Hannibal's Children (35 page)

"Very pretty," said a scarred Carthaginian general. "But I would like to see it under battle conditions."

"You shall," Norbanus promised him, "and soon."

To a new set of signals the legions separated by cohorts into a checkerboard formation. "This is far more maneuverable than a single, rectangular mass," Norbanus explained. He showed them how lines could be detached to form a solid front, how the squares could pass through one another to give a double or triple thickness if a flank was threatened or extra depth needed, how units could be wheeled about to face a threat from the rear.

As a final demonstration, the lines tightened into close order and the rectangles seemed to shrink as shield touched shield in the front line. Then the flankers turned their shields about to cover their exposed sides and the men inside the formations raised their shields overhead until they overlapped like tiles on a roof. Then they advanced toward the terrace. The Carthaginians laughed nervously at their awkward, waddling gait, but there was concern in their laughter. There was something implacably ominous in the armor-plated army coming toward them like some great, mythical beast. Indeed, that was the most unsettling thing about these legions: They behaved like a creature with a single nervous system.

"This formation we call the 'tortoise,' " Norbanus said. "It may be used by large formations or small ones and is very useful for advancing under heavy missile fire, or against an enemy fortification. When advanced against a wall, one formation can climb on top of another until they form a stair for the men behind to mount to storm the wall." He saw their disbelieving stares and added, "Not a very high wall, of course."

When the tortoise was twenty paces in front of them it halted, each man's left foot seeming to come down at precisely the same instant. Slowly, the formation subsided as the men within went down on one knee and the shields on the flanks slanted outward.

"Might we see one of these formations climb atop another?" the Shofet said. "That might be a sight worth seeing." "Oh, we can do better than that," Norbanus told them. At his signal, more horns sounded, these with a higher-pitched note. To the unutterable astonishment of the Carthaginian onlookers two cavalry detachments charged the tortoise from both sides. The horses leaped up the slanted shields and onto the roof, and then the men galloped about in a mock-battle, pelting one another with soft-tipped javelins amid a deafening thunder of hooves on shields.

"Why don't the horses slip?" Hamilcar wanted to know. "How do your soldiers hold so firm?" This time he did not bother to conceal his amazement.

"The men have good inducement to hold steady," Norbanus said. "A horse coming down through the roof would probably hurt."

At last the horsemen rode off and they could all hear the cheering of the citizens viewing the spectacle from atop the walls of the city. The legionaries separated into their formations and, at another set of trumpet calls, they marched past the Shofet, their centurions saluting him in passing, the men looking neither to the right nor to the left. As they did this, it finally occurred to Hamilcar that all of this had been accomplished with trumpet calls alone. He had not heard a single officer's voice raised in the usual sweating, swearing harangue. It did not seem possible, but he had seen this with his own eyes. He turned to his subordinates. "I think our money was well spent," he said.

Hamilcar got a final demonstration of Roman military practice two days later. It was the day for the march to Egypt. Hamilcar and his household troops, along with the Romans, would leave Carthage and march eastward, picking up the remainder of the army where it was quartered in Carthaginian territory, thence to join the bulk of his forces massed at the border.

With his principal officers, the Shofet rode from the city amid a multitude, chanting, cheering and waving holy emblems. Huge statues of the gods rolled through the streets on brazen wheels to witness and confer their blessings on the expedition. From the temple steps the priests and priestesses wailed their imprecations against the enemy and tons of incense burned to waft the prayers of Carthage heavenward.

As the procession passed the great temple of Tanit, he saw the princess Zarabel conducting the temple clergy in a hymn of praise. He did not see the cursing gestures she made toward his back, nor did he see her spit after him as she pronounced a terrible execration in a low voice.

Once outside the city, the Shofet descended from his litter and mounted a horse. With his entourage he rode to the Roman camp. It lay within an earthen rampart raised by the legionaries and he saw to his astonishment that the camp still stood: street after street of leather tents, arranged in the orderly, rectilinear fashion favored by the Romans. The men stood in the streets holding the reins of their pack animals, but not a single tent had yet been struck. He rode to the knot of officers centered upon Titus Norbanus.

"What is the meaning of this, Commander?" Hamilcar demanded. "I expected you to be ready to march!"

"It is our usual custom to be on the march before dawn, but today we waited for your arrival." He nodded to his trumpeter, who sounded a single note. The unit trumpeters repeated the note and men stooped and jerked tent pegs from the ground. There came a second note and men pulled out the supporting poles. Before Hamilcar's eyes, thousands of tents collapsed as if crushed by the blow of a single, gigantic hand.

Men swarmed over the fallen tents, folded them and loaded them on the pack beasts. With another flourish of trumpets the eagle-bearers marched from the camp gate, followed by the legionaries and auxilia in their units, then the cavalry and finally the noncombatants with the baggage animals. Where moments before there had stood a veritable city, there were now earthen ramparts with no trace of human habitation within. Breaking camp, getting into marching order and getting the whole force moving, a task that took most armies at least an hour and often far longer than that, the Romans had accomplished in perhaps five minutes.

Hamilcar knew now that he had hired some matchless soldiers and he was well pleased with the bargain. Governor Hanno had reported some troubling things about these people, but that was a trifling matter. He wanted to give an oration, to say heroic things about this momentous occasion, but somehow in the presence of these men he did not feel up to it.

Instead he said, simply: "Let's go to Egypt."

For the first time in more than a hundred years, the Senate of Rome held a meeting in its ancient Curia Hostilia. The building was made of brick and even when it had been abandoned, it was far from being Rome's finest. Still, its tradition was ancient and it was sacred ground. The senators ranged along its benches could smell the new timber of its restored ceiling and roof, and the fresh paint that whitened the walls.

From without came the sound of rebuilding: hammering, sawing, the shouts of team bosses as heavy timbers and stones were raised. The scent of wood smoke and incense was heavy in the air as temples were reconsecrated and resumed their interrupted sacrifices. The augurs were in constant demand to pronounce the will of the gods on this building project or that. One obscure priesthood had even requested that a human sacrifice be performed at the rededication of the forum, as had been done at its founding. The pontifexes had rejected this with disgust. Were they barbarians, they demanded, that they resort to human sacrifice at any but the direst circumstances?

If harmony and coordinated effort seemed to be the mood of the refounded city as a whole, nothing of the sort characterized the Senate. The debates were no less raucous and bitterly divided than they had been in Noricum. Now that the great, irrevocable step had been taken, men were falling prey to second thoughts. Now that huge, warlike preparations were underway, the stakes seemed higher and the rewards or penalties all the greater. These were things worth fighting over, and the Senate fought.

"Just who is in command?" the Consul Norbanus shouted. "Our legions have sailed for Carthage and may even now be marching on Alexandria. Yet my esteemed colleague's son, Marcus Cornelius Scipio, is in the Egyptian capital, apparently acting in some military capacity, as some sort of defense expert! Whose side is he on?"

Publius Gabinius, the Princeps, stood. "Our esteemed Consul," he said, "takes far too seriously a war between mere foreign kings. Our legions did not go to Africa to defend Rome, but to support the Carthaginian Shofet. We all know what that alliance is worth. Hamilcar does not treat it as an alliance at all, but rather as a mere contract securing the services of mercenaries. Well, have we not repaid the insult by taking Italy from beneath his very nose?" This raised a general laugh and cheer.

"As for young Marcus Scipio, it was long Roman practice to attach observers to the staffs of foreign commanders, to learn the arts of war as practiced by people who might someday be our enemies."

"Not when Romans were fighting on the other side!" shouted Norbanus.

"What of that?" Gabinius said with a sneer. "Have we proclaimed Hamilcar a Friend and Ally of Rome?" There were boos and hisses at this outrageous pronouncement. "Had that been the case, then Scipio might have to answer to charges of treason. But Hamilcar and the Egyptian boy-king are nothing to us. Personally, I look forward to receiving Scipio's report on the siege of Alexandria, along with that of Titus Norbanus. How often have we had a detailed military analysis of such an event from both sides? Surely, no one here expects a Scipio, scion of the proudest and most patriotic of families, to take up arms against fellow Romans!" There were mutterings that this was true, but Gabinius would have liked the mutters to be louder. Clearly, not everyone believed in the loyalty of Marcus Cornelius Scipio.

"Let us not waste time on this squabble," said Titus Scaeva. As last year's Consul, he had an important command in the newly built army. Although unarmed, he attended the meeting in his military belt and sagum. "One Roman, whatever his intentions, is going to accomplish little in this affair. We have much to accomplish, though.

"The distinguished Princeps Gabinius says that we have snatched Italy from Carthage, but I say that we have not. Most of the south is not under our control, and it is by way of the south that Carthage is most likely to return. We cannot ignore Liguria and the northwest, either. Remember that Hannibal surprised Rome by crossing the alps, a supposedly impossible feat."

"But that was Hannibal!" shouted an old senator. "This Hamilcar seems to be a fool!"

"Perhaps so. Perhaps not," Scaeva said. "We haven't seen him in command yet. But if he bungles this war, we know that Carthage has a short way with failures, even if they are Shofets. He may be replaced by a competent man. We must not underestimate Carthage."

Gabinius was grateful for the change of subject and for Scaeva's good sense. "Proconsul," he said, "what do you propose?"

"We have a vast army now, although much of it is untried. Carthage lies across the sea, and its possessions in Spain and the old Province are thinly garrisoned. But Sicily is heavily fortified and there are still Carthaginian troops there. I propose an assault on Sicily, now, while most of the Carthaginian soldiers are away in Egypt. Now we can take the island with the legions we have available to us, and take it at much smaller cost than the last time, when Hannibal's father was in command. The nearest menace will be eliminated and we will be in control of the nearest approach to Africa. Let me lead my legions to secure the south of Italy, then cross the Strait of Messina to Sicily!"

There was stunned silence. The audacity of the plan was astounding. Yet it was tempting, for this would be hurting Hamilcar far more than the seizure of Italy had.

The Consul Norbanus leapt to his feet. "This will mean death to our legions in Africa! Four legions! Twenty-four thousand citizens and the same number of allies and attached personnel! We can't sacrifice so many!"

Fierce old Scipio Cyclops stood. "Who is going to kill them? Carthaginians? They are Roman soldiers. They can fight their way back like the ten thousand of Xenophon! I say we place this command in the hands of Proconsul Scaeva. Let us finish securing Italy and go take Sicily! I want to tread the dust of Carthage beneath my feet before I die!" Men roared at these words. Others paled.

The argument raged on.

“There they are.” Marcus Scipio reined his horse as they crested the ridge. The Height was not great, but it was sufficient to give them a view of the two armies facing each other a few leagues west of Alexandria. To the right lay the seashore, where the water was studded with the vessels of the Carthaginian support fleet. Even now, the Alexandrian war fleet rowed to meet it.

On the broad plain Ptolemy's land forces were arrayed along a broad front with its right flank anchored at the beach. On its left flank most of the cavalry sat mounted, and near them the corps of elephants waited patiently. The center was many lines deep and bristled with long pikes.

"Macedonians on both sides," Flaccus noted. "And they still favor those pikes."

"You'd think they'd have given those up long ago," Marcus said.

"They wouldn't do in our forests, but perhaps they're still of use in such conditions as these." Flaccus sketched the opposing battle formations on a scrap of papyrus with a charcoal stick. "Not very imaginative tactics," he remarked. "It's like they're following some old Greek textbook. Where are the legions?"

"Holding Hamilcar's right flank," Marcus answered. At such a distance it was impossible to distinguish standards and equipment, but the formation looked distinctly Roman. "He probably wants them to absorb the cavalry and elephant attacks. He should've put them in the center. The legions would make short work of those pikemen."

"I don't know," Flaccus said uneasily. "Does it occur to you that Roman armies haven't fought a large, civilized army in more than a hundred years?"

"I've considered it. But we've spent that whole time training for such a fight. They may be better organized than Germans and Gauls, but they certainly can't be any tougher."