

@Lars Porsenna: Too true, I had the same thoughts. Thanks for voting for me!

Thanks and congratulations to slydessertfox for continuing to be my messenger and for winning the Best New Ancient Turtledove Award, respectively.

 

[altwere]

Good then Sulla's impressive scaring will be certain to help his career.

 

[rgroberts]

Another awesome update! Particularly that last bit - Julilla certainly got what she deserved. It's high time someone gave her a dose of reality.

 

[St. Just]

Badass Flamen Dialis is badass

 

[SlyDessertFox]

FOR WANT OF THE HAMMER

SULLA IN SPAIN PART 3, 648 AVC​

They had lost.

It was something alien to Sulla, losing. Though he hadn’t had many chances in life, every one available had been seized greedily by him, and used to its fullest advantage. Though Sulla didn’t quite know what made most people tick, he knew their emotions and how to manipulate those; the minor opportunities came and were exploited. And then had come the big one; he had seen a way through his predicament and out of suspicion, and he had taken it.

He had lost, and he wasn’t used to it, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all; it made him hurt. Oh, sure, he hurt on the outside; his body was wracked by convulsing chills, his eyes and tongue pulsated with a dull and hot ache, his face alternated between feeling numb and on fire. The worst, of course, was his gut; someone—he hadn’t been able to see through the tears—had plucked little pieces of linen and steel out of his body, then scoured the entrance and exit wounds with hot wine in the most excruciating manner. When they’d turned him over he had felt hot streams of wine trickled against his intestines...inside of him. It was then that he’d passed out.

But that was all. Sulla could easily bear physical pain, but it was the psychic hurt.... They had lost.

He was used to psychic hurt. Growing up hungry in the streets of Rome, conscious of his patrician status but unable to join the other youths in games and political schooling, unable to learn to throw a spear and wield a gladius and ride a horse on the Campus Martius, learning to read and write—he, a patrician Cornelius!—only by the charity of a kind old Grammaticus, whoring himself out at childhood’s end to eat as his father spent every last sestertius on wine. Then, after all the adventures and after all his learning in the school of hard knocks, had come the scorn of fellow nobles, people who knew his status and also his vices. Of course he’d drowned his pain in wine and women; first attractive Subura gals, then his stepmother, then the wives of senators. Parties and galas and orgies, visions of lurching and half-forgotten nights paraded through his head; but they were all empty. They were a diversion to distract him from suffering; a patrician Cornelius, beholden to two women! But he’d shown them; he’d killed them both, and now he was here...in pain once again.


When he woke up he tried to sit up, but found he couldn’t. He was reminded that he couldn’t by the massive shot of pain that exploded on the left side of his torso, shooting up to his brain and down to his hip, that then radiated outward through the gut and chest. He closed his eyes, conscious effort overwhelming the dry wave of nausea that threatened, and stoically waited it out. After a minute or so he opened his eyes again, and took a deep breath.

Light clouds masked the sun over a dim winter sky; a dry, gentle breeze drifted down from the bare mountains to cool the Romans’ sweat. The whoosh of this breeze was the only things that augmented the creaking of the carts, the heavy, tired footfalls of the marching, and the wheezing of the sick and dying. Sulla was lying in a cart of his own, and staring up at the sagging brown fabric above him; from the outset he’d been most protected from the sun and the February chill. A sunburn would do nothing to help his recovery.

Most of the carts, of course, were shared by four or five cramped souls, sharing air and disease. Sulla, being a selfish man, had immediately ascertained that he was the most important person in his own life, and thus that he should do everything in his power to survive. He was the commander—out of commission at the moment—of the thousand-strong survivors’ march; he had his own cart, and adequate amounts of food and water.

A diseased and fatigued Sulla in mid-February of 648 AVC, deprived of his beauty sleep​

Piglet and Drusus had taken the water donkey and the only horse—thirsty, terrified, and very happy to see a human—left at camp, and gone to find help; wrapped in multiple bloody sagums caked with mud and filth, they spent a nightmarish, half-asleep night mostly letting their steeds guide them. The donkey and horse had stuck together and had found a stream; the stream led down to villages, and villagers hearing the clatter of shod hooves, awoke to apprehend bandits or run away from Germans. Relieved to find Romans, they had given them sustenance and sent all their carts and pack animals back loaded with wine and food—Drusus had shrewdly promised remission from taxes immediately if they helped; Piglet had almost balked and complained that it was the villagers’ duty to serve Rome.

As they were returning the day after the battle, Cotta and the few other more-or-less able-bodied men he’d found set about finding the living and removing them from the stench and ill humors of the battlefield. Many half-living men with missing limbs or gross disfigurations were dispatched on the spot; the effort and care put into their recovery would be better put to use on less hopeless cases. The dead were simply left where they lay, for the organization and burning of the bodies was a massive undertaking.

“What an omen,” said Cotta on seeing the body of Spurius Dellius. The man mouth was a mess of hanging red and pink flesh and white bits of tooth and bone; a sword had been driven into his mouth and through the back of his head, then removed. The New Man getting a sword through the most damaging part of him, or the Roman man receiving the same?

Publius Cornelius Grovus was found surrounded by bloody ground; he’d advanced fifteen feet farther into the German mass than any other man.

Marcus Antonius Gallus was found without an arm and a leg but very much alive. He had managed to slowly and painstakingly gather the cloaks and sagums of the dead around him, and had staunched the bleeding himself. Nonetheless, the blood loss was massive, and his shock of red hair stood out against bone-white skin like the sun against a clear blue sky.

There were others—tribunes and centurions and optiones and simple legionaries—that he’d known and loved as brothers. Cotta even recognized some of the slaves that had served wine or mucked out the stables, and had taken up the swords of fallen Romans and participated in the battle. What’s the point, when desolation like this exists? After half a day of dragging bodies and surveying various wet, putrid, gangrenous wounds, he sat on the ground and stared off into the horizon, empty stomach growling and rolling.

Now they were on their way down the valley, away from the Germans and away from Spain. They would reach Tarraco on the coast, send a fast rider by the fleetest ship to Rome, and remain for instructions from the Senate, recruiting as much as they could from the populace and trying to prevent the Germans from overrunning the province. So far it looked as though the messenger would be Piglet, who had also brought news of Catulus Caesar’s loss in Gallia Provincia to the Senate; what ill luck the young man had!

Unable to sit up, he called for Piglet. The sound of a man dismounting right next to the cart came to him, and then that distinctive Metellus nose poked its way into the opening. “Lucius Cornelius, what do you need? How are you today? Are you thirsty, or will you take some light food?”

“Come feel my forehead,” said Sulla, unable to stop himself from smiling in anticipation. The enthusiasm and loyalty of the young man was charming.

Piglet scrambled up into the cart, crouching under the canvas cover, and laid his hand gingerly on Sulla’s brow; then, the hand pushed down and his jaw dropped open. “The fever’s gone! Oh, thank the Gods; the fever’s gone! The fever’s gone!” he shouted, scrambling out of the cart and apparently running through the thousand marching men.

A weak cheer went up as the news was disseminated, and Sulla smiled to himself. I’ll make something of this yet. Spurius Dellius was dead, so there was nobody to prove Sulla’s complicity in his governance of the Spains.

 

[SlyDessertFox]

Grouchio made a great picture of Sulla.

 

[Lars Porsenna]

Grouchio made a great picture of Sulla.

I agree; and the other portraits, too.

I can't help but feel that this update's ending is a bit incomplete...but I'm not complaining! Write on!

 

[SlyDessertFox]

FOR WANT OF THE HAMMER

THERE IS A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT​

The Decline of the Roman Republic was a tumultuous time.

With the loss at the Battle of the Three Hills, Rome and her clients lost control of all of internal Hispania. The Celtiberian tribes, so recently subdued by Scipio Aemilianus in 621 AVC, rose up immediately in revolt all across the peninsula, and in many cases accommodated the mighty Germans. Tribes from the mountains and highlands descended into the fertile river valleys, there to plunder and to fight the softer tribes; Spain descended into anarchy for more than a decade, with only the fortified Roman coastal cities retaining any semblance of order.

Lucius Cornelius Sulla recovered quickly from the wound in his abdomen, and led his men on a dreary sea journey back to Italy. Quintus Caecilius Metellus the Piglet arrived in Rome before him, and went again straight to his good friend Censor Publius Rutilius Rufus’s house, to tell him what had happened. Despite all preparations the two could make, Consul Gaius Servilius Glaucia and his friend the Tribune Saturninus found out soon enough, and immediately set out to portray Sulla as a coward who had run away, causing the loss of the battle. Spurius Dellius, they said, was a hero, and had died in action because of trust misplaced in a sissy-boy patrician.

This caused an uproar in the senate and among the equestrians, though libel was not a legal offense in ancient Rome. Tribune Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus was especially upset at this underhanded backstabbing, and he suspended all support for Saturninus’s plans. The juries remained in senatorial hands.

Because of the grief of loss and Ahenobarbus’s stringent laws, the Pontifex Maximus Lucius Caecilius Metellus Dalmaticus died, leaving his property and name to his nephew the Piglet, who was then known jokingly as Lucius Caecilius Metellus Caecilianus Pius. The pontiffs thought that they had a few relaxed weeks to co-opt a new pontiff and then to hold an election for pontifex maximus, but they were wrong; Ahenobarbus, with his status as tribune and with his grudge against the pontiffs, appealed to the people with his year-long theme of obeying the wishes of the Gods. His argument was so well formed that no man dared to speak against it; a law to the effect that pontiffs would no longer be co-opted, but had to be elected, was put onto the books.

The Roman people liked nothing better than such irony, and so they immediately elected Ahenobarbus himself a pontiff, then subsequently pontifex maximus; the conservative establishment could do nothing but watch. Additionally, he formulated a law that allowed a pontiff to name a substitute in the rituals and rites, so that he would be able to leave Rome to govern a province.

Lucius Cornelius Sulla was about to face his trial for cowardice and incompetence when his wife, Caecilia Sullana, died in childbirth. The baby boy lived, but Sulla declared that it was not his, and ordered it exposed in the lime pits outside Rome where the bodies of paupers and dead animals were thrown. Knowing that he had just lost his beloved wife, and knowing of his grievous wounds attained with valor in the field of battle, the senatorial jury acquitted him. He then married Aurelia. [There you go, Tsar Gringo! Now you know! ]

Meh...switch to present tense.

The years pass. Roman weakness is exploited by King Jugurtha of Numidia, who allies himself with Mithridates the Great of Pontus. Mithridates overruns Bithynia and Roman Asia Minor, forging himself a mighty state with a loyal Greek army modeled on the Roman legions. Jugurtha pushes the borders of Africa and Mauretania. Aulus Postumius Albinus, who as questor had passed under the yoke in Africa, sacrifices himself in battle as proprietor in Africa, and sets Jugurtha back by some years.

The only army standing against Mithridates now is Lucius Cassius Longinus Ravilla’s. The man has been living in the rough mountains of Macedonia for over ten years by this point, and is containing the Pontic king. To fund this army of Rome’s—the only one of any great size—Consul of 657 Lucius Licinius Lucullus pushes the Socii of Italy to pay more and more for Rome’s legions. He plans a resurgence of Roman power in Spain and Africa, while paying for legions and expensive grain—since Rome has lost the wealthy grain producing provinces of Africa, Baetica, and Asia Minor, and well as the client of Bithynia.

This proves to be a mistake. The Socii are sick of paying for Rome’s failing status, and rise up in a revolt that is known as the Social War. All over Italy [more extensive than OTL], Italians rise up against Rome. Samniti, Hirpini, Marsi, Paeligni, Vestini, Lucani, Frentani, and others all join; most of critical Campania is under rebel control by the end of the first week of fighting. Ex-Praetor Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, seeing that his chances at fame and fortune are better with a non-Roman Italy, induces his Picentine countrymen to join the revolt [no Pompey’s private legions helping Rome out].

Glaucia, who is by now an ex-censor serving at times as an ambassador when needed, is caught on the road by Samnites and tortured to death. Saturninus, whose career is going nowhere fast, is genuinely aggrieved by his beloved father figure’s death, and goes among the Italians promising freedoms and good leadership if they would only follow him; his fellow Picentines Pompey Strabo and Pompeius Rufus given him an especially warm welcome.

Sulla, who at the age of 44 is a mere Praetor, is raising troops in Italy when this happens. He’s never lose the soldiers’ respect, and he leads them on the first aggressive Roman actions. Longinus Ravilla remains in Macedonia, acting more or less independently and funding himself through raids on the Pontic cities of Greece and Thrace; Africa is completely overrun by Jugurtha, who then settles on his hells and purrs contentedly.

Rutilius Rufus, old Scipio Nasica, old Caepio, old Catulus, old Caesar, and others are all dead. The senate has no backbone after Scaurus dies last of all, and the men who have the strength to do the right thing—Scipio Nasica, Drusus, Caesar flamen dialis—are all either serving with Sulla or Ravilla, or are ignored by the dithering old men. Seeing how serious the situation is, Lucullus convinces the senate to accept the rebels’ demands; the equestrians, outraged, follow Sulla, who defies the senate.

A decade-long war follows in which half of Italy burns to the ground and the other half is raided at least once a year. Rome herself is besieged no less than four times (one more time—and successfully—if Saturninus’s midnight penetration is included) and the entire Samnite nation is eradicated from the face of the Earth. Saturninus and all the rebel leaders are executed by Sulla in the end; this action disgusts the principled Drusus, Lucius Cotta, and Caesar flamen dialis.

Longinus Ravilla dies in battle, an old man carved out of wood, but is not forgotten. His legions return to Rome and are sent to Africa under Metellus Pius’s command, to reestablish Rome’s control of the grain there; it is more important than Macedonia. Sulla is now Dictator and institutes a series of reforms.

He realizes that Rome can no longer afford to feed the Head Count and Fifth Class, and also knows that Italy is denuded of men and devastated by war. He settles the hundreds of thousands of urban poor crowding cities such as Rome, Capua, Arretium, and Tibur onto that land. The slave trade has all but stopped, and it’s Romans and Italians that do almost all of the farm work; there are no more thousands of acres of bulk latifundia. It is around this time that Massilia and other client cities and kingdoms stop sending tribute.

This heavy schedule means that Sulla is working all day every day. His beauty escapes, he becomes nasty and crabby and not charming at all, and he begins to fight very publicly with Aurelia and with his disappointing sons by her. The only person he enjoys spending time with is his daughter Cornelia Sullana, with auburn curls and the warm brown eyes of Caecilia Metella Sullana. She is married to Publius Licinius Crassus (eldest son of Publius Licinius Crassus [the praetor of 648], nephew of Lucius Licinius Crassus Orator), to gain their political support.

Sulla becomes ugly and old and wrinkly, with a hole in his cheek from skin cancer. His “evil” internal nature is finally revealed externally. Jugurtha dies in 671 AVC, leaving his son to fight against Metellus Pius, who isn’t doing badly at all. Metellus Nepos manages to increase grain yields in Sicily—or at least pushes his friends to sell for less—and Ahenobarbus scours the coasts of Greece and Asia Minor as a state-sanctioned pirate.

Sulla dies in 672 AVC at the age of 59, with his work never done. His sons are killed soon afterward, and the decemvirate of Metellus Pius, Drusus, Lucius Cotta, Ahenobarbus, Metellus Nepos, Publius Servilius Vatia, Scipio Nasica, Marcus Aurelius Cotta Jr. (Aurelia’s half-brother and Lucius Cotta’s cousin and step-brother), Gaius Claudius Pulcher, and Lucius Cornelius Sissina—happily married to Julia, after his brother died in the Social War—that Sulla devised stands shakily.

Things fall apart quicker than they did after Alexander the Great’s death. None of the nine decemvirs will listen to Metellus Pius—who is their leader appointed by Sulla, and far away in Africa.

With an easier time against the Romans, Mithridates has an easy time taking Cilicia and northern Syria. The Jewish kingdoms remain small and fragmented, and Armenia triumphs against the Parthians. The Parthians never recover permanently from their royal civil war; one set of sons rule in Mesopotamia, the other set in Persia.

Metellus Nepos and Ahenobarbus, friends as always, as well as Nepos’s cousins the Caprarilli, forge a sort of private kingdom of Sicily, Corsica et Sardinia, the Baleares, the Spanish coastal cities, and a ton of pirates; a unique maritime Italo-Greek culture forms in those parts.

Drusus and the two Cottae run off to Italian Gaul while Scipio Nasica—using his intelligence and illustrious name—Pulcher, and Vatia harness the senate and equestrians into an Italy-centered regime focused on maintaining strong, central, defensive power, and on agrarian strength—since they’re getting no grain from Sicily, or around Sicily from Africa.

Sissina joins Metellus Pius in Africa as his most able lieutenant, and they regain Roman Africa from Jugurtha’s grandsons.

While the Roman Republic has declined and for most intents and purposes has ceased to exist, there will always be a light that never goes out.

So, that’s the end of FOR WANT OF THE HAMMER. Of course, it would have ended up much differently and more refined had I not been banned for a BS reason after apologizing. I planned to have Sulla take control, of course, but other things would have ended up way differently. If I’d followed my notes from the beginning, Marcus Antonius would now be consul; I changed my mind, of course, and he died.

I planned for this TL to end when Sulla died, and to then create a continuation entitled SHADES OF SULLA. Well, it didn’t work out. Thanks to all my readers and supporters, and good luck to you all with your TL’s, and maps, and all other endeavors, whatever they may be.

 

[St. Just]

Certainly didn't end how I thought it was going to- the most interesting part of the map is the Germans, honestly.

 

[Grouchio]

...Why is this over?

 

[Grouchio]

Can we put this under finished timelines?

 

[altwere]

Yes please do.