Julius leaned on his spear. He felt his eyelids droop down. Shaking himself, he jumped up and down in place. As a soldier of Karthage, it was his duty to stay awake during his watch. Not that there was much to see. The darkness surrounded him, the only light coming from the thousands of stars spread across the sky. In front of him the small sounds of the night went on like they did every night, oblivious to his presence, or at least uncaring. Underneath him the rest of the men of Fort Carthago slept. The name itself was a bit of irony. It could hardly be called a fort by any stretch of the imagination. The most imposing structure of the “fort” was a tall outpost, a flat observation platform connected to the ground by a ladder. On it, Julius stood watch, an unlit bonfire behind him that he was to light in emergency to warn the surrounding countryside. Around the outpost huddled a few buildings, the sleeping quarters for the four other men who were stationed here.
The very fact that Julius was here proved, in his mind, that the gods either hated him or enjoyed cruel jokes. He had grown up in a small native village in the northern part of what the Karthaginians called Italium. His entire world consisted of his family’s farm and his small village. Then the Karthaginians came, building a settlement nearby they called Pisae. One day, a small group of Karthaginian soldiers stopped by Julius’ village. To Julius, used to seeing the same faces day after day, the Karthaginians were a source of fascination, resplendent in their shinning bronze armor. The gods, Julius thought, must have looked something like those Karthaginian soldiers. When they offered Julius a job in the army, to see the world, to be like them, to escape the cramped confines of his small village, he had jumped at the chance. Not even bothering to tell his family, he had left with them that very day.
When he arrived at Pisae, he was amazed. It was a small city, the Karthaginian officer had told him, barely large enough for the Karthaginian army to bother with. To Julius’ eyes however, it was a sprawling metropolis. A Karthaginian merchant would sometimes stop by his village, never more than one and never more than once a year. Here, however, it seemed as if you couldn’t turn around without a merchant holding up some trade good in his face, screaming the benefits of his product over the obvious flaws of his competitors. The officer had grabbed Julius’ arm and dragged him along as Julius’ head swiveled around, taking in the sights. That night, he was given his equipment and directed to the barracks where he barely slept, eager to see more of the city on the next day.
He was waken early the next morning by a screaming in his ear. “Get up you lazy dog. What do you think this is, the fleshpots of Karthage that you can lounge around sleeping all day? So help me if you aren’t out in the parade ground in five seconds I’m going to shove my spear so far up your arse that you’ll be peeing splinters for a week.” Under the barrage of curses that followed this threat, Julius got dressed and proceeded to the parade ground. For the rest of the day he marched up and down so many times, he swore that he had worn a groove in the ground. All the time, the drill sergeant followed Julius, hanging closer to him than his own cloak, all the time yelling comments about Julius’ parentage in his ear. The same scene repeated itself, day after day for an entire month. At the end of that month, Julius was unceremoniously given orders to march out to “Protect the honor and peoples of Karthage with your life.” Quickly Julius found out these orders were army-speak for “Sit in the middle of nowhere and if someone invades, try light this fire to warn us before your killed.” The ironic thing, thought Julius, was that he had joined the army to see the world, only to end up being stationed barely a few miles north of it in lands even more barren.
His thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of someone climbing the ladders. Soon a head popped up from the hole in the middle of the platform.
“Changing of the guard boy, get up and get some sleep.” As the speaker lifted himself up to the platform the torchlight flickered across his face, causing throwing shadows where a deep scar ran across his cheek.
“I’m not tired right now Tharos, if you don’t mind I’ll just keep you company for a while.” Julius sat in a corner, drawing his knees up to his chest and looked at the newcomer. Tharos was everything he wanted to be. Unlike Julius, he had lived, he had seen the world. Instead of a small farming village, Tharos had been born in Hegesta, the capital of the Karthaginian province of Sicily and one of the largest and most important cities in the empire after Karthage. According to Tharos he had even grown up the son of a merchant, traveling with his father across the known world. He had gotten his scar when he was discovered sleeping with a young woman in Malta. The fact that he was sleeping with her was not that big of a deal, that she was the daughter of one of the richest merchants in Sicily and married to the richest merchant in Malta, complicated things. The two families took a dim view of the matter, and decided Tharos would look good decorating a cross. Tharos held a different view, and decided that things would be safer elsewhere. So he joined the army and eventually got stationed in Pisae, one of the farthest places you could get from Malta while still being in Karthaginian lands.
“Tharos, have you ever been to Karthage?” Julius suddenly asked.
“Karthage? Aye, once, why do you ask?”
“Tell me, what’s it like.”
“Greatest city in the world, when the people fart it smells like roses and the women wait in line for the chance to bed you.”
“Tharos, I’m serious.” Julius said in mock anger, attempting to stifle a smile.
“Alright, alright….well lets see…it’s not the biggest city in the world, nor the oldest, but some say it is the richest. If it isn’t sold in Karthage it doesn’t exist. When you walk the streets during the day you have to shout if you want to say something to the person beside you because of the din of the merchants. Walking the streets is like being a part of a living rainbow. All around you are people from different countries, Balaeria, Illyria, even from as far away as Ur. The Karthaginians seem to spend their time doing nothing but earning gold and spending it. Gold is more common there than dirt, wine flows like there was a river of it going through the city. The streets are so crowed during the day, that they made a law there forbidding any carts in the city during the day because they would never move. So all during the night, you hear the creak of thousands of carts bringing goods into the city. And the temples, by Baal himself, the temples. And I’m not talking about the buildings either, though they weren’t shabby by any stretch of the imagination. No the priestess my lad, the priestess. For a few copper pieces, let me tell you, you could enjoy the best worship experience you ever had. Why I remember this one little thing, a priestess of Tanit…” Tharos continued his story, so wrapped up in his memories that he did not even notice Julius’ head nodding, falling asleep, his dreams full of the reported marvel that was Karthage.
). When are stats coming?
though my ships not being able to travel to the New World is irritating.
