He signaled to his companions. Dion seconded the gesture, making circles with his javelin above his head, and the five Eagles turned and sped away. Back up the slope, they galloped at top speed, their heels frantically digging into their horses’ ribs. They scattered as they fled, as if in panic. The twelve Iberians, sensing blood, followed hot on their heels, their horses living up to their boasts. They bound easily over every rock and crevice, and gained ground on the clumsier mounts of the Syracusans. Behind him, Juba heard their war cries, cries that had taken on the air of a taunt.
When the Iberians had passed, the other fifteen Eagles swept out of their hiding and galloped toward the charging mass, yipping wildly. Horror on their faces, the Iberians reined up immediately as plunging javelins took three of their number almost at once. A second salvo dropped two horses. They fell flank-first to the ground and rolled, crushing their riders. Juba, Dion and the five turned to join in the attack. To the Iberians, it must have seemed they were ambushed by a multitude, such was the swirling mayhem of the shrieking attackers, the flying javelins and the cries of the wounded.
The surviving Iberians broke through the cordon of Eagles. Javelins flew past their heads as they raced downslope. The Eagles pursued. The Iberians looked behind them fearfully as they rode onto the plain.
“Pursue them!” Juba cried. He reined up. His horse reared, and with a javelin extended in his hand, he urged the Eagles on. He was grinning ear to ear. He wanted his Eagles to see this attack to its conclusion. It was not enough for him to ward off the enemy. He wanted to destroy them.
When the last of the Eagles had passed, he filed in behind them, joining the pursuit. Along the ridgeline, other Eagle troops came out of the shadows and urged the pursuers on. Juba could see their black forms silhouetted on the ridge, their arms raised in triumph.
But the Iberian horses were fast and they soon disappeared around the base of a hill. The Eagles had to give up the pursuit.
They reassembled on the plain. Dion stopped to pick up one of the Iberian’s little round shields, which the man had dropped in his panic. Dion raised it over his head, a trophy, and the twenty Eagles cheered.
“The enemy did not loose a single javelin!” Juba told the men when they had gathered around him. “And they left their dead back there on the hillside!” The Eagles raised their arms and cheered again.
“Now, what do you say we follow them around this hill and see where they went?”
The cheers died down and the Eagles’ faces once again became grim. Juba was not through with the Iberians.
They followed in the Iberians’ path through the plain toward the base of the distant hill. They walked for a while and then trotted. The spot was further than it looked.
The Iberians had vanished behind an eroding bluff and when the Eagles reached it, Juba called a halt. They had traveled a far distance, covering the ground quickly. Juba estimated that they had moved beyond even the head of the Roman column.
A vista opened up before them. On their left was the screening line of hills—behind which the Roman column was soon to march — and then a plain and more hills beyond. Along the base of the hills coming toward them marched a vast column of the enemy. Infantry and cavalry, mixed.
“What is this?” Juba asked.
Dion’s eyes went wide. “We are the first to see them!” he said, understanding the situation at once.
At the crest of the adjacent hill, Juba spied a lone horseman, a black silhouette against the sky. More horsemen covered the hillside, moving up. The Iberians.
“They are preparing an ambush!” Juba said, turning quickly.
“What do we do?” Dion asked.
Heron’s eyes darted from Juba’s to Dion’s face. Juba ignored him.
“Back to Gelon,” he cried, giving heel to his horse. He kicked forcefully and the horse began to gallop. “Quickly!” he called. Turning to follow, the rest of the troop filed in behind him.
Thirty minutes later, Juba found Gelon riding at the head of the Syracusan legion, followed closely by the heavily armed Sacred Band cavalrymen. Juba reported what he had seen.
“I ordered your Eagles to stay close,” Gelon said, without turning his head. He wore his Greek-style helmet high on his forehead. Upon the formed representations of chest and pectoral muscles on his polished breastplate was the image of an eagle, intricately rendered. He sat straight and tall on his horse. Juba could see why the man had achieved such fame. His image alone was worthy of his renown.
“We were pursuing the enemy,” Juba explained.
“I ordered you to stay close. You are Syracusan scouts, not Roman.”
Juba was puzzled by Gelon’s lack of interest.
“But the Romans at the head of the column are going to be ambushed. The Carthaginians approach the hills en mass.”
Gelon did not respond.
“Do you hear me, Gelon?” Juba shouted, his temper flaring.
Gelon raised a hand, and said to his officer, “Call a halt. We will rest here.”
The officer shouted the order and the entire legion came to a halt. Juba could not believe his eyes.
“You are resting?” he asked. “I don’t believe this!”
Gelon turned his head and regarded him intently.
“You are my brother, Juba,” he said. “We should not have disagreements. We are both Syracusan. You must remember that. The Romans march at their pace, the Syracusans at mine. We are not slaves to Rome.”
“Does that mean we stand by while they are slaughtered?”
Gelon did not respond. He dismounted and approached a group of officers of the Sacred Band who were conferring together in a tight cluster. Gelon said something and all the men laughed.
Juba stared at him in confusion. He owed the man his life. But his behavior … it was unfathomable. Juba turned and rode back to his Eagles, fearful for what he knew was about to happen.
“Is that a man up there?” Caecilius asked.
He peered at the top of the ridge. There he saw what looked to be the black shape of a lone horseman, stark against a bright sky. He held a spear vertically in his right hand, a shield in his left. Sitting atop his motionless steed, he looked stately.
“Is he one of ours?” Caecilius asked, turning his head to those around him. He felt suddenly uneasy. He rode at the head of the extraordinarii, a mixed bag of infantry and cavalry, some 2,000 strong. They had entered a narrow defile on the last leg of their march to Segesta. Until this moment, he had felt triumphant. His aggressive move toward the enemy would be seen as a masterstroke. But they had entered a shadowed defile, and the man on the hill troubled him. He wanted someone to tell him that the man was a Roman, one of his scouts. His officers gawked at him vacantly.
“Well, is he, or is he not?” he snapped.
“By Jupiter, he is not!” one of the centurions said at last. He shot a look back at the six-hundred cavalrymen following him, as if he could pick out a missing trooper from the group.
“Where are our scouts?” Caecilius asked.
The centurion shrugged his shoulders. “They are out there,” he said. “Somewhere.”
“Then I must have that hill!” Caecilius exclaimed. He turned on his mount and took a swipe at the centurion. “Move! Both foot and horse! I will accompany.”
“Do you think that wise, sir?” he asked.
“Of course I think it wise, you oaf! Move!”
Caecilius was a man of action, an aggressive leader. He would show these sluggish dullards how to deal with an unknown situation. You did not wait for misfortunes to rain down on your head. You did not gawk mindlessly at a problem, you attacked it. Duilius had tolerated a listless, uninspired army. Caecilius would sharpen it on the grindstone of battle.
The centurion had rapidly assembled a force of 200 cavalry and thirty velites. The centurion by his side, Caecilius rode forward at the head of the detachment. With his large Greek shield strapped to his back, a spear in his hand, he felt like Leonidas himself. The veli
tes ran to keep up with the horses. Caecilius did not wait for them. He heeled his horse to ever-greater speed as he raced up the slope, the centurion and the equites right behind him.
At the top of the ridge, another man had appeared alongside the first. He was followed by another, and then another. Soon, a small handful of armed horsemen filled the ridge. They had seen the Romans. One of them began shouting orders at an unseen force on the reverse slope of the hill.
Caecilius reined up, and urged the equites forward. “Attack them!” he called. “Push them off this hill.”
The equites streamed past in a cloudburst of thundering hooves. The velites scrambled up after them, javelins held aloft.
Caecilius galloped after them. He raised his spear in triumph when the enemy turned and fled, vanishing down the reverse slope. The enemy was on the run. That was how it was done! You did not await the enemy, you attacked him! Aggressively, mercilessly!
His expression turned to a frown when he saw his equites pause at the summit. They reined up hard, turning this way and that on their horses to peer down the other side of the hill.
Caecilius rode up among them. He had half a mind to flail his spear at them. Cowards!
“What are you stopping for?” he bellowed. “The enemy is ours! Pursue them!”
He looked down the hill and his eyes widened with horror. Charging directly at him was a mass of formed infantry—thousands of them!—spears leveled. When they saw the tribune, they loosed a mighty war cry. The velites reached the top of the hill, and flung their pathetic javelins at them. They fell like raindrops upon the sea. Then they turned on their heels and ran.
“Retreat!” Caecilius cried. “We are under attack! We must form our infantry!”
He turned and led the equites back down the hill. As he approached level ground, his blood ran cold from the sight that unfolded before him. Streaming down the hill on the far side of the defile was a massive Carthaginian phalanx, preceded by a group of swarming cavalry. Behind him, the enemy crested the ridge and began to charge down. His extraordinarii was trapped between them.
“It is an ambush!”
The Roman foot in the defile formed a circle of shields. The equites clashed with the charging Carthaginian horse. Caecilius quickly shot a look back to the east. There was no sign of the trailing legion. Instead, he saw even more enemy horse streaming into the defile, closing off the retreat. The Roman cavalry struggled with the enemy, and Caecilius saw men of both sides fall. Soon, to a man, the equites began to flee. Most of them were cut down by the horse that swept into the defile from the east.
Caecilius felt panic rising in him at the sight of his equites in rout. He was paralyzed with fear. Just then, something wet splashed on the back of his neck, like the commencement of a rain shower. He looked over his shoulder and saw the bloody point of a heavy javelin protruding from the chest of his centurion, the man’s face a grimace of pain and shock. He heeled his horse at once and galloped blindly to the east, where safety lay, heedless of his men and the enemy and of the slaughter taking place all around him.
He somehow made it out of the defile alive. He found shelter with the legion that should have rushed to support him.
“We ourselves were under attack,” the commanding tribune explained. “From there.” He pointed to a flat space on the plain.
“They tricked you, you fool!” Caecilius bellowed. “They diverted you away from me — and you left my men to die!” He shoved the tribune away from him in disgust.
When they continued their march to Segesta, they followed the circling vultures into the defile. There they stopped to bury two-thousand dead Romans. The men worked silently. Caecilius never took his eyes off the horizon.
At Segesta, they found the Carthaginian siege lines abandoned. Hamilcar had withdrawn. Segesta was saved.
Caecilius, in command of 20,000 men that the Carthaginians had taken to be forty, had bluffed the enemy into leaving the city. Privately, he exulted in his victory, but he celebrated his achievement silently and alone.
Chapter 26
At last, the sight Hannibal had been longing for, the Roman fleet came into view. Stripped for action, the ships rowed toward the Carthaginian battle line under oar power alone, their masts either stored at their base in Messana or stowed away aboard the ships themselves. Having rowed or sailed, they had, of course, known where to find the Carthaginians. Hannibal had made sure of that.
Now, he peered excitedly into the distance, eager to see the Roman formation and numbers.
“A single line abreast,” the captain of the King of Epirus reported.
“Yes,” Hannibal said, with a curious expression. “They challenge us.” He would have expected a double line, a formation that would give the Romans the flexibility they would need to defeat a superior foe. Only a confident fleet would attack in line abreast. Hannibal’s own line of one-hundred-thirty ships was nearly two miles long.
“And look,” the captain said. “Some of the ships in the center are triremes. There…and there…” He pointed to two of the ships. They were interspersed among the larger quinqueremes.
“Curious,” Hannibal said. “Our own triremes are on the flanks. I don’t understand it. Why put them in the center?”
The captain shook his head and chuckled.
“General, I should point out that it is not just the Roman crews who lack experience, but their leadership. It does not surprise me that we cannot make sense of their arrangements.”
“Indeed!” Hannibal chuckled. “The men are eager. Captain, you may have the honor of ordering the attack.”
“Yes, sir!” the captain replied, his smile broadening. He called to the signalman to flag the attack.
An instant later, Hannibal heard the rowing officer below bark out his orders and the time-beater’s cadence quickened. The signalmen on the ships to his left and right began frantically waving their own flags, signaling the entire fleet. Officers bellowed orders. All along the line, others echoed their words until the quiet sea rang out with the fervency of the attack.
Hannibal sensed the eagerness of his men in the sudden rushing of the oars, he could hear it in the roar of his captains’ voices, and he could feel it in his own heart, the maddening zeal to destroy an enemy in one mighty clash of timber and bronze. He had known the Romans would come to Mylae to attack him. But, by the gods, it was foolish! What did they hope to gain?
“Look at them!” Hannibal cried out with glee. “They splash about hopelessly.”
“We will crush them!” the captain said.
“It is just as I witnessed at the Cape of Italy,” Hannibal observed. “Only this time there is no fog to save them.”
Behind him seated along the gunwales were 150 grim-faced soldiers, both light- and heavy-armed, ready for action. The other ships of the fleet, mostly quinqueremes, carried forty men each. Hannibal had divided his fleet into three sections. Boodes, with forty ships, commanded the left. Another of Hannibal’s lieutenants commanded the right, and Hannibal himself commanded the fifty ships of the center from the deck of his mighty septireme. He had off-loaded a thousand troops to hold the shore, the ravaged Cape of Mylae, to give his sailors a place of refuge should any of his ships be sunk.
Hannibal’s section raced ahead of the wings of his fleet. He had not delayed his own advance, not for an instant, and, having been the first to receive the attack order, his fifty pulled out ahead. The crisply uniform pull of the oars was thrilling, the feel of each dip and drag transmitted through the timbers of the deck until he could feel it inside him, like the peal of distant thunder. He gloried in it, even as his section lost its formation and the ships raced ahead in a ragged wedge.
The captain pointed this out.
“It is no matter,” Hannibal said. “My hounds scent blood!”
The Roman ships grew large, their oars straining in the waves. Hannibal saw full decks of soldiers. And on the bows—
“What is that on the bows of their ships?” the captain aske
d.
Hannibal squinted, trying to make out details. “I saw nothing like this on the fleet off Italy.” He squinted again, straining to get a good look, the wind in his face. But he could make nothing of it.
“Perhaps it is a catapult of some sort,” the captain said, scoffing. “It is not surprising that the Romans should employ tricks. Well, I say let them!”
“Yes, I’ve got a trick for them…There!” Hannibal said suddenly, pointing to a trireme to his left, off the forequarter. “There is our target!”
Instantly, the captain transmitted the orders to the rowing deck.
“To the aft!” Hannibal bellowed. He and the captain ran to the stern, where the helmsman awaited. “Brace yourselves, gentlemen!” Hannibal shouted to the soldiers, as they passed. “Be ready to deploy as needed,” he said to the infantry commander.
The great ship turned sharply and a Roman trireme seemed to fill the sea before them.
“We will smash it to pieces!” Hannibal cried. He could feel the despair of the pathetic little ship, its oars thrashing spasmodically.
But before the septireme could drive its ram home, Hannibal heard a great crash coming from his left. He looked expecting to see a Carthaginian ram piercing the hull of a hapless Roman. Instead he saw the strange device on the bow of a Roman ship, a quinquereme, come crashing down onto the foredeck of one of his fives. Both ships shuddered to a stop. Instantly, hordes of Roman soldiers surged across onto the deck of the five. They poured across endlessly, forming shield walls as they went—more and more of them. Hannibal watched in disbelief as the tiny contingent of Carthaginian soldiers on board fell under hails of javelin fire and was then buried under remorselessly stabbing blades.
Hannibal had no time to react. He was almost thrown from his feet when the King of Epirus’ ram drove home into the guts of the little trireme. The boarding bridge device remained tethered to its pole, the angle of the attack rendering it useless. He was expecting his ship to instantly back away to find other prey. But the ship made no move. He heard an ugly creaking from the bow and he felt a tug and jerk as the oars frantically backed water. The enemy ship shook from the force.
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