I am an old man now—my wars are long finished. My children sing to the bees and butterflies, and play around our house in Arretium. My sister Cottia grows old beside me; my wife, gods rest her soul, died of the marsh fever a few years ago. The fields have recovered from the desolation wrought by the invaders, and new debates occupy our hallowed conscript fathers in Rome. But I still recall the terrible shock that followed a series of victories, including our incredible defeat of Hasdrubal near Saguntum. Little did we know how many more years of struggle awaited us: we were confident in our manhood, welded together as warriors; our leaders, from the Scipio brothers down to our sergeants and corporals, men like Aelius and Rufus, looked after us and guided us well.

Perhaps two summers after our victory over Hasdrubal, we gathered ourselves for a new effort. The orders trickled down to us in the mess hall. Aelius sat with us, and our company centurion, whose name I never knew, told us about the upcoming offensive.

            ‘Settle down, men’, he began, as a few of us took a second helping of the evening meal and refilled their cups with wine. The rest of us sat, waiting.

            ‘Soon we will embark on the battle that will end Carthaginian power here in Spain. The Glorious Second, along with a new legion recently arrived from Italy, the Thirtieth, will push south. We will take New Carthage.’

            There was a gasp as this was announced.

            ‘Taking New Carthage from the enemy will rob them of their main base in eastern Spain. While we lay siege to the city, the Fifth, which is camped about twenty miles from Saguntum, will take all of the marines and most of our gallant Spanish allies, head west, into the hills. From there they will draw the enemy away from New Carthage. When the city is captured, we will join our forces together and bring the enemy armies to bay and crush them. Hannibal will have to leave Italy and he will fight us here, on our terms.’

            Cheers erupted in the mess hall and our centurion grinned savagely.

            ‘By Jupiter!’ Aelius screamed, and clasped his officer’s outstretched hand. Mattias punched me on the shoulder, and I jumped to my feet, cheering with the rest of my comrades.

The preparations for the offensive took longer than expected, and it was a week before we set off. Mattias, Crispus and I huddled in the chill dawn air.

            ‘Look after yourselves’, Crispus said. ‘Especially you, Marcus. Don’t go dropping your sword again. Idiot.’ He smiled warmly at me. ‘And you, Mattias, you’d better be there in New Carthage when this ends.’

            ‘I’ll save you a spot in the tavern, my friend’, Mattias said, and embraced Crispus with such strength that I swear a rib or two was cracked. I shook Crispus’ hand, clasping his shoulder for a moment, and nodded.

            ‘And don’t forget her’, Crispus said, gesturing over my shoulder before he gave us a last look, and then walked off into the mist to join his marines.

            Caelia walked slowly over to me, clad in a simple white tunic and sandals, her hair tied in a bun and tears in her eyes. She held me tight, and pinned a flower onto my uniform tunic. It was a sprig of lavender, a glorious purple with a rich and intoxicating scent.

‘You are my heart, Marcus’, she murmured, her tears wet on my neck. I struggled to contain my emotions.

‘And you are mine’, I managed after a moment. ‘I will come back, I swear it. Meet me in New Carthage, when it is safe. And then you can come back to Italy with me, and we can marry and get old on a small farm together.’

‘And have many babies’, she said, tightening her hold on me.

I smiled. ‘Many, many babies, my love.’

With some difficulty I let her go, and soon we marched out of Saguntum. The perfume of her gift filled me with sadness as we plodded south to finish the enemy.

Two weeks later, we were huddled together at the crest of a ridge in the middle of nowhere. New Carthage! We were such fools.

            ‘Did they return?’ I asked Aelius, who shook his head, looking grim.

            ‘No… not one.’

            ‘How many messengers has Gnaeus sent to his brother?’ someone else asked.

            ‘Five by my count’, Aelius replied, shaking his canteen. It was dry.  

Our optimism had shrivelled up along with the creeks and rivers that we stumbled across, desperate in our thirst. Still, Aelius carried us, sharing some of his meagre rations with one of his men, carrying another man’s ruck for a section of the march while the exhausted fellow caught a break. The sun hammered down on us mercilessly. Cicadas tormented me with their endless tunes, mocking my exhaustion. My shield became an unmanageable burden, my sword a rod so thick and heavy I could barely contemplate using it ever again. We stank, our uniform tunics stained with sweat.

The next evening, leaning on his shield, Aelius ordered us to prepare a marching camp, as was our custom. A weary grumbling went around our group, but we followed his order, and before long he was working next to us. Our company centurion came over with a small amount of dried fish.

            ‘This is the last of the rations, lads. I know you’re hungry, but in a few days I am sure we’ll make contact with the Fifth, and we’ll be back to full strength.’

            ‘Thank you, sir’, Aelius said, and, taking none of the rations for himself, distributed amongst the rest of us.

            ‘Sergeant, you must eat’, I said, giving him my ration. He hesitated, then took a tiny piece.

            ‘Thank you, Marcus’, he said, chewing on the leathery morsel. ‘But you must eat the rest of it.’

Two days later, another hilltop, the sun already over the horizon, the humidity building.

            ‘Where are the lads who went out last night?’ Mattias asked nobody in particular, wondering about the listening posts that Gnaeus was still sending out.

            One of our comrades gestured to the east, and we saw bodies being brought back into our lines, carried on shields by their mates.

            Mattias buried his head in his hands, sobbing in frustration and sorrow.

Yet another day, the sun hammering us as we walked to nowhere.

            ‘You remember that roasted boar, Mattias? Back in training?’ I asked.

            I looked over, and saw Mattias with his eyes closed, dreaming.

            ‘More than that, I want water’, he said. ‘Or wine. Anything to take me away from here.’

            As we hallucinated about banquet tables piled with delicacies, the order came to halt.

            ‘Set perimeter!’ Aelius said wearily, walking down the side of our maniple.

            ‘What is it, sergeant?’ I asked.

            ‘Survivors’, he said, pausing for a moment. ‘Survivors of the Fifth.’

That evening he told us what he had learned.

            ‘I won’t lie to you—it’s not good’, Aelius confessed, as we and the rest of the company huddled under a lowering sky, thunder in the distance. Lightning reached out between the hills.

            ‘The Fifth, the marines, and their allies are gone, lads. My officer told me that, according to the survivors, they blundered into an ambush set in one of the passes leading through the hills. The Spaniards fled at the first opportunity, leaving our boys boxed in on top of a narrow ridge. All night the Carthaginians tried to find a way through the lines. Our lads fought like tigers. But in the morning, only the command group and a couple of maniples were left. The standards were taken, and Publius Cornelius was killed. Only a few marines and legionnaires made it out, and only the gods know how many are still out there, trying to find us.’         

We sat in stunned silence. I looked at Mattias, anguish etched on my face. He looked back at me, tears in his eyes. Crispus was dead, we were sure of it.

‘A consul dead, the standards taken’, came a tormented voice from behind me.

‘This can’t be happening’, said another. ‘It’s Trasimene and Cannae all over again.’

‘That’s enough of that talk’, Aelius snapped. ‘As long as there is breath in our bodies we are legionnaires of Rome and we have a duty to each other, and to Gnaeus Cornelius. We won’t let him down. I won’t let you down. And you sure as hell won’t let me down. Got it?’

We murmured our assent, and Aelius stood up, and we rose along with him. ‘Keep going, men. We will avenge our fallen brothers. Now, to your sentry posts. And with the favour of the gods, we will find food and water tomorrow.’

Two days later, the enemy caught up with us.

We were heading northeast, trying to return to Saguntum. Gnaeus had sent runners on ahead to make contact with fighting patrols from the city, with orders to assemble a force to come to our aid, but we had little faith that they would make it. I saw it on their faces. They were men marked for death, and they knew it.

            Mercifully, at least, we had found fresh water the day before. Our food was gone, but the swiftly flowing stream, with its cool, life-giving water, was sent from the heavens to save us. Some men waded into the current and were swept away to their deaths as their comrades called out warnings, but the majority waited their turns stolidly, chaperoned by sergeants and corporals. Gnaeus, great man that he was, refused to drink until all of his men had replenished their skins and taken their fill. He called a brief halt to allow us, sated, to rest; some men vomited, having drunk too much, and others, including myself, were dazed and stupid with the pleasure of a stomach full of the mountain-scented water. But then we pressed on.

And then suddenly, there it was.

            The huge dust cloud hung on the horizon, covering the plain directly between us and distant Saguntum.

            ‘How many do you reckon, Mattias?’ I asked, leaning wearily on my shield. Our column had halted and was deploying into battle formation.

            Mattias squinted. ‘Who knows’, he said, adding fatalistically, ‘does it matter?’

            I shook my head in answer, and looked around our number. We had two full legions and allies, perhaps fifteen thousand all told. Those might be good odds, if we were fit and fed, our bellies warmed with hot pork, fresh cheese and bread. But many of us had not eaten for days.    ‘We will fight them, by the gods!’ snarled Aelius, drawing his sword. ‘We will not die like cowards! Forget your lovers and families, boys, now is the time when you will earn your honoured place in the sacred annals of the Republic!’

            Thoughts of Caelia came to me unbidden as our deaths approached—how could they not? I had been blessed to love her, to learn from her, to hear her laugh. We both knew that either of us could be taken from the other without warning. Such is the fortune of lovers, in time of war.

I wish I could tell you the full details of what happened next—and more about the end of a man so gallant as Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio, whom we called, with affection, ‘Calvus’, the bald, for his bronzed hairless head, worn to a burnished leather by a thousand Spanish suns. Here was a scion of one of Rome’s greatest families, a consul himself. His brother had just paid the ultimate price in the same desperate struggle for survival against an implacable enemy that was consuming our nation. I never met him, and neither did Mattias. But he was visible to all of us and made himself popular with his concern for our welfare, and his efforts to limit our suffering on this last fateful march that we undertook together. Others too, who looked after us, trained us, mentored us, served with distinction in the war. My brothers. I weep for you all.

The battle—if it could be called that, for the poor Thirtieth surely deserved a better bloodletting than the annihilation of their undertrained and untested ranks, their young officers frozen in fear—has shattered now into a thousand vignettes in my memory. The battlefield was a flat killing zone, dusty, dry, parched by the sun, devoid of any refuge. In one of my memories, I see Aelius go down, at the head of a wedge trying to punch through the Carthaginian line. His head turned, mouth calling to rally his men, to rally me—‘Marcus!’—his eyes wide and fierce. The front ranks closed around him, their shields protecting our indestructible company sergeant, but an arrow fired high from the mount of one of the enemy elephants skirted this barrier and took him in the chest, punching through his armour, and in a moment, blood frothing at his lips, this great teacher was gone. Stertorius, dead, too, his fourth line finally called on to fight as the rest of us disintegrated under the relentless pressure of thousands of enemy soldiers and dozens of elephants. I see him standing over a fallen comrade, three dead enemy at his feet, before being overwhelmed in a rush of Libyan soldiers. His battle cry as he faced his mortality with honour still shivers my soul.

But it was the fate of Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio that stays with me, for I was there with him almost to the last. We had retreated to a hillock, our last desperate remnants. About a thousand of us against a vast enemy host, advancing methodically over the serried ranks of our dead, bled dry in the Spanish dust. The rumble of thousands of feet, the trumpeting of the elephants, called us to our deaths.

‘Well my friend, this is it’, I said to Mattias, who was still by my side.

I took a moment to look at him. Our eyes met, and I held his gaze.

‘I would never have made it this far without you’, I said.

Mattias paused. The love between us—the love of brothers, forged in combat, stronger than any of the ardour brought on by passion or romance—flowed between us. I knew then that I would never love anyone as much as I loved Mattias in that moment, the sunlight dappling across his beaten and scuffed armour, his easy companionship and bawdy humour a certainty at my side over our time from Arretium, to this gods-forsaken shithole where we would die. Our childhood games seemed long ago, but as my end approached they flashed through my mind, and I could think of no better person to accompany me across the Styx into the underworld. I just wished that Crispus could join us, so that we could make the journey together, but we both feared that he had gone ahead, and would be waiting for us, sword in hand.

Mattias nodded. And then he said, far louder then he needed to, ‘I’d like to say it’s been a pleasure, friend, but sharing that tent with you and your farts and snoring, well…’

He grinned, and in the absurdity of the moment, my solemnity evaporated and we both burst out laughing.

‘Stow it!’ growled a corporal behind us, but there was a smile in his voice and the laughter was infectious, and soon all of us were doubled over in fits, even as the enemy approached in a slow, disciplined march.

I seem to remember our commander surveying us, a gleam in his eyes. Yes, he was proud to lead us: men who faced certain death, laughing at a barracks room joke from the company comedian. And we were proud, so very proud, to be Gnaeus’ men. For a moment I thought he would make a speech, such as the kind beloved by our historians, detailing his exploits and extolling his memory for future generations. But he was a soldier, not a politician. So with a shrug that said almost everything that the moment demanded, he just raised his sword high. It was the only time I ever heard him speak.

‘For the Senate and the people of Rome! For our great Republic! Forward!’

A great cheer went across our ranks. I took three paces, and then my world was pulled out from under me.

Later, I would find out that I was cut down immediately by an arrow fired from one of the infernal elephants that had made such a mess of the Thirtieth. It glanced off a shield somewhere to my front, ricocheted, and then hit my helmet. Robbed of much of its power, it failed to penetrate much beyond the steel rim, but it delivered a hammer blow that knocked me to the ground. Mattias tried to rouse me, but assuming I was dead, he said a brief prayer over my limp form, and then rushed to join the charge of the doomed. About this and what happened afterwards I pieced together second- and third-hand from others who survived the battle or claimed to have knowledge of it. They tell me that Gnaeus led the charge into the enemy lines, and died with his shield in one hand and his sword in the other. He crossed the Styx into the underworld with honour. His bodyguard fell alongside him, his standard-bearer cut down where he stood, the colours of the Glorious Second defiled by Carthaginian hands. Hardly a man escaped from the slaughter, which ranked amongst the annals of disaster such are to be found in the histories of ancient Greece, and in more recent memory, in Italy itself. Only those of us who were separated from our glorious brothers escaped—if you can call capture an escape from anything. I, and seven others, wounded on the battlefield, became prisoners of the barbarians.

Next Chapter: Chapter Eight - New Carthage