Quintus
Once upon a time, there was a Roman called Quintus. He lived during the dark days during which Rome was constantly under threat from outside, and now more than ever from the Carthaginians. The City held its breath, and every citizen waited for news, fearing above all that war would break out and the Romans would not win.
One day the dreaded news came: Hannibal had gathered a huge army and set out to attack Rome directly. He was already in Spain, said the bread-maker. The Iberians were flocking to his side, said the basket-weaver. He was bringing huge beasts, capable of flattening ten men with one step, said the temple priestess. Rumour flitted from citizen to citizen, spreading panic as she went.
Quintus was not panicking: this was an ideal opportunity to join a legion and do some regularly paid work. He had been working as a mercenary for the last two years and was heartsick of that kind of employment. Time for something different, he thought, time to do something honourable that would save his homeland and keep him fed and clothed.
Rumour kept busy, and every day the men of Quintus’ legion said something different about Hannibal’s progress. How they knew was a mystery, unless there was some god at work, since surely there was no opportunity for these things to be reported so quickly. And yet one day Hannibal had reached the Pyrenees, another he was storming through Massilia, and another he had reached the very Alps. That was what frightened people the most: he had reached the Alps and was forging ahead despite the difficulties. Transalpine Gaul was behind him, and soon he would be in Cisalpine Gaul, and after that there was only the territory of Rome’s Italian allies before he reached the City itself. And would the allies offer any protection? It was Rome that had the quarrel with the Punic contingent, not them.
This was the state of things when Quintus was called to the legate’s tent: the Carthaginians were perhaps two or three months away, and getting ever closer and more threatening. Thinking he had been summoned on some minor disciplinary charge, since the night before he and some others had been making free with some girls from an outlying town, Quintus pulled himself up straight and walked in to see the legate.
The legate’s face was grave, and with him was another man with a similar countenance but altogether more impressive armour. It transpired that the other man was the consul himself, Flaminius, and he had heard something of Quintus’ reputation. “We are looking for someone to perform a great task that may ultimately save the Roman Republic,” Flaminius said seriously. “You have worked as a mercenary, and I have heard you are a good one. Will you accept the mission? You must accept it first, and then I shall explain the details.”
Quintus thought for a moment, balancing his new-found occupation as a soldier (which admittedly involved a deal of hard labour) with his previous work as a mercenary (along with the prospect of doing something heroic). He was not a people’s man, and so the soldierly ‘camaraderie’ he was supposed to be experiencing meant nothing to him and was not an issue. Thus it happened that he said yes, he would accept the mission, and his heart was glad to have some purpose.
The mission was not unlike some of his usual work: he was to go and wait in the north, not far from the border of Cisalpine Gaul, and when Hannibal came he was to infiltrate his camp and kill him. Vital, said Flaminius. Simple, said Quintus. And without any scruples he collected his things from his contubernium and prepared to travel. No-one wondered why he had left: he had not had time to make friends with the other soldiers, being the sort of man who needed a long time to make a friend.
Flaminius, as became apparent very quickly, had thought everything through down to the last detail. Quintus could retain his name, but he was to pose as a poor sheep farmer who sometimes had occasion to travel south to Rome to sell livestock to patricians trying to maintain the quintessential Roman idyll of the country farm. Because he was used to travelling, he knew the roads south to Rome, and could agree or offer to lead the Carthaginians south via a route already plotted by Flaminius and his tacticians. When he had gained some trust, he would do the deed and escape into the night if he could, or die a Roman hero’s death if he could not.
What Flaminius lacked in dirt practicality, Quintus easily made up for. To infiltrate an invading army seemed an oddly romantic notion, as though he would be trusted as a guide without question. But Quintus knew how to make it reality, and that was what he was going to do.
That very day, Quintus found himself riding north with orders to liase with a man called Acer, who had apparently been useful to the army before. A few days later, Acer met him and passed on some sheep that he had procured, showing Quintus to a little hut in the hills where he would live until Hannibal arrived. Any day now, Acer said, his scarred and grisly face twisting into what must have been a smile. Quintus wondered if that was how he would look in ten years if he continued in his current line of work, but he dismissed the thought when Acer was gone and he was left alone with his subterfuge.
Of course, it was some time before Hannibal came close, and Quintus spent nearly two months living in his little hut and tending to his sheep. They were quiet creatures, standing happily on the hillside and chewing their grass (the longest they could find, he noticed). A farmer might try to get milk from them, Quintus thought, but in truth he did not like to disturb them, so tranquil did they seem going about their daily ovine duties. On one occasion, he found that one of his sheep (the one named Tertius) had caught his foot in some brambles, and he did his best to free the animal. But the pain in its big black eyes struck his heart directly, and so he allowed it to live in the hut with him for a while until it could walk properly again. Of all of them, though, Primus was his favourite, a small and especially fluffy creature with a pleasantly high-pitched bleat; often Primus followed him around when he was tending to his flock.
Nearby, there were other sheep farmers living in the hills. Though he rarely had occasion to speak to them, Quintus made some effort to pick up the rudiments of the local dialect so that he might sound like a northern man. None of them questioned him: he had an odd suspicion that they did not talk to each other much anyway, and would not be surprised to find that someone they had never met before had been living in their midst for years. But as those two months began to draw to an end, he found that they were keeping each other’s company more often, and Rumour had made her way even up to those ignorant farmers. Hannibal was very close, they began to say. Almost through Cisalpine Gaul, and only a matter of days away. Quintus prepared himself.
It happened, deliberately of course, that the hills where Quintus and his sheep were stationed were just by a valley that would be an obvious choice for an invading army to traverse. The hills sloped away gently, and Hannibal’s scouts soon began to appear, climbing the highest hills to make sure that there was no great army waiting to ambush them. Quintus got into position, driving his sheep so that they blocked the road south.
The smell betrayed their advance long before the Punic troops came into view, but this did not detract from the majesty of the sight of them when they did. Thousands upon thousands of men, their faces grim and their hearts hardened by marching in the biting cold of the mountains. At their head and along the line were a number of elephants, great grey beasts that plodded forward looking strangely sad.
Quintus suddenly feared for his sheep, caught before such a storm, and began to move them out of the way. They were only a hundred yards away now, and he picked up Primus and tried to urge the others to move in the right direction. And then the army stopped. It was not sudden, but rather a rally or cries from different men along the line causing the great lumbering body to grind to a halt. The nearest elephants were just a few feet away by then, and a man got down, with some help, from the tallest of them.
“You,” said the man in foreign-tinted Latin. “Some of your sheep are in my way. Be careful, farmer.”
Primus bleated, and Quintus put him down. “I am sorry,” he said. “They are stubborn creatures. But I could do it more quickly if...” He trailed off, and there was a twinkle of promise in his eye.
The Carthaginian man laughed, and oddly this caused a few men standing not far behind him to laugh, almost nervously. “You want paying, farmer,” he said. “But Hannibal does not pay to have sheep moved.”
Quintus gaped. He did not imagine that this was Hannibal. The man’s face was obscured by a scruffy beard, his hair bedraggled, his skin swarthy, his fur pelt moth-eaten. He had presence, but not majesty of the sort you would expect to be obvious in such a great man.
Smiling, Hannibal leaned forward. “Perhaps I can pay you for something else, farmer. No doubt you know this country well. If you guide me south, without treachery, I will pay you well.”
“Guide you,” Quintus repeated, as if mulling it over. “My sheep will go stray while I am away. Will you make it worth my while?”
“Will you guide me truly?” Hannibal asked, his piercing dark eyes searching for loyalty.
Now Quintus allowed himself to smile. “In Rome, I am robbed. For these beautiful animals they pay me a pittance. If you prove a more... generous man, then I think we should get along very well, and I should not be unhappy if you win this war.”
“We have an agreement then,” Hannibal said, taking out a purse bursting with gold coins and putting it in Quintus’ hand. It was more than enough to pay a fair price for each of his animals and give him a satisfying bonus on top. Quintus wondered if Hannibal had a stash of such purses with which to pay anyone who did him a service.
Nodding his acceptance of the price, Quintus ushered his sheep aside and took up his post as the enemy’s guide. Before long, the great army was mobile again, and they began to move forward, south towards Rome. Quintus gave a short but sad glance at his abandoned flock, and then gave his attention to sending the Carthaginians along the route Flaminius had chosen.
One day the dreaded news came: Hannibal had gathered a huge army and set out to attack Rome directly. He was already in Spain, said the bread-maker. The Iberians were flocking to his side, said the basket-weaver. He was bringing huge beasts, capable of flattening ten men with one step, said the temple priestess. Rumour flitted from citizen to citizen, spreading panic as she went.
Quintus was not panicking: this was an ideal opportunity to join a legion and do some regularly paid work. He had been working as a mercenary for the last two years and was heartsick of that kind of employment. Time for something different, he thought, time to do something honourable that would save his homeland and keep him fed and clothed.
Rumour kept busy, and every day the men of Quintus’ legion said something different about Hannibal’s progress. How they knew was a mystery, unless there was some god at work, since surely there was no opportunity for these things to be reported so quickly. And yet one day Hannibal had reached the Pyrenees, another he was storming through Massilia, and another he had reached the very Alps. That was what frightened people the most: he had reached the Alps and was forging ahead despite the difficulties. Transalpine Gaul was behind him, and soon he would be in Cisalpine Gaul, and after that there was only the territory of Rome’s Italian allies before he reached the City itself. And would the allies offer any protection? It was Rome that had the quarrel with the Punic contingent, not them.
This was the state of things when Quintus was called to the legate’s tent: the Carthaginians were perhaps two or three months away, and getting ever closer and more threatening. Thinking he had been summoned on some minor disciplinary charge, since the night before he and some others had been making free with some girls from an outlying town, Quintus pulled himself up straight and walked in to see the legate.
The legate’s face was grave, and with him was another man with a similar countenance but altogether more impressive armour. It transpired that the other man was the consul himself, Flaminius, and he had heard something of Quintus’ reputation. “We are looking for someone to perform a great task that may ultimately save the Roman Republic,” Flaminius said seriously. “You have worked as a mercenary, and I have heard you are a good one. Will you accept the mission? You must accept it first, and then I shall explain the details.”
Quintus thought for a moment, balancing his new-found occupation as a soldier (which admittedly involved a deal of hard labour) with his previous work as a mercenary (along with the prospect of doing something heroic). He was not a people’s man, and so the soldierly ‘camaraderie’ he was supposed to be experiencing meant nothing to him and was not an issue. Thus it happened that he said yes, he would accept the mission, and his heart was glad to have some purpose.
The mission was not unlike some of his usual work: he was to go and wait in the north, not far from the border of Cisalpine Gaul, and when Hannibal came he was to infiltrate his camp and kill him. Vital, said Flaminius. Simple, said Quintus. And without any scruples he collected his things from his contubernium and prepared to travel. No-one wondered why he had left: he had not had time to make friends with the other soldiers, being the sort of man who needed a long time to make a friend.
Flaminius, as became apparent very quickly, had thought everything through down to the last detail. Quintus could retain his name, but he was to pose as a poor sheep farmer who sometimes had occasion to travel south to Rome to sell livestock to patricians trying to maintain the quintessential Roman idyll of the country farm. Because he was used to travelling, he knew the roads south to Rome, and could agree or offer to lead the Carthaginians south via a route already plotted by Flaminius and his tacticians. When he had gained some trust, he would do the deed and escape into the night if he could, or die a Roman hero’s death if he could not.
What Flaminius lacked in dirt practicality, Quintus easily made up for. To infiltrate an invading army seemed an oddly romantic notion, as though he would be trusted as a guide without question. But Quintus knew how to make it reality, and that was what he was going to do.
That very day, Quintus found himself riding north with orders to liase with a man called Acer, who had apparently been useful to the army before. A few days later, Acer met him and passed on some sheep that he had procured, showing Quintus to a little hut in the hills where he would live until Hannibal arrived. Any day now, Acer said, his scarred and grisly face twisting into what must have been a smile. Quintus wondered if that was how he would look in ten years if he continued in his current line of work, but he dismissed the thought when Acer was gone and he was left alone with his subterfuge.
Of course, it was some time before Hannibal came close, and Quintus spent nearly two months living in his little hut and tending to his sheep. They were quiet creatures, standing happily on the hillside and chewing their grass (the longest they could find, he noticed). A farmer might try to get milk from them, Quintus thought, but in truth he did not like to disturb them, so tranquil did they seem going about their daily ovine duties. On one occasion, he found that one of his sheep (the one named Tertius) had caught his foot in some brambles, and he did his best to free the animal. But the pain in its big black eyes struck his heart directly, and so he allowed it to live in the hut with him for a while until it could walk properly again. Of all of them, though, Primus was his favourite, a small and especially fluffy creature with a pleasantly high-pitched bleat; often Primus followed him around when he was tending to his flock.
Nearby, there were other sheep farmers living in the hills. Though he rarely had occasion to speak to them, Quintus made some effort to pick up the rudiments of the local dialect so that he might sound like a northern man. None of them questioned him: he had an odd suspicion that they did not talk to each other much anyway, and would not be surprised to find that someone they had never met before had been living in their midst for years. But as those two months began to draw to an end, he found that they were keeping each other’s company more often, and Rumour had made her way even up to those ignorant farmers. Hannibal was very close, they began to say. Almost through Cisalpine Gaul, and only a matter of days away. Quintus prepared himself.
It happened, deliberately of course, that the hills where Quintus and his sheep were stationed were just by a valley that would be an obvious choice for an invading army to traverse. The hills sloped away gently, and Hannibal’s scouts soon began to appear, climbing the highest hills to make sure that there was no great army waiting to ambush them. Quintus got into position, driving his sheep so that they blocked the road south.
The smell betrayed their advance long before the Punic troops came into view, but this did not detract from the majesty of the sight of them when they did. Thousands upon thousands of men, their faces grim and their hearts hardened by marching in the biting cold of the mountains. At their head and along the line were a number of elephants, great grey beasts that plodded forward looking strangely sad.
Quintus suddenly feared for his sheep, caught before such a storm, and began to move them out of the way. They were only a hundred yards away now, and he picked up Primus and tried to urge the others to move in the right direction. And then the army stopped. It was not sudden, but rather a rally or cries from different men along the line causing the great lumbering body to grind to a halt. The nearest elephants were just a few feet away by then, and a man got down, with some help, from the tallest of them.
“You,” said the man in foreign-tinted Latin. “Some of your sheep are in my way. Be careful, farmer.”
Primus bleated, and Quintus put him down. “I am sorry,” he said. “They are stubborn creatures. But I could do it more quickly if...” He trailed off, and there was a twinkle of promise in his eye.
The Carthaginian man laughed, and oddly this caused a few men standing not far behind him to laugh, almost nervously. “You want paying, farmer,” he said. “But Hannibal does not pay to have sheep moved.”
Quintus gaped. He did not imagine that this was Hannibal. The man’s face was obscured by a scruffy beard, his hair bedraggled, his skin swarthy, his fur pelt moth-eaten. He had presence, but not majesty of the sort you would expect to be obvious in such a great man.
Smiling, Hannibal leaned forward. “Perhaps I can pay you for something else, farmer. No doubt you know this country well. If you guide me south, without treachery, I will pay you well.”
“Guide you,” Quintus repeated, as if mulling it over. “My sheep will go stray while I am away. Will you make it worth my while?”
“Will you guide me truly?” Hannibal asked, his piercing dark eyes searching for loyalty.
Now Quintus allowed himself to smile. “In Rome, I am robbed. For these beautiful animals they pay me a pittance. If you prove a more... generous man, then I think we should get along very well, and I should not be unhappy if you win this war.”
“We have an agreement then,” Hannibal said, taking out a purse bursting with gold coins and putting it in Quintus’ hand. It was more than enough to pay a fair price for each of his animals and give him a satisfying bonus on top. Quintus wondered if Hannibal had a stash of such purses with which to pay anyone who did him a service.
Nodding his acceptance of the price, Quintus ushered his sheep aside and took up his post as the enemy’s guide. Before long, the great army was mobile again, and they began to move forward, south towards Rome. Quintus gave a short but sad glance at his abandoned flock, and then gave his attention to sending the Carthaginians along the route Flaminius had chosen.