Total War Rome: Destroy Carthage

11

The messenger who had dismounted from his horse hurried towards them, putting his right hand on his chest in salute. He was a man Fabius knew and trusted, Quintus Appius Probus, an experienced legionary of the old guard who had been made a messenger because he could ride and had been wounded in the leg. ‘I have news from Cauca. The oppidum has fallen.’

Ennius looked at him sharply. ‘Fallen? But my catapults weren’t ready. Without them, they’d never have breached the walls.’

‘They didn’t have to. It was a negotiated capitulation.’

‘Negotiated? Lucius Licinius Lucullus? That’s one for the books.’

‘It wasn’t the general who did the talking. It was the senior tribune on his staff, Sextus Julius Caesar.’

‘Ah,’ Ennius replied. ‘Julia’s brother.’ He turned to Scipio. ‘He’s a linguist, and can speak their language. One of their household slaves in Rome was an old Celtiberian chieftain, a warrior whom Hannibal brought over to his cause when he marched through here with his elephants on the way to Rome. Do you remember him, Scipio? He taught us how to use the Iberian double-edged sword.’

Scipio nodded, and then peered at the man. ‘You look troubled, Quintus Appius. There’s more to tell, isn’t there? You can speak freely. You have my word.’

Quintus cleared his throat. ‘Sextus guaranteed the safety of the people in return for them allowing a Roman garrison to occupy the oppidum. Lucullus himself led them in. But it was a maniple from the new legion, the men Lucullus himself had recruited from the fourth district in Rome, promising them plunder and then press-ganging those who refused to volunteer. I grew up on the edge of that quarter, and I know what they’re like. They make the best legionaries if trained with an iron hand, the worst if not. The only action these men have ever seen is gang warfare in Rome after the chariot races; the only discipline the lashes from the military proctors when they were herded into the ships for Iberia.’

Scipio’s jaw was set grimly. ‘So what happened?’

Lucullus allowed them to plunder the oppidum. But we all know that the Celtiberians have little to offer. They’re shepherds and cattle-herders, not traders. These new recruits have been spoiled by stories of loot from Macedonia, and think every foreign city is heaped high with gold and silver. But when they found nothing in Cauca, Lucullus gave them second best. He is a good enough general to know that men sent to war who have not yet killed will want their bloodlust satiated, and then when they have done so it will occupy their thoughts for days to come, until they want more.’

Scipio stepped back, shutting his eyes for a moment and pinching the top of his nose. ‘Don’t tell me.’

‘All of the male inhabitants. They rounded them up and hacked them to death, and then set fire to the place.’

‘Jupiter above,’ Ennius muttered.

Scipio took a deep breath, and gritted his teeth. ‘How long ago?’

‘Six hours. I came as fast as I could. I am to warn you that Lucullus is on his way here, and his men will expect more of the same. They should arrive by nightfall.’

‘The entire legion?’

Quintus nodded. ‘Including the maniple that went into the oppidum. That place has no need of a garrison any more.’

Ennius grunted. ‘At least they’ll bring the ballistas with them. Then I can begin bombarding Intercatia properly. If they don’t capitulate soon, it’s the only way we’re going to force their surrender. It’ll only be a matter of time before they hear what has happened at Cauca. They use runners to pass news between the oppida, and sometimes we don’t catch them.’

Quintus turned to Scipio. ‘There might still be a chance for you to negotiate a surrender before Lucullus arrives. The Celtiberian prisoner who interprets for us at headquarters told me that there are only two Romans they know to be with the army in Spain that they trust, Sextus Julius Caesar and Scipio Aemilianus. Sextus negotiated the peace with them last year before Lucullus arrived to start his own war, but now of course they will have lost all faith in Sextus’ ability to make his general keep the Roman side of the bargain. With you, though, it might be different. You were not part of the previous campaign, so they don’t know your measure. They only know you as one who shares the name of Scipio Africanus, the great general who defeated Hannibal and was magnanimous to the Celtiberian warriors in Hannibal’s vanquished army, keeping only a few as slaves in Rome and executing only the top chieftains. You, they might still listen to, and trust.’

‘Only if I show them that I can back my words with force,’ Scipio murmured, squinting up through the drizzle at the walls. ‘I need to assault the oppidum, and bring them to their knees. Only when they see that the legionaries are under my control will they believe my word.’

Ennius looked at him. ‘Be careful about taking matters into your own hands, Scipio Aemilianus. Remember that Lucullus is your general, and your patron. Think of where you’d be without him.’

‘I know too well,’ Scipio said. ‘I’d be back in Macedonia, a provincial aedile under the thumb of Metellus, setting up a law court in some town so obscure it would hardly be worth Metellus’ while to try to make me disappear for good, with my continuing survival as a dead-end official giving him something to gloat over. I have Lucullus’ boorishness to thank for that, the quality that allowed him to ride roughshod over the Senate when I volunteered for Spain and to have my appointment to Macedonia postponed. But I also know how it works in Rome. Lucullus is consul, but that’s only for a year. He’s a novus homo, a new man from an unknown family. He’s already been placed under house arrest by the tribunes for his heavy-handedness in recruiting for his legion in Rome, and now he’s gone against the express instructions of the Senate by reigniting the war when he was only supposed to come out here to establish a garrison. I have to be thankful to Lucullus and his war for giving me my first field appointment since Pydna. But a Lucullus is no patron for a Scipio. I’d never rise above military tribune, and a year from now I’d be looking back on a military career that would be the envy of nobody, of promise unfulfilled.’

‘So what will you do?’ Ennius said.

Scipio paused. ‘I always remember the words of my father: The only true path to glory is through your own deeds on the battlefield, as a warrior and as a leader of men, and it is only those deeds that will secure your reputation. I will earn the esteem of my men, and the trust of my enemies. If there is to be a future for Scipio Aemilianus it will be won through his reputation and his fides, his word of honour.’

Ennius eyed him, and then jerked his head towards the walls. ‘Will you take an assault force through the breach?’

‘We have five hours until sundown, and then the arrival of the legion. The Celtiberians are always on the alert, but will not be expecting an attack this late in the day. How soon can you be ready?’

Ennius peered intently at him. ‘We have five hundred men waiting on your every word. They are itching to go. We can launch an assault within the hour.’

Scipio nodded, and then looked at Quintus. His face was set, and he had fire in his eyes. ‘Find a pilum, and sharpen your blade. We are going to war.’

Quintus saluted and left. Fabius turned to Scipio. ‘You should know that there is discontent among the centurions.’

Scipio peered at him. ‘Speak freely.’

Fabius paused. ‘It is about Lucullus being a novus homo. That’s another reason why he needs to offer his men plunder and blood. They know that he has come from nowhere, that he is one of them, that two generations ago his family were butchers in the Cattle Forum. The legionaries expect one of their own to rise to be primipilus, but not to be army commander. He is a rabble-rouser, like one of the tribunes of the people in Rome, pandering to these men as if they are still the undisciplined street thugs they were when he rounded them up, and not legionaries. The legionaries expect their officers to be patricians with an honourable lineage of military service in their families, men who will lead from the front. Lucullus is neither of those things. You may feel that you still have to prove yourself worthy of your lineage, Scipio, but the battle-hardened centurions would follow you over Lucullus any day.’

Ennius spoke quietly. ‘Keep these thoughts to yourself, Fabius. Scipio is only a tribune and we only have a maniple of five hundred men, most of them fabri. It is here before the walls of Intercatia that he must earn his reputation, not as a usurper responding to the discontent of a few centurions. When he is a legate, perhaps, but not now. Rome would destroy him for breaking the rules.’

‘I do not fault Lucullus for ordering the draft,’ Scipio said pensively. ‘He was punished because he conducted it as it should be conducted, without favouritism, and refused to exempt those who had been promised it by the tribunes. He may be boorish and a poor general, but he is not corrupt. The tribunes of the people came down harshly on Lucullus because he was a novus homo, one of their own, a man of plebeian origins who had forsaken his roots and aspired to become a patrician. I do not fault him for that either. But I do fault him for inducing men to volunteer by offering them booty, and for bringing them here without basic training. Because there has been no other war since Pydna, most of the existing veterans were already with the army in Spain and this new legion is composed almost entirely of men unversed in war, without discipline or skills or the cynicism of the veteran who takes promises of booty with a pinch of salt.’ Scipio put his hand on Fabius’ shoulder. ‘Our time for bigger things will come, Fabius. Until then I must show my loyalty to my general. And for now, we have an oppidum to take.’

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, they made their way up a rough path where the larger fragments of fallen stone from the breach had been pushed aside by the elephants. At the top the two sentries beside the wall moved aside, and they peered through the opening. Immediately in front of them was a large area of open ground, denuded of upstanding vegetation and pockmarked with muddy pools, occupying perhaps a third of the area within the outer walls of the oppidum. Beyond that was an inner curtain wall, built of rough stone like the wall they were standing on and surmounted by a wooden palisade that still survived in places to its original height, with one partly burned watchtower remaining intact above the entranceway. Through smouldering gaps in the palisade made by Ennius’ fireballs, they could see the crude houses of the Celtiberians inside, thatched and circular like the ancient hut of Romulus on the Palatine Hill in Rome. Fabius turned to the optio in charge of the sentry detachment, a grizzled veteran with only one ear, whom he thought he recognized from a draft of young recruits years before at Pydna. ‘How many do you reckon are still inside?’

The optio peered at the palisade. ‘Maybe two hundred warriors and the same number of civilians, most of them women and children. But the number is falling by the hour. Take a look at that little procession to the left.’

Fabius followed his gaze to a small opening in the inner curtain wall some fifty feet to the left of the entrance below the tower. Out on the open ground in front was a low flickering fire, and he realized that it must be the source of the faint odour of roasting flesh that wafted through the breach in the wall. He could make out several figures through the smoke, dragging something towards the fire, and others around it, seemingly rushing at random and running to and fro. ‘Is it some kind of ritual?’ Fabius said. ‘A sacred ground?’

‘It’s sacred, all right,’ the optio said grimly. ‘One of the prisoners says that the open area in front is used for single combat between warriors, to settle scores and select the next chieftain. But what’s going on out there is a different kind of ritual.’

Ennius was looking through a long tube with crystal lenses at each end that Fabius remembered seeing him make at the academy. He passed it to Scipio, who balanced it on a rock and aimed it at the smouldering fire and the people, closing one eye and squinting through the lens. ‘Jupiter above,’ he muttered. He looked down, and then passed the tube to Fabius, who leaned against the shattered edge of the opening and looked through it. The image was wavering, distorted, blurred at the edges with bursts of colour like a rainbow coming in and out of focus, but after a few moments he realized that the centre of the lens was undistorted and he settled his eye on the view, magnified four or five times from the image he could see with the naked eye.

What he saw was a vision of horror. The people going towards the fire were dragging human bodies behind them, mud-caked, emaciated forms barely distinguishable from the living, clothed only in rags and their hair long and knotted. Once there, they threw the bodies into the embers, and waited until they caught fire. But others were there too, circling the pyre like vultures. Fabius saw one of them dash in and pulled out a corpse, chopping frantically at it with an axe and then stumbling away with a severed arm in his grasp, sinking his teeth into the flesh. Those who had brought the corpse then ran after him as he staggered away and brought him down, hacking at him in the mud until he lay still. Surrounding the scene, Fabius could see others who had escaped with their prize, squatting in the mud like dogs and gnawing at hunks of dismembered flesh. Fabius lowered the tube and offered it to the optio, who shook his head. ‘Been watching that all day,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to see any more.’

Ennius turned to Scipio. ‘We can talk all we like about starving a city into submission, drawing battle lines in the sand and pushing toy soldiers across model landscapes in the academy. But this is the reality. We may let hunger win the war for us, but there is no honour in watching a proud people reduced to this.’

Scipio raised himself on his knees, exposing his body for a moment through the breach. An arrow suddenly whistled in and clanged off his breastplate, cartwheeling away into the distance. They all ducked below the line of the wall, and Scipio looked down at the dent where the arrow would have plunged into his chest. He looked at Fabius, and then at Ennius. ‘All right. I’ve seen enough. With your fabri and my century we will have three hundred men to storm through this breach. We will form up on that open ground, and challenge their warriors to come out and meet us.’ He turned to the optio. ‘What do you say, legionary? Are your men ready?’

‘We await your command,’ the man growled, half pulling his sword from his scabbard. ‘Let’s finish it.’