Total War Rome: Destroy Carthage

8

They rode on in silence for a few minutes, picking their way up the forest path. The air was sharper now with the cold mist that came from nearby snow, and the dense stands of oak and birch of the forest below had given way to mixed growth of fir and scrub as they climbed closer to the treeline. Scipio had ridden a short way ahead, and Fabius knew that he would have been unsettled by Polybius’ news. His rivalry with Metellus had gone far beyond boyhood jostling that final night in Rome when Scipio had pinned him against the theatre wall; Fabius knew that Metellus’ threat of revenge had been real. But there had been more to it than that. Julia’s arranged marriage with Metellus had been the main reason why Scipio had left Rome, as well as his dislike of the gentes and the social requirements that constrained their lives and tied him to the cursus honorum. Fabius was pleased with any news that might help to persuade Scipio to return to Rome, but he knew that for Scipio to do so because of Metellus’ arrival would only fuel his resentment of the man and of the world of Rome that had created his unhappiness. Not for the first time, Fabius prayed for war, to put Scipio back on track. He peered up into the mist, spurring his horse closer to the other two. It was going to be a rocky road ahead, in more ways than one.

Polybius rode up alongside Scipio. ‘Do you know of Andriscus?’

Scipio shrugged. ‘An insignificant ruler in Aeolis in Asia Minor with delusions of grandeur, who fancies himself the next king of Macedonia. Living in the shadow of Alexander the Great seems to do that to men. He’s not the only one.’

‘He’s more than that now. He’s landed in Macedonia with a bodyguard all dressed up in antique armour so they look like Alexander’s companions in the famous sculpture by Lykippos celebrating the Battle of Graviscus, something every Macedonian boy is taken to see as part of his education. Andriscus may be an upstart, but he knows how to play the people. He arrived shortly after he heard of Metellus’ appointment, because Metellus had offered to recognize his claim by giving him the royal forests.’

‘Knowing that Aemilius Paullus had given them to me, and knowing that I was here,’ Scipio said grimly.

‘Despite your reputation among the Macedonians for fairness, Andriscus with Metellus behind him could easily drum up support among dissident Macedonians against you. There will be many who feel bitter about the Roman takeover, and towards those who defeated them. Your deeds at Pydna could be turned against you, so that your valour in cutting through the phalanx and chasing the fleeing Macedonians could be seen as mere slaughter of men who wished to lay down their arms.’

‘Metellus also fought at Pydna. And at Callicinus, three years before that. He has more Macedonian blood on his hands than I do.’

‘But he is not the son of Aemilius Paullus, the man who brought Macedonia to heel, who captured Perseus and humiliated him by parading him in triumph through Rome, and who condemned thousands of Macedonian nobles to permanent exile.’

‘You sound regretful, Polybius.’

‘How could I not be? I am sworn to Rome now, but I am also an Achaean Greek, and the Macedonians are my kin. And it is always a loss when a once-proud warrior race is brought to its knees, even if you are on the side of the victor.’

‘And what of Andriscus?’

‘Before arriving here he sent a delegation to Rome, with an offer of alliance with his kingdom of Aeolis. He wouldn’t go himself, because he knew that word had spread of his claim to be the son of Perseus, and he feared arrest.’

‘And is he?’

Polybius paused. ‘I believe that he is an illegitimate son of Perseus and a harlot of Ilium, the site of ancient Troy across the Hellespont in Asia Minor. Perseus went there as a young man seeking inspiration from the shade of Achilles, just as Alexander the Great had done. Other Greek warriors have gone there, and the local women have built up quite a trade around it. My informants tell me that she took her son to her home in nearby Adramyttium in Aeolis, and he lived there in obscurity until she told him his father’s identity. People readily believed it as he shares Perseus’ looks, though not his charm or his intelligence. By all accounts he is a cruel and spiteful young man, and like all bullies he has his retinue of like-minded sycophants eager to do his bidding.’

‘How did they receive his embassy in Rome?’

‘There are important alliances still to be had in Asia Minor, with Pergamon, for example, but hardly anyone had heard of Aeolis, let alone Adramyttium. The embassy was pretty well laughed away.’

‘Except, it seems, by Metellus,’ Scipio said.

Polybius nodded. ‘Metellus had just been told of his Macedonian posting and evidently thought that Andriscus might have his uses. There are rumours that as well as the forests he offered Andriscus some kind of administrative position, as a mediator between the Macedonians and himself. Andriscus has agreed to lead an irregular force of Thracian mercenaries to keep the Macedonian people in check.’

‘To do Metellus’ dirty work for him, you mean,’ Scipio said testily. ‘It sounds like a set-up to me, for the benefit of Metellus and of Andriscus but not the people of Macedonia. In the end it will not work out in Metellus’ favour. He does not know the Macedonian people as I do. I have given them my word of honour in my negotiations with them, and they have been satisfied. With Andriscus in my place as chief mediator with Rome, some will feel betrayed.’

‘That may be,’ Polybius said. ‘They may begin by resenting him as a Roman subordinate. But we should not underestimate the man. He and his followers will play on past Macedonian glory, and on his claim to be the son of Perseus. His subservience to Metellus could be seen as cunning exploitation of the Romans to gain a foothold back in Macedonia. Before you know it, Andriscus will be the pretender to the Macedonian throne.

‘Metellus may have more on his hands than he bargained for,’ Scipio said.

‘Or the basis for an easy victory and a spectacular triumph. We shouldn’t underestimate Metellus either. He is a man who can engineer a war for his own ends.’

‘He was the most cunning strategist in the academy.’

‘If Andriscus is allowed to develop a power base, then we should take more seriously the other embassies I know that he sent. One went to your old friend Demetrius in Syria, soliciting military assistance from the Seleucid kingdom to expand his area of influence in Asia Minor.’

Scipio grunted. ‘Demetrius has enough on his hands. Do you remember him at the academy? He’d spent his whole boyhood as a captive in Rome, and then my grandfather Africanus decided to send him to the academy to make a good ally of him, like Gulussa and Hippolyta. It never really worked, though. He was always receiving shifty delegates from the east, trying to sway him this way or that. When the authorities did eventually turn a blind eye and let him escape Rome, none of us held out any hope for him sorting out the Seleucid kingdom. It was another mess left in the wake of Alexander. The court at Damascus is a rats’ nest, with everyone always murdering each other.’

‘Then you’ll be more concerned about Andriscus’ other embassy. This time, he went himself. To Carthage.’

Scipio reined in his horse and stared at Polybius. ‘To Carthage. Whatever for? The Carthaginians barely have the military strength to hold their borders against the Numidians, let alone entertain an alliance with an obscure city-state in Asia Minor. I hardly think the Carthaginian navy is going to sally forth and go to his rescue when he decides to march against Rome, or whoever he intends to confront. At last count, they had about ten ships, and none of them had gone to sea for years.’

‘Don’t be so sure of it, Scipio. Many in Rome saw the war against Hannibal as the war to end all wars and, when Carthage finally capitulated, Rome was too exhausted by decades of bloodshed to take the war to its conclusion and destroy Carthage once and for all. As a result, many in Carthage felt that the end was an armistice, not a defeat. Despite the war reparations, the confiscation of their territory and the reduction of their army and navy, the Carthaginians were still able to hold their heads high, and look to a resurgent future. Your adoptive grandfather Scipio Africanus saw the danger, but he was hamstrung by the Senate. They were too concerned about his own power, about how presiding over the destruction of Carthage might have made him a figure too big to be contained by the constitution of Rome, a king in the making. After his death, when you were a small boy, Rome took her eye off Carthage, and the old enemy has grown powerful again. Under the guise of rebuilding their commercial harbour, the Carthaginians have also rebuilt their circular war harbour, surrounding it with shipsheds.’

‘You are certain of this?’

‘Of the rebuilding programme, yes. Of the details, only through second-hand accounts from merchants. To provide certainty, to truly persuade the Senate of the threat and to allow planning for an assault, we would need someone to infiltrate Carthage who could assess her strengths and the tactical challenges posed to a Roman assault force, someone who himself might hope to be intimately involved in planning an attack.’

‘Are you trying to tempt me, Polybius?’

‘It is a mission for a time when Cato has drummed up enough support by his persistent call to finish Carthage, and when you yourself have attained the status in Rome needed for people to listen to you, to tip the balance in favour of war.’

Scipio stared pensively ahead, and then turned to Polybius. ‘Tell me, when Metellus comes to Macedonia, will Julia come with him too?’

‘She will remain in Rome.’

‘Have you seen her?’

Polybius eyed him shrewdly. ‘At a dinner in the house of Cato. She asked after you. She said that she had not heard from you since your father’s triumph almost ten years ago.’

Scipio was silent for a moment, and then spoke quietly. ‘How is she?’

‘The gens Metelli is at the centre of the social scene in Rome. The matriarchs are known for controlling the younger women marrying into their gens with an iron fist, and Julia will be fully occupied with visitations and matchmaking. There are lavish feasts in her household almost daily.’

‘She will be bored,’ Scipio said. ‘That is not the life for which she was intended.’

‘She has a son,’ Polybius said, cocking his eye at Scipio. ‘Born the year after the triumph of your father. And a daughter, born last year.’

‘Metellus will be pleased to have a son.’

‘Metellus is rarely in Rome and has changed little in his ways, except that he now carouses his way through the wives and daughters of the aspiring novi homines, while not forgetting the meretrices of Ostia and the dockside taverns.’

‘Julia has done her duty. She has borne his children.’

‘And by turning from you, she has saved your reputation. Your wife Claudia Pulchridina is unblemished by scandal, keeping the matriarchs of her gens satisfied with her union with the gens Cornelii Scipiones and the gens Aemilii Paulli.’

‘Except that the union has produced no offspring,’ Scipio said darkly.

‘Hardly surprising when you haven’t shared a bedchamber with her in the entire ten years since your marriage, and haven’t even seen her since your father’s funeral games four years ago when you were obliged to appear alongside her with your gens at the public sacrifices in his honour.’

‘You disapprove, Polybius?’

‘Questions will be asked. You must obey the conventions of Rome if you are ever to reach a rank where you can break free of them.’

Scipio snorted. ‘Well, this is one convention that I’ll flaunt. Everyone in Rome knows that I loved Julia, but that I am a man of fides and will not behave as Metellus does. If Pulchridina had lived up to her name then I might at least have satisfied my loins with her, but that will never happen. I’d rather live as a celibate priest in the Phlegraean Fields halfway to Hades.’

Polybius gestured around them. ‘To some, that’s what your sojourn in Macedonia looks like. An escape from reality.’

Scipio urged his horse forward. ‘Nothing will induce me back into my wife’s bedchamber in Rome.’

Polybius was silent for a few minutes, steering his horse up a difficult section of track. Fabius knew that he would not have exhausted his attempts to persuade Scipio to leave, that like all good orators he would have one final argument to make his case. He prayed that could only be one thing. Polybius reached the top of the rock, and then pulled up his horse and turned. ‘There is something else you should know,’ he said. ‘I haven’t mentioned it yet so as not to raise false hopes, but here it is. There are early rumblings of war in Spain. There is discontent among the Arevaci of Numantia, who have rebuilt the fortifications around their oppida.’

Scipio reined his horse in, his eyes gleaming. ‘Tell me more.’

‘Unlike Carthage, where they are flouting Roman restrictions by rebuilding, the Roman procurator in Hispania Citerior has allowed the Celtiberians to do so, on the grounds that earthworks are an important symbol of strength and that allowing them to rebuild might boost the martial pride that took a battering when a Roman army defeated them during the first Celtiberian War, when you were a boy. The hope is that the grateful Celtiberians will be persuaded to become our allies rather than hire themselves out to our enemies as in the past. But another view is that the procurator will claim that they fortified too extensively, beyond their allowance, an excuse for war by those in Rome aspiring to the consulship who see the prospect of an easy triumph.’

‘There is nothing easy about fighting the Celtiberians,’ Scipio said. ‘My father said that they were among the most formidable warriors in Hannibal’s army.’

‘Which brings us back to Carthage,’ Polybius said. ‘With the city newly rearmed and defiant, she will be seeking mercenaries to bolster her army. A war against the Celtiberians could be a war against those who would confront us on the walls of Carthage. It could be a first step to reclaiming the legacy of Scipio Africanus.’

Fabius watched Scipio squint ahead into the mist, then straighten in his saddle and take a deep breath. There was fire in his eyes. Polybius had won. Scipio turned to him. ‘Before I tell you my decision, I will finish this hunt. There may be no boar to be found, but I will not be satisfied until I reach the edge of the forest. The weather is closing in. Let’s move.’