"They seem to think they are not," Zarabel said. Without another word she strode back to the stairway. When she climbed back into her litter she told the lead bearer, "Take me to the Shofet's palace."
Hamilcar II, Shofet of Carthage, was a tall, wiry man with hair and beard dressed in the Greek fashion. Though he was of the purest Carthaginian blood, like so many kings of the Middle Sea he affected Greek fashions in everything from dress to coinage. For centuries Carthage had struggled with the Greeks for commercial and political domination over the western sea, but in so doing she fell under the Hellenizing influence of her traditional enemy. The priesthood and traditionalists fumed that the Baalim were coming to resemble the Olympians, that the young men were exercising naked in the palaestra, that the poems of Homer were more popular than the ancient tales of the Punic gods and heroes and monster-slayers. All to no avail. Like other peoples of the Middle Sea, the Carthaginians were growing besotted with the vital, invigorating culture of Greece.
It was a good thing for Carthage, Hamilcar mused, that for all their wonderful multiplicity of talents, the Greeks lacked the most important of them. They were political imbeciles, unable to unite for any length of time against a common enemy, unable to form lasting governments. The Greeks treated political life as if it were a contest in the Olympics, with each man, each faction, each city and citystate, each empire contending with all the others for preeminence. No sooner would they defeat a foreign enemy than they fell to war among themselves, wiping out all their gains and bleeding themselves white.
Even the empire of Alexander had not put an end to it, although the Macedonians were certainly more militarily talented than their Greek cousins. The successors of Alexander had not been able to hold the empire together and had fallen out among themselves like the Greeks, but at least they had split into a number of sizable, powerful nations and empires ruled by Macedonian-descended dynasties, all of them troublesome to Carthage.
Hamilcar had called a morning meeting of his military counsel to discuss his plans for one of those dynasties, the Ptolemies of Egypt. For centuries Ptolemaic Egypt had lain between Carthage and the Seleucid dynasty that ruled Persia and Asia Minor. The first Ptolemies, descendants of Alexander's general of that name, had been capable rulers, but the line had grown weak and decadent. Now Egypt, incomparably rich and fruitful, presented a tempting target for conquest. The question remained: Who would do the conquering?
The Seleucids of Persia had fought a long series of wars to dispossess the Antigonids of Asia Minor, and now they controlled a vast territory from the Hellespont to the Red Sea, from the Middle Sea to the borders of India: all of the old Persian Empire except for Egypt. The current king, Seleucus V, was now casting covetous eyes upon the kingdom of the Nile. He was being hard-pressed by Parthian invaders from the east, but the spoils of Egypt would give his faltering empire new vigor.
"How stand our preparations?" Hamilcar asked his senior general, Mastanabal. The Shofet sat at his ease on the great throne, made of solid gold and draped with the skins of rare albino lions. His advisors sat before him in two rows facing one another; an even score of the most distinguished men of Carthage.
"Ten myriads are now encamped at Utica and Sicca, undergoing the final stages of training and drill, my Shofet," Mastanabal said. He was a traditionalist who eschewed all foreign influences. His hair and beard were long in the ancient Carthaginian fashion, and when not in military uniform he wore the elaborate robes and jewelry of his station.
"Ten myriads will not be sufficient," Hamilcar said. "Enough to take Egypt, certainly, but not enough to hold it should Antiochus strike. We need more."
"I spoke of the regular troops who will fight as infantry, of course, "Mastanabal said." We have seven wings of Spanish and Gallic cavalry and pledges of up to twenty thousand irregular Libyan cavalry. With our war elephants, our fleet and with the Sacred Band in reserve, we should have more than sufficient forces for the campaign and the conquest."
"We need more," Hamilcar insisted. "I've ordered troops raised in Italy and I am in negotiations with Lysimachus of Macedonia to supply us with phalanxes of pikemen."
"My Shofet," said Hirham, an elderly nobleman, "surely Seleucus is in identical negotiations with Lysimachus as well. You cannot take the field depending upon such aid. Only when the soldiers are here and securely under your command can you count on Macedonian support."
"Of course, of course," Hamilcar said impatiently. "But I must have more troops."
While he listened to his admiral drone on about ships, oarsmen, marines and supplies, he let his mind wander.
He was a king. The ancient title, Shofet, meant "judge," but the shofets of Carthage had been kings in all but name since the first Hannibal. But his empire was built on commerce and the military reputation of Carthage had been in decline for some time. A king who had no reputation as a warrior was an object of contempt. Rivals would feel free to encroach upon his holdings. His great navy was of no avail against the desert tribes to the south and west. Sea power would not deter Antiochus from marching his massive army into Egypt.
A preemptive invasion of Egypt would put a halt to the ambitions of Seleucus and would give pause to the growing menace of Parthia. It would establish Hamilcar II as the greatest king of the known world. Above all, he wanted to be compared favorably with his ancestor Hannibal the Great.
While they were deliberating, a naval messenger arrived and laid a bronze message tube by the Shofet's right hand. Silently, the man withdrew. After a few minutes of pondering, Hamilcar picked up the tube, noted the design on the seal and idly broke it. He withdrew the papyrus and read with growing amusement and puzzlement. When they heard him chuckling, the council turned to see what caused their Shofet such mirth.
"Romans!" he said at last. "Our governor Hanno has sent a delegation of Romans to call on us! What next? Assyrians? Hittites?"
"Can this be?" said Hirham.
"It seems they've been living among the blond-haired barbarians of the north and have founded a state up there in the wilderness. I thought they must have all perished, but it appears that they still live, if these aren't imposters."
"Why would anyone bother to impersonate Romans?" Mastanabal said.
"We shall see," Hamilcar told them. "Hanno says they may afford me some amusement, and if anyone knows about amusement, it's Hanno." The others chuckled dutifully. Tarentum was the sort of place the Barca family sent relatives who were considered unfit for important military commands or governorships.
"Refresh us, Lord Hirham," the Shofet said. "You are an historian. We all know the name, but I confess I know little else about the Romans except that they were our stubborn enemies. What sort of people were these Romans?" Hirham was a tiresome old pedant, but his knowledge of Carthaginian history was comprehensive and he fancied himself the Punic Herodotus, having written many long and boring books on the subject.
"At the time of our first war with them," Hirham said, "they were the lords of most of Italy. They were actually little more than a confederation of tribes that spoke a language called Latin. They had recently established ascendancy over the Samnite people, who spoke a related but differing language. Prior to that time we had numerous treaties with the Romans, involving trade relations, forbidding them our shores south of the Fair Cape, specifying that, should a Roman ship strike our shores due to war or weather, it could carry away no more than was required for repairs or sacrifice to the gods. Likewise, they were not to-"
"Yes, yes," the Shofet broke in, "very erudite. But what sort of people were they?"
"I know they gave us a hard fight," Mastanabal said.