The Romans nodded understanding. They understood the value of drill and discipline.
The ship carried a complement of twenty marines, and these were conventionally equipped. To Roman eyes, their armor was strangely old-fashioned, like that of warriors depicted on old Greek vases or painted on porticoes. Each wore a rigid bronze cuirass and a horsehair-crested helmet. Their round shields were also made of bronze and were much smaller than those used by the legions. They wore neither greaves nor footwear. Their arms were short spears, curved swords and bows. Each marine was an archer.
In the evenings, the Romans gathered on the foredeck and discussed what they had learned and what should go into the report to the Senate. Conversing only in Latin, they could speak their minds without fear of being overheard by eavesdroppers.
"We've learned one invaluable lesson," said Flaccus on the evening after the war machine demonstration. "When Rome builds a fleet, every ship is to be equipped with plenty of iron shovels. Can you imagine being on one of these things when it catches fire? First they build them out of kindling, then they soak them in pitch so that they'll burn even better." He gave an exaggerated shiver at the concept.
They had been discussing the concept of building a Roman fleet since the start of the voyage. Greatly as they disliked the idea of seafaring, they understood that, to defeat Carthage, Rome would have to become a sea power. It was a daunting prospect, but their ancestors had accomplished it.
The story had it that, at the outset of the first war with Carthage, a Carthaginian galley had washed ashore in a storm. The Senate had sent a commission to study it, and many copies were built. Rowing benches were built on shore to train rowers, and then the new crews practiced maneuvering in sheltered harbors. When they were confident enough, they had taken to the open sea.
The Romans were inexperienced with the sort of sea maneuvering at which the Carthaginians and their Greek hirelings excelled, so they did not even try to compete in this arena. Instead, they invented a new boarding device called the "crow." This was a heavy boarding plank hinged to a turntable on the deck, held almost upright by a crane. When a Roman ship closed with an enemy, the plank was swung over the other ship and dropped. The beak of the crow was a stout bronze spike that sank into the enemy's deck, effectively nailing the ships together. Then the Romans crossed on the plank to engage the enemy in the sort of close quarters combat at which Romans were peerless. Rome won the naval war by turning sea battles into land battles.
"But what about rowers?" someone asked. "Slaves are useless for combat, and you can't very well ask citizens to do such work."
"That's where the native Italians will get back into our good graces," Marcus said. "They can serve as rowers, with the status of allies and auxilia. When the war is over, they can be rewarded with provisional citizenship, with full citizenship contingent on their good behavior."
"A good plan," Norbanus admitted, "but first you'll have to teach them to be brave."
Their voyage hugged the coast of southern Italy, taking them past Heraclea, Thurii, Croton and others. At nightfall, they put into the nearest port or anchored just offshore. Only during wartime, Ilas told them, did Carthaginian ships risk sailing at night. They crossed the narrow channel between Italy and Sicily and they sailed along the coast of that island, past Acium and Catana until they reached the great city of Syracuse. There the Romans admired the formidable fortifications of the storied city.
"This is where the glory of Athens died," Flaccus sighed. Metrobius nodded sadly and between them they tried to point out all the crucial sites of that famous siege.
"Greeks," Norbanus snorted. "What do you expect when you use amateur leadership? What was Nikias, a cobbler?"
"He was what most of our own leaders are," Flaccus said. "He was a rich man."
They sailed along the coast of the island until they reached the western tip. In the harbor at Lilybaeum, Has conferred with some other skippers about sailing conditions. He returned to the ship smiling. "This is where we make the hop across to Africa," he informed them.
"What sort of hop?" Flaccus asked. Something about the sound of the word seemed ominous.
"Up to now we've hugged the coastline and put in every night. From here, we take to the open sea."
"You mean we'll be out of sight of land?" Flaccus all but squeaked.
"Just for a few hours," Has assured them. "This is the shortest hop to the African coast in the whole sea. To get there by coastal sailing would mean going up the Italian coast to Liguria, then westward past southern Gaul to Iberia all the way to the Pillars of Herakles, then back east along the Mauretanian and Numidian coasts all the way to Carthage. Take another month or two that way, depending on the weather."
"It's your ship," Marcus said. "When do we depart?"
"At first light tomorrow."
The next morning, just as the eastern horizon began to turn pale, the ship turned its bow to the southwest and the rowers smote the water, raising a spray as the vessel surged forward. By the time the sun was fully up, Sicily was a dark line low on the northeast horizon. Flaccus stared at it longingly.
"Stop looking at that island like a lover at his mistress," Marcus chided. "These foreigners will think we're cowards."
"It's not that I have any fondness for Sicily," Flaccus said. "It's just that I'm afraid that it could be the last dry land I ever see."
Soon they were on open water with no land in sight. Now the Romans discovered a new misery. As the ship climbed the low swells, then dipped into the troughs, its motion became like that of a very slow horse bucking. The Romans took to the rails, helpless with nausea. The sailors were much amused.
About noon a favorable wind sprang up and the rowers shipped oars. The yard was raised up the mast and the sail unfurled. It was a rectangle of heavy Egyptian linen, decorated with the triangle-and-disc of Tanit. It bellied out with the breeze and the ship surged forward. As it did, the vessel began to heel over alarmingly.
"We're capsizing!" Flaccus shouted.
"Where did you learn that word?" Norbanus demanded.
"I think it's in the Odyssey."
"Is this usual?" Marcus asked, gripping a rail to keep his balance.
"Is what usual?" Has stood upright, his legs flexing with the motion of the ship.
"Leaning over like this."
"This is nothing. When you look straight up and see nothing but water, that's leaning over."
Flaccus groaned.
By late afternoon Africa was a dark line on the horizon ahead of them.
That night they dropped anchor off Cape Eshmun, the place where the African coast made its closest approach to the European mainland. In the sheltered coastal waters their illness abated, but sleep came late to them, and it was fitful. Welcome as land seemed to them, this was not the familiar land of Noricum, nor their ancestral Italy. This was Africa, the land of their enemy, the heart of the Carthaginian Empire.
At dawn their journey resumed along the northern coast of the cape. Coastal shipping was heavy, with many merchant ships of all sizes cruising the shallow waters. Has pointed out Greek and Egyptian vessels, Phoenician, Arabian and Rhodian ships, explaining the subtle differences that distinguished each. He told them that the ugly, squat god who crouched above the ram of every Punic warship was Patechus, the god of terror. The Romans took note of everything.
Every hundred stades along the coast there stood a watchtower, fifty feet high, equipped with tall flagpoles and signaling mirrors and bronze baskets for igniting alarm fires. Upon the inland plain they saw many villages as well as more substantial towns. To support such a population they knew that the land must be of astonishing fertility. The terrain was low, but all the highest points and the headlands featured fine temples to various gods, both Punic and Greek. Compared to backward, pastoral Italy it was another world.