Hannibal's children

Chapter 1

Rome, 215 B.C.

Behind them were the seven hills and the sacred city of Quirinus. Before them lay the plain, and upon the plain the army of Carthage stood in unprecedented power. For the first time their general had numerical superiority. He had not needed greater numbers at Lake Trasimene, nor at Cannae. On those fields he had ambushed, surrounded and crushed two Roman armies larger than his own, feats of generalship worthy of a war god.

Upon a wooden tower erected behind the huge host stood two men clad in glittering iron and bronze. One of them, Philip of Macedon, had provided the numbers. His phalanx held the center of the line, the sixteen-foot pikes standing like a dense forest in the morning sun. The Romans had no fear of Philip or his pikes, however great their numbers. The rest of the army was divided in two parts and held the flanks: check-trousered Gauls with lime-washed hair and blue patterns painted on their bodies, gripping long, slashing swords; black Nubians covered with ocher and chalk, holding short spears and long shields of zebra hide; squat Spaniards with their hair in plaits who fought with little round bucklers and down-curving falcatas that could take a man's leg off with a single swipe. There were Cretan archers and slingers from the Balearacs and light horsemen from Galatia. Libyans in white tunics rode bareback with quivers of javelins slung across their shoulders. There were Ligurians and Spartan mercenaries and men from half the nations of the world standing under arms, ready to take the seven hills for Carthage.

The Romans did not fear this polyglot mass of humanity, however colorful and fierce. They reserved their fear solely for the other man on the tower: the Carthaginian Shofet, son of Hamilcar Barca, the general so brilliant he could smash armies larger than his own, repeatedly, the leader so gifted that mobs of savages who at any other times would have been happy to cut one another's throats, under his command acted in concert with superb discipline, with never a hint of misbehavior or mutiny, however terrible the hardships of campaigning or the casualties of battle.

The Romans feared Hannibal.

"Where are the elephants?" a velite asked. He was young, no more than sixteen. The fearsome losses of the war had forced the Senate to accept younger and younger men into the legions. The velite wore a snarling wolf’s mask cover on his skullcap helmet. A small, round shield was his only other defense. A short sword was slung over his shoulder and he held a pair of javelins. He and his fellow velites were skirmishers. In battle, they rushed forward and cast their javelins, then fell back through the gaps in their own lines. Sometimes the velites weren't swift enough and they were caught between the shields of the opposing armies. Then they were slaughtered. The boy knew this.

"We killed them all," said the hastatus behind him. He was a grizzled old veteran, called back to the standards to make up the losses at Cannae. He was a front-ranker in the heavy infantry, wealthy enough to afford a fine coat of Gallic mail. His bronze helmet sported scarlet side-feathers, its forepeak embossed with a rudimentary face. Between its cheek plates his own face was weathered and seamed with scars. He had a bronze greave on his left leg and his oval, four-foot shield was as thick as a man's palm, built of layered wood and faced with hide, rimmed and bossed with bronze. The heavy javelin in his right hand was three times the weight of the boy's weapons. He could cast it through a shield and the man behind it. The short sword at his waist was the most efficient battle implement ever devised.

The boy knew that, one day, he would take his place in the ranks of the heavy infantry, if he lived. The man behind him and the thousands of others like him were the legions of Rome, the toughest, most expert, hardest-fighting military force the world had ever seen. They were seldom defeated, never outfought, but occasionally outgeneraled. The man across the field from them could do it every time.

"Here they come," somebody said. At first the boy thought the enemy was advancing, but he saw no movement in the formidable ranks. Then he saw the delegation riding from the war headquarters outside the Capena gate of Rome. In their lead was the Dictator Fabius, elected by the Senate to supreme command in the national emergency. Behind him were the military tribunes. The boy recognized Publius Cornelius Scipio, no more than three years older than himself, incredibly young for his high rank, but a survivor of Cannae and the man credited with holding the remnant of the army together when others counseled abject surrender.

Next to Scipio rode Appius Claudius, another Cannae veteran. Behind them was Lucius Caecilius Metellus, a voice for caution whom some suspected of cowardice. White sashes girded their muscle-embossed cuirasses and the patricians among them wore red boots with ivory crescents fastened at the ankles. Their faces were unanimously grim.

"Where are they going?" the boy asked.

"Going to have a few words with old Hannibal, I expect," said the hastatus. "Much good it'll do them."

The little band of officers rode toward the enemy lines and they scanned the forces arrayed before them with the reflexive calculation of military men; looking for weaknesses, assessing the strength of the enemy. Were they well fed? Did they show fear? Were their weapons ill kept? Did they look downcast or discontent? The officers saw nothing to encourage them. It was as fine an army as they had seen, despite its bizarre aspect. The men were fit, sleek and competent. Above all, they displayed an almost sublime confidence. Led by Hannibal, they could not lose.

"I will kill him," said young Scipio. "Just let me get close. I will draw my sword and cut him down before his men can save him. You know I can do it. We will all die, but Rome will be saved. This rabble won't fight without Hannibal leading them."

"Who do you think you are, Scipio?" said Metellus. "Mucius Scaevola? Do you think this is the time of legend, when enemy kings were careless? We'll be relieved of our arms before we're in javelin-throwing distance."

"I can kill him bare-handed," Scipio insisted.

"Let's have none of that," said the Dictator. "We ride to a parley and that is what we shall do-talk." To meet this emergency the Senate had bestowed absolute imperium on Fabius. He had the power to command armies, negotiate peace in the name of Rome, execute citizens without trial; in fact, all the power once enjoyed by kings. But only for six months. At the end of that time he had to lay down his office, exchange the purple toga for white, dismiss his lectors and retire to private life. He could never be called to account for his actions as Dictator. He could make all his decisions as seemed best to him, with no fear of reprisal afterward. If he felt the terrible weight of history upon his shoulders, he did not show it, riding erect as any young cavalry trooper, sublimely confident, arrogant as only a Roman patrician could be.

After the defeat at Cannae, Fabius had urged that the Romans not engage Hannibal in open battle. Instead, he devised delaying tactics: raids against supply lines, attacks on small garrisons, feints and countermarches, all to wear down the formidable Carthaginian's forces, drain his

resources and destroy his morale through frustration. Unable to bring the Romans onto the field for a decisive battle and unable through lack of numbers to assault Rome directly, Hannibal had stewed in impotence, as Fabius had planned. Then, once more, he had done the unexpected.

Hannibal's next victory was one of diplomacy. He had forged an alliance with Philip of Macedon, the notoriously unreliable adventurer-king who had more than once promised the Carthaginian support, then found excuses to keep his massive army at home. This time, Hannibal's persuasion had been effective. The Macedonian king had sent an immense phalanx of superbly-drilled pikemen, descendants of the men Alexander had led from Greece to India, conquering everything in their path. They were tough men of the mountains and plains, given a miniature spear as soon as they were old enough to stand, to be replaced by larger weapons as they grew until, at military age, they handled the sixteen-foot sarissa as easily as a man wields a fishing pole.

"I was expecting to see the Sacred Band, but it looks like they stayed home," said Appius Claudius. It was a joke among the Romans that the Sacred Band, an elite force of highborn young Carthaginians, never showed up for battle. In fact, the only Carthaginians in the army opposite them were Hannibal and a handful of his highest officers. The rest of the force was entirely mercenary. The Carthaginians were seafarers and sent troops abroad only as sailors, keeping their large land force close to home to guard against uprisings of their oppressed subjects. It was a system of warfare incomprehensible to the Romans, for whom hand-to-hand combat against a foreign foe was the very basis of citizenship.

As they neared the enemy line, a man rode out to meet them. His helmet and armor were Macedonian, but Scipio knew him to be a Spartan mercenary captain named Agamedes.

"There's that arrogant bastard again," said Claudius. "The same one who demanded our surrender after Trasimene. He's looking cheerful this morning."

"He has a right to be smug," Fabius said quietly. "They have us in a nutcracker and they know it."

The Spartan rode up to them. "Greetings, Romans. The general is prepared to accept your surrender now."

"Your general will sacrifice to our ancestors in the temple of Jupiter before he gets a Roman surrender," Fabius said. "We've come to talk with him, not with you, hireling."

The Spartan's grin turned to a scowl. "You are highhanded for a pack of beaten farmers. You should never have thought that Italian peasants could ever amount to anything. The gods don't like that sort of presumption." They ignored him. "Very well, you can negotiate terms. You'll find the general is a generous man. First, though, you must surrender your arms."

When they reached the base of the tower, a pair of Cretans wearing twisted headbands relieved them of their swords and daggers. With harness creaking they ascended the broad wooden stair that served instead of a ladder, coming at last to the wide platform some forty feet above the plain.

"I've been admiring your army, Dictator," said the man who leaned on the railing at the front of the platform. He spoke in Greek, the one language common to all of the men present. "It is impressive, but not as fine as the Roman armies I defeated at Trebia and Lake Trasimene and Cannae. I do not see so many well-salted soldiers this time. I do see a great many boys."

"It is good for men to learn war at a young age," Fabius answered.

"But their first lesson should not be the last. That is a great waste." The Shofet was a handsome man of medium height, clean-shaven in the Hellenistic fashion that was followed even in Carthage of late. A broad patch covered his left eye. He suffered from a chronic ophthalmic complaint and rarely had any use of that eye.

"That army before us," said a very young man who carried himself regally, "is no more than a morning's work for my men. Is there any reason why we should be haggling with these people?" The king of Macedonia was only twenty-four years old, but his kinsman Alexander had set the fashion for youthful conquerors.

"You are rash, my friend," Hannibal said. "The Romans may have found wisdom, and wisdom should always be honored. What says the Senate? Will you seek terms?"

"The Dictator overrules the Senate," said Scipio. "He speaks for Rome in his own right."

"Ah, I forgot," Hannibal said ruefully. "Those stories I hear about his Master of Horse-what is his name? Minucius? Yes, Minucius. I hear that Minucius is a firebrand and would have battle immediately."

"The Master of Horse carries out the Dictator's orders," Scipio said. "That is the law." It was the law, but in truth Minucius defied the Dictator and acted as if he were an equal colleague. He had been elected to his office by popular acclaim instead of appointed by the Dictator himself. It was a violation of custom that had resulted in serious consequences.

"Does it matter?" said a man who closely resembled Hannibal, but stouter and with two good eyes. This was Hasdrubal, the Shofet's brother and second in command. Fierce old Hamilcar Barca, their father, had made both his sons swear upon the altar of Tank to destroy Rome, the upstart citystate that had challenged and humiliated him and Carthage.

"There was a time for you to treat with me," Hannibal said. "After any of the battles, I would have been pleased to offer you the most generous terms: the destruction of your fleet, your withdrawal from Sicily and Messana, things that would have cost you little and assured your survival and the friendship of Carthage. But"-he shook his head as if in deep sorrow-"but you Romans are stubborn. You had to keep fighting when such defiance was foolish. You harassed me and would not come to battle. You suborned my allies, the cities of Italy that threw open their gates for me and in return suffered no harm whatsoever from my army. Now I am not so favorably inclined. Now I am of a mind to be harsh."

"We will not surrender," Fabius said. "Rome will not pass beneath your yoke."

"That settles it then," said young Philip. "Let's fight!"

"Don't be hasty," Hannibal said.

"What do you mean?" Philip demanded. "Either they surrender or they fight us. What other options have they?"

"There is a third course," Hannibal told him. "A very ancient one."

"What might that be?" Fabius asked.

"National exile," said Hannibal. For a moment the Romans lost their fabled gravitas, shuffling and looking at one another in wonderment. This was totally unexpected.

"Explain," Fabius said.

"When the Great Kings of Persia were displeased with a subject state, they could banish the whole nation to someplace in the vast interior of the Empire, where they could dwell in obscurity and cause no more distress. This is what I offer you."

"Leave Rome!" Scipio said, aghast. "Never!"

"I believe I was talking to your Dictator," Hannibal chided.

"This is unprecedented," Fabius said.

"Perhaps it is here," said Hannibal. "But I make you this offer and for the last time. Take what you can transport, pack up your household gods, and leave Italy. Go to the northeast, beyond the alps into the place you call Noricum. Do not trouble the Gauls, they are my allies now. Find for yourselves a new home in the north and never bother Carthage again. These are my terms. If you do not accept them, I will annihilate those boys and old men in arms over there"-he jabbed a finger toward the last Roman army-"and then I will exterminate all that lives in that city. I will pull down its walls and demolish its buildings and heap earth over it, and on top of the grave of Rome I will erect an altar to Tank."

For a while the Romans were silent. Then Fabius spoke. "I must consult with the Senate and the people."

"I thought you were Dictator," said Philip. "You speak for them all."

"Nonetheless, I will consult with them."

Hannibal glanced at the angle of the sun. "You have until sunset. If you have not answered by then, get a good night's sleep, for we commence battle in the morning and every one of you shall die. The very names of your houses will be forgotten. Now leave me."

Without further words the Romans left the platform. At its base they collected their arms and their horses and they rode back toward their lines.

"This is absurd!" Scipio cried. "Surely you don't propose to lay these terms before the Senate?"

Quintus Caecilius Metellus pointed toward the Roman army. "Look at them! In four or five years, the boys will make passable legionaries. The last credible Roman army died at Cannae. These are just fodder for Hannibal's veterans and hirelings. You don't eat seed corn, Scipio."

Scipio began to draw his sword but Fabius barked, "Enough! This is not for you to decide. Keep quiet and pretend that the Romans are still a unified people. If Hannibal finds out otherwise, we are truly lost."

There was no illusion of Roman unity in the Senate that afternoon. Because of the emergency they met in the war headquarters instead of the Curia.

"The time to fight is now, this very hour!" shouted Minucius. "The men are ready for battle! Make them wait another day and they will lose their edge. Their nerves will begin to assail them."

"That is exactly why we must not fight," Fabius asserted. "What stands between Hannibal and Rome is the seed of an army. Given time, we can raise and train new legions. But if we lose one more battle, there will be no more legions, no more Rome."

He gazed around him at the sadly depleted ranks of the Senate. They provided much of the officer class of the legions. Senators served not only as generals and tribunes, but as centurions and decurions, and there was no disgrace in a man serving as a common soldier in the years before his elevation to the Senate. More than half of the senators who had sat in this august assembly at the start of the present war were now dead on the field of battle. Almost all of the older men had lost sons and grandsons.

An elderly senator stood, trembling with wrath. "We cannot give up our lands, our estates! The land belongs to our ancestors and our descendants!"

The rest murmured agreement. Fabius had known that this was the argument that would weigh the heaviest. The Senate, both its patrician and plebeian members, were the landed gentry of Rome. For them, losing land was worse than losing sons. They could prattle on as much as they liked about the importance of breeding and high birth, but without land and the wealth it brought them, they were nothing. Old patrician families had fallen into poverty, and they plummeted into the general populace like a rock dropped down a well. It was a prospect they did not want to face.

"We will lose our lands anyway," Fabius said without pity. "The Carthaginians will take them. If we migrate, we will take new lands. We have done this before. Was Rome not founded by a wandering war-band led by Romulus and Remus?"

"The Carthaginians don't take land," said Quintus Caecilius Metellus. "They exact tribute."

"I won't hear it!" Fabius shouted. "Romans do not pay tribute! Would we become like the people of Utica? Better to be exterminated first!" He was roundly cheered, with the Scipio family cheering loudest.

Gaius Regulus, the oldest senator, stood and there was silence. "What do the gods say?"

Fabius turned to the man who sat beside him, dressed in a simple toga, wearing a cap surmounted by a wooden disk. From the center of the disk a spike jutted, a few threads of wool dangling from its tip. He was the Flamen Dialis, high priest of Jupiter. Beside him stood a single lictor. He was also very old and he heaved himself to his feet with difficulty.

"The flamenae, the pontifexes and the augurs are all in agreement: The omens have never been worse for Rome. The sacred birds will not eat, and they die in unprecedented numbers. The sacrificial animals struggle to escape from the altar, and then they are found to have diseased or malformed organs. Just yesterday, the augur Aulus Perperna saw an eagle alight upon the roof of the temple of Jupiter Best and Greatest. It had captured a serpent, and as it lowered its head to devour its prey, the serpent sank its fangs into the eagle's throat. The noble bird gave a great cry and tried to fly away, but a moment later it fell dead before the altar of Capitoline Jupiter."

At this even the most ardent for war turned pale. It was one thing to fight men. But to fight against the gods themselves?

"Noble Senators," Fabius said, "I think the will of the gods is plain. I am Dictator, but a decision this momentous must be put to the vote. I will have a division of the House: Those for immediate battle, to the right. Those for migration, to the left."

There was a shuffling of sandaled feet, together with a scraping of hobnails, for many senators were in military uniform. Slowly, the bulk of the assembly drifted to the left. At first, some hesitated to show what might be interpreted as timidity, but as more gathered to the left, others followed. At last, only a half-dozen senators stood to the right, all of them members of the Cornelia Scipiones. Then the youngest of the Scipios, the hero of Cannae, spoke.

"Kinsmen, let's not defy the gods as well as the noble Senate. We will found a new Rome in the north, as Aeneas founded a new Troy in Italy." With this, he walked to the left of the chamber and the rest of the Scipios followed.

The Flamen Dialis spoke once more. "There must be one condition, or we cannot go."

Once again, the Romans stood before Hannibal. This time, the Carthaginian met them before his command tent, with all his commanding officers and ranking allies around him. Beside the tent was a strange object: a table surmounted by a standard that consisted of a golden pole. At its base was a triangle topped with a pair of stylized arms, hands upraised. Above that was a golden disk, and above the disk a silver crescent, points upward.

"What is your decision, Dictator?" Hannibal demanded. "The sun is almost at the horizon."

"We will go," said Fabius, his face frozen. From the crowd surrounding Hannibal came many exclamations, some of satisfaction, others of disappointment.

"You are wise," said the Shofet.

"But there is one condition," the Dictator said.

"No conditions!" barked Hasdrubal. "Go or die, it is all the same to us!"

"Peace, brother," Hannibal said. "I would hear this condition."

"I have spoken with the Senate, with the priests and with the citizens assembled in arms. We are in agreement. You must swear not to lay violent hands upon the tombs of our ancestors or upon the temples of our gods. You may loot the temples of their treasures, but leave the buildings and the images of the gods unmolested. Otherwise, we must stay and die, right here, right now." Now he, too, gazed at the setting sun. "No need to wait until morning. A night battle will suit us as well. We do not need sunlight to find our way to the underworld."

There was stunned silence. To offer battle when the outcome was certain annihilation was astounding but not unheard of. To offer a night battle was appalling. At last Hannibal spoke.

"You Romans are a truly remarkable people. I will be almost sorry to see you gone." He walked to the strange structure by his tent and placed a palm against the golden triangle. "Upon the altar of Tanit I, Hannibal, Shofet of Carthage and general of all her armies, swear that neither I, the men under my command, my allies nor any Carthaginian will ever molest the tombs and temples of the Romans. In this I include their sacred groves, shrines, holy wells and their mundus to the underworld. This I enjoin upon all my descendants as well." He took his hand from the altar and faced the Romans again.

"Now go. Take what you can carry, but go. You have the turning of one moon. Tonight the great moon of Tanit is full. At the next full moon I will slay without mercy any Roman I find in Italy."

There was a final assembly in the temple of Capitoline Jupiter: Jupiter Best and Greatest. The Senate was present, as were all the priesthoods: the flamenae and the pontifexes; the college of augurs; the Salii, known as "holy leapers"; the keepers of the ancilia, the quinqidecemviri, who kept the Sybilline Books; The Rex Sacrorum, King of Sacrifices* who stood second only to the Flamen Dialis; the Arval Brothers; the Pontifex Maximus, who ruled over all aspects of religious practice. Behind him stood the Vestal Virgins. There were other priesthoods, some of them so ancient and obscure that most Romans were scarcely aware of their existence, each dressed in its own regalia.

When all the prayers and invocations had been spoken or chanted or wailed in their archaic languages, when all the protective and apotropaic spells had been laid, the Pontifex Maximus spoke.

"I now invoke an oath upon the whole Roman people." Four priests entered the temple. They wore long-sleeved tunics and upon their heads were bulbous turbans encircled by scarlet and yellow stripes. They carried a sacrificed pig, each holding a leg as its slashed throat dripped a line of blood upon the floor of the temple. They halted before the Pontifex Maximus and one of them handed him a rod of iron.

"If we do not return to take back our sacred seven hills, may the curse of Jupiter fall upon our descendants thus!" He raised the rod and brought it down upon the carcass with terrible force. The temple filled with the sound of snapping bones. "If Rome is not liberated from Carthage, may Jupiter smite us and our children thus!" Again the rod fell and bones crunched. "If we do not raise Rome anew, more splendid and beautiful than before, may Jupiter curse and destroy all our progeny thus!" The rod fell a third time and he cast it aside to clatter on the floor, the blood that now coated it splattering the nearest bystanders.

"This I swear by all the gods, by Jupiter and Mars, by Juno and Quirinus, by Janus, god of beginnings and endings, and by. ." Here he raised his hands in a significant gesture and all present save he, the Flamen Dialis and the Virgo Maxima, chief of the Vestals, covered their ears. Then, in a quiet voice, he pronounced the Secret Name of Rome, the most sacred and terrible oath of Roman religion, known only to the three of them. Then the carcass of the pig, bearing the dreadful oath with it, was taken from the temple to be thrown upon the sacrificial fire. The ancient terracotta statue of Jupiter, painted red except for his black beard and golden eyes, looked down upon them benignly. In later years, many of those present would claim that they saw him nod approval.

“There they go,” said Philip of Macedon. He stood on the terrace of a fine villa that stood on a hill overlooking Rome's Colline Gate. A colorful procession had begun to stream through the gate, led by men who bore poles from which hung the sacred ancilia, the shields of Mars. Only one of them was the true ancile, which had fallen from the heavens centuries before. The others had been made to foil thieves. Now no one knew which was the true ancile, so all were accorded equal honor.

"It is about time," said Hannibal. The Romans had used up half their allotted month making preparations for the migration. Already, many of the outlying communities were trekking north, a vanguard of soldiers at their head. Other communities, under Roman domination in recent years, were already discarding Latin and reverting to their native Oscan, Faliscian, Marsian or other dialects, preferring Carthaginian domination to the perils of a march into the cold and unknown north.

Behind the shield-bearers came wagons bearing the holy objects of Rome: the Sybilline books, the ancient statue called Palladium, the Tables of the Law and a hundred lesser items, all of them revered. The Vestals bore a litter with a bronze tripod upon which burned the sacred fire of Vesta.

Then came the general populace, their belongings borne upon wagons and pack animals and the backs of men and women. They carried provisions and farm implements and baskets and jars of seed corn with which to sow new fields in some unknown land.

"Look at them!" Philip said. "Farmers who thought they could challenge the world. Plenty of stubbornness, but no sense of glory." Hannibal just watched and said nothing.

By late afternoon the last of them were out of the city and all the gates stood open. The people were dwindling northward on the Via Nomentana, with a rearguard of soldiers behind them. The whole procedure had been as precise as any military operation.

At Hannibal's signal the Carthaginian drums thundered and his army, cheering like madmen, poured into the city. The sack of Rome had begun.

"There go the last of the Romans," Philip said, pouring himself a cup of wine from a golden pitcher. He poured another and handed it to the Shofet. "We'll not see them again and good riddance. The world is better off without them."

Hannibal looked at the king bleakly. "Pray to all your gods that we never see them again."