MOVE AND COUNTERMOVE.
The great festival of Hammon, with all its lurid splendours, did not
fail to produce something at least of the effect which the authorities
had expected from it. The flagging zeal of the Carthaginian people
regained its old energy; the hope that their country might yet be saved
to them, a hope almost abandoned during the last few months, began to
revive. Hammon, they thought, must be propitiated by a piety so devoted,
must interfere to save so dutiful a city.
There was, indeed, need of all the encouragement that could be had, for
the situation of the civil population of Carthage was precarious in the
extreme. The Senate had not neglected to lay up in the time of peace
such provisions for the war that they knew to be impending as it had
been possible to collect. But the work had had to be done almost by
stealth. Rome had watched with suspicion anything that looked like
preparations for war, and had remonstrated more than once against the
purchase of unnecessary stores.
What was done in this way had to be done without the knowledge of her
regularly appointed agents and of residents who were secretly in her
pay. Something had been accomplished; the garrison had ample supplies;
the houses of the upper class were, for the most part, well furnished.
But the poor, who had no room for stores in their dwellings, even if
they had the means to purchase them in advance, were dangerously near to
want. It is for the needs of this class that public provision has to be
made in any city that expects to be besieged, and it was in respect of
this public provision that the action of the Carthaginian government had
been hampered.
Things had grown rapidly worse since the building of the walled camp
across the isthmus. Nothing could now be brought into the besieged city
by land. The sea was still partly open. The Roman fleet kept up a
blockade, but it was not really effective. As soon as the wind began to
blow from the sea the war-ships had to stand off from the shore, and the
blockade-runners had their opportunity. Prices ruled so high in the city
that a trader who contrived to take safely to its destination one cargo
out of two made a very handsome profit.
All the fishing population of the African coast for a hundred miles on
either side of the besieged city was busily employed in the traffic.
Light vessels drawing but little water were chiefly used, for they could
be safely navigated in places where a war-ship would inevitably have
grounded. So rudely and cheaply were they built that the loss, if they
were wrecked, was insignificant. The great difficulty was the weather;
if this continued to be fine for ten days together, a large part of the
besieged population came within an easily measurable distance of
starvation.
Scipio now resolved on making a great counter-move--he would block up
the approach to the harbour. He had, in fact, for some time past
foreseen the necessity of taking this step, and had prepared a vast
amount of material for the work, employing great numbers of the native
population in quarrying stone and cutting timber. So much had been
accomplished in this way that when the time came for executing the work
little more than the actual construction remained to be done. This was
not so difficult as it had seemed. The harbour mouth was not very far
from the shore occupied by the Romans.
The first thing was to lay a foundation for the mole that it was
proposed to build. This was done by sinking huge blocks of roughly-hewn
stone, chiefly during moonless nights. During this stage of the work the
besieged took little heed of what was going on, or, anyhow, took no
pains to interrupt or hinder it. There was a suspicion, and more than a
suspicion, of Scipio's purpose, but Hasdrubal, himself indolent and
incompetent, haughtily refused to listen to any suggestion from his
subordinates. But even Hasdrubal was roused when the structure reached
the surface of the water. What he saw was a mole, more than thirty yards
broad, stretching across the mouth of the harbour, and shutting off
every channel available even for the smallest craft.
Hasdrubal now developed, or accepted, a plan which for a time at least
was a virtual check to Scipio's move. He kept up a brisk discharge of
missiles on the men employed in building the mole. So sharp and
continuous was it that the besiegers had little attention to give to
what was being done on the opposite side of the harbour. It was a
surprise, and a very unwelcome surprise to them, that no sooner had they
stopped up one mouth of the harbour, than they found that another exit
had been created. The whole population, every man, woman, and child in
the city, that could ply a spade or a pick, wheel a barrow-load or carry
a basket of earth, had been working night and day at excavating another
mouth to the harbour.
Nor was this all; a still greater surprise, so great, indeed, as to be
almost overwhelming, remained behind.
One of the conditions of the peace granted to Carthage after the fatal
defeat of Zama[37] had been the surrender of all the ships of war but
twenty. In a way this condition had been observed. There had never been
more than twenty ships in commission at one time; but the old hulks had
not always been destroyed. At first they had been kept to serve various
purposes; latterly, as another war began to loom in the future, they had
been preserved with the intention of using them again. A number of
merchant vessels also were furnished with crews and an armament that was
at least passably effective.
And, marvellous to relate, all this had been done without the knowledge
of the besiegers. There was a constant flow of deserters from the city,
increasing as time went on and the prospects of Carthage became less and
less hopeful. Yet none of them had any definite information to give.
That something was going on they knew; they had heard for some time a
great sound of hammering--that, indeed, had been audible in the Roman
camp when the wind blew from the dockyard--but the restrictions on
admission to the arsenals had been rigidly enforced. So there ended the
information which they were able to give.
Nothing, then, could have exceeded the astonishment of the besiegers
when a new fleet, the existence of which no one had suspected, issued
from a harbour mouth which no one had ever seen. A thin bank of earth
had been kept to the last, so that to observers from outside, as also to
the Roman ships as they cruised backwards and forwards along the coast,
nothing appeared to have been changed. When everything else was ready,
all the available labour in Carthage was set to work to clear this bank
away. The task was finished by dawn. At sunrise the new fleet,
magnificently equipped, for there had been a lavish expenditure on the
ornament as well as the armament of the ships, sailed out of the harbour
by its new exit.
Unfortunately for Carthage there was no one to make the most of the
opportunity. A vigorous attack on the Roman fleet--scattered as it was,
and altogether unprepared for action, some of the ships being under
repair, and nearly all of them but half-manned, their crews being
largely employed on shore--might have been successful, and have even
postponed the fate of Carthage. But it was not to be. Hasdrubal,
self-opinionated and incapable, paralysed everything and everybody. The
fleet paraded for a while along the coast, and had the barren honour of
holding without dispute, for that day at least, the possession of the
sea.
"The crews must be exercised first," said Hasdrubal, who was on board
what we may call the flag-ship, to the veteran who directed its
navigation; "but in a few days--"
"There's no exercise like fighting," growled the old man as he turned
away.
And this was the common opinion of Carthage. So strong and so general
was it, and so vigorously expressed, that Hasdrubal could not afford to
disregard it. Word was passed round to the captains that they must be
ready to engage the next day. In the morning, accordingly, the fleet
sailed out again. Every one was in high spirits, for it is an immense
relief for those who have been long cooped up within walls, occupied
with the tedious task of a protracted defence, to renew the more
adventurous and interesting experience of attack. Some victories were
won. One of the Carthaginian ships contrived to ram two antagonists in
rapid succession. This vessel was a present to the state by one of the
merchant companies, and no expense had been spared in making it of the
strongest build and furnishing it with an effective crew of freeborn,
well-paid rowers. Another captured one of the Roman ships by boarding.
Cleanor was serving in this, and, owing to the death of one and the
disablement of the other of his superior officers, had the unexpected
honour of leading the boarders. There was a sharp struggle, but
ultimately the Roman crew was overpowered and compelled to surrender.
On the other hand, there were counterbalancing, or almost
counterbalancing losses, for towards the end of the day the Romans had
recovered from their surprise, and more than held their own.
Scipio was everywhere, conspicuous in the scarlet cloak of the
general-in-command. Once as he passed he was well within a javelin-throw
of our hero. Cleanor, as he doubted whether he ought not to do his best
to rid Carthage of a formidable enemy, fancied that he saw a smile of
recognition on his face. When it grew dark, the struggle was suspended
by mutual consent.
The next morning it was renewed. This time fortune declared itself
unequivocally against Carthage. It was not that there was any marked
falling-off in the efficiency or courage of the crews. It was the ships
themselves that began to fail. Many, as has been said, were old hulks
patched up to serve again. Two days of incessant use, with occasional
collisions with friends and enemies, had not improved them. The seams
began to open and old leaks to show themselves, so that by noon at least
a score were more or less water-logged. Those that had suffered most,
about half the number, fell into the hands of the enemy. Five other
ships were sunk.
The Roman loss was less than half of this amount. It was not a crushing
defeat, but it was sufficient to show that Carthage could not hope
for deliverance from her fleet. Still, some advantage remained to
the besieged. It would be impossible to close up the new mouth of
the harbour, so deep was the water into which it opened. On this
side, therefore, the Roman blockade could never be made complete.
Notwithstanding this gain, the whole result was a heavy discouragement.
FOOTNOTE:
37: The battle which brought the Second Punic War to a
conclusion in 202 B.C.