The Seven Hills (10 page)

Jonathan nodded gravely. "It is good to arrange these
necessary mundanities early, before there can be a chance for
friction and unfortunate incidents. I find all your proposals
more than reasonable. Now, the last word we had was that a
large Roman contingent was with the army of Hamilcar besieging Alexandria. Is this that force? I can think of no other so near that might have come from so unexpected a direction."

"It is," Norbanus confirmed.

"I see. Please allow me to congratulate you on a tactical masterstroke. Nobody had the slightest notion that you were coming this way. Taking to the desert instead of the safe coastal route. Nobody had guessed your location or
route. I suppose that this has also given you a certain—ah—
shall we say, freedom of action which you might not otherwise have enjoyed." There was a rustling of shifting feet on the dais. The subtleties of his excellent Greek packed the words with a meaning clear even to the Romans: Jonathan knew that by avoiding the coastal ports Norbanus had freed himself from oversight and control by the Senate.

Norbanus shifted the subject. "I take it you have learned of our reconquest of Sicily?"

"Every ship from the West brings word of new Roman successes."

"They shall continue to do so. This detour of ours was unexpected and we are eager to return to Italy and reinforce
Rome's might. Your aid in our return to our ancestral home
land will be remembered with utmost gratitude by the Senate and People of Rome."

Jonathan nodded. "I will of course do my utmost to help.
Sadly, Judah is not a maritime nation. The distance to Italy is great and Carthage, at least for the moment, rules the sea. I fear that your return must entail a very long march, all the way to Greece."

Norbanus sighed theatrically. "Alas, it is as I feared. This
means we must march through the land claimed by your usurping cousin, does it not?"

"It can scarcely be avoided," the king agreed.

"Might we expect the usurper to be hostile?"

"Doubtless his spies are already flogging their horses northward to tell him of your arrival. Whatever his decision, he will have ample time to prepare. He will learn that we are now friends, and he may take this amiss."

"Rome, of course, desires no conflict with the rulers of
the East. However, since this—his name is Manasseh, I believe?—is clearly not the legitimate ruler, and you have pro
claimed yourself to be a friend of Rome, I foresee no objection from the Senate."

The king leaned back and stroked his beard. "Things are moving very quickly."

Norbanus laid a hand upon his shoulder. "Events can never transpire too quickly for men of vision and destiny. Such men seize them and bend them to their own will."

"Very true," Jonathan said. "There is Syria to consider.
The House of Seleucus is no longer what it was, but it is still formidable. As recently as this summer, Antiochus contem
plated an assault upon Egypt. Parthia presses him now, but if he can make his peace with them, he may turn his attention south once more."

"My friend Jonathan," Norbanus said, now not quite so jovial, "your land is a fine one, and I do not doubt that your men are doughty warriors, but if Antiochus decides to
march south in full force he will crush you. Your only course
will be to kiss the ground before his feet and hope that he will allow you to keep your throne, if only as his puppet."

He paused a few moments, allowing this vision to sink in. "With the friendship of Rome, however, you have nothing to fear. Rome will not only confirm you in your throne and your titles, but will increase them. Rome always re
wards her friends lavishly." He was glad that the stony faces
of his subordinates yielded nothing.

"Please do not think me rude if I observe that these are vaunting words from a people who were thought extinct until last year, and who have yet to display an unshakable grip upon the peninsula of Italy."

Norbanus smiled. "Tomorrow I'll assemble my legions and put them through their paces for your entertainment. Once you have seen them, tell me whether you think Rome cannot deliver on her promises."

The scene was bizarre, in some ways comical. The beach was lined with frameworks where men sat on staggered benches, pulling at oars under the direction of rowing masters, while hortators set the time with trilling flutes. There was cursing and yelps of pain and bursts of laughter as men fouled one another's oar or fell from their benches.

Other frameworks held the skeletons of ships in the building process. The sound of hammering competed with the voices and the flutes, and over all hung the smell of pitch boiling in pots.

"What energy these people have!" Zeno marveled. "And
what audacity! They are going to challenge the greatest naval power in the world, and they haven't so much as an hour's experience at sea."

"Until a year ago," Izates said, "no Roman had even
seen
the sea."

"Exactly. They think they can do anything."

"Such confidence is unwise. It smacks of hubris. The an
cient tragedies are full of stories of men who thought thus highly of themselves. The gods put them in their place."

The rowers were men contributed by the municipalities
of Italy, now eager to gain favor with the new masters.

"It looks," Izates said, "like all the madmen in the world assembled on one beach."

"And yet there are at least five other such beaches in Italy," Zeno observed, "with at least an equal number of madmen upon each."

"Thousands of hayseed landsmen," Izates mused, "sitting
on shore, rowing phantom galleys. It is a scene worthy of Aristophanes."

"They did this once before, in their first war with Carthage. They were successful that time."

"According to my reading," Izates countered, "they also met with several naval disasters during those years. It does little good to defeat your enemy in a sea battle, only to lose your entire fleet to a storm any fisherman could have seen coming."

"They couldn't become competent seamen all at once."

A line of four-wheeled wagons rumbled past them. The beds held Rostra: ships' rams cast in bronze by Campanian
foundries. No two were alike: The heads of real or mythical beasts were most favored, but they saw one cast as Jove's
thunderbolt, another that was a godlike fist. Men trudged by dragging carts heaped with coils of rope, and lines of workmen shouldered long masts and yards.

"Between restoring the cities and building this fleet," Izates said, "Italy will be denuded of timber."

Amazing as the work itself was, Zeno found the organization the Romans brought to the process no less remarkable. A senator aided by a staff of distinguished equites
oversaw each shipyard. These men directed a staff of shipbuilders hired from Greece, Rhodes, Cyprus and other parts of the eastern sea. The rowing masters were likewise Greeks
skilled in this demanding craft, for rowing a three-banked
ship of war was not a matter of simply tugging upon an oar.
Rather, it was a highly skilled trade and rowers were usually
free men, rarely slaves or prisoners.

So painstaking were the organizers that they had already
established a guild for the rowers to join, complete with its own tutelary deities and special festivals. Rowers were to have quasimilitary status, half legionary pay and limited citizenship upon discharge, to be upgraded to full citizenship depending upon how valuable their service should prove. Nothing was overlooked.

"The schedule calls for maneuvers to begin in the harbor
by the next full moon," Zeno said. "Naval operations to commence on the full moon following."

"They're dreaming," Izates said. "They can't attain competence in so short a time, and Carthage may not allow
them the leisure in any case. Hamilcar's fleet could show up
in the harbor tomorrow."

"He won't try operations in Italy until he's taken Sicily back. No Carthaginian general since Hannibal has shown any real boldness or originality. It's always a slow, predictable process by regular stages."

"Maybe so," Izates allowed, "but Carthage is immensely rich and has tremendous resources. These Romans have ac
complished what they have through sheer audacity. That is not a quality that prevails in the long run. Carthage can af
ford to lose possessions. She can even afford to lose a string of battles. With so much wealth to hire foreign mercenaries,
Carthage will scarcely feel the casualties. They'll crucify a
few generals and raise another army, build another navy."

"It's served them well in the past," Zeno agreed. "But I don't think it will this time. Not against this enemy."

The Princeps Gabinius had supplied them with letters and documents providing them with full permission to ex
plore the Roman bases and see the preparations being made
for the upcoming war against Carthage. "We're getting ready to fight Hamilcar and his allies, if he has any,"
Gabinius had explained. "We'll probably be doing little else
for a number of years to come, so there's little point in hiding our intentions."

The Romans were well informed about the military capabilities of Carthage and Egypt. Gabinius wanted to know about Seleucid Syria (weak and remote, Zeno informed
him), Parthia (powerful but remote) and Macedonia (formi
dable and very close). This last bit of information was of some concern. Ever since Hannibal, the idea of a Carthage-Macedonia alliance had been troubling. War against two powerful, professional armies at once was a daunting
prospect even for people as confident as the Romans.

"Who is king of Macedonia now?" Gabinius had asked him.

"Philip the Seventh, and he is said to be a Macedonian
chieftain of the old school—very martial and adventurous."

"A conqueror?"

"A mercenary, although no doubt he would like very much to revive the conquering ways of his ancestors. He hires his phalanxes out to neighboring kings and has campaigned in Illyria and Thrace, to my knowledge."

"Does he command personally?"

"He has done so."

"We know that Ptolemy depended heavily on Macedonians in his first battle against Hamilcar. They did him little good."

"From what I heard," Zeno said, "it was your legions who
won that battle for Hamilcar, and that the boy-king Ptolemy's forces were ill-led."

Gabinius nodded. "It's hard to judge the quality of an army if its leadership is poor. The Macedonians accomplished little that day, but we heard that they fell back upon Alexandria in good order. On another field, with a better leader, they might be a formidable foe."

The Romans' near-obsessive fixation on military matters
was stupefying, and Izates insisted that this defined them as a severely limited people, but Zeno demurred. He felt that their accomplishments in other areas were even more remarkable. Their shortcomings in the more refined intellectual strata were undeniable: They showed little cultivation of the arts and few were learned in philosophy. To Greeks these lapses set the Romans on a level little above the more primitive barbarians. But their attention to the minutiae of government and law was a thing of marvel.

From the beginning of their stay in Rome, Zeno had made a point of attending the law courts and hearing the
speeches of orators. Senate meetings were forbidden to any
one not of the senatorial order, but the results of their debates were quickly relayed to the Forum crowds by way of the Rostra: the speaker's platform at the western end of the Forum.

Like most foreigners, Zeno had believed that Rome was
actually ruled by the Senate, but he learned quickly that
this belief was oversimplified. The Senate formed a landed aristocracy of great prestige and its powers in foreign affairs
and war making were nearly absolute, but there were other assemblies of comparable power.

The Concilium Plebis, for instance, consisted only of the
plebeian class and elected the tribunes of the people, en
acted laws and conducted certain trials. The Comitia Trib
uta consisted of all citizens assembled in their tribes and
elected, the plebeian aediles, the tribunes of the soldiers and
the quaestors. The Comitia Centuriata consisted of the en
tire citizenry assembled in centuries and ranked by property
assessment. They elected the highest magistrates: praetors,
consuls and censors. They also heard trials for treason.

Roman political life was a constant struggle for power and influence among these interlocking assemblies, their
memberships and their leaders. A man of great power in one
assembly might be just another vote in another, and individual votes counted for very little. Election to office led to
a seat in the Senate and it was the senators who provided the officer corps. Glory in war led to election to higher office, so competition for office was both intense and complex. Zeno knew he could devote his whole life to unraveling the com
plexities and ramifications of it all.