CARTHAGO VICTOR

A Story by David Andrews
PROLOGUE The year was 208 BCE, the place, Baecula, in the upper Baetis valley in the Roman province of Hispania. The forces of Carthage, under the command of Hasdrubal, were en route to Italia, in the hopes of reinforcing the embattled Hannibal, brother to Hasdrubal himself. However, Rome’s generals had other plans for Hasdrubal.

Publius Cornelius Scipio, who, in our history, would later be cognomened ‘Africanus’ by the Roman Senate, sprung a trap upon the unsuspecting Carthaginians. Bad timing, miscommunication, and the unfortunate slaying of Publius Cornelius Scipio in battle, all lead to a massive Roman defeat. Hasdrubal, now with no opponent in Spain, turned back, and by the end of the campaigning season had reclaimed much of the province.

In the spring of 207 BCE, Hasdrubal left Spain with 20,000 men, cavalry and war elephants. He marched through Gallia Narbonensis, inciting native Gauls there to rebel against Roman domination, and eventually came to Italia. There, his brother Hannibal had fought and defeated a dozen Roman armies, but not without taking losses. Roman domination of the seas meant that the only possible reinforcements would have to come along the same route as Hasdrubal.

However, that would not soon be a problem any longer. In the fall of that same year, Rome mobilized all the forces that it could and dispatched them under the leadership of one Marcus Valerius Laevinus, who had been successful in almost every battle he had fought up until that fateful day. On the Ides of Sextilis, modern August 15th, the two forces clashed some 10 miles south of Rome, near the port city of Ostia.

The battle waged for four epic days. The Romans flanked the Carthaginians; the Carthaginians broke the Roman lines, back and forth, until finally it seemed that the entire world, the entire universe, had become war, death and destruction.

However, it was quite clear by the end of the second day who would win, and who would lose the beginnings of an empire. In the afternoon of the second day, a charge of war elephants crashed into the personal guard of Marcus Valerius Laevinus, and in the midst of the heated exchange of blows, the most celebrated general of Rome died.

By the summer of 206 BCE, Rome itself was under siege, and all the ships at sea meant nothing. A peace was negotiated, crippling Rome and the lands that it had previously held under its sway.

Of its provinces, Sicilia, Sardinia, and Corsica would once again fall under Carthaginian rule, as would Spain and southern Italia. Gallia Narbonensis was ostensibly restored to the natives, which were in fact ruled by Carthaginian puppet chieftains. Of Italia itself, Etruria was restored it’s former lands in northern Italia, while the individual clans of central and south central Italy would be given back their independence, but in fact be run much like the puppet kingdoms of Gallia Narbonensis.

Rome was left a shattered ruin of itself. It was prohibited for Rome to build up its armies past three legions, and these were only to be held for self defense. Nearly the entire Roman fleet was ceded to the Carthaginians, and with this power, Carthage expanded. Soon it had conquered and consolidated all of North Africa, and by 184 BCE, it had conquered Aegyptus as well. In 179 BCE, Rome was baited into a war against the Etrurians, age-old rivals from the north of Italia. As a result of this war, Rome reclaimed the lands of Etruria and the Sabines. Carthage turned a blind eye, since it was involved in a dispute with several roving bands of pirates.

In 163 BCE, Rome had reclaimed the lands of Picenum through the intermarriage of the clans. By the year 127 BCE, Rome had reclaimed all of northern Italy. However, Carthage had not stopped expanding – it had conquered Achaea, Syria, Palestina, and Crete. Rome soon lapsed into an inglorious era of ignoble leaders and cowardly generals, an era that was too last nearly a hundred years.

The current year is 18 BCE. New leadership has sprung up, with has raised an interesting question: should Rome continue on in her halted attempts at expansion, reclaim what is rightfully hers, and become the queen of the Mare Internum once again? Or should it continue on the road to becoming a footnote in the history of the western world?...

(NOTE: This is the prologue to a story I began writing back in December of '03. This is not by any definition the ONLY way Carthage could have won, but I like it ;D)

LVF

© David Andrews 2003, 2004

Its almost time for grad school. My professor is not sounding too hopeful. It would appear my CV is not all that impressive. Its not that Im dumb or get bad grades, its more that I dont have scholarships or extracurriculars. Not from any lack of motivation. My school simply isnt the place for history or the classics. Hence, nothing extracurricular for me to do. I ended up drinking and despairing of my fate. If I get a Bachelors in history from a school that cannot get me into a proper classical history program, what am I going to do? Start all over, thats what. Hence I needed a drink. The problem is mostly requisites at the grad school, they want lots of languages and my school only offers latin and greek for one year each. They want FOUR minimum. Hence the dilemma. And all my writing samples are from across the entire spectrum of history. How can I submit to a Classics department an article I wrote on Oglethorpe and Florida? Enough to make me cry...Ill stop embarassing myself now.

http://cicero.humnet.
ucla.edu/speech.htm

PFC Lynndie England of the U.S. Army is sentenced to three years in prison for her role in torture and prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison.

I think she deserved this. It is not what America stands for: torturing prisoners.

I dont deny we do, overseas, and perhaps here (unbeknownst to us). But, the fact is, if you're stupid enough to get caught, you must be punished. Perhaps it is only a form, but still.

I fear Im becoming a blogger. Who wants my opinion?

I was online last night and this morning ordering books from Amazon. It dawned on me that my library is lacking in primary sources! Tacitus, Livy, Suetonius, Plutarch. Even though these are really secondaries, you know what I mean. I have plenty of Cicero and Caesar, tons of post-classical commentaries. You know: Gibbon and up; actually, maybe earlier, if you count Machiavelli's Discourses. So, anyway, I am now on a quest to get back to basics, as it were. Ive read lots of Grant, Syme et al, time to go primary. I remember reading Suetonius and feeling like a gossip queen. Bleh...I think, perhaps, I was young when I read it, so maybe he turned me off of reading the ancients besides for reference. I must, though, for my own good. Though, i did read Sallust's Jugurthine War (skipped the Catilinarian Conspiracy because school started) and found it enjoyable. Awfully high morals considering the mans track record.

Anyway, some of the title Ive culled thus far for pennies (used), you gotta love Amazon!! ::



Rome and the Mediterranean : Books XXXI-XLV of the History of Rome from its... Livy

The Twelve Caesars (Penguin Classics) [Paperback] by Suetonius; Grant, Michael (trans)

Histories, The [Paperback] by Tacitus; Wellesley, Kenneth

The Early History of Rome : Books I-V of the History of Rome from its... Livy

Makers of Rome: Nine Lives by Plutarch (Penguin Classics)

So, I should have my hands full for a while...

Many of them were published in the 60s, I hope they dont fall apart on me. But that would be what I get for being so cheap!! LOL I also bought a compilation of Roman Literature....good stuff all.

These have written alternate scenarios for the "What If" series by Putnam. #1 Lewis Lapham; Barry Strauss; Cecelia Holland et al (These are ones of HIGH interest). #2 Victor Hanson; Josiah Ober; Carlos M. N. Eire; Holland (again [mediaeval historian, I think]); Geoffrey Parker; Williamson Murray et al. Pretty much all of these look interesting, but these are the ones I will look up online if I can, to avoid buying/checking out the book.

Caesar sat with his head bent over an unfurled scroll, lost to the world. Within ten feet of the dais the group came to a confused halt; it didn't seem proper that Caesar failed to notice his assassins.

Fingers suddenly clumsy, Decimus felt for his dagger, withdrew it, held it hidden by his side. He could sense the others doing the same, saw Brutus scuttle up the chamber out of the corner of his eye-he'd found the courage after all.

Lucius Tillius Cimber walked up the lictor's step seats at the side of the dais, his dagger on naked display. "wait, you impatient cretin, wait!" Caesar barked irritably, his head still down, steel stylus still gouging at the wax. Gaius Servilius Casca, pushing up on Cimber's left got in first, driving down from behind at Caesar's throat. The blow glanced off the collarbone, inflicted a superficial wound at the top of the chest. Caesar was on his feet so quickly that the movement was a blur, striking out instinctively with his steel stylus. It plunged into Gaius Casca's arm as the rest of the Liberators, emboldened, pressed forward with daggers raised.

Though he fought strenuously, Caesar neither cried out nor spoke. The table went flying, scrolls raining everywhere, the ivory chair followed, and spattering drops of blood. Retreating backward, he encountered Pompey's plinth just as Cassius pushed to the fore, sank his blade into Caesar's face, screwed it around, rendering that beauty nonexistent. A furore descended as the Liberators crowded in, daggers rising and falling, blood spurting now. Suddenly Caesar ceased to struggle, accepting the inevitable; that unique mind directed its flagging energies to dying with dignity unimpaired. His left hand came up to pull a fold of toga over his face and hide it.

Caecilius Buciolanus stabbed him in the back, Caesennius Lento in the shoulder. Bleeding terribly, Caesar still stood as the flurry of blows continued. Second-last and cool warrior that he was, Decimus Brutus put everything he had into the first of his two stabs, deep into the left side of Caesar's chest. As the dagger went home to his heart, Caesar collapsed in a heap, Decimus following him down to deal his second blow, for Trebonius. And Brutus, the last to strike, blinded by sweat, palsied by fear, knelt to jab the knife at the genitals his mother had so adored. He heard the metal grind and crunch on bone, retched, and scrambled to his feet.

The deed was done. All twenty-two men had wounded Caesar somewhere, Decimus Brutus twice. Caesar lay beneath Pompey's statue, the creamish-white toga sliced to ribbons around his chest and back, soaking up the brilliantly red blood spreading over the white marble of the platform until it seemed there couldn't possible be more blood to come, there was so much of it everywhere. Everywhere. Some skipped to avoid it, but Decimus didn't notice until it flowed around his shoes and percolated inside; he whimpered, sure it burned him.

Sobbing for breath, the Liberators stared at one another, eyes wild. As if by instantaneous yet unvoiced consent, they turned and ran for the doors, Decimus as panicked as the rest. The pedarii who had witnessed the deed were already outside, screaming that he was dead, Caesar was dead! The panic became universal as the Liberators emerged into the garden, togas bloody, knives still in their sticky fists.

Men fled in all directions save into the Curia Pompeia; senators, lictors and slaves took to their heels, howling that Caesar was dead, Caesar was dead, Caesar was dead!

All their grand plans for speeches and thundering oratory forgotten, the Liberators fled too. Only after the deed was done did any of them, even Decimus Brutus, truly understand its meaning. The titan had fallen, the world was so changed that no Republic could ever spring fully armed from its brow. The death of Caesar was a liberation, but what it had liberated was chaos.

By sheer instinct the Liberators ran for asylum to the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, legs driving like mill shafts across the grass of the Campus Martius, up the back steps of the Capitol on to Romulus's original Asylum, then up the final slope and all those steps to the temple. There, inside, groaning for breath, knees given way, the twenty-two men fell to the floor. Above them reared fifty feet of the Great God in gold and ivory splendor, his bright red terra-cotta face smiling that asinine, shut-mouthed, ear-to-ear smile.

***

Inside was absolute silence. Unable to look down at what lay at its feet, the statue of Pompey gazed up the chamber at the open doors, its pupils already pinpoints against the blinding glare because the artist had wanted an overwhelming blueness. Caesar huddled partly on his right side, his face veiled by a fold of toga, the flow of blood finally come to a halt forming a tiny cascade over one side of the dais. Sometimes a small bird flew in, fluttered vainly around the honeycombed rosesof the ceiling until the light drew it out again into freedom. The hours dripped on, but no man or woman ventured inside. Caesar and Pompey did not move.
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I need this translated into Latin.