Pride of Carthage

by David Anthony Durham

  He stopped the horse on a hill. Behind him, New Carthage smoldered, as cities always do, cloaked in a blanket of haze. To the south the sea swelled and receded against the land. To the west and the north the land rolled away to the horizon. None of it seemed beyond him. He was free for the first real time since his boyhood. And—if the gods had finally chosen to smile upon him—he would soon return to business unfinished in Rome, not alone this time, but with an army.

  There are some men whom the gods curse by birth into times of war; there are others for whom this is a blessing. There are some who crave nothing more than chaos, who eat their pain and revel in that of others. Such a man was Monomachus, and such was the gift bestowed upon him that he could daily take the base materials of life and open them to air and search out the root of human emotion and twist it into knots of anguish. It was no secret that he had devoted his military labors to Moloch, the Devourer, but many speculated that he communed with even earlier deities. Some said that he was of Egyptian origins and that he walked the modern world as an incarnation of the lost gods of that aged place. Others said the source of his barbarism could be found within the span of his singular life, if one were bold enough to search for it. Still others refused to speak of him or even utter his name. And a few were loyal to him as to no other and served only under him.

  Hannibal chose this man to lead the delegation that would introduce Carthage to the Gauls. A strange choice, perhaps, but the commander wished to make certain things clear to those coarse men from the start. Monomachus stood before the Gauls like the seething pulse of enmity. His cheekbones were high and feline, so prominent that the rest of his face hung shadowed beneath them. He was so devoid of fat that his body seemed little more than a skeleton wrapped in striated cords of muscle. When the Gauls beheld him they knew that even by their own standards this was a creature not wisely crossed. Most of them were glad they did not have to cross him. For, despite the simmering intensity in his stare, he offered friendship. He lavished presents of gold and silver on the chieftains. He unsheathed finely crafted Iberian swords and offered them up, blade held between his fingers. He talked of the power of Carthage and the benefits of friendship. And he said that he had been sent only to guarantee safe passage through their lands as the forces of Carthage marched toward Rome. Should the Gauls choose to join in the great war, they would be welcome as comrades, with the bounty of Italy shared among them all. He found most tribes eventually proved amenable.

  But when he reached the Volcae things changed somewhat. These were an even rougher sort of barbarian tribe than most, warlike and primitive, caring little for the outside world. Monomachus found his translator having difficulty communicating with them. They took the gifts readily enough, but they saw no need to bow to these foreigners' wishes. There were only a few of them, after all, and the Volcae were a numerous people. The Carthaginians presented their gifts and called councils, and all the while more of the Volcae slunk out of the foothills in seemingly endless small bands. Their camp grew around the envoys, and the Carthaginians sensed the whispered malice multiplying minute by minute.

  The group spent one sleepless night in these people's company. It was a frigid winter and none of the warm-blooded Africans fared well in it. They heard movement around them all through the night; by morning it seemed their host had doubled in size yet again. The party of twenty-five stood steaming in the morning air, talking among themselves in whispers that crystallized before their faces. One man whispered to another that they would not leave this place alive, but Monomachus punched the young man and told them what he had learned in the night, for he had not been idle. Their interpreter had managed to gain this information through bribes: this day would indeed be their last. The chieftain was to invite them to his hut to receive more presents, but once inside they would be seized. Then the masses outside would attack the rest of the contingent. They would be killed by various tortures. Their heads would be cut from their bodies and used for sport. Their skulls would later adorn the entrances to Volcae homes, or roll upon the floor as toys for children.

  “At least,” Monomachus said, “this is how they would have things.” But he had a different idea and his men bent willing ears to it.

  They went to the chieftain bearing no arms of their own, but with a gift of swords, one carried by each of the five who would enter the hut. There was some debate about this, but, in the end, prudence gave way to greed, for the Gauls desired the fine swords. Inside was smoky and dark and close. The five stood before the chieftain and explained their proposals. They felt the armed guards pressing at their backs, but Monomachus spoke easily, describing the war to come and the part they might play in it, actively if they chose, or passively by allowing the army to pass unmolested. Either suited Hannibal. They waited as the translator did his work.

  When the response came, it was as the Carthaginians expected. The chief would promise nothing until he had seen the gifts they offered. And these gifts had better be magnificent, for he was not inclined to allow a foreign force to pass beneath his nose. Who was this Hannibal, anyway? Why had he not come himself? If he was so powerful, why did he send such a small delegation? Why try to bribe his way through a territory, if his army was all that they claimed? He asked again to see the gifts. He might talk more after that.

  Monomachus heard this calmly. He stared at the bulbous nose of the Gaul, at the blue eyes and the red, creviced skin. He held the curved sword before him, like nothing the Gaul had seen before, glinting even in the dim firelight. He said this: They would pass. They would, with his blessing or not, beneath his nose or no. In fact, he would take his nose to Hannibal and let the commander decide the matter. Before the translator had completed the Gallic version, Monomachus slammed his head forward, mouth open, teeth bared. He clamped down on the chieftain's nose and shook his head from side to side with all the fury of a lion at the kill. He broke away with a chunk of the man's flesh in his mouth. The Gaul's face was a bloody mess, but that was soon to be the least of his problems.

  Monomachus stepped back and put the gift-sword to use. He struck low and sliced the Gaul clean through both legs just below the knee. The man fell as his shins slipped away from him, but a moment later he was upright, fighting for balance on the bloody stumps that were now his legs. This could not last long, but the Carthaginians did not wait to see him fall again. In a blur of stabbing and slashing they dispatched the rest of the Gauls, who scarcely had the time or the space to swing their swords into motion.

  The small party flew out of the shelter and into the arms of a massed army. The rest of the group, who had been waiting outside, had drawn their swords at the first sounds of confusion from within the hovel. The moment Monomachus joined them they hit the wall of blond chests with a shocking, immediate fury, a scream rising from their leader and stirring the other men into a frenzy of hacking, thrusting progress. Though they started at twenty-five before the meeting they were seventeen by the time they reached their horses, and eleven when they could finally look behind them without fear. Two others died of their injuries in the days to come. One was dispatched at his own request.

  And so it was a ragged band of eight that finally returned to New Carthage. Monomachus went straight to Hannibal, unwashed and still crusted in blood he chose not to wash from his armor. He said things had gone quite well in Gaul. They had many friends. They would not find that their passage along the Rhône need be made through entirely hostile peoples. “There were a few tribes that might prove troublesome,” he said, “but they will find themselves overmatched.”

  Entering his chambers at a brisk walk, Hannibal spotted the servant before she noticed him. She lay prone across his bed, the curve of her hips betrayed through the thin fabric of her shift, her legs stretching bare beyond these. The sole of one foot caressed the toes of the other. She seemed completely absorbed with something just beside her, out of view. Hannibal cleared his throat and the young woman's head snapped around. She gasped and sprang to her feet, head bowed
and arms pinned at her sides. Only then was it clear that she had been cuddling with the child, Hamilcar. The boy, also as if caught in some clandestine moment, rolled from back to belly. He paused on all fours and stared at his father, unsure why he had caused such alarm in his maid. After a moment of apparent thought, he offered a babble of greeting.

  “Would you seduce my son already?” Hannibal asked. The maid began a hurried response, but he shushed her silent and moved forward, tossing his cloak across a chair. “Where is my wife?”

  “She should be here in a moment,” the maid said. “She . . . sent me with the young lord to await her, and you, on the hour.” Her eyes darted up just quickly enough to stress this, pointing out—whether she intended to or not—that Hannibal had arrived early for his planned meeting with his wife. She had an attractive face, full and fleshy-featured. Though she was shorter than Imilce, her body was more languidly curved. Her breasts, wide-spaced and full, pressed against her shift, staining the garment with moisture from her nipples.

  Noticing this, Hannibal asked, “Do you feed my son as well as sport with him?”

  “Yes, my lord. But only on occasion. Your wife feeds him well.”

  “You must have a child of your own, then?”

  “A girl.”

  “And how does she fare? Does she not want for your milk?”

  The maid seemed uncomfortable with the line of questioning, but she answered, “No, lord: As I give milk to your son, so another gives hers to mine.”

  Hannibal almost asked about that woman's child, but he had already shared more words with her than he usually did with servants. At some point, he knew, somebody's child might well perish so that his son was fed richly. He did not want to linger too long on this thought. He dismissed the maid with a motion of his head. “I will care for the boy,” he said.

  When Imilce entered the room, father and child were seated on the floor. Hannibal was trying to position marble soldiers in a particular formation, but Hamilcar kept interrupting him, picking up first one soldier and then another, bringing them to his mouth as if he were a giant who would solve the dispute by chewing off their heads. Imilce paused a moment, taking the scene in, and then walked in without expressing whatever thought she entertained about them.

  “A strange thing happened this morning,” she said, motioning with her fingers that she would not sit on the stone floor. Hannibal rose and cast himself onto the bed. Imilce joined him, continuing with her story. Apparently, the cook preparing the afternoon meal in honor of the small delegation from the Insubrian Gauls had been blinded in one eye. It was the oddest of accidents: He had simply plunged a ladle into a vat of boiling oil to test its consistency. But at the touch of the utensil, the oil spat up a single droplet. It hit the cook's open eye and sent him stumbling away in pain. On hearing of this, Hanno was quite upset. He had called for Mandarbal but he had been informed that the seer was ill with a fever and could not attend him. “This distressed him even more,” Imilce said, “for it seemed a doubly ominous warning.”

  Hannibal listened with little interest, commenting that his brother was too inclined to find ill omens in the simplest of things. “One should be attentive to the gods,” he said, “but not paralyzed in all matters. A drop of oil is hardly a sign from Baal. I trust the man can cook with a single eye just as well as with two.”

  As he spoke he moved closer to his wife, caressing first the smooth skin on the back of her hands and then the joint of her knee and then the pale stretch of her inner thigh. “I've decided a position for Hanno in this conflict,” he said. “I will inform him of it soon, though I've no doubt he will find something of ill-fortune in my decision.”

  “And what of your family?” Imilce slipped her hand over Hannibal's, simultaneously caressing it and slowing its upward progress. “What fate have you assigned us?”

  “The best and only course for you is that which is safest,” Hannibal said. “So, you, my love, will finally see my homeland. Sapanibal will escort you and introduce you to my mother and my younger sister and to Carthage itself. I am sure you will find them all most welcoming. You'll wait out this war in the embrace of more luxury than you've yet tasted.”

  “If that is your wish,” Imilce said. “But I had held some hope that I might go with you.”

  Hamilcar rose to his feet and pulled a bowl of olives from the serving table. Imilce half-rose to attend him, but was stayed by her husband's arm. She watched the child spill the fruit and roll it beneath his palms.

  “You would ride with me into battle?” Hannibal asked, squinting as if the thought of this bewildered him. “I knew not that you were of the Amazon race.”

  “Do not joke at my expense. I wish to travel with you, so that I might see you at times and so that your son need not forget you. I am not so feeble as to be a burden. Hasdrubal schooled me well in riding last year.”

  “Did he teach you to hurl a javelin as well? Did he teach you of the parts inside a man's body and how best to destroy them?” Imilce began to respond, but Hannibal continued, his voice edged. “Life on campaign would ill suit you. What would become of you should I die? Should the Romans lay their hands on you they would dishonor you. They might well form a train behind you and each of them—hundreds of them—push their seed inside you and so punish me as well. This is no idle threat but the way of war, the nature of hatred. What if they captured my son? What might they do with him? The thought is unimaginable.”

  “You misunderstand me,” Imilce said, though her voice was chastened and had lost its playful timbre. “I meant only that we be near. You might capture a city early and we might come to it and live in safety, in a fortress you thought of as a home within their—”

  Hannibal pushed her caressing hand away, kicked his legs off the bed, and rose. “And when word got out that Hannibal's beloved wife dwelled in that city? It would soon become a target. If I were at the gates of Rome with my hands upon the ram and word came to me that you were in danger, what would you have me do? No, the very idea is absurd. You would create in me a weakness where there need not be one.”

  “If it came to that, I would die before—”

  “You would be fortunate to be allowed death,” Hannibal said. “No. That is my answer. You go to Carthage with all that is precious to me. Let us talk of it no more.”

  Though her eyes were cast aside and her visage tight with things unsaid, Imilce nodded. She rose and scooped up her son and started to move away.

  “What are you doing?”

  In answer, Imilce clicked her tongue twice on the roof of her mouth. The boy's maid appeared, took the boy, and slipped away with him. Imilce turned back toward her husband. Reaching to loosen her hair, she said, “Perhaps the commander would like a second child. If so, we should not waste time.”

  The men gathered for the meeting with a nervous, expectant air. Hannibal was finally to set all the pieces of his plan before them and each would learn his own position within it. Though they had attended councils throughout the winter and most had even spoken privately with the commander, this meeting marked a new stage, the moment at which preparation met the bridge into action. They sat on cushions around a low table, at ease for the moment but not slouching or leaning back as they might while at leisure. Mago and Hasdrubal, Bostar and Bomilcar, Maharbal and Carthalo, Monomachus and Vandicar: all men of importance in the campaign to come, each a representative of components of the army serving under them. Hannibal disdained clutter at meetings such as these. Instead he trusted in the generals beneath him to hear his desires and to carry them through.

  Hanno, taciturn as ever, took a seat at the edge of the low table, his cushion pushed back a little way so that those next to him had to look almost over their shoulders to address him. He had long dreaded this meeting. He felt the fear now in the pulsing of the arteries in his hands. Whether he clenched them into fists or held them loose or laid them flat on his thighs, in each position his heart seemed to be contained within them and to thump, thump, thump
. It was most distracting, all the more because he had to concentrate to think past it, to brace himself for the role he would soon be assigned. Which would be worse, a position of prominence from which to err yet again in decision-making, or a demotion to some lesser role that would indicate to all that Hannibal found him wanting?

  The arrival of the historian roused Hanno from his thoughts. Silenus entered laden with the writing supplies with which he would keep a record of all of Hannibal's accomplishments. He took a seat near Hanno, greeting him with a smile that the Barca returned coldly. He had grown no fonder of the Greek than when they first met. Silenus was silent enough as he prepared his writing utensils, but once readied he looked about the group and immediately found a jumping-off point in some quadrant of the conversation. He said, “Which puts me in the mind of the story of Titus Manlius and his son. Has anyone heard of this?”

  He addressed his question to the room rather than to anyone in particular and it might have passed unnoticed, except that Bomilcar threw up his hands. “He speaks! Our resident historian and Roman expert! Silenus, if you were as productive in bed as you are in producing tales you would have created your own nation by now.”

  “You may have something there,” Silenus said, “but for better or worse the gods have not so endowed me. I pleasure in bed like any man, but of issue . . . As yet I am the father only of tales. This one I am assured is true, however. You might find it instructive of the Roman character.”

  Before Hanno could find the words to discourage him, Mago did the opposite.

  “We await patiently,” he said.