Remorselessly, the legionaries came on. He scanned to their flanks and rear. They seemed to have no siege-train. That was excellent. With no heavy missile hurlers or specialized assault equipment, they must attack the rampart with infantry alone. That would prove very costly to them. It was the worst possible way to assault a fortification, simply hurling human flesh against steel.
He looked along his own wall. It was only earth and timber, but the earth was heaped eight feet high and topped with sharpened stakes. He had not entrenched. He had not dug a ditch lined with traps and foot stakes. But he had never expected to have to defend this place. It was merely a temporary camp for amassing a force to renew the attack on Rome.
It was no matter. He had beaten Romans before. He would beat this army as well. Already, his men were over their first astonishment. All up and down the western wall, tribal war chants boomed out. Spaniards waved their vicious falcatas and Gauls whirled their long swords. Slingers were taking their positions, their pouches full of lead slugs. Archers arranged their arrows tidily. At the southern end of the wall the Greeks stood silent and ready, superbly armored and holding their long spears.
Mastanabal was satisfied. There were few recruits in his army. Most were men with long experience of war. The Romans were raising legions too fast. They had too many untried boys, not enough veterans. It had led them to disaster before, in Hannibal's time and now in his own. He squinted toward the approaching Romans and tried to make out their dispositions. The rising sun at their backs made this difficult. They had chosen the right direction from which to make their assault.
This one leaves little to chance, Mastanabal thought.
Norbanus watched the advance with greatest satisfaction. All had worked out perfectly. The ruse with the false camp had paid off handsomely. His greatest worry had been that the scouts would leave some men behind to make a count of the arriving legions. They would have seen that the army did not halt at the camp and would have known the truth. His own horsemen might not have caught them. But the scouts had been satisfied with what they had seen and they had been too lacking in initiative to wait to see more.
And, as always, the gods of Rome were watching over their favorite, Titus Norbanus.
His men made a splendid show as they marched in perfect silence. They had stripped the covers from their shields, displaying bright new paint, the colors and devices identifying the various units. Those who had crests and plumes had mounted them on their helmets, the bright feathers and horsehair nodding to their steps. Armor and weapons were polished bright. Brightest of all were the standards. His four old legions, veterans of the long march, had turned in their old standards and been given the new, standardized eagles of silver and gold. The men who carried them were draped with the skins of lions. The bearers of the lesser standards wore pelts of wolf and bear.
And, he reflected with some satisfaction, the ruse and the night march had not been his only inspired decisions. The silent advance had been his idea as well. He had instructed his men carefully that there would be no trumpets, but all orders must be given with the voice, in words quietly but clearly spoken. Here the oratorical training of the officers had paid off, for they knew how to make themselves heard without shouting. He knew that to the enemy on the wall opposite, the sight would be awesome and frightening.
The crowning achievement was his decision to attack at first light without negotiation. It looked foolish, but he knew that it made the best possible use of his strength while crippling his enemy. Mastanabal could not know that his fortified camp was, to the Romans, nothing but a big Gallic oppidum, and they had taken hundreds of such by storm. It was one of the most basic tasks given to legionary trainees.
They had marched all night, but he had given them two days of rest before beginning it. This had been risky, since they might have been reported by locals anxious to curry favor with Carthage, and it gave Hamilcar more time to link up with Mastanabal's army, but he had deemed the risk acceptable.
No doubt about it, he thought, his planning and execution had been without flaw and without peer. The name of Titus Norbanus would live forever. And this was only the beginning.
First, though, to reduce this fortification and exterminate this army that had the impudence to exist upon what was, by right and the will of the gods, Roman territory. His battle plan was fully formulated and was even now being implemented. It was unique and, of course, it was risky. But a man proved his greatness only by pressing his luck relentlessly.
And, did the Carthaginian but know it, this was just one part of a two-part battle. The other phase was even now being fought. It galled Norbanus that he could not be in control of that battle as well.
Decimus Arrunteius, duumvir of the fleet already called the Norbanian, paced the long deck of his flagship, Avenging Mars. The deck itself was a new innovation. The traditional warship had a mere catwalk stretching its length between the benches of the upper banks of rowers. Romans liked room for soldiers to maneuver, so they had raised the catwalk above the rowers' heads and widened it into a true deck. The Greek shipwrights had protested that this would destroy the ships' stability and make them prone to capsizing. The Romans' answer had been swift and impatient: Build the ships wider. The Greeks had said that this would make the ships slow and unwieldy. The Romans answered that men were cheap: Add more rowers.
The result Arrunteius surveyed all around him: a fleet of ships larger and more powerful than the traditional Greek trireme that had been supreme on the Middle Sea for centuries. The ships might not be quite as quick or maneuverable as the Greek ships, but he had confidence that their superior qualities would more than make up for this.
And confidence was needed. He knew that a Carthaginian fleet lay ahead of him, not far away. That nation had reigned supreme on the sea since the expulsion of Rome from Italy. The Carthaginians and their many seagoing allies were long experienced and tested in sailing, in rowing, and in battle upon the waters. The Romans were none of these things. But once before Rome had bested Carthage at sea, and they counted on Carthaginian arrogance, that Carthage would have forgotten the lessons learned at such cost.
Arrunteius walked forward and mounted the "castle," a strong tower erected near the prow of Avenging Mars. Similar towers adorned the foredecks of the larger warships. Behind each tower stood a long bridge, one end hinged to a circular pivot on the deck, the other featuring a three-foot spike of iron. In battle it would be swung outboard and dropped so that the spike sank into an enemy deck; forming a boarding bridge for the marines manning every Roman ship. It was called a corvus: "crow."
In addition, every ship was built atop an extra-massive keel, its fore end tipped with a heavy ram of cast bronze.
The Romans had little confidence in their ability to maneuver in action and to ram, but they wanted both to be decisive when accomplished.
In all, the new, Italian-built fleet had nothing like the wildly imaginative innovations of the Alexandrian fleet, but its improvements had been well thought out, and some, like the tower and the corvus, had proven successful nearly two centuries before, in the first war against Carthage.
About the men, Arninteius was not so certain. The sailors were mainly Greek, each with an Italian understudy learning the craft. The rowers were Italians, working their way into Roman favor in the most arduous way imaginable. They had mastered the skills of the oar and now took pride in their work. They had formed their own guild with its special gods, rituals and sacrifices. Their loyalty they would prove in action.