pen upon the papyrus.
She had reminded herself of Sophonisba's suitor, Masinissa, and considered mentioning him. She had first laid eyes on him a few days before as he returned from a lion hunt, an elite event in which he was participating for the first time. At Sophonisba's side, Imilce had stood on the wall near the city gates and watched the chariots thunder up the road. The afternoon was pleasantly cool, the surface of the road darkened by an early, light rain. Masinissa, being a Massylii, spurned the wheeled vehicles. Instead, he rode in the swarming confusion of horsemen. Sophonisba had no difficulty picking him out from the crowd.
“There he is,” she had said. “The handsome one.”
This was not, actually, a distinguishing feature among the throng of youthful warriors. Imilce nearly said as much. But then, to her surprise, she did spot a young man of more than usual grace. His dress was no different from the others', and his tack was simple. Yet as he circled and wheeled and trilled with his companions his face shone with a regal joy that separated him from the rest. Here was a boy at play with his friends; but here, too, was a monarch who knew his place among them and wore it comfortably. Word soon spread that the young prince had slain his first lion. He had made the kill from horseback, dancing around the beast, sinking three spears before it went down. That a young man so slender could slay a lion was difficult for Imilce to accept. She wondered whether the tale had not been exaggerated to feed the prince's pride. Though a woman, she knew as well as any man that a servant's deeds are often claimed by his master. But when she met Masinissa, saw his face and bearing from up close, felt his unusually calm confidence, the deferential smile and humility with which he received praise: considering all this, she believed the story.
She would have liked to share this and more with her husband, but she already felt she was rattling on too much, speaking of matters that were not particularly important and that Hannibal might find trivial when compared with the struggles in which he was engaged. And anyway, she never managed to convey her true heart in letters. Writing them made her doubt whether she knew her true heart.
“Perhaps your family shall have female heroes in the future,” she dictated, “should your sisters be given a chance to shine like their brothers.
“All the love Baal permits between us, Your wife, Imilce.”
When the scribe finished writing, she dismissed him, pointedly slipping the document from under his gaze so that he might not reread it to her, as he usually did. Alone a moment later, she studied the letter. She haltingly began to read it over, but then decided not to attempt the task. Though she could make some sense of the letters, she was never confident in her reading. Too many words escaped her, so that she always found her feelings incompletely rendered. The scribes never wrote one's exact words anyway; they abbreviated; they made intricate thoughts into simple, blocky sentiments. If she let herself, she would call the scribe back and have him rewrite the thing several times. She had done this with previous letters, but this time she disciplined the urge. Instead she did something else.
Once sure the ink was dry, she parted the fabric of her gown. She lifted the papyrus and pressed it against her naked flesh. She worked each section of it with her fingertips, feeling the damp of her sweat absorbed by the dry paper. She pressed from the skin of her belly up into the hollow that fused her ribs together, out over the soft give of her breasts. She held the papyrus there for several long breaths, imagining Hannibal receiving the document, believing that he might sense her on it, might think the paper was her very flesh, might feel the longing behind the words and understand more things than she could say.
The massacre beside Lake Trasimene was unprecedented in Roman history. It was not a repeat of the Trebia disaster; it was worse. This time, fifteen thousand men were killed in the initial slaughter. Among them, the consul who had led them went down, run through by the spear of an Insubrian Gaul. Six thousand managed to escape the defile and flee to a nearby town, but they held out no longer than a day, giving up along with thousands of others. In addition, Geminus' cavalry had been met by Maharbal's superior force. The Numidians killed or captured all four thousand of them. If the last defeat had struck each Roman a blow to the chest, this one hit the collective soul of the people like a blacksmith's hammer. It left the citizens breathless, shocked, unsure what the limits of Hannibal's powers were, taking nothing for granted.
Soon, word came that some of the soldiers were straggling home. The people flocked to the gates of Rome, crowding the walls, wailing at the sight before them. Women ran forth, gripping the grimy, blood-caked soldiers, gazing into their faces, calling out the names of husbands, sons, brothers, beseeching the gods to bring their loved ones home. But the gods had turned away. Rome faced the possibility that Hannibal could not be beaten. Perhaps he had trapped Fortune and kept her caged and twisted her always to his advantage. Perhaps this man was more than just a man.
Great as the panic was, as lurid as the stories were, the Republic's leaders did not waste much time in hand-wringing. In the Senate, the faction dominated by the Fabian family and their allies called for the immediate naming of a dictator. It was a stunning proposal, one that nobody wished to believe was needed. With absolute power came grave danger, but if ever extreme measures were called for, this was such a moment. And somehow it was clear to all that the leader of the Fabians' own party was the only clear choice for the position. The gray-haired Fabius Maximus: former censor, twice consul, twice interrex, and once already named dictator, the very man who had declared war on Carthage by throwing out a fold of his toga. He was the embodiment of Roman virtue, steadfast, dogged, single-minded to a fault. He was neither fiery in speech nor quick to action, but he was vigorous once roused. He did have an affliction—his poor vision—but it was not one for which his peers thought less of him, as it came upon many men with age. He arranged for a pair of eyes to accompany him during his tenure as dictator, a young officer with eyesight rivaling the keen stare of a hawk: the former consul's son, Publius Scipio.
As his first act in office, Fabius pronounced that the Trasimene disaster had been the result of Flaminius' impiety and disregard for religious formality. Had nobody around him paused to notice that he began his pursuit of Hannibal on a
And then, just before leaving to take over Geminus' legions, Fabius addressed the Senate and conveyed to them the surprising strategy he had developed to defeat the enemy. He said that his grand plan was actually marked by its simplicity. He would simply not fight the barbarian. An army that does not engage in battle cannot be beaten in battle, he said. When asked if he would then let the invaders ravish the countryside, Fabius answered that yes, he would.
“Let them crisscross the land as they wish,” he said. “Let the land not be burned only in their wake but also let the fires precede them. Let weeks and months pass without a decisive battle. Let them die one by one from the various hazards of life: illness and injury, or even age if they hang on long enough. By these various measures we will reduce the enemy's limited number.”
He explained that he would not be inactive meanwhile. His army would shadow Hannibal's, harassing them and making life difficult for them. He would make it hard for the Carthaginians to feed themselves or to replenish their arms. He would let fatigue and time wear the invaders down. Rome's strength was that she could replenish her losses, recruit new soldiers, plant new crops. Hannibal could do none of these things—not easily, at least. This would be his undoing.
Fabius' strategy troubled many in the Senate. One man, Terentuis Varro, rose in the silent chamber and asked, “What madness is this, Fabius? Are you so full of despair? Have we elected you only to learn that you believe us doomed?”
“Hannibal cannot be beaten on the field,” Fabius said, “but he can be beaten. Think wisely on this and deeply, not with vanity but with reason. Was Cornelius a lesser general than any man in here? Was Sempronius? Flaminius? And has the Roman army a history of defeat? Has any nation stood against us and prevailed? No. What we face now is the greatest challenge to our Republic since its founding. I do not know what god breathes genius into the young Barca, but we must admit that for the moment he is our superior in the open clash of arms. Friends, you did not elect me for my wit. You did not bestow this responsibility on me because my mind is so nimble as to dance
