Total War Rome: Destroy Carthage

by David Gibbins

  ‘A ram? On a liburna?’

  Ennius grinned. ‘My idea. A ram on a liburna wouldn’t be much use against triremes and polyremes. But against other liburnae and smaller vessels such as the lembos, it’s a potent weapon. The design of the lembos has sacrificed hull thickness for speed, so it would be vulnerable to ramming. When we reviewed the Roman fleet last year, we were no longer thinking of set-piece battle between triremes and polyremes, where vessels of the size of the liburna would have little direct role. We were thinking of a new kind of naval warfare involving swifter, smaller vessels, in response to the build-up of such vessels that you and Fabius saw when you got inside the circular harbour three years ago. If the Thracian mercenary is telling the truth, chasing down that lembos could make all of our preparations worthwhile.’

  ‘I want you to go to that liburna now and put the crew on a war footing. They will need extra water and provisions and be ready to leave in half an hour.’

  ‘By then the lembos may be out of sight.’

  ‘What her captain doesn’t know is that we know their destination. If your captain lays in a north-easterly course for the Gulf of Corinth then you should catch them. You will not join them as I need you to remain here in charge of your fabri and the catapults. I need an officer who can identify the man we are after and who understands the urgency of the mission, but who is unattached to a unit here and can be spared. A man I can trust to terminate this threat.’

  He looked to Fabius, and Ennius and Polybius followed his gaze. Fabius stood stiffly to attention. ‘I am sworn to remain by your side as your bodyguard, Scipio Aemilianus. I promised Polybius, and your father Aemilius Paullus.’

  Scipio put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Polybius is here now, and he absolves you. We are no longer alone against the world, as we were in the Macedonian forest. I am now surrounded by an entire army of bodyguards, the best men a general could ever have. There is no more important mission than this one I am sending you on. You know Porcus personally, and you have fought him before. You have unfinished business with him. And if this liburna is as good as Ennius says it is, you should be back in time to watch my back when I order the assault on Carthage.’

  Fabius remained at attention, and then saluted. ‘Ave atque vale, Scipio Aemilianus. The job will be done.’ He turned to Ennius. ‘I will not let scum like Porcus deny me a place in the assault on Carthage. Let’s move.’

  * * *

  An hour and a half later, Fabius stood in the bows of the liburna as she cut through the waves in pursuit of the lembos, his clothing drenched with spray and blinking hard to keep the salt from his eyes. It had been an exhilarating chase; with the galley riding the swell rather than wallowing in it, he had felt none of the discomfort that made sailing ships such an unpleasant experience for him. He stood on the starboard side, overlooking the forward sweep of the prow and the great bronze ram that sliced through the troughs a few feet ahead, rearing up and down like the school of dolphins that had accompanied them after they had left the shallow approaches to Carthage and rowed out over deeper water into the open sea.

  To begin with, the lembos had pulled away at great speed, nimbler on the waves than the liburna, but her smaller crew had quickly tired of the pace and Fabius had gained on her, to the point where she was now almost within hailing distance directly ahead. The captain of the liburna, a swarthy Sardinian who had pushed his rowers relentlessly, had no intention of bringing the lembos to heel and every intention of trying out the ram, his first opportunity to use the ship in action and see whether the iron reinforcement along the length of the keel would keep it from buckling on impact. Fabius had concurred; he too had no intention of negotiating, and would give no quarter. The men on the lembos were Romans, a crew doubtless from Metellus’ Aegean fleet, but rather than making him hesitate it strengthened his resolve. Romans who had been secretly harboured by the Carthaginians would be shown no mercy by Scipio, and it was Fabius’ duty to carry out the orders he had been given when he had left the harbour.

  On the opposite side of the bow platform was the naval centurion who commanded the marines, a unit of thirty shock troops who specialized in ship-to-ship assault, trained during peacetime to counter piracy. They knelt in pairs along the central walkway that ran the length of the galley, their swords drawn, bracing themselves for impact. The rowers were heaving at the oars faster now, the inner of the two men on each oar having been replaced by a fresh rower kept in reserve to help give a final burst of speed. Fabius gripped the rail as he watched the ram break completely free from the waves, the spray bursting back as it dropped down again and cleaved the sea like an arrow. Ahead of them the lembos was now less than three lengths away. Her captain was panicking, pushing the helmsman aside and heaving the steering oar himself, bringing the galley to port in a desperate attempt to escape but only leaving her exposed beam-on to the liburna, wallowing in the trough of a wave as her oarsmen gave up in terror and jumped from their benches towards the bow and stern, joining the small cluster of marines and other men, Porcus included, who must by now have known that their time was up.

  ‘Brace for impact!’ The captain of the liburna bellowed at them from the stern, and the oarsmen gave a last mighty effort. Fabius drew his sword and squatted down as he had been shown to do, moving back from the railing so he would not be thrown into it. A second later there was a splintering crash as the ram sliced into the thin planks of the other galley’s hull, cutting it nearly in half and driving the broken keel down as the liburna settled over it. He felt the galley heave forward in the swell, caught in the wreckage, and watched the expert axemen leap over the side and hack away at the keel to release it. Meanwhile, the marines had thrown out grapples and a corvus ladder on each side and were already among the lembos oarsmen, thrusting and hacking mercilessly. Fabius had spotted Porcus and jumped into the water over the wreckage, now red with blood, and sloshed his way towards a man standing alone in the stern, staring with disbelief as he recognized the one who was approaching him. The naval centurion saw Fabius’ intent and ordered his men to hold back and finish off any others still alive in the wreckage. Fabius came within a few paces of the man, the water now up to his knees, and stood before him, staring with contempt. ‘Porcus Entestius Supinus, by order of the consul Lucius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus, you are condemned to death as a traitor.’

  ‘Africanus.’ The other man smirked, waving his sword. ‘Who is this man? The only Africanus I know of died a miserable pauper thirty-five years ago in Liternum, unable to hold his head high in Rome for shame at having failed to take Carthage. Like grandfather, like grandson, only worse. How can Scipio Aemilianus hope to succeed when he is but a pale shadow of a man who himself had failed? You serve the wrong general, Fabius.’

  ‘You can die with dignity, so that I can tell your family that you behaved as a Roman at the end, or you can die a traitor, servant to a man who is no longer a Roman.’

  ‘Metellus is three times the general that Scipio is. Days from now he will stand in Acrocorinth, and Greece will be his for the taking. Once he knows that Carthage has surrendered to him, he will have eclipsed Scipio and be master of the world. A new empire will arise, and a new Rome.’

  ‘You forget that your message from Hasdrubal will never reach him.’

  ‘You forget that there are other ways. Runners were dispatched in the night to make their way through the Numidian lines and reach the port of Kerouane, where another lembos awaits to take the message to Metellus. You see, you have failed.’

  ‘It is irrelevant,’ Fabius said dismissively. ‘Even before your runners reach the coast, the assault on Carthage will have begun. Once Hasdrubal is destroyed, Scipio will stand atop Carthage. Metellus can receive offers of surrender from whoever he likes, if he wishes to be the laughing stock of Rome.’

  Porcus faltered, and then sneered at him. ‘You always did choose the wrong gang, Fabius, don’t you remember? You were always getting beaten up, and then you met Scipio and he protected you. Before
we knew it, you were licking his boots. At least we didn’t have to hear more stories about your miserable father’s military glory. The only heroic exploit I ever saw him undertake was when he managed to stay upright long enough to get into the tavern, day in and day out. We gave him a few knocks about the head when he was lying in the gutter, I can tell you, to help him along to his miserable little corner of Hades.’

  Fabius lunged forward, flicking Porcus’ sword away into the sea, and then came within inches of his face, snarling at him. ‘You never were much of a swordsman, were you, Porcus? You should have fought at Pydna and in Spain and in Africa, instead of toadying up to Metellus. And you won’t see my father when you reach Hades, because he is in Elysium with his comrades.’ He thrust his sword deep into Porcus’ abdomen, twisted it and withdrew it, and then slashed it across his throat, standing back while Porcus staggered forward with his mouth and eyes wide open, his hands pressing against the blood that pulsed from his neck, and then toppled face-first into the sea. Fabius lifted one foot and pushed the body away, watching it slowly sink, and then picked up the dispatch tube that Porcus had been carrying and pulled out the scroll inside, tearing it up and throwing the shreds after the body.

  He turned and looked at the liburna, which had broken free of the wreckage and was now hove-to alongside, a rope net hanging over the side to allow the last of the marines to climb back on board. The lembos was a mass of wreckage and bodies, with none of the crew left alive. The naval centurion was standing a few paces away from Fabius, up to his waist in the water, gesturing for him to come. ‘The job is finished, primipilus. The captain wants to return before the wind picks up. And I don’t know about you, but none of my boys wants to miss the assault.’

  22

  Two hours later, Fabius was back on the wharfside with Scipio and Polybius. He felt drained, but exhilarated. Had Porcus reached Corinth and the message fire been lit on Bou Kornine, it would have been Metellus on Acrocorinth and not Scipio who would have been celebrating the defeat of Carthage. Fabius had focused solely on the task in hand and was barely conscious of his own role, but he knew that by pursuing and destroying the lembos, he had changed history. At the moment all that was important was the added urgency it put on the countdown to the assault; he could see Scipio beginning to look impatient as he watched the preparations at sea. The catapult ships had assembled in a line off the sea wall, with the transport barges containing the legionaries finding their places behind in preparation for heaving forward and landing the first wave of shock troops with grapnels and ladders on the quay, ready to scale the walls. The gamble was that the defenders would be caught off-guard, not expecting a breach of the harbour defences as well as an assault on the sea walls, and that, with Carthaginian attention turned to an attack from the sea, the legionaries assembled at the harbour would be able to pour in to the breach and advance fast towards the upper city and the secondary line of defence around the Byrsa hill to the west.

  A young tribune appeared on the platform, took off his helmet and stood to attention. He had startlingly blue eyes, fair hair and angular features – a face that seemed quintessentially Roman, destined to become craggy and hard and one day take its place in the lararium of some patrician house alongside the images of his ancestors. Scipio looked up and nodded at the tribune, who saluted. ‘I bring word from Gulussa, Scipio Aemilianus. The assault force outside the land walls is now ready. The catapults are all aimed at the same length of wall, already weakened by bombardment over the last weeks, and Gulussa thinks a breach will be made immediately. As soon as you give the word, they will let fly.’

  Scipio squinted at the line of catapult ships being drawn up close to the sea wall. ‘Then tell him to make it so. By the time you return to him, Ennius will be ready in the ships. The assault will begin in an hour, when you hear my signallers blast the horns.’

  ‘I will lead the first cohort myself.’

  Scipio looked him up and down, and then stared into his eyes, his gaze lingering as if he saw something in the boy. ‘Do you have a good centurion?’

  ‘The best. Abius Quintus Aberis, primipilus of the first legion. He fought at Pydna, and in Spain.’

  ‘Good. The centurions are the backbone of the army. Respect them, and they will respect you. But they will expect you to lead from the front. Have you seen action before?’

  ‘I have spent my whole life preparing for this day. I have studied all of the works of Polybius. I won the sword-fighting competition held for boys in the Circus Maximus, for two years running.’

  Scipio glanced at the boy’s belt, where Fabius could see the thin line of shimmer along both sides of the blade where it was visible for an inch or so above the scabbard. ‘You have a double-edged sword.’

  The young tribune nodded enthusiastically, pulling the sword out and holding it forward, his grip strong and unwavering. ‘A lot of veterans came back from Spain with Celtiberian swords, and many of us have had the smiths create Roman versions. This one was a present from my uncle.

  ‘Your uncle?’

  ‘You will know him,’ the young man said proudly. ‘He served with distinction in Spain. Sextus Julius Caesar.’

  Polybius glanced up from the plan, peering over his crystal spectacles. ‘Did I hear someone mention my name a while back?’ He caught sight of the boy. ‘Ah. This is Julia’s son. I don’t think you’ve met him before. Gnaeus Metellus Julius Caesar.’

  Fabius suddenly realized what had been familiar about the boy: he had Julia’s hair and eyes. But there was something more, something that made him stare hard at the boy. Scipio clearly saw it too, and after looking at the boy in silence for a few moments he spoke to him again, his voice strangely taut. ‘When were you born?’

  ‘Four days before the Ides of March, in the year of the consulships of Marcus Claudius Marcellus and Gaius Sulpicius Gallus.’

  ‘The year after the triumph of my father Aemilius Paullus.’

  ‘Nine months, to be exact. My mother said that I was conceived on that very night, that it was auspicious. Every year on that day when I was a child we went to the tomb of the Aemilii Paulli on the Appian Way and made offerings.’

  Fabius remembered that evening on the day of the triumph almost twenty-two years before, when Scipio had taken up Polybius’ offer of his rooms and taken Julia there for an hour, just the two of them, and then later in the theatre when Metellus had come to take her away. But he also knew from Julia’s slave girl Dianne that she had resisted Metellus’ advances that night, and had gone straight to the Vestals to be with her mother until the marriage a month later. She would have known who the father was, and Metellus too must eventually have guessed. Gnaeus Metellus Julius Caesar was Scipio’s son.

  Scipio suddenly looked sternly at the boy. ‘It is unheard of to make offerings at the tomb of another gens. You must be wary of offending the social order. Does your father know?’

  ‘We went without his knowledge. But my mother wanted me to tell you that we did it, when I had the chance to speak to you. My father was absent for most of my childhood, on campaign or holding administrative posts in the provinces. My mother never accompanied him. Even in Rome he lives in a separate house. I have lived with the failure of their marriage all my life.’

  Polybius turned to Scipio. ‘I know that you had no interest in gossip among the gentes during your recent time in Rome, but it’s become an open secret that Metellus is more at home among the prostibulae than he is with his own wife. He has changed little in his habits since you were at the academy. It is said that they have not shared a bed for years.’

  ‘Not since my sister Metella was born,’ the young man said, looking at Scipio. ‘He tried to beat my mother, and I have no love for him. I was brought up in the household of my uncle Sextus Julius Caesar, and am betrothed to his daughter Octavia. My mother says that her legacy and mine will be in the bloodline of the Julii Caesares not the Metelli.’

  Fabius remembered the words of the Sibyl: The eagle and the sun shall
unite, and in their union shall lie the future of Rome. He looked at the embossed symbols on the breastplates of the two men in front of him now: Scipio with the radiating sun symbol over a solid line of his adoptive grandfather Africanus, representing his ascendancy over Hannibal in the desert, and Gnaeus with the eagle symbol of the Julii Caesares, the same image that was in the pendant that Julia had given Scipio and that he still wore. He suddenly realized what the prophecy had meant: not Scipio and Metellus, a union of generals, but Scipio and Julia, a union of blood lines, of gentes. For a moment, Fabius felt dislocated, as if all around him had become a blur and he was seeing only these two men, as if they alone were the strength of history. Somewhere in the future, perhaps many generations hence, this union of gentes might create a new world order, not because of some divine prophecy of the Sibyl but because of the power of men to shape their own destinies, a strength of vision that had led Scipio Aemilianus to stand before the walls of Carthage now alongside the future that he had created with Julia, their son.

  Gnaeus stood to attention again. ‘I will be the first through the breach, just as you were at Intercatia.’

  Scipio reached out and put his right hand on the young man’s shoulder. ‘Ave atque vale, Gnaeus Metellus Julius Caesar. Keep your sword blade sharp.’

  ‘Ave atque vale, Scipio Aemilianus Africanus. May victory this day be yours.’

  ‘Victory is for the legionaries, tribune. For the men of Rome. You must never forget that.’

  Gnaeus saluted, turned and strode away, holding the hilt of his sword. Scipio turned to Polybius. ‘One evening twenty-two years ago you gave me the keys to your house, so that Julia and I could be alone for a precious hour. Perhaps in that single act you shaped the destiny of Rome, more than all of your books and your advice to me in the field.’