David Durham - Pride of Carthage

He paced the room absently. He moved to the doorway and looked out over the fields, just beginning to bud in the strengthening sun. Something in the smell of the air reminded him of riding through the Carthaginian spring with his father, surveying the family's lands. He had believed, in his early years, that his father was chief among the men of the world, wiser than any, stronger, braver. Almost as early, he understood that with these traits came responsibilities. That was why his father was called upon to put down the mercenary revolt so harshly. That was why he went to Iberia to carve out an empire. That was why he could never forgive Rome for its crimes against Carthage. This had all been completely right to him, undeniable certainties.

He thought of an incident he had not recalled for some time. It was in his ninth year. He had just learned that his father was to leave Africa for Iberia for a long campaign. Perhaps because Hamilcar had been absent for so much of his childhood, hearing this cut him with new agony. He accosted his father in the public square and begged to be taken with him. He grasped at his legs and swore that he was man enough for it. He was strong and could throw a spear and knew no fear of war.

Hamilcar had at first swatted him away, but the more the boy spoke the bolder his claims became and more the man began to listen. Eventually, he grabbed the boy by the wrist and dragged him to the temple of Baal, shouting as he entered that the priest should prepare a sacrifice. In Carthage the custom of infanticide was an ancient one, rarely practiced at that time but prevalent a little earlier. Hannibal, staring at the altar of the god for a few stunned moments, believed his father had had enough of him and was about to offer him up.

But then he heard the baying of the goat led in by the priests. The animal was solid white, its eyes pinkish in hue and horns so pale they seemed almost translucent. They had brought a fine animal, unblemished and likely to please the god. The priests were like all such that he had seen since, often deformed men, men strange in one way or another from birth and suited to the priesthood because of this.

His father knelt next to him. He felt the gnarled strength of his hand clasped over his, the skin of his palm like rough stone. “Listen to me,” Hamilcar said. “I am not a priest, but you are my son. I hold the right to tell you the history of our gods. In a time long ago the father of gods, El, mistakenly decided to place Yam, the Sea-River, above all other gods. Yam reveled in this and became a tyrant and imposed his will upon all others. No other god had the courage to fight him. All thought him too mighty, even El who had blessed him. To appease him, Asherah, the wife of El, offered herself to Yam, so that he might learn joy and treat them all more kindly. When Baal heard this he was furious. He, alone among the gods, knew that Yam was an impostor who would never treat them justly. He made two great weapons—Yagrush, the chaser, and Aymur, the driver. With them, he strode toward Yam. He struck him in the chest with Yagrush, but this did not slay the god. So he smote him on the forehead with Aymur. Yam fell to the earth. So balance was restored to the world, with Baal as the supreme, yet just, deity.”

Hamilcar turned his son to face the goat. He knelt close behind him and with one arm pulled the boy against his chest. “Understand me now. Carthage is the servant of Baal; Rome is like those who followed Yam. Rome has been placed above us now by a mistake of Fortune, but it will not remain so. You and I, we can be Yagrush and Aymur, the chaser and the driver. I do not claim that we are divine. This is a human affair, based more on justice than on the gods' favor. I do not ask you to hate without reason. I do not condemn Rome simply because it is full of Romans. It is Rome's actions I hate. It is the way Rome seeks to make slaves of all the world. So, I ask you now, will you swear your life to avenge the wrongs done us by Rome? Will you stand beside me as I take justice to them? Will you devote your life to seeing them brought down, as Baal brought down Yam?”

To all these questions the boy answered, simply, “Yes, I will do that, Father.”

The priest handed Hamilcar the sacrificial knife. This the father slipped into the boy's hand. Together they pressed the curved blade against the trembling creature's neck and sank it home, the young hand and the old acting in one motion. So the sacrifice was made; Hannibal consecrated and bound with Baal. Days later, he set out for Iberia, and he had known no life but war ever since.

How far he had come since that day. . . . How much he had seen. . . . The trajectory of his life surprised him sometimes—not often, for usually his mind was actively engaged in shaping the future, and the art of war at which he excelled seemed the natural way of the world. But there were rare, quiet moments when melancholy pulled more heavily on him. He sometimes woke from visions of battle and felt—in the foggy moments of transition to waking—joy at the notion that it was all a dream, that he was not truly in so deeply, that the years might not have passed as he believed they had. This was always a short-lived notion, however. His single eye always opened upon scenes of men in armor, his ears filled with the noises of camp: constant reminders that his dreams were no more than mirrors projecting back the world he had created.

He turned and withdrew to his desk. He did not savor these moments of weakness. This was not the best of him. He would return to himself soon and plan a victory for the coming season like none in history. But he had one more indulgence he wished to allow himself. He thought of calling Mago to write for him, but he decided that the emotions, the truths and deceptions he was to write were too personal, too full of portents, better left unrevealed to others. He prepared a pallet and lifted the stylus himself. He could not help himself, even if the letter was destined to go unread, to end in glowing red embers as his earlier efforts had.

“Dearest Imilce,” he wrote, “how I wish you here with me so that you could tell me of yourself and of our son, of my present and our future . . .”

For the soldiers of Hannibal's army, the spring and early summer of their third year at war passed in a haze of almost idyllic tranquillity. Instead of marching into action with the first warm weather, they planted crops under the direction of captured locals. The soldiers tended the herd animals, watched new calves born and nursed, and put themselves to practical trades such as leather working and iron smelting. They sent occasional, almost recreational, foraging parties to secure other goods from neighboring communities, but in general they were well fed on their own provisions. Their bodies returned to states of health they had not known since leaving Iberia. Late in the spring, as they pulled in the early harvest, more than one soldier joked that the commander must have taken a liking to the country and chosen to stay, content with the blooming weather and salt-tinged breeze off the ocean. But just as many voices argued that the commander had lost none of his hunger for war. Each action was calculated—even the duration of inaction. Who really doubted that the great man was concocting yet another unbeatable strategy?

Not Imco Vaca. If this was the best way to win a war, then he was all for it. Actually, though he followed orders that came to him and even on occasion delegated tasks to others, his attentions were more acutely focused on matters of a carnal nature. He had never truly recovered from the previous summer's meeting with the naked, swimming beauty. The Saguntine girl also continued to haunt him. She sat at a distance and watched his actions disapprovingly and sometimes shouted at him so loudly he was sure others would hear her. But she was nothing more than a buzzing fly compared to the torment the woman and her donkey inflicted upon him.