INJASUTI
EPILOGUE
He stood on what had once been the old Byrsa Hill, home of the great Citadel of ancient Carthage. He imagined daily life – men trading at the harbour markets, women with silk garments brought in from the east, children playing in the dusty streets, dogs barking, chasing after cats.
Once it had been a thriving city, bustling with activity. The Tophet was visible from the Hill, all the remaining steles still upright, though they were dusty with age. Underneath the steles lay the remains of babies and young children sacrificed to the gods Moloch, Baal, Astarte, Eshmoun, Tanith - from an age when live human offering was thought to be the highest honour in life, in death. He could hear the cries of the women filling the air, their hands thrown heavenwards either in supplication or desperation and anguish. Sometimes the wealthy would take a child of the poor in order to save their own children from sacrifice.
The old harbour was still there – two harbours really, shaped like horseshoes facing each other – which in ancient times housed the battle ships, long, sleek triremes, as well as the merchant fleet. Now, white yachts with tall masts owned by admirals and high ranking officials of the Federation graced the harbour. If he focused on one of them, he could read the name his father had given it on its starboard bow: Silver Spirit.
He imagined the battles of the Third Punic War, the Roman quinqueremes sleek, fast and flawless as they destroyed the pride of Carthage. He imagined he saw the Carthaginian general Hasdrubal Barca capitulate to the Roman general Scipio Aemelianus Africanus, Isabel and her sons throwing themselves into the fire pits.
Now came the soldiers, some who had arrived via Egypt on horseback, others brought by the very quinqueremes that laid to waste the merchant fleet. Thundering hooves up the hills and terraces, and with the cries of the people echoing in the late afternoon as they murdered and plundered the city, followed by the fires that raged for many days and nights without end.
The words of the great historian Appian I of Alexandria came to him…
The object hovered, hovered, and then suddenly, everyone and everything bathed in the light dissolved in an instant, as if the light swallowed them. They were all gone - the Carthaginians, men, women, children, babies, Numidian slaves, traders from neighbouring lands, Roman deserters and dissidents, the Roman soldiers who hunted them on horseback, some soldiers riding chariots, others on foot. They were gone. I sat on a large rock outside the south gateway of Carthage. In the distance, much like a tableau, such as I have seen in wall carvings in the temple of Abydos in my beloved Egypt, where stories were told upon the ancient walls, or in caves or frescos in the temples of Rome three thousand men, women, children, Roman soldiers, deserters, pursuers in one single moment disappeared from the face of the Earth.
Always, during his studies of Injasuti History, there had been the endless wonder about the arrival of humans on Injasuti of the Delta Quadrant, thirty five thousand light years from Earth. Now, from the perspective of one who had seen everything, came an account of the war, the ravages, the destruction of a once great and noble city by an even greater and nobler empire.
Aidan Janeway thought of Appian's words:
Is it not in the nature of empires to rise and then, ignominiously, fall to a lesser people?
Eventually Rome fell. The people of Injasuti could not know that the empire that had once been the greatest in the ancient world, could fall, become nothing. They could not know that all they suffered, all they lost, all they sacrificed, had not been in vain. For were they not given the blessing of a continued, thriving existence in another world, far, far away from the ravages of war?
It was time to go. He heard slow trudging up the hill, heard his name called from down below where many other tourists were visiting the excavations and old ruins, and like him, imagining life in Carthage.
Aidan turned and smiled.
He saw his parents, Admirals Janeway and Chakotay, make their way up the hill, his father holding his mother's hand. A warmth spread through him. Their love shone, clear for all to see and he was proud to be their son, proud of how his father always protected his mother. He knew about Queen Toreth, he had a framed photograph of her among his personal effects, but Kathryn Janeway and Chakotay were the mother and father who loved him without condition. He was their son, soon to embark on a mission to Injasuti.
Suddenly impatient and excited, he rushed down Byrsa Hill to meet them.
**
FIN.
I hope you have enjoyed this story.