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  HANNIBAL’S CHILDREN

  JOHN MADDOX ROBERTS

  Copyright © 2002 by John Maddox Roberts

  Cover design by Passageway Pictures, Inc.

  Book series by John Maddox Roberts

  SPQR Roman mystery series

  SPQR: THE KING’S GAMBIT

  SPQR II: THE CATILINE CONSPIRACY

  SPQR III: THE SACRILEGE

  SPQR IV: THE TEMPLE OF THE MUSES

  SPQR V: SATURNALIA

  SPQR VI: NOBODY LOVES A CENTURION

  SPQR VII: THE TRIBUNE’S CURSE

  SPQR VIII: THE RIVER GOD’S VENGEANCE

  SPQR IX: THE PRINCESS AND THE PIRATES

  SPQR X: A POINT OF LAW

  SPQR XI: UNDER VESUVIUS

  SPQR XII: ORACLE OF THE DEAD

  SPQR XIII: THE YEAR OF CONFUSION

  Stormlands series

  THE ISLANDER

  THE BLACK SHIELDS

  THE POISONED LANDS

  THE STEEL KINGS

  QUEENS OF LAND AND SEA

  Cingulum series

  THE CINGULUM

  CLOAK OF ILLUSION

  THE SWORD, THE JEWEL, AND THE MIRROR

  Gabe Treloar mystery series

  A TYPICAL AMERICAN TOWN

  GHOSTS OF SAIGON

  DESPERATE HIGHWAYS

  Alternate History

  HANNIBAL’S CHILDREN

  THE SEVEN HILLS

  HANNIBAL’S CHILDREN

  JOHN MADDOX ROBERTS

  Prologue

  At the beginning of the third century B.C. the western Mediterranean was dominated by Carthage, the greatest citystate of North Africa. The Carthaginians were a maritime people, trading throughout the Mediterranean and into the Atlantic beyond the straits of Gibraltar. They sailed northward as far as Britain and may have sent expeditions around the southern tip of Africa. The might of their navy was legendary.

  The Carthaginians were descendants of the Phoenicians, and their language was Semitic: related to Arabic, Assyrian, Hebrew and others of that once-numerous language group. Their religion was polytheistic, its principal deities being Baal-Hammon (often miscalled Moloch) and the goddess Tanit. Many of their gods demanded human sacrifice and the Carthaginians were not sparing in their offerings. In extreme circumstances, they sacrificed even their own children, and the noblest families took great pride in delivering their children to the flames of Baal-Hammon.

  Following the death of Alexander the Great, Carthage resisted the spread of Greek colonies and influence in the area it regarded as its own. It founded colonies in Spain to counter the power of the Greek colonies already there (Cartagena was originally Cartago Nova: New Carthage). When it established a military presence on the island of Sicily, Carthage came into conflict with a new, upstart power that had established hegemony over the Italian peninsula: Rome.

  The Romans were an agrarian people with a republican form of government. In character, they were as unlike the Carthaginians as possible. Where the Carthaginians were seafarers and were content with controlling coastal cities, the Romans were reluctant sailors and had a passion for land above all things. They seized as much of it as they could and never let it go. The Carthaginians preferred to use mercenary troops in their land wars, using citizens to man the navy and to protect Carthage, which was always in danger from an uprising by its subject North African possessions.

  For Romans, military service was every citizen's duty, and the surest way to advancement was through distinguished service in the legions. The Romans approached war in a manner like no other people. They thought little of individual heroics, preferring subordination of even the noblest men to the machinelike teamwork of the legion. They saw war as a task, not a glorious adventure, and they went about it in a methodical manner. They understood that wars were won as often by the pickaxe and spade as by the sword.

  When they were beaten, they held an inquiry to determine what had been done wrong and then corrected the error. Even when they were victorious, they assessed what had worked and what had not, and made corrections. Ro-mans seldom made the same mistake twice. Perhaps most amazingly, unlike any other people of the time, the Romans were not demoralized by defeat. If their army was destroyed, they raised another army, and then another if necessary. They did not blame defeat on the anger of the gods or the superiority of the enemy. Men made mistakes, and mistakes could be corrected. They knew that the ultimate weapon was the discipline and cohesion of the legion.

  The Romans called the Carthaginians Puni. It was their pronunciation of the Greek word Poeni: Phoenician. Hence the wars that followed were called the Punic Wars. There were three Punic Wars. The second of them was among the most decisive in human history.

  The first war with Carthage ended with Roman victory. Rome beat Carthage on land and in the usual methodical fashion learned to sail and actually beat them at sea. Rome gained the island of Sicily with its rich cities and fertile land. Then for several years Carthage was occupied by a revolt of its mercenaries and subject cities, a war so savage that it appalled even the Romans, Greeks and other Mediterranean nations, accustomed though they were to almost continuous warfare. The Romans were distracted by an incursion of Gauls in northern Italy.

  Eventually warfare resumed between Rome and Carthage, and the second war was very different from the first. This time, the commander of the main Carthaginian army was Hannibal, and the Romans were to learn at bitter cost that he was one of history's handful of truly great generals. In one battle after another he smashed the Roman legions, and he did it with armies that were inferior both in numbers and quality. He won by sheer generalship and it was something the Romans could not match.

  At Trebia, Lake Trasimene and, most devastatingly of all, at Cannae, Hannibal crushed his enemies. Cannae stands to this day as possibly the most perfectly planned and executed battle in all of history. Devastated, Rome scraped together another army.

  History tells us that Rome appointed Quintus Fabius as Dictator, and Fabius refused to fight Hannibal in open battle, that instead he harassed his rear and his lines of communication, gradually wearing him down, never giving him a chance to employ his fabled generalship. This tactic earned him the surname Cunctator: the Delayer. Hannibal looked for allies and sought an alliance with the young King Philip V of Macedon, who had inherited the formidably professional army of that nation. Philip promised aid but never showed up in Italy.

  In time, Publius Cornelius Scipio, a soldier of qualities comparable with Hannibal's, took the war to Spain and cut Hannibal off from his land route to Carthage. Then Scipio went to Africa and Hannibal was forced to leave Italy in order to protect the homeland. At Zama, Hannibal met with defeat for the first time and Scipio earned the surname Africanus. Rome was saved.

  There was a third war, and this time Carthage had no Hannibal. The Romans conquered Carthage and destroyed it with a thoroughness that passed into proverb.

  This is the history we know. The Second Punic War was one of the rare occasions in history where, had it turned out differently, everything afterward would have been utterly different and the Western world would have been dominated by a people as different from us as the Aztecs.

  In Hannibal's Children, things turned out differently.

  Chapter 1

  Rome, 215 B.C.

  Behind them were the seven hills and the sacred city of Quirinus. Before them lay the plain, and upon the plain the army of Carthage stood in unprecedented power. For the first time their general had numerical superiority. He had not needed greater numbers at Lake Trasimene, nor at Cannae. On those fields he had ambushed, surrounded and crushed two Roman armies larger than his own, feats of generalship worthy of a war god.

  Upon a wooden tower erected behind the huge host s
tood two men clad in glittering iron and bronze. One of them, Philip of Macedon, had provided the numbers. His phalanx held the center of the line, the sixteen-foot pikes standing like a dense forest in the morning sun. The Romans had no fear of Philip or his pikes, however great their numbers. The rest of the army was divided in two parts and held the flanks: check-trousered Gauls with lime-washed hair and blue patterns painted on their bodies, gripping long, slashing swords; black Nubians covered with ocher and chalk, holding short spears and long shields of zebra hide; squat Spaniards with their hair in plaits who fought with little round bucklers and down-curving falcatas that could take a man's leg off with a single swipe. There were Cretan archers and slingers from the Balearacs and light horsemen from Galatia. Libyans in white tunics rode bareback with quivers of javelins slung across their shoulders. There were Ligurians and Spartan mercenaries and men from half the nations of the world standing under arms, ready to take the seven hills for Carthage.

  The Romans did not fear this polyglot mass of humanity, however colorful and fierce. They reserved their fear solely for the other man on the tower: the Carthaginian Shofet, son of Hamilcar Barca, the general so brilliant he could smash armies larger than his own, repeatedly, the leader so gifted that mobs of savages who at any other times would have been happy to cut one another's throats, under his command acted in concert with superb discipline, with never a hint of misbehavior or mutiny, however terrible the hardships of campaigning or the casualties of battle.

  The Romans feared Hannibal.

  "Where are the elephants?" a velite asked. He was young, no more than sixteen. The fearsome losses of the war had forced the Senate to accept younger and younger men into the legions. The velite wore a snarling wolf’s mask cover on his skullcap helmet. A small, round shield was his only other defense. A short sword was slung over his shoulder and he held a pair of javelins. He and his fellow velites were skirmishers. In battle, they rushed forward and cast their javelins, then fell back through the gaps in their own lines. Sometimes the velites weren't swift enough and they were caught between the shields of the opposing armies. Then they were slaughtered. The boy knew this.

  "We killed them all," said the hastatus behind him. He was a grizzled old veteran, called back to the standards to make up the losses at Cannae. He was a front-ranker in the heavy infantry, wealthy enough to afford a fine coat of Gallic mail. His bronze helmet sported scarlet side-feathers, its forepeak embossed with a rudimentary face. Between its cheek plates his own face was weathered and seamed with scars. He had a bronze greave on his left leg and his oval, four-foot shield was as thick as a man's palm, built of layered wood and faced with hide, rimmed and bossed with bronze. The heavy javelin in his right hand was three times the weight of the boy's weapons. He could cast it through a shield and the man behind it. The short sword at his waist was the most efficient battle implement ever devised.

  The boy knew that, one day, he would take his place in the ranks of the heavy infantry, if he lived. The man behind him and the thousands of others like him were the legions of Rome, the toughest, most expert, hardest-fighting military force the world had ever seen. They were seldom defeated, never outfought, but occasionally outgeneraled. The man across the field from them could do it every time.

  "Here they come," somebody said. At first the boy thought the enemy was advancing, but he saw no movement in the formidable ranks. Then he saw the delegation riding from the war headquarters outside the Capena gate of Rome. In their lead was the Dictator Fabius, elected by the Senate to supreme command in the national emergency. Behind him were the military tribunes. The boy recognized Publius Cornelius Scipio, no more than three years older than himself, incredibly young for his high rank, but a survivor of Cannae and the man credited with holding the remnant of the army together when others counseled abject surrender.

  Next to Scipio rode Appius Claudius, another Cannae veteran. Behind them was Lucius Caecilius Metellus, a voice for caution whom some suspected of cowardice. White sashes girded their muscle-embossed cuirasses and the patricians among them wore red boots with ivory crescents fastened at the ankles. Their faces were unanimously grim.

  "Where are they going?" the boy asked.

  "Going to have a few words with old Hannibal, I expect," said the hastatus. "Much good it'll do them."

  The little band of officers rode toward the enemy lines and they scanned the forces arrayed before them with the reflexive calculation of military men; looking for weaknesses, assessing the strength of the enemy. Were they well fed? Did they show fear? Were their weapons ill kept? Did they look downcast or discontent? The officers saw nothing to encourage them. It was as fine an army as they had seen, despite its bizarre aspect. The men were fit, sleek and competent. Above all, they displayed an almost sublime confidence. Led by Hannibal, they could not lose.

  "I will kill him," said young Scipio. "Just let me get close. I will draw my sword and cut him down before his men can save him. You know I can do it. We will all die, but Rome will be saved. This rabble won't fight without Hannibal leading them."

  "Who do you think you are, Scipio?" said Metellus. "Mucius Scaevola? Do you think this is the time of legend, when enemy kings were careless? We'll be relieved of our arms before we're in javelin-throwing distance."

  "I can kill him bare-handed," Scipio insisted.

  "Let's have none of that," said the Dictator. "We ride to a parley and that is what we shall do—talk." To meet this emergency the Senate had bestowed absolute imperium on Fabius. He had the power to command armies, negotiate peace in the name of Rome, execute citizens without trial; in fact, all the power once enjoyed by kings. But only for six months. At the end of that time he had to lay down his office, exchange the purple toga for white, dismiss his lectors and retire to private life. He could never be called to account for his actions as Dictator. He could make all his decisions as seemed best to him, with no fear of reprisal afterward. If he felt the terrible weight of history upon his shoulders, he did not show it, riding erect as any young cavalry trooper, sublimely confident, arrogant as only a Roman patrician could be.

  After the defeat at Cannae, Fabius had urged that the Romans not engage Hannibal in open battle. Instead, he devised delaying tactics: raids against supply lines, attacks on small garrisons, feints and countermarches, all to wear down the formidable Carthaginian's forces, drain his

  resources and destroy his morale through frustration. Unable to bring the Romans onto the field for a decisive battle and unable through lack of numbers to assault Rome directly, Hannibal had stewed in impotence, as Fabius had planned. Then, once more, he had done the unexpected.

  Hannibal's next victory was one of diplomacy. He had forged an alliance with Philip of Macedon, the notoriously unreliable adventurer-king who had more than once promised the Carthaginian support, then found excuses to keep his massive army at home. This time, Hannibal's persuasion had been effective. The Macedonian king had sent an immense phalanx of superbly-drilled pikemen, descendants of the men Alexander had led from Greece to India, conquering everything in their path. They were tough men of the mountains and plains, given a miniature spear as soon as they were old enough to stand, to be replaced by larger weapons as they grew until, at military age, they handled the sixteen-foot sarissa as easily as a man wields a fishing pole.

  "I was expecting to see the Sacred Band, but it looks like they stayed home," said Appius Claudius. It was a joke among the Romans that the Sacred Band, an elite force of highborn young Carthaginians, never showed up for battle. In fact, the only Carthaginians in the army opposite them were Hannibal and a handful of his highest officers. The rest of the force was entirely mercenary. The Carthaginians were seafarers and sent troops abroad only as sailors, keeping their large land force close to home to guard against uprisings of their oppressed subjects. It was a system of warfare incomprehensible to the Romans, for whom hand-to-hand combat against a foreign foe was the very basis of citizenship.

  As they neared the enemy
line, a man rode out to meet them. His helmet and armor were Macedonian, but Scipio knew him to be a Spartan mercenary captain named Agamedes.

  "There's that arrogant bastard again," said Claudius. "The same one who demanded our surrender after Trasimene. He's looking cheerful this morning."

  "He has a right to be smug," Fabius said quietly. "They have us in a nutcracker and they know it."

  The Spartan rode up to them. "Greetings, Romans. The general is prepared to accept your surrender now."

  "Your general will sacrifice to our ancestors in the temple of Jupiter before he gets a Roman surrender," Fabius said. "We've come to talk with him, not with you, hireling."

  The Spartan's grin turned to a scowl. "You are highhanded for a pack of beaten farmers. You should never have thought that Italian peasants could ever amount to anything. The gods don't like that sort of presumption." They ignored him. "Very well, you can negotiate terms. You'll find the general is a generous man. First, though, you must surrender your arms."

  When they reached the base of the tower, a pair of Cretans wearing twisted headbands relieved them of their swords and daggers. With harness creaking they ascended the broad wooden stair that served instead of a ladder, coming at last to the wide platform some forty feet above the plain.

  "I've been admiring your army, Dictator," said the man who leaned on the railing at the front of the platform. He spoke in Greek, the one language common to all of the men present. "It is impressive, but not as fine as the Roman armies I defeated at Trebia and Lake Trasimene and Cannae. I do not see so many well-salted soldiers this time. I do see a great many boys."

  "It is good for men to learn war at a young age," Fabius answered.

  "But their first lesson should not be the last. That is a great waste." The Shofet was a handsome man of medium height, clean-shaven in the Hellenistic fashion that was followed even in Carthage of late. A broad patch covered his left eye. He suffered from a chronic ophthalmic complaint and rarely had any use of that eye.