He drilled them mercilessly. He had learned a great deal in Iberia and he tried to convey it to his men and build upon it further. Each day brought more supplies in from the stores kept throughout the island, saw new weapons crafted and honed, filled the harbors of Sicily with the sails of more vessels. The seafaring cities of Etruria laid the keels of some thirty warships, preparing them in the remarkable time of forty-five days from the moment the trees were felled until the hour they sailed for Sicily. Laelius led scouting missions along the African coastline, looking for a place to land, surveying the cities there, getting an idea of their defenses, and making contacts with likely spies. He did not go near Carthage itself, for Publius had another target in mind. The intelligence that Laelius brought him revealed that all the pieces were in place.
The morning of their departure dawned gloriously clear, pleasantly warm, with just enough breeze to buffet the forty warships and hundreds of transports that bobbed in the harbor of Agrigentum. Publius himself called for silence on the ships. When this message had been passed on to all the vessels he invoked the presence of all the gods and goddesses of land and sea. He spoke the words he had practiced for this occasion, with nothing kind in them, but a plainspoken demand that the divine forces aid them in bringing to Carthage all of the terror and suffering Carthage had unloosed on Rome. And he asked that they further be allowed to press the matter to a conclusion, so that the men of Rome and all those allied with her could return to their countries laden with treasure, with plunder enough that they could bury their chins in the bosom of it and forget the strife that had been inflicted on them. He sacrificed a cream-colored bull with a star splash of white on its forehead, slung the entrails into the sea, and watched how they floated on the surface. Finding the picture to his liking, he gave a signal to this effect. A rolling, irregular roar traveled from ship to ship, a great cacophony of voices and horns and bells that some swore must have carried all the way across the water and set the Africans trembling.
They sailed through that day on a middling wind and made slow progress through the night as a thick fog blanketed the sea. Even so, first light brought the shoreline of Africa into hazy view. So near as that, Publius thought. So near to us as that. The first point of land, the captain called the Promontory of Mercury. Publius liked this well enough, but ordered that they carry on to the west. The next morning the captain called out that he had sighted the Cape of the Beautiful One. This, the consul believed, was just the place for them, not far at all from Cirta, but at a good enough distance for him to get his troops to land and into order.
At the sight of them the peasants along the shore ran in fear, grabbing up everything they could carry and kicking their children and livestock before them. Laelius asked if they should chase them down and stop them from sounding the alarm. Publius answered in the negative. In fact, he quite wanted the alarm sounded. Let it ring all the way to Carthage, all the way across the plains of Libya, to the Atlas Mountains and back. The farther away they heard the call, the better.
With the entire army on land, they at once began to march on Cirta. Most of the troops under Publius' command now had not been with him in Iberia, and many of them grumbled at this first move. They were heading in the wrong direction! Why go west when Carthage was to the east and stood undefended? But, as had proved prudent in the past, Publius kept his own counsel.
Some distance outside the city, a delegation from Syphax approached under a banner of parley. Publius agreed to hear them. The message they brought was that the king himself wished to meet with Publius. He believed they had spoken once as reasonable men and could do so again now. Publius sent back saying that the situation was much altered from their last meeting. He came not to talk now but with an army actively at war with Carthage. He said that he knew of Syphax' marriage into the Barca family, and he knew that Hanno Barca was at that very moment raising troops among the Libyans, while several Barca women resided in Cirta. He had every reason to believe that the state of war now stretched to include Syphax' people. Unless the Libyan king renounced his allegiance with Carthage immediately and completely, he faced an imminent clash of arms.
To this Syphax responded with his sincerest hope that it need not come to that. True, he was married into the house of Barca and therefore to the fate of Carthage. Hannibal's wife and elder sister had accompanied his new bride and were in his care at present, but he was still a ruler of his people and capable of making his own decisions. Indeed, this situation placed him in a special position that might benefit them all. Before he need consider breaking with his beloved wife, he again proposed that he mediate between Rome and Carthage. This conflict had gone on too long, too many had died, enough had been destroyed, and both sides had been shown to be great powers evenly met. Hanno, as a commander on African soil, had authority to make arrangements by which his brother in Italy would have to abide. Let them here work out a peace wherein Hannibal withdrew from Italy and Scipio sailed home. Do not answer rashly, but consider that the bloodshed could end with words instead of the sword. Did this not promise benefits to Rome so great that they deserved considering?
When the two of them stepped away from the delegation to ponder this, Laelius asked Publius, “Do you believe he is sincere?”
“He is a jackal,” Publius answered.
Laelius considered this for a moment. “But a sincere jackal?”
In answer, Publius told Syphax that he owed it to his people and to the brave men of his army to explore the possibility of ending this conflagration peaceably. He would consent to a meeting with the king, but only after they had corresponded on enough details to verify that such a conference would yield results. Syphax agreed.
While this got under way, Publius had his army camp on the plains, about a half-day's ride from the city. An equal distance away lay the enemy's camp, a site that had long been used by the Libyans to house troops in training and keep armies of raucous men outside the city itself. Through informers whom Laelius had recruited on his early reconnaissance missions along the coast, Publius knew a great deal about the army he was to face. Syphax had a core of well-trained soldiers, some who fought as spearmen in the manner of the Greek phalanx, others whose primary weapon was the sword. These fought standing side by side, with the edges of their feet touching, slicing like so many butchers at whatever came near them. They carried wooden, hide-covered shields, but their work was more suited to attack than defense.
These men posed as serious a threat as any trained by Hannibal, but much of Syphax' army comprised troops newly called to service from throughout his empire. He had no system for training and formation to match that of the Roman legion, and therefore aimed to prevail through sheer quantity of fighting men alone. Soldiers drifted in like hyenas drawn to a kill. They came singly and in tribal bands, lone creatures who looked after themselves foremost. They were clad in leopard and cheetah and lion skins, burly-armed and long-legged, some with enormous locks of hair like a hundred snakes, others with shaved heads tattooed in imitation of their spirit animals. They carried a wild variety of weapons, many ghastly in appearance: spears of differing sizes and functions, pikes with many-pronged heads, flails that ripped divots of skin loose with each strike, harpoons attached to cords so that a pierced man could be yanked off his feet. One group had chosen the ax as their favored weapon and each of these wore the shriveled remainder of their enemies' severed limbs to attest to their weapons' utility. A band from a seashore people to the west appeared with small round shields encrusted with coral, carrying tridents so heavy that a man once penetrated by their points was thereafter anchored to the spot and could be dispatched with a small shell knife.
The ranks of the African army swelled from one day to the next. Clearly, this was just what Syphax hoped for, and Laelius again and again asked Publius when they were going to act. He feared the enemy would number thirty thousand soon. Forty or fifty thousand before long. Who knew how many sand-colored men would eventually step out of the landscape? Their ow
n troops were only twelve thousand strong. How long could they wait? Each day their number grew, and each day Hanno had more time to shape them into a more cohesive—
“How many died at Cannae?” Publius interrupted.
“You know the number,” Laelius replied.
“Yes, I do,” Publius said, as if this were answer enough to the whole line of questioning.
A week into the slow negotiations, Publius commented that the Libyans had not expanded the boundaries of their camp. No doubt in a desire to conceal their numbers, they contained their growing bulk behind the original perimeter. This structure was formidable, built as it was of stout, gnarled hardwood, woven into a tight wall bristling with thorns as long as a man's finger. It was not a new kind of defense, but had been improved over the years. It was formidable, Publius pointed out, but it was also wooden. For that matter, the huts in the Libyan camp were built mostly of reed and thatch. The Carthaginian contingent, following its custom, built in earth and dried wood. What the camp now presented was a wealth of fuel, contained in a smallish area, crammed with men and animals, supplies and clothing and foodstuffs. The only things not vulnerable to fire were metal objects, and rings or cups, spears or axes, which had never harmed anyone of their own volition.
His companion, as ever, searched in this observation for the course Publius was formulating and then began to see it, unclearly, in outline.
Still the negotiations went on. Syphax had first to convince Publius that Hanno was committed to the possibility of peace. Then Publius needed proof that Hanno had the authority to conclude an agreement. After that, they began a back-and-forth on basic conditions that had to be agreed upon before they went any further. Some among Publius' own staff grumbled that they were playing into Syphax' hands. Though this was never said within his hearing, Publius learned that some of his men believed he had been stricken with fear and wanted to conclude a peace without further risk so that his previous successes would not be overshadowed by a failure. This opinion was hard to refute, for his plan needed to mature. He let them talk.
To Laelius, he noted the tendency of the wind to rise after sunset and gust for some hours as the earth adjusted to the change of day into night.
Nine days into the negotiations, Masinissa arrived at the head of nearly two thousand mounted Massylii. Publius could not help but comment to Laelius on the strangeness of watching the African horsemen ride calmly into his camp. The last time he had beheld such a sight he was looking on his sworn enemy; this time, however, he did his best to put their previous relationship behind them, to dismiss it as a historical detail, not something to trouble them with suspicions now. At least, so he declared publicly, in his opening remarks. Masinissa's people introduced him using the title of king. Publius did not hesitate to take up the term. Why not? Either it would become true in practice, or the young man would die in the effort. That much was clear.
Masinissa, at their first meeting, reiterated the other officers' nervous views on the swelling army of Libyans. Although he spoke no Latin, he could make himself understood in Greek, which pleased the consul almost as much. Publius calmed him, saying that when the time came his men would be in a position to slaughter as many of them as they could hold pebbles in their hand. Publius noted that the young man looked often in the direction of Cirta. He knew why, but for the time being he said nothing.
By the eleventh day, it seemed they had corresponded through messengers for as long as they could. In the final few days Syphax and Hanno increasingly set out demands that proved them scoundrels. In return for ending hostilities and pulling Hannibal back from Italy, they not only wanted Publius' withdrawal from Africa, they also required that Iberia be largely returned to Carthaginian hands and that ports captured by Hannibal in Italy be traded for the Roman-controlled ports on Sicily. They proposed that neither side actually admit defeat at the other's hand; thus Carthage would not be required to pay a war indemnity to make amends for the damage done to the Roman people. And they wanted Masinissa handed over into Syphax' custody.
None of these terms were acceptable. Publius believed that Hanno well understood this, but perhaps his hand was forced by representatives of his council. Or, perhaps, with the fifty-some-thousand men in their camp, they believed they held the advantage. In any event, the consul put aside whatever compunction he might have had about his plans and sent back his reply. It was agreed. They would meet in person in two days' time, on the neutral ground between their camps, just after first light. Hanno and Syphax should both be present. And they, like Publius himself, should have spent the preceding evening in prayer and purification, so that all they said the following day would be kindly looked upon by the gods.
Only on the morning before the arranged meeting did Publius call his generals together and lay before them the complete situation as he saw it, answering all their questions in a single meeting. Of course he was not considering the terms of the enemy's offer. He had never intended to. He had put Carthage to their backs deliberately, not to avoid the issue but to win it more conclusively. The simple fact was that Carthage had no army inside its walls. There were riches in there, fat men and beautiful women and slaves enough for a city twice as large, but there were few fighting men. Carthage had never been a nation of citizen soldiers, and this was their great weakness. They preferred to elevate men of genius to military leadership and then buy temporary armies as required. Hannibal had changed this, to some extent, but Hannibal was not in Africa. The people of Carthage believed themselves safe inside their city's massive fortifications. They could easily hold out for months; they had done so in the past. As they could all see, Hanno Barca and King Syphax had gathered for themselves a sizable force here beside Cirta. Why so?
“Is it not clear that the Carthaginians had hoped that we would attack Carthage?” Publius asked. “Once we had done that and were entrenched, committed, limited to the grounds that the enemy had for generations shaped for its defenses, then and only then would their massive army attack us, not from the city itself but from behind our backs. They would have chosen the spot, the time, the circumstances. They'd have marched in with one unified force under their best commanders, numbering the exact maximum they could muster. This, at least, is what they wished. But something very different will take place.
“This war began with deceit and trickery,” Publius said. “Now it will end by the same.”
There was some debate about what Publius then proposed, but it was halfhearted. The generals all saw its deadly efficiency and knew that any other course might mean their doom. Accordingly, the evening before the scheduled meeting, the various generals led their men out and into positions near the Libyan camp. They waited until dark and, letting their men's eyes adjust, marched with no torchlight to give them away. Each corps carried a red-hot ember in an earthenware jar, wrapped in leather to insulate it and pierced with air holes to feed the coal.
When Publius judged the hour right, he took a reed whistle and played a wistful melody. Others picked it up and passed it on, as had been arranged. With this, the keepers of the coals in four different areas tipped them onto the dry timbers they had prepared. Men huddled close around each of these, protecting the infant flame from the wind that had begun to blow. As soon as the red glow flared into gold tongues, men came forward with torch after torch.
Publius, from where he stood at a distance to take in the whole scene, saw the lights multiply from a few small points into many moving flames. He watched as four fires became hundreds, carried by men in sweeping movements that fanned out all around the camp. He knew the moment the first torches touched the thorny perimeter wall. And he saw how moments later the torches leaped in somersaulting arcs, landing among the reed-and-wood structures. With the evening wind buffeting across it all, it was a matter of a few breaths before the whole place was aflame. The dry wood and reeds went up as quickly as lamp oil.
The Africans woke and at first none understood the horror that was afoot. A few guards shouted alarms, but
they were unheeded. Men ran out of the camp's few exits in disarray, bleary-eyed, often weaponless. They stumbled, pushing each other, in a frenzy, some of them swatting at their burning garments. Then they were cut down by what to them seemed to be soldiers the shape and color and consistency of flame, who stepped out of the gloom with sword and spear. Within moments there were so many bodies piled by the entrances that the Romans had trouble planting their feet. Or perhaps it was fear that made them clumsy, for the scene before them soon became a vision of hellish agony. By the time the third and fourth contingents of soldiers had replaced those stationed at the exits, they were not soldiers but angels of mercy, cutting down the flaming, maddened, humanlike figures that ran howling out into their last escape.
In the full light of the following day the army took in the scene with hushed amazement. The camp was a blackened wasteland. Demons of smoke drifted through the charred remains, bodies in every imaginable contortion, man and beast likewise reduced to black, shriveled versions of their former selves. The charred poles and skins that had been shelters could have been carcasses too. Syphax had, of course, been in the camp to perform the purification rites. Publius had required these especially for this purpose—to keep him out of the city and away from his new bride. He had been captured during the night and now sat bound by the arms and legs. He stared with unreasoning eyes at the scene around him and yelled curses at Publius, at Rome and the gods of Rome. He called them all liars and scoundrels and said that history would know their perfidy. A day would come when all of their sins returned to plague them manyfold.
Pride of Carthage Page 57