Total War Rome: Destroy Carthage

by David Gibbins

  First up was the execution of deserters, an event that Scipio was obliged to witness as an army officer; he and Fabius had arrived only a few minutes ahead of the first bullock cart, so there was little time to lose. They picked their way up the tiers of seats past the elegantly coiffeured matrons and their children and the men in togas, some of them wearing the purple-rimmed senatorial toga and bearing laurel wreaths on their heads, awards for civic accomplishment. Among them was a scattering of men in uniform, including Julia’s brother Sextus Julius Caesar, a fellow tribune who had also served in Macedonia, and their distinguished father of the same name, a decorated veteran of the Battle of Zama who nodded gravely at Scipio and returned their salute as he and Fabius passed.

  Julia was standing apart from the other women of her gens in the upper tier with her two slave girls in attendance, and waved to Scipio and Fabius as they approached. She was not arrayed like the others and looked as if she had just returned from one of her secret sessions in the academy, her wavy hair loosely tied back and falling over her shoulders, her robe belted around her waist to reveal the firm curves of her hips and breasts. She was not allowed to wear any military ornamentation but carried an ancient family heirloom, a winged helmet of Attic Greek design with the eagle emblem of the Caesares embossed on the front. It was a small act of defiance that Fabius knew her father had allowed her, against the wishes of her mother and the other Vestals. Standing there with the helmet she looked as if she had been cut from the same mould as the caryatid sculptures that Fabius had seen on the Acropolis in Athens, yet finished in a manner that was wholly Roman; she had the straight nose and high cheekbones of the Caesares family, and the auburn hair and large eyes of her mother. As she turned to greet them she looked radiant, with none of the sadness that Fabius had seen in her since Metellus had returned, and he hoped that, like Scipio, she would be able to enjoy this evening and forget the future, the life that she would have to lead as a matron of the gens Metelli in the years ahead.

  The crowd had already begun shouting and jeering, and Fabius saw the first in a line of wagons drawn by oxen trundle into view from the direction of the Forum. Each wagon bore a large iron cage, and as the first one came closer he could see a female African lion pacing to and fro inside, its eyes bloodshot and its tongue hanging out. He knew it would be half-crazed with hunger, its body lean from days of starvation in advance of the spectacle. Behind each wagon a man staggered with his hands bound behind his back and his ankles loosely shackled, a long rope extending from his wrists to the cage and another from a halter around his neck to a muscle-bound gladiator behind, dressed in the full armour of a bestiarius and cracking a whip every few moments against the prisoner’s back.

  From a wagon somewhere behind, a lion roared, the sound rumbling through the stand like an earthquake, and the crowd hollered and bayed. They all knew what was coming next; the prisoners had been condemned damnatio ad bestias. Aemilius Paullus had shown mercy to many of those captured at Pydna, to the Macedonians themselves and to a few of the Thracian mercenaries suited to gladiator training, but any prisoner who was marched through a triumph in chains had only been temporarily spared. The plebs knew it, and would howl at any show of clemency. And these prisoners were the worst, not enemies but deserters, men whose former comrades and families were among those baying for their blood in the crowd today. Rome might send her men out garlanded and feted for war, but those who failed in courage or fortitude must know that they would be treated more harshly than any enemy, returned to Rome shackled and humiliated, brought to justice before those same crowds whose trust and expectations they had so grossly betrayed.

  At intervals along the road thick wooden poles like crucifixion posts had been sunk into the ground, but instead of a crossbeam an iron loop had been attached to the upper ends. As each wagon drew up at a post, the crowd retreated to form a circular space, those in the front row holding hands and pressing back to make enough room. At the post nearest to them Fabius watched the beast-master alight from beside the wagon driver, go to the back of the cage and untie the rope that led to the prisoner’s wrists, and pass the end through the loop on the post before handing it to the bestiarius. He then reached into the cage and hauled out a coil of chain that was attached to an iron collar around the lion’s neck, hooking the other end to the loop on the pole. At a signal from the bestiarius the driver whipped the bullocks and the wagon lurched forward, causing the rear of the cage to open and the lion to leap out, its neck caught violently on the chain as it pulled taut. Enraged, the beast tossed its head and roared, then charged headlong at the crowd until the chain brought it short again, causing it to sprawl on the ground and snarl and chafe against the collar. It tried again, hurtling itself in the other direction, and then got up and paced around the edge of the clearing, slavering and pawing at the crowd, its claws sweeping within inches of the boys who dared each other to leap out in front. Fabius remembered when he had done it himself, dicing with death many times, goading the lion with severed bull’s legs they had taken from carcasses beside the sacrificial altars in the Field of Mars; the priests always left cuts of meat for this very purpose, remembering their own fun as boys when baiting the lions and acquiring scars was the quickest way to earn esteem as a street warrior.

  The crowd went silent, watching the lion as it paced round and round. The bestiarius kept the rope to the prisoner’s hands taut, releasing enough slack through the loop so that the man could strain back and keep close to the edge of the crowd, just beyond the lion’s reach. Each time the lion came close, the boys tried to push the man forward, and on the third occasion he stumbled and the lion swiped at him before he could lurch back, ripping the side of his face off and pulling out one eye. The man screamed, falling to his knees, a bloody flap of skin hanging below his chin. Sometimes the bestiarius would allow more baiting, until the victim was nearly flayed alive, but this time he knew that the crowd had been stoked up and wanted gratification. He suddenly heaved on the rope and the prisoner lurched forward, tripping and twisting as the rope pulled his wrists up the pole until he was dangling from it, his feet kicking and shaking uncontrollably, his one remaining eye following the lion as it paced around him. The moment the lion stopped and looked at him, realizing that he was now within reach, the bestiarius released his hold on the rope and heaved on the one from the prisoner’s neck, hauling him back to safety just in time. The crowd roared, and Fabius could see the prisoner more clearly now, grey with terror, his legs brown with faeces.

  The bestiarius stood with his feet planted apart and his chest puffed out, and bellowed at the crowd. ‘Is the lion hungry?’

  The crowd roared again.

  ‘Shall we feed him?’

  Another roar, and the bestiarius dropped the neck rope and pulled on the other as hard as he could, his muscles rippling and taut, heaving the man up the pole again until he was dangling off the ground, his feet kicking frantically and his head twisting from side to side in terror as the lion continued to pace the perimeter, eyeing him now, flexing its shoulders and then coming to a halt and pawing the ground.

  In a flash it leapt, and the crowd gasped. It happened so quickly that the man had no time to scream. The lion sank its jaws into his back and wrenched him from the pole, shaking him violently to and fro, breaking his bones just as if he were a beast caught on the plains of Africa. The bestiarius released the rope entirely and stood back with the crowd. A fountain of blood erupted from the man’s neck, spraying the boys in the front row. The lion dropped his body, sat down on his haunches and began to eat. It took a huge bite from the man’s chest, crunching through the ribs and leaving a gaping hole in his side, ripping out one lung and swallowing it, the windpipe and arteries hanging down from its jaw. It slurped them up and took another mouthful, this time from the abdomen, gorging itself on the man’s stomach and intestines, its face dripping with blood and bile.

  Scipio turned to Julia, who had been watching with rapt attention. ‘That’s the end of the ente
rtainment here,’ he said. ‘It will carry on all night in the Field of Mars, but I promised my friend Terence that I’d look in at the play he’s put on specially for the games, in the peristyle garden of his patron Terentius’ house on the Palatine. Before then, Polybius and I have arranged to meet. I want to tell him something that Terence told me, and Polybius apparently has something to tell me. Will you come along?’

  ‘My mother will find I’m missing, and send out the Vestals to hunt me down,’ Julia said, smiling. ‘But that’ll make it more fun. She’s not watching now, so we can go.’

  They stood up, making their way through the others seated on the stand, Fabius following them. Already the crowd around the lion had begun to disperse, some moving to the other wagons where the executions had yet to happen, others heading off towards the Field of Mars. Fabius glanced at the lion as they passed by, its stomach visibly bloated, the man’s dismembered body reduced to a mess of blood and bone. The lion had taken the man’s head in its jaws and crushed it as they passed. He remembered the feast that would follow the sacrifice of the bulls in the Forum, and the slabs of meat that the priests would hand out to be roasted on a fire below the rostrum. Fabius had promised to meet Hippolyta’s slave girl Eudoxia there later on, so he hoped that Scipio and Julia would not stay too long at the play. He was already beginning to feel hungry.

  * * *

  Back in the Forum they met Polybius inside the Basilica Aemilia, the great law court where he had been addressing a gathering of Greek scholars and teachers who had been brought by Aemilius Paullus to Rome for the triumph. As they arrived, he was seeing off a cluster of white-robed men with flowing grey beards and unshorn hair, holding wound-up scrolls and staring haughtily ahead. Scipio turned to Polybius, grinning. ‘Unless I’m mistaken, my father has captured Greek philosophy and brought it to Rome.’

  ‘They are not captives, but a delegation from Athens,’ Polybius muttered. ‘Come at your father’s invitation to teach the miscreant youths of Rome how to think.’

  ‘You sound sceptical, Polybius.’

  ‘I’ve seen what it’s like in Athens. The wisdom of the true philosophers, of Socrates and Plato and Aristotle, has been diluted and debased, by men who think that wearing the robe of a teacher and sporting a flowing white beard qualifies them for our esteem. Most are men like those ones: constitutionally incapable of original thought, yet trying to peddle their muddled ideas to the weak and the gullible. Rome is like a bright but uneducated youth, eager for learning, but with no critical facility. These men do not teach philosophy, but mere sophistry, wordplay, and will only speak in riddles as the Sibyl does, but without the benefit of Apollo to guide them.’

  ‘You underestimate us, Polybius,’ Scipio said, looking at him with mock seriousness. ‘To most of us these men are mere ornaments, like those bronzes and paintings we took from Macedonia. They will provide after-dinner entertainment in the villas of Rome and Neapolis, at Herculaneum and Stabiae. It will doubtless become imperative to have a Greek philosopher among one’s slaves, just as it has become the fashion to have a Greek doctor and Greek musicians. But they’d better have some good tricks up their sleeves. Nobody at those dinner parties will actually listen to what they say. They will be mere performers.’

  ‘Even so, Scipio, I know you will attend their lectures. You are too inquisitive to stay away. Beware of Greeks speaking in forked tongues.’

  Julia nudged him. ‘Does that include you, Polybius?’

  Scipio laughed, and slapped Polybius on the back. ‘Not a chance. What Polybius really loves is the war horse and the boar spear. Isn’t that right, Polybius? That’s why you’re so fascinated by us Romans. You love our practicality. For you, to study history is not to muse about the human condition like a philosopher, but to understand past battles and find out the best way to use a skirmishing line or deploy light cavalry. Am I right?’

  Polybius eyed him keenly. ‘Speaking of hunting, I hear that your father has given you the Macedonian Royal Forest as a coming-of-age present. Did you know that I learned to hunt there as a boy? It has the best boar in any forest south of the Alps.’

  Scipio glanced at Julia. ‘See what I mean? Mention boar spear, and he’s yours.’ He turned back to Polybius, grinning. ‘You’re right. I can’t wait to get there. But it’s really only a temporary present while Macedonia is my father’s personal fiefdom, in the afterglow of Pydna. In a few years’ time he reckons that Rome will try to annex Macedonia as a province, and they’ll send out a praetor. The forest will no longer be mine to hunt in, so now’s my chance.’

  ‘You said you wanted to see me,’ Polybius said.

  Scipio nodded, suddenly serious. ‘Since we last saw you, Publius Terentius Afer has been telling Fabius and me about Carthage.’

  ‘Terence the playwright? You keep interesting friends.’

  Scipio nodded. ‘Terence was a slave in Carthage, and his mother was an Afri from the Berber tribes of Libya, related to Gulussa’s Numidians. Do you remember the model of Carthage I made in the academy?’

  ‘The one you used to plan a possible assault on the city? I remember wondering how you’d got the details. I’d been meaning to ask you, but then the call to arms got in the way. Rome hasn’t bothered having spies in Carthage since the end of the war against Hannibal, and now Romans who try to enter the city are turned away. It is said that great construction works are afoot, but all of it behind the high sea walls and so invisible to ships sailing by.’

  Scipio glanced behind. ‘Tell him, Fabius.’

  Fabius cleared his throat. ‘My mother worked in the household of the senator Publius Terentius Lucanus, who kept Terence as a slave and freed him after educating him and seeing his talents as a playwright. Terence and I became friends while he was still a slave. He told me that Carthage was far better for hide-and-seek than Rome, because of the tightly clustered houses around the foot of the Byrsa, the acropolis hill. When Scipio years later said that he was planning to build a model of Carthage, I brought Terence along and he advised on the construction.’

  ‘Do you remember how I war-gamed the assault?’ Scipio said, turning back to Polybius. ‘I said that too often we just focus on the obviously defensible features: the walls, the temples, the arsenals. Those features were all that the veterans of the last war against Carthage were able to tell me about, but that was before I met Terence. He told me about the ring of ancient houses that surround the Byrsa, to a depth equivalent of two or three of our tenement blocks. Think of the houses of the plebs that surround us now in Rome, pressing up against the edge of the Forum. A general planning an assault on Rome would hardly concern himself with them, because they’re in city blocks and you could march straight past them down the streets towards the Forum. If there was any resistance, you’d simply torch them because they’re mostly wood and plaster. No defender worth his salt would set up a position there, but would instead fall back on the stone buildings of the Forum.’

  ‘But Carthage must be different,’ Polybius said pensively. ‘There’s less timber available in Africa, so more use of stone for even the rudest of dwellings.’

  Scipio nodded enthusiastically. ‘Precisely. Those houses seen by Terence are made of stone: the walls from upright pillars, the spaces in between filled with masonry. Terence says they’ve inset wooden beams as joists for the floors, but you wouldn’t be able to burn them easily unless you could rain fire through the roof. For that, you’d need siege engines, or catapults on ships anchored close up to the sea wall. And the houses themselves are like a rabbit warren, not laid out in regular blocks but with narrow alleyways and rooftop walkways, as well as underground cisterns in each house where defenders could lurk. That’s what Terence meant about hide-and-seek. An assaulting force within a stone’s throw of the Byrsa might think they’d won the day, but they’d be sorely mistaken. The elite forces of mercenaries and special guards who are usually the last to hold out in a siege – the ones who know they’d be shown no mercy if they were to surrender �
� could organize a defence in depth and make the assault force pay dearly for it, at precisely the time when the legionaries would have begun to turn their thoughts to victory and booty. The assault commander would have to ensure that they kept up the momentum and rolled forward into those houses with the bloodlust still high. It’s a tactical insight I wanted to share with you. I’ve been thinking of Carthage again, Polybius. I’ve got Terence to thank for that.’

  Polybius gave him a wry smile. ‘Well, I’ve always been sceptical about playwrights. But now I can see they have their uses.’ He stood up and looked through the columns of the entrance at the massed ranks of Latin troops who had begun to march past them along the Sacred Way, the beginning of a long procession of victorious allies who followed on behind the legionaries and the spoils of war. ‘You’d better get going and get your dose of drama before the evening festivities really take off. I’ve just spotted Demetrius of Syria with his bodyguards, and I want to catch him for any intelligence about another upstart who’s claiming the succession from Perseus in Macedonia. It’s not often that you get so many of Rome’s allies in the city at one time, and I need to use the opportunity.’