Hannibal's children

Chapter 7

Zarabel was carried up the steps of the great temple of Tanit in a golden litter carried by sixteen eunuchs of matched size and color. The high priest, also a eunuch, stood at the top of the stair to greet her. His head was shaven, his pudgy body wrapped from armpits to ankles in a gown of the finest Egyptian gauze. He clasped his hands before his breast and bowed deeply as her litter was set down upon the broad porch of polished purple marble. Slave girls drew aside the curtain of golden chain links and the princess stepped from her conveyance. Her tiny feet were bare, their soles stained with henna, golden rings encircling each, the rings connected by fine golden chains to bands of the same metal encircling her ankles. She wore leggings made of seed pearls strung into a wide-meshed net that hugged her legs and complemented the whiteness of her flesh. The gown she wore was black, its weave so sheer that it looked like smoke.

"Welcome, Moon of Tanit, daughter of Hasdrubal," the priest fluted. "Welcome to your house, the house of the goddess."

The woman placed her palms together, fingertips touching her chin, and bowed. "Holy Echaz, guardian of the veil, I greet you in the name of the goddess."

This ritual accomplished, she straightened and surveyed the scene from the great porch of the temple. The city of Carthage stretched an incredible distance in all directions. Upon its highest point frowned the Byrsa, the great citadel that contained the Shofet's palace, now more than double the size it had been in the great Hannibal's day. Atop its walls stood the great observatory founded by her grandfather, Hannibal II. Its huge instruments of bronze and crystal gleamed above the parapets like the crown of a god.

Throughout the city, smoke ascended from countless sacrificial fires. The gods had granted Carthage preeminence in the west, but the gods were frighteningly mutable, and their favor had to be bought with constant sacrifice. Fruit and grain, wine and oil and incense, the blood of countless animals went onto their altar fires. The greatest gods demanded human sacrifice. In ordinary times, these human immolations were supplied by the subject peoples, levied like a tax at so many men, women or children per thousand of population.

In the truly terrible times, when famine, pestilence or war threatened the very existence of the Carthage and her empire, the children of citizens went into the fires that burned in the belly of Baal-Hammon, the god sometimes called Moloch. Even the highest nobles were not spared, and demonstrated their devotion to the gods by casting their infants and young children into the fires with their own hands. The gods of Carthage had always been satisfied with these holocausts, and had withdrawn their wrath when their hunger was appeased, and had blessed the city and its empire with matchless power and magnificence.

In every district of the city she could see the colossal images of the gods towering above the rooftops of the houses. Each district and suburb had its own god and these bronze colossi were mounted on huge carriages, so that they could be towed through the streets to meet with one another at the great festivals. They were beautiful or grotesque, animal-headed, horned, fanged, majestic, bestial. They reflected every power for good or evil in the cosmos.

She was a young woman, pale-skinned and black-haired like all the royal family of Carthage. They were the descendants of Hannibal and since his day had married only within the extended Barca family. Her hair was tightly curled and tumbled over her shoulders like black foam. Hazel eyes outlined in kohl dominated her triangular face. Beneath each eye were tattooed three lines of descending dots, the ceremonial tears shed for Adonais. Her mouth was wide, the lips stained deep purple.

She was the high priestess of Tanit, only goddess of the trinity whose other members were Eshmun and Moloch. She ruled this temple and its eunuch priesthood. She was the only surviving sister of the Shofet, Hamilcar II, and between the royal siblings lay a violent hatred.

"Has the incense been delivered?" she asked.

"It has been arriving since midnight, my lady. Do you wish to inspect?"

"Of course."

They passed within the temple, its interior laid out in the Greek style, with a long nave illuminated by a clerestory. Its walls were painted with scenes from the tale of Adonais, who was once the Phrygian Attis, but who over the centuries had entered the cult of Tanit. The paintings depicted his birth from a tree, his youthful infatuation with the chaste goddess, his despairing self-castration and, finally, his death and dismemberment at the tusks of the great boar.

There was no image of the goddess, not even the usual abstract symbols of her ancient cult. Instead, this temple held in its sanctuary the holiest object of Punic religion: the veil of Tanit. Only the eunuch priests could look upon it.

Even Zarabel had never seen the veil.

A flight of steps descended to the uppermost of the temple's cellars. Zarabel inhaled rapturously, for this was the storeroom of the aromatics used in the ceremonies and sacrifices of the goddess: myrrh, nard, cardamom, calamus, attar of roses and a hundred other barks, gums, resins, essences and perfumes. Overwhelming all was the scent of the noblest of them, frankincense.

It was this precious substance that an endless chain of slaves carried in hundredweight bags, casting them upon a growing pile while a priest seated at a small desk marked each bag on his tally sheet. The slaves emerged from a tunnel that connected the temple to its dock beside the commercial waterfront. The temple maintained its own fleet of vessels to transport tribute from all the lands of the Empire, as well as to bring in the necessary materials for the service of Tanit.

Of these exotic substances, none was more precious than frankincense. The shrubs that were its source grew in only a few restricted areas of Ethiopia and Arabia Felix, their location closely guarded for centuries by fierce tribes. Every temple of every god in the world demanded frankincense and the greater the god, the more was needed.

"The amount seems extravagant," Echaz commented.

"The Greek Herodotus wrote that at the great feast of Bel in Babylon, one thousand talents of frankincense were burned at his altar. Does Tanit deserve less?" Zarabel took a short curved dagger from her sash and slit open one of the bags. Thrusting a fine-boned hand within, she withdrew a handful of the crystals. The yellow crystals sifted between her fingers, falling in golden strands as she raised the substance to her nostrils. Eyes, nose and fingers told her that it was the finest quality, as ordered. Any man who tried to sell her less held his life cheap.

"Where is the white Ethiopian incense?" she demanded.

"Over there, Princess," piped the accountant. He pointed his stylus toward a neat stack of small wooden chests. The Ethiopian merchants, conscious of the higher value of their product, shipped it only in chests made of the finest cedar from Lebanon. The chests themselves were more valuable than most cargoes. She ordered one opened and a slave brought an iron pry bar. Very carefully, so as not to damage the valuable wood, he loosened the boards of one, raising the bronze nails until he could pull them free with his powerful fingers.

Zarabel raised the lid and lifted out some of the translucent white crystals. These would burn more fragrantly, leaving less ash residue, than the yellow sort. They would be cast upon the fires at the opening of the ceremony, and at the most crucial moments of the rites, and at the final invocation.

Following the last porter in the slave-chain came a man dressed in a blue tunic, traditional garb of the Carthaginian merchant marine. He wore boots with pointed upturned toes and there was a long curved dagger thrust beneath his sash. When he saw the princess he swept the high-crowned cap from his head and bowed deeply.

"Light of Tanit, I rejoice in your presence. I live for your service. I kiss your shadow."

"Captain Mahabal," she said, inclining her head slightly. "I see that your voyage was successful."

"Six months ago I sailed from Carthage with six ships and a cargo of goods. I returned with six ships laden with frankincense. It was a successful voyage."

"Well done," she acknowledged.

He bowed even more deeply. "My lady does me too much honor." He straightened. "I heard a strange rumor as I was overseeing the unloading, my princess."

"What sort of rumor?" she asked. It was not idle conversation. All her servants had instructions to keep her informed concerning events in the empire. She received no intelligence from her brother.

"A warship arrived today from the base at Tarentum. On board were some very strange foreigners. They claim to be a delegation of Romans, come to present their credentials to the Shofet!"

"Romans?" she murmured, releasing the handful of white incense. "How curious."

"Curious?" said Echaz. "I would have said impossible! The Romans are an extinct people."

"They seem to think they are not," Zarabel said. Without another word she strode back to the stairway. When she climbed back into her litter she told the lead bearer, "Take me to the Shofet's palace."

Hamilcar II, Shofet of Carthage, was a tall, wiry man with hair and beard dressed in the Greek fashion. Though he was of the purest Carthaginian blood, like so many kings of the Middle Sea he affected Greek fashions in everything from dress to coinage. For centuries Carthage had struggled with the Greeks for commercial and political domination over the western sea, but in so doing she fell under the Hellenizing influence of her traditional enemy. The priesthood and traditionalists fumed that the Baalim were coming to resemble the Olympians, that the young men were exercising naked in the palaestra, that the poems of Homer were more popular than the ancient tales of the Punic gods and heroes and monster-slayers. All to no avail. Like other peoples of the Middle Sea, the Carthaginians were growing besotted with the vital, invigorating culture of Greece.

It was a good thing for Carthage, Hamilcar mused, that for all their wonderful multiplicity of talents, the Greeks lacked the most important of them. They were political imbeciles, unable to unite for any length of time against a common enemy, unable to form lasting governments. The Greeks treated political life as if it were a contest in the Olympics, with each man, each faction, each city and citystate, each empire contending with all the others for preeminence. No sooner would they defeat a foreign enemy than they fell to war among themselves, wiping out all their gains and bleeding themselves white.

Even the empire of Alexander had not put an end to it, although the Macedonians were certainly more militarily talented than their Greek cousins. The successors of Alexander had not been able to hold the empire together and had fallen out among themselves like the Greeks, but at least they had split into a number of sizable, powerful nations and empires ruled by Macedonian-descended dynasties, all of them troublesome to Carthage.

Hamilcar had called a morning meeting of his military counsel to discuss his plans for one of those dynasties, the Ptolemies of Egypt. For centuries Ptolemaic Egypt had lain between Carthage and the Seleucid dynasty that ruled Persia and Asia Minor. The first Ptolemies, descendants of Alexander's general of that name, had been capable rulers, but the line had grown weak and decadent. Now Egypt, incomparably rich and fruitful, presented a tempting target for conquest. The question remained: Who would do the conquering?

The Seleucids of Persia had fought a long series of wars to dispossess the Antigonids of Asia Minor, and now they controlled a vast territory from the Hellespont to the Red Sea, from the Middle Sea to the borders of India: all of the old Persian Empire except for Egypt. The current king, Seleucus V, was now casting covetous eyes upon the kingdom of the Nile. He was being hard-pressed by Parthian invaders from the east, but the spoils of Egypt would give his faltering empire new vigor.

"How stand our preparations?" Hamilcar asked his senior general, Mastanabal. The Shofet sat at his ease on the great throne, made of solid gold and draped with the skins of rare albino lions. His advisors sat before him in two rows facing one another; an even score of the most distinguished men of Carthage.

"Ten myriads are now encamped at Utica and Sicca, undergoing the final stages of training and drill, my Shofet," Mastanabal said. He was a traditionalist who eschewed all foreign influences. His hair and beard were long in the ancient Carthaginian fashion, and when not in military uniform he wore the elaborate robes and jewelry of his station.

"Ten myriads will not be sufficient," Hamilcar said. "Enough to take Egypt, certainly, but not enough to hold it should Antiochus strike. We need more."

"I spoke of the regular troops who will fight as infantry, of course, "Mastanabal said." We have seven wings of Spanish and Gallic cavalry and pledges of up to twenty thousand irregular Libyan cavalry. With our war elephants, our fleet and with the Sacred Band in reserve, we should have more than sufficient forces for the campaign and the conquest."

"We need more," Hamilcar insisted. "I've ordered troops raised in Italy and I am in negotiations with Lysimachus of Macedonia to supply us with phalanxes of pikemen."

"My Shofet," said Hirham, an elderly nobleman, "surely Seleucus is in identical negotiations with Lysimachus as well. You cannot take the field depending upon such aid. Only when the soldiers are here and securely under your command can you count on Macedonian support."

"Of course, of course," Hamilcar said impatiently. "But I must have more troops."

While he listened to his admiral drone on about ships, oarsmen, marines and supplies, he let his mind wander.

He was a king. The ancient title, Shofet, meant "judge," but the shofets of Carthage had been kings in all but name since the first Hannibal. But his empire was built on commerce and the military reputation of Carthage had been in decline for some time. A king who had no reputation as a warrior was an object of contempt. Rivals would feel free to encroach upon his holdings. His great navy was of no avail against the desert tribes to the south and west. Sea power would not deter Antiochus from marching his massive army into Egypt.

A preemptive invasion of Egypt would put a halt to the ambitions of Seleucus and would give pause to the growing menace of Parthia. It would establish Hamilcar II as the greatest king of the known world. Above all, he wanted to be compared favorably with his ancestor Hannibal the Great.

While they were deliberating, a naval messenger arrived and laid a bronze message tube by the Shofet's right hand. Silently, the man withdrew. After a few minutes of pondering, Hamilcar picked up the tube, noted the design on the seal and idly broke it. He withdrew the papyrus and read with growing amusement and puzzlement. When they heard him chuckling, the council turned to see what caused their Shofet such mirth.

"Romans!" he said at last. "Our governor Hanno has sent a delegation of Romans to call on us! What next? Assyrians? Hittites?"

"Can this be?" said Hirham.

"It seems they've been living among the blond-haired barbarians of the north and have founded a state up there in the wilderness. I thought they must have all perished, but it appears that they still live, if these aren't imposters."

"Why would anyone bother to impersonate Romans?" Mastanabal said.

"We shall see," Hamilcar told them. "Hanno says they may afford me some amusement, and if anyone knows about amusement, it's Hanno." The others chuckled dutifully. Tarentum was the sort of place the Barca family sent relatives who were considered unfit for important military commands or governorships.

"Refresh us, Lord Hirham," the Shofet said. "You are an historian. We all know the name, but I confess I know little else about the Romans except that they were our stubborn enemies. What sort of people were these Romans?" Hirham was a tiresome old pedant, but his knowledge of Carthaginian history was comprehensive and he fancied himself the Punic Herodotus, having written many long and boring books on the subject.

"At the time of our first war with them," Hirham said, "they were the lords of most of Italy. They were actually little more than a confederation of tribes that spoke a language called Latin. They had recently established ascendancy over the Samnite people, who spoke a related but differing language. Prior to that time we had numerous treaties with the Romans, involving trade relations, forbidding them our shores south of the Fair Cape, specifying that, should a Roman ship strike our shores due to war or weather, it could carry away no more than was required for repairs or sacrifice to the gods. Likewise, they were not to-"

"Yes, yes," the Shofet broke in, "very erudite. But what sort of people were they?"

"I know they gave us a hard fight," Mastanabal said.

"Decidedly," Hirham concurred. "They were a martial people in a most-unusual way."

This was more like it. "How so?" Hamilcar asked.

"They were not an ever-victorious people like ourselves. They did not cultivate an image of invincibility like the old Spartans. They could scarcely have done so, considering how many times they were defeated in their early history."

"Then where did their martial renown come from?"

"The Romans had a certain-ah-persistence in prosecuting a war. Unlike other people, they were never demoralized by defeat. Instead, they analyzed what they had done wrong and corrected the error. They did not blame their defeat on the gods or on impiety or on performing some ritual incorrectly. They found out what the mistake was, and they never made that mistake again."

"Most unusual," Hamilcar said, nodding.

"And they learned from their enemies. At first, they were armed like the Greek hoplites with spear and round shield. They found that the long oval shield used by their Samnite foes was better and they made it standard throughout their legions. When they first fought our Spanish troops, they were very impressed with the Spanish short sword and adopted it. Likewise, they adopted the Gallic mail shirt and so forth. Unlike the Greeks they created very little for themselves, but they readily adopted all the best things from their neighbors and even from their enemies.

"They gained great renown from their war with King Pyrrhus of Epirus. He was the greatest general of his day, with the finest army in the world: He defeated the Romans in a number of battles, but at such cost to himself that he was obliged to retire from Italy. After he was gone, the Roman Senate sent a commission to study the excellent fortified camps he had built in southern Italy. The Senate ordered that henceforth all Roman camps were to be constructed on that plan."

"What sort of nation wins by losing?" Mastanabal asked.

"This, perhaps, was the greatest strength of Rome," Hirham said. "The Romans did not believe in myths of invincibility, such as that enjoyed by the Spartans before Leuctra. Defeat, even a catastrophic one, was never more than a temporary setback. If their army was destroyed, they raised another army and made sure that it did not fall prey to the mistake that destroyed the last one. Nor did multiple defeats deter them. Even the great Hannibal, after all his victories, feared that the Romans might raise one last, formidable army to face him."

"Impressive," said Hamilcar. "What sort of soldiers were they?"

"The legions were made up of property-owning citizens, mostly small farmers, bearing standardized arms and equipment. The better-off men were heavy infantry, the poorer sort light-armed skirmishers. They had few cavalry and those were inferior. Their greatest military strength lay in their discipline. They scorned individual heroics and stressed great cohesion and instant obedience to orders. Your ancestor Hannibal the Great was very impressed by their fine order and discipline."

"And their government?" Hamilcar asked.

"A republic not dissimilar to our own of that time. The duties of government fell upon the wealthiest men, who served at their own expense. Where we had the Hundred, they had a body called the Senate, which was composed of men who had held elective office. At the top, where we in those days had two Shofets, they had two officials called Consuls, each of whom could overrule the other. They did not want too much power concentrated in the hands of one man. The period of office was a single year for all officials, and elections were held annually."

"That sounds cumbersome," Hamilcar remarked.

"So it was," Hirham agreed. "The great families competed vigorously for office and honors, and they subverted each other at every turn. This division of power was probably their greatest weakness. Your ancestor took advantage of it on more than one occasion."

"Yes, I remember," Hamilcar said. "These consuls commanded the army on alternate days, did they not? And did Hannibal not choose to fight the battle of Cannae on a day when he knew the less capable man would be in command?"

Hirham nodded. "No general was ever more wily than Hannibal."

"Well, then," said Hamilcar in high good humor, "so much for the old Romans. Shall we see what their degenerate descendants are like?"

"Begging my Shofet's favor," said Mastanabal. "I have a war to prepare for. May I be excused this 'amusement'?"

"You may not," Hamilcar snapped. "Hanno thinks they may have some military potential for us. He is no Hannibal, but no Barca is an utter fool. You will remain and give me your assessment of these people."

The general touched his breast and bowed. "Of course. I crave my Shofet's pardon."

"Granted." He gestured toward the chamberlain who stood by the door. "Admit these Romans."

The Romans entered the great hall, stone-faced as always when on official business before foreigners. The pose, usually so natural to them, was difficult to maintain on this occasion. Their trek from the naval harbor to the great palace of the Byrsa had been a dreamlike and humbling walk among wonders.

Once past the stunning naval facility they found themselves in a great plaza where it seemed that half the world traded or lounged. They had thought Tarentum to be marvelous, but this great market was itself as large as Tarentum. In its center towered a colossus of bronze, a god fifty feet high with the body of a man, the head, talons and wings of an eagle. It stood upon a four-wheeled bronze base, its lower half smudged with soot and the whole idol reeking of the rendered fat of sacrifices.

The buildings surrounding the vast, open space were immense, some of them temples, others devoted to government service, yet others with no use the Romans could guess. They were magnificent, constructed of colorful marble, bronze roofed and glittering with precious metals, but there was a disturbing diversity of architectural styles. A typical temple would have a facade sporting Greek columns in the Ionic style, Babylonian construction for its walls and its roof in the shape of an Egyptian pyramid. Everywhere, they saw this jumble of architectural styles, as if the Carthaginians had no style of their own and plundered the world for designs they could use.

The people thronging the plaza were even more diverse and polyglot than the buildings. There were Libyan tribesmen with knotted hair dressed in flowing robes and soot black Nubians wearing leopard skins, well-groomed Greeks beside towering, austere Ethiopians, Egyptians in black wigs and white kilts bargaining with Jewish merchants who wore striped coats and pointed caps. To their astonishment, the Romans recognized check-trousered Gauls with spiky, lime-washed hair and sweeping mustaches who conversed with tattooed Scythians in Greek. Thracian mercenaries with their hair tied in topknots policed the market, although their only weapons were long hardwood staffs. There were many, many others whose origin could only be guessed at.

As they pressed farther into the city, they encountered a greater density of the native Carthaginian population. They were for the most part a slender people, swarthy of complexion with strongly marked features, their hair and the beards of the men almost uniformly dark. Here, too, many affected Greek fashions, both men and women. The wealthy, of whom the city seemed to have astonishing numbers, were carried about in ornate litters and many of them were obese.

At one point their progress was delayed while a religious procession passed by. Disheveled, bare-breasted women whirled, swinging their snaky hair wildly, beating on tambourines. Men trilled loudly on shrill double pipes while others carried strange objects and images: a basket of pinecones, an elephant tusk yellow with age, painted all over with mysterious symbols, an enormously fat dog. What deity was being honored, invoked or placated they could not guess. Last of all came a group of naked children whirling earthenware censers at the end of long cords, filling the air with fragrant smoke. When they were gone the Romans proceeded amid a sweet-smelling haze.

Teams of slaves kept the well-paved streets swept and cleaned. The buildings sparkled and in general the standard of cleanliness was higher than the Romans had seen since leaving Noricum. Only the images of the gods, it seemed, were never cleaned. They remained caked with soot, blood and rancid fat. This seemed a startling omission, but they were accustomed to the vagaries of ritual law, of which they themselves had no few.

As they climbed the hill toward the Byrsa, the public and commercial buildings thinned out and gave way to luxurious residences. These multistory mansions, veritable palaces, were almost uniformly of a traditional Punic design, set amid lush gardens, high-walled to keep out intruders, their featureless sides painted red, their roofs of bronze or colorful tile. Fountains jetted high in the gardens, splashing into broad pools. Children played on the grounds watched closely by nurses while the women of the households lounged about in various states of undress.

"I was under the impression," Flaccus commented, "that these eastern people kept their women locked away somewhere and never let them out unless they were covered in layers of clothing."

"It would seem," Marcus said, "that they lost that habit here in Africa. I've never seen such immodest dress."

"It looks as if the higher they are placed, the less they wear," Flaccus said. "The market women were decently covered. The women up here wear little more than jewels. Look, there's one wearing nothing at all except jewelry."

"Don't stare," Marcus chided. "People will think we're undignified."

Near the crest of the hill, beneath the walls of the Byrsa, they paused and surveyed the immense city, its spectacular temples, the immense, oppressive images of the gods, the mind-numbing scale of its walls.

"How can we take back Italy," Norbanus said, "if these people don't want to give it up?"

"There is more to power than mere display," Marcus said, trying to sound unimpressed. "Since we left the harbor, we haven't seen a single armed man."

"That may be a ritual law," Flaccus said, "like Rome used to have."

"You don't build something like this and keep it without plenty of military force," Norbanus pressed on.

"That's what we are here to learn about," Marcus answered. "Let's proceed."

The documents furnished them by Hanno got them past the guard posts of the Byrsa. Here for the first time they met with soldiers: men dressed in ornate armor bearing weapons that looked more ornamental than useful.

The first gate admitted them to a grand courtyard between the fortified wall and the palace. The gate itself was double-leaved, thirty feet high and covered with reliefs describing the exploits of Melkarth, a god-hero who, as nearly as they could decipher the images, was a sort of Punic Hercules. The courtyard formed a sloping garden with many beautiful paths ascending to the palace. Everywhere stood beautiful Greek sculpture, Egyptian sphinxes and obelisks, Assyrian winged lions, exotic trees native to the farthest reaches of the Middle Sea, the Euxine and the Red Sea. Tame deer and peacocks ambled placidly among the plantings while monkeys frolicked among the trees.

"What sort of place is this?" Marcus asked. "What do they use it for?"

"I don't think they use it for anything," Flaccus said. "A garden like this is just to be. ."-he searched for the right word-"to be enjoyed. The Greeks had groves like this, where people came just to walk and converse and relax."

"Greeks," somebody snorted. "That explains a lot."

To reach the palace they climbed a stair so broad, so high, and so awkwardly proportioned that it had to be a setting for the palace above rather than a practical access. It seemed intended to give the impression that giants, not ordinary mortals, dwelled within the sacred precincts.

At the top of the arduous stair was an open porch the size of a small forum. The few persons upon it were rendered tiny by the scale of the place. They were all splendidly dressed men who had the look of highborn Carthaginians. They looked upon the newcomers with curiosity. The Romans strode across the polished marble pavement as if this were something they did every day.

It seemed to take an incredible amount of time to cross the plaza. They were not accustomed to man-made structures of such size. The monumental door of the palace was flanked by colossi of a seated man. On the red facade were a pair of dragons facing the doorway, executed in relief, their wings and scales and talons executed in multicolored tile, each fabulous beast thirty feet high, striding stiffly on legs that did not bend.

The guards who stood at each side of the doorway were of a scale with the rest. They were the tallest men any of them had ever seen, a pair of seven-foot giants, one white, one black. They wore billowy knee-length trousers and twisted head-cloths that covered the lower part of their faces. Their arms were crossed before their bare chests, resting atop the pommels of swords as tall as an ordinary man.

"Are these for use or are they just for show?" Flaccus muttered.

"Let's walk past them and find out," Marcus said.

When they were within ten paces, the giants moved, crossing their two-handed swords to block the doorway. It was a move they executed like a dance, as if it were more symbolic than warlike. Moments later a man dressed in the most ornate armor they had yet seen emerged from an opening just within the doorway. The swords uncrossed to let him pass, then re-crossed behind him.

"Who are you and what is your business?" he demanded in Greek.

"We are a delegation from Roma Noricum," Marcus said. "We have come to meet with your Shofet. By now he has received a letter from Governor Hanno of Tarentum informing him of our arrival. We bear credentials from our government for his examination."

"Yes, the messenger has arrived. You may come inside to await the Shofet's pleasure." At his signal the swords were raised and they passed within.

"Roman officials should not await anyone's pleasure," Norbanus said.

"These barbarians will learn that soon enough," Marcus answered. "Until then, we will abide by their customs." The anteroom they entered was larger than most temples, its walls decorated with engaged pilasters carved in the form of Titans holding up the ceiling with their brawny arms. At the base of each pilaster was a bronze brazier full of flaming hardwood, rendering the interior smoky.

"These people have a fondness for great size," Flaccus noted.

"Unlike the true Greeks," sniffed Metrobius, "the successors of Alexander sought to magnify themselves through grandiose public works: the Colossus at Rhodes, the tomb of King Mausolus at Halicarnassus, the temple of Ephesian Diana and so forth. They set the style for such tasteless gigantism. It seems the Carthaginians have fallen into this pointless exhibitionism."

"It isn't pointless," Marcus said. "It leaves no doubt in anyone's mind how rich and powerful they are. The point is to make resistance seem absurd."

"There was nothing pointless about those walls we passed through to get into the city," said Norbanus. "Those were fortifications as practical as any we've ever seen, just ten times bigger."

While they conversed in Latin another pair of sword-wielding guards strode through the room to relieve the two at the door. This time they were a pair of matched Ethiopians. As the first pair marched by them in lockstep, Flaccus eyed them.

"That pale one is a Gaul, I'd swear it. Chatti from the look of him."

"He must have been a slave," Marcus commented. "No tattoos, no mark of the tore on his neck. The Shofet must have agents scouring the world to buy seven-footers to man that door."

They were interrupted when the glittering guard captain returned. "It seems you are to enjoy a signal honor. The Shofet deigns to receive you now."

"Well, let's not keep the great man waiting," Marcus said. "Let's go show him what real men look like." The rest followed him, chuckling a little before resuming their stone faces.