Rome. Finally, Rome.
The soldiers catching their first glimpse of the place slowed and hesitated, bumped into each other as they stared. They might have stopped completely except that Hannibal, on his elephant, carried on. After a few moments of hush, generals, captains, and bold men remembered themselves. Numidians trilled and surged forward on their mounts. Gauls bellowed that they had returned to finish the sacking they had started years before. They and Iberians blew on their horns, a ruckus like a thousand stags in rut. And the Latin contingents strode forward singing. Thus Hannibal led the enemies of Rome to the city's very walls.
He halted the advance on the clear ground an arrow's shot from the walls. Here he turned the elephant and progressed along the walls, commenting on the craftwork and calling out to the enemy. Just who was in charge here? Might one in authority announce himself? Was Fulvius in there, the cunning creature? To whom should he direct his terms? Or would they come out and settle this dispute like warriors? His own men were outnumbered, but they were not against a hard day's work. No? If not today, then on the morrow, perhaps? As an aside he offered fair prices on plots of land in the Forum, if any of them were interested in getting in on the transaction early. He did not discriminate. He would even accept Roman coins as fair tender.
He had surveyed the entire distance between the Colline and Esquiline gates when a sudden barrage of arrows sailed into the air. They did not quite reach Hannibal, but sank squelching into the ground nearby. The commander seemed to find humor in this. He pointed at an individual on the wall, blinked his good eye, and grinned at him, as if the two of them had shared a joke and Hannibal was weighing his rebuttal. A few moments later a missile ripped through the men not far from the commander, shot from a ballista, a mechanically strung bow of great strength. The bolt pierced straight through the soft of one man's neck, severing the artery in an expulsion of blood. It ricocheted off a Bruttian's round shield and caught a Capuan with an upward trajectory that pinned him by the torso to the flank of a mule. The man was dead on the spot, but the beast set up a wheezing cry and threw a series of lopsided kicks. Men laughed at this and commented on Roman spite, asking what the mule had ever done to offend them. They made light of it to demonstrate their fearlessness, but nevertheless they withdrew a short distance.
And so the day passed. Hannibal seemed content to sit on his elephant, munching dates, spitting seeds to the ground like a boy, and chatting with whatever men were near him. The soldiers had come by now to know that half of war is in the waiting. And so they took their lead from their commander's mood; they stoked their fires and roasted animals newly snatched from the local farmers. Those who had musical instruments brought them out and played into the night, so that surely the Romans huddled inside their walls heard a strange chorus of festivity: bone whistles and hand rattles and bells played on the fingers of camp followers or slave women. The complicated rhythms of African drums went on the longest, like the heart of the army beating so loud so that all inside the city would know that Hannibal's army lived, prospered, waited for them.
The next day Hannibal marshaled the army in the wide field east of the city. The sky was heavy with cloud, the light dim beneath it, the ground moist enough that the men's feet stirred no dust. To the commander's joy, Fulvius and the consuls did not shy from meeting him. They emerged from the Esquiline gate to great fanfare, rank after rank of men stepping in unison, bearing tall shields of yellow or red, emblazoned with boars or wolves. People lined the walls, jostling for views, shouting their support like spectators at the Circus. The troops moved with synchronicity, answering the calls of the lituus and tuba promptly, despite the combined clamor of the spectators and Hannibal's soldiers. The velites—wolf, lion, bear-head—prowled forward of the others, creating the usual distractions. Many of them howled or roared like the beasts that adorned them. A few came forward far enough to launch their missiles, and their taunts.
Hannibal waited patiently throughout. He did not orate to the troops—his voice was hoarse from the previous day—but he did make casual comments that passed from one man to the next. He checked the sky as much as he did the enemy army and remarked, “The heavens promise a bath for the first man to draw blood.” Counting the various standards of the consul, the former consuls, and the former dictators, he turned to Gemel and asked, “How many heads does this beast have? They should be careful one doesn't bite the other in the ass.” A little later, having watched a velite stumble and sprawl on top of his shield: “There goes a cub in bear's clothing.”
The sky had grown even darker by the time the Romans were assembled. Both sides seemed anxious to ignore it, but this became impossible. The clouds dropped their load just as the skirmishers stepped forward to start the contest in earnest. But it was not the cleansing shower Hannibal joked about. Rain fell steady for a few moments, and then dropped down in a series of buffeting blankets. A sudden wind whipped the water sideways and snapped and twisted the points of the nearby trees. Scarcely had the men covered their eyes before they looked up again to an entirely different scene. The very air before them had turned to water. Water fell from the sky and jumped up from the turf in a great confusion, so thick that the line of soldiers in the distance faded out of view. As if this were not enough, pellets of ice dashed them, pinging off helmets and shoulders and snapping punishments on bare knuckles, driving the horses to run in circles, looking for escape. Hannibal gave no orders for the men to break ranks, but in the confusion and noise many believed he had. Some units turned and withdrew, others dropped to their knees in the sudden muck and whispered prayers, grasping idols draped around their chests: Divine forces were at work here. There would be no battle that day.
For that matter, it took all of the commander's persuasiveness to convince the men to resume the field the following day. He walked through camp that night, speaking with groups of soldiers privately, joking with them, and belittling the timorous quavers in their eyes. Had they not seen greater storms than that throughout this war? Had they not traversed ice and mountain snow and pushed through tempests? As a child he used to laugh at such storms and run out into them, tilt his face up, and catch the ice stones in his jaws. Let the Romans fear the heavens! For Hannibal's men, it was a blessing. They must remember that Baal was a god of storm. In the downpour he was just announcing his presence.