Ally of Rome by Rob Edmunds

Author:Rob Edmunds [Edmunds, Rob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781838596293
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
Published: 2020-07-16T22:00:00+00:00

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As Masinissa and his remaining companions recuperated and waited for news of Scipio’s invasion, they found themselves, despite being ostensibly more fugitives by then than an army in the field, paradoxically more at liberty to move around as news of their survival spread and acquired the tint of a miracle. The fact of their survival in itself was impressive, but, undoubtedly, there must have been the odd embellishment in the retelling that made their actions out to be even more spectacular than they were. Sanctuary and safety were easy and quick to find. Any waverers or anyone who might have been inclined to betray them only had to be informed of the fact of their survival, and the indisputable truth of their favour by the gods, for them to offer a fulsome and reliable hospitality.

They moved as heroes and liberators in waiting through the Massylian towns and settlements, hid and recruited amongst the people, and Masinissa learnt at first hand much more about the everyday struggles and grievances of the communities he presumed to lead and command. As he spoke to people and listened, he felt a deeper attachment beginning to form. He met older people whose sons had left them to join the war and who had been killed or enslaved – they preferred to imagine the former – and he listened to their heartbreak and admired their endurance. They had somehow still kept a light in their being, at least in the company of others. Their memories were keeping them alive, it seemed. The past was their only future. He felt he was regaining some of his softness, and that a truer empathy was infiltrating the hard carapace of the weary and emotionally exhausted soldier he had long ago become.

A light of another kind returned to him too. News of his exploits and presence in Numidia was spreading to all parts of Africa, and could no more be suppressed than a true religion. Thus his erstwhile friend and mentor Conon found his way to the camp, expressing a desire to see him, and to stay and offer his services as well as he could. Masinissa took the reunion for what it was, a wonderful surprise, but also as an indicator of the subtler trajectories of the war. For all their fellowship, why would Conon seek out a hopeless renegade, unless he felt that the tides of war were turning in Masinissa’s favour.

He had to leave Carthage surreptitiously, and he had brought with him a number of other Greek scholars and artisans, fearful of the rising oppressions, potential military conscription and the ominous threat of invasion, which all feared by then, apart from the still-assertive Carthaginian fleet. They had acquired an escort once clear of the city’s sentries, and Masinissa thanked and paid these men generously. Conon’s group, whilst hopeless in a military sense, provided knowledge and skills that he lacked and that would certainly be beneficial in any incipient state that he might carve out from the wreckage of the conflict.

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