Hannibal's Children (29 page)

The others chuckled. "The girl would make a better soldier than any of them, I'll grant you," Brutus said. "But what are you trying to tell us in your oblique way?"

"We can't afford to let Alexandria fall," Scipio told them.

"Why?" Caesar wanted to know. "What is Alexandria to us? Or Antioch or Babylon, for that matter?"

"Egypt is Carthage's enemy and rival, as Rome was once. Let Hamilcar have an easy victory and he will fancy himself invincible, in the usual manner of triumphant kings. He will also have the wealth of Egypt to add to that of Carthage. I don't intend to help Egypt defeat Carthage. I want Hamilcar to get bogged down into a long, costly war here."

Flaccus was first to see the light. "If the fighting is too much for his troops, he'll want more of our legions."

"Exactly," Scipio said.

Young Caesar was not far behind. "Our legions will use Italy as a staging area! Hamilcar will be too preoccupied here to notice that we've reoccupied one of his less important provinces!"

"We'll have Italy back without a voice of protest being raised in Carthage," said Flaccus.

"It hardly seems honorable," Brutus protested. "And our legions will suffer, being sent here to take part in a futile war."

"When is war ever easy on the legions?" Scipio said. "Their purpose is to make Rome strong, safe and great. The enemy involved needn't be the army directly before them. If there is any dishonor involved, let it be upon me. Anyway, Roman commanders are nothing if not resourceful. They'll figure out ways to let Hamilcar's mercenaries absorb the bulk of the casualties."

"You haven't explained one thing," Caesar said. "How do you propose to keep Hamilcar from taking the city?"

"Oh, that's simple. I will assist the king here in conducting the defense."

They gawked at him, then Flaccus spoke.

"And I thought Titus Norbanus was a cold-blooded bastard."

CARTHAGE

The war council was conducted formally. Hamilcar wore military uniform, as did all the council who were not of advanced years. On some, the effect was fairly ludicrous. The exception was the Roman delegation. It was now swelled by a number of prominent men, most of them senators, who had been dispatched from Noricum to handle the details of the new "Alliance."

Now that their mission was overtly military, they all wore military garb, in which they looked much more comfortable than they had in their togas. There was little agreement among their equipment, for uniformity was not imposed upon the officer class. Some favored the old-fashioned cuirass of hammered bronze, sculpted to follow the muscles of the torso, others favored the more practical shirt of Gallic mail, sometimes with added defenses of iron plate. The helmets they cradled beneath their arms were of various Greek, Italic or Gallic designs or combinations of two or all three, some plain, others crested or plumed. Whatever their taste in armament, all of them looked eminently competent.

This impression was not lost upon Hamilcar. He felt that he was getting a better bargain than he had expected if the quality of Roman soldiery was uniformly high. They might just bear watching, though. He nodded to Norbanus, and the Roman commander stepped forward with easy elegance.

Norbanus was one who favored the Attic bronze cuirass, and his was decorated with embossed figures of gods and goddesses silver-gilt to contrast with the warmly gleaming bronze. His parade helmet was copied from the famous lionmask helmet of Alexander the Great. He looked no less deadly for all the finery, though.

"Your Majesty," he began, "the noble Senate has agreed to send you four of our legions to aid in your conquest of Egypt. They sail from Tarentum within the month, if the weather cooperates."

"I shall sacrifice for happy winds," Hamilcar said. "But, four legions? How many men is that?"

"A legion comprises about six thousand men, all citizens," Norbanus explained. "But when we say 'legion,' we mean a full legion plus the same number of attached auxilia. These are mostly men from recently conquered territories who earn their citizenship by service in the auxilia. There are many Gauls and Germans among them, but they are all loyal soldiers of Rome. Thus, four legions mean about forty-eight thousand fighting men, plus their attached noncombatants: medical staff, surveyors, smiths, carpenters, tentmakers and so forth. These latter are mostly state-owned slaves."

"I see," Hamilcar said, a bit skeptical that the Romans could get so many men under arms at such comparatively short notice, much less be ready to embark them. "And how do the legionaries and the auxilia differ, other than the matter of citizenship?"

"Lentulus Niger will explain," Norbanus said. "He is acting as quartermaster for this expeditionary force." He stepped back and another man stepped forward. Niger was a stocky man with unkempt black hair and wearing a short beard, a rarity among the close-barbered Romans, and a sign that he was in mourning. He wore a plain tunic of Gallic iron mail and carried a severely plain iron helmet; pot-shaped with broad cheek guards and a trailing plume of black horsehair.

"Citizens in the legions are all heavy infantry, armed with heavy and light javelins, short sword and dagger. All wear helmet, cuirass of Gallic mail, and bear the scutum, the long shield. None wear leg armor save centurions, who are permitted greaves as a sign of their rank.

"Auxilia comprise the other arms, although some of them are heavy infantry as well. They are the cavalry, the light infantry, skirmishers and the missile troops: archers, slingers, javelin men and so forth. All of the light-armed troops are armed with sword and light shield for close combat. Auxilia are organized only as cohorts, never as legions. The cohort consists of five hundred men organized into five centuries of one hundred, each commanded by a centurion.

"Since the Cornelian reorganization of some sixty years ago, each legion is accompanied by twelve cohorts of auxilia, although this can be varied at need. The usual mix is four cohorts of heavy infantry, two of archers, two of skirmishers including the javelin men, three of cavalry and one of slingers."

"You Romans do not make great use of cavalry?" one of the Carthaginian generals queried.

"They are not terribly useful in the terrain of Gaul or Germania. Here in Africa, we may wish to increase our cavalry forces and reduce some of the others. Experience will determine that."

"This is all most impressively organized," Hamilcar said. "Are your supply services as efficient? I do not want your legions extorting the necessities from my cities on the march. I also have an agreement with Libya not to loot as we pass through. Of course, once we are in Egyptian territory, your men may lift as much as they can carry."

"Attached to each commander's staff are commissariat officers," Niger told him. "There is also a paymaster, the quaestor, who is a serving magistrate, answerable directly to the Senate. We prefer not to depend upon forage and local supply. Your cities need not worry."

"How—how businesslike," Hamilcar said, raising a chuckle from his council. He was hard put to know what to make of these Romans. They seemed to approach warfare as they would an engineering project. This caused another question to occur to him. "As to siege works, earthworks and so forth, labor may be levied upon certain towns, but not others, slave gangs may be rounded up in Egyptian territory, but this must be cleared through my own commanders, who may have their own uses for them. Is this understood?"

"Every Roman soldier, of whatever category, carries pickaxe and spade," Niger said. "We neither need nor want great mobs of slaves interfering with our army. We will accomplish all the necessary engineering works ourselves."

The Carthaginians were dumbfounded. Soldiers who did the work of slaves! Men who laid down the sword and picked up the spade! What sort of warriors were these?

Norbanus and the other Romans knew exactly what these men were thinking and they smiled inside. These barbarians would learn soon enough what they were dealing with. Romans had won as many wars with the pickaxe as with the sword.

Zarabel was, as usual, watching the proceedings from her hiding place. It galled her to have to do this, but to demand attendance at a council of war would strain her brother's always-chancy tolerance. Of course, she could get a full report afterward from Norbanus or other sources, but that would inevitably lack the nuance of a firsthand look at the proceedings. This was most informative.

The new Romans were up to her expectations. Scipio and his party had not been some sort of aberration. She had already entertained them and spoken to them. They were as businesslike, direct and unsophisticated as the others. Yet, unlike her brother and his ministers, she did not mistake this for simplicity, far less for stupidity. What these men lacked in polish they more than made up for in native intelligence and clarity of purpose. They were here on a mission and she was not at all satisfied that it was that of a simple military alliance. She sensed an agenda here.

She already knew of the Romans' near-religious zeal to take back their Seven Hills and the rest of Italy. She also knew that not all the Romans were fanatical in this aim. She knew further that certain of them, including Marcus Scipio and Norbanus, were playing games of their own. Perilous as this was, she welcomed it. These Romans represented her chance to topple her brother and to put herself and the cult of Tanit in their rightful position.

Besides, since the Romans showed up, life had been exciting and stimulating. She was no longer bored.

ROMA NORICUM

"What is the problem?" Decimus Cornelius Scipio, the new Consul, presided this day over yet another of the unending meetings that devoured all his time now that the epochal retaking of Italy was under way. Next to him, in the seat of Junior Consul, sat his colleague Titus Norbanus the Elder. This meeting concerned purely military matters, so it was staffed by the Senate. In token of the state's status of total war, they had exchanged the white toga of peace for the red sagum of war.

"We've run out of totem beasts," the soldier said. He was a legionary staff officer, but he was also a priest of Bellona, the goddess who oversaw all military matters. "For many generations," he pointed out, "we used only the sacred animals as standards for the legions. The eagle has pride of place and has always been the standard of the First Legion. The wolf, Minotaur, horse and boar were used for legions Two through Five. In the Cornelian reorganization, when so many more legions were called for, we added the serpent, the dragon, the bear, the hippogriff, the chimera, the gorgon, the lion, the elephant and the raven. Now we are raising ten more legions. We need ten more standards and we must either add ridiculous creatures or duplicate some of them, either of which would be pernicious."

The consuls and the rest pondered. This was not a trivial problem. Soldiers held their standards sacred, as deities embodying the living spirit of the legion. The standard was carried by the bravest of the brave and to lose it was unspeakable shame. This had not occurred in many generations.

"We can't have lizards and mice as standards," Norbanus said, "and we already use the most formidable creatures of legend except perhaps for Pegasus and Cerberus. What's to be done?"

Publius Gabinius stood and was recognized as Princeps Senatus. "As a matter of fact, I have been giving this problem consideration for some time and I think I've reached an acceptable solution."

"I am sure we'd all be glad to hear it," said Consul Scipio.

"As was just said, the eagle has always had pride of place, as the sacred bird of Jupiter. Likewise, many of the most potent omens sent to tell us of the gods' will in the matter of the reconquest came through the agency of eagles. I propose that, as part of the military reorganization now taking place, we make the eagle the standard for
all
the legions of Rome. The other totem creatures may be retained as standards for the lesser formations within the legions, and for the cohorts of auxilia."

"This is radical!" protested an old senator.

"No less radical than this project upon which we have embarked," Gabinius answered.

The debate that ensued lasted through much of the day, but in the end it was agreed upon. Henceforth, all the legions would follow the eagle.

Senator Gaius Licinius Rufus, overseer of armaments, toured the workshops of Gaul, where much of the ironwork for the legions was carried out. In the armor factories of the province he had been well pleased with the construction of the new mail shirts. For the sake of simplicity they had been standardized in three patterns: knee-length with shoulder doublings in the Greek or Gallic styles for the heavy infantry; mid-thigh length without shoulder doublings for light infantry; waist length with Gallic-style shoulder doublings for cavalry. The Gallic craftsmen were superb and meticulous. No Roman soldier would die because his armor was of shoddy quality.

Helmets were another matter. "This is dreadful!" Rufus said, turning the new helmet over in his hands. It was of a new pattern: Made entirely of iron, it was little more than a crude pot, descending a little below the ears in back, with a broad, flat neck guard, with cutouts for the ears and wide cheek guards cut back to clear the eyes and mouth. It had the crudest of finishes and entirely lacked the graceful rolled and roped edges of the traditional bronze helmets. It had no provision for crest or plumes and its only concession to decoration was a pair of crudely embossed eyebrows on the forehead.

"It's not pretty, I'll grant you that," said the master armorer. "But it's better protection than the old bronze pots. Ask any soldier whether he'd rather have a helmet that looks good on parade or one that'll keep a sword out of his skull and neck in battle."

"The lowest auxilia have better helmets than this!" Rufus protested. "The legions will rebel!"

"No they won't," said the armorer. "Fact is, if you want to raise ten entire new legions plus support troops and do it fast, you have to sacrifice some quality. It was decided to go for practicality instead of beauty. This helmet is stronger and better designed than the old ones and it doesn't require as much skilled labor. Look, later on, when things have settled down and the soldiers have a little money in their purses, they can tart these up as much as they like: add plumes and crests, solder enameled bosses on them, put bronze piping around the edges, cover them with gold leaf, whatever. In the meantime, they can fight in them."