Life of a Roman: An AAR

[johnhughthom]

I'm writing this in a Messana brothel with a whore under the table s... well I'm sure you can imagine what she is doing, so please forgive any spelling mistakes or bad grammar. Anyway as I have already said I am in Messana after taking part in two successful assaults on the city. Yes, two.

We arrived in Sicily expecting to attack the Carthaginian army, so imagine our surprise when we marched to the city to help the Carthaginians take the city. Seemingly the reason they were assaulting the city was raiding from Mamertines inside in Carthaginian territory. All they wanted to do was take out the leaders of the city who supported the raids, install a friendly government, then leave. Scipio seemed satisfied with this and agreed to help the seige. We didn't do very much really, just distracted the Mamertines and enabled the Carthaginians to take the city more easily due to this. Unfortunately their general died in the assault, we are not sure whether this contributed to later events.

As I'm sure you have guessed the Carthaginians did not install a friendly local government then leave, they installed a punic puppet ruler and garrison and tried to fob Scipio off with stories of how they needed a few years to root out supporters of the old regime.

Scipio is a Senator of Rome, Consular and current Censor. Not a man to be fooled by feeble excuses. So what did he do? Send a delegation with a message asking the Carthaginians to honour their agreement? Call the governer in Lilibeum for a meeting? Like Mars' left testicle he did. We were marched out of camp straight up to Messana and a message was sent into the city for every Punic man within to leave in the next six hours or we would come in and kill them all. Needless to say nobody came out, so we set to building our seige equipment.

The equipment was ready in a few days and the assault began. The punic force in the city was small, I can only assume they were expecting reinforcements to help but Blasios' legion to the west meant none could get there. They were real soldiers though, properly trained, equipped, fed and led.

The fighting was brutal, cramped and long. Skill, strength and training could only go so far in such a battle. From street to street, barely enough room to swing your sword, men pushing you forward toward the enemy, the enemy pushing you back into your unit. No, luck was all could keep you alive in this hell. At one point two enemy spears glanced off the top of my helmet, I should have been killed but survived somehow.

I only had space to swing my sword properly once, but I made the most of it. A huge swing took one of the enemies heads off.


Eventually we heard a loud cheer, one of the Bruttians had killed the garrison commander and the enemy began to run. None got too far.


Scipio was true to his word, every Punic man in the city was killed. The city was taken in the name of the Senate and People of Rome. I had participated in the taking of the first Roman city outside Italy.

What next? There are rumours amongst the men Scipio wants to fight the large punic army to the west then go to Africa and conquer Carthage itself, leaving Blasio to pacify Sicily. I have to admit I was disappointed not to be posted with my old commander but it seems I had won the roll of the dice with Scipio. Whatever happened the next few years would not be dull.