Authors: David Anthony Durham
One of his companions tugged at his elbow and urged flight. Villagers from a nearby settlement had spotted them and were suspiciously watching from the opposite bank. They could sail for Rome, his companion proposed. They would enlist in the Roman army and return later to set these matters to rights. But these men, brave and true as they were, were not leaders of nations. Masinissa knew that if he arrived in this condition in Rome his life would be worth no more than the price of his skin, the value of his bones and of the jewelry that clung to them.
Instead, he turned from the plains and ascended into the Naragara highlands of his father's territory. He traded his tattered royal garments for a humble disguise. He wore no emblem of sovereignty and shared the two horses fairly with his guards, taking his turn afoot when it came. They dressed the same as he and, to onlookers, occupied no different station in life. In the guise of a holy pilgrim, he sheltered with the peasants of Mount Bellus and made offerings there to the Egyptian god Bes, hoping for some of his mischievous power. He ate the meat of goats roasted on open fires and stole fruit where he could find it. Throughout this time his companions looked on with troubled eyes, for he seemed to have no direction. He did not speak to them of strategy, of tactics to regain his throne. He kept his thoughts to himself and appeared miserably content to roam the land without direction, from the mountain back down to the plains and then through the orchard lands south of Zama and from there into the scraggly hills south of Sicca, a land of mountain goats and of people who walked as if on cloven hooves themselves. They went high enough that they looked down on the flight paths of eagles and condors, creatures that could only take flight by jumping from heights onto columns of heated air rising from the plains.
To aid him his companions spoke casually with the people they met, testing their opinions. Did they mourn King Gaia's death? Did they welcome Syphax, or loathe him as he deserved? They brought Masinissa reports of all they heard. The people were afraid, they said. They despaired, but they still loved the line of Gaia.
Sometimes, huddled beside the campfire or mounted on a ridge or plucking the feathers from a rainbow-throated dove—anytime, really, for it came unannounced by an external impetus—the prince muttered aloud things strange for the men to hear. Words of praise, evocations of beauty, whole speeches of bottomless longing, Sophonisba's name pronounced so slowly that it seemed a new word added to the language, something expressing the tortured love of a man stripped of the skin of artifice: all this embarrassed his men and made them nervous.
When he spoke of his father they understood him somewhat better. He had always claimed that his father had no vision, no ambition. He was a kind man, wise and strong enough to hold together the disparate Massylii people, but Masinissa admitted to his companions that he had always been an ungrateful son, sure he could do better. He could not remember a time when he did not count the days until his father stepped from power and let him stride on to greatness. He had just woken to the fact that he knew nothing of how to be a king. He knew only what it took to be the spoiled son of one.
To this one of his companions offered, “That cannot be so. Our fathers teach us whether we listen or not.”
“A crocodile is born of an egg and never knows his parents after hatching,” the other added. “And yet he grows to be a crocodile; he cannot be anything else.”
Masinissa turned to the two men and stared at them for a long time, unsure that he even recognized them.
When they arrived at the remote council of Massylii elders a few weeks later, it seemed nothing more than a chance happening, as if they had been blown there by a random wind. The council took place at an ancient site known only to the tribal leaders and outside the range of any one elder's base of power. Masinissa was fortunate in his timing, although as yet he took no comfort from this. The council seldom needed to be held more than once in a generation, always in times of turmoil. This was such a time.
There was no structure large enough for the men to gather in so they met in the open. If they noticed Masinissa at all, they thought him one of the local herdsmen. His clothing was poor and bedraggled and his hair hung in knotted locks that obscured his features. He listened as the men—some of whom he had known from birth—spoke of the troubled times they lived in. They couched their words cautiously. It was obvious they wanted to speak frankly to each other, but none knew who among them might have turned to Syphax. They might speak their minds tonight, only to find themselves skewered tomorrow. So the conversation was roundabout and seemed to be heading for no definite conclusion. It was clear that Syphax had grabbed them all by the balls. They hated him for this and spoke with fondness of their dead king. But it was not until one of them offered a prayer of remembrance for Masinissa himself that the prince decided his time had come. It would have been unnatural to hear one's own death lamented and not speak up.
Masinissa stood and pushed his way into the group of men. They turned and looked at him. One elbowed him and another asked his business. He held his tongue until he had centered himself in their circle, and then he kept silent a little longer. He drew his hair back from his face and fastened it with a thong made of lion's hide. And then he dropped his arms, raised his chin, and met the men with his gaze. His fingers twitched as he stood there, ready to draw his dagger and take all the lives he could before he was killed, if it came to that.
He said, “Do not mourn me. The king's son lives.”
Landing on Sicily in the spring, Publius found the island simmering like a pot of boiling water just taken from the fire. The cities of Syracuse, Agrigentum, and Lilybaeum had not watched the war indifferently. Throughout it they had swayed in their allegiance, tipped here and there by the machinations of their ambitious leaders. Many of their residents—the Greeks especially—remembered the fine times they had enjoyed under Carthaginian rule and had not found Roman dominion to their liking. They had rebelled, although with only mixed, temporary success. At the time of Publius' arrival, however, the island had returned to Roman hands. All active revolt and political ploys had been quashed by the forces stationed there, thanks, in part, to the irresolute support Carthage had provided those declaring for them. The Greek rebels in Syracuse found themselves being stripped of their wealth. Many had been kicked onto the streets, where Latin children pelted them with stones and women spat on them and men used any pretense to lash out at them.
Publius, looking at this, reckoned it hardly a stable base from which to launch the greatest military action of his life. So he set about to right things from the first day. Citing his authority as consul, he ordered Greek property returned and demanded that the people of the city live together once more as they had in the years before this recent conflagration. In as short a space of time as he could manage, he circumnavigated the island, bringing this message to all the cities. Then he called the disgraced legions from Cannae to muster. He merged them with the seven thousand volunteers he had secured before leaving Italy. Together, this formed an army of just under twelve thousand, the vast majority of them infantry.
He drilled them mercilessly. He had learned a great deal in Iberia and he tried to convey it to his men and build upon it further. Each day brought more supplies in from the stores kept throughout the island, saw new weapons crafted and honed, filled the harbors of Sicily with the sails of more vessels. The seafaring cities of Etruria laid the keels of some thirty warships, preparing them in the remarkable time of forty-five days from the moment the trees were felled until the hour they sailed for Sicily. Laelius led scouting missions along the African coastline, looking for a place to land, surveying the cities there, getting an idea of their defenses, and making contacts with likely spies. He did not go near Carthage itself, for Publius had another target in mind. The intelligence that Laelius brought him revealed that all the pieces were in place.
The morning of their departure dawned gloriously clear, pleasantly warm, with just enough breeze to buffet the forty warships and hundreds of transports that bobbed in the harbor of Agrigentum. Publius himself called for silence on the ships. When this message had been passed on to all the vessels he invoked the presence of all the gods and goddesses of land and sea. He spoke the words he had practiced for this occasion, with nothing kind in them, but a plainspoken demand that the divine forces aid them in bringing to Carthage all of the terror and suffering Carthage had unloosed on Rome. And he asked that they further be allowed to press the matter to a conclusion, so that the men of Rome and all those allied with her could return to their countries laden with treasure, with plunder enough that they could bury their chins in the bosom of it and forget the strife that had been inflicted on them. He sacrificed a cream-colored bull with a star splash of white on its forehead, slung the entrails into the sea, and watched how they floated on the surface. Finding the picture to his liking, he gave a signal to this effect. A rolling, irregular roar traveled from ship to ship, a great cacophony of voices and horns and bells that some swore must have carried all the way across the water and set the Africans trembling.
They sailed through that day on a middling wind and made slow progress through the night as a thick fog blanketed the sea. Even so, first light brought the shoreline of Africa into hazy view. So near as that, Publius thought. So near to us as that. The first point of land, the captain called the Promontory of Mercury. Publius liked this well enough, but ordered that they carry on to the west. The next morning the captain called out that he had sighted the Cape of the Beautiful One. This, the consul believed, was just the place for them, not far at all from Cirta, but at a good enough distance for him to get his troops to land and into order.
At the sight of them the peasants along the shore ran in fear, grabbing up everything they could carry and kicking their children and livestock before them. Laelius asked if they should chase them down and stop them from sounding the alarm. Publius answered in the negative. In fact, he quite wanted the alarm sounded. Let it ring all the way to Carthage, all the way across the plains of Libya, to the Atlas Mountains and back. The farther away they heard the call, the better.
With the entire army on land, they at once began to march on Cirta. Most of the troops under Publius' command now had not been with him in Iberia, and many of them grumbled at this first move. They were heading in the wrong direction! Why go west when Carthage was to the east and stood undefended? But, as had proved prudent in the past, Publius kept his own counsel.
Some distance outside the city, a delegation from Syphax approached under a banner of parley. Publius agreed to hear them. The message they brought was that the king himself wished to meet with Publius. He believed they had spoken once as reasonable men and could do so again now. Publius sent back saying that the situation was much altered from their last meeting. He came not to talk now but with an army actively at war with Carthage. He said that he knew of Syphax' marriage into the Barca family, and he knew that Hanno Barca was at that very moment raising troops among the Libyans, while several Barca women resided in Cirta. He had every reason to believe that the state of war now stretched to include Syphax' people. Unless the Libyan king renounced his allegiance with Carthage immediately and completely, he faced an imminent clash of arms.
To this Syphax responded with his sincerest hope that it need not come to that. True, he was married into the house of Barca and therefore to the fate of Carthage. Hannibal's wife and elder sister had accompanied his new bride and were in his care at present, but he was still a ruler of his people and capable of making his own decisions. Indeed, this situation placed him in a special position that might benefit them all. Before he need consider breaking with his beloved wife, he again proposed that he mediate between Rome and Carthage. This conflict had gone on too long, too many had died, enough had been destroyed, and both sides had been shown to be great powers evenly met. Hanno, as a commander on African soil, had authority to make arrangements by which his brother in Italy would have to abide. Let them here work out a peace wherein Hannibal withdrew from Italy and Scipio sailed home. Do not answer rashly, but consider that the bloodshed could end with words instead of the sword. Did this not promise benefits to Rome so great that they deserved considering?
When the two of them stepped away from the delegation to ponder this, Laelius asked Publius, “Do you believe he is sincere?”
“He is a jackal,” Publius answered.
Laelius considered this for a moment. “But a sincere jackal?”
In answer, Publius told Syphax that he owed it to his people and to the brave men of his army to explore the possibility of ending this conflagration peaceably. He would consent to a meeting with the king, but only after they had corresponded on enough details to verify that such a conference would yield results. Syphax agreed.
While this got under way, Publius had his army camp on the plains, about a half-day's ride from the city. An equal distance away lay the enemy's camp, a site that had long been used by the Libyans to house troops in training and keep armies of raucous men outside the city itself. Through informers whom Laelius had recruited on his early reconnaissance missions along the coast, Publius knew a great deal about the army he was to face. Syphax had a core of well-trained soldiers, some who fought as spearmen in the manner of the Greek phalanx, others whose primary weapon was the sword. These fought standing side by side, with the edges of their feet touching, slicing like so many butchers at whatever came near them. They carried wooden, hide-covered shields, but their work was more suited to attack than defense.
These men posed as serious a threat as any trained by Hannibal, but much of Syphax' army comprised troops newly called to service from throughout his empire. He had no system for training and formation to match that of the Roman legion, and therefore aimed to prevail through sheer quantity of fighting men alone. Soldiers drifted in like hyenas drawn to a kill. They came singly and in tribal bands, lone creatures who looked after themselves foremost. They were clad in leopard and cheetah and lion skins, burly-armed and long-legged, some with enormous locks of hair like a hundred snakes, others with shaved heads tattooed in imitation of their spirit animals. They carried a wild variety of weapons, many ghastly in appearance: spears of differing sizes and functions, pikes with many-pronged heads, flails that ripped divots of skin loose with each strike, harpoons attached to cords so that a pierced man could be yanked off his feet. One group had chosen the ax as their favored weapon and each of these wore the shriveled remainder of their enemies' severed limbs to attest to their weapons' utility. A band from a seashore people to the west appeared with small round shields encrusted with coral, carrying tridents so heavy that a man once penetrated by their points was thereafter anchored to the spot and could be dispatched with a small shell knife.