Thank you, everyone, for your generous and encouraging comments! It's good to be back in AAR writing, for New Town continues today...
Chapter 27
The Causes of the Roman Uprising
By Astarte, daughter of Admago
The assassination of Mascarada, Shophet of Carthage, by one of his personal servants created a wave of uncertainty across the republic. To understand the situation, it is necessary to know why Mascarada’s leadership gave the people a feeling of security. After his father’s army was destroyed in a failed attempt to conquer Iberia, Mascarada recruited Iberian mercenaries, enabling him to achieve what his father died trying to do. This is the origin of the traditional saying “only Iberians can conquer Iberia.”
When Rome threatened Carthage with invasion again, Mascarada’s veterans crossed southern Gaul and invaded Italia. By tradition, Carthage’s heavy infantry were trained in the Greek style, with spear and shield. Even after his victories, Mascarada’s leadership would have been questioned if he had broken with tradition completely. He maintained the old custom that warriors from the city of Carthage were trained as hoplites or peltasts. However, he did something new with his warriors from Libya, whose reliability is recognised in the old saying “as loyal as a Libyan”.
Mascarada used his Iberian mercenaries to train Libyan infantry in the use of the sword. Mascarada combined the steadfastness of Libyans with the skilled swordsmanship of Iberians. Iberian and Libyan swordsmen made a decisive difference in the war with Rome. Carthage’s traditional armies of hoplites and peltasts would have struggled against Rome’s legions. But this military innovation was not the only reason why Carthage defeated Rome. Rome’s armies were divided, fighting Carthage in the west and Greek states in the east. The division of Rome’s armies made Mascarada’s victory easier than it would otherwise have been. Even after Rome was occupied and Rome’s Senate withdrew to the city of Karalis on the island of Sardinia, Romans believed that they would have won, if they had fought Carthage alone. For the Romans have a traditional saying, too: “Carthage must be destroyed”.
Author's Note |
If you're wondering where the rest of the chapter is, the answer is that New Town's chapters aim to stay within a 500-word limit (like a Tale of the Week entry) - and sometimes I write less than the limit.
As it's been a long time since the last update, this chapter summarises the story so far. This chapter has another purpose, too. As a hardware failure caused the loss of the saved games from my previous Carthage campaign, the continuation of this AAR is based on a new Carthage campaign. The new campaign broadly follows the pattern of the old: Carthage has expanded west and east across Africa, marched into Iberia and subjugated Rome.
However, in this new campaign, the Desert Kingdom factions are harder to defeat (they have better units because of the Desert Kingdoms DLC, which hadn't been released when I defeated them in the previous Carthage campaign). Also, AI factions are more aggressive than before, since the Ancestral update for Rome II. These changes made my new Carthage campaign more enjoyable and challenging than the previous one. Because of these changes, my new Carthage hasn't been quite as successful as the previous one, so far. Before, all of north Africa and all of Iberia were under Carthage's control; in this campaign, control of Africa and Iberia is still disputed.
This chapter, and others which will follow, aim to bridge the gap between the old campaign and the new one. I can't make the new campaign match the old one exactly. For example, in Chapter 27, I changed the location of Rome's last stand, when Carthage subjugated Rome, from Corsica (where it happened in the previous campaign), to Sardinia (where it happened in the new campaign); even so, I hope to make the continuing story broadly consistent with the previous chapters. |