The Seven Hills(80)
True, the great delay in his war plans caused by the fire rankled, but it might have been a blessing sent by the gods of Carthage, restraining him from moving too fast. There was no doubt that he was now in a far better position than he had been. Perhaps, they had also sent him Queen Teuta, who had so stimulated his mind, bringing out his true genius and helping him to recognize his destiny.
As a bonus, news of the victory had deflated Zarabel's pretensions. The priests of Tanit did not call quite so loudly for a Tophet. They could not claim that the gods of Carthage had deserted her. Possibly, it was time to do something about Zarabel, as Queen Teuta urged constantly.
"Princess, this is no more than a setback," Echaz said, wringing his hands. "Who could have foretold that General Mastanabal would prove so capable, or that all the Roman legions are not as formidable as those we saw here?"
"How, indeed," she said bitterly, glaring at the eunuch. "Or that Hamilcar would strike from the north before even setting sail with his main army? Has my brother suddenly grown crafty? I doubt it." With a hiss, she threw herself upon her couch. Slaves rushed to fan her.
She shook her head. The priest was useless in this crisis. He could think only in terms of the temples and the city of Carthage itself. He was incapable of thinking on a world scale. This very thought set her mind along another course.
She had let herself be distracted too long by the ancient struggle for power between priest and shofet, between Tanit and Baal-Hammon, between herself and her brother.
New powers were at work now. Rome was back. Parthia threatened to engulf the East. Even Ptolemaic Egypt, sunk in decadence and torpor, was waking under the influence of the strange Roman soldier-savant Scipio and the bizarre Archimedean school of the Museum. It was time for her to take action on a world scale. She must bend some of these powers to her own purposes or go under along with Carthage. Courses of action began to come together in her mind, and it was like waking from a long sleep. She sat up and waved her slaves aside. She leapt from the bed and began pacing back and forth.
"Echaz, call in my scribes. Then send out servants to summon my confidential sea agents. I have letters to deliver over a wide area of the sea, and I want this done quickly."
"At once, Princess!" the priest chirped, overjoyed to see his sovereign and high priestess taking decisive action.
The faces of important men appeared in her mind's eye, and she ticked them off one by one: Hamilcar, her brother, was the enemy. Marcus Scipio was lost to her, now involved with Selene of Egypt. Titus Norbanus, the would-be new Alexander, was both capable and malleable. And General Mastanabal, victor of the Avernus, was an ambitious man.
Swiftly, her. lethargy now gone, she put them in order and made her plans for what to do with each of them.
"What are we to do with them?" Agathocles asked. He was the head of the Athenian Council, a board of the glorious city's richest men.
"Do with them?" said Herophilus, his eyes twinkling maliciously. "You mean, they are ours to do with as we please? The question is: What are they going to do with us?"
"They look awful and smell worse," Laches said, "but they are not all that numerous and they are in our territory."
The council had been in emergency session since word had come of the arrival of the Romans. It did not come as a total surprise, since Greek skippers had been reporting regularly of the amazing progress of the Roman legions from Egypt through Judea and the Seleucid territories and along the coastline of Ionia. The speed of the march was phenomenal, and the Roman commander's almost offhanded acquisition of a naval arm was stupefying. Still, when they woke up to find that the Romans occupied Piraeus, just a quick march down the Long Walls from Athens, the effect was stunning.
"What advantage is it that they are in our territory?" Herophilus demanded. "Can we just call up an army of veterans to repel them? Half the fighting men of Greece have turned mercenary and are signing on with Hamilcar of Carthage. Many of our best naval officers are helping the Romans build and officer a fleet."
"There have been no threats of hostility so far," cautioned Libon, the greatest banker in Athens. "Let's not talk as if war was in the offing. These Romans seem to be eminently practical men, except for their somewhat obsessive need to humble Carthage. The Roman ambassador has already requested that we render every assistance to their wandering army, and that we will incur the gratitude of the Senate thereby."
"And the undying enmity of Carthage," Agathocles said.
"When have we ever known anything but hostility from Carthage?" Laches asked. "I don't like this resurgence of Rome, but they have put a check to Hamilcar's ambitions, and for this we owe them something."