Scipio Rules

by Martin Tessmer

  Marcus dashes up the steps. He jams himself into the narrow space, but he cannot squeeze his thickly muscled body through the opening. “Gods curse it!”

  Digging his sandaled feet into the limestone steps, Marcus shoves his upper arms into the legs of the two statues and pushes outward. His face darkens with effort, his arm veins swelling to the top of his iron biceps. The statues begin to lean sideways. They sway.

  “Madman! Blasphemy!” shouts a temple priest. He jumps onto Marcus' back. “He sullies the gods!”

  In an instant, a bevy of temple priests swarm over the young man, yanking at his arms and legs. Marcus tumbles to the floor.

  “Get off me, fools!” he bellows, flinging priests off him. He springs up and sprints along the marble-tiled corridor that runs the length of the building. His yellow-green eyes search every space and nook, but he sees no one.

  He has to be here, somewhere. He dashes past the columns that line the perimeter. He cannot find anyone there, just a slim young girl begging for alms.

  Get back to Father’s body. There is no revenge today. You will find the assassin. And the one who hired him.

  Marcus walks back to the statues. Pushing aside two glowering priests, he picks up the olive cloak and returns to his father’s corpse.

  As he walks, he rubs the cloak between his fingers. Smooth. A finely knit wool. He brings the cloak to his nose and sniffs it. Roses. Am I dealing with a woman? His eyes widen with realization. He sprints back down the corridor, seeking the beggar girl. There is only an empty cup where she sat.

  Marcus slaps the side of his head. Fool, fool, fool! He forlornly returns to the murder site.

  Swords drawn, the two guards have cleared a space around Manius’ body. Marcus bends down and kisses the old man upon his cheek. He reaches out and gently pulls his eyelids down. “I will find whoever is responsible for this,” Marcus says. “The gods will weep for the woe I bring to whoever that did this.”

  The guards pick up Manius’ body and carry it on their shoulders, returning to the Aemilius manse via the Forum. Marcus follows behind, lost in thought.

  As they walk through the Forum, they pass the announcements platform, where Rome’s public speaker announces the news of the day.

  “Mischief is abroad,” the barrel-bodied praeco announces. “Philip of Macedonia has ravaged Athen’s sacred places. The estimable consul Galba pursues him. Retribution is certain to follow. The savage Celtiberians have taken the Poulo garrison and burned it to the ground. Antiochus of Syria has invaded Pergamum, leaving destruction in his wake. He marches on the seaport of Teos.”

  Marcus raises his head at the news. Antiochus? He’s heading toward Greece? Gods above, how many tyrants will we have to fight?

  TEOS, KINGDOM OF PERGAMUM. “It doesn’t seem fair, Zeuxis,” Antiochus says, “but I do love watching it.”

  The Seleucid king stands atop a small hill outside Teos, watching his Syrian charioteers cut through the last of the city’s defenders.

  The chariots wheel through the disorganized infantry as though playing a game of catch-and-tag. The chariot’s spearmen shove out their eight-foot spears to lance into the Greeks’ bodies. The cruel scythed wheels hack into the unfortunate’s legs. Scores of disabled Greeks crawl upon the ground, begging for death.

  The Galatians march in behind the chariots, chopping down any who have escaped the chariots’ charge. The huge Gauls pull off the wounded soldiers’ helmets. Using a practiced tribal gesture, they grab their victim by the hair and pull his head back. With one slash of their heavy long swords, they strike the man’s head from his body, waving it aloft while their tribesmen cheer.

  An hour later, the frenzied battlesite has become a somnolent cemetery field, covered with a thousand men and boys. The chariots rumble slowly through the corpses, bumping over the bodies that lie in their way. The Syrian spearmen eagerly search for any signs of life, their spears held ready. Occasionally a chariot halts, as the driver or spearman spots a corpse yet unplundered by the Galatians.

  Hundreds of disconsolate captives squat among the weeds at the edge of the carnage, roped together like cattle. They stare hopefully at Teos, hoping someone will come to rescue them. No one does.

  Antiochus rides his white stallion to the edge of the killing fields, with Zeuxis at his right hand. The king summons one of his Syrian infantry officers to his side. “Bring up the four catapults. It’s time to convince them to surrender.”

  Zeuxis rides over to the Galatian chieftain, who is busy prying some gold teeth from a defender’s mouth. “We need the heads. Bring them to the front, by the catapults.”

  While the Teos townspeople look on, the Syrians hurl one head after another over the city’s twenty-foot walls, bashing them against buildings, animals—and townspeople. The townspeople wail in sorrow when a familiar face thuds to the ground near them, their voices supplicating the gods. Tears streaking their face, they scrabble about the city, cloaking the heads for burial.

  The town’s twelve elders step up to the parapets, watching the Syrian’s grisly onslaught. They see Antiochus riding out near the front of the city gates, just out of spear range. He waits there, facing the elders, an unspoken question on his face.

  Antiochus raises his right arm and waggles his fingers. A white-cloaked messenger rides past his king and pauses under the city’s front watch towers, looking up at the rulers. “Surrender now, and all will be spared,” he barks. “Resist, and we burn you to the ground.”

  The town rulers quickly confer. Most of them shake their heads. They resume their post and watch the Syrians.

  Antiochus grimaces. We must do this the hard way. He rides back to the catapults. The elders see him gesturing angrily at his men. Soon, the Syrians march the captives out in front of the catapults, their hands bound behind their backs.

  The Syrian king rides back to his place in front of the gates. While the city elders look on, four Galatians stride out from behind the catapults. They each grab a captive and push him to his knees, ignoring his pitiful cries for mercy.

  One by one, the Gauls chop the heads off of their prisoners and shove the bodies to the earth. Carrying each head by its hair, they hand them to the catapult operators. The operators drop them into their catapult buckets, already swarming with flies from the previous missiles.

  A Syrian officer barks an order. The catapults release their ropes and shoot their load toward the elders. Four heads arc into the city. Four more soon follow by four more. And four more. The elders watch in horror as the dripping skulls arc over their heads.

  “That’s enough for now,” Antiochus says. “Have the men take food. We will wait.”

  An hour later, the twin gates creak open, then widen. The Teos survivors file out, their heads bowed.

  “Bring them in, Zeuxis,” Antiochus says. Minutes later, the deadly chariots roll into the city, followed by the Galatians and the Syrian infantry. Soon, the town reverberates with crashes and shouts, as Antiochus’ men gleefully plunder it.

  At sunset, Antiochus is sitting comfortably in Teos’ main hall, clad in his favorite lionskin robe. He chews on a roast boar snout while he watches his men roll in wheelbarrows of coins and jewelry.

  “Sort out the types of coins, you fools,” Antiochus says. “We have to use them for bribes to different peoples.”

  The twelve elders stand against the far wall, surrounded by guards. They watch glumly as their townspeople’s treasures pile up before them.

  Picking his teeth with a porcupine quill, Antiochus turns his attention to the elders. “I gave you a chance to surrender immediately, and you refused it. And look what you made me do! I had to kill a dozen fine warriors just to convince you. You took their lives. That cannot go unpunished under Syrian law.”

  He watches the fear wash across their faces. He smiles. “Oh, I won’t kill you old cows.” He taps his grease-spattered chest. “I promised I would spare your lives if you surrendered, and I am a man of my word!”

  He sits qu
ietly for a moment, watching them. When he sees the relieved look on their faces, he continues. “Then again, I did not say everyone would go unharmed, did I?”

  He turns to the captain of the guard. “Take them out to the courtyard. I want you to cut the right hand off every one of them, except that fat one on the end. I saw him using his left.” He smirks at them. “Now you’ll have to learn a new way to wipe your ass!” The guards drag the pleading old men from the room.

  “Old pisspots,” Antiochus says, “they made my day harder than it needed to be.” He bites into a thick slice of plundered bread.

  “I am glad we didn’t have to knock down their walls,” says Zeuxis, sipping from his wine goblet. “If we cross the Aegean and attack the Aetolian league, this place would make a good base of operations.”

  Antiochus burps loudly. “Zeus’ balls, what do they put in their bread here? I’ll be having spirits in me for days.” He waves his hand airily at Zeuxis. “Oh, we’re not going to Greece for a while. We still have to take over all the towns around here. Build a firm base in the south.”

  “King Attalus will not take lightly your conquest of part of his kingdom,” Zeuxis says. “We should send out some scouts to track his movements. Those Pergamum cavalry can move fast.”

  “Attalus? That old goat-fart? He’s busy fighting the Galatians up north. He cannot bother us as long as we stay down here. From here we will gather strength.”

  Zeuxis shakes his head. “Why wait? We have the largest army in the world now. Let’s take it all the way to Italia!”

  Antiochus flings his bread slice at a passing slave boy. “We do not yet have the best trained army in the world. Hannibal will see to that, when I lure him here. Besides, the time is not propitious. We’ll wait until Rome and Macedonia have depleted their forces from fighting each other. Then we strike.”

  “What about our pact with Philip? He will lay claim to Pergamum, because his ancestor Alexander conquered it. Maybe we should fight him first.”

  Antiochus vigorously shakes his head. “No, we will honor our pact with him, Zeuxis. We aren’t ready to war against both of them—yet. Let’s see how Philip fares against the Romans. That will tell us much about our next direction.”

  He bites into the boar snout, chewing slowly. “I’m not worried about Macedonia. I think Philip is going to be very busy with the Romans for a while.”

  EORDIA REGION, NORTHERN MACEDONIA, 199 BCE. “This is the place. We can keep an eye on them from up here.”

  King Philip trots along a plateau two miles east of the Roman camp. He pauses on the lip of the flat hill, looking down at the bustling Roman encampment. He can see the camp is divided into perfect rectangular sections by its arrow straight streets, the tents uniformly spaced apart. I don’t believe it, who would have thought those farmers could make such an orderly camp?[lxviii] They’re not as crude as I expected.

  “Philocles!” Philip shouts, summoning his stocky infantry commander. “We’ll build camp here. I want a sturdy palisade surrounded by a deep ditch. Get it done by dusk. I don’t want those shit-heeled Romans sneaking up on us.”

  Twenty thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry flow up the winding pathway toward the top of the plateau. Scores of disfavored Macedonian soldiers start on the onerous task of ditch digging. Hundreds more march into the surrounding forest. They hack down hundreds of young trees and hurry them back to the camp site, knowing Philip’s penchant for punishing laggards.

  Two days later, the Macedonians finish a sturdy camp parked in the center of the plateau. The army carpenters raise the log gates into place, while the sentries watch from the guard towers above them.

  Philip sits on the edge of the plateau, watching the Romans’ muster their forces below. They are going to come out and confront me, he decides. Fine. Now I can show them why Macedonia once ruled the world. He mounts his horse and trots back to his command tent in the center of camp. Philocles is waiting for him there, poring over a map of the region.

  “The Romans will be coming out tomorrow,” Philip says. “Likely for an opening skirmish. We should give them a taste of our best fighters, to dampen their morale. I want the Companions to go after them, after the skirmishers open the combat.”

  “The Companions will send them running,” Philocles says. “They are the best cavalry in the world!”[lxix]

  “I would think so. I don’t just want a victory, I want a humiliation. Get the allied commanders in here,” Philip orders. “We have an attack to plan.”

  As Philip meets with his officers, Consul Galba holds a war meeting in his own tent. The veteran commander paces about in front of his tribunes, uncharacteristically nervous.

  “This is our first time against the Macedonians, but Philip knows our strategies. He is a friend of Hannibal’s, is he not?” He clenches his hands behind his back. “His army outnumbers ours, and he has the high ground. We’ll have to do something he doesn’t expect.”

  Octavius Septimus steps out from the officers. The slim older man is bent over, favoring the abdomen wound he suffered at Zama. “We have the elements of a real surprise for him, Consul. Those Numidians that general Scipio sent here? They whirl about like Zephyrus’ wind! I daresay Philip has never seen their like. And the elephants—he doesn’t know we have elephants to fight him, does he?”

  “No, but that is what worries me,” replies Galba. “They could trample our own men. Our horses are still shy of them.”

  “We who fought with Scipio are used to them,” Septimus says. “Put us on the front lines.”

  A gray-haired tribune steps next to Septimus. “He speaks the truth. Scipio had us march with the elephants when we trained in Africa. And the Numidians—they have been raised with them!”

  “And we fought Philip’s phalanxes at Zama,” Septimus adds. “We know how to fight his spearmen. And his elephants, if he has any.”

  Septimus notices that Galba is still wavering. Don’t make this about Scipio! Septimus chides himself. He slightly bows his head. “Please, it would be our privilege to fight them for you, General. And for Rome.”

  Galba purses his lips, he glances sideways at his waiting officers. Scipio said his men are the best in Rome. “Very well. Septimus, your cohorts will take the front lines. The Numidians will back your skirmishers. But no elephants! That’s too many new things going on at once.”

  Do not push it, Septimus tells himself. He sticks out his right arm. “I hear and obey, General. We will be ready for tomorrow.”

  The next morning, a Macedonian sentry shakes Philip from his wine-induced sleep. “The Romans are mustering for battle! They will soon be out in the field!”

  Philip rubs the sleep from his eyes. He grins. “Well and good. Let’s show them how real warriors fight.” He rises and stretches, massaging his neck. Bending over, he yanks the fur cover off his sleeping pallet. A naked girl stares up at him, her eyes wide with apprehension.

  “Your sexual naiveté no longer amuses me.” Philip points a finger at his chief attendant. “Give her a purse and send her back to her parents. I’ll be out at the front of the camp.”

  Philip is soon at the edge of the camp plateau, watching the Romans mass their forces a half-mile away. Athenagoras stands at his side, already clad in full battle armor.

  “Being Romans, they’ll open with their skirmishers, “ Athenagoras says.

  “More than likely. Romans are quite predictable.” Philip rubs his chin. “Mmm. Just to be safe, let’s make this a skirmish, not a full-scale engagement. We’ll see how Galba’s men fight before we risk a battle.”

  “As you say,” Athenagoras says. “But the Gauls will be disappointed. They are itching for another fight.”

  “They can go to Hades! They kept me up last night with all their carousing! We’ll use the Illyrians to skirmish with their skirmishers. They’re swift and elusive—the Romans won’t be able to touch them. Then we’ll have the Cretan archers go right behind them. They can rain arrows upon the Romans before the Illyrians h
it them.”

  “We should have our cavalry follow up after them,” Athenagoras says. “They can cut the infantry apart. And we’ll destroy their plodding cavalry, if they send them out.”

  Philip nods. “We’ll use my King’s Companions, just like we talked about. Big Borko can take them out.” He smiles. “Their army can watch us defeat their cavalry and light infantry. That will weaken their will before we give them a full scale assault.”

  As morning eases into afternoon, the Macedonian gates creak open. Four hundred Illyrian skirmishers trot out, sinewy young men with six foot spears and circular shields, wearing only knee-length tan tunics. Three hundred Cretan archers follow them, easily keeping pace with the swift-footed Illyrians. The leather-clad soldiers carry their U-shaped horn bows and a quiver full of barbed arrows, with a neck-length helmet as their only armor.

  The Illyrians line up at the base of the plateau, preparing to charge. The Cretans stand a spear’s throw behind them, looping on their sinew bowstrings.

  Seven hundred King’s Companions[lxx] stand in rows behind the Cretans, riders who are the heart of the Macedonian cavalry. The proud young men carry their eleven-foot spears on the shoulders of their bronze cuirasses, their black capes flowing behind them. Each of their wide-brimmed helmets carries a series of black X’s upon it, each mark a tally of a slain enemy.

  Athenagoras and Borko stand in front of the Companions. Borko is a wide-bodied, loose-limbed giant. His thick forearms are tattooed with the faces of Acteon and Artemis, the god and goddess of the hunt. Borko’s silvered helmet is webbed with black kill marks.

  Mounted in front of his infantry, Galba watches Philip’s forces massing for an attack. He is holding back his full army. He wants to test us. Very well, he shall have it. He looks to his left. “Septimus, prepare your forces. Let’s see what Scipio taught you.”

  Septimus can barely repress a smile. “Yes, let’s see. I promise we will do honor to you, General. By your leave, I will join my men.”

  Galba stares at him. “You want to fight with the velites? On foot?”