Swords of Rome (39 page)

Gaius had a rough estimate where
Antony would have been positioned. He needed to move forward and find him. He knew it was impossible to find one man among the countless thousands. It did not matter - he had to try.

He could see, as he worked his way deeper into the body laded ground a few hundred people also walking among the corpses. Most of them were women, and
all were sobbing openly. Gaius knew that these women would have been the wives, mothers, sisters and other relatives who had followed the army. They would sift through the remains of the dead looking for a familiar face of a loved one, hoping that they could find them so that they might give them a proper burial. It was morbid and a tedious task, but these women would stay here for as long as they could - weeks, even months picking through the stacks of dead, trying as hard as they could to find those men they had loved; only now, most of the dead looked alike. 

A number of other people were also among the dead. These people were mostly men, and were human scavengers. Their task wasn’t as mournful as the women
whom he saw. They searched through the bodies looking for whatever they could take, at least what the Carthaginians had overlooked. It appalled Gaius; these people were the filth of the earth, but it wasn’t illegal either. They were common when any army of size marched to battle. They would stay miles behind the lines, just waiting to see who won the fight, and then, would move in and pick clean the dead of anything remotely valuable.

“I never thought I would live to see such a thing,”
Maurus, who stood behind Gaius, said as he gazed across the battlefield.

“Send a rider back to Canusium and inform Valerius of what happened here.
In addition, start breaking the men into teams of four. Have them search among the dead and try to find any survivors if they can,” Gaius spoke, but not looking back towards his young officer.

“How long do we look?” Maurus asked.

Gaius only glanced back at him. “For as long as we can.”

“And what about you?
Where are you going?” Maurus asked, but Gaius did not answer as he started making his way deeper into the sea of broken and bloodied bodies.

A few minutes later as he glanced down at the various faces, most if not all staring up at him, eyes glazed over with
death. He saw what looked like a large pile of hands, arms and fingers that had been collected into a dozen stacks, each nearly five feet high. For a moment, he wondered, as he looked at the gory scene, why the Carthaginians would have done this; what purpose it might have meant. Then, it dawned on him, as he looked closer, many of the appendages that had been cut off ring fingers. Each officer, tribune, legate, quaestors and senators, they all wore rings. There were hundreds of them, if not thousands in the army before the battle had started. Gaius realized that Hannibal had probably had each ring collected and cut off from its owners’ hands, dead or alive. The wealth alone would make any one man rich for the rest of his life. 

After a few hours, long after the sun had gone down and night had filled the sky, Gaius finally gave up his search. He
didn't find Antony, his body nor his head. He could see how the battle had gone as he stood, alone, on top of a sloping hill as his men continued with their work, lit by torchlight, as they worked their way in a grid pattern through the carnage below.

He had found survivors, a few dozen so far, and that he was thankful for. Valerius was sending a cohort of men and wagons, which would take all night to arrive, but at least these men wouldn’t die
among their brothers. However, as he stared down at the flickering fires that guided his men’s morbid work, trying to find signs of life among the many dead, he broke, finally.

He
failed;  he failed  to find Antony, his oldest and dearest friend. All he could think about at the moment was, how little time they had spent together, how much he wanted to say to him but never had the courage to say before.

He didn’t know what he was going to say to Julia, how he could possibly tell her that both her brother and father were dead, slaughtered nearly to the man, and by a weaker army no less.

He cried, not only for Antony, not just for Julia, or for his own father, or the men down below, and those that had died in the past year alone. No, he cried for them all, letting out years of built-up anger, sorrow and pain flow out of him.

From this
day, on, Gaius, the boy who had dreamed great things once - believed in the superiority of his beloved Republic, was a different man any longer. He had grown up, forever changed by what he has seen, and lived through. Above all, he craved justice for what had happened to his people, and as the gods as his witness, he would see it served. 

The Senate was empty, save for one man who sat alone on one of the stone benches that ran a
round the two marble seats that represented the chairs of the consuls of Rome. It amazed Fabius Maximus how meaningless this place was; how utterly quiet it was. The bulk of the senators who would have typically spent the afternoon debating without end, were in the field. Only a few dozen remained behind, leaving much of the city’s affairs to him, as the elected People’s Tribune. He wished he was out there now, with the army, which he had received reports had discovered Hannibal at Cannae.

Now, he waited like the whole city for word
of the victory that was certain to come. However, Fabius’ mind was lost; adrift upon a sea of doubt; left to govern a body that stood frozen with fear to the possibilities of just
what if
the two consuls and their unstoppable legions weren’t enough to crush Hannibal?

That question
plagued Fabius from day one. He didn’t want his fears and frustrations to get the better of him, so he didn’t act on his thoughts and call to question the Republic's chances of survival if indeed, Hannibal was victorious.

His mind still drifted to the past. How many different ways this conflict could have been avoided if he had the chance to lead; he did not seek any grand title, of course, a rarity among his own countrymen, not to mention his family.
However, he wondered what choices he could have made differently but the past could not be changed. It was the future that mattered now.

Fabius turned his head as he heard a far door open, followed by the soft footsteps of another man, a fellow senator by the name of Marcus Brutus Nero, walk towards him.

Fabius stood to his feet and watched the elder statesman as he slowly approached him with uncertainty in his stride.

Fabius could see the parchment in his right hand, which was held down low by his side as Nero’s eyes wavered, as he neared the tribune.

“Word from Cannae?” Fabius asked eagerly as Nero stopped just before him and raised his hand, holding it out for him to take.

“Read for
yourself,” Nero spoke; his voice trembling.

Fabius took the note and read its words very carefully. There wasn’t a lot written on it, as it had been issued with haste, before being sent out.

The document was written by Valerius, Fabius observed, which read:

Senators of Rome, I regret to inform you that the armies
led by Consuls Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Macro Julius Varro has been destroyed, nearly to the man by the forces of Hannibal and his allies. I and fifteen hundred survivors who were sent from the battlefield before the campaign begun, are the only substantial forces left in Italy. My men have found several hundred survivors, and we are currently on our way back to Rome, in hope of beating Hannibal, whom I assume will be marching on the city to lay siege. I urge the Senate to make preparations for the defense of the city if I do not arrive in time with my army.

Claudius Augustus Valerius, Legate of the Sixth Legion.

Fabius slumped, falling onto his seat as he dropped the document that Valerius had sent, onto the Senate floor.

“How could such a large force be defeated, and so quickly and utterly?”
Fabius asked more to himself than to Nero, who stood before him, his head hung low.

“I...am gathering my family, and what belongings I can bring, and leaving the city within the next three hours. More of the senators
and knights are joining me as well. I advise that you make preparations to do the same, Fabius,” Nero said with a heavy heart; his words filled with shame.

“What? What do you mean you are leaving the city? And who else?” Fabius asked shockingly.

“It does not matter who else, only that it is important that we leave, at once.”

“And a
bandoned Rome to the barbarians?”

“What else is there for us to do? What do you think Hannibal will do to us once he reaches the city? If we do not capitulate to him, he will pull down the city walls, and have all of our heads. He may do so just out of spit once we’ve surrendered to him.”

“Surrender!” Fabius bolted to his feet. “You read Valerius’ letter. He is coming even as we speak.”

“And who will arrive sooner do you think, Valerius and his fifteen hundred, or Hannibal and his forty thousand? What do you expect us to do, Fabius? Even if Valerius and his legion reach the city in time, it can’t be held with fifteen hundred men, and what city cohorts we have left.”

“I will not surrender or give this city to Hannibal, not without a fight.”

“A fight!
We have been fighting, Fabius, and we have lost – we’ve been slaughtered time and time again.”

Nero reached over and placed his hands onto Fabius’ shoulder, speaking to him with a quieter voice.

“We’ve done all that we could. The city will fall, but we can still save the Republic if we exile ourselves to our furthest colonies; to Greece, with the rest of our legions. In time, we can force terms, and return, and retake the city. However, not if we all die, staying here, trying to defend...what - stone walls and temples?”

“And what of the people, Nero?
What of those that you and I are charged with protecting? And what of the men who have already died? You want me to abandon their memories to save our skin? No!” Fabius pulled away from Nero and shoved his finger in the older senator’s face.

“If Hannibal or anyone else wants Rome, then they w
ill have to take it from me by force! And as Jupiter as my witness, I will kill any man not native to these lands that try to set foot in these halls. Go, and get yourself and your family to safety if you must! I will not stop you. Nevertheless, I will not join you either. Even if this city should fall, then someone should be here to see that it was remembered.”

Fabius said nothing else as he walked away from Nero, already pulling off his senatorial robes as he exited the hall.

Outside, as Fabius departed, Nero could already hear the rising panic as news about the defeat at Cannae had reached the plebeians, as quickly as it had reached his ears.

He didn’t stay any longer as he rushed out of the
Senate house, and towards his estate. He had packing to do. He just hoped he made it out of the city before the mob tore it down first.

Three hundred men out of nearly ninety thousand still alive, after having survived th
e worst military defeat in the Republic's history, Gaius could barely comprehend that fact, and would never have believed that such a disastrous blunder could have happened if he had not seen it with his own eyes.

Gaius
spent two full days at Cannae sifting through the carnage of twisted and battered bodies of his countrymen. Of course, there were thousands of Carthaginian, Gallic and Numidians, Spanish and any number of other tribes that supported Hannibal, bodies on the battlefield as well. Hannibal paid a heavy price for his victory. Out of his forty thousand men, he brought to the field that day. He lost some nineteen thousand, or so early estimates have been determined. Rome’s losses were greater, however. While Gaius knew that tens of thousands probably survived, the battle, as most were either captured or scattered, what remained of Rome’s legions was broken as an effective fighting force from this point forward. It would take weeks, maybe months to regroup the scattered men; blown to the four corners of Italy like leafs in the wind. Even then, the survivors would have been battered, bruised and beaten. Most would no longer be fit for duty. He wondered, as he rode over the open country, the high full moon over his head, alongside a group of twelve other riders, what the state of Rome might be now. 

After the battle at Lake Trasimene, the city had erupted. Hundreds
were killed in rioting, thousands more wounded, and a quarter of the city burnt to the ground. What would the people do now, knowing that the most powerful army the Republic had ever gathered had been crushed? Who could they turn to? Certainly not the fractured Senate, which left over a hundred of its members on the battlefield, lifeless, their hands and fingers stacked like winter logs. Even the two consuls, gone, and presumed dead, or at the very least, captured. What was left of the government would probably be divided, ready to surrender in hope of saving themselves.

He wasn’t sure what to think or what to do. He
dug through hundreds of bodies looking for Antony, or at the very least, Antony’s father, Varro. However, he found nothing. As far as he knew, he could have stepped on them a dozen times over, for the bodies looked the same after days left to rot under the hot summer sun; bloated, bruised, bloodied, and torn to pieces from weapons, animals, or by the fact that thousands of men had walked over the corpses.