Pride of Carthage (53 page)

“And that was just the beginning. I spent the week at my husband's side. He made me watch everything. They spent days tilting up crosses to crucify the captured leaders. Other prisoners they set free without their hands. Some had their feet severed at the ankles and were left to fight off the hyenas. Others they blinded and sliced out their tongues, cut off their manhood, fed live to captured lions. The war had been brutal beyond imagining, and Hamilcar—my husband—answered earlier barbarities in kind. All these years later, these sights are as alive in me as they are real somewhere. Somewhere in this war such scenes are being repeated. The men we love are their architects, or their victims. That is why I chose never to trouble my husband again. I left him to his work, not as a sacrifice, but because I hated the way it made me look at him. I hated—and never understood—how such a man could perform such horrors. Because of this I spent the larger part of my married life away from him. I loved him; and therefore I could barely stand to be with him.

“I'm not sure if this makes sense to you, but do not seek the ways of war, Imilce. Do not wish to understand it. Take your husband in his quiet moments, when he's in your arms and when he looks upon your child with love. You must do this, for if you know too much of a warrior's work you'll grow to hate him. And I would never have you doubt my son.”

“Nor would I,” Imilce whispered.

“Then hold on to your ignorance. Men's follies are better left as mysteries to us.”

“Do you think it is all for nothing?”

“All for nothing?” Didobal pursed her lips. “No, I wouldn't say that. The world thrives on the strife of those living in it. As food nourishes the body, so does turmoil feed the gods. One creature must prevail over another. I would not wish our country to be used like a slave woman, so I pray daily for our victory. What else can we do? On the day this war ends, a new one will begin. It's dreadful, but so it always has been. There is no reason to believe it will change.”

“So we can never live at peace?”

Didobal answered flatly, “Not until the gods are dead. And as we both know, they are immortal. The gods will ever make us dance for them. That is what it means to be born of flesh. In truth, Imilce, I feel the gods are restless with this war. I do not know what will happen, but it's coming quickly, like a storm from the north. Like a tempest blown down from the heavens. Let us keep all of my sons in our prayers.”

Didobal lifted her arm and held her hand out to her daughter-in-law. Imilce took it and felt the woman squeeze her fingers, her regal hand heavy with rings. Something in the pressure made her feel like a child holding a giant's hand. “Forgive my earlier deception,” Didobal said. “I like you very much, daughter.”

Publius sailed from Ostia at the head of a fleet, carrying ten thousand infantrymen and another thousand cavalry, the full measure that Rome allowed him for the year. Barely had his men's feet touched solid ground at Emporiae when he had them exercising to regain the strength the journey had sapped from them. He gathered the battered remnants of the existing army and with them left behind the distractions of the Greek city. They marched to Tarraco, where Publius set up his headquarters and began interviewing anyone and everyone with knowledge he considered useful. He had never been busier. He had never directed so many men, faced such challenges, held such complete responsibility. He knew Rome was too far away to rely on for any guidance, so Iberia was his to win or lose. Only the constant motion kept him from pausing long enough to weigh the staggering gravity of this.

Within seven days, he had sent out invitations to all the tribes aligned with Rome already, and even to a few still with Carthage. The delegations came to him with varying degrees of enthusiasm, with more complaints than promises, with wary eyes that took in this youthful new leader skeptically. Was this truly the best Rome could do, to send a boy with barely a hair on his chest? What could he hope to achieve that his father and uncle had not, especially now that the situation was even worse? Cornelius and Gnaeus had been skilled commanders with years of experience, two armies, and a force of allies it had taken years to win. But they had been destroyed. Now, with Mago Barca having arrived over the winter, the Carthaginians had three armies in Iberia. They roiled across the land, storm clouds hurling down bolts of retribution for earlier betrayals. Hanno had hammered the chieftain of the Vaccaei to a cross and sent five hundred of his people's daughters to New Carthage as prisoners. Hasdrubal burned a scorched path along the river Tagus all the way to the Great Sea, enslaving whole tribes, burning villages, twisting their leaders on the burning spit of fright as only Carthaginians knew how to do. Mago laid new levies on the southern tribes and daily built his army into a great horde clamoring to become the second wave to march for Rome. Considering all this, more than one envoy asked, what assurance could Publius give that Rome's cause was not dead and rotten like the corpses of his predecessors?

Strangely, Publius found something calming about staring into these belligerent eyes. As the translators conveyed their messages he took in their foreign features, their varying dress and demeanor. The more disrespect the Iberians showed him, the stronger the set of his jaw, the more steady his gaze, the more fluid the motions of his hands. He promised nothing in exact detail, he said, for no one individual ever decided such complex matters. But he did pledge to fight the Carthaginians as they had never been fought before. He reminded them that never yet had Rome uttered one conciliatory word to the Africans; such was their certainty that the long war would eventually swing their way. They had made mistakes. They had been hasty when they should have been patient, honest when they should have been devious, restrained when they should have exploded with fury. In many ways, they had fought the war unwisely up to this point. Yes, he admitted, even his father had made errors of judgment, but none of these need be repeated.

These speeches met with mixed receptions, but each time he spoke them Publius believed his words a little more. He was discovering traits in himself that he had not known before, but he had little time to pause and consider these things. Laelius, like a twin beside him, did not speak a thought not directly related to the war, so he did not do so either. He trusted no other officer as completely as he did his companion. With him alone, he laid out all the charts and information he had about Iberia. On their hands and knees, they crawled across the marble floor, talking through each piece of information, from the obvious to the most complex. They both believed that they must strike, and soon. They could rely on no reinforcements from Italy and, for all they knew, Hannibal might soon strike another great blow there that would further complicate matters for them. They could win the confidence of old allies and secure new ones only through a victory. A winner always had company.

Such was Publius' thinking on an afternoon two months after his arrival, well into the dry heat of early summer. His period of grace with his men was short. Already he felt them murmuring their doubts. Each passing day suggested hesitation. Had this new commander any plan at all? The truth was that he did not, but he woke and slept and ate and shat with the belief that he was at the verge of revelation, that the key to unlocking Iberia was within his grasp if he just knew how to reach for it.

He entered his war room to find Laelius stretched out atop the charts, writing notes directly onto the parchment. His body covered the circles that marked the three Carthaginian armies. His left ankle hid Hasdrubal's base at the mouth of the Tagus; his right foot lay flat across the Pillars of Hercules, where Mago resided; his torso entirely covered the center of the peninsula, where Hanno based his operations. The single marked spot of importance that was visible fell in another area entirely, one that suddenly appeared to Publius as what it was: completely isolated, lightly protected, vulnerable.

“We've been thinking only of the hounds, but not of the sheep they guard,” Publius said. “Laelius, what do you see when you look at this from on high?”

Laelius stood and peered about. He began by restating his earlier argument that they should seek out Hanno's force first, as he was reportedly having trouble managing his Celtiberian troops. “We could gather at—”

Publius touched him at the wrist. “Friend, think. Remember when you saved me at Cannae? You raised my outlook so that I saw with my enemy's eyes. I learned from you that day, and I'm alive because of it. Now you must use such foresight as a matter of course, each day that passes, each moment until this is concluded. The Barcas don't fight like normal men, and neither will we. Look at these charts and answer me. What is the weak point? What holds all of this together and yet lies exposed?”

It took Laelius only a moment to grasp Publius' meaning. His face shifted from perplexity to mute understanding, and then the left corner of his lips lifted.

When they departed for the south a fortnight later, they traveled in haste, troops marching double time, Laelius and the ships shadowing them offshore, cavalry riding out in small units, hunting any who might betray their movements. Publius had yet to reveal their goal to any but a select few, no more than the fingers on a hand. He was so intent on secrecy that he refused to tell the twenty thousand men of his army anything more than necessary to get them through the day. If his plans for Iberia were to succeed, this first effort must not fail. He left nothing to chance, but this did not stop him from mingling with the men daily. He rode up beside his troops during marches and harangued them from the saddle. Everything was about to change, he declared. The gods themselves had told him so. Never again would they make small war in Iberia. Never would they fight skirmishes for no real gain. Never would they divide their forces and rely so heavily on Iberian honor. They would strike only decisive blows, well timed, perfectly placed, and so effective that the brothers Barca could not recover even from the first attack. Hannibal might have rewritten the rules of warfare; now it was their turn to take up the stylus and inscribe the rest of this history.

They marched around Acra Leuce without a sideways glance, forded the river Segura, and strode out onto the cape of Palus. There were seven days like this, but still they were each of them stunned when they caught their first glimpse of the city. None of them believed it a reasonable destination, so they sought some other explanation for why their route took them close to it. More than one of them sat down to behold the madness that had brought them to the teeth of the enemy's maw. They had marched to New Carthage.

Their arrival caught the inhabitants by complete surprise. Shepherds rose up from drowsing no more than a stone's throw from the advance guard. It took them only a glance to know that these troops were not their own. They ran, but not one of them escaped the cavalry's darts. Slaves looked up from the near fields and dropped their work where they stood. Soon the watchtower sounded a great horn that drew everyone into the city like rabbits scurrying to their burrows. Just before the gates slammed shut, a band of six horsemen galloped out. Messengers. Each curved off in a different direction, gone to cry warning to the Barcas. Publius quietly ordered patrols to fly out after them, with simple orders:

“Hunt and kill them,” he said. “Let none of them get through.”

That evening they camped at the base of the isthmus and Publius spoke to his assembled troops. “The city behind us stands as the greatest monument to the rule of the Carthaginians in Iberia,” he said. “Out of it flows all the wealth of the continent; into it, the desires of its far-reaching masters. Inside are whole chambers piled high with silver, with amber and gold, storerooms of weapons and siege engines, warehouses of raw iron and the great furnaces that fire it into tools of war. Inside stretch palaces worked by servants, fountains that flow with wine on festival days, temples where they sacrifice to their dark gods, and an ancient wood filled with exotic animals imported from Africa. There are many thousands locked within those walls, but there are merchants and sailors and aristocrats, priests and magistrates, Iberian prisoners, slaves, the old, the young—not fighting men. And there are women, a great many of them. Isn't Hasdrubal himself rumored to keep a court of a thousand beauties?”

Publius had made up this last detail on the spot but enjoyed the effect it caused and spoke into the building enthusiasm. “All this inside that city,” he said. “But who protects it? I'll tell you—a scant thousand soldiers. Yes, one thousand alone. This may seem impossible to you, but consider their thinking. They'd never have imagined that we'd aim for this target, just as many of you never did. They've been safe here and taken their destruction elsewhere for so long that they do not see their vulnerability. They're like Achilles, who had only a single weakness but went to war with it exposed to his enemy's arrows. Where is the wisdom in that? Why not fashion greaves to cover the spot, and therefore become invincible? There is, of course, one reason. We're not alone in our struggles here but act on the small stage overseen by the gods, and the gods have never yet allowed any single people perfection. I believe that Apollo offers us this city as a gift. Tell me this is not so. Tell me you do not care to dine!”

Laelius later commented that Publius had a growing gift for oratory. To which the commander smiled and said that Laelius had a growing knack for noting the obvious.

They were two days at planning and shifting troops and reconnoitering the land and outer bay, the reefs in the shallow water, and the breathing of the tides into and out of the inner harbor. Publius spent the whole of the second day alone with a fisherman who had once called New Carthage home but had fallen foul of a few important people and been cast out. He had reason to despise the city, and an intimate knowledge of details Publius was very interested in.

The attack began on the fourth morning, much as any might have guessed. The bulk of the Roman troops rose early and clamored out onto the isthmus, laden with tall ladders. They walked forward flanked by archers who set up a steady barrage of arrows, many of these set aflame and aimed far beyond the walls themselves. A detachment from the city poured out the front gate to meet them, but pulled back just as quickly, no match for what they saw coming toward them. Publius strode with the front ranks of soldiers, protected by three shield bearers and to all appearances completely unafraid. He urged his men on from right in among them. He shouted reminders of their duty, but also fed their desire for revenge. It was in this city that Hannibal had grown into a man. Here he planned the murder of Roman men, the rape of Roman women, the conquest of their homeland . . . it was inside these very walls that he had dreamed of making them all into slaves!