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."