Velvet Coats of Kings

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The Velvet Coats of Kings

Chapter I

The Phoenician Clasp

'At last, Elissa went forth, with a great mass of people crowding round, dressed in a Sidonian cloak with a painted border; her quiver made of gold, her hair tied back in a golden clasp' - Aeneid (book IV)

"The first steps", writes John C. Bell, "of the Iberian tribe known as the Lusitanians towards national and imperial ambitions, was to escape the Carthaginian yolk. While the Carthaginians respected them as adversaries and as allies, they were naturally seen as a servant kingdom. The chieftain Tantalos Lusotanakum, at the age of sixty, finally recognised this fact:

'I have come to understand', his scribe recorded, 'that we will never be great so long as we are in the shadow of the distant towers of Carthage. We cannot negotiate with the powers of the East, nor expand beyond local tribal struggles. We must build faster than an empire with unlimited resources and the manpower of all the Iberians combined. If we weren't Lusitanians, I'd consider this difficult.'

Tantalos embarked now on plans, leaving military command to his sons, his heir Latronos, who was about forty and his other son Ditalkos, thirty-five. The kingdom was, he intended, going to either grow too big for the golden clasp of Tyre to hold, or else to break free. This was the beginning of the great push of the Lusotanians!"

Jubal was at this time king of Sucum Murgi, and in the spring of 271 BC, the Lusitani moved against him. He attributes his defeat to the sheer numbers of his enemy, but interestingly notes a change in the attitudes of these people to war.

"It amazed me to see the change in the opposing forces. In the past, they had had legions of flashy horsemen, now they had just their own bodyguards. Where they once had a substantial force of elite spearmen, they had stripped their army down to only three thousand of the Scortamareva, six thousand Caetrati and twelve thousand militia.

I had four thousand Caetrati, fifteen hundred Scortamareva and four thousand gestikapoinann spearmen. Despite their cuts, they were still a force far greater than any I could field. But still I tried, and lost."

It would appear that Tantalos had managed to cut Lusitanian financial problems to a quarter of their previous enormous losses, by simply disbanding the more expensive parts of his military and returning those soldiers to his economy.

The king Jubal fought, outnumbered roughly two to one by the Lusitani, the battle began with the numerous Lusitani skirmishers raining javelins upon the enemy over the walls, and battering several holes in the walls. Lusitani soldiers then entered the town and slowly overpowered the defenders. Jubal himself assisted his men in the attempt to turn back the Lusitanians, but this was unsuccessful. Slowly but surely the Caetrannan surrounded him and his men. Eventually he fled, but was surrounded. One of the Caetrati cut through his leg and tore off the ankle. He was crippled for life, and spent four years in prison, before impressing the Lusitanian kings enough that they employed him as their chief historian. The battle, it would seem, really ended at the palisade with the capture of Jubal: the 3,500 men he had left to guard the top of the hill were easily defeated, and could clearly have been put to better use in the clash.

The Lusitani lost (Jubal records) about 2,100 men, dead or injured. Of these about a third were the elite Scortamareva spearmen, while the rest were dispensable levies.

Scutum Murgi was captured, giving the Lusotannan a stronger base in southern Spain. Amazingly, the population were unharmed, and the new income reduced their financials losses again by about three fifths to three thousand mnai lost each year (compared to the previous thirty thousand). Jubal began to ease his way into the confidence of Latronos, advising him subtly about other Iberian tribes (turncoat Eleutheroi) and also to write his histories. A man was hired as a second bodyguard for Latronos after he saved his life in battle. The Carthaginians were beginning to become nervous. Perhaps they had reason to...

Later in that same year, the Lusitani also took Baikor off the Carpetani. That was no great challenge for Ditalkos. who outnumbered them more than two to one anyway, especially as the Carpetani's strength was their cavalry, which were useless inside cities. Almost five thousand men died or elected to leave the army as a result of that battle. This somewhat dented the Lusitani might, but the economy Tantalos had envisaged was a reality only a year and a half after he had planned it. The Lusitanians were now making about four thousand mnai each year.