Pride of Carthage

by David Anthony Durham

  Sophonisba could not have been more than twelve or thirteen, just budding with the first indications of the woman she was to become. But she walked this line between childhood and maturity nimbly, with a confidence that touched Imilce with shame. And it only took her a few glances to realize that Sophonisba was at the verge of a monumental beauty. She was her mother's daughter, in her forehead and the character of her cheekbones and in her nose, but her skin tone was the lightest of all her siblings' and her mouth was narrower, a soft, full oval. Imilce felt her own appearance wanting beside this girl. Fortunately, Sophonisba did not agree.

  “You're the most graceful woman in Carthage,” she said. “The others will be jealous, so pay them no mind. One would think you were carved by an artist instead of born from between a woman's legs. And your baby . . . Mother was beside herself. You cannot tell it to look at her now, but this afternoon she went to her chambers and cried, thinking about him. She hasn't done that since she learned of my father's death.”

  Imilce held the palm wine without lifting it. “Did the child so disappoint her?”

  “Disappoint?” Sophonisba asked. She ridged her forehead in a manner that temporarily rendered her surprisingly unattractive. Then she dropped the expression and all was as before. “She was moved to tears of joy. She beheld her firstborn grandson for the first time today. She saw her son in his face and in that is her husband's face made immortal. No, she was not disappointed. What she felt was . . . It was rapture.”

  Imilce stared at her for a moment.

  Noting the look, Sophonisba stepped closer. She said, “Though I am just a girl, I think perhaps we can be friends. Would you like that?”

  Imilce nodded. “Very much.”

  “Good. As my service to you, I will tell you everything there is to know about Carthage. Everything important, at least. But first, you must speak to me. Tell me of my brothers. I've not seen any of them save Mago in years. Truthfully, sister, I do not remember my other brothers at all. Tell me about them, and then about other young men. The noble ones. I am as yet unmarried. There is a boy here, a Massylii prince named Masinissa, who is quite taken with me. He says he will have me for his wife someday. Have you heard of him?”

  “No,” Imilce answered.

  A ripple of disappointment passed over the girl's face. “Well . . . You will in years to come. I might have him as a husband, but not without knowing something of real men, men of action. Masinissa is handsome, but he is as yet a boy. So, tell me. Talk. I will hold my tongue while you do.”

  Though the girl did hold her tongue, Imilce began slowly. She wanted to convey how much Sophonisba had just done for her, how she was awash in relief and affection. How only this girl among all those whom Imilce had so far met had spoken to her with an open face. But she had not been asked this, so instead she cleared her throat, sipped the palm wine, and answered all of Sophonisba's questions as completely as she could. Though she carried on bleeding, silently, secretly, she knew she could bear this world a little longer.

  When he first heard about the Roman legions' arrival in northern Iberia, Hanno desperately wished that he possessed his eldest brother's brilliance, or Mago's intelligence, or Hasdrubal's boldness. But he also remembered that he had left them all months before, with farewells given through gritted teeth. The last time he spoke with Hannibal, the words between them had boiled almost to violence. It was the nearest Hanno had come since they were adolescents to lashing out physically at his brother. There had been a time when they often fought each other to the ground and came away bruised and bloody. But as they both became more adept at warcraft they seemed to recognize a tendril of threat that they dared not touch. Still, when Hannibal ordered him to stay south of the Pyrenees Hanno suffered through a few moments of wanting to swing for his brother's head with something heavy and sharp. It was not just the order. It was the timing as well, the evening he received it, and the host of things it suggested his brother knew of and thought about him.

  He had begun the night drinking the local wine with Mago, Bostar, Adherbal, and Silenus. Adherbal spoke of a correspondence he had received from Archimedes, the Syracusan mathematician, detailing theories he thought applicable to military defenses. Silenus remarked that he had once dined with Archimedes—raw oysters, if he remembered correctly, eaten on a patio abutting the sea rocks, from which they watched boys pull their meal directly out of the water. A short while later, Silenus interrupted Bostar mid-sentence. The secretary had just mentioned the suggestion that new coins be struck bearing Hannibal's likeness on one side, with words naming him conqueror of Italy on the obverse. Silenus found this premature.

  “One cannot count a victory accomplished in advance,” he said. “Consider the Aetolians just a few years ago. They were certain that their siege of Medion was soon to prove victorious. So much so, that as they neared the date for their annual elections the retiring leaders argued that they should have a say in distributing the spoils and receive credit for the victory by having their names engraved on commemorative shields. The soon-to-be-elected objected. If the siege succeeded on the first day they were in office, well, so be it. Must be the will of the gods! And so only their names should go on the shields. Of course, neither party could accede to an agreement that gave the other the honor, so they resolved that whoever was leading them when the siege succeeded they would all share the spoils with their predecessors. Very high-minded of them, don't you think? Very egalitarian, to use a word you may not be familiar with. They even worked out the inscription they were to engrave on their shields to commemorate the victory.”

  “And your point?” Bostar asked.

  “I am just now reaching it. Demetrius of Macedon had hired himself to help the Medionians. His contingent of five thousand Illyrians landed on the very evening after this resolution was passed. They met the surprised Aetolians the next morning, dislodged them from their positions, and trounced them. So much for their sure victory. On the day following, the Medionians and Illyrians met to discuss the issue of the shields and how they should be inscribed. They chose to use the same structure the Aetolians had decided upon, inscribing both the names of the present Aetolian commanders and those of the favored candidates for the following year. They made one change, however. Instead of writing that the city was won by the Aetolian commander, they wrote that it had been won from the same commander. Clever, yes? A single word altered and yet with such significance.”

  Silenus leaned back and hefted his goblet. “Do not count your cause prematurely victorious. That is my point. And do not put your hubris in writing, for some quick mind will surely find fault with it.”

  The Carthaginians answered this with the usual guffaws and good-humored jesting. All except for Hanno. He had never been fond of Silenus, but of late it seemed that the Greek irritated him every time he parted his lips. His mouth even had an insolent shape. It was too narrow, too full toward the middle, pursed slightly, as if Silenus were always on the verge of blowing a kiss. The others did not seem to notice it, but the Greek's smugness was unbearable.

  Later, when he found himself walking toward his tent with the verbose Greek beside him, he listened just to see how long Silenus would rattle on before he realized that his words were falling on deaf ears. When Silenus stepped inside Hanno's tent unbidden Hanno still believed he was on the verge of strangling him. And yet that is not exactly what transpired.

  Seating himself on a low couch that had recently belonged to a tribal leader, Silenus unplugged another vase of wine. He kicked his wiry legs up beside him and tugged his short tunic into place with his free hand. As he poured, he said, “You're a hard nut to crack, Hanno. Do not take that amiss. What I mean is that I've been watching you. Watching you watch others, myself included. An interesting study, I promise you. But it is the way you look at your brother that I've yet to figure out. You sometimes look upon Hannibal with . . . What's the word I mean?”

  “Like all men who know him,” Hanno said, “I trust my brother's wisdom.�
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  “But you are not ‘all men.' He is your brother, for one thing.”

  “Yes, we are fingers of a hand,” Hanno said.

  Silenus smiled at this, pursed his lips, and then smiled again. He seemed to have a response, which at first he waved away, but then could not help but speak. “Who is the long pointer of this hand, then? Who is the thumb, and who the little runt on the end? Tell me truthfully, Hannibal wears heavy on you at times, yes? His eyes are ever judging. He sees weaknesses less observant men miss.”

  Hanno formed a casual rebuttal to all of this, words expressing nothing but disdain for the topic. About to deliver it, he caught the spark of amusement in the Greek's eyes and knew that his rehearsed words would sound dead even as they left his tongue. Instead, he snapped, “It is not my fault that my brother disapproves of my inclinations.”

  “Of course it isn't. Who meets Hannibal's standards but Hannibal himself?”

  Hanno took the wooden cup Silenus proferred and brought it to his mouth immediately, feeling the bite of the wine against his chapped lips. He found, without either realizing it or being surprised by it, that he was inclined to speak, to fill the Greek's unusual silence with confessions.

  “Do I feel his eyes always upon me?” he asked. “Yes. Even when his back is turned toward me. If I take one moment of luxury, one pleasure, he looks askance at me. This from a man richer than most who have ever lived, from a family and a people who love wealth and fine things. He seems to think I am weak just for being true to my people.”

  “Does he see the same weakness in Hasdrubal? That one certainly takes his pleasure unsparingly.”

  Hanno realized his palms were sweaty and his chest tingled as if he were approaching an enemy to do battle. Just a few moments had passed, but he had no idea why he had spoken as he just had. “This is no business of yours,” he said. “As usual, you forget yourself.”

  “I apologize,” Silenus said, “but, Barca, you are a difficult script to read. Have you ever wondered what your life would have been if you'd been the firstborn of your mother?”

  “The same as it is now.”

  “How do you mean? Would you have been the leader of the army then? Hanno, the Supreme Commander of the Army of Carthage . . . Or would that title have gone to your brother, as it does now, but somehow skipping over the eldest? I mean, in which way would it have been the same?”

  “It is a foolish question,” Hanno said. “A philosopher's trick. You may speak circles around me, but the world is as it is. No other way. This talk bores me, Silenus. You bore me.”

  “Are you sure of that?” Silenus asked. He dropped a leg down from the couch, exposing his inner thigh for a moment. “Sometimes it seems to me that what you feel for me is not boredom, not distaste at all, but rather a certain hunger. We Greeks understand this hunger better than any. I possess the tools for this training in abundance, my friend. In abundance. Perhaps you should have me school you in it.”

  “Perhaps,” Hanno finally said.

  Silenus, his face quite near the other man's, grumbled an affirmative, a sound from low in his throat, stretched out. “Yes,” he said. “Perhaps . . .”

  The Greek let the word and the possibilities presented by it linger in the air between them. Again, Hanno felt the overwhelming desire to lash out. But he knew the feeling was not simple anger at all. It was, as Silenus said, a certain hunger. He wanted to press his mouth to the Greek's and silence him with the force of his lips and tongue. He wanted to lift him bodily and throw him down and teach him that they were equal in body if not in wit. He had never considered that he harbored such passion for this one, with his thin frame and bowed legs and his too-large head and the arrogance that bound it all together. He was no warrior. No specimen of manly beauty. And yet Hanno wanted him with an urgency that punched him low in the abdomen. He wanted brutal, intimate violence, and he had never understood this fully until that moment.

  A call from outside his tent interrupted his revelation. Hanno answered hoarsely, and a messenger said that Hannibal wished to see him. “The commander apologizes for the late council,” the voice said, “but he would speak to you presently in his tent.”

  Silenus raised a single eyebrow and finished the sentence he had started ages ago: “. . . and perhaps not,” he said. “In any event, not just now.” He drew himself up and looked around as if to gather his things.

  Hanno did not move anything except his eyes, which followed as Silenus rose and made his way toward the tent flap.

  The Greek glanced back briefly before departing. “Give my best to your brother.”

  A few moments later, Hanno wove his way through camp. Somewhere a lone musician worked out a melody on a bone whistle. Campfires illumed various quadrants with a low glow, as if a thick, moisture-laden blanket hovered somewhere just above the height of a man's head and allowed no light to rise above it. As he passed a tethered horse the creature let flow with a stream of urine. The splash was so loud and abrupt that Hanno started. He slid half a step to the side, steadied himself, and glanced around. Nobody was in sight. He cursed the horse under his breath.

  Hannibal's tent flap was open to the night. The commander sat on his three-legged stool, studying a scroll on the table before him. He did not rise to greet Hanno, but took in his attire with a long look. Having seen enough, he bent his head back to the tablet. “I've called you from leisure, have I?”

  Hanno had no wish to name the activity he had been called from. “I thought I might find you the same,” he said. “The men are at pleasure. . . . Will you never stop to savor your victories, brother?”

  Hannibal answered without looking up. “At the end of a day, do you praise yourself for having lived through it? Do you not know that after the night comes the dawn of a new day? When you exhale a breath in one moment, do you believe you have accomplished greatness? Or do you remember that the very next moment you must draw another breath and begin again? A thousand different forces would love to see me fail. I cannot abandon my vigilance for a moment. That is what it means to command. Perhaps you will understand this fully someday. Come closer and sit down, if it pleases you.”

  Hanno took a few steps forward, just two bites of the distance between them, no more.

  “Hanno, I know that you've not been happy with my decision about your role, but I've thought it through and my mind is unchanged. You will stay on here and watch over the Suessetani. They'll need a strong hand to keep them subdued. I am sure you understand the importance of this. See Bostar in the morning. He is preparing written details for you: names and familial affiliations of these people, geography and accounts of resources. You should learn more of the local tongue as well. We'll get you a tutor. I would only ask that you keep your pleasures in check. Remember, the knife that killed our brother-in-law found him in his bed.”

  The interview was over. Hanno, like any common officer, had been dismissed. He flushed hot, felt a leaden pressure behind his eyes. Though he told himself to turn and throw open the tent flap and stride away he did not do so. He could not make his feet move.

  “Am I so worthless to you?” he asked.

  Hannibal, without looking up or changing his posture or tone, said, “You are my brother and I need a trusted commander here.”

  “Have you never considered that I, too, want to kick open the gates of Rome?”

  This brought up the other's gaze. “I've never had to consider it. The answer can be assumed by the blood within your veins. But why do you question me? This post is no punishment. It is my will. You'll adhere to it. If I am ever to ask great things of you I must know that you will serve me unquestioningly. You have not always achieved that in the past. Consider this a new opportunity.”

  Again, Hannibal bent his head and signaled the discourse was concluded. But again Hanno spoke ahead of himself. “In one breath you say that this assignment is not a slight,” he said. “In the next you name my faults. But what's true? Speak plainly to me! You owe me that much.”

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bsp; “I did not know that I was in your debt,” Hannibal said. “I thought perhaps you were in mine.”

  Hanno—watching his brother's brow, the artery that beat high on it, the eyes running over the words—knew that it was within him to kill his brother. It was a quiet thought, really. There was something comforting in it. An escape he had not imagined before. No matter what might come afterward, it was within the realm of possibility that he could murder; that Hannibal could die. On this ultimate of things they were equally balanced. With that thought in his mind, Hanno spun and trudged from his brother's tent. He avoided him in the following days and parted from him as if they were enemies and not siblings at all. He pushed thoughts of Silenus from his mind. He had never before felt shame at his desires, but there was something different about the scribe and the depth of the turmoil he fueled inside him.

  Now, two months later, a lieutenant brought him the news he feared. A legion under Gnaeus Scipio had landed at Emporiae, a Greek settlement that had refused a Carthaginian alliance. The Romans had been welcomed joyously. They numbered easily twice the ten thousand soldiers Hanno controlled and made it no secret that their aim was to hunt down Hanno, and quickly.

  “We must send word to Hasdrubal,” Hanno said during a meeting of his officers. “We don't have the numbers to meet them.”

  A lieutenant, though junior to Hanno in both rank and age, shook his head. “There can be no reinforcements. Hasdrubal is south of New Carthage. A message has already been dispatched to him, but we must act independently.”

  “Decisively,” another added.

  Hanno pressed the flat of his palms over his eyes and dug his fingers into his flesh. An unusual gesture for a general, but he ignored the nervous shuffling of the officers. His bowels twisted and pulled knots and his chest felt constricted, as if with each released breath a strap pulled tighter across his chest so that he was denied a full inhalation of air. Should he act decisively? Of course he should. It could do him no good to wait. The Romans might land more troops. They might forge alliances with the Iberians and learn the features of the land and find ways to gain advantage. They would only become stronger with passing days. And Hasdrubal might still not reach him. But Hanno had no plan. What could he do to make their numbers more equal? Why did he have to struggle with this question? He should have had more men. It was Hannibal's misjudgment that had created this situation. He left him here to manage the Iberians, but not truly prepared to fight a Roman legion. Still, still, he had to act! Perhaps he could catch the Romans off guard with a full frontal attack, before they had even settled in. They would never expect such boldness. Surely, this was the way to proceed. And if his gamble rebounded on him? Well, at least Hannibal could not chastise him for hesitation as he had at Saguntum.