John Roberts: Hannibal's children

"This I swear by all the gods, by Jupiter and Mars, by Juno and Quirinus, by Janus, god of beginnings and endings, and by. ." Here he raised his hands in a significant gesture and all present save he, the Flamen Dialis and the Virgo Maxima, chief of the Vestals, covered their ears. Then, in a quiet voice, he pronounced the Secret Name of Rome, the most sacred and terrible oath of Roman religion, known only to the three of them. Then the carcass of the pig, bearing the dreadful oath with it, was taken from the temple to be thrown upon the sacrificial fire. The ancient terracotta statue of Jupiter, painted red except for his black beard and golden eyes, looked down upon them benignly. In later years, many of those present would claim that they saw him nod approval.

“There they go,” said Philip of Macedon. He stood on the terrace of a fine villa that stood on a hill overlooking Rome's Colline Gate. A colorful procession had begun to stream through the gate, led by men who bore poles from which hung the sacred ancilia, the shields of Mars. Only one of them was the true ancile, which had fallen from the heavens centuries before. The others had been made to foil thieves. Now no one knew which was the true ancile, so all were accorded equal honor.

"It is about time," said Hannibal. The Romans had used up half their allotted month making preparations for the migration. Already, many of the outlying communities were trekking north, a vanguard of soldiers at their head. Other communities, under Roman domination in recent years, were already discarding Latin and reverting to their native Oscan, Faliscian, Marsian or other dialects, preferring Carthaginian domination to the perils of a march into the cold and unknown north.

Behind the shield-bearers came wagons bearing the holy objects of Rome: the Sybilline books, the ancient statue called Palladium, the Tables of the Law and a hundred lesser items, all of them revered. The Vestals bore a litter with a bronze tripod upon which burned the sacred fire of Vesta.

Then came the general populace, their belongings borne upon wagons and pack animals and the backs of men and women. They carried provisions and farm implements and baskets and jars of seed corn with which to sow new fields in some unknown land.

"Look at them!" Philip said. "Farmers who thought they could challenge the world. Plenty of stubbornness, but no sense of glory." Hannibal just watched and said nothing.

By late afternoon the last of them were out of the city and all the gates stood open. The people were dwindling northward on the Via Nomentana, with a rearguard of soldiers behind them. The whole procedure had been as precise as any military operation.

At Hannibal's signal the Carthaginian drums thundered and his army, cheering like madmen, poured into the city. The sack of Rome had begun.

"There go the last of the Romans," Philip said, pouring himself a cup of wine from a golden pitcher. He poured another and handed it to the Shofet. "We'll not see them again and good riddance. The world is better off without them."

Hannibal looked at the king bleakly. "Pray to all your gods that we never see them again."

Roma Noricum, 100 B.C.

The smoke from the burning oppidum was choking, but the fires were burning low now, the bodies frozen in postures of death, the smell of death beginning to overwhelm the smoke. The legionaries went from one body to the next, making sure that each was dead. Where there was doubt, a quick stab of the gladius removed it.

Marcus Cornelius Scipio surveyed the scene and he could take no pleasure in it. The oppidium was a small place, the last holdout of an obscure band of Celts, no match for the Roman legions sent against them.

"That's the last of them then, Commander?" said his senior centurion.

"The last," he affirmed. "Now we'll have peace for a few years." He watched the auxilia herding the women and children into a compound. The slavers who followed the legions like a cloud of vultures were already gathering, assessing the new livestock and calculating their bids.

"Peace," said the centurion. "I don't like peace. The men get soft. They lose their edge. Peace is no good for the Republic. You're young, Commander. You don't remember. Back when I was a decurion, we had five years of peace. The legions turned into worthless slaves. Praise to Jupiter those Cimbri invaded. It saved us from turning into Greeks." For Romans, the Greek traders who brought goods from the luxurious south were the epitome of all that was decadent and weak.

Marcus Scipio had to smile. "I don't think we need to fear that much peace. A year or two at most."

The centurion grunted. "Well, next year I'm Prefect of the Camp, then I retire. But I hate to think my boys are going to turn into Greeks." He spat onto a smoldering timber raising a spurt of steam.

"The Alemanni up north are planning a march south," Marcus said. "They'll be here before long, never fear." He was a very young man, no more than twenty-five, but most army commanders were young. He was dressed much like a common soldier in a mail tunic of iron links belted with a sword and dagger. His tight-fitting leather breeches reached just below the knees and on his feet he wore hobnailed caligae. Most of his gear was of Gallic make, modified to suit Roman tastes. Only the twin white plumes on his iron helmet denoted his rank.

"You can finish up here, Aufidius," he said to the centurion. Aufidius was primus pilus, "first spear." He was centurion of the first century, first cohort and the senior centurion of the legion. His greaves and side-to-side crest signified his rank.

"Go on back to the camp, Tribune. You've earned some rest."

Marcus took his cloak from his cantle and threw it across his shoulders. Like most legionary cloaks it was deep green with interlacing stripes of black woven through it. It was another Celtic item, ideal for scouting and hunting. He mounted and turned his horse's head toward the camp. It was two hours' ride southward along the Rhenus, and as he rode, he found himself already growing depressed with the prospect of peace, but not for the same reasons that troubled the centurion. In Roma Noricum, peace meant political strife. As long as there were barbarians to fight, incursions to repel, a sort of unity prevailed in the capital, although there could be plenty of rancor even in wartime. Without external hostilities to distract them, the senatorial families and their allies were at one another's throats, clawing for power and influence, trying to maneuver their patriarchs and sons into the best command positions, the important magistracies, the most prestigious priesthoods.

Always, there was the struggle between the old families and the new families. The old families were those that had made the long trek of the Exile, the families from Rome of the Seven Hills. The new families were native, Romanized by their conquerors. They had full rights of citizenship and could hold all the highest offices and all but a few of the priesthoods, but they lacked the social prestige of the old families, and this rankled. He was still brooding on this when he rode in sight of the camp.

"Camp" was a poor word for what Roman legionaries built wherever they stopped for the night. The surveyors rode ahead of the legion and found a good site, laid out its walls and streets and marked the tent sites with colored flags. When the legion reached the site, the men set down their packs and got out their entrenching tools. Still in full armor, they dug the ditch and heaped the soil on the camp side, building an earthen wall, atop which they planted the palisade poles they had been carrying all day. They posted sentries and only then went inside to pitch their tents. This was done at the end of every day's march. If they moved on in the morning, they demolished the camp so that enemies couldn't use it.