Carthage Read online

  As for Spain and trade, what the Romans promised they did not deliver. Or, if you prefer, my father Hannibal had a hatred for Rome which would not leave him and, by sacking the Spanish city of Saguntum, a Roman ally, he brought about the second war between Carthage and Rome. Of that he wrote, before he died, his own account. I will come to that later – if Scipio is as good as his word. With his army my father did a thing undreamed of. He crossed the Alps in dead of winter and took the Romans by complete surprise. At the Ticinus, then the Trebia, then Trasimenus he routed their armies, and at Cannae he slaughtered Romans as ripe wheat falls before the sickler’s skill. There were as many Romans dead, it is said, as there are stars in the sky.

  Only by cowardice did Rome survive. They made an octogenarian dictator. He refused to fight, and for sixteen years my father roamed Italy like a wounded boar. He had won the battles, but like King Pyrrhus of Epirus before him, he could not win the war.

  Under Scipio, father of the one whose stars have now crossed mine, a Roman army invaded Africa. My father was recalled and, somehow, defeated in battle at a place called Zama, a bowl among grey and arid hills. Truce was concluded, but not by my father. He had gone away to save his country’s honour from a treaty that was neither just nor fair. Unresolved, these issues have rankled, and brought us to where we are today. So is this the third war between Carthage and Rome. As long as any of my line lives, there will be more until Rome is weeds and crows.

  Letter found among the papers of Labienus

  [At first this document puzzled me. The scroll was of the finest vellum, and its wooden staff was inlaid with silver signets of a Gorgon’s head. So it had come, clearly, from a rich, important and probably patrician hand. I unrolled it with great interest. It was blank. When I mentioned this to Scipio last night over dinner, he smiled. He had come across this before with secret military despatches. The letter would have been written, he thought, in a mixture of vinegar and milk. He told me to rub the pages with soot. The characters were still very faint, but I have transcribed them as best I can.]

  From Rufus Curtius Flaminius, senator, to Titus Licinius Labienus, magistrate in Capua. Of course I will help you in any way I can. I am not only one of the great Scipio Africanus’ executors, but he was my very dear friend. I too have heard from Bostar. Now Scipio is dead and Hanno on his way to Carthage, Bostar wishes to take forward his plan. You do not tell me how much information Bostar has given you. Let me tell you what you may or may not know.

  Scipio had, although the world does not know this, a son. After the wars against Hannibal, then King Philip of Macedon and finally King Antiochus of Syria, in his retirement Scipio hoped to find and acknowledge the boy. But then as you know his trial intervened.

  If he is alive, the son must be around twenty. His mother was a slave, one Hispala. Scipio’s father had her sent to Gaul when she became pregnant, but left her well provided for. [I must not pile Pelion on Ossa, but this truth of two bastard sons, one for Scipio, one for Hannibal, is stranger than any fiction. The etymology alone is of interest. The Romans take their word for bastard, nothus, straight from the Greek νóθoς. One day I will write a history of the lives of distinguished bastards. I could have pairs, one Greek and one Roman. I am sure Scipio would patronise such a project. He, after all, can hardly repudiate bastardy. Although, in his present frame of mind, he might try.] I can tell you no more than that the agent entrusted with the business meant to take this Hispala to a village north-east of Massilia called Agreti, which was his own home. I confirm Bostar’s instructions. You are to go in search of the young man and, if you find him, bring him to my villa in Rome. I will make arrangements in hope. In particular, and although Bostar does not know of my intention, I will now involve Theogenes, once Africanus’ art dealer and friend. He is a man, as you may have heard, of many webs. But above all, he is kind.

  With this letter comes the pass you ask for. It gives you all the powers of a legate of a senator of Rome. Start by commandeering one of the senatorial galleys in Ostia. Cato will hear of it, but by then you will be on your way. Tell the captain your destination only when you are out at sea. Seek out the banker Josephus by the western gate of Massilia. The password for which he will ask you is ‘Zama’. He will tell you, but Gauls prefer silver to gold. Go well. May Mercury, or the Greek Hermes as Africanus preferred to call him, watch over you on your way.

  From Hanno’s memoir

  I have given an historical sketch so that those yet unborn who might read this will understand and know that, before I got to Carthage, I was prepared. The likes of Cato say the Carthaginians are mere traders; merchants and charlatans, peddling their wares to every corner of the world. That is neither true nor fair.

  Carthage is an ancient and venerable city. But the best proof of that is in the constitution which the city bears. When Rome was a simple monarchy, our complex constitution had been working well for hundreds of years. We had and have a Sufet, first minister, elected by our Senate. Election to that body of three hundred is, I accept, the reward of wealth. I see no harm there, for any Carthaginian, however humbly born, is free to better himself and those he loves. If that leads to a seat in the Senate, good and well. Plutocracy need not exclude the poor. On the contrary, it motivates them to work hard and grow rich and pay taxes, the sinews of the state. Our Senate also nominates the Council of Ten from among its number, and this council aids and controls the Sufet, especially in times of war.

  But we have other checks and balances: in particular, our Assembly of the people to which all with even a small amount of property belong. This Assembly must ratify, for example, the election of the Sufet. It has many other powers, such as the right of veto over taxation. And in one more respect this is far superior to the plebiscite of Rome. To vote in that, you have to be a citizen and it is no easy matter to become a citizen of Rome. Even to slaves they doled out citizenship during the war against my father, because of course a citizen must serve. That openhandedness is no more. My mother, for example, though a freedwoman and payer of taxes, is not a citizen: her parents were not Romans. But in Carthage we have always welcomed anyone who comes in peace. As soon as they buy property, however little, they can belong.

  Nor does the charge that we are vagrant mendicants accord with the many skills Carthage has given the world and honed. Take agriculture, for example. A distinguished Carthaginian, Magon, wrote a treatise of twenty books on the subject two hundred years ago. Even the Greeks acknowledge him as the father of farming. Carthage remains the granary of the Mediterranean, rich as well in vines and olives, flocks, a fertile place of many farms that stretch for hundreds of miles from here, east into Cape Bon, north, south and west inland.

  Or consider navigation. Years before the Romans even had barges on the Tiber, my namesake Hanno completed a circumnavigation of Africa. I have his account here. Now the Roman fleet is mighty, certainly, and something to be feared. But which of them admits that they copied their galleys from Carthaginian ones they captured in the harbour of Syracuse during the first war? And it was from Carthaginian and Greek sailors and merchants that the Romans learnt the science of the sea and of the stars. That––

  [Lasting for many pages and turning finally to Carthaginian religion, this didacticism continues and tires. Were I a general reader, and not a scholar, I would want Hanno’s extraordinary story to move on. I am an historian, but surely a story is either narrative or it is nothing. If the narrative slows, the story dies. Besides, Hanno writes of Carthage’s institutions in the present continuous tense, which implies a future. Yet as he did so their very existence was imperilled, and many were no more.

  So I now eschew some of the fat on this capon; I omit the panegyric on Carthaginian navigation, seminal though their skill was; I give only a synopsis of Hanno’s encomium on Carthaginian religion, and allow myself a rare comment: Hanno praises the constancy of the Carthaginian gods. From his account they seem to me syncretic, largely unchanged from those of the Phoenicians, a people known as lon
g ago as the poet Homer, at the beginning of time. But like peoples, gods must evolve and change – or die. I wonder if we see in this a fatal obduracy, a canker in Carthage’s core?]

  The Roman pantheon is confusing even to a Roman. They are always adding to it. And when you leave the towns and cities, you find the countryfolk worship darker, older gods as well. Yes, we Carthaginians have our lesser deities, our alonim and baalim like Melqart, Patechus and Tammuz. But unlike the Romans we have, unchanged and unchanging, the trinity of our great gods: Moloch, known to some as Baal-Ammon, Tanit-pene-Baal and Eschmoun.

  Moloch is our male god of the sky, the city and the sun; Tanit, both Moloch’s mother and daughter, is our goddess of the earth, fertility and the moon; as god of healing and of dreams, we worship Eschmoun. It is to Moloch, in the form of an old man with ram’s horns on his forehead, that in our tophets we sacrifice the weaker of our children; remembering Dido’s passing; knowing there will be more. I made libation to Moloch this morning. Yesterday the Romans ransacked his temple on the hill of Byrsa over there. They will find his anger clear.

  Letter preserved in the archives of Rome

  To Lucius Valerius Flaccus, leader of the Senate, Marcus Porcius Cato, Censor, sends greetings. I have him at last. No more will Titus Flaminius Curtius be able to thwart me and affront the name of Rome. I have just received word from my agents in Neapolis, and this time even the inviolable Curtius has gone too far. You know how the filthy sodomite keeps his Greek boy, the catamite Caroedes, with him at all times. Well, two days ago in his villa outside Neapolis he held a drinking party ‘in Caroedes’ honour’ – can you credit that? All the local dignitaries were there. In his cups on the couch next to Curtius, apparently the little Hebus said, in everyone’s hearing: ‘Do you know how much I love you, Curtius? Two weeks ago, when we were in Rome, there was a gladiatorial show. But I missed it in order to be with you, even though I have always wanted to see a man killed.’

  Curtius replied: ‘Have you really?’ There and then he yelled orders for a condemned criminal from the gaol in Neapolis to be brought in front of them. When the wretch was dragged trembling before the company, Curtius asked Caroedes if he was sure he wanted to see a man killed. When the boy said he did, Curtius did not hesitate. He had the prisoner beheaded on the spot.

  I am having the necessary affidavits sent to you direct. Speusippus will send you the formal indictment tomorrow. I will be dictating it to him tonight. I want Curtius removed from the Senate at once. I trust you, as Father of the House, will allow me to move the motion in person. This time the voices of the so-called ‘Scipionic circle’ will be stilled. The Republic will have one less enemy; Carthage one less friend.

  Letter from Cato’s papers, preserved in the archives

  of Rome

  From Lucius Valerius Flaccus, leader of the Senate, to Marcus Porcius Cato, Censor. I will do as you ask. But it pains me. As soldier and senator, Curtius has given many years of faithful service to Rome. So what if his sexual predilections are not your own? And will you arraign him because of this admittedly distasteful incident, or because he was a friend of Africanus, and a man who argued that we should treat Carthage with a quality, mercy, which you disdain? And by the way, Hebus was Hebe, and a girl. You meant Ganymede, I presume.

  From Hanno’s memoir

  It was the middle of the night. We were all together on the poopdeck, Bostar, Trimalchio, the mate Casso and I, peering forward into the dark and the waves. ‘Any minute now, we’ll see it,’ said Trimalchio.

  ‘No,’ replied Casso. ‘I still can’t smell land. I think we’ll be another half watch.’

  ‘And why’s that, Casso?’ Trimalchio gave back. ‘No point going back to your hammock for that long.’

  I was still half asleep. ‘See it, Trimalchio? See what?’

  ‘The beacon, boy, the beacon on the sacred, doubled-horned mountain they call Jebel-bou-Kournine. Highest point on the whole African coast. Makes Neapolis’ Vesuvius look like a pimple.’

  ‘A beacon? They keep it burning all night?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Casso answered. ‘All night, all day, all year. They say it marks the soul of Carthage and that, if it ever goes out, the city will fall. God knows how they do it. Must use whole forests of wood––’

  ‘Oil, actually,’ Trimalchio interrupted. ‘They use turpentine and oil.’

  ‘Turpentine?’ I asked. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The resin, Hanno, of the terebinth tree,’ Bostar answered. ‘It is almost insoluble in water, is miscible with alcohol and ether, and dissolves phosphorus, resins and––’

  ‘All right, all right,’ Trimalchio interrupted, thankfully. ‘What do you think this is? A bloody chemistry lesson? Anyway, boy, the only thing you need to know about turpentine is that you take it when you’ve got the worms.’

  ‘The worms?’

  ‘Don’t you know anything?’ he laughed. ‘The worms. Tapeworms. Bit of turpentine and they’ll come slithering out like––’

  Fortunately, a spurt of wind caught us. The prow dipped, and a breaking wave showered us with spray. As we wiped our faces, Trimalchio said: ‘That’s enough for me. Casso, I’m going for forty winks. Wake me when we’re three leagues from landfall. You, Bostar? You haven’t been to your bunk at all.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Bostar said. ‘You’re not waiting for the beacon, Trimalchio?’

  ‘No. It’s a big one, certainly. But when you’ve seen one, you’ve seen ’em all.’

  It was astonishing when suddenly we saw it, holding half the horizon, the light reaching, running, rippling towards us across the water and the sky. It held us and it bathed us until we sailed through it, and its incandescence lay behind us like the memory of a sweet and soothing dream. I shivered, though the night was warm. That was the first time I was touched by Carthage’s greatness. If she showed all the world the way to find her, how great must be those walls?

  ‘Right, I’m off back to the helm. Three degrees to starboard here,’ said Casso. ‘There’ll be lads up on this deck with plumblines shortly, so mind how you go.’

  ‘Plumblines, Bostar?’ I said into the darkness.

  ‘Yes, apparently there are shoals.’

  ‘But even Casso knows how to navigate here. Surely they can’t just let anyone sail into their harbour, even guiding them in at night?’

  ‘You’ll see, Hanno, you’ll see. So will I.’

  As the night and swelling ship wore on, the carbon black turned to charcoal, the first hints of dawn, with cadmium behind and alizarin too. We stared ahead. Fluorescent jellyfish floated by. Bostar, of course, knew what to look for. Though I felt like teasing him, I remember, I didn’t. He was always prepared. Until now?

  He pointed Plane Island out to me on the starboard side, lightless but a mass darker than the dark; then, from the waves breaking against it, we saw the sharp point called, he said, Ras-el-Djebel; beyond that the high prow of Cap Bon, a euphemism for mariners, Bostar remarked, if ever there was one; then the promontory of Sidi-bou-Saïd. It was, as Bostar said, like being drawn into a purse net whose edges gradually close.

  Two sailors climbed the steps towards us, carrying their lines. ‘Best move to stern,’ one of them muttered. The deck was full of sleepy men emerging from below, moving slowly to their places on the benches, dipping their hands in chalk before they took the oars, slipping in the darkness; others, like so many monkeys, were hanging from the yards. Trimalchio was up again and at the helm, whistling some ditty to himself. ‘Have you there in no time,’ he said cheerfully as we passed. ‘Oh, Bostar, before too long we’ll be needing what I asked for.’

  ‘I’ll go below and get it now,’ he said. ‘Hanno, I’ll need your keys.’ From the hook on my belt under my cloak, I gave him the bunch he had given me when we left the villa in Macedon. They were for chests under my bunk which, as he had told me, I had never opened. ‘Extra security,’ he had said, with a wry smile.

  ‘Sails away!’ Trimalchio bellowed. The men we
nt scampering up, the sails came tumbling down. Slowly the boat stilled, swaying with the swell back towards the open sea. ‘Casso, oars!’ Trimalchio ordered, and then came the beat of the drum. The oars bored. The keel bit. The wake sang again.

  The first thing I saw of Carthage was the lights – that now shine, most of them, no more. The beacon burned to port, but ahead, first three and four, then many, I saw lights that were, I saw as we came closer, torches burning at regular intervals high up, along what I presumed to be a wall. The sky brightened behind us as we rowed, vermilion dancing on the water. Ahead, the copper cupola of some temple or great public building glowed. Holding the horizon, the mass of a great city showed.

  But, leaning right out across our gunnel, I could see no harbour, only a narrow channel, one ship wide, of lustrous light running between two great moles of blackened, darkened stone. Right across the passage, shining with seething weed and verdigris as the dawn grew, ran a row of clanking, heaving chains. Alongside this, by one rope from her prow to a bollard on a mole, oars shipped, the Apollodorus moored.

  ‘Who goes there?’ came a call in Punic from along the nearest mole. I could see no one.

  ‘The Apollodorus, out of Macedonia,’ Trimalchio bellowed back in Greek. ‘Friend of Carthage, and no foe.’

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ the voice called back. ‘Do you have the harbour dues?’

  ‘Yes,’ Trimalchio called back. ‘In Athenian gold.’

  ‘Then prepare. We are coming on board.’

  I saw him, or rather them, then. Four men, unarmed, in leather cuirasses and caps, which covered their ears, walking along the mole towards our bow. ‘They’re not carrying any arms, Bostar!’ I whispered.