Fortune's Favorites by Colleen McCullough

so he told himself.
    “I'll keep Ofella and Catilina with me,” he said to Crassus and Metellus Pius, stoppering up the flask again. “However, Verres is the epitome of his name-an insatiably greedy boar. I think I will send him back to Beneventum, for the time being at least. He can organize supplies and keep an eye on our rear.”
    The Piglet giggled. “He might like that, the honey-boy!”
    This provoked a brief grin in Crassus. “What about yon Cethegus?” he asked, legs aching from hanging down limply; they were very heavy legs. He shifted his weight a little.
    “Cethegus I shall retain for the moment,” said Sulla. His hand strayed toward the wine, then was snatched away. “He can look after things in Campania.”
    Just before his army crossed the river Volturnus near the town of Casilinum, Sulla sent six envoys to negotiate with Gaius Norbanus, the more capable of Carbo's two tame consuls. Norbanus had taken eight legions and drawn himself up to defend Capua, but when Sulla's envoys appeared carrying a flag of truce, he arrested them without a hearing. He then marched his eight legions out onto the Capuan plain right beneath the slopes of Mount Tifata. Irritated by the unethical treatment meted out to his envoys, Sulla proceeded to teach Norbanus a lesson he would not forget. Down the flank of Mount Tifata Sulla led his troops at a run, hurled them on the unsuspecting Norbanus. Defeated before the battle had really begun, Norbanus retreated inside Capua, where he sorted out his panicked men, sent two legions to hold the port of Neapolis for Carbo's Rome, and prepared himself to withstand a siege.
    Thanks to the cleverness of a tribune of the plebs, Marcus Junius Brutus, Capua was very much disposed to like the present government in Rome; earlier in the year, Brutus had brought in a law giving Capua the status of a Roman city, and this, after centuries of being punished by Rome for various insurrections, had pleased Capua mightily. Norbanus had therefore no need to worry that Capua might grow tired of playing host to him and his army. Capua was used to playing host to Roman legions.
    “We have Puteoli, so we don't need Neapolis,” said Sulla to Pompey and Metellus Pius as they rode toward Teanum Sidicinum, “and we can do without Capua because we hold Beneventum. I must have had a feeling when I left Gaius Verres there.” He stopped for a moment, thought about something, nodded as if to answer his thought. “Cethegus can have a new job. Legate in charge of all my supply columns. That will tax his diplomacy!”
    “This,” said Pompey in disgruntled tones, “is a very slow kind of war. Why aren't we marching on Rome?”
    The face Sulla turned to him was, given its limitations, a kind one. “Patience, Pompeius! In martial skills you need no tuition, but your political skills are nonexistent. If the rest of this year teaches you nothing else, it will serve as a lesson on political manipulation. Before ever we contemplate marching on Rome, we have first to show Rome that she cannot win under her present government. Then, if she proves to be a sensible lady, she will come to us and offer herself to us freely.”
    “What if she doesn't?” asked Pompey, unaware that Sulla had already been through this with Metellus Pius and Crassus.
    “Time will tell” was all Sulla would say.
    They had bypassed Capua as if Norbanus inside it did not exist, and rolled on toward the second of Rome's consular armies, under the command of Scipio Asiagenus and his senior legate, Quintus Sertorius. The little and very prosperous Campanian towns around Sulla did not so much capitulate as greet him with open arms, for they knew him well; Sulla had commanded Rome's armies in this part of Italy for most of the duration of the Italian War.
    Scipio Asiagenus was camped between Teanum Sidicinum and Cales, where a small tributary of the Volturnus, fed by springs, provided a great deal of slightly effervescent water; even in summer its