Since the two Roman consular armies had joined back in June, overall command of the combined army had alternated daily between the two consuls, Lucius Postumius Megellus and Quintus Mamilius Vitulus. Neither knew which would be in command on the day of the inevitable battle, so immediately upon Gelon’s departure Vitulus had conferred with Megellus to get him to agree beforehand to implement his plan for the cavalry.
It was a judicious move, for as it turned out the day of battle saw Megellus in overall command, conferring upon Vitulus the authority to see to the cavalry arrangements personally, a task in which he immersed himself with relish.
Plunging into the job with energy, he spent his time during the deployment bouncing back and forth between the cavalry wings, shouting orders and placing units just so. Lacking the true hybrid soldier Gelon had specified to bolster the horsemen, Vitulus instead borrowed two maniples of the triarii for each of the cavalry wings. These were heavy infantry units armed with pike and shield, the most experienced men in the Roman army. Interspersed among these men were a like number of javelin-armed foot soldiers Vitulus had acquired from the velites, the light infantry corps of the legions. These men he placed in a line behind the cavalry of both flanks, just as Gelon had set forth in his plan.
The dispositions finally made, he now sat his horse before the Roman right wing. Behind him across the plain stood the serried multitude of the Carthaginian army, of whom up until this point Vitulus had hardly even been aware. But he found now that when he spoke he had to strain to make himself heard over the wild bellowing of the enemy whose war cries filled the valley. Vitulus could see the pensive looks of his troopers. They viewed his infantry deployment in their midst with skepticism. Many of them, he knew, considered it an affront to their honor. In the days after Gelon’s departure, he had gone over the plan in minute detail with the entire Roman cavalry. Now he felt he must reassure them.
“This is the plan given to me by the famous Gelon of Syracuse!” Vitulus shouted.
A voice rose from the line of cavalry troopers. “Did he come to you in a dream?”
The cavalry had nothing of the legionaries’ discipline and the consul was not surprised by bold comments. A smattering of bitter laughter erupted among the men.
“A dream?” Vitulus shouted, in exaggerated consternation. “Can it be that all do not know of Gelon’s visit to our camp? Surely all have heard!”
“Gelon’s the fellow who shattered tribune Caedicius’ face!” came the voice of one of the cavalrymen. Immediately there rose a chorus of laughter and cheers. The troopers who did not know the story were quickly informed and the outburst grew even louder and more raucous.
“Hail Gelon! Hail Gelon!”
The chant began with a single voice and spread among all the cavalrymen. Even some of the velites Vitulus had placed alongside the main infantry line — an adjunct to Gelon’s plan for if the cavalry collapsed altogether — picked it up, raising their javelins and hide-covered wicker shields. Many of these young men wore animal skins over their helmets and Vitulus was struck by the incongruity of the sight of so many laughing, joyful faces peering out from under the heads of menacing bears and wolves.
Vitulus’ spirit soared. Prior to Gelon’s visit, this had been a defeated unit, bitter and cynical, whose only laughter had come in the form of the sour humor of the grave, whose only respite from hunger and disease had been defeat and humiliation on the field of battle. Now they laughed and cheered in the face of an enemy who had bested them at every turn. As the cheering continued, their laughing faces turned stern and resolute, and Vitulus could feel their confidence, their eagerness to redeem their honor.
If the heavy infantry of the hastati, principes and triarii of the main lines were initially puzzled by the outburst on their flank, they soon picked it up as well. The whole army began cheering, “Hail Gelon!” until the cheer morphed into a general roaring war cry that soon drowned out the Carthaginians and filled each Roman with an unbearable fervor to deal death to the enemy.
The plain between the armies was filled with a swarm of stinging bees. Thousands of lightly armored soldiers of each side rushed toward each other and hurled their javelins until thin black streaks crisscrossed the sky. Few men were hit as individual soldiers scampered to and fro, never presenting a massed target for the plunging spears. On the Carthaginian side, slingers sent their missiles whistling into the formless cloud. Men rushed each other and drew apart, fighting as individuals, at times engaging with sword and shield in small knots of individual combats. To Hanno, and especially, he knew, to the men in the main lines of infantry, the missile melee seemed interminable. But given enough time, he also knew that his light infantry would gain the upper hand. His men out-numbered the Romans to begin with and it was Yaroah who had pointed out the deliberate further thinning of their force.
Yaroah had gestured towards the blocks of javelineers on each flank of the Roman infantry. “They are protecting their flanks with missile troops, General,” he had observed.
“Indeed,” Hanno had said. “They have no faith in their cavalry. This leaves their front uncovered. We shall teach them a lesson!”
And now that lesson was underway. By sheer weight of numbers, the Roman velites could not stand for long. When they threw one javelin, the Carthaginians returned two. The slingers, with their longer range, had begun concentrating their fire on the Roman main line. A sound like thudding hailstones reached Hanno’s ears. It was a moment before he realized the sound was that of the slingers’ pellets striking Roman shields.
Soon the overwhelmed velites were rushing to the rear through the wide gaps between the heavy infantry maniples. The Carthaginian light infantry began raining javelins on the hastati, and the sky blackened with iron death. The Romans took refuge under their shields. The shields deflected many of the light spears, but not all. Others, coming at a steeper trajectory, crashed straight through, ripping the flesh of the men beneath. The Roman dead among the prior maniples began piling up.
The field between the armies was choked with dust. Hanno could see his own light infantry flitting about in the haze as mere black shapes that vanished into the cloud as they rushed forward to hurl still more of their javelins. Suddenly, he heard the faint rumblings of a war cry rising somewhere behind the opaque screen. Then, as the cry increased, came the rhythmic thumping of weapons on shields and then the sound of thousands of marching feet, which he felt through the ground more than heard with his ears. His javelineers and slingers rushed out of the fog and began filtering to the rear through the channels left in the infantry phalanx. The entire Roman army followed them, marching towards the Carthaginian lines, the men roaring and thumping their shields, trumpets blaring.
“Here they come!” Hanno shouted in his excitement. Once the Roman light infantry had retreated, he knew the advance was coming. The Romans could not simply stand and take the pummeling of the missile troops. In addition, their fretting over their flanks meant a quick attack was probable as the Romans needed to defeat the enemy before their cavalry collapsed. But seeing them come on filled him with a dreadful excitement he had not anticipated.
“Sound the advance!” He waved his sword in a circular motion over his head. “Advance!”
Hanno’s trumpeters signaled the attack. The signal was repeated all along the infantry front and the line surged forward. Hanno rode to the center and took up a position behind his advancing infantry. Almost twenty-thousand men in a spear-bristling line twelve-deep advanced towards the Romans, shouting at the tops of their lungs. Behind Hanno were his elephants and a further twenty-thousand men, held in reserve in the second line.
“Advance the cavalry!” he commanded, pointing decisively to each flank. “Attack! Go, go, go, go!” Hanno’s messengers galloped off to the flanks, their cloaks whipping in the wind behind them.
Hanno’s phalanx immediately began to lose cohesion as it advanced over the rocky undulating ground. The natural gaps that occurred between units—between Celts an
d Iberians, and Iberians and Libyans—widened dangerously, as officers struggled manfully to keep the troops together. The line soon resembled a snake broken into segments and presented broadside to the enemy. The Romans rushed forward, their already wide gaps between maniples loosely covered, in checkerboard fashion, by the swordsmen of the second line. After a moment, Hanno saw the dust clouds rise on the flanks and he knew his cavalry attack was underway. He would hold in the center and collapse the flanks.
At about twenty-five yards, the two sides stopped and exchanged javelin fire. Raining iron once again blackened the sky, only it was not individual black streaks this time but a solid mass as both sides hurled their spears in salvoes. War cries gave way to screams of agony and fear. Heavy Roman javelins pierced shields and thin mail, the bulky four-foot long iron spear points found unprotected breasts and groins, the javelins sending a devastating shudder all along the Carthaginian line. At ten yards, the Romans again stopped and delivered yet another salvo of mixed light and heavy javelins right into the face of the enemy phalanx. Again, the line shuddered. Men in the front ranks, unshielded by the spears, turned and fled for the rear. The men behind them stepped forward to take their places, some men coming from three or four ranks back, stepping over the dead and wounded the whole way.
With a resolute scream, the Carthaginian phalanx now rushed the Roman line, spears leveled. Hanno felt the boom of the crashing shields in his chest. The Roman line staggered back under the weight of the deep phalanx. The posterior maniples rushed forward to bulk up the line. The second line of infantry — the principes — cut down any enemy that filled the gaps in the first without fully committing to the battle. The Roman front line cut and thrust from behind their four-foot-high shields. Where the Roman swordsmen were able to filter in between the leveled spears, which lacked the close-in efficiency of the Roman short sword, they easily cut down the front ranks of the Carthaginian line, striking exposed arms and legs and guts when they were able to get in behind the shields.
Again, Hanno felt the interminable press of time, as he was overcome by a feeling of helplessness. The hand-to-hand fighting lasted no longer than it takes for a pot to boil. Then the two lines bolted apart — almost, it seemed, by mutual agreement. Carthaginian mercenaries fled for the rear, the wounded hobbling or carried away by their fellows. In the Roman lines, the hastati turned and marched to the rear while the second line, the principes, rushed forward to take the front, alternating the occupied and unoccupied spaces on their checkerboard. They immediately loosed their javelins and then rushed the enemy line while the Carthaginians were still shuffling their troops.
Hanno sensed an immediate shuddering of his entire line. Some men darted out of the rear of the phalanx, like water through a crack in a dam.
“Stop those men!” Hanno cried furiously, pointing his sword at a group of men who had thrown down their weapons to flee the battle. Urged on by some officers, a cluster of soldiers of the second line formed a cordon and shoved the men forcefully back to the phalanx.
“Let no man pass!” Hanno shouted to his officers. They galloped away at once, ordering the rear ranks to their new duty.
“No retreats!” they cried. “No retreats! Death to any man who runs!”
“I will not be defeated!” Hanno cried. He looked to the billowing dust clouds on either flank and hoped that that indicated his cavalry was sweeping in upon the enemy flanks. But he could see nothing for the dust.
“What is happening on our flanks?” He slapped a messenger on his back, shoving him forward on his mount. “Find out! Go! I must know what is happening on the flanks!”
* * * *
From where Hannibal stood in the western guard tower above the Heraclea gate, he could see that the setting winter sun would have been glaring directly into the Romans’ eyes. But with the amount of dust that filled the plain, the sun was little more than a pale disk in a brown sky and hardly made a difference. From atop the tower, Hannibal could see the entire battle in a way the participants could not and he was filled with a sense of fascination. Always before he had been in the midst of the action — whether he was flinching under a hail of raining javelins or staggering at the crack of a ram ripping through the hull of a trireme — never a helpless spectator, watching safe and sound like a theater-goer or part of the cheering masses in some packed stadium.
As helpless as he felt, it seemed to him a rare opportunity. He could see the cracks in the Carthaginian line. The phalanx was too rigid and inflexible going up against the fluid Roman method of fighting. From on high, it was clear as day. Down below, Hanno was probably in a haze wondering what was happening to his army.
In the distance, issuing from the Carthaginian camp high atop the hill, he could see the puffs of rising smoke signals. He tried to ignore them.
“Are the troops ready, Boodes?” Hannibal asked. “It’s impossible to tell how much longer this will go on. We need to be ready to go at a moment’s notice.”
“Yes. Give the order and we move at once,” Boodes said. He looked up at the smoke signals, and a look of sadness crept into his expression. “They are still signaling, I see.”
“Forget that,” Hannibal snapped. He turned just in time to see Hamilcar top the stairs and stride purposefully across the platform.
“The battle has begun, General,” Hamilcar fumed. He gestured expansively toward the contested plain. “Can’t you see that?”
“Of course, General,” Hannibal said. “Calm yourself.”
“Calm myself? The battle rages on the plain and you stand here — discussing the weather?” Hamilcar spat the last phrase in his fury. “You will not attack?”
Hannibal turned on him, his own rage bursting to the surface. “Attack? Attack?” With both hands, Hannibal seized Hamilcar by the collar and drove him up against the battlement. “Attack with what? My men are emaciated and sick. By the gods, half of them have deserted to the Romans! With what shall I attack, General? You tell me!”
Hamilcar slapped Hannibal’s fists from his collar. “We still have a fighting force here,” Hamilcar said, straightening. “We can still attack. I can put five-thousand soldiers down on that plain in half-an-hour. By the gods, General, honor alone—”
“Don’t speak to me of honor! Honor ceased to matter when our beloved general out there left me here to rot for seven months. Do you think he wants to be down there fighting now? Great balls of Ba’al, no! He wants to be sipping wine in Lilybaeum while my head adorns the point of a Roman pike! The only honor now is survival — and, by the gods, we will survive! Whether you like it or not!”
“Look!” Boodes cried suddenly. “Hanno’s cavalry is repulsed!”
Both men rushed to the battlements. The dust made it hard to see what was happening, but it was plain that Hanno’s cavalry was in rout.
“General Hamilcar,” Hannibal began in a placid tone. “I respect your passion, and if I were in your position, I would probably react the same way.” Hamilcar looked at him out of the corner of his eye. Hannibal could see that he was still breathing hard. He did not want bad blood to linger long. He needed Hamilcar, just as he needed Boodes. He laid a hand on Hamilcar’s shoulder. “I don’t expect you to understand my reasoning, but I need you by my side, General.”
Hamilcar clenched his jaw and said nothing.
“When this is over,” Hannibal went on. “it is my intention to nominate you for command of all armies in Sicily. But I need your support now, if we’re going to get out of here alive.”
Beneath his grip on his shoulder, Hannibal could feel him slacken, the tension easing.
“Nominate you, nothing!” Hannibal said in sudden good cheer. “If we get out of here alive, it will be within my power to appoint you to that command!”
A slight hint of a smile crossed Hamilcar’s face.
“Your father was instrumental in securing for us the use of a few ships from the city’s war fleet,” Boodes added. He gestured vaguely toward the distant mouth of the River Hypsas wh
ere he supposed the ships now waited. “Your father is expecting to see you back in Carthage, General. Not riding like a monkey in some Roman triumphal procession.”
“I would die first,” Hamilcar said. “I have no intention of submitting to capture.”
“Neither do I, General,” Hannibal said. Then he moved off with a flurry, walking briskly towards the stairs. “Boodes, let’s make sure the men are ready to move,” he called. “The sun will be gone in a couple of hours, gentlemen. Unless a miracle occurs down on that plain, we’re leaving here at nightfall.”
Calpurnius Flamma led the right wing Roman cavalry into the heart of the enemy horse. The Numidians scattered like a flock of birds and the Romans were left stabbing at air. A smattering of javelins fell around them, but the Numidians would not stand to accept the Roman charge. They fled as if in rout.
Calpurnius reined up, holding aloft his clenched fist.
“Regroup, men!” he cried. The trumpeter sounded the recall. Calpurnius could see his troopers straining to push onward, but to a man, they all came trotting back and reassumed their formation.
Calpurnius watched as the Numidians regrouped on the hillside. He knew they were trying to goad the Romans into charging them, but Calpurnius had learned his lesson months before in their small engagement before the city. Behind the cloud of Numidians, he saw a solid line of heavy cavalry, unwavering and firm, the cavalry spears held upright, a small forest amid the swirling Numidians. Any lack of discipline or impetuousness would pay a heavy price. Behind him, unseen by the enemy, was the infantry line. Their presence gave Calpurnius confidence.
The War God's Men Page 19