by Rob Edmunds
Masinissa felt both a thrill and a sense of unease. The familiar Numidian tactics of skirmishing and retreat were to be jettisoned, and he knew he could not rely on haphazard attacks and improvisation to prevail. He would charge and drive right through whatever was in front of him. He told himself, Empty your mind. Think of nothing else other than cutting your brave foes to pieces.
Despite the change of strategy, there was still some concession made to convention. He split his riders into left and right wings. Massiva and Capuca would lead with him, along the left flank, whilst Pun, Tigerman and Micipsa, one of his more trusted lieutenants, would lead the right. The ravine wasn’t too narrow, but it wasn’t too wide either before the rocky slopes started to kick up quite precipitously. They would ride a maximum of two abreast. They couldn’t hit a full charge for fear of trampling their own troops, who would be nearest to them, but, once through, they would work to reunite with each other, encircle the pocket and then break into the Masaesylian rear.
“Statorius’s drills won’t help you now you bastard!” Masinissa yelled to the air, to his men, and to the tribal antagonist who stood or had fallen somewhere close ahead.
They charged and negotiated passage around their own men without too much trouble. In truth, trampling the fallen was more disruptive to the horses than getting past the living. There were already hundreds, maybe thousands, of dead and dying men, and the hooves of the Numidian horses accounted for a few more. There were some grotesque sights amongst them. The charging elephants had already pulped men into mush. Maybe those poor souls had been the most valiant of the lot. Taking the full force of a herd of war elephants takes guts, which is pretty much all that Masinissa could now make out of them. He was jolted a little by the images. It was naive to assume you could still be recognised and mourned on the battlefield. There would be no noble elegy for those men who had, only moments earlier, held their pathetic lances at an enraged line of pachyderms.
As he passed his men, he could see the rumps of the elephants in the distance, still rumbling forwards. They had detached from most of the pursuing infantry, but their forward motion was being maintained. A few of the beasts had howdahs strapped to them, with drivers and slingers, and it was encouraging to see the men still kicking into the elephants’ flanks to propel the attack deeper. The standard of Gala and Massyli was visible atop the largest of the elephants, albeit the one that Masinissa knew had already lost one of his tusks. Ivory wasn’t everything when it came to elephants on the battlefield. As long as he was big and not too skittish, he could be employed in an attack.
Surveying the intervening distance between himself and the one-tusked behemoth, Masinissa concluded quickly that this chapter of the battle was going well. That he was afforded the time to make such a diagnosis attested to the ascendancy of the Massylians. The condition of the enemy appeared to be approaching ruinous. The Masaesylian infantry lines were collapsing in on themselves, and much of the cavalry that hadn’t been stampeded by the elephants had been caught between the lines. Many of these were still offering stout resistance, but there many riderless horses and others that by then had new, clearly Massylian riders attached. Furthermore, parts of his peripheral gaze found isolated men whose desperation had forced them to take their own lives. As he urged Napla towards the nearest extant enemy cavalry, he saw one Masaesyli kill another, and then turn the sword that slew him into his own guts. Masinissa could hear the man’s howl as he tried to rip the blade up to his own heart. At least you gave your friend an easier exit, Masinissa thought to himself.
The interlude of gruesome theatre was fleeting, as his perspective shortened, and the enemy cavalry he was galloping towards spied him and must have appraised him as a valuable target. There were three of them, and they yelled what must have been curses as they thundered straight at him. He scarcely had time to check if his lieutenants were still close to him, but he had to presume that they were and that they would each take one of the outriders. In all the excitement and commotion, you lose the ability to recognise your friends, or do not have the time to scan for their presence when the point of a sword is racing towards you. You can just see the enemy, and his blades and javelins.
As the distance shortened to nothing, there was just enough room between the first and second riders for him to drive Napla through the gap. As she passed the riders, he crouched and hugged her mane with his free hand. It took his adversary by surprise, and the man swung his weapon uselessly across the air above Masinissa’s head. Masinissa was through, and, before his enemy was out of range, the trailing third of his falcata hit his adversary’s larynx, and tore the voice and life from him. The rider to the right of him had met a similar fate, as Massiva had loosed his javelin into him, and the force of the impact had dislodged the enemy rider from his steed. If he was still alive on the ground, he wouldn’t be for long.
The rider to the left, however, presented a much direr problem. Capuca had been interrupted by another rider and, whilst despatching him, may have taken a slight wound, so he was not close enough to throw his javelin with any accuracy. Masinissa was exposed, and the third rider had him unbalanced and in his sights. The microseconds he needed to turn, parry or throw would surely give his enemy sufficient opening to slash at his shoulder or neck. He wheeled Napla, hoping to mitigate the force and depth of the cut he felt certain would rip into him momentarily. He gritted his teeth and balled his fists for the impact, but none came. A scream did, however, and then he saw a youthful infantryman pounding towards him, who must have been the agent of his salvation. His enemy had taken a flying dagger in his sword arm and was reaching for it desperately. The Massylian trooper didn’t pause to allow him to rearm, and grabbed his foot and heaved upwards in an effort to dismount him. The effort didn’t quite succeed, but it jolted the rider closer to Masinissa, who did the rest and yanked him off the horse by his hair, stabbing upwards under his chin and out the back of his head in the same movement. The youth, having the presence of mind to realise that his prospects of survival increased materially if he was off the ground and on the considerable bulk and elusiveness of the free stallion, leapt onto its empty back and looked at Masinissa, conspiratorially and questioningly. There was no time for introductions, and Masinissa gave him a thumbs up, which turned into an instruction to follow him.
They gave Capuca, who did have a lengthy but shallow looking gash in his thigh, enough time to catch up, and, with Massiva, the quartet formed a small but effective unit. The rest of the cavalry had broken into smaller components too, as the initial charge encountered forceful resistance, but it was still apparent that it was, as an amorphous whole, working steadily towards reuniting with the opposite flank and sealing the doom of the Masaesylian pocket.
There would be no reinforcements either for the battered remnant, and it turned slowly from a contest into butchery, as the jaws tightened and the inevitable ensued. More and more of the enemy could be seen to be taking their own lives, or trying to conceal themselves under the bleeding and the bled out. In most eyes, that was a cowardly act that would invite contempt and a concomitantly harsher fate. It was foolish and self-defeating too, as they would be found at the ebb of the battle when retribution would be at its most raw and fierce.
Masinissa had killed or fatally maimed about six or seven of the enemy when he was hailed by Micipsa and Pun; Tigerman, at that moment, was kicking out at a soldier who had leapt at his belt to try to gain some kind of purchase. The noose was closed, and what had been an attritional stranglehold would mutate quickly into an abattoir. Masinissa had no role or purpose in that kind of denouement, and turned – with the three who had accompanied him, as well as his aide de camp, optio and tesserarius, who had finished clearing his lower half of the enemy soldier – and rode towards the elephants, which were by then turning aimlessly without the urging of their riders.
He turned to his battlefield saviour and asked the obvious, “What’s your name, kid?”
; “I’m Hiempsal, but most people call me Yemp, if they know me. I prefer it too.”
Masinissa was struck by the boy’s diffidence. It was a common trait in country boys. They were taught to be respectful. In Masinissa’s experience, they were either that or the complete opposite: intolerably arrogant and conceited idiots. “Thank you, Yemp; you got me out of a situation back there.”
“It’s OK. I needed the horse.” He broke out in a modest grin.
“You know it won’t be long until all the enemy back there are dead, and then the scramble for plunder is going to begin in earnest. Do you want a new sword and maybe a little gold?”
“I do, sir,” the boy assented eagerly, although Masinissa could detect the hesitation in him, as he had to choose between staying with his chieftain or trying to line his pockets with a rare booty.
“You’ve done your duty. Maybe you could round up a few horses once you’ve taken what you can carry.” Masinissa hadn’t meant for the instruction to be appear dismissive, but Yemp seemed to take it that way, which Masinissa regretted.
In any event, it made up the boy’s mind for him, and he wheeled his horse, thanked Masinissa and rode back towards the lottery of the dying. Masinissa waved him off, and Massiva, who had seen Yemp’s valour in close proximity, tapped him approvingly on his back as he passed.
Hopefully, he has family close by, Masinissa mused, so that he can share the spoils with them before we set off for the uncertainties of the Iberian coast.
Micipsa looked at him a little disapprovingly. He was the most pragmatic of his immediate retinue, and had little regard for sentiment, particularly when it proved a distraction from the stewardship of the battle in hand. “Are we chasing?” came his quite blunt enquiry.
“You’re a caustic bugger sometimes, Cips. Of course. I will stay here with some of the cavalry to provide cover, and you see what you can hook with the rest. Don’t go too far from here, just in case Syphax has sufficient cavalry remaining to return and pounce on our infantry. They’ll be drunk in an hour and would be slaughtered if he had the presence of mind to double back on us. It may be futile, in any case. If Syphax has fled, he would have a few hours lead, and this is his country. My guess is that he’s riding hard west as far as he can to the Maurusii, where he will find amity and sanctuary.”
“OK, Pun, Tigerman and I will follow whatever trail we can find, take the stragglers, and maybe figure out what strength Syphax has remaining and where he will seek refuge. It would be better to wipe him out completely because, otherwise, he is sure to rally another army and come back at us, and next time his Roman contingents may be embedded deeper, may be drilled a little better and they might even catch us out with an ambush.”
“Let’s not be so pessimistic, huh? The Romans have to get through Iberia to get to him. He’s elusive, and you can’t govern all these lands with the men who will be left, but maybe he’ll just lick his wounds, lay low and hope the fortunes of his allies come to his rescue. He can be the wolf in the hills that takes a few sheep, but no one is too worried about. I can live with that. Look behind you. All that Masaesylian power is pouring onto the red earth over there.”
“All right, let’s see how long into the campaign it takes for that optimism of yours to unravel,” Micipsa replied, his words suffused with disenchantment.
“I hope I don’t exhaust that quality too quickly. Every night is dark, but there are always stars in the sky and most mornings are bright. Suck the air in, and enjoy its freshness and the fruits of the earth. A lot of guys lost their futures today. I didn’t, and you didn’t. We’ll set sentries and track the enemy, and then, when we’ve cleared the field and secured our lines, we’ll celebrate.”
Micipsa smiled, acknowledging the mercy of the gods and the consolation of Masinissa in equal measure. “There’d better be at least one intact amphora of wine left for me when I get back, all right? I’m due a two-day check out after this!”
“You’ve got it,” Masinissa assented.
Both men turned, one still looking for the living and the other returning to the carnage, trying not to look too directly at the lost.
Angels
There comes a point in a battle where the defeated who can flee have put to flight, and those who are left are abandoned and know their fate. It then becomes a slaughter, and all glory and honour is lost. Killing as an exercise rather than a contest revolted Masinissa, and, for those who have retained their souls and humanity, the act is one suffused with pity and despair. It took all of Masinissa’s fortitude to return to the battlefield and observe its final act, as his men looted and ended lives that had started dribbling away a few hours earlier. He felt almost a sense of duty to the vanquished that their ends had some trace of mercy and that the more sadistic men in his ranks didn’t have too much sport with the dying. In truth, most didn’t. Everyone who walked through the piles of dead and dying men knew that only the mercy of the gods and speed of their reflexes had spared them the same fate.
It is us or them. Thank Tanit it is them, thought Masinissa.
There was no sense of vengeance either. Those helpless men were the same as the Massylians. They were adversaries only in the sense that they had been recruited by force or coin, and had done what they had to. The able-bodied had to fight for someone sooner or later. The war knocked on every door and claimed its due in the end.
The residue of battle offered a paradox of serenity and agony. There was, above the moans and cries of dying men, an area of peace. The clamour of combat carried noise across great distances, especially when the men or beasts that created them still had all their reserves of vitality. The range of the dying was much more limited and waned as the moments passed. Many of the dying were even furtive; their desperate logic being that they may be mistaken for the dead and ignored. Their chances were slight. The Numidians who roamed the battlefield and cleaned the dead of their possessions could detect even the tiniest respiration and, besides, were rough with the presumptive corpses, which was a brutality that inevitably raised a murmur from any who had some chance of surviving another day.
The serenity was a false one, however. Looking upwards, it was possible to sense the passing of the tumult, but, on casting your eyes back down to the earth, the heaps of life moved the parts of their bodies they could. As this was usually their mouths – and many of these were shrouded by debris, and the limbs and gore of other misfortunates – it was the ears of the observer that had to be sharpest rather than the eyes. He didn’t enjoy the comparison with vultures, but that is what it most resembled. The tearing apart of abandoned flesh without ceremony or regard was horrific, made even more so when you yielded to any sense of empathy. Dying in this way was little different from being torn to pieces by dogs.
The bravest men, or the ones who could still prop their upper bodies marginally above the remains of their comrades, offered their necks to the passing enemy. It was a sight well known and common on the battlefield, but to witness it in person raised a shudder. Masinissa nevertheless admired the action, regarding it as the most honourable way to end a ruined life. The gesture, at least in the immediate aftermath of the battle, had a companion too. Allied soldiers would make a very similar gesture for aid or water. The meanings of the gesture contrasted absolutely, though. One was a plea for salvation, and the other a plea for release. Masinissa wondered how many men had been unlucky to have their pleas misinterpreted, with an appeal to a comrade for some nourishment being met with a sword across the throat.
Masinissa thought about the Numidian virtue of anaia, which was held in great regard by most of his compatriots, and was a matter of considerable obligation when it was invoked or acknowledged. The Numidian people – and that extended to include the Mauretanians and, to a lesser extent, the Libyans – had a very strong sense of mercy and protection, and the two combined into the amalgam of anaia. It was an incongruous place for it to be practised, but, as he watched the v
ictorious soldiers pass amongst the vanquished, he could detect pockets of mercy in the final comforting words that were offered or the pockets of prayers that were given as the swords passed quickly and accurately across the throats of the dying.
He thought of his father and how he had always prioritised safeguarding the weak, be they children, women or anyone vulnerable or at risk of harm. It went beyond pride and duty for his father, though. It was part of his soul and a virtue he had inculcated strongly in his son. He knew he would have to defer to the Carthaginian view in most matters, but, at a personal level, he would always look to find the solution or decision that most conformed to his notion of anaia.
He turned from the scene to the hilltop where Hasdrubal’s camp was being made, and realised there were matters to attend to. Many of his men had pursued the remnant of the Masaesylian and Roman legions, and there were only a few left with him of his immediate retinue. The fact that they had not led the pursuit was a testimony to the devastating nature of the victory. Syphax had entered the battle a proud warlord and the head of a new, modern army groomed by the finest military advisors in the world, and he had been reduced to a fugitive, who was at that moment riding for his life, with whatever forces he could still muster, to the sanctuary of the west and the neutral Mauretanians.
Masinissa hailed his cousin Capuca, who led two horses to him. Capuca’s own had been lost in battle, and the slice in his calf suggested that he himself had been fortunate to escape the same fate. Masinissa’s own horse had performed as admirably as he could have hoped, but he had long since dismounted and was in no need of the trusty mare for the moment and accepted the offer of the other beast.
“Don’t you wish you were still at the lyceum impressing the Greeks with your language and tactics?” enquired Capuca.
