Total War Rome: Destroy Carthage Read Free Page A

Second Punic War who defeated Hannibal at the Battle of Zama in North Africa in 202 BC.
    Sextius Calvinus – Gaius Sextius Calvinus, a senator who is an enemy of Scipio; of the Calvini branch of the gens Sextii, father of a man of the same name who was consul in 124 BC.
    Terence – Publius Terentius Afer ( c. 190–159 BC ), playwright of North African origin (hence his cognomen Afer, from Afri), brought from Carthage to Rome as a slave by the senator Terentius Lucanus (hence his nomen Terentius, adopted on being given his freedom); one of Scipio’s literary circle in Rome.

PROLOGUE
    On the plain of Pydna, Macedonia, 168 BC
    Fabius Petronius Secundus picked up his legionary standard and stared out over the wide expanse of the plain towards the sea. Behind him lay the foothills where the army had camped the night before, and behind that the slopes that led up to Mount Olympus, abode of the gods. He and Scipio had made the ascent three days previously, vying with each other to be the first to the top, flushed with excitement at the prospect of their first experience of battle. From the snow-covered summit they had looked north across the wide expanse of Macedonia, once the homeland of Alexander the Great, and below them they had seen where Alexander’s successor Perseus had brought his fleet and deployed his army in readiness for a decisive confrontation with Rome. Up there, with the glare of the sun off the snow so bright that it had nearly blinded them, with the clouds racing below, they had indeed felt like gods, as if the might of Rome that had brought them so far from Italy was now unassailable, and nothing could stand in the way of further conquest.
    Back down here after a damp and sleepless night the peak of Olympus seemed a world away. Arranged in front of them was the Macedonian phalanx, more than forty thousand strong, a huge line bristling with spears that seemed to extend across the entire breadth of the plain. He could see the Thracians, their tunics black under shining breastplates, their greaves flashing on their legs and their great iron swords held flat over their right shoulders. In the centre of the phalanx were the Macedonians themselves, with gilt armour and scarlet tunics, their long sarissa spears black and shining in the sunlight, held so close together that they blocked out the view behind. Fabius glanced along their own lines: two legions in the middle, Italian and Greek allies on either side of that, and on the flanks the cavalry, with twenty-two elephants stomping and bellowing on the far right. It was a formidable force, battle-hardened after Aemilius Paullus’ long campaigns in Macedonia, with only the new draft of legionaries and junior officers yet to see action. But it was smaller than the Macedonian army, and its cavalry were far fewer. They would have a tough fight ahead.
    The night before, there had been an eclipse of the moon, an event that had excited the soothsayers who followed the army, signalling a good omen for Rome and a bad one for the enemy. Aemilius Paullus had been sensitive enough to the superstitions of his soldiery to order his standard-bearers to raise firebrands for the return of the moon, and to sacrifice eleven heifers to Hercules. But, while he had sat in his headquarters tent eating the meat from the sacrifice, the talk had not been of omens but of battle tactics and the day ahead. They had all been there, the junior tribunes who had been invited to share the meat of sacrifice on the eve of their first experience of battle: Scipio Aemilianus, Paullus’ son and Fabius’ companion and master; Ennius, a papyrus scroll with him as always, ready to jot down new ideas for siege engines and catapults; and Brutus, who had already fought wrestling matches with the best of the legionaries and was itching to lead his maniple into action. With them was Polybius, a former Greek cavalry commander who had the ear of Paullus and was close to Scipio – a