"According to my reading," Izates countered, "they also met with several naval disasters during those years. It does little good to defeat your enemy in a sea battle, only to lose your entire fleet to a storm any fisherman could have seen coming."
"They couldn't become competent seamen all at once."
A line of four-wheeled wagons rumbled past them. The beds held Rostra: ships' rams cast in bronze by Campanian foundries. No two were alike: The heads of real or mythical beasts were most favored, but they saw one cast as Jove's thunderbolt, another that was a godlike fist. Men trudged by dragging carts heaped with coils of rope, and lines of workmen shouldered long masts and yards.
"Between restoring the cities and building this fleet," Izates said, "Italy will be denuded of timber."
Amazing as the work itself was, Zeno found the organization the Romans brought to the process no less remarkable. A senator aided by a staff of distinguished equites oversaw each shipyard. These men directed a staff of shipbuilders hired from Greece, Rhodes, Cyprus and other parts of the eastern sea. The rowing masters were likewise Greeks skilled in this demanding craft, for rowing a three-banked ship of war was not a matter of simply tugging upon an oar. Rather, it was a highly skilled trade and rowers were usually free men, rarely slaves or prisoners.
So painstaking were the organizers that they had already established a guild for the rowers to join, complete with its own tutelary deities and special festivals. Rowers were to have quasimilitary status, half legionary pay and limited citizenship upon discharge, to be upgraded to full citizenship depending upon how valuable their service should prove. Nothing was overlooked.
"The schedule calls for maneuvers to begin in the harbor by the next full moon," Zeno said. "Naval operations to commence on the full moon following."
"They're dreaming," Izates said. "They can't attain competence in so short a time, and Carthage may not allow them the leisure in any case. Hamilcar's fleet could show up in the harbor tomorrow."
"He won't try operations in Italy until he's taken Sicily back. No Carthaginian general since Hannibal has shown any real boldness or originality. It's always a slow, predictable process by regular stages."
"Maybe so," Izates allowed, "but Carthage is immensely rich and has tremendous resources. These Romans have accomplished what they have through sheer audacity. That is not a quality that prevails in the long run. Carthage can afford to lose possessions. She can even afford to lose a string of battles. With so much wealth to hire foreign mercenaries, Carthage will scarcely feel the casualties. They'll crucify a few generals and raise another army, build another navy."
"It's served them well in the past," Zeno agreed. "But I don't think it will this time. Not against this enemy."
The Princeps Gabinius had supplied them with letters and documents providing them with full permission to explore the Roman bases and see the preparations being made for the upcoming war against Carthage. "We're getting ready to fight Hamilcar and his allies, if he has any," Gabinius had explained. "We'll probably be doing little else for a number of years to come, so there's little point in hiding our intentions."
The Romans were well informed about the military capabilities of Carthage and Egypt. Gabinius wanted to know about Seleucid Syria (weak and remote, Zeno informed him), Parthia (powerful but remote) and Macedonia (formidable and very close). This last bit of information was of some concern. Ever since Hannibal, the idea of a Carthage-Macedonia alliance had been troubling. War against two powerful, professional armies at once was a daunting prospect even for people as confident as the Romans.
"Who is king of Macedonia now?" Gabinius had asked him.
"Philip the Seventh, and he is said to be a Macedonian chieftain of the old school-very martial and adventurous."
"A conqueror?"
"A mercenary, although no doubt he would like very much to revive the conquering ways of his ancestors. He hires his phalanxes out to neighboring kings and has campaigned in Illyria and Thrace, to my knowledge."
"Does he command personally?"
"He has done so."
"We know that Ptolemy depended heavily on Macedonians in his first battle against Hamilcar. They did him little good."
"From what I heard," Zeno said, "it was your legions who won that battle for Hamilcar, and that the boy-king Ptolemy's forces were ill-led."
Gabinius nodded. "It's hard to judge the quality of an army if its leadership is poor. The Macedonians accomplished little that day, but we heard that they fell back upon Alexandria in good order. On another field, with a better leader, they might be a formidable foe."
The Romans' near-obsessive fixation on military matters was stupefying, and Izates insisted that this defined them as a severely limited people, but Zeno demurred. He felt that their accomplishments in other areas were even more remarkable. Their shortcomings in the more refined intellectual strata were undeniable: They showed little cultivation of the arts and few were learned in philosophy. To Greeks these lapses set the Romans on a level little above the more primitive barbarians. But their attention to the minutiae of government and law was a thing of marvel.
From the beginning of their stay in Rome, Zeno had made a point of attending the law courts and hearing the speeches of orators. Senate meetings were forbidden to anyone not of the senatorial order, but the results of their debates were quickly relayed to the Forum crowds by way of the Rostra: the speaker's platform at the western end of the Forum.
Like most foreigners, Zeno had believed that Rome was actually ruled by the Senate, but he learned quickly that this belief was oversimplified. The Senate formed a landed aristocracy of great prestige and its powers in foreign affairs and war making were nearly absolute, but there were other assemblies of comparable power.
The Concilium Plebis, for instance, consisted only of the plebeian class and elected the tribunes of the people, enacted laws and conducted certain trials. The Comitia Tributa consisted of all citizens assembled in their tribes and elected, the plebeian aediles, the tribunes of the soldiers and the quaestors. The Comitia Centuriata consisted of the entire citizenry assembled in centuries and ranked by property assessment. They elected the highest magistrates: praetors, consuls and censors. They also heard trials for treason.
Roman political life was a constant struggle for power and influence among these interlocking assemblies, their memberships and their leaders. A man of great power in one assembly might be just another vote in another, and individual votes counted for very little. Election to office led to a seat in the Senate and it was the senators who provided the officer corps. Glory in war led to election to higher office, so competition for office was both intense and complex. Zeno knew he could devote his whole life to unraveling the complexities and ramifications of it all.
Despite the multiplicity of legislative and judicial bodies, the Roman system seemed to function with great efficiency. Zeno was especially impressed with the courts. Trials were for the most part speedy and fair, the judges impartial and the lawyers well versed in all the intricacies of the law. He remarked upon this to Gabinius.
"We've built up our system to be the best in the world," he said, "but don't be deceived. Wait until you see two important, powerful men at odds in court. Then things are not so equitable, as when some small businessman is being tried for fraud, or a border dispute between minor landholders is settled. It's difficult to impanel an impartial jury when everyone is a client to someone of greater importance, and really wealthy men are seldom above a little bribery when their interests are at stake."
This concept of clientage was new to the Greeks. It turned out that, like so many Roman practices, it dated back to the primitive days of chieftains and warriors, when small peasants put themselves under the protection of a greater landowner and followed him in war. This simple relationship had grown into a complex system of interlocking obligations that included monetary and legal aid, support in the Forum, whether in trials or elections, even the obligations of death and funerals. Slaves upon manumission became clients of their former masters, and clientage was hereditary. Among Romans, no relationship was more important than that of client and patron.