Ship of Rome

His habitual routine complete, Scipio began pacing the room, his mounting excitement at the voyage ahead light in his veins. The thoughts of once more facing mortal danger heightened his anticipation.

‘Make ready for my departure for Rome at dawn,’ Scipio ordered Khalil, who immediately turned to leave. The two female slaves made to follow him.

‘Wait,’ Scipio said, causing the three to stop. ‘You stay,’ he ordered, indicating the second of the two women. The others left, closing the door behind them. The woman stood waiting, the basin of cooling water heavy in her hands. She was Sicilian, tall and dark, with large brown eyes and long hair. Her coltish legs were accentuated by the short stola dress she wore, the cord around her waist emphasizing the flair of her hips. Scipio estimated that she was no more than twenty. With a nod of his head he indicated his cot in the corner of the room and she moved towards it, placing the basin on the ground as she went, the simple gesture heightening Scipio’s raw desire. Her expression never changed as she acquiesced, her face adopting the servile look of all slaves as she lay down on the bed.

Scipio had called her to his room the night he’d arrived in Brolium, but this time was different. She could see the Roman could barely contain his sudden desire. Scipio never questioned why impending danger had this effect on him, he simply gave vent to his base desires. Tomorrow he would take sail back to Rome and he would need to show the calm exterior of a leader of Rome to all on board the galley. He would need to bury deep the excitement and lust for action threatening to manifest itself in his expression. Only now, in the privacy of his quarters, as he moved slowly towards the woman, could he give in to his emotions, the brief coupling a chance to assuage his exhilaration at the approach of danger.

The sun had become a memory for the men on board the Aquila as they continued preparations for the dawn departure. The sky still held the light of the departed star, but it was rapidly losing ground to the approaching night, the head-lands at the edge of the harbour mouth becoming mere darkened shadows against the more reflective sea.

Lucius approached Atticus on the foredeck.

‘We’ll be ready to sail by dawn, Captain. The last of the supplies are just arriving from the port barracks.’

‘Very good, Lucius. Have my cabin cleared and made ready for the senior consul.’

‘Yes, Captain,’ Lucius replied, and was immediately away.

Atticus moved to the starboard rail. All around him the frantic activity of preparation continued. As always the sound most commonly splitting the air was the roar of Lucius’s voice, his words a whip crack to a careless or indolent crewman. To Atticus the sound was as much part of the ship as the creak of the deck timbers or the lapping of the tidal waters against the hull ten feet below him. His mind tuned out the sounds as his eyes wandered over the barges spread out across the harbour before him. In the near darkness he could vaguely distinguish their shapes, their hulls swinging slowly against the hold of their anchor lines as the current of the outgoing tide kept their hulls in parallel with each other and perpendicular to the dock. The same current pulled at the hull of the Aquila, drawing her away from the dock. She answered in kind, as if eager to sail, a creature born to the sea, pulling gently at the ropes that held her fast.

The words of Septimus’s former centurion, Marcus, rang in Atticus’s ears: ‘Whatever needs to be done, you need to do it,’ he had said, and Atticus remembered how Septimus had consented without hesitation, revealing the unbreakable bond between former comrades and fellow Romans.

A descendant of Magna Graecia and a sailor all his life, Atticus had never felt any attachment to the Roman citizens of the land-based legions. His duty had always been to his ship, his crew and the people of the Ionian coast under his protection, not to a Republic that was forged by men who were a breed apart from the people of his home city, Locri.

Atticus’s ancestors had migrated from Greece over generations, slowly evolving and adapting the local culture to their own. In contrast, the legions of Rome swept over entire regions in a fraction of a lifetime, transplanting their culture and the ideals of their city as they went, absorbing entire populations into their Republic within a single generation.

Atticus stood on the border of two worlds, his friendship with Septimus drawing him ever closer to Rome and the legions, while men like Scipio and Marcus blocked his path with distrust and age-old animosity. Beneath it all, Atticus could hear his ancestors whisper censure and lament for his association with Rome as they spoke of an ancient loyalty to his people who, for over five hundred years, had made southern Italy their own.

The day dawned with the scent of must in the air, the scent of the dry arid land of northern Sicily. Atticus rose from his cot in one of the smaller aft cabins of the Aquila and looked out through the opened hatch to the harbour beyond. From his vantage point he could see that all of the transport barges were preparing for departure, taking advantage of the turn of the tide that would ease their navigation of the harbour mouth.

The barges were lumbering vessels when docked, like beached pilot whales lying on their backs in the sun. Under way, however, with their massive mainsails pushing them through the waters, they were transformed into living, breathing creatures, and Atticus admired the seamanship required to sail these vessels in the open seas. A worry crossed his mind that they were sailing into waters where the Carthaginian hunters would be seeking them, but he quickly dismissed it. The Punici only held the ports of Thermae and Panormus, over one hundred miles further along the coastline, and they would be unaware of the Romans’ activities in Brolium. Without local knowledge it would take them weeks to discover that this port was the Romans’ supply hub for the entire campaign. Only then would they be able to mount an effective blockade. The departing fleet of barges would be safely home long before that day.

Atticus left the cabin and went on deck. He was immediately beckoned to the aft-deck by Lucius, the second-in-command turning and pointing over the stern rail. A hundred yards away, Scipio was leading a guard detail of praetoriani towards the Aquila. Their approach was framed by the rapidly rising sun in the eastern sky, the clear blue indicating fine weather ahead and the prospect of a quick sailing. He ordered a runner to go below and tell Septimus that Scipio was arriving and to meet him at the head of the gangway. The senior consul would expect to be welcomed aboard by the senior officers of the ship.

‘There, sire,’ the man pointed, his hand shaking, ‘low on the horizon. That’s the headland. Cape Orlando. Brolium is a league west.’

‘You’re sure?’ Gisco asked, his voice threatening the same fate the pirate had seen his crewmates suffer.

‘Yes, sire, I swear it,’ he whimpered, ‘we were in these waters for four weeks. We saw the Roman transport barges ply in and out of Brolium many times, although they were too big a prey for us to take. The latest fleet of over two dozen arrived only three days ago.’

Gisco grunted a reply as he stared through the pre-dawn light to the dark mass of the headland on the horizon.

‘Remove this man from my sight,’ he ordered, ‘throw him over the side.’

The pirate screamed for mercy as the guards lifted him off the deck. In two quick strides they were at the rail and they threw the pirate overboard, his cries cut short as he hit the water ten feet below. Within seconds he was lost beneath the waves.

Gisco smiled. The gods were looking favourably on him this day. The day before, one of the galleys in the rearguard of the fleet had captured a pirate bireme as they moved north through the strait. Many of the crew were instantly put to the sword, the Carthaginians sharing the hatred of pirates that all men of the sea held, but the senior crew had been brought to the flagship where they were tortured for information on Roman naval activity in the area. Gisco’s original plan called for an extensive search to find the Romans’ supply hub once the fleet had reached Panormus, but fortune had smiled on him and the pirates had now given him the information he needed to carry the battle to the Romans.

‘Captain Mago,’ Gisco ordered, ‘signal to the fleet: the first four squads are to remain on station here with the Melqart. The remaining six are to continue to Panormus with all possible speed. Have the squad commanders report to the flagship.’

‘Yes, Admiral,’ Mago replied, and took off towards the stern to signal Gisco’s orders to the ships behind them. Within minutes the four squads of five galleys had broken off from the fleet, each squad comprising a quinquereme leading a group of four triremes. The Melqart also broke formation.

Fifteen minutes later the four squad commanders boarded the Melqart. Gisco met them on the foredeck.

‘The Romans are using the port of Brolium as their supply hub. It is there…’ Gisco pointed towards the distant coast ‘…two points west of that headland. We will move two leagues north of here and cast our net across their course to the mainland. Deploy with bows forward to the mainland. No sails. I want the profile of your ships to be as small as possible. At that distance out, when we are spotted, the transport barges will be too far from port to run. I want your quinqueremes on the extreme flanks. I will take the centre. Get behind them quickly and push them towards me. We will crush them between us.’

‘Yes, Admiral.’ The four captains saluted and turned to leave the foredeck.

‘One more thing, Captains,’ Gisco added, arresting their departure. ‘We take no prisoners. Every barge is to be sunk. No exceptions. Understood?’

‘Yes, Admiral,’ they repeated and left.

‘Now,’ Gisco thought as he looked up at the rapidly brightening sky, ‘let them come.’

Drusus Aquillius Melus, captain of the transport barge Onus, was nervous. Word had swept through the port of Brolium that the trireme that had rushed into the harbour the day before had encountered a Carthaginian fleet of galleys. The rumours had been contradictory, with some claiming the fleet was travelling east and others that it was going west, while estimates of its number varied from three to over a hundred. One thing was clear though, and on this all were agreed, their days of shipping supplies from the mainland to Brolium were numbered. Melus hoped that the days of his life were not similarly marked.

The captain looked up at the mainsail and checked its line as his barge moved slowly out of the harbour. His ship was two hundred feet long and thirty feet wide, a behemoth of the sea, as long as a quinquereme, but wider in the beam and over twice as tall from the waterline. The offshore breeze was light and he estimated their best speed once clear of the port would be no more than five knots. At this speed the passage to Naples would take nearly two full days. He looked over his shoulder at the thirty-two other barges making their way ponderously under sail. They would separate out as the day wore on, the new ships outpacing the older, the experienced crews faster than the inexperienced. Each ship had its own pace. Unique. By nightfall they would aim to have a half-mile between each ship, to avoid collisions in the dark. Now, grouped together, the flotilla of transports seemed to Melus to resemble a flock of sheep, the bellies of their broad white mainsails stretching out across the width of the harbour. A sight to see. He looked up above them to the sky overhead. It was a clear day which promised clear sailing. Perfect weather for navigation. Two days, he repeated to himself, two days and home.

The Aquila cast off from the dockside as the last of the transport barges weighed anchor and raised sail. The larger vessels moved slowly under sail and Gaius wove the Aquila nimbly through their ranks using the galley’s superior manoeuvrability under oars. Scipio stood alone on the aft-deck, watching the action of the crew around him intently, his journey on the Aquila marking his first time on a galley. The consul was travelling light in comparison to his arrival three days before on one of the transport barges. The confined and valuable space aboard a fighting vessel meant that his entourage consisted of merely his guard commander and four praetoriani with his Nubian slave, Khalil, in attendance. In any other place the reduced guard would be foolhardy, but in the isolation of a galley at sea it seemed almost excessive. The only enemies that threatened him were the Carthaginians and, if the Aquila was somehow attacked in strength, the fact that his guard was four instead of twenty-four would make little difference.

Atticus watched the consul surreptitiously as the Aquila gained the lead on the fleet of barges. Lucius ordered the sail raised, transferring the exertion of the rowers to the wind. The galley’s combination of oars and sail would maintain a slight gap on the barges, keeping her in the van of the flotilla. Septimus joined Atticus on the foredeck.

‘Rome!’ he smiled, and slapped Atticus’s shoulder.

Atticus couldn’t help but smile, his friend’s good mood at returning to his home city infectious.

As a younger man, with the wanderlust of youth powerful in his veins, Atticus had wanted to travel to Rome and all the great cities of the Republic, and from there beyond to the distant shores of the Mediterranean, the great sea that touched all the coastlines of the known world. That ambition had narrowed with age, tempered by realities and his duty to his ship and crew. But the desire to see Rome had always stayed with him, a desire to see the centre of the Republic, to grasp the atmosphere in the city that inspired men to conquer the world around them.

Captain Melus stared at the galley moving effortlessly through the water. The wind had picked up after leaving port and so now, two hours out from Brolium, the galley was still within a mile of the leading ships on the port side of the fleet. Melus had served twenty years on a trading galley, rising to the rank of boatswain. His share of the profit over those years had provided him with the opportunity to purchase a part share in the Onus which, thanks to the campaign on Sicily and the almost constant supply drops, was proving to be a profitable investment. That would all change with the commencement of a blockade and Melus cursed Fortuna for her fickle nature.

Suddenly, as Melus watched, the mainsail of the galley collapsed. Even over the distance of a mile, the captain could see the deck of the galley come alive. Something was wrong.

‘Ship ahead!’

Melus turned. The cry had come from the masthead. He looked up to see the lookout pointing directly ahead of their course. An acid feeling of dread filled his stomach as he rushed forward to the foredeck. Peering out over the rail, he waited to see the reported ship, his viewpoint twenty feet below the masthead making him wait before seeing what the lookout had seen.

‘There,’ his mind screamed, ‘dead ahead.’

He blinked his eyes rapidly to clear them and refocused on the unexpected and yet feared sight in front of him. He couldn’t make out any details beyond the fact that it was directly facing them, its bow pointing like an arrow at his own. It looked like…no, he was certain…it was a galley.

‘Two more ships ahead! A point off starboard and port!’ the lookout called again. Melus could hear fear in the man’s voice at the realization of what he was seeing. Within five seconds he could also see the two ships himself, flanking the first. It was an ambush. There was no doubt and there could be no doubt of who they were.

Melus was about to sound the alarm when he heard the resonating sound of a signalling trumpet from the fleet behind him. In foggy weather these trumpets were used to alert other ships to avoid collisions. In clear conditions their repeated blasts meant mortal danger.

‘Two more ships ahead!’ The lookout’s cries were now frantic. ‘Two points off starboard and port!’

The captain ignored the cries from above, his mind trying to comprehend the warning sounds he was hearing. They weren’t emanating from the ships around him, from those who could also see the ships ahead, but from the rear of the fleet. ‘They can’t have seen them yet,’ his mind was telling him, ‘unless…’ He felt a sharp pain in his lower intestines as terror overtook his emotions.

‘Sweet mercy…’ he whispered at the realization of what was happening. ‘They’re all around us…we’re trapped.’ ‘Prepare for action!’ Atticus roared, his orders overlain with the repeated blasts of warning trumpets from the transport fleet behind. Five galleys could be seen on the horizon, with the lookout reporting four more on the flanks. The Romans had sailed into a perfect trap.