Total War Rome: Destroy Carthage (22 page)

Fabius knew there was another reason why Scipio was not wearing the
phalera.
He had not worn it since the night of his father's triumph in Rome when he had been jeered at by Metellus, when Julia had been by his side for the last time. It was the night when Scipio knew he had lost Julia, and when he had hardened his resolve not to let the derision of others and the conventions of Rome blur his focus on his destiny. Spain was to be his proving ground, and he would prove himself not as the son of Aemilius Paullus or the grandson of Scipio Africanus but as a soldier, engaging the enemy close-up as the legionaries did, when the fight was for survival and for your comrades and not for any other glory or honour.

*   *   *

Fabius leapt out of the ditch and walked over to Scipio and Ennius. He stared at the diorama, at the marks in the mud that Scipio had made with his stick, and pointed at a long furrow. ‘If that's meant to be the river, it's not quite right,' he said. ‘It curves around to the south, beyond the camp of the
fabri.
'

Scipio shook his head. ‘This isn't Intercatia, but Numantia. If we're ever going to defeat the Celtiberians, we'll need to take Numantia.'

‘It is their greatest stronghold,' Ennius said.

Scipio pursed his lips, staring thoughtfully. ‘The biggest weakness of the Celtiberians is their clan structure, which means a lack of overall strategic control. They're shepherds, just as we at Rome were cattle-drovers at the time of Romulus, loyal to our families and clans on each of the seven hills, but sharing allegiance with them only when we were attacked by a confederation of the Latin tribes. It's a weakness of the Celtiberians but it's also what makes the war arduous for us, as we have to fight each tribe piecemeal and besiege the
oppida
one at a time with no assurance that the fall of one
oppidum
will make the siege of the next one any less difficult, as the inhabitants may be from different clans and normally hostile to one another.'

‘It's as if we're fighting lots of small wars in succession,' Ennius muttered. ‘You can finish each war by negotiating peace and keeping your word, giving the chieftain a sense of honourable defeat, even aloofness from the other tribes that remain at war. But if you break your word, it's a different story; the clans might respond by banding together and presenting a more unified opposition. That's what seems to have happened now with the arrival of Lucullus, and his reneging on the deal that pacified the Celtiberians last year.'

Scipio nodded. ‘The dynamic of the war against the Celtiberians has changed. The Arevaci are the largest tribe, and their main
oppidum
is Numantia. Take Numantia, and the other
oppida
of that tribe might fall to you without a fight, and the war would be over.'

‘Is that Lucullus' plan?' Fabius asked.

Scipio's face was impassive. ‘He has only one legion, freshly raised and inexperienced. He intends to win enough sieges for a triumph, and then to leave. But by coming to Spain with no more than personal glory in mind he has set in train a war with Rome that will not be extinguished until Numantia is taken, perhaps years from now. That's what Ennius and I have been war-gaming.'

‘What would you do?' Fabius asked.

Ennius pointed with his stick. ‘This is the river Durius. I'd build towers on either side of the river, in two places five hundred feet apart. The towers on the near side of the river would be close enough for archers to rain down arrows inside the
oppidum.
I'd circumvallate the
oppidum
with a deep ditch and rampart, and double it outside the main entrances where a strong force sallying forth might overwhelm a single ditch system.'

Scipio grinned at him. ‘Spoken like a true engineer. You'd build another set of walls around Rome if you had the chance.'

‘That's not a joke. The city is getting too big for the Servian walls. They're over two hundred years old now. And the more wooden tenement houses that are crammed inside the walls, the more likely there is to be a devastating fire.'

‘Polybius and one of his scientist friends from Alexandria did a mathematical calculation about city walls,' Scipio said. ‘They established that unless you have a population even more densely crowded than the population of Rome, living in tenements that would have to be eight or ten storeys high, you simply wouldn't have enough manpower in a city to defend its outer limits.'

Ennius nodded. ‘City walls are only really ever for show.'

‘You need defence in depth, a smaller area of fortification to fall back on. That's what the Celtiberians did here at Intercatia a week ago.'

‘Do you remember Polybius taking us to Athens and showing us the Acropolis? That's something the Greeks have got right, and we haven't.'

‘Because the Roman spirit is offensive, not defensive. But the Celtiberians, like the Greeks, are generally inward looking; it's unusual for them to expand beyond their borders and to take over adjoining
oppida.
Rome, by contrast, has been outward looking for centuries now, devouring surrounding tribes and then the city-states of the Greeks and the Carthaginians, forever expanding.'

Ennius gave him a wry look. ‘Yes, and see what happens when invaders do reach Rome: the Gauls two and a half centuries ago, and very nearly Hannibal in our grandfathers' time. The Capitoline Hill where people took refuge from the Gauls was easily overwhelmed, and remains unfortified. One day Rome will reach the limits of its expansion and will suffer from the same weakness revealed by Polybius' calculation, of not having enough manpower to defend the frontiers. Yet great efforts will be expended to fortify the frontiers at the expense of Rome itself, which will remain vulnerable and will fall.'

Scipio grunted. ‘The Celtiberians regard their
oppida
as refuges, as do the Gauls,' he said. ‘The lower courses of their walls are built of stone, the upper structure of wood with thatched roofs, vulnerable to fire. That is their greatest defensive weakness. They knew nothing of siege engines when their walls were designed.'

Ennius nodded. ‘I would bring up batteries of ballistas and catapults, for solid shot and fireballs.'

Scipio pursed his lips. ‘The river is still the weak point.'

Ennius stared for a moment, and then traced a line across the furrow between the two stones. ‘What about this. You attach a thick cable between the towers, tensed so that it lies on the surface of the water. You twist the cable around sections of tree trunks, so that they form a boom. Then there is no way that boats could be dispatched from the
oppidum
to reach safety.'

Fabius looked at him. ‘I have a suggestion.'

‘Speak your mind.'

‘Have you ever been to the chariot races in the Circus Maximus when they attach blades to the wheels?'

‘A great spectacle, total carnage,' Ennius said. ‘It's not just what the blades do to the chariots when they lock together, but to the charioteers who fall within them.'

‘What's your point, Fabius?' Scipio said. ‘Numantia's a long way from the Circus Maximus, and chariots would just bog down in the mud out here.'

‘Not chariots, Scipio, but those floating logs. A week after we arrived in Spain I went with a reconnaissance patrol to Numantia, to size up the defences. Now that I know your model is meant to represent the
oppidum,
I recognize the lie of the river. At those points where you've put the towers it flows particularly fast, being narrower, especially when it's bloated with the rains that seem to fall all the time here. Instead of seeing that weather as an impediment, we could turn it to our advantage. Paddles affixed like the spokes of a wheel at either end of those logs would make them spin around with the current.'

‘I've got you,' Ennius said enthusiastically. ‘Attach blades jutting outwards along the length of the logs, and they would scythe away like the wheels of a chariot. Not only would boats be unable to get through, but neither would swimmers.'

Fabius took the stick from Scipio and traced two lines across the furrow. ‘The river is nearly fordable at these points. Place your towers and the log booms there, and the blades would nearly brush the riverbed. Swimmers would be unable to dive beneath.'

Ennius nodded, staring at the mud. ‘A brilliant suggestion, Fabius. That's one for Polybius' textbook. If the Intercatians continue to tax our patience and hold out longer, I will keep my
fabri
occupied by having them build an experimental boom on the river here to see how it works.'

Scipio slapped Fabius on the shoulder. ‘We'll make a general of you yet.'

‘Centurion will do, Scipio. One day, when I've earned it.'

Ennius peered at Scipio. ‘So much for our siege works. How would you dispose your men?'

‘One third for the assault force, one third in reserve. One third of the reserve to move up and man the enemy walls once the assault force has moved through the breaches made by artillery, including all available archers and slingers. The forward line of the reserve to include
fabri
ready to spring forward and provide scaling ladders and demolition teams if called for. The remaining third of the force to comprise ballista and catapult crews, the heavy cavalry to repel any sally from the enemy and a light cavalry force to hunt down any who would escape from the
oppidum
to seek aid.'

Ennius grinned at him. ‘Now
that's
straight out of the textbook.'

‘I've had plenty of time to prepare. When I haven't been hunting and training, I've been war-gaming. The law courts and the debating chamber only take up a few mornings every week. They've knocked down the old Gladiator School where we held the academy, but Fabius and I managed to salvage the diorama table where we studied battles. Whenever Polybius and any of the others are around we get together in a room I've had specially added to my house on the Palatine and recreate the great battles of the past, changing the variables to try to alter the outcome, just as we were taught to do. We must have done Zama fifty times, Cannae about the same. But my special fascination has always been sieges.'

‘I wonder why,' Ennius said, eyeing Scipio. ‘Let me guess. A large city on the southern Mediterranean shore, with enclosed harbours and a high acropolis housing a temple to Ba'al Hammon, and a place where they sacrifice children. Rome's greatest enemy, still unvanquished.'

‘It's all I can think about. It's my destiny.'

‘Well, Intercatia is not Carthage, and you have only five hundred men here, two thirds of them
fabri.
'

‘
Fabri
are legionaries too.'

‘Of course. The best.'

‘Then they shall form the assault force, and the century I brought with me from Cauca will be held in reserve.'

‘That's wise. I‘ve learned in my three years in Spain that a general should always use the men he has deployed as his besieging force to carry out the final assault. To use fresh troops would be to provoke discontent among those who have spent weeks and months before the walls, and would be to throw away the knowledge they have gleaned of the ways of the enemy, of his weaknesses. Even legionaries who seem worn down will find renewed energy with the end in sight and fight more savagely than fresh troops.'

‘Then those who were first on the walls with me last week will form the front line of the force I will use to enter the
oppidum.
'

‘And there's something else that we didn't learn in the academy. A besieging commander must not let his own troops or the enemy think that he's backed off because of cowardice, or lack of aggression. Your plan for the siege of Numantia is sound because it shows resolve and effort, that you are in for the long haul and intend to see it through to the end. A weaker commander who intends only to put on a show of force might leave the river undefended, relying on its flow as a natural boundary, or place lines of picquets where you would dig ditches and build a
vallum.
You might convince some in Rome that you had tried your utmost against an unassailable enemy, but your soldiers would think less of you for it and so would the enemy. They might think that you don't have the guts for an assault, or that you think your soldiers don't. If your soldiers believe that you have no faith in them, you will never lead them to victory.'

Scipio cracked a smile. ‘But what you really like about my plan is that it involves a great deal of ingenious engineering work for you and your
fabri.
'

‘Even that has another advantage. It keeps the men occupied. It's what they've been trained to do, not sitting around all day waiting for an enemy. They like nothing more than to see fortifications spring up around them, and it cows the enemy.'

Fabius peered at the breach in the walls a hundred yards up the slope from them, watching the sentries in the rubble who were guarding for any signs of enemy activity. He remembered the old centurion in Rome growl at the boys, taming their enthusiasm for joining battle at the earliest opportunity.
Do not fight desperate men,
he had said.
Let them wear themselves out by starvation and thirst. Only take a besieged city once you are certain of victory.

Scipio looked at Ennius. ‘Do you remember once when we were taken to see the lions, and what the head of the Gladiator School told us about preparing wild animals for the games?'

Ennius nodded. ‘He said that an experienced gladiator should refuse to do battle with beasts until he knows they have been reduced by hunger, that invincible enemy.'

‘He said that hunger enrages the beast, but also weakens it,' Scipio said. ‘A lion who is hungry puts on a greater spectacle, but is easier to kill. He said you must choose the best time for the spectacle, when the beast is enraged by hunger but still strong enough to put up a fight, yet with its guard down and hunger leaving it vulnerable to your death blow.'