"We will find a way," Echaz assured her.
Mastanabal was a tall, lean man with the clas-sic Carthaginian looks: swarthy complexion, dark brows beetling above a beaklike nose, curly black hair and beard. His deep-lined, weathered face showed every day of his twenty years of hard campaigning. Even when Carthage was not at war, there had always been bandits and pirates to suppress and insurrections to put down.
Ten days before he had arrived by ship and taken over command of the army gathered for the incursion into northern Italy. "The Divine Shofet Hamilcar, descendant of Hannibal the Great, has ordered that the invasion of Italy is to commence forthwith," he had announced. "I want every man I am to command assembled for my inspection immediately. We shall perform the sacrifices and take the omens and we shall march upon the first day pleasing to the gods of Carthage."
He did not tell them that this would not be a part of the main attack on Rome, which would not come for a few months, at least. There was no need for them to know such things. Their task was to obey the shofet's commands. Nor was he dismayed by the task before him. He had seen the Romans in action in Egypt, and he had been impressed. But for all their skill and professionalism, they were but men, and men could be beaten and killed.
He knew further that the four legions of the Egyptian campaign were lost somewhere in the East, and the Romans were massively committed to the conquest of Sicily and must even now be massing that army for an attack on Africa, on Carthage itself. He had an excellent chance of meeting an inferior force of green troops in northern Italy, and smashing them. The Romans were raising legions so fast that surely they could not all be trained and equipped to the highest standards.
Now he rode along the massed ranks of his army, and as he passed each unit, the men raised their arms and cheered. The hand of Carthage lay lightly upon Spain, for it was an invaluable resource far beyond its value as a source of horses, cattle and metal ore. For centuries, Spain had provided Carthage with mercenaries. Its many tribes produced a profusion of warriors, their skills honed by constant intertribal warfare. Many of them had no trade save that of war. Most were a mixture of Celt and native Iberian, now merged.
They were a dark people for the most part, their black hair dressed in long plaits hanging from the temples, the hair at back flowing free or gathered into a net.
Most wore white tunics with colorful borders, but the Callaici, Astures, Cantabri and Vascones wore black. From the northeast and the central plateau came the Arevaci, the Pelendones, the Berones, the Caretani and others. From the west came Lusitani and Turdetani. From the foot of the Pyrenees came the Ilergetes and Auretani. Some were horsemen, wonderfully skilled with lance and javelin.
Most were light infantry. Many carried a small, round buckler called a caetra, though some retained the long, oval shield of their Celtic ancestors. Their favored weapon was the falcata: a peculiar sword with a downcurving blade, sharpened along its inner edge, its spine thick to add weight to the blow. It was a slashing weapon and could sever a man's leg with ease. Many also carried the short, straight sword the Romans called the gladius hispaniensis, which they had adopted for their own legions. Each Spanish swordsman carried a number of javelins, and these slender weapons were often forged entirely of steel. Some wore helmets but few bothered with armor.
From the Greek colonies of the coast came hoplites: men with large, old-fashioned round shields; helmets, cuirasses and greaves of polished, bronze; armed with long spears and short swords. They would be his heavy infantry and hold the center of the battle line. Greece had long fallen from its military preeminence, but Greek soldiers fought all over the lands of the Middle Sea. Unlike the brave but disorganized tribal peoples, the Greeks understood discipline and the importance of maintaining formation.
The rest were a rabble of Libyans, Gauls, islanders and others; slingers from the Belearics, Cretan archers, even a few hundred black spearmen, barbarously painted, their hair plastered with mud and bearing shields of zebra hide. Sadly, Hamilcar had allowed him no elephants.
At the head of the formation Hasdrubal's command staff awaited him: Carthaginian nobles, Greek professionals and some Spanish chieftains. They watched him expectantly, their eyes bright, eager for the war to come.
"Let's go to Italy," said Mastanabal.
Off they set, an army massive by the standards of most kings, but a trifling force by Carthaginian standards. And as it progressed, it grew larger. Their trek along the coast, shadowed by the Carthaginian fleet, took them through territory occupied by Carthaginian tributaries, and from each they levied troops. From Spain they passed into southern Gaul, and here many Gallic warriors, eager for action and loot, joined them. At Massilia, the principal port, they collected more Greek troops and the Carthaginian garrison. A few days march past Massilia they entered Cisalpine Gaul, the Gallic territory of northern Italy. They were now in the area called Liguria, once owned by Rome. They had as yet seen no trace of Roman occupation. This was as Mastanabal had anticipated. The Romans were not worried about attack from the north, despite their disastrous experience with Hannibal. He would teach them their error.
Near Genua the coast turned southward and they entered the peninsula of Italy proper. At each town Mastanabal's officers questioned locals. Yes, the Romans had come through, surveying and taking a census, but they had seen no Romans for months. There was said to be a garrison at Pisae, on the Arnus River.
The coastal road was wretched, little more than a goat track, so progress was not swift. His light cavalry rode ahead of the army, intercepting and killing any mounted man they saw, to prevent word of the advancing army from preceding it. Thus they arrived unannounced upon the plain east of the delta of the Arnus, near the minor town of Pisae, where a Roman army lay encamped.
Decimus Aemilius, propraetor for northwestern Italy, awoke to a pleasant morning in one of the most pleasant parts of the peninsula. The land was wonderfully fertile and occupied by diligent peasants. He had decided that, when the present war concluded, he would petition the Senate for lands here. He belonged to a minor branch of the great Aemilian gens, and the ancestral Aemilian lands to the south had already been reclaimed by the more prestigious members of the family. No matter, he thought. From what he had seen, he liked this district better than the central and southern peninsula.
He was not flawlessly happy. It grated that he had not been given a more important army and a part in the Sicilian campaign. Not much chance of that, he thought. Not with the great consular families fighting tooth and nail for every commission. Still, he knew he had little cause to complain. There would be campaigning for the rest of his lifetime, and glittering opportunities would fall his way. Even as he had the thought, something fell his way.
He became aware of a growing clamor outside his praetorium and was about to investigate when his legate, Servius Aelius Buteo, burst in. "There's a Carthaginian army on the field to the north!"
"What! How did they get here?"
"At a guess I'd say they walked," Buteo told him. "And they didn't come alone. A scout just rode in and reported a fleet off Pisae."
Aemilius shouted for his orderly, and scrambled into his field armor. With his helmet beneath his arm, he strode from the tent, Buteo walking beside him. His orderly, his trumpeter and his secretary followed behind.
"Hamilcar couldn't counterattack so fast. And why here?" Aemilius said.
"Maybe the report of the fire at Carthage was exaggerated," Buteo said. "Maybe he's invading anyway, on two fronts."
"Not that it matters," Aemilius said. "If they're out there, we have to stop them. If they get through us, they'll go all the way to Rome, and except for what we have here, all our legions are down in the South. Rome is unprotected."
They came to the camp wall and ascended the tower flanking the gate called the porta praetoria. From its top platform they surveyed the spectacle to the north, aghast. A huge host stood there, arranged in three great blocks, with flanking cavalry. They were ominously silent. Roman s
oldiers along the wall were jabbering at one another, some of them forgetting their Latin and speaking their native Celtic and German dialects.
"Professionals or at least well-drilled militia in the center," Aemilius said, his voiced schooled to calm despite the sick feeling in his stomach. "Those great mobs on the flanks are barbarians. How many do you make them?"
Buteo spat over the front rail. "Thirty thousand if there's a buggering one of them. And they've ten times our strength in cavalry."
And what do I have? Aemilius thought. Two legions plus auxiliaries, and not full strength at that, not even fifteen thousand total strength. The odds would not have dismayed him had the legions been veteran, but they were newly raised troops just down from Noricum, only their senior centurions men of long experience. They had been drilled long and hard, but even the best training was not combat. Roman commanders considered soldiers fully reliable only after they had ten campaigns behind them.
"Well," Aemilius said. "Here's where we find out if we're really as good as we say we are." He turned to his trumpeter. "Sound battle formation." As the call rang out, he turned to his secretary, who stood by with a wooden tablet open in one hand, a pointed bronze stylus in the other, ready to inscribe his general's message on the wax that lined the inner surface of the tablet.
"Date and hour," Aemilius said. "To the noble Senate. Greeting from Decimus Aemilius, propraetor for northwestern Italy. This hour a Carthaginian army of some thirty thousand men appeared two miles north of the Arnus River near the town of Pisae, accompanied by a fleet of unknown strength. I go now to engage the land force. Long live Rome."
Amid a rustling of armor and a shuffling of hobnailed caligae, the legionaries exited the fortified camp and formed up their cohorts between the camp and the approaching enemy. They formed into their cohorts, with the two legions of heavy infantry in the center, the auxilia on the flanks and the tiny cavalry force, too small to be divided, concentrated on the left flank. The forming up was done with commendable swiftness and efficiency. Drill was a Roman specialty.
"It's not good," Buteo said, "fighting this near the camp, with our backs to a river."
Aemilius knew what he meant. Outnumbered as they were, should the Romans be hard-pressed, with nowhere else to flee except the river, the fortified camp would be a temptation. Men whose nerve failed under the strain of battle would break formation and run for the camp. It could quickly turn into a rout. Had there been time, Aemilius would have demolished the camp before offering battle. That was standard procedure. Romans were realists about warfare, and recognized that to ensure steadfastness in battle, it was best to remove all possibility of safety in flight.
"Speaking of which," Aemilius said, "we'd best get out there ourselves. Can't have the men thinking we're lurking back here in safety."
Buteo snorted. "Safety!"
They went below and mounted their horses. Just behind the legions, in the center, carpenters were assembling the command tower. It was not high, just a platform about twelve feet above the ground, from which the commander could survey his army and the battlefield. Aemilius ordered all his mounted messengers to assemble by the tower, for he intended to send continuous reports to the Senate as the battle progressed.
With his staff officers, he rode through the gaps between the cohorts and emerged before the center of the battle line. A hundred paces before the center of the first rank, they drew up and awaited the Carthaginian negotiators. Every battle began with a parley: demands, refusals, conditions, agreements and so forth. It was expected. In due time, a party of horsemen rode out from the Carthaginian lines. Their harness was ornate, their arms shining or colorfully painted. Their standard, the triangle-and-crescent of Tanit, was draped with white ribbons in token of truce. In the forefront was a hard-faced Greek. Aemilius read him for a Spartan mercenary. That state had long since fallen from any claim to power, but it still produced professional soldiers who were in demand wherever there was fighting.
"Romans!" the Greek said without preamble. "My general, Mastanabal, servant of the Shofet Hamilcar, bids you surrender your arms and your persons to him. Lay down your arms, pass beneath his yoke and you will live. The alternative is extermination."
The Roman party laughed, though without much amusement. The Carthaginian party stared. There was something extremely unsettling about that Roman laugh.
"Well, that's blunt enough," Aemilius said when he had breath. "Why did your general not come to deliver his ultimatum? Why is he lurking behind his army?"
"A nobleman of Carthage does not treat with foreign peasants!" the Greek said scornfully.
"Is that so?" Aemilius said. "Tell your general that before this day is over, this peasant will flay his princely hide from his body and make saddlebags from it. I need a new set."
The Greek seemed not to understand. "That is all you have to say? No counterterms? No offers?"
"If your general wishes to surrender to us, he may," Aemilius said. "Same terms: Lay down your arms and pass beneath our yoke. Or if he wishes to go back to Spain, where I presume this expedition originated, he may. We shall not molest him. But tell him that he has come as close to Rome as he is going to get."
"You are mad!" the Greek said. "None of you will live to see the sun go down."
"Are we keeping you here, hireling?" Aemilius asked. "Don't you have pressing business elsewhere?"
"Your blood is on your own heads!" the Greek said. He wheeled his horse and pelted back to the Carthaginian lines, followed by the rest of his party.
"Fine, arrogant words," Buteo commented. "Think we can live up to them?"
Aemilius shrugged. "In a situation like this, you might as well speak arrogantly. It-doesn't cost anything and may give them something to think about. While I speak to the men, the rest of you join your units or go to the command tower. Send your horses to the rear. From here on, only the cavalry and the messengers are to be mounted."
As customary as the parley was the harangue. Every army expected to be given a rousing, inspirational speech by its general. But how to inspire on an occasion like this, when the odds were worse than two to one and most of the soldiers had never seen battle before? Aemilius prayed to Mars and the Muses to gild his tongue and inspire him to say the right thing. He reined up before his men and used the Forum speaker's voice that could be heard from one end of the line to the other.
"Soldiers of Rome! Until today, we have been stationed here, complaining that the other legions were winning all the glory and wealth in Sicily, and in the East. But now, today, it falls to you to win glory far beyond the lot of any other legions. Today you must save Rome of the Seven Hills! Except for us, Rome lies defenseless, all her temples and tombs naked to the desecration of the barbarians! Over there," he swept an arm around, pointing to the host opposite, "are those who would destroy Rome. But they are barbarians, and barbarians cannot outfight Roman soldiers. Crush them, and the names of your legions will live forever, and you will have undying glory for yourselves and for your descendants. As long as Romans speak of the glories of their ancestors, they will speak of the men who stopped the barbarians here, on the River Arnus!"
The men raised a deafening shout, beating the insides of their shields with spear butts. Aemilius rode back to his command tower, dismounted and slapped his horse on the rump before climbing to his post.
"No time for the sacrifices," he commented.
"Pretty soon," Buteo said, "there'll be all the blood spilled that any god could want."
"Still," Aemilius said, "it's always best to make the sacrifices and take the omens. Oh, well, I suppose Jupiter will understand."
"Is there any reason to wait?" Buteo asked.
"None at all. Sound the advance."
The cornus brayed and the standard-bearers, draped with wolfskins, stepped out toward the enemy. There would be no maneuver, no subtle play of tactical advantage and deception. There was no time for planning and preparation. This would be a simple clash of two armies in an open fie
ld, a test of strength and courage. Aemilius knew all too well that in such a fight, numbers could be decisive. It was too late to worry about it.
As the trumpets conveyed their general's orders, the cohorts transformed from a series of blocks in checkered formation to a solid battle line, with four cohorts of each legion in reserve, keeping open order so that they were free to maneuver to defend a flank or strengthen a weak spot in the line should there be danger of a breakthrough.
"I think we should extend the line," Buteo said.
"I'll send the reserves to the flanks if it looks like they're going to outflank us," Aemilius said.
The Carthaginian army advanced at a slow, deliberate pace. Officers advanced along the whole front, but walking backward, facing their own men. They barked orders to speed up or slow down, close right or left, as they saw disorder in their lines. The watching Romans could only approve. This was the sort of professionalism they understood.
"This is going to be different from fighting a pack of howling Germans, isn't it?" Aemilius commented. Buteo didn't bother to answer. On the field across from them, a large number of lightly armed men ran out past the flanks and arranged themselves in double lines.
"Here come the arrows," Aemilius said. The trumpets
sounded, and all along the Roman lines shields were lifted.
Except for the front line, each man raised his shield and held
it over the head of the man in front of him. In seconds, the
whole army looked as if it had grown a tile roof. The
Carthaginian flankers drew their bows and soon arrows
came down like rain on the Roman force. Very few got
through, but here and there a shaft slipped beneath an unsteadily held shield and the Romans took the first casualties of the battle.
The Seven Hills Page 17