"So I think we needn't worry that Hamilcar will observe scrupulously any treaty he agrees to. He will leave us plenty of room." Marcus turned to look out a broad window that overlooked the great city. "This day we lay the foundations for a policy that will bring Carthage to her knees."
Chapter 9
“But those walls!” Norbanus said. “They are not like the work of Gods!” He spoke to a group of his fellow Romans on the broad terrace of their house in Megara. They lounged at their ease while servants brought them cool drinks. Marcus Scipio was closeted with Metrobius and Ahenobarbus, going over the wording of the treaties they had been hammering out, laboriously, for days.
"Nonsense," said Flaccus, who was more at ease in these luxurious surroundings than the others. "They are just stone, and not all that well cut, if you ask me. What do you need to construct such walls?" He held up three fingers and folded them as he enumerated. "Just three things: stone, slaves and time. It's said that the Egyptians piled up stone even higher, just to bury their kings. We could have built walls like that, but Rome has never depended on walls." Most nodded and said that this was true.
"But what does this say about the people who built those walls?" Norbanus pressed on. "Their power, their wealth, are all on a scale we have never seen before. We saw a part of the city garrison. Carthage has a whole empire to defend. Her armies must be vast."
"Hirelings," snorted a hard-faced senator named Flavius Ahala. "When have legionaries ever feared hired troops, no matter how numerous? Steel in the hands of enemies never conquered us. It's the steel in the spines of citizen soldiers that won our conquests." This was richly applauded.
"Hannibal beat us with such soldiers," Norbanus pointed out.
"But he was Hannibal," Flavius protested. In the Roman mind, the great Carthaginian general had become something more than human. He was not to be compared with ordinary mortals.
"Has anyone seen these Carthaginian soldiers?" Flaccus asked. "They are supposed to be the elite of the army, the strategic reserve. I have my doubts that they even exist."
"I agree," said Flavius. "From what I've been able to learn, no war has approached the walls of Carthage for a hundred years. If the citizen troops are not sent out to fight on the frontiers, what experience can they have? It takes more than plumes and gilded armor and maneuvers on the drill field to make soldiers."
"You are saying that to reassure yourselves," Norbanus said. "We have no navy and don't even know how to sail a ship. How are we going to challenge such an empire?"
"Let's concentrate on taking back the Seven Hills and securing Italy," Flavius said. "Time enough later to think about challenging Carthage for the rest of the world."
Norbanus nodded, satisfied. Scipio was moving far too fast for his taste. It was typically arrogant, old-family pride. As if having the name of an ancient hero was enough to make a man a natural leader in a world far different than that of the old Republic. The old families took the highest offices, commands and priesthoods as if they were their natural right.
It was as if, he thought, men whose great-grandfathers were Germanic and Gallic chieftains were somehow inferior. Yet, who were the ancestors of those patricians? By their own account, Rome was founded by a band of homeless bandits who found a few squalid villages on some hills near the Tiber, took them, stole women from a neighboring town and set themselves up as kings. What were they compared with a German lord over thousands of tribesmen who could trace his lineage back to Woden himself?
The blood in my veins is as good as any of theirs, he thought, even if his name is Scipio. We accepted their language, we took their excellent law code and military organization, we even wear their toga. But we are still free warriors and better than any pack of jumped-up Italian farmers.
"This man Hamilcar," Flavius said. "He looks like no sort of king or general. And his sister looks more like a whore than a priestess."
"I was rather taken with her, myself," Flaccus said.
Norbanus laughed. "Flavius, your idea of a priestess is a vestal virgin. The gods of Carthage are different."
"They are obscenities!" said Brutus the augur. "These barbarians practice human sacrifice! They are no better than a pack of druids."
"How shocking," Norbanus drawled. For reasons that escaped him, old-fashioned Romans were horrified by the idea of human sacrifice, although their munera were nothing but sacrifices in which one man had a chance of living by fighting well. And he did not share their disdain for Princess Zarabel.
The woman intrigued him in a way that no other had. Roman women of his class were raised to be virtuous wives and one of them who so much as spoke her mind in public created a scandal. They took no part in political life. They were always, needless to say, decently clad.
Zarabel was a creature alien to the Romans. She spoke and acted as if on equal terms with men. She gave her brother only the most formal deference. She flaunted her body without shame. She presided over a cult that was incomprehensible to the Romans. They understood the concepts of sacrifice and cosmic power, but the Punic gods competed with one another in a way that the Roman gods did not. There was some sort of power struggle between Tanit and Baal-Hammon, and this was reflected in the rivalry of the brother and sister who were scions of the Barca family.
As near as Norbanus could understand it, Hamilcar strove to make Baal-Hammon paramount god of Carthage, as Zeus was king among the Olympians. To this end he tried to identify his god with Zeus, going so far as to portray him in new statues in the traditional poses and garb of Zeus.
Zarabel, in contrast, fought the tendency to identify Tanit with Aphrodite. She played upon the innate conservatism of the people, telling them that alien gods were undermining their ancient traditions, their unique relationship with the gods. The Carthaginians were happy to use foreign soldiers, to adopt the architecture and arts of other nations, but their gods were unique and their worship was not to be adulterated with the practices and forms of other religions.
It was a clever ploy, and Norbanus was not certain how much was her own piety, how much cold and cynical calculation. Certainly, it made sense to resist the Hellenism that had swept the whole world. After all, Carthage had struggled against Greek influence in the West for centuries. It would be senseless if, after all that, the Greeks were to conquer by peaceful means. Besides, everyone knew that Greek influence sapped the strength of a nation, made it softer and less warlike. These were things to be resisted.
But more than all that was the woman herself. She was beautiful; there could be no denying that. She was wealthy and powerful in a fashion that no Roman consul could boast. She was alluring and clearly, he thought, in need of a strong man. Just as clearly, she had bestowed more of her attention on him than on the other Romans. She was, he reflected, a woman with an unerring eye for a superior man.
Zarabel sat enthroned in the great temple of Tanit. Like her brother's throne room, hers was spacious and lavish. Unlike his, it held no courtiers, no soldiers or merchant chiefs. The men, women and eunuchs who sat before her in reverent silence were the sacerdotes of the Punic gods. In the fore were the priests and priestesses of the greatest gods: Tanit, Melkarth, and Eshmun. Behind them sat the devotees of the many lesser gods. Only one deity was unrepresented: Baal-Hammon, commonly called Moloch.
There were great matters to discuss, but these procedures had to follow ancient forms. The sacerdotes of each of the gods must first report the signs and omens seen since the last gathering. No decisions could be taken until the attitude of the gods was assessed. First to speak was the high eunuch-priest of Tanit.