Master of Rome

by John Stack

  The torment was pitiless, the crowds around him jeering and spitting curses in a language that had become abhorrent to his ear. His thoughts turned to home and his sons and how he would have to stand before them. Hasdrubal and Mago were too young to understand, but Hannibal was astute beyond his years and he would understand his father’s humiliation. It was a realization that fed Hamilcar’s hatred and he had already decided he would not shield his boys from the truth. In time they would all know of his hatred for Rome; it would become central to their characters, their ambitions and their loyalty. Carthage would always have enemies, in Africa, Iberia or beyond, but for Hamilcar, the Barcid clan would bay only for the blood of one people, the Romans, and he held close the hope that one day the sons of Hamilcar Barca would exact a terrifying measure of revenge in the name of Carthage.

  Atticus stepped off the back of his chariot at the foot of the Curia steps. He began to ascend with Septimus by his side, the cheers of the crowd increasing as they recognized the commander of the fleet and his centurion. Their names were known throughout Rome, endlessly proclaimed by the orators hired by Duilius to stand at the corners of every Forum, and the crowd surged forward against the cordon of legionaries.

  Atticus walked with his eyes upturned to the top of the steps and towards the assembled leaders of Rome: Aulus Postumius Albinus, the senior consul in the centre, Catulus by his side and, behind them both, Duilius, who nodded with a smile as he caught Atticus’s eye. Atticus had trod this path before, after the battle of Mylae, but so much had changed since then. On that day, Duilius had offered him a place by his side in the heart of the city, but Atticus had declined, believing he would never call Rome his home, that his destiny lay elsewhere. Now he was about to confound that belief and forever bind his fate to Rome’s. He turned at the top of the steps and looked out over the crowd, hearing his name amongst those shouted in celebration, the sound filling his heart with pride.

  The senior consul stretched out his arms and the noise abated to a clamorous din. Albinus began his speech, his words reaching only those at the front of the crowd. He spoke of Catulus and the defeat of the Carthaginian fleet, of the strength of Rome and how none could stand against her, and how Sicily was merely the beginning of a new and incredible opportunity for the Republic to expand its borders across the sea that had once marked the boundary of their ambitions.

  The crowd roared in support, their cheers rippling across the breath of the Forum, an infectious celebration that touched even those who could not hear the consul’s words. Albinus called for quiet once more and he ordered Atticus to stand before him.

  ‘Citizens of Rome, people of the Republic,’ he announced. ‘Today we honour one man who stands shoulder to shoulder with Consul Catulus, a man who commanded the fleet to victory and made safe the future of this city. For this deed and all others, I hereby declare Atticus Milonius Perennis to be a citizen of Rome of the equestrian class.’

  Again the crowd roared in approval, their cheers reaching a crescendo as the senior consul took Atticus’s hand. Amidst the tumult, the senators nearest to Atticus offered their congratulations. Atticus smiled as Duilius stepped forward, knowing that the senator had orchestrated the endowment of citizenship, and they shook hands as they had many times before, as allies and friends. Atticus turned and sought out Septimus, the centurion shouldering his way through a knot of senators to reach his friend and they stood before each other.

  ‘Welcome to Rome, citizen,’ Septimus said with a smile, and Atticus laughed as he took his friend’s hand.

  Septimus stretched out his other hand and turned Atticus towards the crowd.

  ‘Down there,’ he said, and he indicated the front row of the crowd at the foot of the steps.

  Atticus looked and he immediately saw Hadria staring up at him. She looked as she had done the first night he met her, and in an instant his heart relived the sensations of that first encounter. She was smiling, her face lit with an ecstatic glow that spoke of every feeling she had ever shared with him. To her side was Antoninus, her father. He too was smiling; as Atticus caught his eye, the former centurion nodded slightly. Atticus looked to Hadria again and he realized that the most precious thread that had once bound him to Rome was reforming within him, that the social barriers that had once severed that bond had fallen, never to be rebuilt, and he returned her smile.

  He looked out over the crowd to the temples and buildings surrounding the Forum, and beyond to the Servian Wall that encompassed the city. He could see the verdant haze that marked the southern horizon, and in his mind’s eye he travelled over two hundred leagues to the city of Locri. There, the bones of his ancestors lay in arid soil, generations deep. They had been proud people, as was their son, and Atticus thought once more on the city that was now his home and the fellow Romans who stood about him. He would always be of Locri and Magna Graecia, his ancestors deserved no less, but from this day he would also be of Rome, and in his heart he was proud that, one day, his sons would be as he had become: Roman.

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  Master of Rome opens with a brief account of the Battle of Tunis in 255 BC. The Carthaginians led their attack on the Roman infantry line with elephants, while the Roman cavalry, who were outnumbered by four to one, were quickly routed. Thereafter the Carthaginian cavalry attacked the flanks of the hard-pressed legionaries and only two thousand Romans on the left escaped, while Marcus Atilius Regulus led a brief but ultimately unsuccessful breakout at the head of five hundred men. The Carthaginian army was led by a Spartan, Xanthippus, who, according to Polybius, the Greek historian, left Carthage after the victory.

  Upon hearing news of the defeat, the two consuls for that year, Marcus Aemilius Paullus and Servius Fulvius Paetinus Nobilior led three hundred and fifty ships to Aspis to evacuate the survivors. They were challenged by two hundred Carthaginian ships and a brief battle ensued off Cape Hermaeum, one that ended in defeat for the Carthaginians with the loss of one hundred and fourteen ships captured. Polybius tells us that the consuls were eager to build on this defeat by attacking cities on the southwestern coast of Sicily. They were advised against this by the experienced seamen of the fleet, due to the likelihood of adverse weather; however, they ultimately ignored this advice and the Roman fleet, enlarged with captured Carthaginian galleys, was caught in a storm off Camarina. All but eighty ships were destroyed. Estimates of the dead vary, but certainly run into the tens of thousands.

  Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Asina was elected consul in 254 BC, a significant political achievement given his defeat at Lipara six years earlier, and with Aulus Atilius Caiatinus they captured Panormus after a successful siege.

  The fate of Marcus Atilius Regulus after the Battle of Tunis is shrouded in myth. Polybius does not record his fate; however, other historians writing of the events hundreds of years later claim that he travelled to Rome as a Carthaginian ambassador, only to advise the Romans to reject any agreement. Bound by honour, he then returned to Carthage where he was tortured and killed.

  The siege of Lilybaeum began in 250 BC. From the outset the Romans had difficulties imposing a blockade and the Carthaginians’ local knowledge of the shoals allowed them to breach the siege line several times. The most notable of these blockade runners was a man known as ‘The Rhodian’. He was Carthaginian, although in Master of Rome I have changed his nationality for narrative purposes, and he bested the Roman fleet many times before he was eventually caught.

  In 249 BC, as the siege progressed at Lilybaeum, the consul for that year, Publius Claudius Pulcher, decided to mount a surprise attack on the Carthaginian fleet anchored at nearby Drepana. Prior to the battle he undertook a ritual to invite the favour of the gods; however, when the sacred chickens refused to eat he is said to have thrown them overboard in a rage, demanding that they drink instead.

  The ensuing battle unfolded as described. The Roman fleet arrived in disarray at Drepana after a night-time approach and the Carthaginian fleet slipped out of the inner harbour only to turn
and engage the unprepared Roman line, hemming them in against the coastline. The Romans were heavily defeated, with ninety-three ships captured, although Pulcher escaped with some thirty ships. He was subsequently tried for the crime of perduellio for his defeat. Drepana is notable as it marked the only large-scale naval battle that the Carthaginians won over the course of the entire war.

  Given the defeat at Drepana (and subsequent destruction in a storm of another Roman fleet off Cape Pachynus, near Syracuse, which I did not include in Master of Rome), it is possible that the Carthaginians could have pushed the war to a conclusion at this point. However, they did not exploit the opportunity and while the Romans continued to fight on land, the Carthaginians resorted to indecisive raiding of the southern coastline of Italy.

  In 243 BC the Romans decided to build a new fleet. Given the scale of their previous losses it is a decision that speaks to their desire to win at all costs, and two hundred quinqueremes were built using funds donated by private citizens. As before, Lilybaeum and Drepana were threatened, and Polybius states that Rome’s aim was to force the Carthaginians into a decisive battle.

  The Romans crews worked hard to prepare for battle and by 241 BC they were well trained, fed and equipped. In contrast, after Drepana, the Carthaginians had decommissioned many of their ships and it took them some time to muster a fleet of some two hundred and fifty galleys to counter this new threat from Rome.

  On the 10 March 241 BC the two fleets clashed in what was to be the final battle of the war. The Roman fleet was commanded by consul Caius Lutatius Catulus, supported by a senior praetor, Quintus Valerius Falto. The Carthaginians were led by a man named Hanno, while Hamilcar Barca commanded the army on land (as before I placed Barca in command of the naval battle for narrative purposes). The weather was firmly in the favour of the Carthaginian fleet and, with the wind to their backs, they sailed towards Lilybaeum from the Aegates Island of Hiero (present-day Marettimo). Catulus, faced with a heavy swell, gambled on the skill of his crews, and, anxious not to allow the Carthaginian fleet to reach the army besieged at Lilybaeum, sailed out from another of the islands to intercept the Carthaginians. The battle was hard fought but the Romans were victorious, and Polybius states that the Carthaginians lost fifty ships sunk and seventy captured while others escaped after the wind changed during the battle.

  Aegates Islands was the decisive victory that the Romans had planned for, and it ended the First Punic War. Hamilcar Barca and Caius Lutatius Catulus negotiated the terms. The central conditions of the peace were: complete evacuation of all Carthaginian forces from Sicily, the return of all Roman prisoners freely while the Carthaginians had to pay a ransom for their own, and the payment of an indemnity of 3,200 Euboean talents over twenty years to the Roman state. The treaty was duly signed, ending twenty-three years of war between the two states.

  Rome’s victory put an end to Carthaginian naval dominance of the western Mediterranean; however, unlike after previous campaigns against enemies on the Italian peninsula, Rome made no attempt to absorb Carthage into its Republic, either as an ally or a settled colony, primarily because the Roman state, exhausted after a twenty-three year conflict, did not have the resources to fully subdue Carthage.

  The Carthaginian power base in Africa and Spain remained intact and within a generation the two cities would once again be at war. It was a war fought by the ancestors of the first conflict, with the son of Hamilcar Barca, Hannibal, leading his army over the Alps into the heart of the Roman Republic, only to be defeated years later, by the most famous son of the Scipio family line: Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thanks to my agent, Bill Hamilton, who set me on the road, and all the team at A.M. Heath, in particular Jennifer Custer, Kate Rizzo Munson and Vickie Dillon, for all their hard work.

  Thanks to HarperCollinsPublishers; my editor, Susan Watt, for her support, insight and tenacious editing, and to Elizabeth Dawson and the team in Ireland: Moira Reilly and Tony Purdue.

  Thanks to Ann Luttrell and Ben Cuddihy of the Triskel Arts Centre for all their local support in Cork.

  Thanks to my Mum and Dad, Gerard and Catherine, whose enthusiasm always outstrips my own, and to my Mum-and Dad-in-law, John and Frances Moran, and also Aunty Pam Moran, for their support, not just of me, but of my family.

  Thanks to the extended clan, Colm, Pam, Karen, Paul, Fiona and Doreen.

  And finally thanks to Adrienne for all her support and love, who celebrates with me on the good days and commiserates with me on the bad, and thanks to my kids, Zoe, Andrew and Amy, who always point and shout loudly when they see my books in the shops.

  About the Author

  JOHN STACK was born and lives in County Cork in Ireland. He is married with three children. He is presently writing a novel set during another great sea battle, the Spanish Armada.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  Other Books by John Stack

  Masters of the Sea

  Ship of Rome

  Captain of Rome

  Credits

  Jacket photographs: Background textures & soldiers © Shutterstock

  Soldier (foreground) © Nik Keevil

  Copyright

  HarperCollinsPublishers

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  Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2011

  MASTER OF ROME. Copyright © John Stack 2011. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  John Stack asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978-0-00-728527-3

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  EPub Edition © AUGUST 2011 ISBN: 978-0-00-743244-8

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