The War God's Men

by David Ross Erickson

  “The ships are having trouble maintaining their lines,” the captain observed. He was watching the sterns of the first line of ships before him. From their vantage point in the rear, they could see how the vessels veered from strictly parallel courses. Wind and waves pushed them to and fro as they advanced. Skilled rowers, professional and highly trained seamen, struggled to keep the ships aligned. Dangerous gaps had appeared between them.

  “We shall have to find these Romans soon,” Hannibal said, noting the deepening gloom on the horizon. Behind him, all along the 140-foot length of the septireme, the marines sat on long benches that lined the gunwales, clutching their javelins, spears, swords and shields. Many of the men sat with their heads between their knees staring at the deck beneath their feet. Seasickness, nerves, boredom or fear, Hannibal thought. Maybe all at once.

  “There they are!” the captain exclaimed, gesturing excitedly.

  Hannibal looked and indeed the Roman fleet was coming into view. At first, he saw only the warships. They were as he thought, old-fashioned triremes and even open pentekonters of an ancient design. For an instant, he pitied their crews, brave men manning a fleet suitable only for chasing down pirates confronting the greatest naval power in the world. The transport fleet rode the waves behind them. Hannibal saw one ship, and then another, and then dozens upon dozens of them. He could see that the crossing was almost complete. The leading ships were already in the harbor. He would fight them within sight of the city. Good, he thought. Let the people see the slaughter; let them see the Romans for what they are.

  “Prepare for action, Captain,” Hannibal said.

  “Warships sighted!” the captain cried. “Prepare for action!” At once, there was a bustle of activity on the deck as crewmen began lowering the foresail.

  Two files of warships approached the Carthaginian lines, three ships in each file, six ships in all. The leading ships were triremes; the trailing vessels were lost in the gloom. The triremes beat aggressively toward his lines. The large eyes painted on their hulls at the water line made them look like skulking cats gliding silently through the waves, their tails curled high over their backs.

  “Take it slow,” Hannibal said. “Let’s see what they do, fight or dance.”

  The Roman ships came on boldly. At first, Hannibal was surprised by their aggressiveness. Then one of the files began to back water, reversing its oars, just as he had predicted.

  “It’s a feint,” he said. “Full ahead, captain. Look! They flee before us!”

  Behind the Roman warships, Hannibal glimpsed a sea full of helpless freighters, churning at full speed toward the Sicilian coast. This time, the reports had been correct. The Romans were attempting a crossing on a large scale. Some of the ships towed the horse transports for the cavalry. Ripe fruit for the plucking.

  “We’ve got them!” the captain exclaimed.

  “Four full legions at sea,” Hannibal said. “Signal the full ahead. Let’s go get them!”

  Greedy excitement swept through Hannibal’s fleet. Each ship’s oars slapped the water in unison as the Carthaginian quinqueremes raced toward the backing triremes of the Roman column. The Roman rams menaced the fives. The first line of Carthaginians paid them no heed and pushed on for the transports. The second line would deal with the warships, if necessary, thoroughly and at leisure.

  Not all of the Romans had backed off, however. Unnoticed in the excitement, the second file of triremes continued to race toward the Carthaginian line. The speeding ships’ bows rose upon the waves, exposing their bronze rams through plumes of billowing foam. By the time Hannibal noticed them, it was already too late.

  “The enemy comes on!” he cried when he saw that the attack here was not a feint. “Close up! Close up!” he shouted helplessly.

  At the last instant, the first line captains seemed to wake to their predicament. They began turning their rams to face the onrushing Romans. But it was too late. The lead trireme had already entered a gap between ships. As it approached one of the fives, it suddenly pulled in its oars and glided alongside the speeding quinquereme, neatly shearing off its still beating oars. A great cracking of splintered timbers filled the air, as if an entire forest of trees had been crushed underfoot.

  Hannibal burned with rage. Even at a distance, he could hear the screams of the rowers as the splintered stumps of their oar handles thrashed, breaking limbs and cracking skulls as the rowing deck was plunged into bloody chaos.

  The Roman trireme sped past the now helpless five. Its oars reappeared and the Roman ship, clear of the enemy line, began to turn toward its next victim, aiming for a stern attack.

  The Carthaginians were astonished. The stricken ship, bristling with splintered oar shafts, drifted hopelessly, battered by waves. A second trireme raced into the widening gap and beat hastily toward the enemy broadside. Its ram plunged into the drifting five, cracking its hull just below the waterline. The sound of shattering timbers and the screaming of oarsmen rent the air. Water rushed into the gaping hole.

  The first Roman ship, in turning, had exposed its broadside to the rams of the Carthaginian’s second line. Not one of the captains failed to see it. In the next instant, the nearest five had reached ramming speed and plowed into the trireme. The blow caused the smaller ship to lurch violently. The Punic ship backed away skillfully and the sea poured into the Roman vessel. Hannibal watched with satisfaction as the trireme began to list. Roman crewmen leapt from the sinking ship. The rowers were trapped inside. Soon the bodies of the dead rode the waves with the same indifference as the detritus of shattered timbers that bobbed and pitched alongside them.

  The same fate awaited the ramming trireme. No sooner had it backed away from its quarry than it too was cracked open by a speeding quinquereme. It began at once to slip beneath the waves. The final Roman ship, a pentekonter, turned and sped away, its low profile allowing it to disappear quickly into the darkness.

  The Roman attack had thrown the Carthaginian fleet into confusion. No one had expected it.

  Hannibal watched the pentekonter vanish into the gloom and wondered what it meant. Were more ships waiting there? He had already lost a modern quinquereme to an antiquated Roman trireme, surely a presentiment of doom.

  “Signal the recall!” he cried. He had only counted six Roman warships. More awaited out there in the darkness, obviously, unseen and ready to spring another trap. The Carthaginians could not maintain their lines in the heavy seas, exposing vulnerable broadsides. The Romans came at them no more, but Hannibal would not row blindly into the darkness. “Get those ships back here,” he said to the captain.

  “But we can still make the transports, General,” the captain said, though his eyes were troubled. The Carthaginian fleet was a jumbled chaos centered on the two sinking triremes, the only enemy ships still in sight. The damaged Carthaginian quinquereme drifted miserably to the edge of the gloom and was lost to the night and the wind and waves.

  “Signal the recall, Captain,” Hannibal repeated, menacingly this time. “We’re going back to base. The Romans are in a fighting mood, but I am not. I will not lose my fleet to these clumsy pirate hunters.”

  “But surely we can no longer avoid war!”

  “Signal the recall. Signalman! Fetch my fleet! Captain, look for survivors.”

  The order was passed along and the fleet began sorting itself out. Ships slowly rowed in wide circles, avoiding the capsized triremes and halting as they crossed one another’s bows, regrouping around Hannibal’s septireme. Soon, he had arranged his fleet into two columns and it began beating a path north, back in the direction from which it had come.

  Under other circumstances, Claudius might have been amused. The centurion was having such a hard time of it. Swearing oaths, he grabbed curious by-standers and shoved them roughly off the beach. But no sooner had he cleared away one than another took his place. He looked like a luckless goatherd losing a battle with a mindless, determined flock. He cursed the Sicilians. Most of them were locals from th
e surrounding countryside, but some had walked two hours from Messana to see the curiosity that had washed up on shore.

  “Get away from there, you stinking crows!” he shouted. A small group had found something amid the rocks and had hunched over it. The centurion rushed up to them and started pulling them one by one from their little huddle. “Go home now!”

  Other soldiers tried to keep the crowd back with their spears, but it was the centurion who expended the most effort.

  Claudius motioned toward the gathering crowd. “Disperse these people,” he said to the tribune. Gaius turned and signaled to the troops who accompanied them. They immediately fanned out and started clearing the beach, to the relief of the centurion’s men.

  “There it is,” Gaius said. “Just as reported.”

  “A Carthaginian quinquereme,” Claudius said with great satisfaction.

  They made their way down to the beach. There, perched in the rocks some distance offshore, was the great Carthaginian ship. It lay at an awkward angle, its bow inclined slightly so that the eyes painted on its prow stared unblinkingly into the long golden rays of the morning sun. Most of the oars on one side of the ship were gone; those on the other bobbed and pitched lifelessly in the surf.

  Already, on the horizon, they could see a small fleet of triremes pulling toward the scene to begin towing operations. Unseen inside the ship, workmen hammered and shouted as they labored to make the vessel at least temporarily seaworthy.

  “How goes it, Centurion?” Claudius asked when they had reached the beach.

  “Consul!” The centurion looked surprised, but gathered himself quickly, straightening in salute. “The wreck is secured,” he said, perhaps a little over-optimistically, the consul thought.

  “Are those ours or theirs?” Claudius asked. He indicated the dead bodies that had washed face down onto the beach and others that rose and fell with the waves among the rocks.

  “A little of both, sir,” the centurion replied, his expression turning cross. “I’m doing my best to keep the crows off them.”

  Claudius knew that he referred to the people, not the birds. The birds, he saw plainly enough, would take what they wanted.

  “The people strip them of their clothes and sandals,” the centurion said. “Meager booty, I’d say!”

  “Keep them away from the ship, Centurion.”

  “We need this beach cleared,” Gaius said in a commanding tone. “You must cordon off this entire area.” He swept his arm expansively. “You need to bolster your pickets. This is starting to resemble a festival down here.”

  The centurion saluted and rushed off, shouting commands at his men as he encountered them.

  “If the Carthaginians know their ship is here, they might come back to get it,” Gaius said. “These men need to work quickly.”

  “Our engineers in Ostia will be very interested in this ship. A modern quinquereme!,” Claudius said. He looked out at the sea at the approaching Roman triremes. “By the gods, Gaius, we did well today!” he said, suddenly overcome.

  The younger man clasped his shoulder, smiling.

  “You will have your fleet, Appius Claudius!” Gaius exclaimed. “You will have your fleet after all!”

  PART I

  The Siege of Acragas

  Chapter 1

  June 262 B.C.

  Megellus gazed past the workmen constructing the camp to the vast plain beyond. There he saw the long marching files of his legionaries, men in all manner of armor and dress. They wore mail shirts and small, square breastplates. They carried javelins, spears and swords and heavy oblong shields strapped over their shoulders. Feathers and crests of horsehair sprouted from their helmets. Their weapons flashed whenever the harsh Sicilian sun found them.

  Squads of scarlet-cloaked cavalrymen flanked the foot soldiers. Beyond them rose great clouds of dust thrown up by the wagons of the pack train that creaked and clattered for miles into the distance. Foraging parties had already scattered into the ripe fields and a defensive cordon of infantry had been thrown forward to protect the camp workmen as they dug and chipped at the earth.

  The air was filled with the sound of their digging. Megellus watched the soldiers as they lifted their shovels over the rim of the enclosing trench, piling the earth high along the perimeter of the camp. They were now five days’ march outside of Messana, one day west of Acragas. For each of those five days, the soldiers had constructed the Romans’ nightly fortress. Inside the perimeter ditch, colored flags marked the locations of the various parts of the camp — the soldiers’ lodgments, their officers’ tents, areas for supplies and horses. Megellus’ command tent itself, the praetorium, was marked by white flags. In less than a few hours, the whole would be enclosed by a ditch which itself would be backed by an earthen embankment. This would in turn be surmounted by a wooden rampart made from the sharpened stakes each legionary carried with him. Twenty-thousand men and their animals would soon take up residence for the night in this mobile Roman city. Camp by fortified camp, the army had crept across Sicily toward the Carthaginian stronghold of Acragas.

  Tomorrow, they would arrive beneath the city walls. For Lucius Postumius Megellus, one of the consuls elected for the year, the next day could not come soon enough. The other consul, Vitulus, had taken a parallel route from Messana and had encamped his army a few miles to the north. The next day, they would combine at Acragas, forty thousand men in all. Megellus already had an idea what the Carthaginian response would be: they would, of course, surrender. When he gazed upon his assembled legions, he wondered how they possibly could not.

  To the north, some kind of caravan was just arriving with an escort of Roman cavalry.

  “A delegation from the city of Enna,” the tribune Laberius announced with a smile, by this time knowing the consul’s feelings on the matter. “They want to declare their allegiance to Rome.”

  Megellus was not surprised. Throughout the march from Messana, emissaries from one city or another had pestered him endlessly. This delegation looked far more lavish than the usual, however, and he wondered how much of his time would be lost dealing with it.

  Megellus sighed. “Oh, why can’t they treat with Vitulus?” he lamented, shaking his head.

  “They bring ground wheat, wagonloads of dried meat — and a small herd of cattle,” Laberius told him, barely able to suppress a grin. Like most of the military tribunes, Laberius was a young man, not yet thirty. His father was a senator, as Laberius himself would be one day. Megellus knew the father and found the young man to be a levelheaded and thoughtful lad, not given to bouts of comic diversion. Yet he was clearly enjoying Megellus’ annoyance. The army had come to within a day’s march of Acragas and had met no enemy, not even a picket, so Megellus’ mood was light.

  “They are going to have to wait,” Megellus said, glancing at the bustle all around him.

  “Oh, but they are very eager,” Laberius said. Megellus shot him a look and Laberius could hold it in no longer. He laughed outright. Megellus frowned.

  “Before you become too annoyed, Consul,” Laberius said, still chuckling, but collecting himself quickly when he saw that the consul’s light mood did not extend to the troublesome caravan, “might I remind you of Valerius Maximus. More than sixty Sicilian cities fell to him last year, and he was awarded a triumph in Rome. He no doubt suffered this same grief.”

  Who could forget Manius Valerius Maximus? “Messala,” he was now called, the name commemorating his conquest. He was one of the most famous men in Rome. A fresco on the wall of the Senate House depicted his victory. He had defeated the enemies surrounding Messana. Forming an alliance with King Hiero of Syracuse, he had established Roman control over all of eastern Sicily. What he had accomplished in the east, Megellus now hoped to achieve in the Carthaginian west.

  “Acragas is the gateway to western Sicily,” Laberius said. “Just as Messana was to the east. I am frankly surprised the Carthaginians have put troops into such a forward position,” he added. “I would have expec
ted them to hunker down in Lilybaeum, Panormus and the other port cities where we cannot get at them so easily.”

  “It is a mistake they will soon regret,” Megellus said, instantly forgetting the delegation from Enna. After Valerius’ campaign in eastern Sicily, the Carthaginians immediately began recruiting an army, the initial elements of which they had thrown into Acragas. Megellus and others in the Senate had argued that they planned to use Acragas as a base for an invasion of Roman Sicily. Megellus had carried the day, and now he was tasked with capturing the city, control of which would forestall any Carthaginian aggression into Roman territory. “Acragas is a city of doomed men,” Megellus added.

  “Our own men are spoiling for a fight,” Laberius replied. The tribune was interrupted by the sound of angry cursing. Both men turned and saw an enraged centurion red-faced from shouting. Part of the embankment had slid down into the ditch, taking a clumsy soldier with it. Under the brutal tongue-lashing, he scrambled out of the dirt, looking like he would rather it had buried him entirely. Other soldiers pounded their stakes into the mound with hardly a glance at the man. The perimeter was almost finished. Tents would be erected next. “And eager for plunder,” Laberius added, looking away from the centurion to the ‘color party’. The men were laying out some more flags under the supervision of one of the other tribunes.

  “They will have their plunder,” Megellus said. “I am not so certain they will have their fight, though.”

  “You think the Carthaginians will not offer battle, Consul?”

  “Look around you, Tribune. Nothing but Romans as far as the eye can see. Where are the enemy scouting parties? Their skirmishers? I suspect the Carthaginians in Acragas are not expecting us. When they look out tomorrow and see two consular armies beneath their walls…Well, I am prepared to offer them terms.”