Chapter 41
Our Former Enemies
by Astarte, daughter of Admago
“They order every one to carry forth from home for himself provisions for three months, ready ground. They persuade the Rauraci, and the Tulingi, and the Latobrigi, their neighbours, to adopt the same plan, and after burning down their towns and villages, to set out with them: and they admit to their party and unite to themselves as confederates the Boii, who had dwelt on the other side of the Rhine, and had crossed over into the Norican territory, and assaulted Noreia.”
- Admago, Germanic War (*)
While Carthage was divided in our civil war between Admago the Shophet and Sanais the usurper, Germanic tribes attacked our northern frontier. We were used to raids, but this attack was different. The tribes were not stealing cattle and slaves and then escaping. They were so determined to take our lands that they burned their villages before they marched. The city of Noreia had high walls, but too few remained to defend them when the enemy arrived. The tribesmen broke through Noreia’s militia and reduced homes and craft-halls to rubble and ashes.
The tribesmen continued south to attack another city, Segestica. The one army which Admago could spare arrived to find that Segestica’s militia had already been overrun. The enemy’s axemen and swordsmen were running unchecked through the streets, killing and burning.
The army sent by Admago turned the invaders back, but defeated rather than destroyed them. While our army held Segestica, the Germanic tribes were free to roam and pillage through Carthaginian lands in Pannonia and Illyria.
Without a strong defence, more cities would have shared the fate of Noreia and Segestica. Our former enemies, the Romans, were more loyal to Carthage than Sanais and his generals. When the Roman Senate in exile, in Karalis on the island of Sardinia, heard of the tribes marching south, they sent Roman legionaries to the northern frontier. While Carthaginians fought each other, Romans defended our lands. Singidun, a walled city east of Segestica, became a Roman colony. In the years that followed, the sons of Romans who had defended our northern frontier served the Carthaginian Empire, some in Roman armies and some as levy troops in Carthaginian armies. They were formidable soldiers, as loyal as Libyans and as skilled as Lusitani.
Some in the Council were worried, when our armies began to include Roman legionaries. They remembered the Roman uprising against Carthage some years ago when Mascarada was Shophet. We should not forget the Roman rebellion, but we should also remember how the Romans were loyal when Carthaginians fought each other.
When the civil war ended, and our armies advanced into Germania, Roman legionaries were Admago’s strong right hand. Many Germanic warriors had fallen in their attempt to invade our lands. Carthage had lost men too in our civil war, but soldiers of Rome, Libya, Aegypt, Illyria and the Lusitani were with us.
Author's Note |
(*) This is actually from Julius Caesar, Gallic War, chapter 5.
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