by Ross Leckie
Like a wind, like a shooting star I travelled far and long. I saw battles at sea, on land. I saw crucifixions, disembowellings. I heard the tramp, tramp of armies marching to war, the trumpeting of elephants. I smelled the smells of sweat and defecating fear.
I suppose they cut me free, the same servants, returned, and carried me back down. I remember only small parts of the journey back to Carthage, as one glimpses stars in the sky on a night of storm. But the certainty has never left me. I knew what had to be done.
From Bostar’s journal
In the streets, the market, the people talk of nothing else. After centuries of subservience and tribute, a desert tribe they call the Eraxth have rebelled, burning the farms and houses round Hadrumetum. A farmer who survived has brought the news. Can we see in this, I wonder, the hand of Rome? For my part, I am concerned about the forests. It is from those around Hadrumetum that the wood comes for the galleys we are having built. The rebellion must be repressed. The city guard is small, but well trained and armed. I will plans.
Report filed in the archives of the Senate
of Rome
Pius Lucerius Sura, Governor of Syracuse, to Lucius Valerius Flaccus in Rome. I write this report in order that there should be no misunderstanding. Your legate has criticised my actions as heavy-handed. With respect, he was not here.
The riot was not, as he has called it, a ‘minor matter’ to which I ‘over-reacted’. It was bad enough before I stopped it. I believe your legate has supplied you with a list of the dead, of the homes and property destroyed. As far as my enquiries can establish, it began as a scuffle in the market. A Roman accused a Carthaginian butcher of selling him short measure. Tempers flared. By the time the Guard were called, it had become a running brawl, with carts and stalls being overturned, some even fired, the Carthaginians and Romans guilty in equal parts.
I cannot establish when arms first were drawn, but I did establish by whom: a Carthaginian knife-maker, called Agoun, was attested by several witnesses as distributing axes and swords. My Guard had a hard time of it, restoring order. Indeed, three of them were killed. It was only when I ordered in the cavalry that the crisis passed.
I had Agoun crucified, and two of his men. As for Romans, I could find no particular miscreant, so have punished no one in particular. I have the whole city under curfew.
You will have read my recommendations, beginning over two years ago, that we repatriate all the Carthaginians, not only from Syracuse but from the whole of Sicily. I know the views of the Senate: that we need their money and their skills. But this is proof that the two peoples cannot live as one. There is too much festering ill-feeling, after centuries of war.
From Bostar’s journal
He was acclaimed today. I have seen many ceremonies in my time. This was fine, in the city’s huge, central square. On the steps that lead up to the Senate, before the people and most of the Elders, to the sound of cymbals, kinnors and citharas, Mastanabal proclaimed Hanno to be Hanno Barca, son of Hannibal, son of Hamilcar.
So another part of my plan takes its proper place. But I felt no satisfaction. Hanno has been cold and often sullen since he endured the Passage of Ordeal. I asked him about it. All he said to me, coldly, was: ‘You are not a Carthaginian, Bostar. You wouldn’t understand.’
As I watched the ceremony, my mind was elsewhere. Early this morning before the naming, Hanno sleeping, I was working on plans to deepen the western moat, collating Tancinus’ and my ideas. There was a sharp knock at the door. I opened it. ‘Sphylax!’ I said. ‘What brings you here?’
He was looking worried, strained. ‘Come in,’ I said, stepping back.
‘I will, Bostar, but only for a moment.’
I closed the door. ‘Tea?’ I offered. ‘I have a kettle on the hearth.’
He shook his head. ‘No, Bostar, thank you. Let me get straight to the point, before I go to the mehashebim. Do you remember the plans I showed you of the city’s cisterns?’
‘Yes. Of course I do. A whole network under the city. Magnificent. But why do you ask?’
‘Because they’re gone. I went to my office early this morning to consult them. We had a leak reported, late last night. All the cellars of the eastern houses are flooded, so it must be serious.’
‘And?’
‘And, Bostar, I couldn’t find the plans. I looked everywhere. They’re gone.’
‘Extraordinary,’ I said, sitting down on the hall chair. ‘Tell me, Sphylax, who saw them last, or who has seen them since you showed them to me?’
‘I have, of course.’
‘But apart from you?’
‘Astylax. He came to consult them yesterday morning. Said the Sufet wanted a few things checked.’
‘And you stayed with him?’
‘No, as it happens. I had a meeting to go to. I left him alone. Bostar, what’s wrong?’
‘What is wrong, Sphylax, is that yesterday evening Astylax left Carthage.’
‘Left? Where has he gone?’
I stood up, feeling old and cold and weary. I rubbed my face, and raised my head to him. ‘Astylax has gone, Sphylax, to Rome.’
From Hanno’s memoir
It was to Nicomachus I owe the ruse. But it was Halax who chose the ground. With six hundred of the city Guard, all mounted, and twenty elephants we had pursued the Eraxth for eleven days as they zig-zagged south and west. The rolling scrubland gave way to desert sands and burning sun. Our lips cracked. Our hands blistered on the reins. Halax grew concerned about water for us, and fodder for our elephants and horses. ‘If we can’t catch them,’ Nicomachus said, ‘we’ll have to let them catch us.’ He explained his plan. Halax nodded. ‘I know just the place,’ he said.
I sent two scouts ahead to ensure the Eraxth were not near, or cutting back. I had a hundred of our men camp in a hollow, ringed by dunes, their orders to make as many fires as they could and as large a camp. To three of them I gave a clay whistle, made by Halax’s mother. We had tested them in Carthage. Their pure, high note sounded far and could, as we had proved in an experiment, be heard even above the noise of Carthage’s market.
The rest of us retired to a ravine. There was scrub there, and Halax had the elephants lie down. So did we, and waited, bar two pickets I posted to let us know if the Eraxth had found us, or been taken in. I was relying on the hope that, if they came back for us when they discovered we were no longer following them, they would come from the south where they had last been seen. The ravine where we were hiding was to the north of the hollow and the dunes.
Dusk came and went. The stars grew bright, the night cold. I chewed on dry meat, sipped a little water and remembered my dreams from Eschmoun. Around me came men’s snores, the whinnying of horses and the low grumble of elephants. I stayed awake by counting stars.
Letter preserved in the archives of Rome
Cato to Spurius Lingustus. You did well. I have another small commission for you, on even more generous terms. Go to Sicily, and start in Syracuse. There has been trouble there, as you may have heard. When the moment seems appropriate, fire a Roman ship, a merchantman ideally, in the harbour there and leave at once. Then do the same, one week later, in whichever of the island’s other harbours as seems best; a week after that, do the same a third and final time.
By the time you read this, I will be gone, first to inspect my new farm for fish, and then to my home in the country where, if necessary, your messengers can find me. I have not seen my wife and son for far too long. Anyway, having started a fire, I will leave it now to burn.
From Hanno’s memoir
Perhaps I dozed. The stars had set, and my cloak was wet with dew when I started to the whistles’ shrill. Everyone was on their feet and running for the horses. I passed Halax urging the elephants up and on. We scrambled up the bank, across the ground and up the dunes. The fires gave light enough to see our men in a phalanx, as Nicomachus had taught them, bristling like a porcupine with spears as Eraxth beset them, too close for bows but wielding their c
rescent swords.
I gave no command. As one man, we dismounted, throwing our cloaks to the ground. Down we charged, our war cry ‘Carth-age!’ ringing in our ears. It is a madness, battle. Once you are committed, there can be no plan but only the will of man against man. The Eraxth turned. We are outnumbered, I remember thinking, but then I was thrusting, parrying and a scimitar swept past my left ear. I dropped down and rose using my knees and took that man, as Nicomachus had advised us, with a straight thrust just under his cuirass into his groin. I exulted in that penetration, the only thing as sweet as sex that I have ever known.
In the end, they were surrounded. The perhaps three hundred Eraxth surviving just threw down their swords and dropped their wicker shields. Some fell on their knees, muttering imprecations. We backed away, and Halax led the elephants down. The Eraxth who tried to run we speared or shot with bows. Most, though, lay down to accept their fate. Halax had said their will to fight or live could end as quickly as a summer storm. He was right. But that did not prevent their screams as the elephants, trumpeting and rising on their hind legs, trampled and pulped them. As the sun rose over the bowl, the sand shone red with blood.
From Bostar’s journal
Astylax’s treachery perturbs and preoccupies me – although Mastanabal insists we cannot be sure. I am, and he will find out, in time. But what concerns me more is that I was so wrong about the man. Has my judgement failed me? Is my whole design too flawed? Because he must be elected to the Senate and propose and carry a new treaty of perpetual peace between equals, much hinges now on Scipio. I wrote six days ago to Labienus. My courier was due to return yesterday. He must have been delayed; I hope only by storm.
At least the construction of the war galleys is going well. Ten are ready, and it will be over twenty before the moon turns again. I must talk to Mastanabal about sailors and rowers. Otherwise I am much engaged with Tancinus, who continues to impress me, and with buying Hanno his own house. He thinks I have not noticed. But unless I am much mistaken (again), he will soon be taking himself a wife.
From Hanno’s memoir
It was my first formal meeting with the High Sufet since my proclamation, and since we had returned from punishing the Eraxth. ‘But they cannot just crucify people, Mastanabal!’ I insisted. He had told me the news from Syracuse.
‘They can and they do,’ he replied. ‘That is the law of Rome.’
‘And so?’
‘And so, until I can arrange a meeting with Rome’s Senate or its legates, we must protect our citizens meanwhile, wherever they are. That means removing from Sicily as many of our people as want to come back to Carthage. My sister and her husband, for example, are there. So, even this late in the year I have arranged for a fleet of five transports to go to Syracuse, Hanno, and––’
He leaned forward to stoke the brazier, then sat back in his chair.
‘And?’
‘Hanno, who will lead them?’
‘I will, Sufet. I know now who I am.’
He stared at me. He mused.
‘Very well. Talk to the Romans, especially the governor, Lucerius Sura. He is said to be a fair and honest man. Find out what is going on. You leave tomorrow morning. That is all.’
The Sufet nodded my dismissal. I got up to go, and was almost at the door.
‘Oh, and Hanno?’ Mastanabal called.
‘Yes, Lord Sufet?’
‘Be careful.’
‘I will be. Rest assured.’
I was careful, but no man can avoid what some call coincidence, and I the will of the gods.
I in the third ship, we were just entering the mouth of Syracuse’s harbour when we saw fire run up the rigging of a galley, clearly Roman by its fit and flags. We were closing on it, moored at the first wharf, and I could see the fire brigades and soldiers running along the quay, the blaze catching hold when, from the walls above us, the catapults began to fire. The first volley missed us. The second did not. The transport in front of us took a direct hit in the side. Struck by an oval black stone, our own foremast came crashing down, knocking our drummer overboard. ‘Helmsman, about! Oars, belay!’ our captain shouted beside me.
‘You can’t!’ I cried to him. A huge stone thudded into the water beside us, drenching us with spray.
‘Forgive me, sir, but do you have a better idea?’ the captain replied, and he was gone to take the helm.
I looked back one last time as we turned the point for home. Through the smoke of the burning vessel, I saw our two galleys being pounded with stones. On a turn of the breeze, I heard our sailors’ screams. That is how I came back to Carthage the same day I had gone. Four ships had left, but only two returned. That, I knew, was the least of our loss.
Letter found among Cato’s papers
My dearest wife. I may never send this to you, but I write it to still my racing mind. It has been frantic here, with senators coming and going all day, and yesterday too, shut in with Cato, discussing things in hushed but earnest tones. Cato has just left. He will be gone for at least a month, he said, to see to his affairs. But just as he was about to leave, a courier came. He read the despatch. Its contents interested him greatly, and having finished he sat deep in reflection for a while. Then, he rose to go. The despatch was on his desk. His last act was to throw it on the brazier, which was low.
Perhaps I should not have saved it from the flames. But I did, and I read it, before I put it back to burn. It was from Mastanabal, High Sufet of Carthage, to Cato, Flaccus and the Senate of Rome. It insisted that the burning of a Roman galley in the harbour of Syracuse was not the work of Carthaginian hands. It asked for a legation to be allowed to come to Rome from Carthage, and assure the Senate and People that Carthage wants peace, not war.
Cato should at least have let his colleagues see this. If I speak out, I will be ruined, and you too. But is that the price I have to pay for justice? What am I to do?
From Bostar’s journal
Tancinus’ argument and figures are irrefutable. The city Guard is only a thousand men, not enough to man one wall. Carthage has always relied on mercenaries. Yet the treaty insists that Carthage cannot have an army, without the prior consent of Rome. That of course would be denied. I have spoken to Nicomachus, in the strictest confidence. He assures me that he could raise an army of ten thousand in three weeks, and twenty thousand in five. The slingers would be Balearics, the infantry Greek, the cavalry Numidian and so on. I must marshal my arguments carefully, before I put them to Mastanabal.
Letter found among Cato’s papers
Sempronia, wife of Cato Censorius, to Speusippus in Rome. My husband is unwell. He has a high fever, and cannot return to Rome and his duties. Inform the relevant authorities. I will write again when he is better. That may be some time.
Letter preserved in the archives of Neapolis
Flaccus to Curtius. The last time I asked you to come to Rome it was as a favour. Now it is a command. The Republic needs your experience and counsel. Come quickly, my old friend. I will tell you why when I see you, but I fear we are on the brink of war. Meanwhile, you should know that young Scipio has returned from his latest campaign, this time in Gaul. Once again, he has covered himself in glory. The Senate, despite the opposition of Cato’s party, proposes to promote him to the rank of praetor. I concur.
Letter preserved in the archives of Neapolis
Flaccus to Curtius. Ignore my last letter. You are too late. Stay where you are. If anything, I will come to Neapolis when the final stages of this play – I know not whether it is tragedy or comedy – are past. Another of our ships was burned in Sicily. The Senate’s mood darkened, and then we heard of a third, and then an even more serious matter. The wife of Sura, Governor of Syracuse, was in their villa in the hills. The servants who survived are clear. It was by Carthaginians she was raped and killed. What is going on?
Anyway, it was Pulcher who moved the formal motion for war. This was no bellicosity from Cato. He was not here, and has not been for weeks. He is on his farm
, unwell. The vote? There were thirty-two abstentions, but nem.con.dic. So is the die cast. Tomorrow in the Forum the Pontifex will proclaim casus belli, and then open the gates of Mars.
[I omit several pages about mobilisation. Like most Romans, Flaccus and Curtius are soldiers at heart, and Flaccus waxed lyrical about legions and levies; about which auxiliaries should accompany whom. Rome’s mobilisation of course took months, but was as always almost astonishingly thorough. I have even found papers about how many pounds of nails each legion was assigned. I have read the records of the Senate’s long debates about boots, and the relative merits of millet and barley bread. Again, it might seem that the final campaign against Carthage was brought about by Cato. But it was the work of more minds than his. In war one man may light the taper. But it is the will of many that it burns.]
All that remains is for the Senate to choose the commander. We reconvene for that tomorrow at noon. Pulcher must be the favourite, but Germanicus is said to want the job as well. I hope not to have to vote, but if I do I will cast for Pulcher. I will write again tomorrow when I know. Consider yourself fortunate not to be here.
Letter preserved in the citadel of Carthage
Labienus in Capua to Bostar, in great haste. My friend. I have the gravest news from Curtius, who is in Neapolis. The Romans are mobilising. Tomorrow a fleet is to begin assembling at Ostia, enough to carry eight legions to Carthage. I would be crucified were this message to reach the wrong hands, so I am sending it with Artixes. He is to stay with you. You will need his services, if there is to be a siege. Apurnia asks me to ask you to tell Hanno she loves him, and always will.