‘How far south did the expedition go?’ Ennius asked.
Gulussa pointed at the base of the plaque, where the last line of text ended abruptly. ‘It is said that the rulers of Carthage ordered the lower part removed because they were fearful of giving away Carthaginian secrets to foreigners who might read this,’ he replied. ‘But my father was told by a priest that Hanno circumnavigated Africa, and came back through the Erythraean Sea to Egypt.’
Ennius looked at Polybius. ‘When I was in Alexandria learning about Greek fire I spoke to a ship’s captain who had sailed beyond the Erythraean Sea to the east and claimed to have seen mountains of fire emerging from the sea on the horizon, at the very edge of the world.’
‘If the world is a sphere, then there can be no edge,’ Polybius said patiently.
Ennius stood up, his hands on his hips. ‘How do you know it’s a sphere?’
‘If you had been attentive in Alexandria, you would have visited the school of Eratosthenes of Cyrene and learned how he had determined the circumference of the earth by observing the difference in the sun’s angle from the zenith on the day of the summer solstice at Alexandria and at Syene in upper Egypt, a known distance away.’ Polybius picked up a splinter of wood and used it to sketch a rough image in the dust. ‘This is Eratosthenes’ map of the world. You can see the Mediterranean Sea in the centre, surrounded by Europe and Africa and Asia, and the thin band of Ocean surrounding that. But the edge of the map isn’t the edge of the world. It’s the edge of our knowledge. What lies beyond that is open to exploration.’
‘And conquest,’ Ennius said.
Scipio put his sandalled foot on the line representing the coast of North Africa, and then on Greece. ‘We are here, in Carthage, and Metellus is there, in Corinth,’ he murmured. ‘The world is divided between us.’
Gulussa pointed at the map. ‘If Hanno the Carthaginian went south along the coast of Africa, surely others have gone through the Pillars of Hercules to the north?’
‘Timaeus writes of it,’ Ennius said. ‘And Pytheas the Greek navigator in Massalia is said to have gone to the northern tip of the Cassiterides, the Tin Islands, to a place called Ultima Thule. If the Carthaginians had found those routes, they would have kept them secret too.’
Polybius curled his lip in disdain. ‘Timaeus claims to be the pre-eminent historian of the west, but he never leaves the comfort of his library in Alexandria. When I decided to write my history of the war against Hannibal, did I not speak only to those who had seen the war with their own eyes? And did I not trace the route of Hannibal with my own two feet, marching from Spain through the Alps in the path of his elephants?’
‘And did you not muck out Hannibal’s last elephant with your own hands, when we were young warriors in the academy at Rome?’ Gulussa said with gentle mockery. He gestured at the leathery back of the beast tethered on the other side of the harbour. ‘And do I not smell that very ordure here with us now?
Polybius cast him a withering glance. ‘I write history that I see with my own eyes. I am neither a mythographer like Herodotus, nor a writer of fables like Timaeus. My history is not for entertainment. It is to teach us better tactics and strategy. It is to guide our course of action in the future.’
Fabius put his centurion’s staff on the map above Europe, and spoke quietly. ‘The Cassiterides exist; my wife’s people call it Pritani, land of the painted people, and others call it Albion. She was the daughter of a Gallic chieftain who shipped wine there from Massalia, exchanging it for slaves and tin.’
Polybius eyed Fabius shrewdly, nodding, and then he turned to Scipio. ‘It is not to the east that we should be looking, but to the west. And it is not tin or slaves that interest me, but strategy.’ He put his pointer on the map beside Fabius’ staff. ‘We should be seeking a route for our transport ships to sail around Iberia and land our legions in Gaul, to sweep south over the expanse of land occupied by the Celtic tribes. We have already fought them, and know them as formidable enemies. During my travels across the Alps I learned of fearsome tribes to the north of the mountains, in the forest lands of the upper rivers. If we do not conquer these tribes, they will grow ever stronger and in years to come will sweep down on Rome itself, as the Celts of northern Italy did two centuries ago. Once we control the west and vanquish these tribes, then the world is truly open to us.’
Scipio put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘When we have laid waste to Carthage, I will provide you with a ship to sail west through the Pillars of Hercules to find these fabled isles and a northern sea route to Gaul.’
‘I should like that above all things,’ Polybius said fervently.
‘But now is not the time for future strategy. Now is the time for war.’ Scipio looked piercingly at Ennius. ‘Do you remember what I told you, when I allowed you to create this special cohort of fabri?’
Ennius grasped the head of the war hammer with one hand. ‘You said I must be a soldier first, an engineer second. My armour lies to hand, ready to put on when the work on the wall is done. And once the ballistas have unleashed hell, I will lead my cohort of fabri through the breach in the wall on the north side. We will fight through the streets and destroy the enemy. We will win more crowns and wreaths and bear more battle scars than any other unit in the army. My hammer and my sword will be steeped in Carthaginian blood.’
‘Good.’ Scipio slapped him on the upper arm. ‘Now, to the preparations for war.’
21
Just as they were turning to go, a huge commotion erupted from the entrance to the circular harbour, and to Fabius’ astonishment a small galley came powering through, its oarsmen pulling furiously. Behind it he could just make out a dark opening on the far side of the harbour that had evidently housed the galley, just within the Carthaginian defensive curtain. As the galley crashed through into the rectangular harbour, followed by legionaries shouting and hurling missiles at it from shore, his astonishment doubled. It was the same lembos that he and Scipio had seen three years earlier, recognizable by the distinctive rake of the bow. The crew of some twenty oarsmen were bent double to avoid the missiles and he could make out half a dozen men in the stern, cowering under shields. There would be no time to chain off the entrance to the harbour; nobody had expected a hidden shipshed, let alone a fully prepared and manned warship. Fabius ran up to the quay at the harbour entrance for a better view, and managed to catch a glimpse before the lembos swept round the corner and into the bay, powering past the anchored warships and heading for the open sea. It had only been a few seconds, but it had been enough for him to be certain. The crew was Roman.
He turned and hurried back to tell Scipio. A centurion came running up from the circular harbour, followed by two legionaries, pushing a man ahead of them whose hands had been tied behind his back. The centurion saluted, caught his breath and gestured back. ‘This man’s a Thracian mercenary, and he’s deserted to us because he says he’s got information for Scipio Aemilianus.’
Fabius glanced the man over, checking that he had been disarmed. ‘He can tell me.’
The centurion shook his head. ‘Only the general. It’s about that lembos.’