Carthage Read online

  Bostar was in front of me. The lane was narrow, and houses towered above us on both sides. From the shopfronts, traders besought and begged us to sample their wares, to buy their ostrich feathers, paraetonium, tree moss, thyon wood, cumin, pulses, murex, truffles as, all around, the smoke of charcoal filled the air. ‘Come on, Hanno!’ Bostar shouted cheerfully, looking round. ‘Look. This Monodos must have his surgery just down there!’

  Two hundred yards ahead, I saw, the booths stopped and the lane was still, its houses broken by alleyways and hydrants. I quickened my pace, slowed to sample the smell of a bay of apricots, stepped out again and was almost upon Bostar – when he was gone.

  I ran forwards quickly, puzzled. I was too old for children’s games. To my right, down a dark vennel, I saw two shapes, struggling. One I knew was Bostar by his ochre cloak. The other? I saw the gleam of steel, a knife in the other shape’s right hand as Bostar wrestled to break free from the left forearm across his throat. If it is a madness, it is a divine one, and I praise Tanit-pene-Baal. I fumbled for it, found my father’s dagger, launched myself at both of the bodies and, as we all fell, thrust it thudding home. My arm reaching round him, I lay on Bostar’s front, and he on top of another whose throes convulsed him. My face fell on that man’s. I smelt his fetid breath, felt his stubbled chin and I saw the flecks of blood blowing in bubbles round his lips and I remember thinking, as the sweat coursed from me, they were very beautiful until I realised that, as his resisting eased, I had killed a man.

  I do not know how long we lay there. My fingers loosened on the dagger’s grip. I pulled it out. The man exhaled and groaned and I reached the dagger up again to plunge, to plunge––

  Bostar stopped my arm. Awkwardly he rolled over, off the man, still holding my arm and I sat up, panting. ‘It’s all right, Hanno,’ Bostar said, raising himself on an elbow. I felt the stickiness on my right hand, and I held it up to the light. Excrement, human faeces. We had been lying in an open sewer, and I looked at my hand and laughed, laughed, laughed – until Bostar shook me, and I was still. I stared at him.

  ‘Is he, is he dead?’ I managed.

  ‘Either dead, or nearly,’ I think Bostar replied, struggling to his feet. ‘We must call the mehashebim, quickly. Get up Hanno.’ I did, feeling faint and cold and beginning to tremble. I looked down. There was no movement from the man.

  ‘Do you recognise him?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ Bostar replied dryly, ‘but I barely have his acquaintance. Hanno?’

  ‘Yes?’

  He looked at me, eye to eye, and said, simply, ‘Thank you.’ He shook himself.

  ‘Now, give me that,’ he said, pointing at the dagger. I handed him the blade that had been my father’s. He held it up before him. ‘So,’ he said, ‘do greater designs unfold than we can guess at. I brought this dagger for you as a keepsake. Now it has saved my life.’ Then he muttered something in a language I did not know, briskly wiped the dagger in a fold of his cloak, spat on it, wiped it again and gave it back to me. ‘Put that away, Hanno. Now, come on. The mehashebim.’

  They were not hard to find. We led them to the vennel. Their whistles sang. The police arrived. We told them what had happened. The body was carried away. We were escorted back to our house, the guards at first pushing through the curious crowd that had gathered and, seeing no more excitement and this being Carthage, soon melted away.

  ‘Court house, second watch tomorrow morning. House arrest until then,’ one of the policemen ordered as Bostar opened our door. Bostar turned. ‘For an enquiry?’

  ‘Yes, preliminary hearing, anyway. Now, get in. You two,’ he said, gesturing at two of the junior guards, ‘stay here. No one out, no one in.’ Then, turning to us, ‘Right, inside,’ he said, utterly matter of fact, almost bored, his voice mellifluous and mild. Despite the deep pock marks he had a kindly face, this echataz, a rank like the Roman tribune, I suppose.

  Turning as I followed Bostar, I caught the man’s eye. ‘The man?’ I asked him.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The man. The man I–– is he dead?’

  ‘You’ll find out in the morning. Now, close the door.’

  From Cato’s papers

  Marcus Antonius Regulus, High Clerk of the Treasury, to Marcus Porcius Cato the Censor. As you know, I have had fresh probate served in the matter of the will of the late Publius Cornelius Scipio, known as Africanus. He now has a son and heir, and all Africanus’ assets pass from Bostar of Chalcedon to Publius Cornelius Scipio, Africanus minor. I am seeing these matters settled, as is only just and fair.

  But as it happens, two things have since come to light of which I think you should be aware. Only yesterday did I receive a reply from one of our Roman banks to my request for information. That of the bank of Figulus in Padua is astonishing. The late Africanus had 200,000 gold staters lodged there. The amount of itself is remarkable. No Roman can ever have possessed so great a sum before. What is more, though, the staters are Syrian. They bear the head of King Antiochus himself. So perhaps the rumours of how our invasion of Syria ended are true, and Africanus was bribed to end the war. But if this is so, there is nothing you can do. I need not tell the Censor of our statutes of limitation. Nor need I express my indignation at what seems to have been the perfidy of a great Roman. I had always assumed your animosity towards Africanus to have been born of spite if not indeed, if you will forgive me, jealousy. It appears that I was wrong.

  The second matter is even graver. I collated Africanus’ will and other papers personally. I wanted the new affidavits lodged with them. In the process, I came across a document I had not opened before. You will remember, Censor, the sudden spate of child prostitution that disgraced our great city some nine years ago? At first it was Spanish boys and girls; then Syrian; then Greek. I remember your many speeches on this canker at Rome’s core. All our ports were watched, our borders, each of Rome’s gates, but still the children came. You thought Rufus Curtius Flaminius was involved. You tried to have the art dealer Theogenes arrested as the originator of this evil trade, but never could find hard evidence. I have it now. Africanus was the presiding force. I have, in his own hand, a ledger: children bought abroad for pennies or trinkets, then sold for golden denarii in Rome.

  So now we know, in part at least, how Africanus equipped at his own expense the Roman army that invaded Africa and defeated Hannibal. [It is fitting, I suppose: through child prostitution Rome was saved, and here is matter worthy of my countryman Diogenes.]

  From Hanno’s memoir

  We did find out, of course. The justice of Carthage is swift and sure. I remember asking Bostar nervously, as we walked into the huge echoing hall of the court the next morning, if he had ever been in a court before.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘I was present at the trial of the brothers Scipio in Rome.’

  ‘Of course. But were you ever on trial in person?’

  He smiled. ‘Yes, I was once. In your home city.’

  ‘In Capua?’ I blurted out. [I have already expressed my admiration for this Bostar’s mind. But perhaps one has to extend that to his eclectic and interesting life. Apart from this journal of his time in Carthage, which of course I am excerpting, I wonder if he kept a record of his life before he went there? Might he have written, for example, of his time with the great enigma Scipio Africanus, saviour of Rome despite himself it seems? I will widen my enquiries.]

  ‘Silence in court!’ bellowed a bailiff. We had come before the bar.

  What I remember is majesty, awe. Something greater than us, than people yet unborn, law. The judge sat high above us on a huge cathedra of gopha wood inlaid with precious stones, spinel, the eighteen colours of topaz, beryl, tourmaline and star sapphire. Under his tall, triangular hat of light purple bearing the sign of Tanit in gold, I could not see the judge’s face. But his beard reached to his chest. His robes were deep murex purple, and four clerks sat below him, their tunics of brightest woad, their parchment and pens ready.

  Between us and the
bar was a table, topped with white marble. On it was the first water-clock or clepsydra I had seen, its keeper sitting by its side. Its calibration was matched carefully, Bostar had told me, with that of the city’s twelve clepsydras in the temple of Eschmoun. The time the bowl takes to sink we know in Carthage as one paya, and day and night we divide into thirty paya each. Any case – I knew because Bostar had told me – which lasted more than three paya was adjourned, and adjudicators appointed to each side to determine the facts of the case and present them to the judge.

  The room was vast, its roof one great arch, and through its cupola the light streamed. The dust mites soared. Law. An abstraction? No. A natural, atavistic verity. Our word lagu means ‘what lies fixed, or even’. The law gives form to that.

  [This is puerile. Yes, there are laws which draw their force from nature. Incest, for example, is rightly prohibited in every society of which I know. But most laws are of course legal. The Romans, for example, drown in their interminable property laws, while the Spartans’ laws cannot be called laws at all. Does the helot in Sparta give his or her consent to be a slave? Is a law which is not in the interests of the whole community truly a law? In any case, the concept of natural law cannot elude the question of whether moral propositions like ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ can be known as true. Law is no more than a product of human reasoning. So, like its makers, it can only be understood within four sets of order: natural, logical, moral and cultural.

  I have studied the Carthaginian legal codes, as I have said. The admirable interspersions of the Sufet Hararabi are proof to the rule. Barbarous and simple, these codes’ field of reference is only the first of this four. So I pass by Hanno’s encomium on them. Is it perhaps in their failings that lay more seeds of Carthage’s fall? To know a people, study their laws.]

  ‘Keeper, start the clock. Prosecutor, begin,’ intoned the judge, almost uninterested.

  To our left, a tall man in a blue shift rose from his seat, and cleared his throat.

  ‘A simple case, your honour. Attempted murder. A Roman citizen, one Quintus Vitellius Tancinus, came to Carthage to murder the two before you: Bostar of Chalcedon, and Hanno of Capua.’ Hanno of where, I wondered? Hanno, son of Hannibal, Hanno Barca. But Bostar had told me to say nothing unless asked specifically.

  ‘And this Tancinus?’ the judge enquired.

  ‘Wounded by Hanno in defence of Bostar, sir, but alive.’

  Beside me, Bostar exhaled deeply. I felt – what did I feel, those many years ago? I had not meant to kill him, just to save Bostar.

  The judge went on. ‘Can he come before the court?’

  ‘He can, your honour,’ the prosecutor replied. ‘Bailiffs, bring him in.’

  Both Bostar and I turned to watch a stretcher being carried into the court. On it lay a man, covered by a blanket, black-haired, sallow skinned, with narrow eyes crowned by bushy eyebrows. Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead, and on the stubble of his chin. His breathing was laboured as he lay, stertorous and rasping.

  ‘Put him down, bailiffs,’ the judge ordered. The four men laid the stretcher on the floor to the right of us. The judge leaned forward, peering down.

  ‘Roman, why did you come here to murder?’ he asked. I looked down at Tancinus. He raised his head, licked his lips, but said nothing.

  ‘Roman, answer me!’ the judge insisted, irritation in his voice.

  ‘I, I do not understand,’ Tancinus croaked in Latin.

  ‘He has no Punic, your honour. I interviewed him last night,’ the prosecutor interjected. The judge let out a heavy sigh.

  ‘Then come over here, Hysux, and translate for me. I will not use in Carthage the language of Rome.’

  The prosecutor crossed the room in front of us, before the bar. As he passed me, I smelled his sweat under the perfume of attar that he wore.

  ‘Quintus Vitellius Tancinus,’ Hysux asked in competent but accented Latin, ‘Why did you come here to murder?’

  ‘Someone sent me.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I cannot say,’ Tancinus rasped.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I repeat. I cannot say.’

  The prosecutor Hysux walked forward to the bar, and translated for the judge, who replied: ‘It does not matter. The facts are clear, as is the sentence. Death by decapitation. Take him away.’

  ‘Your honour!’ I was astonished. It was Bostar speaking.

  ‘You wish to say something?’ the judge replied, the clerks scribbling the words down.

  ‘I do.’

  ‘That is your right. Carry on.’

  ‘Under your laws, the assailed can have all charges dismissed, is that not so?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Then I wish to have this man Tancinus set free.’

  ‘Bost––’ I exclaimed.

  Looking at me with a wink, he put a finger to his lips for silence.

  ‘Let me make sure I understand you. This Roman came to Carthage to murder you,’ the judge continued with an edge to his voice, ‘and yet you wish him pardoned.’

  ‘That is the case, your honour.’

  The judge sat back, and sighed deeply.

  ‘Very well, then.’ I saw him raise his eyebrows, and his brow furrow like desert sands. ‘Let the records show this Tancinus as set free on the wish of the assailed. Like anyone who comes in peace to Carthage, the Roman may come freely here, and freely go. But, Hysux.’

  ‘Your honour?’

  ‘Tell this Roman that if he breaks a single law, if he so much as urinates in the street, I will have him flogged and expelled.’ Tancinus beside us broke into a paroxysm of coughing. When he stopped, the judge went on: ‘If, that is, he lives. Case dismissed. Keeper, stop the clock.’

  Document I found in a cache of Cato’s private papers,

  in a hidden recess under the floor of what used to be his

  Senate room

  I write this for myself. I can have no other confessor, and I am wracked with doubt about doing what, I know, must now be done. Why am I the only one who understands the figures? My fellow senators are all, without exception and unlike me, men of great inherited wealth. Is this why they cannot see that Rome needs money as a body blood? We must reform the corn supply. We must replace our main aqueduct, and build another to the new blocks of insulae beyond the Quirinal. Driven from their farms by slave labour and the practices of the new estates my esteemed colleagues run, at least five hundred new people arrive in Rome each week. We need them as smiths and soldiers, sailors, and I do all I can to encourage them to come. Where do these immigrants find lodgings? Beyond the Quirinal, where Flaccus’ factors exact extortionate rents for hovels and huts. What do they drink? Water from the marshes of the Tiber, and they fall sick from rheums and fever. Soon, I fear, there will be plague. We must build them a new aqueduct. We must ensure adequate drains. Even in old Rome, the Cloaca Maxima has not been attended to for over a hundred years. By the Forum Velabrum it is almost a stinking swamp. But of course my colleagues cannot smell that from their villas high up on the Palatine. These things having been done, we must rebuild Rome – in stone. The poorer parts of the city, and that is most of it, are of wood and mud and brick mixed with straw. The smallest fire seems to burn down twenty homes. Stone. We must have stone. And who has the finest quarries in the world? Carthage. [This may have been so. But there were and are many excellent quarries much closer to Rome. Cato’s prejudice overwhelms his judgement. So do the irrational and rational conspire.]

  I have been over and over our accounts with Marcus Antonius Regulus. He is a good and faithful servant of the Republic whom I should treat with more kindness. But I do not know how. This year, thanks largely to the war we are waging against Corinth, our expenditure will be almost a hundred thousand silver denarii over our income, and we debased the coinage with lead only a year ago. Yet if I raise this issue in the Senate, some wag remarks that net income and gross habits have always distinguished Rome, or something along those lines.

  I rais
ed myself from nothing. In the war against Hannibal, others fought in search of glory. They mocked me, Scipio in particular, but I stayed here in Rome. I worked night and day in the Treasury and grain stores. I made sure there was iron for more pila points, wood for more arrows, bronze for more greaves when all in Rome said there was none. I commandeered bronze, for example, from the mint, and convinced the people that coinage of lead was sound. That is how Rome survived. I had stores of everything. I had planned. I fought that war as hard as anyone, day after day, from dusk to bleary dawn, not on a horse or shouting orders to conscripts but hour after hour, at a desk, poring over ledgers, I fought Hannibal in my mind. My election to the Censorship attests what I achieved. But let the gods at least bear witness: it was earned.

  And now all we achieved is threatened once again. We need more income. That means more trade, and so more taxes. That means that Carthage is a wall that blocks our way. She controls, by the confounded treaty Scipio and others made after the last war, trading routes that Rome needs if she is to survive, let alone thrive. I am determined that we will wrest those routes from Carthage. That means she must die, and I must set certain matters in train. Hannibal’s bastard has escaped me for the moment. But he may prove a cipher anyhow.

  So why do I hesitate to move? Because my hatred of Carthage scares me. It runs to depths I do not understand. And so let me try to write down that memory that engulfs me. Let me tell what I have never told. Perhaps that will free my weakened will.