Zama

by Dan Armstrong

  That night, while many of the soldiers still wrangled with dealers or emptied their purses to painted women, I decided to check on Troglius and Rullo. Troglius was not one to seek out a woman. Rullo I wasn’t so sure about.

  I heard an excited shout, then a chorus of curses, as I walked down the aisle into a massive dice game outside our tent. Three oil lamps were hung on wooden staves rammed into the ground around a circle of ten soldiers. Another twenty squeezed in behind watching. Rullo, years younger than any of the other men, was running the game. Three tall stacks of gold and silver coins were piled up in front of him.

  Troglius, standing off to one side, saw me walk up. I sidled up to my quiet friend. “Why does this not surprise me, Troglius?”

  “He’s going to win all the money in camp,” he whispered.

  “That the prostitutes don’t get.”

  “I’ve never seen so much money in the hands of such a young man.”

  “He’s something, Troglius. You’ll have to become his bodyguard in camp as well as on the battlefield with the amount of gold he’s collected. I wonder how he does it?”

  Troglius looked at me with one eye as though it was obvious. “He’s very lucky.”

  “That’s one explanation.”

  Rullo darted a glance at me as though he might have heard me and allowed a smirking grin. I shook my head and decided to watch the game.

  A man across the circle shouted, “My turn to throw!” and grabbed the dice from the center of the circle. The man shook the dice and let them fly. They bounced across the dirt coming to a stop with a five and a two uppermost. That was a winner and Rullo pushed a silver coin over to the man. The man threw a four on his following roll, then a five, then a nine, then a seven to end his turn. He gave up the dice and the small pile of coins that had accumulated as he increased his bet on each roll.

  I watched the action through several shooters. Rullo’s stacks of coins grew and everyone else’s diminished. I knew no amount of luck could produce a winner every time, so I kept a close eye on Rullo’s hands as the game progressed and the stakes increased.

  I noticed that every now and then Rullo scooped up the dice with one hand but gave the dice to the shooter with the other. On other occasions, he passed the dice with the same hand he had picked them up with. I didn’t think much of it until I started keeping track of the rolls in my head. After a short time, I realized that every time he used both hands to pass the dice, a seven was the result of the next roll. At first I thought this might be a coincidence, but the longer I watched the more suspicious I became. He was changing dice between throws.

  I didn’t watch the game to its conclusion. Like Troglius, I wearied of the action and went into our tent to sleep. I found Rullo the next morning sitting on the ground happily counting his winnings. Troglius stood by, clearly impressed by the young man’s talent with dice.

  I sat down opposite Rullo and placed two silver coins on the ground. “Give me a chance with the dice, Rullo. It was too crowded last night for me to get into the game.”

  Rullo looked up from his piles of money as though I was bothering him. “Come back tonight. We’ll have another game.”

  “I’ll be busy. One chance with the dice for both of these coins.”

  “Fine. Let’s make it fast.” Rullo reached into the pocket of his tunic and handed me a pair of dice.

  I shook the dice in my fist and threw a six down between us. I proceeded to throw a five, and an eight. Rullo reached out with his right hand to pick up my eight, then returned the dice to me with his left. He did this very deftly. I barely noticed, but I was certain he had switched the dice. Sure enough, the result of my next throw was a seven. He took my two coins with one hand and was about to take the dice with the other, when I reached out and scooped them out of the dirt.

  Rullo’s eyes went big. “What are you doing? You said just one game.”

  “One fair game, Rullo,” I said, looking at the dice in my palm. One die had three spots on all six sides, and the other die had four spots on all six sides.

  Rullo knew I had seen into his game and began to fidget.

  With Troglius there, I decided to keep my insight strictly between Rullo and me. “You know, Rullo,” I said, rolling the dice around in my hand. “I think there’s something wrong with these dice. I think they’re worn out. I suggest you get rid of them or give them to me. Who knows what a sore loser might say if he discovered you were playing with a set of dice that had been overused?”

  “I didn’t know a pair of dice could get worn out,” said Troglius.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said staring at Rullo. “The corners get round and they become like little balls not cubes.”

  Troglius shrugged, but Rullo agreed. “Maybe you’re right, Timon. I think it’s time to retire that pair.”

  “Yes,” I said slipping them into my pocket. “I’d hate to be caught running a game with worn out dice. Someone might get mad—very mad. As a matter of fact, I think I would like my two silver coins back.”

  Rullo knew he had been found out. He took a deep breath and returned my coins.

  Troglius was astounded. “You mean, I could have gotten my coins back if I had noticed the worn out dice?”

  I gave Rullo a chance to answer, but he deferred to me.

  “I’m guessing Rullo was too smart to be using these dice last night. It was probably an accident he used them here today. Right, Rullo?”

  He nodded.

  “So be careful tonight, Rullo.” I looked right at him. “Troglius will be watching.”

  “But how do I tell?” asked the huge soldier.

  “When Rullo’s stacks of coins get too big.” I got up and walked away.

  CHAPTER 81

  Hasdrubal felt certain that Scipio would abandon the siege of Utica and come straight to the gates of Carthage after incinerating the two camps and some fifty thousand soldiers. He took this message to the Council of Elders, demanding that they raise another army to protect the city. His rival Hanno countered by saying the war was over. It was time to sue for peace. Several other councilors wanted to call Hannibal back to Africa. Only with his leadership, they said, could Carthage possibly hope to defeat Scipio.

  After three days of fierce debate, Hasdrubal and the Barcid party won out. As impossible as it seemed, they would raise yet another army. Hasdrubal immediately started recruiting Libyans from the surrounding farmland and also sent a messenger to Syphax, who by this time had returned to Siga. Hasdrubal’s message was simple: The war is not over; we need more men.

  Syphax, who simply wanted the war over, resisted the call to arms. He cursed to the gods after receiving Hasdrubal’s messenger in the great hall, then stormed out. Sophonisba, who had been seated beside him with Felicia on a chain at her feet, found him shortly afterward, pacing furiously in their bedroom.

  Syphax spun around when Sophonisba appeared in the doorway. “I know what you’re here for, Sophonisba, but I can’t do it. I know that I have agreed to help your father, but this war is nonsense. It cannot be won. Anything that I put into it now can be counted as lost. Your people must realize this. It’s time to surrender to Scipio.”

  Sophonisba had not spent ten months in Syphax’s bed to have him suddenly annul the reason her father had given her away. Her first inclination was to scream at him, to call him a coward and confront him on the nature of their matrimonial agreement. Instead she gathered herself, forcing the loss of her handmaiden and her love for Masinissa from her mind, and assumed the role she had promised herself to master.

  “Forget the war for a moment, husband,” she said softly, pulling the pins from her hair and shaking it out, so it hung around her like a black cape. “Forget the failed agreement with Scipio and surrender to me.” She came up close to him and methodically undressed him despite his clear distraction. She took his hand and drew him to the side of their bed.

  Sophonisba laid him down on his back, then used her mouth to gather the king’s full attention. Turning o
n all her charm, she straddled him at the waist and seductively drew her robe up over her torso and tossed it aside. She adjusted her hips so that he was inside her, then she leaned forward, ravishing him with kisses on his neck, while gently rolling her hips to the rhythm that was so natural to her and so overwhelming to Syphax.

  When Sophonisba knew that Syphax was near the height of his arousal and had become animal in his own passion, she stopped the movement of her hips and whispered into his ear. “Syphax, my king, my husband, my love, Carthage means everything to me.” She eased back up and down on him three times, then stopped again. “Can you imagine how sad I would be if the city of my birth, of my people, were overrun by the Romans?”

  She ran her fingers through Syphax’s hair and eased back into a slow roll. “All I would be able to do is cry.” After a moment, she stopped the movement of her hips again and lifted herself high on her knees so that they disengaged.

  Syphax reached out to her, taking her hands and drawing her back onto him.

  “Oh please, husband,” Sophonisba continued, “you must help my father. Not to do so is the same as hurting me.” Her eyes now glistened with forming tears, and she rolled sideways off of him and out of the bed.

  Syphax would have screamed at any other woman. He would have struck any other woman. But not Sophonisba. He sat up in absolute desperation, the thing in his groin throbbing for a climax.

  Sophonisba went to the window, and leaning forward, stared out at the city, crying softly, her bare bottom poised in the most irresistible of positions.

  Syphax climbed from the bed and approached her from behind. “Sophonisba, my queen, my love,” he cooed, stroking her roundest curves, “both armies were entirely destroyed by the fire. There’s no way to beat this man Scipio. They’re calling him a genius.”

  Sophonisba spoke to him over her shoulder, pressing her rear into his hands, pretending arousal. “It takes neither genius nor courage to light a fire. That bit of intrigue was no measure of his valor, no measure of his army, and certainly no measure of ours. That can only be judged on the battlefield. Scipio has been here almost a year, and there has yet to be a pitched battle. He has shown plenty of deceit, but no real military skill. The war is not over. I married a king. He must be brave and strong.” She adjusted her hips to receive him. “I would want nothing else,” she mewed as the king slid himself into her and she began to rock with his plunging motion.

  CHAPTER 82

  Thirty days after Scipio’s night attack had destroyed the better part of his enemy’s forces, Hasdrubal had hastily amassed another thirty thousand men, including some twenty thousand Numidians recruited by Syphax and four thousand Celtibarian mercenaries. Meanwhile, Scipio, judging that a solid base for the winter was more important than a premature attack on Carthage, had returned to besieging Utica. But when he learned that a large army was camped seventy-five miles south in a region called the Great Plains, he abruptly changed his plans.

  Knowing that these troops had been drawn together under great duress and lacked training, Scipio left enough men at Utica to maintain his siege lines and set off for the Great Plains in light marching order with twenty thousand foot soldiers and three thousand cavalry. Until this time Scipio had hesitated going inland with the bulk of his army because of the risk. But now with detailed maps of the region, he was better prepared for the challenge. Five days later, we set camp on a hill four miles from the Carthaginians.

  The morning after our arrival, Scipio surveyed the expanse of land between the two camps with the spyglass, once again repeating his praise for the device. After a careful study of the enemy position, Scipio ordered Laelius and Masinissa to probe the enemy defenses with their cavalry and act as a screen while he supervised moving our camp down the hill closer to the Carthaginian camp. This was completed shortly after noon.

  I spent the afternoon in headquarters with Scipio. I stood at the map table detailing the ground between the two camps as Scipio paced in the tent, pondering his strategy for the next day—and what would be our first set piece battle since arriving in Africa. Occasionally he would stop at the table and stare at the map, presumably trying to imagine the troop formation he would confront in the morning.

  The headquarters’ tent had been raised and taken down innumerable times. The weather-beaten leather that was stretched over the tent posts showed the wear and tear. While I worked, I noticed a small hole in the south facing wall of the tent, just a pin prick at shoulder height. By chance, the position of the tent, the position of the sun, the location of the tiny hole, and the dim lighting within the tent recreated the circumstances in Archimedes’ workshop when he showed me the image created by sunlight passing through a small hole.

  I looked up while running some numbers in my head and saw a patch of light projected on the tent’s north wall. On closer inspection, I saw that it was an upside down image of the tents and soldiers outside the south side of the tent. Though Scipio was deep into his own thoughts, I knew he was the curious sort and decided the phenomenon was exceptional enough to interrupt him.

  “Excuse me, sir. Do you see that patch of light?” I pointed to the north wall of the tent.

  He glanced at the patch of sunlight. “What of it?”

  The image was not particularly clear and was difficult to decipher if you didn’t know what you were looking at. “Get closer,” I said.

  Scipio reluctantly moved up close to the tent wall and stared at the patch of light, then at me. “I’m in no mood for this game, Timon.”

  I doused the oil lamps. “Can you see it now?”

  “See what?” he demanded, tilting his head this way and that, trying to understand what he was looking at.

  “Keep looking.” I crossed the tent to the tiny hole, then removed the large lens from the spyglass. I pinched the lens between my forefinger and thumb and held it over the hole, knowing it would flip image over and make it easier to see. “Does that help?”

  Scipio stared at the patch of light while I moved the lens forward and back trying to bring the image into greater focus. Suddenly Scipio gasped. “What is this, Timon?” He turned to me, then back to the wall. “I see an image of our camp! And there are men moving in the image as in a dream!”

  “It’s the result of the sunlight passing through this small hole.” I covered the hole with my hand. The patch of light vanished. I removed my hand and the image returned. “It’s a natural phenomenon that Archimedes revealed to me many years ago. He told me not to show anyone because they wouldn’t understand, but I thought perhaps you would.”

  “So what I’m seeing here is happening outside the tent beyond that wall?”

  “Yes. And I can’t explain why, nor could Archimedes, except to say it was a function of light traveling in straight lines. It’s part of the science of optics.”

  Scipio found it so confounding he went outside to verify what he was seeing. When he returned, he checked the image on the wall and shook his head, dumbfounded. “This is almost as remarkable as what can be seen through the spyglass.”

  “I agree. And I think they are somehow related, but I don’t know how. Watch this.” I used the lens to focus the image, then I removed the lens to show the difference.

  Scipio was entirely fascinated, as just about anyone would be. He put his hand into the beam of light and saw the image on the back of his hand. Then he ran his finger across the leather as though he might feel the image. He faced me, perhaps with yet another layer of respect. “Who else knows of this effect?”

  “Archimedes said Aristotle described it in one of his essays, but I have never met anyone else who knew about it.”

  Scipio seemed to think about this. After a moment he said, “Let’s keep this quiet, Timon. At some later time, I might like you to demonstrate it again.”

  “I expect the Carthaginians to offer battle tomorrow morning,” Scipio told his staff later that day. “We are outnumbered, but our troops are more experienced.” He led his commanders, Laelius, Lucius, Cato
, Ralla, and Masinissa, to the map table where he had already laid out blue markers in the formation he anticipated from Hasdrubal.

  “We will use a single line, containing both of our Roman legions and their accompanying allies, so that the enemy line doesn’t overlap ours. We won’t deploy until they have.” He looked at Cato and put a red marker on the table. “I want the Twenty-third opposite the Celtibarians, their most seasoned troops. Ralla will be on your left with half the allied troops.” He put the allied marker in place.

  Scipio turned to his brother. “Lucius, I want the Fifth on the far right, with the other half of the allies between you and the Twenty-third.” He put two more red markers on the table. “Laelius and Masinissa, you’ll have the flanks. Laelius, I want you opposite their Numidian cavalry. Masinissa, opposite the Carthaginian horse.” He put those markers in place. “All of this will become more obvious once they’ve set their formation. We’ll make the appropriate adjustments if it differs from what I have here. Any questions?”

  “How do you see this playing out?” asked Masinissa in Greek.

  Scipio answered him in Greek, then repeated his answer in Latin for the others. “I want the center to hold, while our cavalry strips theirs from the flanks. Once their cavalry has been dispersed, ours will return and attack their flanks. I foresee an easy victory. We’ll review all of this in the morning.”

  CHAPTER 83

  Our camp was divided into two parts, as it had been outside Utica. The Roman legions had built the regulation, square camp, surrounded by a six-foot ditch and wooden palisades. Two-story towers stood at all four corners. Masinissa’s cavalry had their own camp, not nearly as well fortified and considerably smaller than ours.