I Am Rome, page 29
The Samnite army advanced to a thousand paces from the legions.
The last rays of sunlight faded.
Everything went dark, and in that sea of shadows, the Samnite army disappeared from view.
Sulla was scrutinizing the scene below. A tribune approached to transmit a message, but he held up a hand to silence him. He was listening carefully to the sounds of the night.
The Samnites began to light their torches.
Hundreds, thousands, of glowing flames spread out like a blazing mosaic as far as the eye could see.
Dolabella and Crassus gave the order for their soldiers to follow suit, and the Roman legions were soon lit up as well.
Sulla, for the moment, did not need more light, and he knew it would be a mistake to burn down all their torches too soon. They couldn’t know how many the enemy had, but he knew how many he had.
“Tell Crassus and Dolabella to use only a quarter of the torches now and save the next fourth for the secunda vigilia, and so on,” he ordered the tribunes, who hurried off to transmit his instructions.
Light was crucial to a nighttime battle.
Sulla stalked the shadows atop the old walls of Rome. He could see the enemy, but they could not see him.
The Samnites began their attack.
Julia family domus
November 1, Prima Vigilia[*3]
Caesar could hear the roar of the battle from the uncovered atrium of his home. By the sound of it, the conflict seemed as colossal as it was brutal. Beyond that, nothing was certain. Rumors raced from house to house that the Samnites were making their way through the tight ranks of the Roman cohorts. But…was that truly happening?
Caesar paced desperately. Labienus looked on, helpless. Cornelia had paused her heartrending cries, but neither the doctor nor Aurelia emerged to offer any news on how the labor was advancing.
Beyond the walls of Rome
Secunda Vigilia
Dolabella watched as the legions under his command, inexperienced and unmotivated, quickly lost ground, even though he ordered constant rotations of the first line of combat. He was shouting nonstop, trying to maintain their position, always careful to keep his distance from the front line where the fighting was most fierce. The Samnites were brutally battling for their freedoms and rights, their anger making them more fierce and powerful than the bribed legionaries. Soon chaos spread through the Roman ranks.
Dolabella, slowly but decidedly, began to retreat with his entourage. Sacrificing himself in battle was not something he was prepared to do.
Crassus, commanding the more veteran troops, soldiers who had fought in Greece and Asia, held his position. The Samnites didn’t seem to be gaining any notable ground against him.
From atop the wall, Sulla noticed the disorganization of Dolabella’s troops.
“Light your torches!” he ordered, and soon the walls of Rome showed hundreds of archers ready to shoot.
The Samnites were getting closer, pushing Dolabella’s men back against the walls. Some of the legionaries turned around and began to run toward the Porta Collina and other gates that remained open so Sulla could send out reinforcements or allow replacements.
The archers were waiting for the order to fire on the Samnites, who were still too far away, when Sulla had another idea: “Aim for the cowardly legionaries who would seek refuge within the walls of Rome!”
The tribunes looked at their commander.
But no one said a word.
The archers looked at the tribunes and other officers. The only order came from Sulla: “Shoot any legionaries who would flee! By all the gods! Now!”
The archers, who had been aiming over the heads of the legionaries in battle, calculating whether they could hit the Samnites, now aimed at the base of the wall as they had been instructed.
“Now, by Jupiter!” Sulla roared.
A rain of steel fell upon the legionaries in retreat.
More than a hundred Romans were shot down in that first broadside. Killed by Roman arrows. It was a brutal punishment for deserting combat, but, as if in a state of shock, the other legionaries stopped fleeing.
Dolabella, seeing what had just happened, stopped his own retreat and ordered his men to return to combat.
Sulla turned to his officers, still atop the wall. “All legionaries who come too close to the walls of Rome shall be shot! All officers who retreat shall be shot! By Jupiter, shoot me dead if I try to flee!”
And that said, leaving everyone around him stupefied, he quickly descended from atop the walls of Rome and down the avenue that led to the Porta Collina. Every time he passed an open gate in the wall, he gave a loud, clear order: “Close it!”
In his wake came the sound of the iron bars falling into place, sealing each and every one of Rome’s access points.
Sulla reached the Porta Collina.
“As soon as I leave, close this one too!” he instructed.
Surrounded by a group of loyal men, he marched directly to the legions commanded by Dolabella.
Sulla had bent laws and pressured senators to obtain command of the war against Mithridates. He’d battled his way across Greece and Asia and all the way back across the Italic peninsula. Now, with Rome finally under his control, he damned well wasn’t going to lose it all to a cursed Samnite rebellion.
“Victory or death!” he howled at the top of his lungs. Hundreds of men around him answered his cry: “Victory or death! Victory or death! Victory or death!”
Lucius Cornelius Sulla was a selfish, social-climbing senator, a shrewd military strategist, a pillager of sacred temples. He was willing to purchase loyalties, break promises, and betray anyone to achieve his aims. He was a miserable, corrupt politician who would stop at nothing to satisfy his personal ambitions. But there was one thing Sulla was not: he was not a coward.
Julia family domus
Tertia Vigilia
The birth was a slow agony.
It seemed that Cornelia was dying, and with her, the life she carried inside.
Caesar then did something inappropriate for a man to do. He committed a transgression, he crossed a line, but it would not be the most surprising border he’d breach in his life: the young husband entered the room where Cornelia, lying in bed, was struggling to give birth.
As soon as they saw him, the slaves jumped back from the bed. The doctor looked at him but did not say a word, his mind focused on the task at hand.
Aurelia seemed less surprised than anyone else. She’d taught her son never to give up anything as impossible, that he could do anything if he set his mind to it. She wasn’t going to start telling him what he should and shouldn’t do now; he was the pater familias after all.
Caesar saw a seat beside Cornelia, where the slave who had been cooling her head with damp cloths had been sitting seconds prior.
“If she can’t keep pushing, there’s nothing to be done,” the doctor said.
Caesar leaned over Cornelia. The bottom half of the bed was soaked in blood. His wife was sweating profusely and her eyes were closed. Aurelia approached her with a bowl of water.
“Gaius is here,” Caesar’s mother said.
Cornelia opened her eyes and feebly took a drink.
There were tearstains on the young woman’s cheeks. Tears of pain, sadness, helplessness. She was too weak to utter a single word.
“You have to push again,” Caesar implored her. “You have to do it for yourself, for me, for the little one. You can do it. I know you can.”
Cornelia nodded and strained with all her might, but once again, her efforts seemed to be in vain.
“It’s best that the father leave the room,” the doctor said.
Caesar looked at his mother and Aurelia nodded in agreement. Caesar obeyed their wishes.
For what seemed like hours, he and Labienus sat outside in the atrium listening to Cornelia’s suffering.
Finally, when Caesar had lost all hope of anything going well that cursed night, a voice rang out across the atrium: “It’s a girl.”
Beyond the walls of Rome
Quarta Vigilia
Whatever the reason, whether it was Sulla’s ceaseless orders repeated by Dolabella and the other officers, or because of the threat of being riddled with arrows if they neared the walls, the majority of the legionaries continued to battle the Samnites.
Both sides suffered countless losses, but the socii did not desist in their attack, and for a moment it looked as if they would defeat the weaker legions commanded by Dolabella.
Then a tribune arrived at Sulla’s side carrying a message. “Crassus has destroyed the Samnites on his side and he wants to surround them and attack from the rear.”
Sulla nodded. “Let Crassus surround them,” he said. “Victory is ours, my friend,” he declared confidently, looking at Dolabella.
The long night was coming to an end.
The battle would soon be over.
The first rays of sunlight fell onto the sea of dead Samnites and Romans that had piled up during the cruel overnight battle. Crassus’s legions waded through the Samnite corpses, advancing slowly but inexorably, systematically killing everyone in their path. Like a perfectly oiled machine, grinding the flesh of the socii who, exhausted, began to comprehend the true scale of their defeat.
Lucius Cornelius Sulla watched the sun rise over Rome. “This is not merely a new dawn, Dolabella,” he said. “This is the start of a new era.”
Just then, Crassus reached him, flanked by a group of legionaries. “I have destroyed them. It was easy,” he said. “In a matter of hours, not a single one of them will remain alive. Fortunately I’ve done better than Dolabella,” he said, smiling.
Sulla could see the fury in Dolabella’s eyes. It was true that Crassus had achieved what Dolabella had not, but it was also true that Crassus had commanded the more veteran legions, whereas Dolabella led the inexperienced men, for whom that battle had been a trial by fire. Sulla saw many things clearly that dawn. He saw that Crassus was as ambitious as he was petty, and that he gave himself too much credit, something that, in the long run, would prove to be the death of him. He saw that Dolabella now, forever after, would hate Crassus. And his final premonition that dawn: now he, Sulla, would have everything his heart desired.
And there was so much he desired.
Julia family domus
Hora Prima
“It’s a girl,” the doctor said again.
For many men, the news would’ve been disappointing, but to Caesar, in that moment, having a male heir did not seem at all urgent or important. There would be time to think about that later. The only thing that mattered now was the well-being of his family—the newborn baby’s health and, above all, Cornelia’s recovery.
“She’s lost consciousness,” said Aurelia, looking at the young mother.
The doctor handed the baby girl to a slave to wash and dry as he placed a hand on Cornelia’s forehead. She did not react. More than weak and unconscious, she looked dead.
The doctor shook his head, pressing his lips together with a sad look on his face.
Caesar knelt beside his wife and took her hand.
He spoke quietly into her ear: “Don’t leave me, Cornelia…Don’t leave me…”
Skip Notes
*1 Literally, “third hour.” In the Roman timekeeping system, daylight hours began at sunrise, and since the day was divided into twelve hours, the term here means “three hours after sunrise,” or something roughly equivalent to 7, 8, or 9 a.m. depending on time of year. In October, around 8 A.M.
*2 The term social war originates from the Latin bellum sociale (literally “the war of the allies,” since sociale comes from socii, which means allies). This was a war fought between the Roman Republic and allied tribes mostly from 91 to 87 b.c., although some territories extended the conflict for a longer period.
*3 “First vigil.” Roman timekeeping split the nighttime hours into four vigils, or “watches.” So in context this denotes the first few hours after the sun has set.
During the reiectio, lawyers for both the prosecution and the defense may recuse any judge whose association with the accused places their impartiality in doubt.
XLIII
Aurelia’s Advice
Julia family domus, Rome
77 B.C.
Five years had passed since that difficult birth, and the members of the Julia family now found themselves absorbed with the trial against Dolabella.
Caesar’s home in the Suburra was a true conclave of women that evening, as his wife, Cornelia, Aurelia, his sisters, and his niece Acia gathered for dinner in the central atrium to welcome him home from his journey east. His father and his uncle Marius were both dead, and his other uncle, Aurelius Cotta, would not visit while the trial against Dolabella lasted, since, as defense attorney for the accused, he was Caesar’s rival. So the young pater familias of the gens Julia had no older, experienced man to turn to for advice. His brothers-in-law, Pinarius and Balbus, did not frequent the Julia residence, as if preferring to keep a prudent distance from the young man who had dared to take on the all-powerful Dolabella. Labienus, his closest confidant, was just as inexperienced as he was. The logical, expected thing would’ve been for Caesar to seek out some respected senator or politician in the Plebeian Council sympathetic to the popular cause. But Caesar, who often did the unexpected, sought advice elsewhere. As Labienus had predicted during their trip to Macedonia, it was his mother, Aurelia, to whom he turned.
“The reiectio is a few days away, Mother,” said Caesar. This next phase of the trial had occupied his mind all the way home from Thessaloniki. “The trip east has turned up new witnesses and evidence that will support my claims, but the tribunal is packed with optimates who are planning to exonerate Dolabella no matter the arguments I lay out in the basilica. So I have to take full advantage of the opportunity presented by the reiectio.”
“You can’t recuse all the judges,” Aurelia said, understanding that her son had a specific question for her.
“No, I can’t, and in any case, they’d only replace them with other optimates favorable to Dolabella. No, I don’t want to waste time or energy on a tedious, exhausting debate that would barely improve my situation in the trial. I’ve been thinking about a different way to approach it.”
“What way?” his mother asked.
“I want to recuse a single person: Quintus Caecilius Metellus,” he announced solemnly.
“The president of the tribunal, no less,” Aurelia said.
“Yes, the president of the tribunal. Metellus is the leader of the optimates, the most respected. With Sulla dead and Dolabella distracted, Metellus is the brains of the party now. A mere gesture from him, a frown, a single syllable, and they all heel to him like trained dogs. I can’t change the tribunal, but I can cut off its head. I have to get Metellus out somehow, but…”
“But?” Aurelia inquired.
Caesar took a few seconds to respond. “I don’t know how,” he said, unashamed to admit that he had not been able to come up with a solution even after four months of constant thought. He knew what he had to do, but he didn’t know how to do it. He looked Aurelia in the eye. “That’s why I’m turning to you, Mother. You’re the most intelligent woman I know, and I trust you completely. I could ask Cicero or his oratory master, old Archias. I could seek out some veteran lawyer from the forum, some senator or councilman, but no one will give me their honest opinion, not in this case. They’re all too scared of Dolabella and Metellus to give me useful advice. I know you don’t have any experience in trial, Mother, but I also know how good you are at sizing people up. What is Metellus’s weak spot? Where can I attack him?”
No one spoke. Cornelia, Caesar’s sisters, and Caesar himself all remained respectfully silent as Aurelia sat with a calm, somber expression, thinking.
“It’s fairly simple,” his mother began. “Metellus wants to emulate his father, to live up to his name. Quintus Caecilius Metellus Numidicus was consul. Metellus Pius, president of the tribunal in the case against Dolabella, has also achieved this.”
“Yes, appointed by Sulla,” the young Caesar confirmed, listening with total attention. “Just as Sulla named Dolabella consul the year prior.”
“Correct,” Aurelia said, then continued with her line of reasoning. “But Metellus Numidicus, the father, also obtained a triumph for his victories in Africa, in the war that your uncle Marius ended by vanquishing Jugurtha. The Senate only granted Metellus Sr. that triumph to reduce Marius, but that’s another matter. The key is: Metellus’s father was consul and received a triumph. Metellus Jr. has been named consul but has yet to receive a triumph.”
“He surely aims to win one by defeating Sertorius’s rebellion in Hispania,” Caesar continued, beginning to understand where his mother was going with all this. “Metellus had only planned to be away from the war for a few weeks. He was making a brief visit here to Rome to sort out a family matter. But if he’s president of the tribunal, he’ll have to remain here, far from the war. And this war will surely be his last opportunity to command an army against a high-ranking popular rebel. His last chance, therefore, to achieve a great victory that could win him the triumph he so desires.”
“Exactly, my son,” his mother said.
Caesar nodded several times and fell silent.
Cornelia and Caesar’s sisters turned the conversation to other matters. Not out of lack of interest or respect, but because they knew that Caesar would be busy mulling over what he had just discussed with his mother.
