David Durham - Pride of Carthage

“It sounds as though we are lucky to lay our eyes on you,” Mago said. He motioned for a servant to refill the Greek's wine bowl, a task attended by a slim-shouldered Arbocalan.

“That you are,” the Greek agreed. “If I had known that I would miss the commander, I might not have rushed.”

“Better that you delayed no longer,” Hanno said. Without his meaning to reveal it, his voice bore an edge of threat. There was something about the scribe that annoyed him, more so because he chided himself for showing it in the face of a company that seemed kindly inclined toward the man. In a more controlled tone, he said, “There's a great deal you'll have to learn about what we require of you.”

“Of course that is so,” Silenus said. He bowed his head and left it at that.

One officer, Bomilcar, seemed particularly amused by Silenus. Though a giant of a man, perfectly proportioned but at a scale rarely witnessed, Bomilcar was neither a terribly disciplined nor especially intelligent officer. His muscular bulk made him a leader of men regardless. His family was an old one in Carthage, but they had maintained a remarkable purity of Phoenician blood, evidenced by the curved blade of his nose, his sharp chin, and the bushy prominence of his eyebrows.

“Greek,” he said, “let me ask you, how did your gimp god Hephaestus secure Aphrodite as a wife? Why not Ares instead? Why not Zeus himself? Or that one from the sea?”

“The blacksmith has got poor legs,” Silenus said, “but his other limbs function quite well. He spends his days pounding iron—”

“And his nights pounding something else!” Bomilcar was laughing at his own joke before he had even completed it.

Silenus smiled. “Yes, but Hephaestus is known as a kind god, as well. Perhaps Aphrodite finds this a virtue. This may come as a surprise to you, Bomilcar, but I am not personally acquainted with the Olympians. I've invoked their presence more than once, I assure you, but as yet they've spurned me. Artemis, Hera, Aphrodite—I've asked them all to dine but they've ignored me. I caught a glimpse of Dionysus once, but my head was a bit foggy at the time. No, the gods are largely silent as concerns young Silenus.”

“Are you a Skeptic, then?” Mago asked.

“Not at all,” Silenus said. “I've seen Ares in a man's eyes and sampled Aphrodite's handiwork and every day one sees Apollo's labors. I've simply been shunned, and I am bitter.”

Hanno said, “Greeks are strange creatures. They claim to revere their gods above all others and yet at the same time they pretend to believe in nothing. Have you no fear of the insult you may cause and of the punishment brought down on you?”

“Insult to the gods?” Silenus asked. He held his wine goblet beneath his nose for a moment, thinking. “I am too small a man to accomplish that. You see these arms, this misshapen head? What god could reasonably take offense at anything I utter?”

“You toy with questions instead of answering them,” Hanno said. “We Carthaginians fear our gods. We ask daily, hourly, each minute that their wrath be directed at our enemies instead of at ourselves. We never know what will displease them, so we are ever respectful.”

“How unfortunate,” Silenus said. He seemed to have more to say but left it at that.

“Let's not talk of our faiths,” Mago said. “We all honor Baal. That is never in question among this company, Greeks included. But tell us something more useful, Silenus. You have actually been to Rome, haven't you? Tell us of the Romans.”

Silenus picked up on the topic happily enough. “The Romans are an uncultured lot. It is not so long ago that Rome was a flea-infested sewer of no consequence at all. They've no literature to speak of. They appease the gods when it suits them, but they make a muddle of it. They've actually just borrowed our Greek deities and renamed them. One wonders whom they think they are fooling. Not the gods themselves, surely. I imagine that when they decide they need a literature of their own they'll take it from Greece. Take Homer and rename him Pomponius or something similarly absurd and change all the names in the Iliad . They are shameless, I assure you. This could well happen.”

“If they aren't humbled first,” Bomilcar said. “Which they shall be by Baal's grace and Hannibal's cunning. I wish he were here to meet you, Greek. Then you'd see the face of the future. He'll squash these Romans beneath his heel soon. Hannibal puts steel in all his men's backbones. Rome is no foe to be feared.”

“I am no warrior,” Silenus said, “but I might argue there's a thing even more powerful than steel.”

“And what's that?” Bomilcar asked. “Surely not pen and ink? Are you of that school?”

“No,” Silenus said dryly, looking almost saddened by the admission. “I'm not such an idealist that I believe that. What I'm referring to is not easily explained. I don't have the word for it just yet, but . . . Have you heard of Cincinnatus? During the early forging of the Republic, the Romans battled with their neighbors constantly. In the instance I am speaking of, the Roman army was pinned down by the Aequi, in a dire situation, trapped with dwindling food and water and outnumbered. As things seemed hopeless, Rome looked to the priests for direction, and in answer they were instructed to call upon Cincinnatus, a veteran soldier some years retired into a quiet life. They found him working in his field, plow in hand, sweating, squinting at the sun, I'd imagine, wife and children and some pigs about the place. You can picture it. But still they called him up and bestowed upon him the powers of dictator. He left the plow where it rested and raised a new army from the fields and farms around him. He marched on the Aequi within a few weeks and defeated them soundly. Quite a feat for a humble farmer, would not you say?”

“But Cincinnatus was no humble farmer,” Hanno said. “He was a veteran. Retired, but still a warrior. What point do you wish to extract from this tale?”

“I assert that he was a warrior and also a simple farmer. He was both, and not more one than the other. That is my point. Romans believe themselves to be simple farmers. But they believe that hand in hand with this goes the requirement that they also be their nations' soldiers. Plow one minute, sword the next, depending on the call of the country. After his victory Cincinnatus laid down the title of dictator and walked away from the rule of Rome and returned to his farm. He picked up his plow where it lay and carried on with his real work of choice.”

Mago doubted that the man's plow had stood untouched in the fields and said so. Silenus waved this away as superficial. “That is a detail of the storyteller. It enhances the tale's symmetry, but should not distract from the truth of it. Still, my point—”

“I understand your point,” Hanno said, “but no army of farmers can stand against an army of trained soldiers, men who have chosen war above other paths. A soldier who has just stepped from the field cannot hope to defeat one who has been drilled and drilled again, one who knows nothing but the life of the sword and scorns men who would break their backs trying to grow plants from the dry earth. Our army succeeds not despite the absence of civilians, but because of it. No man in the Carthaginian Council could last a day in battle beside my brother or me. I'd wager that the same is true of Roman senators. I think this Cincinnatus is just a fiction, a detail from an earlier storyteller, to use your words.”

Silenus shrugged. He lifted his bowl and realized it was empty. Holding it up to be refilled, he said, “But if I understand the possible plans this conversation has suggested to me, then your brother would consider attacking the Romans on their own soil. Men fight differently with their wives and children at their backs. The Saguntines demonstrate it at this very moment.”