Hannibal, page 57
When he spoke of his father they understood him somewhat better. He had always claimed that his father had no vision, no ambition. He was a kind man, wise and strong enough to hold together the disparate Massylii people, but Masinissa admitted to his companions that he had always been an ungrateful son, sure he could do better. He could not remember a time when he did not count the days until his father stepped from power and let him stride on to greatness. He had just woken to the fact that he knew nothing of how to be a king. He knew only what it took to be the spoiled son of one.
To this one of his companions offered, ‘That cannot be so. Our fathers teach us whether we listen or not.’
‘A crocodile is born of an egg and never knows his parents after hatching,’ the other added. ‘And yet he grows to be a crocodile; he cannot be anything else.’
Masinissa turned to the two men and stared at them for a long time, unsure that he even recognized them.
When they arrived at the remote council of Massylii elders a few weeks later, it seemed nothing more than a chance happening, as if they had been blown there by a random wind. The council took place at an ancient site known only to the tribal leaders and outside the range of any one elder’s base of power. Masinissa was fortunate in his timing, although as yet he took no comfort from this. The council seldom needed to be held more than once in a generation, always in times of turmoil. This was such a time.
There was no structure large enough for the men to gather in so they met in the open. If they noticed Masinissa at all, they thought him one of the local herdsmen. His clothing was poor and bedraggled and his hair hung in knotted locks that obscured his features. He listened as the men – some of whom he had known from birth – spoke of the troubled times they lived in. They couched their words cautiously. It was obvious they wanted to speak frankly to one another, but none knew who among them might have turned to Syphax. They might speak their minds tonight, only to find themselves skewered tomorrow. So the conversation was roundabout and seemed to be heading for no definite conclusion. It was clear that Syphax had them by the balls. They hated him for this and spoke with fondness of their dead king. But it was not until one of them offered a prayer of remembrance for Masinissa himself that the prince decided his time had come. It would have been unnatural to hear one’s own death lamented and not speak up.
Masinissa stood and pushed his. way into the group of men. They turned and looked at him. One elbowed him and another asked his business. He held his tongue until he had centred himself in their circle, and then he kept silent a little longer. He drew his hair back from his face and fastened it with a thong made of lion’s hide. And then he dropped his arms, raised his chin, and met the men with his gaze. His fingers twitched as he stood there, ready to draw his dagger and take all the lives he could before he was killed, if it came to that.
He said, ‘Do not mourn me. The king’s son lives.’
Landing on Sicily in the spring, Publius found the island simmering like a pot of boiling water just taken from the fire. The cities of Syracuse, Agrigentum and Lilybaeum had not watched the war indifferently. Throughout it they had swayed in their allegiance, tipped here and there by the machinations of their ambitious leaders. Many of their residents – the Greeks especially – remembered the fine times they had enjoyed under Carthaginian rule and had not found Roman dominion to their liking. They had rebelled, although with only mixed, temporary success. At the time of Publius’ arrival, however, the island had returned to Roman hands. All active revolt and political ploys had been quashed by the forces stationed there, thanks, in part, to the irresolute support Carthage had provided those declaring for them. The Greek rebels in Syracuse found themselves being stripped of their wealth. Many had been kicked onto the streets, where Latin children pelted them with stones and women spat on them and men used any pretence to lash out at them.
Publius, looking at this, reckoned it hardly a stable base from which to launch the greatest military action of his life. So he set about to right things from the first day. Citing his authority as consul, he ordered Greek property returned and demanded that the people of the city live together once more as they had in the years before this recent conflagration. In as short a space of time as he could manage, he circumnavigated the island, bringing this message to all the cities. Then he called the disgraced legions from Cannae to muster. He merged them with the 7,000 volunteers he had secured before leaving Italy. Together, they formed an army of just under 12,000, the vast majority of them infantry.
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 harbours 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 defences, 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 harbour 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 practised for this occasion, with nothing kind in them, but a plain-spoken demand that the divine forces aid them in bringing to Carthage all 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 so much plunder 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-coloured 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 travelled 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 all 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. As near as that, Publius thought. As 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’s 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’s people. Unless the Libyan king renounced his alliance 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 had married into the house of Barca and was therefore wedded 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 the 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 matched. 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 the correspondence 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 earlier 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 defence.
These men posed as serious a threat as any trained by Hannibal, but much of Syphax’s 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 axe as their favoured weapon and each of these wore the shrivelled 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 despatched 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 30,000 soon. Forty or 50,000 before long. Who knew how many sand-coloured men would eventually step out of the landscape? Their own troops were only 12,000 strong. How long could they wait? Each day the enemy’s 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 defence, 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’s 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 2,000 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’s 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 sizeable force here beside Cirta. Why so?
