Life of a Roman: An AAR

[johnhughthom]

Our glorious sailing to Africa and marching to the gates of Carthage never happened. Instead we seem to be stuck in a war of attrition, both sides watching the other ready to pounce on a single mistake. Unfortunately we made the only mistake so far. Cornelius Blasio had his legion camped deep in Carthaginian territory but wasn't happy with his position, so he left one of his tribunes with a detachment and moved the rest of the army to a position closer to Messana and more easily supplied. He believed he would be able to get back to the old camp to relieve the tribune if the Carthaginians attacked. He forgot about elephants. Little more than a decade after Pyrrhus brought them to Italy we had forgotten about them already. Only a few made it back from the camp and they told how the beasts were used as battering rams, knocking down a huge section of wall in less than an hour. The tribune was outnumbered twenty to one but fought on anyway. It didn't take long, most of our men were trampled under elephant feet and the survivors cut down by African savages.

They took our fort, obviously incapable of building their own, and now Blasio's legion sits in his and the Punic horde sit in the one they stormed. Neither army is willing to assault such a well constructed defence as taking it without huge casualties would be next to impossible. So stalemate in the north-west of Sicily, they hold the west, we hold the north-east, which leaves the south-east. Which means one thing, Syracuse. A huge city almost the rival of Rome and certainly as mighty as Athens, Carthage or any of those other "great" cities. They are no friend of Carthage, though they are no friend of Rome either. The ruler had been a general under Pyrrhus and Scipio decided that he could not be trusted, the city would have to be taken if we were to cleanse the island of Punic influence. After all they were Greek and who knows what treachery they would stoop to.

That's were I am now, looking at the walls of Syracuse. We have seiged the city as best we can, but there is a difference between cutting off supplies to a hovel in Gaul and doing so to a genuine metropolis. There are a number of bodies strung up on the walls, spies Scipio sent into the city in an effort to take it by surprise. It seems if we want to take the city assault is the only way, there are a huge number of men in the city, Syracusan Hoplites are famed the world over, and an assault will make Messana look like a training session. It doesn't look like we are going to assault any time soon though, a few men in the camp claim Scipio has messengers and spies coming from the west on an almost hourly basis, as if his mind is not here but in Lilibeo. Could this seige be a ruse to take the Carthaginians by surprise? If they lose Lilibeo the army occuying our camp will be leaderless and unable to resupply. Whatever, look what my speculation last time came to, I will wait here and go where I'm told when I'm told. Sometimes life seems to have changed very little from my time with the irregulars.