He spoke of other tactics, how ships could approach almost bow to bow, then swerve. If your timing was right, you could haul in your oars while the enemy ship's were still out, shearing them away like a scythe going through wheat. The flailing oar-butts inside the enemy vessel would reduce the rowers on that side to blood-soaked carcasses. An enemy thus crippled could then be destroyed at leisure.
He showed how stone-hurling engines, cleverly operated at close range, could be used to smash the enemy's steering oars. There was even a way to use oars offensively, when your vessel was higher in the water than the enemy's. When the ships drew alongside, the lower bank of oars were drawn within the hull and the upper bank raised as high as possible, then dropped. As the ships dragged past one another, the oars could sweep the enemy deck clean of men, hurling them overboard, crushing limbs and skulls.
"Yours is highly skilled work," Marcus said.
"It is that," the skipper agreed.
"The warships I have seen seem to carry few marines. Do you not favor boarding?"
The Cypriote snorted. "That is for lubbers who can't make a ship fight for them. Marines are there to operate the engines. And," he allowed, "they repel boarders when we have an enemy fond of such tactics, like pirates. Boarding is a pirate specialty because they prefer capturing ships to sinking them."
This, too, Marcus filed carefully in his memory.
Military matters were not all that concerned the Romans. Marcus explained to his companions about the peculiar situation at the court of Alexandria.
"I never thought when we set out," Flaccus said, "that we would be dealing with women, first Zarabel, now Selene. I shall have to brush up on my seductive skills."
"You will need all your arts of dissimulation if that is your idea of diplomacy," Marcus told him. He drew out his purse and searched among its contents, selecting a broad silver coin. It was an Alexandrian tetradrachm, splendidly struck, bearing a portrait on one side and an eagle on the other. He tossed it to Flaccus. "Here's what she looks like."
Flaccus studied the portrait, dismayed. The other Romans crowded around and burst into laughter. The coin showed a hatchet-faced matron, her beetling brows and wattled neck displayed in a clean-cut, merciless profile.
"I hereby appoint you official seducer of the Roman delegation," Marcus said.
"Is it possible such a hag has a seven-year-old brother?"
"They are probably half-siblings," Brutus said. "The Ptolemies have degenerated into oriental potentates. The last king probably bred the child off a fifteen-year-old granddaughter when he was an old man."
"Disgusting," said young Caesar. He came of a famously straitlaced family.
"Our mission is not to assess or judge the moral tone of the Alexandrian court," Marcus reminded them. "It is to make the best use of whatever opportunities we find there to the advantage of the Republic. I warn you not to underestimate any of the powerful people we meet there. To us they may be ludicrous buffoons, but these are the descendants of Alexander and his generals, and they have kept control of tremendous power and riches for a very long time. Even if they are not hardened warriors, they understand their own world far better than we."
"This court, these half-Greeks," Brutus said. "Are they really Egypt? The native population must be vast to make the country so productive. What of them?"
"A good question," Marcus said. "I intend to find out. We Romans have subdued native peoples far more numerous than we, but we have not truly remained a separate people. We absorb our conquests and turn the people into Romans. They breed sons for the legions and in time become full citizens.
"The Carthaginians, as you all observed, are different. Wherever they go, they remain conquerors in an alien land. Subject cities ten miles from Carthage are still natives with differing language and customs. The Alexandrians may be something like that, or they may be something else entirely."
"We would do well to remember," Flaccus pointed out, "that the Ptolemies are not truly Greek, but Macedonian. The real Greeks regarded the Macedonians as little more than barbarians. When Philip conquered Greece, he forced them to acknowledge him as a Greek and his son Alexander made it his life's work not just to conquer the world, but to spread the light of Greek culture wherever he went. When he died, his generals divided his conquests among themselves and ruled as Greek monarchs in foreign lands, but they remained Macedonians and the backbone of their armies was always Macedonian troops.
"These were not the sort of Greeks to swoon over the plays of Sophocles or chat about philosophy beneath shaded porticoes. They were tough mountain tribesmen and superb soldiers."
"Men much like our own ancestors," Marcus said. "It would be best to keep that in mind."
By the time Drakon was waling along the coast of Cyrenaica, the Romans were almost accustomed to the rolling motion of the vessel and even Flaccus was no longer pale-faced and shaky. Despite the volume of coastal traffic, the sea was immense and they often sailed or rowed for hours without seeing another vessel. This changed abruptly as they rounded a rocky cape and found two lean, predatory ships waiting for them on its far side. The instant Drakon came into view, the smaller ships, both single-bankers, began rowing toward her at speed.
Drakon was under sail with a favorable stern wind, headed straight for the others. Immediately, Aeson shouted for the sail to be furled, the yard lowered, the mast unstepped and the oars run out. The Romans marveled at the lively efficiency with which this complex set of orders was carried out. Sailors scrambled to the mast as rowers unshipped their oars and marines sprang to the war engines.
"Who are they?" Marcus demanded.
"Pirates!" Aeson said. "But what can they want with us? They never attack a warship unless they're cornered, and I'm not pirate hunting. Now get away and let me fight my ship."
Marcus beckoned the Roman party to him. "Arm yourselves. There is going to be a fight."
"Should we wear armor?" Flaccus asked. "If we do and fall overboard, we'll sink like bricks."
"Might as well," said Brutus. "Drowning is the least of our hazards, I believe."
"Full gear," Marcus ordered. "The Greeks don't favor boarding and deck-fighting. The pirates will want to board. Hand-to-hand fighting is our specialty, isn't it? Now get your shields. The missiles should be arriving soon."
As he spoke, the frantic activity continued all around them. The catapults and ballistas began to launch missiles with a deafening clatter, but the pirate vessels were low in the water and difficult to hit. To make matters worse, with the yard lowered but the mast still up, the ship began to wallow, making accurate fire impossible and the task of the rowers more difficult. Getting the mast down required the coordinated effort of every sailor on the ship and the job was unfinished when the first arrows began to arrive.
The Romans were mailed, helmeted and shielded in a matter of moments. Unlike other forms of armor, the Gallic mail shirt slipped on over the head like a cloth garment and could be donned in seconds. With helmets on and shields up, the Romans were invulnerable to the storm of missiles that rained on the ship: not only arrows, but lead sling pellets that could crush in an unprotected skull. The nearly naked sailors began to take heavy losses, as did the marines who worked their engines in armor but without shields.
Marcus had been impressed with Aeson's tales of sea fighting, but it was clear that the man could put little of his experience to work when caught so completely by surprise. The pirates, on the other hand, knew exactly what they were doing. Marcus knew all too well that surprise and sheer luck determined the outcome of a fight more often than strategy or tactics.