Hannibal's Children (18 page)

"This is what she really wants us to see," Flaccus commented in Latin. "Not the walls, but how the people praise her."

"Probably," Marcus answered. "But what I want to see are those walls. Now stick to Greek. It's impolite to use a language the princess cannot understand."

The city was large and splendid, but they were already glutted with the sight of imposing buildings of eclectic architecture. They were well satisfied that Carthage was wealthy and powerful beyond measure. They were more interested in its military preparedness.

When the walls came into view, they did not at first understand what they were seeing. From the sea, the walls had presented a sheer cliff. What they saw before them was more like a mountain cut into titanic steps. It sloped upward and away like the seats of a stadium built for gods. It took them a while to understand that the tiny dots moving along the steps were men and animals. Zarabel glanced sidelong at the Romans. Their frozen faces spoke volumes.

The bearers carried them to a ramp that sloped up the bottommost step. They ascended easily to the first level, where the ramp doubled back and ascended to the next. Each step was wide enough for a column of men to march four abreast. They did not have to estimate, because everywhere they looked, they saw soldiers drilling in exactly this fashion.

"Where are these men quartered when they are not on duty on the wall?" Marcus asked.

"They are quartered right here," the princess answered. "Their barracks are inside the wall itself."

"Inside the wall?" Norbanus marveled. "You mean you've quarried their lodgings in the stone itself?"

"This wall, which my ancestor Hannibal built to replace the old one, was built to accommodate all its defenders: barracks, armories, commissary, everything. There are provisions sufficient to withstand a siege of many years and an abundance of missiles for the engines atop the wall. There are stables—"

"Stables?" Norbanus interrupted. "Here?"

She smiled. "Well, you will see for yourselves."

They came to the fourth level. This one was five or six times as broad as the others. The princess spoke to the bearers and they turned northward along this level. It was studded with broad wooden doors giving access into the interior of the wall. Amid a clatter of hooves, a band of cavalry rode toward them. At sight of the royal conveyance their officer halted his men and all dismounted and knelt as the cortege passed. These men wore no armor, only white tunics. Their hair was knotted into many short braids and each man carried across his back a quiver of javelins.

"These are Libyan irregular cavalry," Zarabel told them. "We have multitudes of them."

The Romans had small regard for cavalry, which they considered useful for little except scouting, skirmishing and chasing down a fleeing enemy after the battle. The walls were another matter. The Romans were past masters of great engineering feats, but the scale of these walls was staggering. The thought of the amount of labor and resources demanded by the project numbed the mind.

Zarabel called a halt before a row of wooden doors and pointed to an inscription carved above them in archaic Phoenician. "This is stable number 47." At her signal the doors were opened and they were carried inside. Instantly, the atmosphere was redolent of horses. Stalls stretched far into the interior and they were carried past huge bins full of hay and grain. Slaves wearing white loincloths carried out baskets of manure while others curried and groomed the multitude of horses. To their astonishment, they came to a long stone ditch that carried a stream of fresh water.

"Where do you get fresh water so near the sea?" Marcus asked.

"The great aqueduct carries fresh water in abundance from the inland mountains," she answered. Marcus made a mental note to inspect this aqueduct.

"And this stable is one of forty-seven?" Norbanus asked. "It's almost as big as the stable of the Great Circus at home."

"One of fifty. Each accommodates one thousand horses, constituting five myriads of cavalry. Of course, there are stables for other beasts as well."

They went back outside and proceeded up a ramp to another broad level. Here the wooden doors were far larger and the Romans wondered at this. Then one of the doors opened and an immense beast ambled out, larger than any animal they had ever seen—gray, huge-eared, with a long nose like a great serpent and fierce white tusks banded with iron and decorated with gilding. The Romans gasped and stared.

"Easy there," Marcus chided. "King Pyrrhus had elephants and our men had no trouble dealing with them." Despite his words Marcus was shaken. It was like seeing creatures from an ancient myth.

"But what marvelous beasts!" Flaccus said. "How many do you have?"

"There are usually twenty in each stable," Zarabel said, as animal after animal followed the first, a man straddling the neck of each, controlling his huge mount with a goad. "As you can see, the number fluctuates." The Romans laughed nervously as a miniature copy of the great animals, no larger than a newborn calf, came out, walking close to its mother's side. To the Roman's great astonishment the elephants were arranged in a line facing them and, at a rider's call, knelt on their forelegs, trunks raised in a salute. Zarabel nodded graciously. "Finely done," she commended.

They were shown accommodations for camels, another exotic beast, commonplace mules and oxen, even great stone barns for sacrificial animals, of which the Carthaginian gods needed great numbers as well as variety. They saw antelopes, apes and ibexes, peacocks and flamingoes, zebras, even crocodiles, all of them destined to bleed and burn on the altars of the Baalim.

After the menagerie, they were finally carried to the top of the wall. It was, as they had been told, wide enough for chariots to race four abreast. As on the lower levels men drilled and the Romans examined them closely. There were men of many nations: Gauls and Iberians, Africans of many types, men armed with bows, spearmen, slingers from the Balearic Islands, Greek mercenaries from a score of cities and islands, Sicilian levies with large shields and short swords, desert men in flowing robes with swords shaped like sickles, men armed with axes and men armed with clubs. It seemed incredible to the Romans that anyone could coordinate such an army. But people who could build such fortifications were probably up to the task.

"May I ask, princess," Marcus said, "where the Carthaginian troops might be?"

"They are quartered elsewhere. Here on the wall the only men of Carthage are the commanding officers. Now I think you would like to inspect the war engines."

"I was wondering about those," he admitted. Above the rampart at the seaward side of the wall towered many intricate devices of wood and metal, each standing upon its own platform. The stone-throwers were easy enough to recognize, but there were others more mysterious: derrick-like devices from which were suspended gigantic logs bristling with spikes, hulking structures that seemed to consist of tanks and spouts, apparently for projecting liquids, even broad, parabolic discs of polished bronze mounted on swivels.

Zarabel pointed at one of the spiky logs. "These are called 'ship-killers,' for obvious reasons. They can be swung out over the walls to drop on any enemy ship that strays too near. The stone-throwers can destroy them from longer range. The fire-projectors can spray burning fluids for great distances."

"What are those?" Marcus asked, pointing at one of the great mirrors. "Are they some sort of signaling devices?"

She smiled. "Those are burning-mirrors. They concentrate the rays of the sun on enemy ships and set them afire." She enjoyed the skeptical expressions of her guests. "It is quite true. I can arrange a demonstration sometime, if you wish."

"I would like to see that very much," Marcus said. He was beginning to get a feeling for these Carthaginians, and he was certain that they had not devised these bizarre machines for themselves. "Where did such things come from?"

"They were first built by Archimedes," she said.

"Archimedes?" Flaccus said. "Do you mean the mathematician of Syracuse?"

"The same," she said. "He cost us terrible losses when we besieged Syracuse a few years after you Romans left Italy. But it takes more than machines to stop the invincible armies of Carthage. King Hiero and his son Gelon were crucified on the walls of Syracuse."

"And did Archimedes likewise end up on the cross?" Marcus asked, repelled. Romans considered crucifixion fit only for rebellious slaves, insurrectionists and the lowest of bandits. Conquered kings were decently strangled in privacy, away from the vulgar gaze.

"No, he was carried away by his students in the confusion of the sack. He ended his days at the Museum in Alexandria, I believe."

The princess saw them to their new home, a virtual palace in Megara, the most fashionable district of the city, surrounded by the mansions of the wealthiest families, many of them belonging to members of the Hundred. At the moment they were in no mood to appreciate the luxuries of the place. As soon as the princess had taken her leave, the uproar began.

Norbanus turned on Marcus, snarling. "A treaty! Where did you
get
the authority to negotiate a treaty with Carthage? Did the Senate name you Dictator while I was looking the other way?"

"Military alliance with Carthage!" spluttered someone. "You'll be charged with treason for this, Scipio!"

"Oh, calm yourselves," Marcus said. "I never heard such a pack of bleating old women."

"Explain your actions," Norbanus demanded.

"In the first place, you all know perfectly well that nothing I do here will be binding on the Senate. I am perfectly qualified to propose a treaty, which they can accept or repudiate or make changes to as they see fit. Whatever Hamilcar thinks, what we do here will be regarded as nothing but preliminary negotiations by the Senate. But think!" Here he gestured urgently. "We have here an opportunity to seize events and mold them!

"When we undertook this mission, we hoped at best for a reconnaissance of Italy, perhaps a chance to make a rough estimate of Carthaginian strength in the area. Today, we have toured the very walls of Carthage! We can describe them to the Senate in detail! A month ago we would have been mad to hope for such a thing! My friends, I tell you that the gods of Rome sit at our shoulders. We must grasp this opportunity they have given us or we will fail the Republic as it has never been failed before."

"But are the legions to become hired swords for Carthage?" Flaccus said.

"We have done well out of military alliances many times before," Marcus said. "What would our ancestors have given for a chance to quarter a few legions within the walls of Carthage itself?"

"It would be dishonorable to form an alliance in anticipation of such a thing," said Lucius Caesar, a very young scion of a very ancient but obscure patrician family.

Marcus smiled. "I believe the Shofet would soon give us ample excuse to turn on him. Treachery is in his blood, and in the blood of Carthage."

"That may well be true," Flaccus said. "In the time of our first war with Carthage the Hundred, with typical parsimony, tried to weasel out of paying their mercenaries in full. The result was a war that nearly destroyed Carthage and inspired many of the African subject cities to revolt. Hannibal's father was hard pressed to put down the insurrection. It was said that Africa ran short of timber, building all the crosses."

"So I think we needn't worry that Hamilcar will observe scrupulously any treaty he agrees to. He will leave us plenty of room." Marcus turned to look out a broad window that overlooked the great city. "This day we lay the foundations for a policy that will bring Carthage to her knees."

“But those walls!” Norbanus said. “They are not like the work of Gods!” He spoke to a group of his fellow Romans on the broad terrace of their house in Megara. They lounged at their ease while servants brought them cool drinks. Marcus Scipio was closeted with Metrobius and Ahenobarbus, going over the wording of the treaties they had been hammering out, laboriously, for days.

"Nonsense," said Flaccus, who was more at ease in these luxurious surroundings than the others. "They are just stone, and not all that well cut, if you ask me. What do you need to construct such walls?" He held up three fingers and folded them as he enumerated. "Just three things: stone, slaves and time. It's said that the Egyptians piled up stone even higher, just to bury their kings. We could have built walls like that, but Rome has never depended on walls." Most nodded and said that this was true.

"But what does this say about the people who built those walls?" Norbanus pressed on. "Their power, their wealth, are all on a scale we have never seen before. We saw a part of the city garrison. Carthage has a whole empire to defend. Her armies must be vast."

"Hirelings," snorted a hard-faced senator named Flavius Ahala. "When have legionaries ever feared hired troops, no matter how numerous? Steel in the hands of enemies never conquered us. It's the steel in the spines of citizen soldiers that won our conquests." This was richly applauded.

"Hannibal beat us with such soldiers," Norbanus pointed out.

"But he was Hannibal," Flavius protested. In the Roman mind, the great Carthaginian general had become something more than human. He was not to be compared with ordinary mortals.

"Has anyone seen these Carthaginian soldiers?" Flaccus asked. "They are supposed to be the elite of the army, the strategic reserve. I have my doubts that they even exist."

"I agree," said Flavius. "From what I've been able to learn, no war has approached the walls of Carthage for a hundred years. If the citizen troops are not sent out to fight on the frontiers, what experience can they have? It takes more than plumes and gilded armor and maneuvers on the drill field to make soldiers."

"You are saying that to reassure yourselves," Norbanus said. "We have no navy and don't even know how to sail a ship. How are we going to challenge such an empire?"

"Let's concentrate on taking back the Seven Hills and securing Italy," Flavius said. "Time enough later to think about challenging Carthage for the rest of the world."