Scipio nodded. ‘Metals that are in short supply in Africa and are needed so they can make their own armour and weapons.’
‘But there’s more to it than that,’ the kybernetes said quietly, looking around again to make sure that nobody else was listening. ‘There’s a dark side that you won’t like. It’s an open secret that many Roman senators of the old gentes, men who profess to despise trade and only invest in land, have made enormous profits through allowing middlemen to take wine off their estates and export it to Gaul. But there are other senators, novi homines, new men, those with no landed wealth, who are not above dirtying their own hands with trade.’
‘I know it,’ Scipio said grimly. ‘I served under one in Spain, Lucullus. He made his fortune after the Spanish triumph by using the prize money voted to him by his cronies in the Senate to buy up large stocks of excess grain from Sicily at a rock-bottom price, and then to sell it at an extortionate premium the next year to the same people when there was a drought. He has used it to buy land, but the gentes will not forget how he made his fortune.’
‘Rumour has it that a group of these men banded together and bought the vessel you see here today, along with her cargo, in a secret deal very profitable to the owner, and that they have done the same with several other shiploads of Italian wine. Rumour also has it that these same senators are the ones who are so strongly opposed to further military action against Carthage, as well as in Greece.’
‘Jupiter above,’ Scipio murmured. ‘This goes to the heart of our problem in persuading Rome to go to war. Now I see what Cato and Polybius are up against.’
I have another question,’ Fabius said. ‘With all that Italian wine being offloaded here, what are the Carthaginians going to do with it? They’re hardly going to drink it themselves, or sell it back to the Greeks. Better to dump it in the sea.’
The kybernetes raised his eyes. ‘Phoenicians? Throw away a trade commodity? Not likely. That wine is part of another scheme, of even greater profitability. Beside the inner harbour, away from prying eyes, they have begun to build huge warehouses, large enough to house a ship as big as that amphora carrier on the quay. Soon these warehouses will fill up not with amphorae of wine but with something even more precious: sacks of an exotic spice called pipperia. It comes from India, and will be shipped across the Erythraean Sea to the shore of Egypt, and then transported across the desert to the Nile and Alexandria and to Carthage. The first Greeks to reach the shores of southern India found that the local spice merchants loved their wine, and wanted more; even rough Italian wine is like nectar to them. That’s where all of those amphorae are destined.’
‘But to transport tens of thousands of heavy amphorae across the Egyptian desert would be an expensive undertaking,’ Scipio said. ‘I’ve been there, and the cost would be prohibitive.’
‘The Carthaginians are prepared to do so, underwriting the transport cost with the profits from the trade with Gaul. They intend to send only enough to seed the trade, to bring back shiploads of pipperia and other spices and luxuries of the east, enough to fire up demand among the wealthy in Rome itself: among the wives of those whose greed they had exploited to set up the trade in the first place, the senators whose ship you see on the quayside now. But then the Carthaginians will move from exporting wine to another commodity that the Indians love, something transported much more easily with profit margins far higher. I mean gold: gold coin, gold bullion, gold specie, gold in any form. The Carthaginians will channel the gold of the Mediterranean to the east, emptying the wealth of nations to create in their own city the richest nation-state the world has ever seen, here where we stand now.’
‘How do they get the gold?’ Fabius asked. ‘Another ingenious trading scheme?’
The kybernetes did not reply, but raised his eyes at Scipio, who turned to Fabius, his expression hard. ‘It will come from another source. This time old Phoenician guile takes a back seat, and new Carthaginian strength will be to the fore.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean war. War not of defence, but of conquest. War against Rome, and war in the east. Wars that may even see Carthage allied with those Romans who, it seems, have already thrown in their lot with her.’
Fabius felt a cold shiver down his spine. They were no longer talking about extinguishing an ancient foe, about finishing business and satisfying honour, about Scipio’s own destiny. They were talking about a war that could change everything, a war that could escalate to swallow up the entire known world, from the shore of the Erythraean Sea to the furthest reaches of Gaul and the Albion Isles. The reason for Scipio’s presence here now to gather intelligence suddenly seemed so important that it made him feel faint, as if he were standing at one of the pivotal points of history. The stakes could not be higher.
The kybernetes eyed Scipio. ‘Perhaps you have now seen all that you need to see. Even Polybius knows little of this, as my knowledge of these plans came since I last saw him in person, and I could not trust others to tell him. But now you have seen enough with your own eyes to trust that what I say is true.’
Scipio paused for a moment, his eyes narrowed, and then shook his head. ‘You have told us of the strategic threat. But we came here also to evaluate the tactical challenge of an assault on Carthage. I need to see the soldiers, their equipment, the fortifications, the new war harbour. Without that intelligence, we will be severely hampered. And I cannot yet use the strategic threat as an argument in Rome. If what you say is true, there are too many in the Senate implicated against us, names that I can guess, and to suggest in public that they are treacherous to Rome without clear evidence of Carthaginian military build-up would destroy my case and probably my life. It’s the detailed evidence for war preparation that will win the day. After that, I will ponder what you have told me and decide how that will shape my own strategy after the army I lead here is victorious, if they give me the consulship.’
The kybernetes waved at someone, and they could see that the messenger they had sent with their seal was returning from the customs house. ‘Good,’ the captain said. ‘There are no guards returning with him, so we will be let through.’ He turned to Scipio, and spoke intensely. ‘I’m glad you’re confident. But I’ll speak my mind. From what I’ve seen of the Roman forces so far here in Africa, those helping Masinissa’s army, I’m not so sure. You’ve got a lot of work to do, Scipio Aemilianus. Perhaps the name of your father and of the great Scipio Africanus will carry the weight of history forward. Meanwhile, remember that for today you are a mere merchant, and you must play your part with caution. You must be on the alert.’
15
The guards at the entrance from the outer harbour through the city wall were typically Carthaginian in appearance: dark-skinned, swarthy men with curly black hair and beards, the descendants of Phoenician forefathers who had left their homeland in the east Mediterranean centuries before to escape the turmoil that followed the Trojan War, founding Carthage not much before the Trojan prince Aeneas had first alighted on the coast of Italy and set eyes on the site of Rome some six hundred years ago. The two guards closest to Fabius carried long thrusting spears with butt tips of bronze so they would not rust when rammed into damp ground, as well as curved Greek-style kopis slashing swords: fearsome-looking weapons with the edged blade on the inside, yet less effective in a close-quarter melee than the straight-bladed Roman thrusting sword. Instead of metal armour they wore the distinctive Carthaginian hardened linen corselet, not thick enough to deflect a determined thrust yet with a white exterior and lighter weight that made it better suited to the African sun than Roman metal armour.