Total War Rome: Destroy Carthage

4

Fabius shut his eyes and took a deep breath, feeling his chest swell against his breastplate and smelling the heady aroma of incense that filled the air. He opened his eyes, and was dazzled by the view. All of Rome seemed to be on fire that night, not a fire of destruction but of celebration: a thousand basins of burning oil lining the processional route from the Ostia gate through the Forum to the Field of Mars. Here on the podium below the Capitoline Temple they were at the apex of the procession, at the end of the Sacred Way where the legionaries marching towards them veered west towards the open ground of the Field of Mars for the games and spectacles that would carry on through the night.

He and Scipio had left the head of the first legion a few minutes before to bound up the steps so that Scipio could stand beside his father Aemilius Paullus as the procession reached its climax. Polybius was there too, standing behind Aemilius Paullus, and beside them was Marcus Porcius Cato, in his rightful position on the podium as elder statesman of the Senate, a former consul and censor who was one of Aemilius Paullus’ oldest friends and supporters. Fabius glanced at the general, who raised his right hand in salute and held it steady as each legion marched by. Beneath the burnished armour he was now an old man, gnarled and leathery skinned like Cato, both of them veterans who had stood here as young tribunes watching triumphal processions long before Fabius and Scipio had even been born. This day would be the last dose of glory for the generation who had fought Hannibal, for those who knew they would soon follow Scipio Africanus to Elysium but only truly rest once Carthage had finally been vanquished.

Fabius cast his eye over the young men in armour and the older men in togas crowding the steps of the podium below. The patrician women were absent, waiting in the stands that each gens had erected at the end of the processional way to watch the execution of deserters, but Metellus and the young bloods among the tribunes were all thronged below, joined every few minutes by others who left the head of their legions and maniples as Fabius and Scipio had done to mount the steps and view the spectacle. The most conspicuous absence was the old centurion Petraeus, who had hung up his armour for good once Scipio and the others had gone off to war in Macedonia and the academy had closed. For him, war was in the past, and his pasturage in the Alban Hills had beckoned; it was November and he had needed to reap his corn and sow his winter wheat before the frost. He was a true Roman, farmer first and soldier second, more true to the roots of Rome than any of the patricians who vied with each other to claim the oldest gens and the strongest lineage from Romulus or some other semi-mythical warrior in Rome’s past.

But there were others missing too. As he had marched past the consular fasti at the head of the Forum, Fabius had seen the marble plaque inscribed with the names of officers of the patrician gentes who had fallen at Pydna. Among them was Gaius Aemilius Paullus, temporary tribune in the fourth legion, still only sixteen when he had died. Fabius remembered the last time he had been with Gaius Paullus in Italy, seeing his exhausted face at the end of their march south to the Bay of Naples, and then the mangled body that he and Scipio had helped to carry to the funeral pyre after the battle. The boy’s maniple had been the first Roman infantry unit to charge after the Paeligni had hurtled themselves into the phalanx, but after the shock of the Paeligni the Macedonians had been ready for what came next; those first legionaries did not have a chance. There were some who said that Gaius Paullus had been screaming in terror and had turned in front of the phalanx, others that he was bellowing like a bull and had turned only to fall on the body of a wounded legionary and take the thrusts of the Macedonian spears himself, an act that would have won him the corona obsidionalis had enough survived to vouch for it. The entire front row of the maniple had sacrificed themselves on the spears of the phalanx so that the following ranks could charge through. Fabius remembered Petraeus’ brutality towards the boy, no worse than the brutality they had all experienced from him, but different because of Gaius Paullus’ youth. He wondered whether in those final moments it had strengthened him, or whether he had been broken by it. The truth might never be known, but he hoped that Gaius Paullus’ shade was able to stand easy in Elysium and hold his head high alongside those who had died with him.

The last of the legionaries passed by, leaving the Sacred Way empty as they waited for the next stage in the procession. Fabius looked along it now, at the monuments and temples swirling with smoke and bedecked with wreaths, and remembered racing Scipio along it when they had been young boys, and then accompanying him every day from Scipio’s house on the Palatine towards the academy in the Gladiator School. Never in their dreams could they have imagined that only a few years later they would be standing here watching the greatest triumphal procession ever seen, not as gawping boys envious of the young tribunes and legionaries in the procession but as returning soldiers who had fought and killed for the glory of Rome.

He felt his cheek throb, and brushed his finger over the livid scar where his wound was finally beginning to heal. It had been over a year since the Battle of Pydna, a year during which he and Scipio had served with the occupying force in Macedonia as Aemilius Paullus had tried to establish a client republic, a province of Rome in all but name. At first their job had been to hunt down those who had refused to surrender after the battle, mainly Thracian mercenaries who knew that they faced almost certain death if captured. It had been exhilarating work, with Scipio in command of a unit of fifty light cavalry and Fabius as his companion-in-arms, ranging far and wide across Macedonia as they chased men down like wild beasts, cornering them and showing no mercy. Occasionally the enemy had banded together and their clashes had been proper skirmishes, brief and bloody encounters of several dozen men fighting to the death, but more often than not it had been single combat, ferocious duels fought by Scipio himself and sometimes Fabius with only one possible outcome, as the rest of the ala encircled the killing ground and prepared to spear the enemy if he should gain the upper hand. Scipio and Fabius had each accounted for more than a dozen men that way, and after six months of it they had felt more like proper veterans of a campaign than simply the survivors of one battle.

After the mopping up was over, Aemilius Paullus had recalled Scipio to the Macedonian capital Pella to gain experience acting as an arbiter in local disputes, a role he had found difficult to settle into after the excitement of the previous months but had excelled at, his reputation for fides and fair play putting him in great demand throughout the region under his control. They had arrived back in Italy only three weeks before, after settling a spurious claim by a man to be the vanquished Macedonian king Peleus’ son and therefore the rightful head of the new republic, a misapprehension about how a republic worked that Scipio had resolved admirably by explaining how Rome had rejected its kings more than three hundred years earlier and broken the line of succession, building the Republic from new men who were elected to office. They were due to return to Macedonia after the triumph, not to more administrative work, but for some well-earned leave, hunting in the vast expanse of the Macedonian Royal Forest that bordered the towering mountain range to the north.

Suddenly a horn sounded — a shrill, strident note from somewhere behind them — and the crowd that lined the Sacred Way became silent, watching with bated breath for what might come next. From a pedestal part-way up the Palatine Hill a giant Nubian slave hurled a burning taper high into the air, aiming it towards a metal cauldron on the rostrum below the podium. The taper cartwheeled lazily, the flame whooshing as it tumbled down, and then disappeared into the cauldron and was seemingly extinguished, the taper barely hitting the sides. The crowd erupted in applause, astonished at such a prodigious feat of marksmanship. But Fabius knew it was not over. The noise of the crowd died down, and all eyes turned to the far end of the Sacred Way, where the procession would resume. Without warning, an enormous explosion erupted from the cauldron, sending a ball of fire high into the air until it too exploded, showering the crowd with sparks and leaving a billowing black cloud that darkened the sky above the Forum, making the fires along the road seem even more brilliant. This time the crowd were too stunned to applaud, staring with open mouths at something they had never seen before, a presage of the sights to come that Fabius knew would soon have them baying for more.

Scipio turned and nudged him. ‘Ennius will be pleased. I told him that if he couldn’t yet make his naphtha mixture into an explosive weapon, at least he could make a spectacle out of it for the triumph. He’s been working on it for months.’

Aemilius Paullus turned to Scipio, and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Enjoy this spectacle, but do not be seduced by it,’ he said gruffly. ‘Remember this: there are true triumphs, and there are false triumphs. A victorious general may be treated like a god on a day such as this and then be the scourge of the tribunes on the next, beaten out of the city like a dog. Even today the tribunes of the people tried to prevent my triumph, by stirring up the plebs and trying to make then believe that my legionaries were immoral and out of control, that they would return to loot Rome as they looted Macedonia. And there are triumphs ordered by consuls who have exaggerated their victories, intent on creating glory for themselves when there is none, desperate to claim a military success during their year in office.’

‘The defeat of Perseus is the greatest triumph ever celebrated in Rome,’ Scipio replied, raising his voice against the din. ‘With victory at Pydna you passed to Rome the legacy of Alexander the Great, and laid open the east to Roman conquest.’

‘Such may be the judgement of history, of men like Polybius,’ Aemilius Paullus said. ‘But the judgement of Rome on a man’s achievements in his lifetime is a fickle thing, swaying this way and that like the wind that twists through these seven hills. Heed my words today. Cato and I have discussed it, and we see dark times ahead. Until Rome truly reawakens to the threat of Carthage, there will be years in which war may seem a distant memory, in which your own destiny may seem clouded and uncertain. You must hold true to yourself, and always remember what Homer said: Those fare best in life whose fortunes swing one way and then the other. When fortune is in your favour, your ability to excel will be boosted by the strength that you will have gained in times of adversity.’

Aemilius Paullus turned back towards the Sacred Way, and Fabius caught Polybius’ eye, seeing the hint of a smile on his lips. The evening before, they had walked together along the bank of the Tiber and Polybius had predicted it: that at the moment of greatest spectacle there would be a solemn moral message from father to son. He had said it was the thing he admired most about the Romans, their moral rectitude, something that had made him turn his back on Greece and make his home with those who had been his captors. He believed that it was what made the Romans such good generals and so different from Alexander the Great, his brilliance as a war leader weighed down by excess and immorality that fortunately seemed so far from the Roman character.

Fabius followed the general’s gaze and watched the legionary standards shimmering in the distance, where they rose above the height of the surrounding buildings on the route to the Field of Mars. Aemilius Paullus had been right about the disaffection of the people. After parting with Polybius the evening before, Fabius had spent much of the night in the taverns with comrades from the first maniple of the second legion, the unit he had trained with before leaving for Macedonia, and he had seen their anger. Men returning to Rome from glorious battle had been turned away from their homes by their wives and shunned by their children. He knew from Polybius what had caused it, not the tribunes of the people but those who had bribed them to spread disaffection, the same group of senators who had opposed the formation of a professional army and the foundation of the academy. It was the first time that Fabius had recognized the power that those men wielded, and how they could bring the plebs to their side. He had also realized that Metellus and his followers could use the enmity of that faction in the Senate towards the Scipiones and the Aemilii Paulli to their advantage, poisoning opinion against Scipio. That was part of the message from his father, about dark times ahead, caused not by an enemy abroad but by an enemy within. Half of those men who were standing around the podium now in togas enjoying the esteem of the people would as soon see Aemilius Paullus cast out of Rome and his triumph discredited. The general had been right about that too. The wind had blown in their favour this day, but it might not the next.

Scipio turned to Fabius and spoke close to his ear, against the noise. ‘Ennius’ pyrotechnical display was the signal. Take a look down the Sacred Way.’ He could hear the drums now, a slow, insistent beat, hollow in the distance, that marked the second part of the procession, the parade of treasures from Macedonia that would be brought by the cartload to the foot of the podium and dedicated in the temples that lined the Sacred Way. For Fabius the greatest sight was not the spoils of war but Scipio himself, flushed with excitement and resplendent in the cuirass and plumed helmet inherited from his adoptive grandfather Scipio Africanus, the man in whose memory Fabius had sworn that he would protect the young Scipio unswervingly, staying by his side wherever fortune should take him. Today was the crowning point of Scipio’s life so far; it was the first time he had stood shoulder to shoulder with Rome’s greatest living warrior and statesmen and could grasp his own destiny. Fabius tried to forget the dark side, that this was also the last day that Scipio could have with Julia, the day that marked the beginning of her formal purification rites with the Vestal Virgins before her marriage to Metellus. War may have toughened Scipio up, but not for that. Fabius peered ahead, seeing the first cartload of treasure trundle out of the smoke, drawn by a team of oxen. For now, though, for a few hours at least, he hoped that Scipio could put the future on hold, as they revelled in the greatest spectacle that Rome had ever seen.

Three hours later, the space in front of the podium was piled high with dazzling treasure and works of art, carried there by more than two hundred and fifty wagons and chariots; prominent among them was a huge heap of the silverwork for which the Macedonians were famous, including magnificent drinking cups in the shape of horns, decorated with gold leaf and precious stones, mounded over a vast libation bowl that Aemilius Paullus had ordered made from more than twenty talents of the purest Macedonian mountain gold. Fabius had been more interested in the wagonloads of arms and armour, thousands of helmets, shields, breastplates and greaves, all jumbled together and smeared with mud and dried blood as they had been when they were collected from the battlefield; among them he could identify Cretan round shields, Thracian wicker shields, Macedonian spears and Scythian arrow quivers, a residue of the mercenary force that had been arrayed against them at Pydna alongside the Macedonian phalanx. Next had come over a hundred oxen with gilded horns, destined for sacrifice that evening on the Field of Mars, and then the family and household slaves of Perseus and the deposed king himself, stripped of his armour and shambling along in a black robe, looking confused and sullen in defeat. After he had passed, there was a lull while a final spectacle was prepared; wine and fruit was passed among the spectators by slaves who had been instructed to provide the people with drink in moderation, but not so much that they would become rowdy before the procession was over and the sacrifices had taken place on the Field of Mars that evening.

Polybius had lamented the pillaging of Macedonia; he had told Fabius how so many of these treasures, ripped from the temples and sanctuaries, had lost their significance, and become mere ornaments in the houses of the wealthy in Rome. But now Fabius could see how the greatest of those works, brought here in triumph and dedicated in the temples, had attained a new meaning, been given a new stamp of ownership as they were absorbed into Rome as symbols of conquest and power. From now on, the art and the artisans themselves would work to Roman taste, shaping a new Rome just as Polybius and the other Greek professors at the academy had influenced the thinking of the next generation of Roman war leaders. It was making Rome less narrow, drawing her away from her long-established traditions: a dangerous development in the view of those in the Senate who worried about the solidity of their own power base in Rome, built as it was on maintaining the old established order. He thought of the irony of the old centurion Petraeus, conservative to the core, presiding over part of this change, chosen by Scipio Africanus to usher this generation of boys into a new way of war, one in which conquest and domination would only be possible if they were unshackled from the constitution that had anchored and curtailed personal military ambition in Rome since the early days of the Republic.

While they waited, Cato moved behind Scipio, his face craggy and lined, dressed austerely in the old-style toga of his ancestors, looking disapprovingly at the cluster of bearded Greek teachers below the rostrum who were trying to keep a class of unruly young boys in order. As far as Fabius could tell, the only Greek whom Cato had ever really approved of was Polybius, and only then because Polybius was the foremost military historian of the day and one of Rome’s most vocal proponents, so much so that Cato himself had called for him formally to be released from his status as a captive and made a Roman citizen. Cato spoke close to Scipio’s ear, but Fabius overhead. ‘When I was your age I stood at this very spot, over fifty years ago when Hannibal had crossed the Alps with his elephants and was threatening Rome. Your father who stands beside us now was like one of those boys below, though back then we used battle-hardened centurions to show our boys how to be men, not these effeminate Greeks.’

‘You did well to support the academy, Cato,’ Scipio replied, cupping his hand towards the old man’s ear to make himself heard. ‘Those of us who attended will always be grateful. The centurion Petraeus taught us the mos maiorum, the ancestral ways.’

‘The academy was the idea of your adoptive grandfather, Scipio Africanus,’ Cato replied. ‘All I did was ensure that the boys of families who support our cause against Carthage were offered a place, and that the treasure from Scipio’s triumphs that he willed for the purpose was used to employ the best teachers in the art of war. But the academy is closed, and I fear will not reopen. All I see around me are senators who would appease and negotiate rather than prepare for war. Even some who support us have come to believe that with Macedonia now vanquished, Rome’s wars of conquest are at an end, that their future lies not in military glory but in the law courts and the Senate. We both know how wrong they are. Peace may lie ahead of us, but it will only be a transitory peace, a lull before the storm. Mark my words, Scipio.’

‘Those of us who have been through the academy will ensure that its ethos survives,’ Scipio replied earnestly. ‘You need have no fear.’

Cato looked towards Metellus and the other young officers strutting on the podium below. ‘I can remember what it was like to be your age with my first taste of battle, and to be itching to go again. For me there were fifteen years of hard campaigning ahead before Hannibal was finally defeated at Zama — all of the blood and glory that a young man could want. But for you the path to the next war is less certain, and you are burdened with expectations. You must not let that armour of Scipio Africanus weigh you down. One day you will earn it in your own right and stand where your father is standing now.’

‘If the gods will it, and the people of Rome.’

Cato pursed his lips. ‘The time will come when men will not just play out their ambitions against each other in the debating chamber but will seek recourse in intimidation and assassination. When that happens, the struggle for power will be long and bitter. Armies will be raised against each other, and there will be civil war. And when Rome rises again — if Rome rises again — she will no longer be a republic. The man who stands astride the new Rome will be the one who can cast aside the shackles of the past and see Rome for what she is: the core of a mighty empire, not some theatre play of intrigue and squabbling and lofty speeches in the Senate full of clever rhetoric that signifies nothing.’

Scipio turned to him. ‘But these shackles are the mos maiorum, the ancestral ways.’

‘The mos maiorum are honour and duty, not patronage and privilege bought with bribes and intrigue and dynastic marriages,’ Cato growled. ‘I am the staunchest Republican that Rome has ever known, but if she loses sight of the old ways I would rather she were ruled by one man who knows the mos maiorum than by the many who do not. That was the other reason why we set up the academy; it was not just about military training. It was about restoring honour and duty to those who would lead Rome, not just in war but also in peace.’ He looked towards Metellus and the other tribunes, his cheeks creased and his brow furrowed. ‘With some, with you and Ennius and Brutus, with the foreign allies Gulussa and Hippolyta, we have succeeded; with others I fear not. They are the dangerous ones, as dangerous to you as any foreign enemy, and you must watch them. I must leave now. I have one last role to play, in the last great triumph I shall witness in my lifetime.’

Scipio bowed towards him. ‘Ave atque vale, Marcus Porcius Cato. Until we meet again. I will remember your words.’

He turned towards his father, resplendent in his golden cuirass and plumed helmet, knowing that at this point in the triumph the son gave formal congratulations to his father. ‘Salutations, Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus,’ Scipio said, for the first time using the agnomen awarded to him that day for his defeat of the Macedonians. ‘No more glorious a triumph has ever been celebrated in Rome. Mars Ultor shines on you.’

By tradition the triumphator remained dignified and silent, presiding over the triumph like a god himself, but Aemilius Paullus allowed himself to turn and smile. ‘Mars Ultor shines over my son too for prowess in battle, and over all Rome this day. I will give thanks in the shrine of our ancestors in my house this evening when the games are over. Will you join me?’

Scipio raised his arm in salute so that all those around could see him honour his father, and he bowed his head. ‘I shall attend, Father. And then I will sacrifice at the lararium of my adoptive grandfather Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, who watches your glory from Elysium.’

Aemilius Paullus bowed in turn, showing due respect to the revered memory of Scipio Africanus, and then turned back to stare at the Sacred Way through the Forum. Outside the Temple of Fortuna the priests were dedicating a statue of Athena by the venerated Greek sculptor Pheidias, raising it up in the temple precinct and then following it between the columns. Fabius watched the statue totter through, carried on a bier by captured Greek slaves, its golden helmet and vermilion chiton more vivid than the sombre colours of Roman sculpture. In all the temples of the Forum the gods and goddesses of Greece were being made subordinate to Rome, just as the houses of the wealthy had been filled with looted bronzes and paintings brought back by the officers of the legions who had fought in Macedonia, spoils of war that had been the right of victors since time immemorial.

But there was more to it than just loot. Aemilius Paullus had also commissioned the Greek artist Metrodorus to make paintings of the main events of the campaign, and had ordered them attached to the sides of the bullock carts full of treasure that had trundled through the Forum. Fabius knew from Polybius that Metrodorus had saved his crowning achievement to last, and it was coming towards them now, a towering structure covered in a shroud and carried on poles by Macedonian spearmen of the phalanx captured at Pydna. They set it down in the last remaining space beside the rostrum and then marched off towards the Field of Mars, the whips of the slave-masters cracking against their taut muscles and sending sharp reports through the still air of the Forum. Metrodoros himself appeared last in the procession, tall and bearded, bowing towards Aemilius Paullus and picking up a cord attached to the shroud that covered the structure. Trumpets suddenly blared from the steps of the Capitoline Temple behind them, a shrill blast that must have been audible all over the city. The crowd waited with bated breath, watching for Aemilius Paullus to give the signal. Scipio turned and whispered to Fabius. ‘It’s made of wood, but it’s the model for a stone monument that’s being set up at Delphi in Greece outside the Temple of Apollo. When my father travelled there after Pydna he found a half-finished monument like this that had been commissioned by King Perseus before his defeat, and it seemed only fitting that the victor should complete it with his own embellishments on top.’

Aemilius Paullus raised an arm, and let it drop. With a swirl, Metrodorus pulled off the shroud, and the crowd gasped. It was a rectilinear pillar, at least five times the height of a man, tapering towards the top and built from blocks of wood painted white. At the base was an inscription in gold lettering, and at the top a sculpted frieze beneath a magnificent gilded statue of a general on a rearing horse. The frieze was at eye-level to their place on the podium, cleverly positioned at that height so that Aemilius Paullus could see it clearly, and they all stared. It showed a battlescene, with life-sized men pressing and lunging, hacking and stabbing. It was so realistic that Fabius felt he could walk right into it. Dying soldiers were shown on the ground with wounds laid bare, dripping with blood that must have been applied by Metrodorus just before the procession. In the centre of the melee was a riderless horse that Fabius remembered from Pydna, one that had broken free from the Roman ranks and galloped between the lines, stirring them to battle. He glanced at Polybius, knowing that Metrodoros could as easily have shown Polybius himself, riding heroically along the line of the phalanx to break their spears; but Polybius had worked closely with Metrodoros on getting the depiction right and must had advised him against it, rightly judging that the Romans may have taken him into their fold but would rebel against a depiction showing the battle hinging on the action of a Greek captive who was officially not present in the Roman lines anyway.

The horse reminded Fabius of one that he and Scipio had seen on the pediment sculpture of the Parthenon in Athens, twisting and rearing upwards, as if straining to break free from the rock; only, unlike those Greek sculptures, this was not a mythological battle but a real one. He could recognize the armour and weapons of the Macedonians and their Gallic and Thracian allies, as well as that of the legionaries. And the larger-than-life equestrian statue was not a god but a man, clearly Aemilius Paullus himself, his lined face and receding hair instantly recognizable even from this distance.

He read the inscription in gold along the base:

L. AEMILIUS L. F. IMPERATOR DE REGE PERSE MACEDONIBUSQUE CEPET

Lucius Aemilius, son of Lucius, Imperator, set this up from the spoils which he took from King Perseus and the Macedonians. That would be the message Greek emissaries saw when they went to Delphi to make their obeisances to Apollo. To Fabius the monument seemed the crowning symbol of triumph, not some work of art looted and locked inside a temple in Rome, but a sculpture made in the Greek fashion and set up in the most sacred sanctuary of the vanquished, with a distinct new message: men, not gods, would conquer all, and those were not just any men, but Romans. Fabius felt uplifted. The future might be uncertain; fortune might smile on them tomorrow, or it might not. But after this day, anything seemed possible.

One of the attendants threw a burning taper into Ennius’ cauldron and another jet of fire erupted above the Forum, lighting up the equestrian statue of Aemilius Paullus as if he were riding across the heavens. Even after the flash of light had ended, the image remained imprinted in Fabius’ vision, and then the statue appeared wreathed in smoke with the evening light silhouetting its form against the darkening sky, an equally awesome sight that had the crowd silent and gaping.

After a few minutes of reverence the people began to stir, eager to move on to the next stage in the entertainment. Scipio picked up a leather tube containing a scroll he had been carrying, and turned to Fabius. ‘I promised Julia that I’d meet her outside the Field of Mars. Her father has a stand for his family and clients overlooking the end of the processional way, and I want to make sure I see the legionaries of my own maniple march through as they make their way towards the games. If we don’t go now, we’ll miss them. Come on.’

‘Wait a moment,’ Fabius said, pointing down the Sacred Way. ‘There’s something else coming.’

The crowd had seen it too and become hushed again, and they both stared. Out of the smoke came a solitary beast, its back bowed with age and its legs swollen, its trunk swaying from side to side, its eyes red and sullen as it lumbered forward.

‘Jupiter above,’ Scipio murmured. ‘Unless my eyes deceive me, that’s old Hannibal.’

Fabius peered closely. He was right. It was the elephant that Scipio Africanus had captured from Hannibal’s army, the one that the boys had fed and mucked out in its stall in the Gladiator School. As it came closer they could see the white streaks on its sides where Roman swords had slashed it more than fifty years before, the bumps and dents in its trunk where chunks of flesh had been hacked away, but still it came on, a lumbering testament to the scars of war. The closer it came, the stronger it seemed, the eyes no longer sullen but glowering red, the legs no longer leaden but poised to charge, as if the strength that had kept it alive for all these years had suddenly revived the beast of war within, here in the most sacred place of an enemy that had never truly vanquished it.

And then as it turned in front of the podium they saw an even more extraordinary sight. A few paces behind, holding a rope attached to the elephant as if he were chained to it, came a single figure, his head bowed. Fabius could hardly believe his eyes: it was Cato. Together man and beast passed the podium, neither of them looking up, both of them plodding resolutely forward and then disappearing from view, the elephant swishing its tail and Cato remaining bowed. For a few moments the crowd remained in stunned silence, as if unnerved, uncertain what to think or do.

Fabius glanced at Aemilius Paullus. He was impassive, staring ahead. Fabius suddenly realized what had happened. They had planned this together, Aemilius Paullus and Cato, two old men who looked back to the past but also shared a sense of responsibility to the future. It would enrage the faction in the Senate who were opposed to them; Fabius could already see impatient movement and hear snorts of derision from among the toga-clad men below them. At his moment of greatest triumph, Aemilius Paullus had chosen to leave a warning to the people of Rome: Carthage was still there, battle-scarred but strong, leading Rome on as the elephant led Cato, gaining renewed strength even as Rome watched and did nothing. Conquest in the east was a shallow victory as long as Carthage remained defiant. Perseus and the Macedonians were never going to threaten Rome; Hannibal’s elephants had stomped and snorted on the edge of the city itself.

Something else had happened. It was as if the light that had shone on Aemilius Paullus had shifted to Scipio. Everyone knew the legacy of his adoptive grandfather, and the burden that had become Scipio’s when he had adopted that name. What had begun as a celebration of victory in which he had played a part had become a portent of uncertainty and expectation; and the loyalty of the legionaries who had seen his valour in battle would be no guarantee of the affections of the people of Rome, who could be persuaded to shift their loyalties at a whim. Fabius knew that the armour of his adoptive grandfather would be weighing especially heavily on Scipio now, and that what was to come in the years ahead would be a greater test of his resolve than anything they had experienced on the battlefields of Macedonia.

Scipio turned and put a hand on his shoulder, a wry look on his face. ‘What is it that the Epicureans say? Carpe diem. Seize the day. For once, I will try to forget the future. Julia is waiting for us beside the Field of Mars to watch the execution of deserters, and it’s my duty as an army officer to be there. Let’s move.’