"I think so. I have enemies in the Senate but I have friends as well. And there are a good many far-sighted men there. They will see the danger ahead and will know that the benefits of conquest must be commensurate with the risks. There will be plenty of other distractions: the Seleucids, Macedon and the Parthians.
"Since Alexander's time a sort of balance has held around the Middle Sea: The kingdoms of the Successors and Carthage have played one against the other and sometimes this nation would be ascendant and sometimes that, but there has been no real change. Now we Romans are back on the Middle Sea and everything will change."
Selene restrained a shiver. "You have great breadth of vision," she said. "I am sorry that I ever thought you ignorant and simple. Your Senate knew what it was doing in sending you to assess the possibilities for Rome."
He stood. "Come on. We haven't surveyed half the defenses yet. Let's try to stay alive for the next few days. Then we'll see about arranging the future of the world."
Titus Norbanus rode ahead of the army with his most trusted officers and a squadron of Gallic cavalry, all of them expert skirmishers and scouts. He wanted to see for himself what these vaunted defenses of Alexandria looked like. The chain of small forts west of the city were already invested and would be reduced in no great time. He suspected that their Alexandrian defenders would very sensibly negotiate an advantageous surrender, knowing already what defeat by Carthage would mean.
Before them, the walls of the city rose slowly from the flat plain. The plume of smoke from the great lighthouse was visible for hours before the structure itself came in sight. The lighthouse was visible long before they could see the upper part of the walls. But after the lighthouse, the walls were a disappointment. They had little of the stunning massiveness of the walls of Carthage. He remarked upon this to Lentulus Niger.
"So they don't use them as a stable for elephants," said the quartermaster. "And according to Brutus, the soldiers are barracked inside the city. I'd like to know more about the quality of the men manning those walls."
"We saw their quality on the battlefield," Norbanus said, a little put out to hear the walls of Carthage so casually dismissed. He had come to take a proprietary interest in them.
"Those men did not fight too badly," said Niger. "They were poorly led, but so was Hamilcar's army. It was their bad luck to have us to contend with. And I'll wager we saw only a part of Ptolemy's army that day. He'll have more men to defend his walls, and maybe better ones."
The mounted force had ranged out in front of them and when they were within three miles of the city, the cavalry returned. Its commander, a scion of the New Family Nervius, rode up and saluted. "There's what looks like a small city outside the walls of the great one," he said, grinning. "Come have a look. We haven't spotted a single roving patrol."
They rode toward the western gate of Alexandria. "They're staking all upon a siege," Norbanus said. "There will be no fight outside the gates or the army would be there waiting."
"One more pitched battle and we could wrap this war up," said Cato, commander of the Eighth Legion. "A siege of a city this large could last for months. Years, maybe." He spat in disgust.
"What's this?" Niger said as they came upon the minor city.
"It's the necropolis Brutus and the others reported about," Norbanus said. "Did you ever imagine such a thing?"
Before them stretched a vast array of tombs, the least of them as large as a peasant's hut, many of them far larger. They stood upon a grid of rigidly straight streets, arranged in symmetrical blocks, like a smaller image of Alexandria itself. They were in the form of houses and temples, some Greek in design, some Egyptian, many of them a combination of both. Here and there stood statues of various gods, sphinxes, shrines, obelisks and freestanding pillars with lotus or papyrus capitals having no discernible function. There were even tiny parks and gardens just like the ones in the city, only smaller. They rode among the tombs, looking about in idle amazement.
"Is this wise?" Nervius asked. "This would be an excellent place to lay an ambush."
"The Alexandrians lack such initiative," Norbanus said. "They have elected to huddle behind their walls and that is where they will stay until we winkle them out."
"Speaking of the walls," Cato said, "they look larger from close up."
"Indeed they do," Norbanus said. Now they rode forward cautiously, at a slow walk. "Mucius, what would you estimate to be the range of those engines?"
Decimus Mucius Mus was a former centurion, now attached to Norbanus's staff as chief engineer. "Right about here," he said. "Best to go no closer."
"Oh, I'm not worried they'll cut loose at us," Norbanus said. "They won't waste ammunition on a few horsemen. They'll wait for the main force. I just want to know for future reference. Let's go up to extreme bowshot."
So they rode on, until they were fewer than three hundred paces from the walls. Now the battlement above the western gate was crowded by men whose plumed crests identified them as Alexandrian officers, come to see this harbinger of the Carthaginian host. The great engines atop the walls looked to Norbanus much like those defending Carthage. A few were of unfamiliar design but they all seemed to serve the same purposes: to hurl great stones, oversized javelins or incendiary missiles into the masses of an attacking army. On the harbor side they would do exactly the same to enemy ships. The only exceptions were the giant reflectors, and he saw none of those atop the western wall.
"What are those?" Norbanus said, pointing to a line of mastlike timbers that towered above the battlements. Whatever they were attached to was invisible behind the wall. From the top of each dangled a long rope and some device of chains and hooks, but distance obscured the details.
"Anyone's guess," Mucius said. "They look too long and spindly for catapult arms, but people in this part of the world seem fond of their machines. For all I know, they hold up the awnings for their circus."
"There's a familiar face," Norbanus said, almost whispering.
"Eh?" said Niger. All of them tried to see what Norbanus was looking at. Right above the gate a man leaned on the battlement, his arms spread wide. Beside him a woman gazed out at them. "You think that's him? I can't make out a face at this distance. His outfit looks Roman."
"It's Scipio," Norbanus affirmed. "I'd know that traitor from a mile away on a dark night in Donar's Wood." His voice was easy and conversational, but it carried an edge that made his companions study him. "When I triumph, I will drag him in chains along the Via Sacra and up to the Capitol and I will hurl him off the Tarpeian Rock with my own hands."
"You won't get a triumph for this war," Cato said.
"Besides," Niger added, "Rome isn't officially at war with Egypt, and Scipio's just advising Ptolemy in a war with Hamilcar. You can't charge him with treason for that." He was their superior but they were not in awe of him. Military commands were political appointments and every one of them had more experience in military command than Norbanus. Alliances could change and any of them might end up in charge.
"What we do here is just politics," Mucius said, "even if there's a bit of fighting involved."
"Nonetheless," Norbanus told them, "when I triumph, I will drag him in chains along the Via Sacra."
The conference was held in Hamilcar’s great tent. There was no banquet this time, no sacrifices other than the ones customary for such an occasion. Beside the Shofet sat the general Mastanabal, resplendent in a coat of gilded scales, his plumed helmet held by a slave who stood behind him. He looked supremely pleased and confident, still puffed up by the victory of several days previous. He did not accord the Romans credit for the victory any more than did the Shofet. Near them sat the higher Carthaginian officers and the commanders of the mercenaries.