Thunderbolt Torn Enemy of Rome

Prologue

Ruhr valley, Germania, 144 BC

The clang of iron colliding against iron, the wicked flitch of a misaimed shaft, the eerie bellowing of mighty war elephants; sounds of raging conflict which so often took over the peaceful whispering breeze and serenely humming bees busy in their proxy copulation of the flowers. He often drifted off into a pleasant slumber in the late summer afternoons now, when once he would have been running hither and thither, laughing with the joy of youth, training sword in hand, or crawling through low growth, small Numidian bow in hand, on the hunt for coneys to swell the camp cooking pot.

But that was such a long time ago and in a land far away. The shamans of the tribe referred in their rituals to the mists of time, but to Malco time felt more like spiders’ cobwebs—sticky, insistent, skeins of thought that ofttimes he could no longer untangle from the once-reality of their occurrence. Were the terrible wolves before or after Saguntum? Was the shadowy figure of Tanit beckoning him to his afterlife, or would the German gods take him to their feasting halls beyond Yule in Asgard, and for that didn’t he need a sword in hand?

Again, the peaceful afternoon’s susurration echoed to the clash of weaponry, and the shouts of battling men. He was sure, for a moment, that he heard one cry out, The Great Whore has fallen. It was so distinct, it felt almost real.

And then Clothilde’s voice, nearer to hand and trying to be forceful but quiet, cut through his post-doze daze.

What are you shouting about? You’ll wake grandfather.

And Agatho again, much nearer, obviously charging up the hillside from the river meadows where the Ruhr joined the great Rhine, breathless, excited. The Great Whore… she has fallen.

Keep your noise down.

Clothilde, dear girl. She had two winters on her brother Agatho, who had seen his… fifteenth? Yes, fifteenth last month and she tended to rule the roost.

Sorry. Agatho’s panting indicated a long and hard run, for he was a true son of the Cherusci, tough sons of Germania fit to run for miles if necessary without apparent effort. Sorry, he said again with a disarming lack of apology. But I have to tell him. There’s news from over the river. Men of the Chatti say the Romans destroyed Carthage, erm… Malco unglued an eyelid in time to see his great grandson checking on his fingers. Two summers ago. I think that’s when they said. It didn’t mean anything to me at first until I remembered that’s where Great-grandfather Malco was born. I have to tell him. He has to know about it.

Clothilde sounded dubious. I’m not sure we should tell him—

Not tell me what? It irked him that his once commanding voice came out sounding so querulous from where he sat under the thatched porch. The skin under dull fingertips as he rubbed his cheeks felt like the underside of a dock leaf, wrinkled and veined with every one of his… what would it be now… ninety winters. Clothilde had thrown a blanket over his knees for she knew his legs felt the chill, even on a fine summer day. Age, at least, had barely dimmed his eyesight. He glared at Agatho as the boy approached and sat at his feet.

Not tell me what? he repeated irritably.

Carthage, Grandfather. They say over the river that news came. The Romans destroyed it. The general the Romans call Africanus left nothing standing. He rubbed salt into the earth to spoil it and made it unlawful ever to build there again. We know of Roman cruelty, but what had your birthplace done to suffer such a fate?

The boy’s rushed words brought memories flooding back. Clothilde sat down on the edge of the porch on the other side from her brother and took his withered hand in hers. His voice was distant and dreamy when finally he started speaking, haltingly at first, then more strongly.

It must be, oh how long ago? Perhaps it was forty winters ago when they killed him. Some said suicide, but whether by his own hand or that of a Roman assassin’s doesn’t matter—in truth his own people killed Hannibal. I always knew then that the years left to Carthage could be counted in those peculiar Roman numerals of theirs. Who would ever have thought that I, Malco Barca of Carthage, should live so long to hear of it?

He patted Clothilde’s hand holding his, then rested it on Agatho’s broad shoulder. Rome wanted Hannibal dead, there’s no doubt. The greatest general of his age, but it was Carthage brought his ruin. Her own son, thrown to the wolves of the Tiber. Not a very grand river, by the way.

Why would they do that, Grandfather? Agatho had a German’s good sense of loyalty in his blood.

Ah… Long ago Carthage was a noble city and state, governed by honorable men. But that was in the mist of ages. Malco paused, and then smiled warmly at his two great-grandchildren, part Phoenician thanks to his seed but mostly of German Cherusci blood. I don’t know how many more winters, perhaps even seasons, are left to me. It’s time, finally, to pass on my history, which I’ve kept to myself since your great grandmother died. You’re named after her, he said to Clothilde.

Yes, my long story… but it contains ingredients unsuited to young Germanic ears. I shall leave those out. But they will still roll around silently in my head. As if I could prevent them haunting me in all their emotional force. But not for young ears…

Malco cleared his throat. War is always about land and booty, and when two powers clash over similar designs on the lands of lesser people, war always results, and so it was between ancient Carthage and upstart Rome. The Romans called us Carthaginians ‘Poeni’—Phoenicians—and the impending war with Rome they called the Punic War—in fact, it was the second conflict—but those of us who went with him called it Hannibal’s War. He imagined it and carried it out from his own resources, without help from Carthage. Throughout the war her once-great navy rotted in the harbor. Even in his greatest need Carthage never armed a galley for his assistance.

Malco wiped some wetness from the corner of his eye. "My mother city too, but for her indifference to heroism and her indolent pursuit of opulence in the face of overweening Roman ambition, she deserved to die… and now you tell me she has. Although my heart sits heavy for the ordinary citizens who had no influence over the cruel Judges or over the cheats who ran the Committee, the Council and Senate. Yes, Rome is cruel, but her government has clean hands compared with the blood-stained claws of Carthage.

So yes, I marched beside Hannibal as a sworn enemy of Rome, yet as we fought and won, again and again, I came to admire my enemy more than I could respect my own home. That’s why I ended up here. Rome would never have taken me but neither would Carthage. For me, Carthage was dead… and now she really is.

The old man sighed and then chuckled throatily. "Hannibal used to call me ‘Malco my Thunderbolt,’ because that’s what my family name—Barca—means in Phoenician. I was so young, younger than either of you when it all began. I can see it as though it were yesterday…

It is afternoon, but the rays of the sun still bear down with great power on the rock and sand…

Chapter 1 ~ Libyan Barbarians

Stand to your arms!

Malco Barca shot to his feet with all the energy of youth as his father’s hoarse cry alerted the small camp from its afternoon torpor.

We’re under attack and the enemy are on top of us!

Malco caught up cuirass, shield, and sword, threw on his helmet, and rushed from the tent where he’d been happily dozing under the occasional tender stroke along his flank from the hands of Giskon. His cousin, arming himself, followed with alacrity. Giskon fastened Malco’s cuirass straps and Malco returned the favor.

A tremendous clamor tore apart the silence which only moments ago had lain over the baking Libyan desert, and barbarian bawling rose loud in the heat-stilled air, answered by shouts from the soldiers in the other palm grove. Malco’s ears thrummed to the din of the elephants’ excited trumpeting; horses stamped the ground; bellowing draught cattle, terrified at the smell of blood, struggled to break out.

Atarantes!

In a quick survey, he saw clumps of dark-skinned figures had occupied the open space between the command camp in its small oasis and the much larger grove some two hundred strides away that accommodated the three hundred men under his father General Himilco’s command. Last night, they made camp in the two oases, and now his father’s decision to set up the large family command tent separately from the troops looked regrettable.

The twenty men of Himilco’s bodyguard had already sprung to their feet with swords, thrusting spears, or javelins at the ready, but the slaves and other attendants, panic stricken at the sudden attack, ran about in confusion and screamed in their fear. Malco took his position next to Adherbal and Giskon, his cousins by adoption.

Himilco sternly ordered the attendants to silence. Each of you pick a weapon of some kind and stand steady. We’re cut off from the main force and so we’ll have to fight for our lives. He turned back to the soldiers and snapped out, Javelins down. Bows up. Shoot rapidly. Only Malco barely heard him add under his breath, That way we might fool them into thinking there are more of us here. He snapped out at Malco, Post the armed slaves ten paces apart around the perimeter to warn in case any of the barbarians should attack our rear or flanks.

When Malco returned to the front, the soldiers were sending flights of arrows randomly at the enemy. Fortunately—and sensibly from a tactical view—the barbarians had concentrated their attention on the main camp. Destroy the larger group first and we will be an easy target. He understood instinctively that an initial attack on their smaller camp would have left the larger force of Carthaginian troops at the Atarantes’ vulnerable rear. They were no fools. On the other hand, it gave his father a slim advantage.

Malco could see that the fight over there raged furiously. Adherbal next to him shouted above the noise of battle, of men’s dying screams, They’re camouflaged with dust. Must’ve crept up right on top of the sentries and surprised the dozy idiots before anyone could arm themselves.

At the edges of the distant battle, bows twanged and arrows flew but at the center a flickering of blades and light spears, seen as splinters of reflected sunlight rising above the dust, proclaimed deadly close combat. The shrill cries of the Numidians mingled with the deeper shouts of Celtiberians and the rabble-rousing yells of the Atarantes.

His father assessed the situation for a few breaths. The barbarians are neglecting us until they’ve finished off the main concentration of troops. Lacking their leaders, our men are fighting without order. We must get over there now before all is lost. Bring up the elephants.

The three elephants, trained in war and scenting action, were quickly brought forward, a driver mounted on each broad neck. Four soldiers with bows scrambled up into the fighting cages on the back of each. The ungainly animals stumbled into motion and Malco had to duck and dodge between thundering powdery gray legs the size of tree trunks as he ran beside his father. Thick dust stirred by the elephants’ passage rose in a choking cloud, and then the great beasts were in the lead, with the rest of the bodyguard following closely behind. At the orders of their drivers the obedient tuskers broke into a lumbering run, and the party advanced from the shade of the trees into the open.

The Atarantes in loose order between them and the larger oasis loosed a volley of arrows and then broke as the elephants charged. The giant African pachyderms thundered among them, goring with their sharpened tusks. Some warriors they caught up in their snaky trunks and dashed to the ground. They bowled over and trampled others to bloody splats on the desert floor with the great pads of their feet. Wherever the elephants went they terrorized the enemy, while the archers on their backs kept up a deadly rain of iron. As soon as a way opened up, Himilco led his little company flat out toward the battle in the larger oasis.

Sound the trumpet!

Malco hoped the musician’s well known signal would revive the sorely pressed troops’ courage. The Atarantes, surprised at war cries in their rear, paused a moment. Before they could turn to face the new threat, the Carthaginian officer corps thrust boldly through and savaged any native standing in the way. Himilco joined his embattled soldiers, now closely gathered in the center of the oasis, and quickly assessed their position. Malco knew that to remain on the defensive would mean annihilation by the rain of missiles pouring down on them. Even as he thought it, he caught an indistinct black disturbance in the air and threw up his shield in reaction. The arrow clanged as it bounced off harmlessly, leaving only a jarring sensation in his arm.

Himilco’s commands snapped out in a rapid string. Adherbal, take the Numidians. Giskon, the Celts. I’ll look to the heavy infantry, and Malco—by my side. The troops regrouped rapidly into three squads under their commanders. Himilco bellowed in a parade-ground voice that rose above the barbarian yells and the disciplined ranks charged at his command.

In a heartbeat, Malco hurtled into the thick of his first real conflict. He recalled with a flash of wry amusement his father’s promise to his mother to keep him out of danger, but now the only alternative to fighting would be certain death. And the fear claimed him, threatened to overwhelm him. Suddenly training took over, but nothing had prepared him for the dreadful noise of battle: the blood-curdling war cries, screams of the injured, clamor of clashing swords and spears, or the volcanic stench of spilled blood which splashed like rain from every awful slash of iron through guts. A barbarian loomed from the pall, right on top of him, face fixed in a rictus of primal fury, his spear held out at chest level. Sheer fright took command of Malco’s senses and he jinked sideways, brought his sword up automatically to deflect the killing thrust.

The Atarantan’s momentum drove him into Malco, as his spear point dug down into the ground. Malco gasped at the hard contact, but counter body-checked the barbarian with all his youthful strength. He brought his sword around in a short sweep and felt the keen edge of its blade bite deep. The man let loose and awful roar of agony and swung around to reveal the gaping bloody mouth of a wound across his bicep. Before his foe could gather his balance, Malco thrust into the barbarian’s unguarded stomach and sawed the blade as he’d been taught. Practice might be one thing, but he’d never yet killed and he threw up his midday meal faster than his opponent’s shit-smelling intestines spilled from the abdominal gash.

The man slumped in a bloody heap. An arrow struck Malco’s shield and scored a line across his sword wrist on its rebound. A deafening trumpeted squeal shook him from his brief daze in time to hurl his body aside, out of the way of the giant hoof which slammed into the spot where he’d stood a moment before. He glimpsed through the flying dust the squashed result of the man he’d killed, now a dark red mass of human remains battered as thin as a flat bread in the sand from the elephant’s foot. The beast’s onward rush was no more than a towering gray blur through the effluvium of desert dust.

The battle raged all around him. Time lost its meaning in a visceral struggle for survival—slash, shield butt, thrust, parry, cut. Adrenaline pumped through Malco’s youthful veins and his throat grew raw with shouting.

And then, quite suddenly, the pandemonium of battle lessened and he found himself staggering through a nightmarescape of tangled bodies, severed limbs, staring eyes glazed in death, the torn and bloodied clothing of friend and foe. The undisciplined Atarantes, each man fighting for himself, had been unable to withstand the Carthaginian phalanx and, in spite of their superior numbers, the survivors were driven headlong before the lightly armed squadron of Numidian cavalry.

Very soon, the fighting ended. Less than a tenth of the Carthaginian detachment had been slain or lay mortally wounded, but Atarantan corpses dotted the plain to the foot of the hills beyond, elephant-stomped or cut down by the Numidian horse. More of their bodies lay strewn across the oasis where the heavy infantry had done its bloody execution.

Malco looked up at a circle of clear blue sky through the settling orange desert dust. Dark shapes glided overhead in weaving patterns, gathering in numbers for the feast that covered the ground beneath. Turning his gaze back to the oasis, he saw men of the Numidian horse moving methodically through the carnage slaying any native found still breathing, while medics attached to the officer corps attended to the Carthaginian wounded. A less edifying sight greeted him in a grove where several Iberian slingers had corraled a handful of youthful Atarantan survivors and were in the process of raping the boys. Two lay sprawled on the sand, half dead from repeated penetration. Three more sat propped against sapling trees, neatly arrayed as though in relaxation, but with their severed heads sat facing them in the sand between their knees. Malco turned from the torture, knowing sadly how rape of the enemy formed part of victory’s natural order with many tribesmen.

On returning to the smaller oasis, Malco came across a few of their slaves’ corpses, but most of their attendants had climbed up into the spreading branches of the ancient acacia trees and remained concealed there until the rout drove off the few attackers who had not been in the main assault. After wiping the worst of the blood from face and arms with a cloth dampened in the large washing tank outside the command tent, he ducked inside and threw himself down on his couch. Every sinew still vibrated with the after effects of so many narrow escapes. He hardly believed he had come through with little more than a scratch across his sword wrist and throbbing limbs. And yet he thrilled to being young and alive… and a real soldier. At the arrival of gore-covered Adherbal and Giskon he raised a faint smile in relief that they lived… and any sight of Giskon normally aroused so much more than that.

While his two older cousins helped each other from the weight of their armor, and used dampened cloths to clean the blood of their enemies from their equipment and skin, Malco reflected on how great his father’s pleasure would be now the campaign’s objective had been met. As if he read Malco’s thoughts, Adherbal said, This will warm hearts in Carthage and keep secure Himilco’s position in the Senate.

And no thanks to the Committee for sending us out with three hundred men, Giskon snapped back. Those bastards set us up to fail, with so few men for the task.

In such case I cannot see what it gains the merchants in our failure to halt the rebellious Atarantes from raiding the caravans of our Egyptian and Ethiopian colonies.

Malco smiled at Adherbal’s reasoning, but fiery Giskon saw conspiracy at every turn.

Those who sent us know full well how the tribesmen evade efforts to bring them to heel, hiding in their rocky hills and wadis to make hit and run sorties. Make no mistake, Adherbal, Himilco is supposed to fail in this mission and bring down the wrath of the merchant classes on the Barca clan. For that, a few lost or looted caravans is a cheap price to pay for those in the Council or Committee.

So just as well the Atarantes hoped to wipe us out in a surprise attack, Malco said. Their mistake. Now we can go home. Mission accomplished.

The next day Atarantan envoys offered their chief’s submission. Himilco, aware of how useless further pursuit in the desert wastes would be, settled with them on easy terms: a heavy fine in horses and cattle to be paid to Carthage, and ten of the principal tribesmen’s sons as pledges for their fathers’ good behavior. Next day the hostages came into the camp with a portion of the ransom.

* * *

My father was pleased to have discharged his commission—

As he should have been, young Agatho declared excitedly. He’d defeated his enemy by strength of arms.

Ah, my boy, it was more than that. Malco rubbed his tired old eyes. In the twisted politics of Carthage, failed generals rarely survived their return. Another example of foolish waste in service of petty rivalries. I’ll relate more of this in good time.

Who were the Celtiberians you mentioned? Clothilde asked.

A mix of Celts, similar to your tribe, and the ancient tribes of the land the Romans call Hispania. We just called them ‘Iberians.’ Brave men, fine fighters. You see, a mix of many different tribesmen made up the bulk of the Carthaginian army.

* * *

A hot day, even for the Libyan desert; heat like a hammer pummeled rock and sand. The midday inferno hit as a physical presence, seen in the quivering air rising from the ground. It blurred distant objects and created shimmering mirages at the horizon. Malco wandered through the groves, admiring the near naked torsos of the fighting men. Weapons laid aside, most of their clothing discarded, some lay stretched out asleep, faces protected from any chance rays coming through the foliage above by little shelters of their clothing hung on bows or javelins. Others, lately awakened, leaned against acacia, fig, or palm trees, but hardly one with the energy to move from where he was comfortably slumped.

Cream-colored oxen stood, heads down, whisking away the tormenting flies with their tails. Horses at the nearby picket line suffered more. Their lathered flanks heaved with the effort to breathe, and from time to time they stretched out flaring nostrils in the direction from which, when the sun sank a little lower, the dusk breeze would begin to blow.

In the flush of his youth Malco found the sight of so much naked flesh arousing, and he often fantasized amorous adventures with his father’s men. Darker-skinned than the rest, the lightly armed Numidian horsemen were lithe, inured to hardship, and used to the burning sun. Three or four short javelins lay at their sides, while their small round shields rested against the trees with bows and brightly painted quivers. They fought naked to the waist, except for a light breastplate of hammered brass. A colored cloth, wrapping the waist, dropped to the knees. In battle, they wore leather belts embossed with brass plates, sandals on their feet, and round metal caps encircled by a band of lion skin, in which they stuck brightly dyed feathers.

Near them, lighter in hue, taller and stouter in stature, the company of Iberian slingers had been enlisted from among the conquered tribes of Iberia or the Balearic islands. They favored a more irregular garb—arms left bare and a shirt open at the neck and reaching to the knees, cinched at the waist by a leather strap, from which hung a pouch of the same material containing their slings and shaped lead bullets or stones. Their rough flannel shirts, originally a deep russet, had bleached under the sun’s rays to a pale lilac. At their sides lay the wicked falcata swords used in close quarters fighting. The weapons employed in humiliating the Atarantan youths now lay at rest, coiled beneath their concealing shirts.

Spears, battleaxes, helmets, and massive shields in neat stacks marked the lines of the Carthaginian heavy infantry. A motley multi-national crew of fair-skinned Greeks lying happily snoring side by side with black men of Nubia, and in between all the shades of Sardinia, the islands of the Aegean, Crete, Egypt, Libya, and Phoenicia. Their only common feature was a tightly fitting jerkin of well-tanned leather. The men were recruited alike from the lower orders of Carthage and from the tribes and people who lived under her sway.

All of them magnificent specimens, Malco mused, with some envy when he considered his own puny adolescent body. Not that Giskon seemed to mind…

Across the way in the smaller grove several slaves, partly recovered from their shock of the previous day, moved about with more alertness than anywhere else in either slumberous camp. A Roman cook, captured in a sea fight, watched the three Greeks in his charge prepare a meal. Some Libyan grooms rubbed down the coats of four horses of the purest desert breed, while two Nubians fed large flat oat cakes to the expedition’s three elephants, who stood rocking themselves from side to side, chained by the leg to trees.

At the center, under the fitful shade of a copse of acacias, stood the spacious command tent with its several inner compartments. Fold after fold of a thin material, dyed a dark blue to keep out the sun’s heat, covered the exterior of coarse white canvas, while silk in shades of purple and white hung in swags from the interior. The curtains at each end were looped back with gold cord to allow any rare breeze a free passage. A carpet from Syria covered the sand, on which were spread four couches. Himilco, Adherbal, and Giskon reclined on three of them. As Malco ducked through the opening Giskon greeted him languidly and the gesture sent a tickle from heart to groin.

* * *

Agatho shuffled closer to his great grandfather. Tell us more about your father.

Malco rubbed the eye that bothered him and sighed. Himilco Barca… hmm. A successful general in the first war against Rome and, at the time I’m remembering out there in the Libyan desert, in his late forties. His figure commanded attention and his aquiline features expressed energy, resolution, and the clear lines of his Phoenician descent. A sprinkling of gray touched his jet-black hair at the temples. Malco smiled at the memory.

And your cousins? What were they like?

Adherbal and Giskon were not blood relatives, oh maybe distantly as so many of the Carthaginian elite were related in some degree. My father had adopted them, much in the manner of the Romans. They were both young—older than me—Adherbal just into his twenties, Giskon had seen nineteen winters. Both were classically Carthaginian, black-haired like I used to be, with profiles of almost Greek regularity. They both dressed similarly, but with a bright variety of colors in their kilts.

The taste of Giskon’s kisses flood my memory…

In those days, and in spite of the torpid heat, I was coiled like a spring of energy, a boy of some sixteen winters. One of the Greek cooks called me his Adonis. Malco chuckled. Dressed as I did, naked to the waist, he said I looked like a sculptor’s model, with my muscles showing up clearly beneath my skin. Mind, it was testimony to hard exercise. My father saw to my military training in the Barca dynasty tradition from early childhood. As a nation of merchant-warriors, a harsh regime of military training was normal for many of our noble youths. I was taught to go without food for days, to bear pain without flinching, to be cheerful under the greatest hardships, and to smile when even veterans were worn out and disheartened. It was often said—perhaps a joke, maybe a myth—that Spartan blood ran in our Barca veins.

It didn’t prevent me feeling inadequate beside the strength and beauty of Giskon, though…

"But finally—as seems the natural order of the world—Carthage finally came up against a new power—Rome. The severe checks which we had lately suffered at the hands of the newly formed Roman navy, and the certainty that before long a tremendous struggle between our two powers must take place, redoubled the fire of the military nobles. The subject was frequently on my cousins’ and father’s tongues. In those days politics bored me and the day after our victory I had only one thing on my mind.

Apart from Giskon…

Before we started the long trek to the fair coastal lands of the metropolis, my father granted us some relaxation. During that night we heard the continuous roaring of lions prowling among the hills, no doubt doing some undertaker work for the Atarantes that the vultures had left. Some were bold enough to come so close to the camp that the troops built several large fires to scare them from attacking the horses. Giskon, I remember, wasn’t bothered about a lion hunt, but my cousin Adherbal joined me in begging my father to organize one, and eventually he agreed to do so for the following night. That day, which was stiflingly hot, seemed to drag as I waited eagerly for night to come. We passed the time in a desultory discussion about unhappy Carthage.

* * *

Malco threw himself down on the free couch to join them in the wait for the sun to dip and for the evening meal, which even now pleasantly tickled his nostrils. His father’s words came to him through idle thoughts of Giskon’s body and what he might next allow.

The threat of Rome sits on one hand, but the indolence which rots the heart of our city is a nearer concern since it spawns indifference to military matters.

Malco kicked his feet restlessly. His limbs ached for action, for the lion hunt. He got up and went to peer through the tent’s flap to see the sun’s progress. His father addressed his back.

Malco, it’s vital we show ourselves superior to the common herd. Witness yesterday, an army of mixed races needs firm handling. The men must know not only of our wealth, but that we’re stronger, wiser, and more courageous than they. Absent such qualities, how may we expect obedience of them and the sacrifices war requires?

Malco sighed privately, and returned to his couch. Yes, father. At least from there he had a good view of Giskon’s lithe form and handsome face with its unruly thatch of hair and could exchange private glances with him. If it were not for the prospect of the lion hunt, he knew what he would rather be doing, and thanked Astarte that his father turned a blind eye to what was, after all, only natural in young Carthaginians, as it was among the Greeks. Giskon had already taught him much, but he sensed in his body that he had so much more to learn. With an effort, he brought his wandering attention back to his father’s stern words.

"In the colony’s early days, when Phoenician swords alone won our battles, we ruled the Inner Sea. Today we’re few and the rabble many. Our armies are now composed almost entirely of a mixed breed of many people, races we conquered or enslaved. In the city itself, we Phoenicians are but a tiny portion of the population—and it spells trouble. All