The War God's Men

by David Ross Erickson

  “But certainly the Carthaginians are the target of their efforts.”

  “We are the Carthaginians, you idiot!” Kyros exclaimed, turning sharply to face the commander. “They use us to launch their foolhardy raids on Italy, and when the time of retribution comes, there will be no Carthaginian war fleet to save us. They have already taken half of my garrison — and in the Roman mind, I have the blood of murder and rapine on my hands. When I see the Roman fleet sailing over that horizon, I am doomed!”

  “Does Carthage know of the Roman fleet?”

  “That is not for me to know. The general, Hannibal, did not, however.”

  “Perhaps I am too much the idiot to understand why, then, you do not discuss this with them,” Thales said with a stern expression. “Perhaps they will bolster the garrison and station a fleet here permanently.”

  “Carthage be damned!” Kyros snapped. “They would rob me of what little freedom I have left here — or they would strip me of all my defenses entirely. As a Carthaginian possession, we are indefensible. Do you understand that?”

  Thales did not respond. Kyros thought the facts were only obvious. It now occurred to him that Carthaginian shortsightedness and arrogance might well be their undoing. He had been toying with an idea for some time. Now, he thought, perhaps, the execution of that idea was unavoidable.

  “I know what I must do,” he said softly.

  “Sir?” Thales waited for him to go on.

  “Thales, do you think your militia can overcome the Carthaginians in Lipara? Remember, they are but half their usual numbers.”

  “What do you mean, Kyros?”

  “Can your militia overcome the Carthaginian garrison?” Kyros repeated, forcefully.

  “Are you mad?” Thales snapped. “You really will bring a Carthaginian war fleet here then — only they will be coming for you and me! After they destroy this Roman fleet!” Thales spat with contempt.

  “Oh, I have never been less mad,” Kyros said. In fact, he felt a great burden had been lifted from his shoulders. Tonight, perhaps he would sleep. “I will tell you what we must do. We must offer the city to the Romans—”

  “This is madness!”

  —before they take it for themselves!” Kyros continued, his voice booming above Thales’ objections. Servants looked up from their duties inside the palace. Thales stood dumbstruck, his chest heaving. Kyros, his eyes blazing, approached him and said in a harsh whisper, “We will offer the city to the Romans, and you will help me. Or I will find another who will, to your great loss.”

  Chapter 19

  General Hamilcar stood outside his command tent watching the soldiers of his 20,000-man army dig a ditch around the walled city of Segesta. After the fall of Acragas, Segesta had claimed her allegiance to Rome, suddenly finding her common heritage with the Italians too irresistible to ignore. The city was in the heart of Carthaginian Sicily and Hamilcar had immediately fallen upon it as his first act after assuming command of the army. Segesta’s change in allegiance was an intolerable act of treason. He had sent a delegation to the Segestans, demanding their immediate surrender. He fully expected capitulation. The digging of the ditch was merely to speed the negotiations along.

  The camp that housed the command tent had already been fortified by a ditch and an earthen rampart. Several well-guarded gates pierced the walls and it was through one of these that Hamilcar saw Philosir ride into the camp, followed by his guard, their cloaks billowing behind them as they rode. Hamilcar was awaiting the response to his delegation and Philosir’s grim expression did not fill him with confidence. Even before his horse had skidded to a halt, Philosir flung a small leather pouch onto the ground at Hamilcar’s feet.

  “What is this?” Hamilcar asked irritably. The explanation for such audacity had better be good. He stood looking at the little bag but made no move to pick it up.

  “Bodtanit’s balls,” Philosir said, dismounting.

  “What?” Hamilcar had no idea what the man was talking about. Bodtanit had led the delegation to the city.

  “Bodtanit’s balls,” Philosir repeated. “His testicles. They were nailed to the city gate. We found Bodtanit’s ball-less body in the road.”

  “Get this thing out of here!” Hamilcar said, kicking the bag away. He turned and strode inside his tent, ducking as he entered. Philosir removed his helmet and followed. Hamilcar sat heavily in his desk chair, leaned back and buried his face in his hands. He could feel the anger rising in him. He struggled to maintain his composure. Philosir stood to one side.

  “We shall raze the city,” Hamilcar said softly after a moment, dropping his hands from his face. He stared vacantly at his desk. The desktop was strewn with correspondence and maps. Then he looked up at Philosir, his eyes aflame. “Any citizens who by chance survive shall be sold into slavery. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And when that is done,” Hamilcar cried, suddenly bolting upright and striking his fist on the desk, “we will crush what is left to dust!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Hamilcar heaved himself from the chair and paced angrily.

  “These are my orders, Philosir,” he said. “No mercy! We must starve Segesta into capitulation and then we burn it to the ground. Speed up the work on the ditch. Pull half the soldiers and have them start on the outer ditch in preparation to meet the Romans, for I believe they will come here. These Sicilians grow bold, Philosir.”

  “Indeed they do,” Philosir said. “Halikyae has also announced for Rome.”

  Hamilcar waved his hand dismissively and continued to pace. “A village,” he scoffed. “They will see the light when Segesta is destroyed.”

  “The Roman victory at Acragas had far-reaching implications, sir,” Philosir said.

  “Well, they will all soon know that there is no General Hanno in the field now to provide Rome with easy victories,” Hamilcar said.

  The general longed for a quick victory to reassert Carthage’s hegemony over western Sicily. He had intended for Segesta to provide him the victory he needed, but he was not completely unprepared for the negative response. Instead, now, he would attack Thermae, a Roman ally on the north coast, two days’ ride away. He would use the other half of his army, a further twenty-thousand men he had left at their camp near Macella, a few hours’ ride to the east, for just this purpose. His original plan would have had him attack Thermae with the full force of his army after Segesta’s surrender. Now that a prolonged siege would be required, he would still attack Thermae but with half the men. More difficult, to be sure, but not impossible. Either way, it would be a significant achievement—one that would reverberate throughout the island.

  “Armor!” he called to his servants. Holding out his arms, two of his servants strapped on his sculpted breast- and back-plates, securing the armor at his shoulders and along his sides where the plates met.

  “You are in command here, Philosir,” Hamilcar said, strapping on his sword belt. “Remember my orders: no mercy for the Segestans!”

  “Yes, sir!” Philosir said, saluting as Hamilcar walked briskly past him out of the tent.

  A few hours later at the camp at Macella, Hamilcar summoned his scouts.

  “We march to Thermae the day after tomorrow,” he told the Numidians. “Scour the route and make sure we encounter no surprises. I want a full report on the extent of Thermae’s defenses. Send your men out at once.”

  The older Numidian with the long black beard, the chief called Masinissa, nodded. He wore a white skullcap and his hair fell in oily ringlets over his forehead. The younger man with him had a competent, if rather fierce look, Hamilcar thought approvingly. He had known these men in Acragas and in the short time that he had been in command, he had come to trust them implicitly. While trapped in the city, he had not appreciated their value. Now, he would not know how to conduct his affairs without them. The young man put an arm around Masinissa’s shoulders. Masinissa nodded again, his expression uncertain.

  “Go no
w!” Hamilcar snapped.

  The Numidians turned at once and made quickly for their horses, the old man ushered along by the fierce young Numidian.

  Gauda and his seven men peered over the crest of the ridge at Thermae. They had crept as close as they dared and because the ridge was topped by a line of trees and brush Gauda felt confident they could not be seen, despite the full moon. Bathed in moonlight, the city bore an air of unreality as it stood before them. Thermae was substantially smaller than Acragas, but its walls were high and it was built on an imposing height. It obviously would not require as many men to invest as Segesta, but its walls could not be easily overcome.

  Since their escape from Acragas early in the year, Gauda had assumed command of what had been Juba’s troop. They did not know what had happened to their former leader. Gauda had crossed the Roman ditches by his side, but had then lost sight of him. He had never reappeared. Since then, Masinissa and the rest of the Numidians from Acragas had been assimilated into Hanno’s army in Sicily. Having wintered in Lilybaeum with most of the other troops, they had immediately set out for Segesta when the new general had arrived and organized his army.

  Gauda pushed aside the bushy limb of a low-lying tree branch, making more noise than he had intended. In response, he heard the horses snuffling nervously behind him, pawing at the dirt. The horse-holders calmed them with a few soothing words. All along the ridgeline to the south of the city hid further troops of scouts, perhaps one hundred in all. The rest of the Numidian scouting parties had ridden off to the east along the coastal approaches to the city from where the Romans would be most likely to appear.

  Squinting from the deep shadows, Gauda could make out the occasional black figures patrolling the tops of the walls and guard towers. He did not get the impression of any great vigilance; it seemed like a sleepy little city, completely unaware of the prying eyes along the ridgelines surrounding it. Still, even though Gauda knew the general wanted a quick victory, he regrettably did not see anything quick about the capture of Thermae.

  The ridge Gauda’s troop occupied paralleled the road to Panormus. Where the road entered the city, the wall was pierced by the massive wooden doors of the gate, appearing as a huge black shadow in the wall. As Gauda watched, he noticed a square of light appear in the blackness, and a lone figure step through into the night. Someone had come out the man-door and now moved alone in the shadows at the base of the wall.

  “There’s someone there,” Hannon whispered excitedly.

  “Yes, I see that,” Gauda said. He could just barely make out the figure in the shadows. He was walking slowly away from the wall and towards a small copse. This was an opportunity, but it called for fast action.

  “Hannon! Tabat! Come with me,” Gauda said quietly. Crouching, he ran along the ridgeline that circled toward the gate. There it diminished into the ground near the copse the man had entered. The two young Numidians followed him closely. Gauda crept silently through the brush until he could see the figure of the man. Hannon and Tabat knelt beside him.

  “He’s pissing,” Hannon said. They could hear the stream raining on the broad leaves of a bush.

  Gauda pulled a dagger from his belt and crept up behind the man as he continued to relieve himself. With a rapid motion, he hooked his left arm around the man’s neck and held the point of the dagger to his jugular. The rain of piss abruptly stopped.

  “Don’t make a sound,” Gauda said. He slowly turned the man around towards the ridge. Hannon and Tabat had unsheathed their own daggers and stood facing him.

  “What do you want with me?” the terrified man asked.

  “One more word and you die,” Gauda said, menacing his throat with the dagger.

  Then the sound suddenly resumed.

  “He’s pissing on my legs!” Tabat said in a harsh whisper. He leapt away from the man with a start.

  “Shut up!” Gauda said, momentarily confused by what was happening. Then, realizing that what Hannon said was true, he knocked the man forward with a forearm, keeping the dagger at his throat. “By the gods, man! Control yourself.”

  He led the man into the trees and back to the ridge where their horses were being held for them. Angrily, Gauda pushed the man to the ground where he sat amid the horses’ hooves, frightened, looking up at his captor.

  “Who are you?” Gauda asked.

  “I am the gatekeeper,” the man said. He was visibly shaking. He lifted his trembling fingers to his lips and regarded Gauda with wide, terrified eyes. “The gatekeeper of Thermae,” he said, his voice quivering. “Let me go back to the city. I beg you. I will tell no one. Please…”

  “You’ll not go back to Thermae,” Gauda said. “We’re taking him to the general,” he told his men. “Call the troop together.”

  Gauda mounted and put the gatekeeper behind him on the back of his horse. “You’re coming with us, gatekeeper,” he said.

  The rest of the troop mounted and rode towards Hamilcar’s camp. On the way, Tabat rode up alongside Gauda. He reached out and slapped the man violently on the back of his head. The man cried out in fear.

  “That’s for pissing on my legs,” Tabat said. Hannon laughed riotously.

  “Keep your hands off the man,” Gauda warned.

  “He got off easy for pissing on me.”

  “I will piss on you myself if you don’t shut up!” Gauda snapped, and they rode the rest of the way in silence, but for Hannon, who occasionally burst out in laughter.

  “What is your name, soldier?” General Hamilcar asked.

  “Gauda,” the scout said. “Of Masinissa’s tribe.”

  “Yes! Yes, I thought so,” Hamilcar said happily. He had had a good feeling about the fierce young Numidian, so he was not particularly surprised when he came in from scouting Thermae with a captive. But he never would have guessed that he would come back with the gatekeeper himself. “Good work, soldier!”

  The gatekeeper of Thermae had calmed down considerably upon being handed over to the general. He lost much of his nervousness, but he begged shamelessly for his freedom. He would, he said, open the gates to the Carthaginians if he would be allowed to return. It made little difference to him who controlled his city. He was gatekeeper to all.

  “I know your face, and I know your name,” Hamilcar told him before having him escorted back to Thermae. “I will take the city one way or another. Any treachery on your part— Well, you will wish Gauda had knifed you while you pissed.”

  Timed to arrive at the appointed moment, Hamilcar led five-thousand men out of his camp at Macella and marched the day-and-a-half to Thermae. He had organized his force into five groups of 1,000 men each. Arriving at the city just prior to sundown, the force secreted itself behind the same ridge Gauda’s troop had occupied.

  Hamilcar gathered the leaders of the five brigades to him.

  “This lighted torch will be your signal to move,” he told them, holding up the cold fagot. He wanted his entire column to move as one. The column extended one hundred yards into the darkness. “As soon as it is dark, the gates will open to us. But, all of you, wait for my torch.”

  Philosir was Hamilcar’s most trusted lieutenant, but he was commanding the siege of Segesta. These other five men had been selected from the ambitious sons of his father’s associates in Carthage. All were pursuing military careers before settling into their family seats in the Council. Although he had had little opportunity to observe them in the field, he knew they required guidance and, he suspected, more than a little restraint for military glory was the coin these young men traded in. Their judgment was not yet to be trusted. But, Hamilcar reasoned, a simple betrayal of the city would provide a harmless trial by fire for the untested young leaders. They had only to overcome the city’s own garrison in a surprise night assault. There were no Romans to contend with here. What could go wrong?

  Hamilcar deployed his units, one behind the other, in a long column. As the darkness deepened, the general became more and more excited by what would be the first vic
tory of his independent command. Once inside the doors, there was not a garrison in Sicily that could withstand his five thousand. Standing under a gnarled tree on the ridge, he watched for the slightest movement of the gate.

  “Any moment now,” he told Aderbal, commander of the leading brigade. Aderbal nodded and Hamilcar watched him walk off to take his position in front and center of his unit.

  No sooner had he vanished into the darkness than the men of the leading brigade began to move. Hamilcar stared at them, puzzled for a moment. Then he noticed movement from the city gate. It was opening.

  “Stop!” he called to Aderbal. He fumbled to light his torch. By the time he got it lit and the other four thousand began to move, Aderbal’s men were sprinting across the open ground toward the opening gate.

  “What is he doing? Stop them!” he called helplessly to no one. “Catch up! Catch up!” he exhorted the trailing brigades.

  But Aderbal was too far out in front now. Hamilcar watched helplessly as Aderbal’s phalanx struck the doors and collapsed them inward, and the brigade — a mere one-fifth of Hamilcar’s force — plunged alone into the city. The trailing brigades were now sprinting to catch up, but by the time they reached the gate, the doors had already closed again, and nothing could be heard from inside but the screams of a massacre.

  Aderbal led his 1,000 through the gates of Thermae, expecting at best a welcoming delegation and at worst a handful of terror-stricken garrison soldiers. What he found instead was an empty city.

  The men of his phalanx halted without orders in the wide street. Aderbal’s excitement at the prospect of liberating the city single-handedly, a feat that would put his name on the lips of all the ruling elite of Carthage, evaporated in puzzlement. Could it really be this easy? In the instant it took to ask the question, he was already formulating the exaggerated circumstances of his capture of the enemy city, inventing the heroic battle fate had denied him.

  The massive doors slamming shut behind him only heightened his bewilderment. He saw no one at the gates. He looked around him, frowning. There were no men on the walls. The city was dark in the black night. It was not until he heard the thunder of thousands of tramping feet followed by armed men pouring from the narrow side streets that fed the main thoroughfare did he become aware of his folly. They had rushed into a trap. The doors had been shut behind him and thousands of men armed with shields and spears, yelling madly, crashed into the flanks of his confused phalanx.