The haze smearing the horizon between the river and the desert marked the approach of the Nubian host long before the first of its men came in sight of the Roman camp. The legionaries were still constructing the palisade and the watchtowers as the first Nubian patrols appeared, small groups of men mounted on camels who stopped short of the Roman picquets and waited for the rest of the army to catch up. As the sun dipped towards the western horizon, it bathed the landscape in a lurid red, and picked out the armour, weapons and banners of the enemy glinting at the base of the dust cloud that slowly advanced towards the Roman position. The soldiers doubled their efforts to complete the defences in time. In addition to the ditch and rampart, they had dug lines of small pits with angled wooden stakes at the bottom in front of the camp. At each corner of the wall a platform of palm logs packed down with earth had been raised to serve as mounts for the bolt throwers.

When the main defences were completed, Cato gave the order for the patrols to pull back and the auxiliary cavalrymen turned away from the enemy and rode back into the camp, and then the gates were sealed. The army was formed up, in case Prince Talmis decided to attack as soon as he reached the Roman defences. The men and their officers stood and waited as the enemy host came on. The main Nubian column began to divide into three and soon the breadth of land between the Nile and the hills presented an unbroken line of enemy infantry, interspersed with columns of mounted warriors, on horses and camels.

As he stood in one of the watchtowers, Cato sensed the anxiety in his soldiers watching from the palisade. The men of the Twenty-Second and the auxiliaries had never faced such a threat before and few of them had ever fought in a battle. He just hoped that their training and discipline would be enough to ensure that they stood their ground when the time came to face the Nubians in battle.

‘An impressive sight,’ said Macro, at his side. ‘But numbers aren’t everything, eh?’

Cato did not reply as he scrutinised the dense ranks of the enemy. For the most part they appeared to be lightly armed, but there were several formations of soldiers who marched well and carried large oval shields and were equipped with an assortment of helmets and armour. There were also large formations of men carrying bundles of javelins. Few of the Nubians seemed to be armed with bows and Cato took some small comfort from that. There was a distant blare of horns and the Nubian army halted. Above them the haze slowly wafted to one side on the evening breeze blowing across the Nile.

‘What do you think they’ll do now, sir?’ asked Junius. ‘Will they attack?’