‘I wonder why,’ Ennius said, eyeing Scipio. ‘Let me guess. A large city on the southern Mediterranean shore, with enclosed harbours and a high acropolis housing a temple to Ba’al Hammon, and a place where they sacrifice children. Rome’s greatest enemy, still unvanquished.’
‘It’s all I can think about. It’s my destiny.’
‘Well, Intercatia is not Carthage, and you have only five hundred men here, two thirds of them fabri.’
‘Fabri are legionaries too.’
‘Of course. The best.’
‘Then they shall form the assault force, and the century I brought with me from Cauca will be held in reserve.’
‘That’s wise. I‘ve learned in my three years in Spain that a general should always use the men he has deployed as his besieging force to carry out the final assault. To use fresh troops would be to provoke discontent among those who have spent weeks and months before the walls, and would be to throw away the knowledge they have gleaned of the ways of the enemy, of his weaknesses. Even legionaries who seem worn down will find renewed energy with the end in sight and fight more savagely than fresh troops.’
‘Then those who were first on the walls with me last week will form the front line of the force I will use to enter the oppidum.’
‘And there’s something else that we didn’t learn in the academy. A besieging commander must not let his own troops or the enemy think that he’s backed off because of cowardice, or lack of aggression. Your plan for the siege of Numantia is sound because it shows resolve and effort, that you are in for the long haul and intend to see it through to the end. A weaker commander who intends only to put on a show of force might leave the river undefended, relying on its flow as a natural boundary, or place lines of picquets where you would dig ditches and build a vallum. You might convince some in Rome that you had tried your utmost against an unassailable enemy, but your soldiers would think less of you for it and so would the enemy. They might think that you don’t have the guts for an assault, or that you think your soldiers don’t. If your soldiers believe that you have no faith in them, you will never lead them to victory.’
Scipio cracked a smile. ‘But what you really like about my plan is that it involves a great deal of ingenious engineering work for you and your fabri.’
‘Even that has another advantage. It keeps the men occupied. It’s what they’ve been trained to do, not sitting around all day waiting for an enemy. They like nothing more than to see fortifications spring up around them, and it cows the enemy.’
Fabius peered at the breach in the walls a hundred yards up the slope from them, watching the sentries in the rubble who were guarding for any signs of enemy activity. He remembered the old centurion in Rome growl at the boys, taming their enthusiasm for joining battle at the earliest opportunity. Do not fight desperate men, he had said. Let them wear themselves out by starvation and thirst. Only take a besieged city once you are certain of victory.
Scipio looked at Ennius. ‘Do you remember once when we were taken to see the lions, and what the head of the Gladiator School told us about preparing wild animals for the games?’
Ennius nodded. ‘He said that an experienced gladiator should refuse to do battle with beasts until he knows they have been reduced by hunger, that invincible enemy.’
‘He said that hunger enrages the beast, but also weakens it,’ Scipio said. ‘A lion who is hungry puts on a greater spectacle, but is easier to kill. He said you must choose the best time for the spectacle, when the beast is enraged by hunger but still strong enough to put up a fight, yet with its guard down and hunger leaving it vulnerable to your death blow.’
‘But war is not a gladiatorial contest,’ Fabius said.
‘Don’t be too sure of it,’ Ennius replied. ‘You have yet to campaign against this enemy for as long as I have. You cannot choose between starving a city out and storming it, one or the other. You must satisfy your own men, who will expect a bloody finale, and also the honour of an enemy, who will only allow themselves to be vanquished once they have been defeated in battle. Only then will they submit.’
‘We will let hunger do its worst, and then offer terms,’ Scipio said.
‘The Intercatians will only submit when they can no longer fight. They will eat boiled hides, and their own clothing. Their wives and children are watching them, and will expect them to fight to the death in front of their own eyes. Those who survive will ask for death rather than submit to slavery.’
‘Then they would have their wish,’ Scipio said.
Ennius pointed to the diorama. ‘So, to the final phase at Numantia. What would you do after it had capitulated?’
‘I would not make the mistake that was made at Carthage sixty years ago. I would raze Numantia to the ground. I would divide their territory equally among the surrounding oppida, to make friends for us of those who had once been enemies. For the same reason I would take the sons of the surviving warriors to Rome, not to humiliate them but to show them in my triumphal processions as the noble and worthy adversaries that they are. I would educate them as Roman officers like Gulussa and Hippolyta and put them in charge of an auxiliary Celtiberian force to fight alongside Rome as we advance north over the mountains into Gaulish territory, which is where I would go after vanquishing them. The legacy of the siege of Numantia would not be the empty triumph of a foe so beaten down that they could never rise again, but the celebration of a foe turned to fight for Rome.’
Ennius grinned at him. ‘You sound fresh out of the academy. Polybius would be proud of you. But I have served three long years against the Celtiberians, and a long campaign wears a commander down, Scipio. Noble intentions get lost in the mud and the squalor. You might be less magnanimous in defeat, less inclined to look to the future. When you see your own men suffering and dying for little gain, the desire to finish the war by whatever means possible closes down your vision of the enemy, and leaves you less merciful. And after a long siege you must accede to the wishes of your men too. A weak general might agree to allow them to plunder and massacre. A stronger general would bar them from the gates of the vanquished citadel, but be a man whom they would follow for no other reason than to draw strength from his virtue and his honour. Would you be such a general?’
Scipio picked up his leather wrist guard and buckled it on, squinting at the walls of the oppidum. ‘Well, all I can tell you is that Licinius Lucullus is most definitely not such a general. What do the centurions say, Fabius?’
Fabius helped Scipio to tie the leather thongs around the wrist guard. ‘Those who have served out here as Ennius has say that peace with the Celtiberians was hard won, and that Lucullus has only reignited the conflict in the hope of an easy victory to make it seem as if the war was won during his consulship. They say he has stoked his new legion with promises of plunder that the veterans know is not to be had among the Celtiberians, and can only lead to destruction and carnage by ill-trained legionaries seeking retribution after they find nothing to loot. The veterans respect the Celtiberians as warriors, and would rather they were our allies and comrades-in-arms. They expect much of you, Scipio. Those few who were at Pydna know of your courage in battle, but it is your name that gives them hope. A son of Aemilius Paullus and a grandson of the great Scipio Africanus can only lead them to greater glory. They look not to further campaigning in Spain, but to Africa.’
Scipio lifted the other arm, and Fabius picked up the second leather guard. ‘I have to prove myself here first. Pydna was seventeen years ago, and I am twice the age I was then. Few of the centurions here now can have been there.’