Pride of Carthage

by David Anthony Durham

  Publius was on his knees when he reached his father. He beat away a Roman horse that stood dangerously close to him and cradled the man's battered head in one crooked arm. He held his sword waving above him and shouted orders in the clipped, strong Latin that his father used in battle. A small band of soldiers heard the cries. Soon they had formed a ring around the fallen consul. Publius lifted his father onto his back and stumbled from the field, a ring of soldiers close around him. They made it back into Roman protection and away.

  Such was the story conveyed to the consul. He was thankful for his life and proud that the rescue cast a ray of glory upon his son, but he hated to learn of events from others' mouths. In those first feverish days, he also listened as his generals tried to explain the events of the skirmish; their conflicting accounts further confused him. The first true clarity came from a scout who described the events as he had seen them from high in the hills to the west, whence he had been returning from a solitary patrol.

  The two forces had met with equal vigor, he explained, though the Carthaginians greatly outnumbered the Roman party. After the initial chaos of the horsemen cutting into each other's ranks, they dismounted and fought among their horses' legs. Nothing seemed unusual until a group of Numidian cavalry near the rear of the enemy force turned from the field. They surged off toward the south as if abandoning the battle, but then veered back a moment later, riding to the west, in a thin line heading toward the Roman rear. The main mêlée raged on with little change, save that the Carthaginian forces stretched the line of battle by rolling out along the northern edge of the Roman forces, as if individual riders were attempting to flank on that side. The Roman line stretched to resist this, forming a bent, thin front.

  Watching that desperate struggle, the scout temporarily forgot about the detached cavalry unit. When he turned to seek them again, they had ridden into a set of hills behind the Roman contingent. They weaved into the trees and bunched together near the ridgeline, gathering like a swell thrown up onto a shore. Then they roared down through the trees in a tight wedge that caught the unsuspecting Romans from behind.

  A moment later the scout saw the consul's standard falter and disappear. After that, he had watched no more. He rode at a gallop down toward the field to be of what aid he could. He saw no more from that high vantage, but he did have more to tell. The scout had wondered why the flanking cavalry had gone unnoticed. It seemed a mystery, and he feared that the hand of a god had hidden them for those few important moments. Only on inspecting the field the following day did he realize that the Numidian riders had conducted their maneuver on the far side of the ridge. They had moved through a narrow depression just deep enough to hide them. The lay of the land could not have been designed any better for the ploy; nor could the enemy commander have recognized it and played it to his advantage any more precisely.

  Cornelius broke camp in the dead of night and forced a march to Placentia, destroying the bridge over the Padus in the process. Hannibal followed, constructed a new pontoon bridge, and within a few days mustered his troops in the open field once again. He called the consul to battle, but Cornelius would have none of it. Not on that day, nor on the days that followed as he waited, writhing and uncomfortable, for his fellow consul and the aid he would surely bring. He did not have to wait long.

  Sempronius Longus arrived in a gale of motion, panting from his forced march, claiming that he had already clashed with a company of Numidian cavalrymen and thoroughly routed them. He had seen nothing but the backside of the Africans' horses, fleeing, the so-called soldiers showing their true nature when confronted by a superior force. His men had cut down more than a few and left them as feed for wild beasts.

  “Already we have the bastard on his back foot,” Sempronius said. “Another thrust and we'll topple him.”

  Studying his face, Cornelius saw all the features he knew so well: the familiar black bristling of his hair, the eyes set close together, the jagged scar from a childhood injury across his chin. But these features were pushed out of place, jostled, by the indignant anger in his brow, by pride in the smirk of his lips. Most of all, naked ambition gleamed in Sempronius' eyes. Instead of the joy he had expected to feel in his colleague's arrival, Cornelius discovered another form of trepidation, which only grew with subsequent meetings.

  News came to them in pieces and none of it was good. They learned that the Roman depot of Clastidium had accepted four hundred pieces of gold for its surrender, thereby making a gift to the Carthaginians of its well-stocked granary. Several more of the local Gallic tribes quit their wavering and went over to Hannibal. Then word came that a contingent from the Boii to the east had arrived, swelling the Carthaginian's force further. Sempronius fed on all of this as a hungry wolf chews leather.

  Watching him, Cornelius barely recognized his old friend anymore. He sat up in his sickbed and preached patience to his fellow consul. He argued that the Gauls now flocking to Hannibal would desert him in midwinter. Rome's cause would suffer gravely from a defeat, but would not gain equally from a victory. “Let Hannibal fight the winter,” he said. “We can drill the army into true readiness and meet him at advantage in the spring.”

  But Sempronius would have none of this. He sat tracing his facial scar with his fingers, unmoved by the injured man's reasoning. He even offered the opinion that Cornelius' judgment had been clouded by the mauling he had so recently received. Sempronius wanted action, swift retribution, before Hannibal truly found his footing. Each hour the African spent on the soil of their land was an insult to the gods of Rome. He argued that the only right course was the direct course. Such was, after all, the Roman way.

  Throughout these debates, the army shifted camps and marched and jostled for position with the Carthaginians, who seemed to own the land now and rarely left them in peace. As was the custom when two consuls joined forces, they shared command by alternating ultimate authority from one day to the next. On Cornelius' days, he backed and showed caution; when Sempronius held command, he moved forward, eventually setting up a new camp along the river Trebia. It was there, one dawn, that he got the battle he believed would bring him glory.

  Following the orders received directly from Hannibal the day before, Tusselo and the other Massylii rose in the hours before dawn. This was no easy feat, for the night was the coldest he had yet experienced in his life, worse even than in the mountains. The air was raw enough that a dusting of frost covered the earth, but it was also heavy with a wet chill that thickened the very texture of the ether. As quickly as he could, he found one of the camp's raging fires and huddled next to it. He feasted on strips of meat from a sheep slaughtered the night before. He rubbed his face and limbs with oil, as did all the rousing, expectant soldiers. A few minutes of this and the weather did not seem so bad.

  Even more significantly, Hannibal roamed among them, spurring them on, loud and cheerful, joking that a fine day was dawning, just right for a slaughter. The reckless consul was to command the day, and he was finally so nearby, so impatient, that Hannibal believed their moment had come. The commander knew exactly the method to win them victory. But he said, it depended wholly on them for its execution.

  Once, he walked around the perimeter of the fire Tusselo sat beside. He patted men's shoulders and slapped helmets into place and encouraged them in their preparations. He reminded the men that they were far from home, deep in an enemy's land. A day of judgment was now upon them. They could not run from it or skirt it. Their very lives hung in the balance. But so, too, did their greater glory. All the riches they had imagined for themselves when they began this quest were within reach. Rome still lay to the south of them, a fat jewel staring anxiously north, watching and waiting to see what Hannibal's army was capable of.

  Tusselo's stomach was full and warm when he mounted. He knew he might get a knot in it from riding, but Hannibal wanted them to face the frigid day with fires burning within them. He rode away to the sound of his commander's voice fading behind him, part of him wi
shing he could stay on and listen longer; he found—as did other men, he was sure—something fascinating in their leader's person. But he had work to do, and his devotion was best demonstrated through action.

  He rode as one among a thousand, all dark-skinned and well fed and glistening, many thickly maned. They moved through the trees, their horses fast and thundering in the open stretches, nimble and tiny-footed when stepping over fallen limbs. At some point in the journey each rider snapped a dead branch from a tree or dismounted and picked up sticks from the ground. They carried these secured in their fists, clamped in the iron grip of their fingers, just as they carried their javelins.

  In the clearing on the near bank of the Trebia, they found scouts dispatched even earlier than they, led by the general Bomilcar. He did not speak at all, but simply rose from his squatting position and pointed to the ford. The horsemen turned as bidden. The stones on the bank of the river wore ice helmets, crystal rings licked by the moving current. Tusselo tried to ignore this and speak confidently as he urged his horse into the water. He gritted his teeth when the chill touched his feet and exhaled a sharp curse when the water invaded his damaged genitals. He heard other men gasp and tried to believe he was not so different than they.

  Soon they emerged on the far bank, hooves making clipped, muted sounds as they smacked against the stones. The horses were quivering, nervous now and wary, for this whole venture seemed a strange one. A short gallop brought them within sight of the Roman camp. They emerged from the trees in steaming, panting clouds of vapor. Before them stretched a field of tall grass, each blade bent into delicate arches by the weight of its icy garment. And beyond this stood the Roman camp: earthworks piled high, freshly hewn trees cut and bound into lookout towers, thousands of jagged points penetrating the sky, tilted outward like a great beast's teeth. The camp was largely quiet, sleeping, the fires low, the wisps of smoke from them rising thin and fading into the low, heavy sky. The Numidian riders beheld the scene in silence and stepped forward slowly, gradually moving to well within missile range.

  The calm was short-lived. They were spotted. Shouts issued from the camp, followed soon after by a blast of horns to awaken the entire camp.

  The Numidians waited for Maharbal's command, and on the first shout from his clipped, strong voice, they all began the verbal attack they had been instructed in. They shouted in heavily accented Latin, taunting the Romans to come out and make merry, calling them children and women and goat-fuckers, offering them sexual favors, candied assholes and open mouths, all the things they had heard Romans enjoyed. They threw sticks at them—not spears, not javelins, but the dry wood they had snatched up earlier. Not weapons at all, but branches best suited for kindling.

  At first the Romans scurried about in preparation for an attack. But as the twigs and insults flew their alarm changed to surprise. Head after head peered above the battlements. They were close enough that Tusselo could make out their openmouthed bewilderment, the confusion and then disbelief and—just beyond this—anger. They gesticulated insults of their own. A few even hurled back the mock weapons, as if the affront could be so easily returned. They stood in clear view and motioned the Africans closer. Then they remembered their lethal potential and began to loose their weapons.

  The rain of javelins picked up, interspersed with arrows. Men began to fall, impaled. One riderless horse caught a javelin in its flank and went down in screeching, writhing confusion. A mounted man very near Tusselo was struck full in the chest with a bolt shot from one of the Roman crossbows. The force of the impact yanked him from the creature's back and sprawled him out upon the frozen tangle of grass. The field had suddenly grown deadly, the pristine carpet of moments before already trampled and churned up and stained here and there with blood. Maharbal signaled for the men to pull back slightly, just enough to bait the trap.

  Sempronius ruled the day, and his first waking thought was that he was going to use it somehow. When he heard of the Numidians' antics he decided that the insult was too much to bear. He ordered full battle readiness. He knew the soldiers had not eaten yet, that they had not truly shaken off the night, or prepared their weapons or clothed themselves as they might have liked. These facts were unfortunate, but the enemy was near and so was victory. They could complete this work in a morning and dine as owners of the enemy's camp. At least, so the consul yelled to his officers when they expressed reservations. When Cornelius summoned him he sent back a messenger explaining that he was busy. There was no time for chat. But, he said, his fellow consul could rest assured that by the close of the day Rome would be safe again.

  When they marched out through the camp gate, the Numidians jumped onto their mounts, spun a few circles, called out a few more oaths, and showed the approaching Romans their rumps. Watching this, Sempronius believed even more assuredly that victory was near. Less than an hour later, he reached the banks of the Trebia. On the far side, the consul saw the growing mass of the enemy, waiting for them under the first drops of icy rain that soon became a steady sleet. The Numidians were nearest, milling about like the savages they were, trilling to each other and slapping their horses into short gallops and acting as if they had achieved some victory. Behind them Sempronius distinguished the components he had expected, units sectioned off by ethnicity and fighting style: Libyans and Gauls and Celtiberians. The elephant-beasts churned the ground fretfully near the front. They had about them a fearsome aspect, but he had already instructed his men to aim their missiles at the riders, whose loss would make the creatures of little use, randomly floating islands of damage to all, but an aid to neither side. The army was a confused polyglot monster, unnatural and ill-suited to this part of the world. Sempronius had expected as much. He even caught sight of Hannibal's standard. He picked out the tight contingent of guards around a central figure and knew that finally the villain was within his grasp. He ordered his men forward.

  The legions strode steadily into the river. They pushed through grim-faced, teeth clenched against the cold, clumsy because of the current pressing against them and the uneven stones beneath them, fighting for balance even as they held their weapons up out of the water. By the middle of the crossing the men were in icy water up to their chests. More than one soldier lost his footing and knocked his neighbors loose as well. Some dropped their weapons as they fought for purchase and a few went under and came up sputtering, white-skinned and dazed. Most made it across and emerged sodden, feet numb and clumsy beneath them and weapons held awkwardly in their stiff fingers.

  The first of the Romans fell as stones whirled through the air with an audible hiss, nearly invisible projectiles that smashed sudden dents in helmets and broke ribs, snapped forearms, and pierced skulls through the eyes and nose. This was the work of the Balearic slingers. They were short men, not armored at all but dressed only against the cold because they did their damage from a distance. They taunted the Romans and called out oaths and swirled their stones into blinding speed. Sempronius, who had crossed the river on horseback, shouted for calm in his men. He told them to scorn these womanish weapons and form up into ranks. The words were scarcely out of his mouth, however, when a stone smashed into his mount's skull, splattering his face with blood.

  He was on his feet screaming for another mount when the second wave of attackers hit. Several thousand Carthaginian pikemen moved into striking range, their absurdly long spears at the ready. Sempronius called for his men to throw their javelins, but the response he got was feeble. He and his men realized all at once, in a silent moment, that most had used their missiles already, either trying to hit the Numidians, or, moments before, when they tried to answer the slingers, who even now sent stones whizzing over the heads of their allies and home to their targets.

  The pikemen picked their prey individually, skewering them from outside sword range. Some came with their weapon held in two hands and drove it toward abdomen or groin. Others hefted the spear up and thrust it single-handed into face or chest. Lightly armored, they danced away as
the soldiers charged them, waiting for openings into which to drive their spearheads home. They retreated only when the sheer numbers of soldiers on the shore pressed them back.

  Sempronius called his men to order yet again. He gave the instructions to form up for battle and proceed. He was still focused and confident. He loathed the unmanly tactics of his enemy and shouted as much so that all would know his disdain. And yet some part of him felt that something was amiss. He tried not to acknowledge it. Tried to recover from each successive surprise and shape his men into the disciplined ranks he knew to be unbeatable. But when he heard the trumpeting of the pachyderms, saw the raging bulk, witnessed the power with which a single creature swatted four soldiers and left them broken pieces of men—then, for the first time, he felt a knot low in his abdomen, a ball of fear that pulsed with the possibility that events were not about to unfold as he wished.

  Though he was pressed to the ground—still and chilled as he had been since the dark hours of the night—Mago's heart pounded in his chest as if he were already in the battle. He saw it all happening and wanted to believe that all was as it should be, but he kept reminding himself not to let his expectations get ahead of events. He waited as the first Romans fell on the riverside. Watching through plumes of his own breath, he saw the legions mass and engage his brother's main forces. He recognized their attempt at order, the way the velites came to the fore to throw their missiles. They staggered forward, some already weaponless, many dropping before the slingers' pellets. Those who could hurled their weapons with remarkable accuracy, but they never launched their single, massive volley. Mago could find no fault with their efforts. It was simply that, from the first moments, the battle proceeded on Hannibal's terms, not on theirs.