Hannibal's Children Read Free Page A

be?" Fabius asked.
    "National exile," said Hannibal. For a moment the Romans lost their fabled gravitas, shuffling and looking at one another in wonderment. This was totally unexpected.
    "Explain," Fabius said.
    "When the Great Kings of Persia were displeased with a subject state, they could banish the whole nation to someplace in the vast interior of the Empire, where they could dwell in obscurity and cause no more distress. This is what I offer you."
    "Leave Rome!" Scipio said, aghast. "Never!"
    "I believe I was talking to your Dictator," Hannibal chided.
    "This is unprecedented," Fabius said.
    "Perhaps it is here," said Hannibal. "But I make you this offer and for the last time. Take what you can transport, pack up your household gods, and leave Italy. Go to the northeast, beyond the alps into the place you call Noricum. Do not trouble the Gauls, they are my allies now. Find for yourselves a new home in the north and never bother Carthage again. These are my terms. If you do not accept them, I will annihilate those boys and old men in arms over there"—he jabbed a finger toward the last Roman army—"and then I will exterminate all that lives in that city. I will pull down its walls and demolish its buildings and heap earth over it, and on top of the grave of Rome I will erect an altar to Tank."
    For a while the Romans were silent. Then Fabius spoke. "I must consult with the Senate and the people."
    "I thought you were Dictator," said Philip. "You speak for them all."
    "Nonetheless, I will consult with them."
    Hannibal glanced at the angle of the sun. "You have until sunset. If you have not answered by then, get a good night's sleep, for we commence battle in the morning and every one of you shall die. The very names of your houses will be forgotten. Now leave me."
    Without further words the Romans left the platform. At its base they collected their arms and their horses and they rode back toward their lines.
    "This is absurd!" Scipio cried. "Surely you don't propose to lay these terms before the Senate?"
    Quintus Caecilius Metellus pointed toward the Roman army. "Look at them! In four or five years, the boys will make passable legionaries. The last credible Roman army died at Cannae. These are just fodder for Hannibal's veterans and hirelings. You don't eat seed corn, Scipio."
    Scipio began to draw his sword but Fabius barked, "Enough! This is not for you to decide. Keep quiet and pretend that the Romans are still a unified people. If Hannibal finds out otherwise, we are truly lost."
    There was no illusion of Roman unity in the Senate that afternoon. Because of the emergency they met in the war headquarters instead of the Curia.
    "The time to fight is now, this very hour!" shouted Minucius. "The men are ready for battle! Make them wait another day and they will lose their edge. Their nerves will begin to assail them."
    "That is exactly why we must not fight," Fabius asserted. "What stands between Hannibal and Rome is the seed of an army. Given time, we can raise and train new legions. But if we lose one more battle, there will be no more legions, no more Rome."
    He gazed around him at the sadly depleted ranks of the Senate. They provided much of the officer class of the legions. Senators served not only as generals and tribunes, but as centurions and decurions, and there was no disgrace in a man serving as a common soldier in the years before his elevation to the Senate. More than half of the senators who had sat in this august assembly at the start of the present war were now dead on the field of battle. Almost all of the older men had lost sons and grandsons.
    An elderly senator stood, trembling with wrath. "We cannot give up our lands, our estates! The land belongs to our ancestors and our descendants!"
    The rest murmured agreement. Fabius had known that this was the argument that would weigh the heaviest. The Senate, both its patrician and plebeian members, were the landed gentry of Rome. For them, losing land was