Near Genua the coast turned southward and they entered the peninsula of Italy proper. At each town Mastanabal's officers questioned locals. Yes, the Romans had come through, surveying and taking a census, but they had seen no Romans for months. There was said to be a garrison at Pisae, on the Arnus River.
The coastal road was wretched, little more than a goat track, so progress was not swift. His light cavalry rode ahead of the army, intercepting and killing any mounted man they saw, to prevent word of the advancing army from preceding it. Thus they arrived unannounced upon the plain east of the delta of the Arnus, near the minor town of Pisae, where a Roman army lay encamped.
Decimus Aemilius, propraetor for northwestern Italy, awoke to a pleasant morning in one of the most pleasant parts of the peninsula. The land was wonderfully fertile and occupied by diligent peasants. He had decided that, when the present war concluded, he would petition the Senate for lands here. He belonged to a minor branch of the great Aemilian gens, and the ancestral Aemilian lands to the south had already been reclaimed by the more prestigious members of the family. No matter, he thought. From what he had seen, he liked this district better than the central and southern peninsula.
He was not flawlessly happy. It grated that he had not been given a more important army and a part in the Sicilian campaign. Not much chance of that, he thought. Not with the great consular families fighting tooth and nail for every commission. Still, he knew he had little cause to complain. There would be campaigning for the rest of his lifetime, and glittering opportunities would fall his way. Even as he had the thought, something fell his way.
He became aware of a growing clamor outside his praetorium and was about to investigate when his legate, Servius Aelius Buteo, burst in. "There's a Carthaginian army on the field to the north!"
"What! How did they get here?"
"At a guess I'd say they walked," Buteo told him. "And they didn't come alone. A scout just rode in and reported a fleet off Pisae."
Aemilius shouted for his orderly, and scrambled into his field armor. With his helmet beneath his arm, he strode from the tent, Buteo walking beside him. His orderly, his trumpeter and his secretary followed behind.
"Hamilcar couldn't counterattack so fast. And why here?" Aemilius said.
"Maybe the report of the fire at Carthage was exaggerated," Buteo said. "Maybe he's invading anyway, on two fronts."
"Not that it matters," Aemilius said. "If they're out there, we have to stop them. If they get through us, they'll go all the way to Rome, and except for what we have here, all our legions are down in the South. Rome is unprotected."
They came to the camp wall and ascended the tower flanking the gate called the porta praetoria. From its top platform they surveyed the spectacle to the north, aghast. A huge host stood there, arranged in three great blocks, with flanking cavalry. They were ominously silent. Roman soldiers along the wall were jabbering at one another, some of them forgetting their Latin and speaking their native Celtic and German dialects.
"Professionals or at least well-drilled militia in the center," Aemilius said, his voiced schooled to calm despite the sick feeling in his stomach. "Those great mobs on the flanks are barbarians. How many do you make them?"
Buteo spat over the front rail. "Thirty thousand if there's a buggering one of them. And they've ten times our strength in cavalry."
And what do I have? Aemilius thought. Two legions plus auxiliaries, and not full strength at that, not even fifteen thousand total strength. The odds would not have dismayed him had the legions been veteran, but they were newly raised troops just down from Noricum, only their senior centurions men of long experience. They had been drilled long and hard, but even the best training was not combat. Roman commanders considered soldiers fully reliable only after they had ten campaigns behind them.
"Well," Aemilius said. "Here's where we find out if we're really as good as we say we are." He turned to his trumpeter. "Sound battle formation." As the call rang out, he turned to his secretary, who stood by with a wooden tablet open in one hand, a pointed bronze stylus in the other, ready to inscribe his general's message on the wax that lined the inner surface of the tablet.
"Date and hour," Aemilius said. "To the noble Senate. Greeting from Decimus Aemilius, propraetor for northwestern Italy. This hour a Carthaginian army of some thirty thousand men appeared two miles north of the Arnus River near the town of Pisae, accompanied by a fleet of unknown strength. I go now to engage the land force. Long live Rome."
Amid a rustling of armor and a shuffling of hobnailed caligae, the legionaries exited the fortified camp and formed up their cohorts between the camp and the approaching enemy. They formed into their cohorts, with the two legions of heavy infantry in the center, the auxilia on the flanks and the tiny cavalry force, too small to be divided, concentrated on the left flank. The forming up was done with commendable swiftness and efficiency. Drill was a Roman specialty.
"It's not good," Buteo said, "fighting this near the camp, with our backs to a river."
Aemilius knew what he meant. Outnumbered as they were, should the Romans be hard-pressed, with nowhere else to flee except the river, the fortified camp would be a temptation. Men whose nerve failed under the strain of battle would break formation and run for the camp. It could quickly turn into a rout. Had there been time, Aemilius would have demolished the camp before offering battle. That was standard procedure. Romans were realists about warfare, and recognized that to ensure steadfastness in battle, it was best to remove all possibility of safety in flight.
"Speaking of which," Aemilius said, "we'd best get out there ourselves. Can't have the men thinking we're lurking back here in safety."
Buteo snorted. "Safety!"
They went below and mounted their horses. Just behind the legions, in the center, carpenters were assembling the command tower. It was not high, just a platform about twelve feet above the ground, from which the commander could survey his army and the battlefield. Aemilius ordered all his mounted messengers to assemble by the tower, for he intended to send continuous reports to the Senate as the battle progressed.
With his staff officers, he rode through the gaps between the cohorts and emerged before the center of the battle line. A hundred paces before the center of the first rank, they drew up and awaited the Carthaginian negotiators. Every battle began with a parley: demands, refusals, conditions, agreements and so forth. It was expected. In due time, a party of horsemen rode out from the Carthaginian lines. Their harness was ornate, their arms shining or colorfully painted. Their standard, the triangle-and-crescent of Tanit, was draped with white ribbons in token of truce. In the forefront was a hard-faced Greek. Aemilius read him for a Spartan mercenary. That state had long since fallen from any claim to power, but it still produced professional soldiers who were in demand wherever there was fighting.
"Romans!" the Greek said without preamble. "My general, Mastanabal, servant of the Shofet Hamilcar, bids you surrender your arms and your persons to him. Lay down your arms, pass beneath his yoke and you will live. The alternative is extermination."