Hannibal: Enemy of Rome

They made their way past rank-smelling Balearic slingers clad in animal skins and slender, dark-skinned Numidians with oiled ringlets in their hair. Burly scutarii and caetrati in sinew helmets and crimson-edged tunics stood with their arms folded. Alongside was Alete with twenty of his Libyan spearmen. Groups of bare-chested Gauls, their necks and arms decorated with torcs of gold, eyed the others present with supercilious stares.

Before the gathered soldiers stood a strongly built low wooden platform, and upon it a makeshift altar of stone slabs had been erected. In front stood fifty of Hannibal’s bodyguards. A ramp led from the foot of the dais to the top, and beside it, a large black bull had been tethered. Six robed priests waited with the beast, which was snorting with unease. As Malchus led them to a position within a dozen steps of the soothsayers, Bostar shivered. In their gnarled hands – through the divination to come – lay the power to raise the army’s morale, or to send it into the depths. Gazing at the nearby soldiers, Bostar saw the same concern twisting their faces that he was experiencing. There was little conversation; indeed an air of apprehension hung over the entire gathering. Bostar glanced at Sapho, whom he could read like a book. His brother was feeling the same way, or worse. Bostar sighed. Despite the ease of the last few days, the mountains’ physical immensity had cast a shadow over men’s hearts. There was only one person who could cast out that gloom, he thought. Hannibal.

The man himself bounded into view a moment later, ascending the ramp as if he were on the last lap of a foot race. A loud cheer met his arrival. Hannibal’s bronze helmet and breastplate had been polished until they shone as if lit from within. In his right hand his falcata sword glinted dangerously; in his left, he carried a magnificent shield emblazoned with the image of a prowling male lion. Without a word, Hannibal strode to the edge of the platform and lifted his arm so everyone could see his blade. He let the troops focus on it before he pointed it to his rear.

‘After so long, there they are! The Alps,’ Hannibal cried. ‘We have halted at our enemies’ very gates to prepare for our ascent. I can see by your faces that you are worried. Scared. Even exhausted.’ The general’s eyes moved from soldier to soldier, daring them to hold his gaze. None could. ‘Yet after the brutal campaign in Iberia, and the crossing of the Rhone, what are the Alps?’ he challenged. ‘Can they be anything worse than high mountains?’ He paused, glancing around questioningly as his words were translated. ‘Well?’

Bostar felt worried. Despite the truth in Hannibal’s words, few men looked convinced.

‘No, sir,’ Malchus answered loudly. ‘Great heaps of rock and ice is all they are.’

Hannibal’s lips tightened in satisfaction. ‘That’s right! They can be climbed, by those with the strength and heart to do so. It’s not as if we will be the first to cross them either. The Gauls who conquered Rome passed by this same way, did they not?’

Again the delay as the interpreters did their work. Finally, there was a mutter of accord.

‘Yet you despair of even being able to get near that city? I tell you, the Gauls brought their women and children through these mountains! As soldiers carrying nothing but our weapons, can we not do the same?’ Hannibal raised his sword again, threateningly this time. ‘Either confess that you have less courage than the Romans, who we have defeated on many occasions in the past, or steel your hearts and march forward with me, to the plain which stands between the River Tiber and Rome! There we will find greater riches than any of you can imagine. There will be slaves and booty and glory for all!’

Malchus waited as the general’s words were translated into Gaulish, Iberian and Numidian, but as a rumble of agreement began to sweep through the assembled troops, he raised a fist into the air. ‘Hannibal!’ he roared. ‘Hannibal!’

Quickly, Bostar joined in. He noted that Sapho was slow to do the same.

Shamed by their general’s words, the soldiers bellowed a rippling wave of approval. The Gauls chanted in deep voices, the Libyans sang and the Numidians made shrill ululating sounds. The cacophony rose into the crisp air, bouncing off the imposing walls of rock before the gathering and thence up into the empty sky. The startled bull jerked futilely at the rope tethering its head. No one paid it any heed. Everyone’s gaze was locked on Hannibal.

‘Last night, I had a dream,’ he cried.

The cheering quickly died away, and was replaced by an expectant hush.