Kabanata Kabanata 6 · HANNO

proposed atrocious and impracticable measures, such as promising

a heavy sum for every Barbarian’s head, or setting fire to their camp

with ships and machines. His colleague Gisco, on the other hand, wished

them to be paid. But the Ancients detested him owing to his popularity;

for they dreaded the risk of a master, and through terror of monarchy

strove to weaken whatever contributed to it or might re-establish it.

Outside the fortification there were people of another race and of

unknown origin, all hunters of the porcupine, and eaters of shell-fish

and serpents. They used to go into caves to catch hyenas alive, and

amuse themselves by making them run in the evening on the sands of

Megara between the stelæ of the tombs. Their huts, which were made

of mud and wrack, hung on the cliff like swallows’ nests. There they

lived, without government and without gods, pell-mell, completely naked,

at once feeble and fierce, and execrated by the people of all time on

account of their unclean food. One morning the sentries perceived that

they were all gone.

At last some members of the Great Council arrived at a decision. They

came to the camp without necklaces or girdles, and in open sandals

like neighbours. They walked at a quiet pace, waving salutations to

the captains, or stopped to speak to the soldiers, saying that all was

finished and that justice was about to be done to their claims.

Many of them saw a camp of Mercenaries for the first time. Instead of

the confusion which they had pictured to themselves, there prevailed

everywhere terrible silence and order. A grassy rampart formed a lofty

wall round the army immovable by the shock of catapults. The ground in

the streets was sprinkled with fresh water; through the holes in the

tents they could perceive tawny eyeballs gleaming in the shade. The

piles of pikes and hanging panoplies dazzled them like mirrors. They

conversed in low tones. They were afraid of upsetting something with

their long robes.

The soldiers requested provisions, undertaking to pay for them out of

the money that was due.

Oxen, sheep, guinea fowl, fruit and lupins were sent to them, with

smoked scombri, that excellent scombri which Carthage dispatched to

every port. But they walked scornfully around the magnificent cattle,

and disparaging what they coveted, offered the worth of a pigeon for

a ram, or the price of a pomegranate for three goats. The Eaters of

Uncleanness came forward as arbitrators, and declared that they were

being duped. Then they drew their swords with threats to slay.

Commissaries of the Great Council wrote down the number of years for

which pay was due to each soldier. But it was no longer possible to know

how many Mercenaries had been engaged, and the Ancients were dismayed at

the enormous sum which they would have to pay. The reserve of silphium

must be sold, and the trading towns taxed; the Mercenaries would

grow impatient; Tunis was already with them; and the rich, stunned by

Hanno’s ragings and his colleague’s reproaches, urged any citizens

who might know a Barbarian to go to see him immediately in order to win

back his friendship, and to speak him fair. Such a show of confidence

would soothe them.

Traders, scribes, workers in the arsenal, and whole families visited the

Barbarians.

The soldiers allowed all the Carthaginians to come in, but by a single

passage so narrow that four men abreast jostled one another in it.

Spendius, standing against the barrier, had them carefully searched;

facing him Matho was examining the multitude, trying to recognise some

one whom he might have seen at Salammbô’s palace.

The camp was like a town, so full of people and of movement was it. The

two distinct crowds mingled without blending, one dressed in linen or

wool, with felt caps like fir-cones, and the other clad in iron and

wearing helmets. Amid serving men and itinerant vendors there moved

women of all nations, as brown as ripe dates, as greenish as olives,

as yellow as oranges, sold by sailors, picked out of dens, stolen from

caravans, taken in the sacking of towns, women that were jaded with love

so long as they were young, and plied with blows when they were old, and

that died in routs on the roadsides among the baggage and the abandoned

beasts of burden. The wives of the nomads had square, tawny robes of

dromedary’s hair swinging at their heels; musicians from Cyrenaica,

wrapped in violet gauze and with painted eyebrows, sang, squatting on

mats; old Negresses with hanging breasts gathered the animals’ dung

that was drying in the sun to light their fires; the Syracusan women had

golden plates in their hair; the Lusitanians had necklaces of shells;

the Gauls wore wolf skins upon their white bosoms; and sturdy children,

vermin-covered, naked and uncircumcised, butted with their heads against

passers-by, or came behind them like young tigers to bite their hands.

The Carthaginians walked through the camp, surprised at the quantities

of things with which it was running over. The most miserable were

melancholy, and the rest dissembled their anxiety.

The soldiers struck them on the shoulder, and exhorted them to be gay.

As soon as they saw any one, they invited him to their amusements. If

they were playing at discus, they would manage to crush his feet, or

if at boxing to fracture his jaw with the very first blow. The slingers

terrified the Carthaginians with their slings, the Psylli with their

vipers, and the horsemen with their horses, while their victims,

addicted as they were to peaceful occupations, bent their heads and

tried to smile at all these outrages. Some, in order to show themselves

brave, made signs that they should like to become soldiers. They were

set to split wood and to curry mules. They were buckled up in armour,

and rolled like casks through the streets of the camp. Then, when

they were about to leave, the Mercenaries plucked out their hair with

grotesque contortions.

But many, from foolishness or prejudice, innocently believed that all

the Carthaginians were very rich, and they walked behind them entreating

them to grant them something. They requested everything that they

thought fine: a ring, a girdle, sandals, the fringe of a robe, and when

the despoiled Carthaginian cried—“But I have nothing left. What

do you want?” they would reply, “Your wife!” Others even said,

“Your life!”

The military accounts were handed to the captains, read to the soldiers,

and definitively approved. Then they claimed tents; they received them.

Next the polemarchs of the Greeks demanded some of the handsome suits of

armour that were manufactured at Carthage; the Great Council voted

sums of money for their purchase. But it was only fair, so the horsemen

pretended, that the Republic should indemnify them for their horses;

one had lost three at such a siege, another, five during such a march,

another, fourteen in the precipices. Stallions from Hecatompylos were

offered to them, but they preferred money.

Next they demanded that they should be paid in money (in pieces of

money, and not in leathern coins) for all the corn that was owing to

them, and at the highest price that it had fetched during the war; so

that they exacted four hundred times as much for a measure of meal as

they had given for a sack of wheat. Such injustice was exasperating; but

it was necessary, nevertheless, to submit.

Then the delegates from the soldiers and from the Great Council swore

renewed friendship by the Genius of Carthage and the gods of the

Barbarians. They exchanged excuses and caresses with oriental

demonstrativeness and verbosity. Then the soldiers claimed, as a proof

of friendship, the punishment of those who had estranged them from the

Republic.

Their meaning, it was pretended, was not understood, and they explained

themselves more clearly by saying that they must have Hanno’s head.

Several times a day, they left their camp, and walked along the foot of

the walls, shouting a demand that the Suffet’s head should be thrown

to them, and holding out their robes to receive it.

The Great Council would perhaps have given way but for a last exaction,

more outrageous than the rest; they demanded maidens, chosen from

illustrious families, in marriage for their chiefs. It was an idea

which had emanated from Spendius, and which many thought most simple and

practicable. But the assumption of their desire to mix with Punic blood

made the people indignant; and they were bluntly told that they were to

receive no more. Then they exclaimed that they had been deceived,

and that if their pay did not arrive within three days, they would

themselves go and take it in Carthage.

The bad faith of the Mercenaries was not so complete as their enemies

thought. Hamilcar had made them extravagant promises, vague, it is true,

but at the same time solemn and reiterated. They might have believed

that when they disembarked at Carthage the town would be abandoned to

them, and that they should have treasures divided among them; and

when they saw that scarcely their wages would be paid, the disillusion

touched their pride no less than their greed.

Had not Dionysius, Pyrrhus, Agathocles, and the generals of Alexander

furnished examples of marvellous good fortune? Hercules, whom the

Chanaanites confounded with the sun, was the ideal which shone on the

horizon of armies. They knew that simple soldiers had worn diadems, and

the echoes of crumbling empires would furnish dreams to the Gaul in

his oak forest, to the Ethiopian amid his sands. But there was a nation

always ready to turn courage to account; and the robber driven from

his tribe, the patricide wandering on the roads, the perpetrator of

sacrilege pursued by the gods, all who were starving or in despair

strove to reach the port where the Carthaginian broker was recruiting

soldiers. Usually the Republic kept its promises. This time, however,

the eagerness of its avarice had brought it into perilous disgrace.

Numidians, Libyans, the whole of Africa was about to fall upon Carthage.

Only the sea was open to it, and there it met with the Romans; so that,

like a man assailed by murderers, it felt death all around it.

It was quite necessary to have recourse to Gisco, and the Barbarians

accepted his intervention. One morning they saw the chains of the

harbour lowered, and three flat-bottomed boats passing through the canal

of Tænia entered the lake.

Gisco was visible on the first at the prow. Behind him rose an enormous

chest, higher than a catafalque, and furnished with rings like hanging

crowns. Then appeared the legion of interpreters, with their hair

dressed like sphinxes, and with parrots tattooed on their breasts.

Friends and slaves followed, all without arms, and in such numbers that

they shouldered one another. The three long, dangerously-loaded barges

advanced amid the shouts of the onlooking army.

As soon as Gisco disembarked the soldiers ran to him. He had a sort of

tribune erected with knapsacks, and declared that he should not depart

before he had paid them all in full.

There was an outburst of applause, and it was a long time before he was

able to speak.

Then he censured the wrongs done to the Republic, and to the Barbarians;

the fault lay with a few mutineers who had alarmed Carthage by their

violence. The best proof of good intention on the part of the latter was

that it was he, the eternal adversary of the Suffet Hanno, who was sent

to them. They must not credit the people with the folly of desiring to

provoke brave men, nor with ingratitude enough not to recognise their

services; and Gisco began to pay the soldiers, commencing with the

Libyans. As they had declared that the lists were untruthful, he made no

use of them.

They defiled before him according to nationality, opening their fingers

to show the number of their years of service; they were marked in

succession with green paint on the left arm; the scribes dipped into the

yawning coffer, while others made holes with a style on a sheet of lead.

A man passed walking heavily like an ox.

“Come up beside me,” said the Suffet, suspecting some fraud; “how

many years have you served?”

“Twelve,” replied the Libyan.

Gisco slipped his fingers under his chin, for the chin-piece of the

helmet used in course of time to occasion two callosities there; these

were called carobs, and “to have the carobs” was an expression used

to denote a veteran.

“Thief!” exclaimed the Suffet, “your shoulders ought to have what

your face lacks!” and tearing off his tunic he laid bare his back which

was covered with a bleeding scab; he was a labourer from Hippo-Zarytus.

Hootings were raised, and he was decapitated.

As soon as night fell, Spendius went and roused the Libyans, and said to

them:

“When the Ligurians, Greeks, Balearians, and men of Italy are paid,

they will return. But as for you, you will remain in Africa, scattered

through your tribes, and without any means of defence! It will be then

that the Republic will take its revenge! Mistrust the journey! Are you

going to believe everything that is said? Both the Suffets are agreed,

and this one is imposing on you! Remember the Island of Bones, and

Xanthippus, whom they sent back to Sparta in a rotten galley!”

“How are we to proceed?” they asked.

“Reflect!” said Spendius.

The two following days were spent in paying the men of Magdala, Leptis,

and Hecatompylos; Spendius went about among the Gauls.

“They are paying off the Libyans, and then they will discharge the

Greeks, the Balearians, the Asiatics and all the rest! But you, who are

few in number, will receive nothing! You will see your native lands

no more! You will have no ships, and they will kill you to save your

food!”

The Gauls came to the Suffet. Autaritus, he whom he had wounded at

Hamilcar’s palace, put questions to him, but was repelled by the

slaves, and disappeared swearing he would be revenged.

The demands and complaints multiplied. The most obstinate penetrated at

night into the Suffet’s tent; they took his hands and sought to move

him by making him feel their toothless mouths, their wasted arms, and

the scars of their wounds. Those who had not yet been paid were growing

angry, those who had received the money demanded more for their horses;

and vagabonds and outlaws assumed soldiers’ arms and declared that

they were being forgotten. Every minute there arrived whirlwinds of men,

as it were; the tents strained and fell; the multitude, thick pressed

between the ramparts of the camp, swayed with loud shouts from the gates

to the centre. When the tumult grew excessively violent Gisco would rest

one elbow on his ivory sceptre and stand motionless looking at the sea

with his fingers buried in his beard.

Matho frequently went off to speak with Spendius; then he would again

place himself in front of the Suffet, and Gisco could feel his eyes

continually like two flaming phalaricas darted against him. Several

times they hurled reproaches at each other over the heads of the crowd,

but without making themselves heard. The distribution, meanwhile,

continued, and the Suffet found expedients to remove every obstacle.

The Greeks tried to quibble about differences in currency, but he

furnished them with such explanations that they retired without a

murmur. The Negroes demanded white shells such as are used for trading

in the interior of Africa, but when he offered to send to Carthage for

them they accepted money like the rest.

But the Balearians had been promised something better, namely, women.

The Suffet replied that a whole caravan of maidens was expected for

them, but the journey was long and would require six moons more. When

they were fat and well rubbed with benjamin they should be sent in ships

to the ports of the Balearians.

Suddenly Zarxas, now handsome and vigorous, leaped like a mountebank

upon the shoulders of his friends and cried:

“Have you reserved any of them for the corpses?” at the same time

pointing to the gate of Khamon in Carthage.

The brass plates with which it was furnished from top to bottom shone

in the sun’s latest fires, and the Barbarians believed that they could

discern on it a trail of blood. Every time that Gisco wished to speak

their shouts began again. At last he descended with measured steps, and

shut himself up in his tent.

When he left it at sunrise his interpreters, who used to sleep outside,

did not stir; they lay on their backs with their eyes fixed, their

tongues between their teeth, and their faces of a bluish colour. White

mucus flowed from their nostrils, and their limbs were stiff, as if

they had all been frozen by the cold during the night. Each had a little

noose of rushes round his neck.

From that time onward the rebellion was unchecked. The murder of the

Balearians which had been recalled by Zarxas strengthened the distrust

inspired by Spendius. They imagined that the Republic was always trying

to deceive them. An end must be put to it! The interpreters should be

dispensed with! Zarxas sang war songs with a sling around his head;

Autaritus brandished his great sword; Spendius whispered a word to one

or gave a dagger to another. The boldest endeavoured to pay themselves,

while those who were less frenzied wished to have the distribution

continued. No one now relinquished his arms, and the anger of all

combined into a tumultuous hatred of Gisco.

Some got up beside him. So long as they vociferated abuse they were

listened to with patience; but if they tried to utter the least word in

his behalf they were immediately stoned, or their heads were cut off

by a sabre-stroke from behind. The heap of knapsacks was redder than an

altar.

They became terrible after their meal and when they had drunk wine! This

was an enjoyment forbidden in the Punic armies under pain of death, and

they raised their cups in the direction of Carthage in derision of its

discipline. Then they returned to the slaves of the exchequer and again

began to kill. The word strike, though different in each language, was

understood by all.

Gisco was well aware that he was being abandoned by his country; but in

spite of its ingratitude he would not dishonour it. When they reminded

him that they had been promised ships, he swore by Moloch to provide

them himself at his own expense, and pulling off his necklace of blue

stones he threw it into the crowd as the pledge of his oath.

Then the Africans claimed the corn in accordance with the engagements

made by the Great Council. Gisco spread out the accounts of the Syssitia

traced in violet pigment on sheep skins; and read out all that had

entered Carthage month by month and day by day.

Suddenly he stopped with gaping eyes, as if he had just discovered his

sentence of death among the figures.

The Ancients had, in fact, fraudulently reduced them, and the corn sold

during the most calamitous period of the war was set down at so low a

rate that, blindness apart, it was impossible to believe it.

“Speak!” they shouted. “Louder! Ah! he is trying to lie, the

coward! Don’t trust him.”

For some time he hesitated. At last he resumed his task.

The soldiers, without suspecting that they were being deceived, accepted

the accounts of the Syssitia as true. But the abundance that had

prevailed at Carthage made them furiously jealous. They broke open the

sycamore chest; it was three parts empty. They had seen such sums coming

out of it, that they thought it inexhaustible; Gisco must have buried

some in his tent. They scaled the knapsacks. Matho led them, and as they

shouted “The money! the money!” Gisco at last replied:

“Let your general give it to you!”

He looked them in the face without speaking, with his great yellow eyes,

and his long face that was paler than his beard. An arrow, held by its

feathers, hung from the large gold ring in his ear, and a stream of

blood was trickling from his tiara upon his shoulder.

At a gesture from Matho all advanced. Gisco held out his arms; Spendius

tied his wrists with a slip knot; another knocked him down, and he

disappeared amid the disorder of the crowd which was stumbling over the

knapsacks.

They sacked his tent. Nothing was found in it except things

indispensable to life; and, on a closer search, three images of Tanith,

and, wrapped up in an ape’s skin, a black stone which had fallen from

the moon. Many Carthaginians had chosen to accompany him; they were

eminent men, and all belonged to the war party.

They were dragged outside the tents and thrown into the pit used for the

reception of filth. They were tied with iron chains around the body to

solid stakes, and were offered food at the point of the javelin.

Autaritus overwhelmed them with invectives as he inspected them, but

being quite ignorant of his language they made no reply; and the Gaul

from time to time threw pebbles at their faces to make them cry out.

The next day a sort of languor took possession of the army. Now that

their anger was over they were seized with anxiety. Matho was suffering

from vague melancholy. It seemed to him that Salammbô had indirectly

been insulted. These rich men were a kind of appendage to her person.

He sat down in the night on the edge of the pit, and recognised in their

groanings something of the voice of which his heart was full.

All, however, upbraided the Libyans, who alone had been paid. But while

national antipathies revived, together with personal hatreds, it was

felt that it would be perilous to give way to them. Reprisals after

such an outrage would be formidable. It was necessary, therefore, to

anticipate the vengeance of Carthage. Conventions and harangues never

ceased. Every one spoke, no one was listened to; Spendius, usually so

loquacious, shook his head at every proposal.

One evening he asked Matho carelessly whether there were not springs in

the interior of the town.

“Not one!” replied Matho.

The next day Spendius drew him aside to the bank of the lake.

“Master!” said the former slave, “If your heart is dauntless, I

will bring you into Carthage.”

“How?” repeated the other, panting.

“Swear to execute all my commands and to follow me like a shadow!”

Then Matho, raising his arm towards the planet of Chabar, exclaimed:

“By Tanith, I swear!”

Spendius resumed:

“To-morrow after sunset you will wait for me at the foot of the

aqueduct between the ninth and tenth arcades. Bring with you an iron

pick, a crestless helmet, and leathern sandals.”

The aqueduct of which he spoke crossed the entire isthmus obliquely,—a

considerable work, afterwards enlarged by the Romans. In spite of her

disdain of other nations, Carthage had awkwardly borrowed this novel

invention from them, just as Rome herself had built Punic galleys; and

five rows of superposed arches, of a dumpy kind of architecture, with

buttresses at their foot and lions’ heads at the top, reached to

the western part of the Acropolis, where they sank beneath the town to

incline what was nearly a river into the cisterns of Megara.

Spendius met Matho here at the hour agreed upon. He fastened a sort of

harpoon to the end of a cord and whirled it rapidly like a sling; the

iron instrument caught fast, and they began to climb up the wall, the

one after the other.

But when they had ascended to the first story the cramp fell back every

time that they threw it, and in order to discover some fissure they had

to walk along the edge of the cornice. At every row of arches they found

that it became narrower. Then the cord relaxed. Several times it nearly

broke.

At last they reached the upper platform. Spendius stooped down from time

to time to feel the stones with his hand.

“Here it is,” he said; “let us begin!” And leaning on the

pick which Matho had brought they succeeded in dislodging one of the

flagstones.

In the distance they perceived a troop of horse-men galloping on horses

without bridles. Their golden bracelets leaped in the vague drapings

of their cloaks. A man could be seen in front crowned with ostrich

feathers, and galloping with a lance in each hand.

“Narr’ Havas!” exclaimed Matho.

“What matter?” returned Spendius, and he leaped into the hole which

they had just made by removing the flagstone.

Matho at his command tried to thrust out one of the blocks. But he could

not move his elbows for want of room.

“We shall return,” said Spendius; “go in front.” Then they

ventured into the channel of water.

It reached to their waists. Soon they staggered, and were obliged to

swim. Their limbs knocked against the walls of the narrow duct. The

water flowed almost immediately beneath the stones above, and their

faces were torn by them. Then the current carried them away. Their

breasts were crushed with air heavier than that of a sepulchre, and

stretching themselves out as much as possible with their heads between

their arms and their legs close together, they passed like arrows into

the darkness, choking, gurgling, and almost dead. Suddenly all became

black before them, and the speed of the waters redoubled. They fell.

When they came to the surface again, they remained for a few minutes

extended on their backs, inhaling the air delightfully. Arcades, one

behind another, opened up amid large walls separating the various

basins. All were filled, and the water stretched in a single sheet

throughout the length of the cisterns. Through the air-holes in the

cupolas on the ceiling there fell a pale brightness which spread upon

the waves discs, as it were, of light, while the darkness round about

thickened towards the walls and threw them back to an indefinite

distance. The slightest sound made a great echo.

Spendius and Matho commenced to swim again, and passing through the

opening of the arches, traversed several chambers in succession. Two

other rows of smaller basins extended in a parallel direction on each

side. They lost themselves; they turned, and came back again. At last

something offered a resistance to their heels. It was the pavement of

the gallery that ran along the cisterns.

Then, advancing with great precautions, they felt along the wall to

find an outlet. But their feet slipped, and they fell into the great

centre-basins. They had to climb up again, and there they fell again.

They experienced terrible fatigue, which made them feel as if all their

limbs had been dissolved in the water while swimming. Their eyes closed;

they were in the agonies of death.

Spendius struck his hand against the bars of a grating. They shook it,

it gave way, and they found themselves on the steps of a staircase. A

door of bronze closed it above. With the point of a dagger they moved

the bar, which was opened from without, and suddenly the pure open air

surrounded them.

The night was filled with silence, and the sky seemed at an

extraordinary height. Clusters of trees projected over the long lines of

walls. The whole town was asleep. The fires of the outposts shone like

lost stars.

Spendius, who had spent three years in the ergastulum, was but

imperfectly acquainted with the different quarters. Matho conjectured

that to reach Hamilcar’s palace they ought to strike to the left and

cross the Mappalian district.

“No,” said Spendius, “take me to the temple of Tanith.”

Matho wished to speak.

“Remember!” said the former slave, and raising his arm he showed him

the glittering planet of Chabar.

Then Matho turned in silence towards the Acropolis.

They crept along the nopal hedges which bordered the paths. The water

trickled from their limbs upon the dust. Their damp sandals made no

noise; Spendius, with eyes that flamed more than torches, searched

the bushes at every step;—and he walked behind Matho with his hands

resting on the two daggers which he carried on his arms, and which hung

from below the armpit by a leathern band.

Chapter 5. TANITH

After leaving the gardens Matho and Spendius found themselves checked

by the rampart of Megara. But they discovered a breach in the great wall

and passed through.

The ground sloped downwards, forming a kind of very broad valley. It was

an exposed place.

“Listen,” said Spendius, “and first of all fear nothing! I shall

fulfil my promise—”

He stopped abruptly, and seemed to reflect as though searching for

words,—“Do you remember that time at sunrise when I showed Carthage

to you on Salammbô’s terrace? We were strong that day, but you would

listen to nothing!” Then in a grave voice: “Master, in the sanctuary

of Tanith there is a mysterious veil, which fell from heaven and which

covers the goddess.”

“I know,” said Matho.

Spendius resumed: “It is itself divine, for it forms part of her. The

gods reside where their images are. It is because Carthage possesses it

that Carthage is powerful.” Then leaning over to his ear: “I have

brought you with me to carry it off!”

Matho recoiled in horror. “Begone! look for some one else! I will not

help you in this execrable crime!”

“But Tanith is your enemy,” retorted Spendius; “she is persecuting

you and you are dying through her wrath. You will be revenged upon

her. She will obey you, and you will become almost immortal and

invincible.”

Matho bent his head. Spendius continued:

“We should succumb; the army would be annihilated of itself. We have

neither flight, nor succour, nor pardon to hope for! What chastisement

from the gods can you be afraid of since you will have their power in

your own hands? Would you rather die on the evening of a defeat, in

misery beneath the shelter of a bush, or amid the outrages of the

populace and the flames of funeral piles? Master, one day you will enter

Carthage among the colleges of the pontiffs, who will kiss your sandals;

and if the veil of Tanith weighs upon you still, you will reinstate it

in its temple. Follow me! come and take it.”

Matho was consumed by a terrible longing. He would have liked to possess

the veil while refraining from the sacrilege. He said to himself that

perhaps it would not be necessary to take it in order to monopolise its

virtue. He did not go to the bottom of his thought but stopped at the

boundary, where it terrified him.

“Come on!” he said; and they went off with rapid strides, side by

side, and without speaking.

The ground rose again, and the dwellings were near. They turned again

into the narrow streets amid the darkness. The strips of esparto-grass

with which the doors were closed, beat against the walls. Some camels

were ruminating in a square before heaps of cut grass. Then they passed

beneath a gallery covered with foliage. A pack of dogs were barking. But

suddenly the space grew wider and they recognised the western face of

the Acropolis. At the foot of Byrsa there stretched a long black mass:

it was the temple of Tanith, a whole made up of monuments and galleries,

courts and fore-courts, and bounded by a low wall of dry stones.

Spendius and Matho leaped over it.

This first barrier enclosed a wood of plane-trees as a precaution

against plague and infection in the air. Tents were scattered here

and there, in which, during the daytime, depilatory pastes,

perfumes, garments, moon-shaped cakes, and images of the goddess with

representations of the temple hollowed out in blocks of alabaster, were

on sale.

They had nothing to fear, for on nights when the planet did not appear,

all rites were suspended; nevertheless Matho slackened his speed, and

stopped before the three ebony steps leading to the second enclosure.

“Forward!” said Spendius.

Pomegranate, almond trees, cypresses and myrtles alternated in regular

succession; the path, which was paved with blue pebbles, creaked beneath

their footsteps, and full-blown roses formed a hanging bower over the

whole length of the avenue. They arrived before an oval hole protected

by a grating. Then Matho, who was frightened by the silence, said to

Spendius:

“It is here that they mix the fresh water and the bitter.”

“I have seen all that,” returned the former slave, “in Syria, in

the town of Maphug”; and they ascended into the third enclosure by a

staircase of six silver steps.

A huge cedar occupied the centre. Its lowest branches were hidden

beneath scraps of material and necklaces hung upon them by the faithful.

They walked a few steps further on, and the front of the temple was

displayed before them.

Two long porticoes, with their architraves resting on dumpy pillars,

flanked a quadrangular tower, the platform of which was adorned with

the crescent of a moon. On the angles of the porticoes and at the four

corners of the tower stood vases filled with kindled aromatics. The

capitals were laden with pomegranates and coloquintidas. Twining knots,

lozenges, and rows of pearls alternated on the walls, and a hedge of

silver filigree formed a wide semicircle in front of the brass staircase

which led down from the vestibule.

There was a cone of stone at the entrance between a stela of gold and

one of emerald, and Matho kissed his right hand as he passed beside it.

The first room was very lofty; its vaulted roof was pierced by

numberless apertures, and if the head were raised the stars might be

seen. All round the wall rush baskets were heaped up with the first

fruits of adolescence in the shape of beards and curls of hair; and in

the centre of the circular apartment the body of a woman issued from a

sheath which was covered with breasts. Fat, bearded, and with eyelids

downcast, she looked as though she were smiling, while her hands were

crossed upon the lower part of her big body, which was polished by the

kisses of the crowd.

Then they found themselves again in the open air in a transverse

corridor, wherein there was an altar of small dimensions leaning against

an ivory door. There was no further passage; the priests alone could

open it; for the temple was not a place of meeting for the multitude,

but the private abode of a divinity.

“The enterprise is impossible,” said Matho. “You had not thought

of this! Let us go back!” Spendius was examining the walls.

He wanted the veil, not because he had confidence in its virtue

(Spendius believed only in the Oracle), but because he was persuaded

that the Carthaginians would be greatly dismayed on seeing themselves

deprived of it. They walked all round behind in order to find some

outlet.

Aedicules of different shapes were visible beneath clusters of

turpentine trees. Here and there rose a stone phallus, and large stags

roamed peacefully about, spurning the fallen fir-cones with their cloven

hoofs.

But they retraced their steps between two long galleries which ran

parallel to each other. There were small open cells along their sides,

and tabourines and cymbals hung against their cedar columns from top to

bottom. Women were sleeping stretched on mats outside the cells. Their

bodies were greasy with unguents, and exhaled an odour of spices and

extinguished perfuming-pans; while they were so covered with tattooings,

necklaces, rings, vermilion, and antimony that, but for the motion of

their breasts, they might have been taken for idols as they lay thus on

the ground. There were lotus-trees encircling a fountain in which fish

like Salammbô’s were swimming; and then in the background, against

the wall of the temple, spread a vine, the branches of which were of

glass and the grape-bunches of emerald, the rays from the precious

stones making a play of light through the painted columns upon the

sleeping faces.

Matho felt suffocated in the warm atmosphere pressed down upon him by

the cedar partitions. All these symbols of fecundation, these perfumes,

radiations, and breathings overwhelmed him. Through all the mystic

dazzling he kept thinking of Salammbô. She became confused with the

goddess herself, and his love unfolded itself all the more, like the

great lotus-plants blooming upon the depths of the waters.

Spendius was calculating how much money he would have made in former

days by the sale of these women; and with a rapid glance he estimated

the weight of the golden necklaces as he passed by.

The temple was impenetrable on this side as on the other, and they

returned behind the first chamber. While Spendius was searching and

ferreting, Matho was prostrate before the door supplicating Tanith. He

besought her not to permit the sacrilege, and strove to soften her with

caressing words, such as are used to an angry person.

Spendius noticed a narrow aperture above the door.

“Rise!” he said to Matho, and he made him stand erect with his back

against the wall. Placing one foot in his hands, and then the other

upon his head, he reached up to the air-hole, made his way into it and

disappeared. Then Matho felt a knotted cord—that one which Spendius

had rolled around his body before entering the cisterns—fall upon his

shoulders, and bearing upon it with both hands he soon found himself by

the side of the other in a large hall filled with shadow.

Such an attempt was something extraordinary. The inadequacy of the

means for preventing it was a sufficient proof that it was considered

impossible. The sanctuaries were protected by terror more than by their

walls. Matho expected to die at every step.

However a light was flickering far back in the darkness, and they went

up to it. It was a lamp burning in a shell on the pedestal of a statue

which wore the cap of the Kabiri. Its long blue robe was strewn with

diamond discs, and its heels were fastened to the ground by chains which

sank beneath the pavement. Matho suppressed a cry. “Ah! there she is!

there she is!” he stammered out. Spendius took up the lamp in order to

light himself.

“What an impious man you are!” murmured Matho, following him

nevertheless.

The apartment which they entered had nothing in it but a black painting

representing another woman. Her legs reached to the top of the wall, and

her body filled the entire ceiling; a huge egg hung by a thread from her

navel, and she fell head downwards upon the other wall, reaching as far

as the level of the pavement, which was touched by her pointed fingers.

They drew a hanging aside, in order to go on further; but the wind blew

and the light went out.

Then they wandered about, lost in the complications of the architecture.

Suddenly they felt something strangely soft beneath their feet. Sparks

crackled and leaped; they were walking in fire. Spendius touched the

ground and perceived that it was carefully carpeted with lynx skins;

then it seemed to them that a big cord, wet, cold, and viscous, was

gliding between their legs. Through some fissures cut in the wall there

fell thin white rays, and they advanced by this uncertain light. At last

they distinguished a large black serpent. It darted quickly away and

disappeared.

“Let us fly!” exclaimed Matho. “It is she! I feel her; she is

coming.”

“No, no,” replied Spendius, “the temple is empty.”

Then a dazzling light made them lower their eyes. Next they perceived

all around them an infinite number of beasts, lean, panting, with

bristling claws, and mingled together one above another in a mysterious

and terrifying confusion. There were serpents with feet, and bulls

with wings, fishes with human heads were devouring fruit, flowers were

blooming in the jaws of crocodiles, and elephants with uplifted trunks

were sailing proudly through the azure like eagles. Their incomplete or

multiplied limbs were distended with terrible exertion. As they thrust

out their tongues they looked as though they would fain give forth

their souls; and every shape was to be found among them as if the

germ-receptacle had been suddenly hatched and had burst, emptying itself

upon the walls of the hall.

Round the latter were twelve globes of blue crystal, supported by

monsters resembling tigers. Their eyeballs were starting out of their

heads like those of snails, with their dumpy loins bent they were

turning round towards the background where the supreme Rabbet, the

Omnifecund, the last invented, shone splendid in a chariot of ivory.

She was covered with scales, feathers, flowers, and birds as high as the

waist. For earrings she had silver cymbals, which flapped against her

cheeks. Her large fixed eyes gazed upon you, and a luminous stone,

set in an obscene symbol on her brow, lighted the whole hall by its

reflection in red copper mirrors above the door.

Matho stood a step forward; but a flag stone yielded beneath his heels

and immediately the spheres began to revolve and the monsters to roar;

music rose melodious and pealing, like the harmony of the planets; the

tumultuous soul of Tanith was poured streaming forth. She was about to

arise, as lofty as the hall and with open arms. Suddenly the monsters

closed their jaws and the crystal globes revolved no more.

Then a mournful modulation lingered for a time through the air and at

last died away.

“And the veil?” said Spendius.

Nowhere could it be seen. Where was it to be found? How could it be

discovered? What if the priests had hidden it? Matho experienced anguish

of heart and felt as though he had been deceived in his belief.

“This way!” whispered Spendius. An inspiration guided him. He drew

Matho behind Tanith’s chariot, where a cleft a cubit wide ran down the

wall from top to bottom.

Then they penetrated into a small and completely circular room, so lofty

that it was like the interior of a pillar. In the centre there was a

big black stone, of semispherical shape like a tabourine; flames were

burning upon it; an ebony cone, bearing a head and two arms, rose

behind.

But beyond it seemed as though there were a cloud wherein were twinkling

stars; faces appeared in the depths of its folds—Eschmoun with the

Kabiri, some of the monsters that had already been seen, the sacred

beasts of the Babylonians, and others with which they were not

acquainted. It passed beneath the idol’s face like a mantle, and

spread fully out was drawn up on the wall to which it was fastened by

the corners, appearing at once bluish as the night, yellow as the dawn,

purple as the sun, multitudinous, diaphanous, sparkling light. It was

the mantle of the goddess, the holy zaïmph which might not be seen.

Both turned pale.

“Take it!” said Matho at last.

Spendius did not hesitate, and leaning upon the idol he unfastened the

veil, which sank to the ground. Matho laid his hand upon it; then he put

his head through the opening, then he wrapped it about his body, and he

spread out his arms the better to view it.

“Let us go!” said Spendius.

Matho stood panting with his eyes fixed upon the pavement. Suddenly he

exclaimed:

“But what if I went to her? I fear her beauty no longer! What could

she do to me? I am now more than a man. I could pass through flames or

walk upon the sea! I am transported! Salammbô! Salammbô! I am your

master!”

His voice was like thunder. He seemed to Spendius to have grown taller

and transformed.

A sound of footsteps drew near, a door opened, and a man appeared, a

priest with lofty cap and staring eyes. Before he could make a gesture

Spendius had rushed upon him, and clasping him in his arms had buried

both his daggers in his sides. His head rang upon the pavement.

Then they stood for a while, as motionless as the corpse, listening.

Nothing could be heard but the murmuring of the wind through the

half-opened door.

The latter led into a narrow passage. Spendius advanced along it, Matho

followed him, and they found themselves almost immediately in the third

enclosure, between the lateral porticoes, in which were the dwellings of

the priests.

Behind the cells there must be a shorter way out. They hastened along.

Spendius squatted down at the edge of the fountain and washed his

bloodstained hands. The women slept. The emerald vine shone. They

resumed their advance.

But something was running behind them under the trees; and Matho, who

bore the veil, several times felt that it was being pulled very gently

from below. It was a large cynocephalus, one of those which dwelt at

liberty within the enclosure of the goddess. It clung to the mantle as

though it had been conscious of the theft. They did not dare to strike

it, however, fearing that it might redouble its cries; suddenly its

anger subsided, and it trotted close beside them swinging its body with

its long hanging arms. Then at the barrier it leaped at a bound into a

palm tree.

When they had left the last enclosure they directed their steps towards

Hamilcar’s palace, Spendius understanding that it would be useless to

try to dissuade Matho.

They went by the street of the Tanners, the square of Muthumbal, the

green market and the crossways of Cynasyn. At the angle of a wall a man

drew back frightened by the sparkling thing which pierced the darkness.

“Hide the zaïmph!” said Spendius.

Other people passed them, but without perceiving them.

At last they recognised the houses of Megara.

The pharos, which was built behind them on the summit of the cliff,

lit up the heavens with a great red brightness, and the shadow of the

palace, with its rising terraces, projected a monstrous pyramid, as it

were, upon the gardens. They entered through the hedge of jujube-trees,

beating down the branches with blows of the dagger.

The traces of the feast of the Mercenaries were everywhere still

manifest. The parks were broken up, the trenches drained, the doors

of the ergastulum open. No one was to be seen about the kitchens or

cellars. They wondered at the silence, which was occasionally broken by

the hoarse breathing of the elephants moving in their shackles, and the

crepitation of the pharos, in which a pile of aloes was burning.

Matho, however, kept repeating:

“But where is she? I wish to see her! Lead me!”

“It is a piece of insanity!” Spendius kept saying. “She will call,

her slaves will run up, and in spite of your strength you will die!”

They reached thus the galley staircase. Matho raised his head, and

thought that he could perceive far above a vague brightness, radiant and

soft. Spendius sought to restrain him, but he dashed up the steps.

As he found himself again in places where he had already seen her, the

interval of the days that had passed was obliterated from his memory.

But now had she been singing among the tables; she had disappeared, and

he had since been continually ascending this staircase. The sky above

his head was covered with fires; the sea filled the horizon; at each

step he was surrounded by a still greater immensity, and he continued to

climb upward with that strange facility which we experience in dreams.

The rustling of the veil as it brushed against the stones recalled his

new power to him; but in the excess of his hope he could no longer tell

what he was to do; this uncertainty alarmed him.

From time to time he would press his face against the quadrangular

openings in the closed apartments, and he thought that in several of the

latter he could see persons asleep.

The last story, which was narrower, formed a sort of dado on the summit

of the terraces. Matho walked round it slowly.

A milky light filled the sheets of talc which closed the little

apertures in the wall, and in their symmetrical arrangement they looked

in the darkness like rows of delicate pearls. He recognised the red door

with the black cross. The throbbing of his heart increased. He would

fain have fled. He pushed the door and it opened.

A galley-shaped lamp hung burning in the back part of the room,

and three rays, emitted from its silver keel, trembled on the lofty

wainscots, which were painted red with black bands. The ceiling was an

assemblage of small beams, with amethysts and topazes amid their gilding

in the knots of the wood. On both the great sides of the apartment there

stretched a very low bed made with white leathern straps; while above,

semi-circles like shells, opened in the thickness of the wall, suffered

a garment to come out and hang down to the ground.

There was an oval basin with a step of onyx round it; delicate slippers

of serpent skin were standing on the edge, together with an alabaster

flagon. The trace of a wet footstep might be seen beyond. Exquisite

scents were evaporating.

Matho glided over the pavement, which was encrusted with gold,

mother-of-pearl, and glass; and, in spite of the polished smoothness

of the ground, it seemed to him that his feet sank as though he were

walking on sand.

Behind the silver lamp he had perceived a large square of azure held in

the air by four cords from above, and he advanced with loins bent and

mouth open.

Flamingoes’ wings, fitted on branches of black coral, lay about

among purple cushions, tortoiseshell strigils, cedar boxes, and ivory

spatulas. There were antelopes’ horns with rings and bracelets strung

upon them; and clay vases were cooling in the wind in the cleft of the

wall with a lattice-work of reeds. Several times he struck his foot,

for the ground had various levels of unequal height, which formed a

succession of apartments, as it were, in the room. In the background

there were silver balustrades surrounding a carpet strewn with painted

flowers. At last he came to the hanging bed beside an ebony stool

serving to get into it.

But the light ceased at the edge;—and the shadow, like a great

curtain, revealed only a corner of the red mattress with the extremity

of a little naked foot lying upon its ankle. Then Matho took up the lamp

very gently.

She was sleeping with her cheek in one hand and with the other arm

extended. Her ringlets were spread about her in such abundance that she

appeared to be lying on black feathers, and her ample white tunic wound

in soft draperies to her feet following the curves of her person. Her

eyes were just visible beneath her half-closed eyelids. The curtains,

which stretched perpendicularly, enveloped her in a bluish atmosphere,

and the motion of her breathing, communicating itself to the cords,

seemed to rock her in the air. A long mosquito was buzzing.

Matho stood motionless holding the silver lamp at arm’s length; but

on a sudden the mosquito-net caught fire and disappeared, and Salammbô

awoke.

The fire had gone out of itself. She did not speak. The lamp caused

great luminous moires to flicker on the wainscots.

“What is it?” she said.

He replied:

“’Tis the veil of the goddess!”

“The veil of the goddess!” cried Salammbô, and supporting herself

on both clenched hands she leaned shuddering out. He resumed:

“I have been in the depths of the sanctuary to seek it for you!

Look!” The zaïmph shone a mass of rays.

“Do you remember it?” said Matho. “You appeared at night in my

dreams, but I did not guess the mute command of your eyes!” She put

out one foot upon the ebony stool. “Had I understood I should have

hastened hither, I should have forsaken the army, I should not have left

Carthage. To obey you I would go down through the caverns of Hadrumetum

into the kingdom of the shades!—Forgive me! it was as though mountains

were weighing upon my days; and yet something drew me on! I tried to

come to you! Should I ever have dared this without the Gods!—Let us

go! You must follow me! or, if you do not wish to do so, I will remain.

What matters it to me!—Drown my soul in your breath! Let my lips be

crushed with kissing your hands!”

“Let me see it!” she said. “Nearer! nearer!”

Day was breaking, and the sheets of talc in the walls were filled with

a vinous colour. Salammbô leaned fainting against the cushions of the

bed.

“I love you!” cried Matho.

“Give it!” she stammered out, and they drew closer together.

She kept advancing, clothed in her white trailing simar, and with her

large eyes fastened on the veil. Matho gazed at her, dazzled by the

splendours of her head, and, holding out the zaïmph towards her, was

about to enfold her in an embrace. She was stretching out her

arms. Suddenly she stopped, and they stood looking at each other,

open-mouthed.

Then without understanding the meaning of his solicitation a horror

seized upon her. Her delicate eyebrows rose, her lips opened; she

trembled. At last she struck one of the brass pateras which hung at the

corners of the red mattress, crying:

“To the rescue! to the rescue! Back, sacrilegious man! infamous and

accursed! Help, Taanach, Kroum, Ewa, Micipsa, Schaoul!”

And the scared face of Spendius, appearing in the wall between the clay

flagons, cried out these words:

“Fly! they are hastening hither!”

A great tumult came upwards shaking the staircases, and a flood of

people, women, serving-men, and slaves, rushed into the room with

stakes, tomahawks, cutlasses, and daggers. They were nearly paralysed

with indignation on perceiving a man; the female servants uttered

funeral wailings, and the eunuchs grew pale beneath their black skins.

Matho was standing behind the balustrades. With the zaïmph which was

wrapped about him, he looked like a sidereal god surrounded by the

firmament. The slaves were going to fall upon him, but she stopped them:

“Touch it not! It is the mantle of the goddess!”

She had drawn back into a corner; but she took a step towards him, and

stretched forth her naked arm:

“A curse upon you, you who have plundered Tanith! Hatred, vengeance,

massacre, and grief! May Gurzil, god of battles, rend you! may Mastiman,

god of the dead, stifle you! and may the Other—he who may not be

named—burn you!”

Matho uttered a cry as though he had received a sword-thrust. She

repeated several times: “Begone! begone!”

The crowd of servants spread out, and Matho, with hanging head, passed

slowly through the midst of them; but at the door he stopped, for the

fringe of the zaïmph had caught on one of the golden stars with which

the flagstones were paved. He pulled it off abruptly with a movement of

his shoulder and went down the staircases.

Spendius, bounding from terrace to terrace, and leaping over the hedges

and trenches, had escaped from the gardens. He reached the foot of the

pharos. The wall was discontinued at this spot, so inaccessible was the

cliff. He advanced to the edge, lay down on his back, and let himself

slide, feet foremost, down the whole length of it to the bottom; then

by swimming he reached the Cape of the Tombs, made a wide circuit of the

salt lagoon, and re-entered the camp of the Barbarians in the evening.

The sun had risen; and, like a retreating lion, Matho went down the

paths, casting terrible glances about him.

A vague clamour reached his ears. It had started from the palace, and it

was beginning afresh in the distance, towards the Acropolis. Some said

that the treasure of the Republic had been seized in the temple of

Moloch; others spoke of the assassination of a priest. It was thought,

moreover, that the Barbarians had entered the city.

Matho, who did not know how to get out of the enclosures, walked

straight before him. He was seen, and an outcry was raised. Every one

understood; and there was consternation, then immense wrath.

From the bottom of the Mappalian quarter, from the heights of the

Acropolis, from the catacombs, from the borders of the lake, the

multitude came in haste. The patricians left their palaces, and the

traders left their shops; the women forsook their children; swords,

hatchets, and sticks were seized; but the obstacle which had stayed

Salammbô stayed them. How could the veil be taken back? The mere sight

of it was a crime; it was of the nature of the gods, and contact with it

was death.

The despairing priests wrung their hands on the peristyles of the

temples. The guards of the Legion galloped about at random; the people

climbed upon the houses, the terraces, the shoulders of the colossuses,

and the masts of the ships. He went on, nevertheless, and the rage, and

the terror also, increased at each of his steps; the streets cleared at

his approach, and the torrent of flying men streamed on both sides up

to the tops of the walls. Everywhere he could perceive only eyes opened

widely as if to devour him, chattering teeth and outstretched fists, and

Salammbô’s imprecations resounded many times renewed.

Suddenly a long arrow whizzed past, then another, and stones began to

buzz about him; but the missiles, being badly aimed (for there was the

dread of hitting the zaïmph), passed over his head. Moreover, he made a

shield of the veil, holding it to the right, to the left, before him and

behind him; and they could devise no expedient. He quickened his steps

more and more, advancing through the open streets. They were barred

with cords, chariots, and snares; and all his windings brought him back

again. At last he entered the square of Khamon where the Balearians had

perished, and stopped, growing pale as one about to die. This time he

was surely lost, and the multitude clapped their hands.

He ran up to the great gate, which was closed. It was very high, made

throughout of heart of oak, with iron nails and sheathed with brass.

Matho flung himself against it. The people stamped their feet with joy

when they saw the impotence of his fury; then he took his sandal, spit

upon it, and beat the immovable panels with it. The whole city howled.

The veil was forgotten now, and they were about to crush him. Matho

gazed with wide vacant eyes upon the crowd. His temples were throbbing

with violence enough to stun him, and he felt a numbness as of

intoxication creeping over him. Suddenly he caught sight of the long

chain used in working the swinging of the gate. With a bound he grasped

it, stiffening his arms, and making a buttress of his feet, and at last

the huge leaves partly opened.

Then when he was outside he took the great zaïmph from his neck, and

raised it as high as possible above his head. The material, upborne by

the sea breeze, shone in the sunlight with its colours, its gems, and

the figures of its gods. Matho bore it thus across the whole plain as

far as the soldiers’ tents, and the people on the walls watched the

fortune of Carthage depart.

Chapter 6. HANNO

“I ought to have carried her off!” Matho said in the evening to

Spendius. “I should have seized her, and torn her from her house! No

one would have dared to touch me!”

Spendius was not listening to him. Stretched on his back he was taking

delicious rest beside a large jar filled with honey-coloured water, into

which he would dip his head from time to time in order to drink more

copiously.

Matho resumed:

“What is to be done? How can we re-enter Carthage?”

“I do not know,” said Spendius.

Such impassibility exasperated Matho and he exclaimed:

“Why! the fault is yours! You carry me away, and then you forsake me,

coward that you are! Why, pray, should I obey you? Do you think that you

are my master? Ah! you prostituter, you slave, you son of a slave!” He

ground his teeth and raised his broad hand above Spendius.

The Greek did not reply. An earthen lamp was burning gently against the

tent-pole, where the zaïmph shone amid the hanging panoply. Suddenly

Matho put on his cothurni, buckled on his brazen jacket of mail, and

took his helmet.

“Where are you going?” asked Spendius.

“I am returning! Let me alone! I will bring her back! And if they

show themselves I will crush them like vipers! I will put her to death,

Spendius! Yes,” he repeated, “I will kill her! You shall see, I will

kill her!”

But Spendius, who was listening eagerly, snatched up the zaïmph

abruptly and threw it into a corner, heaping up fleeces above it.

A murmuring of voices was heard, torches gleamed, and Narr’ Havas

entered, followed by about twenty men.

They wore white woollen cloaks, long daggers, copper necklaces, wooden

earrings, and boots of hyena skin; and standing on the threshold they

leaned upon their lances like herdsmen resting themselves. Narr’

Havas was the handsomest of all; his slender arms were bound with straps

ornamented with pearls. The golden circlet which fastened his ample

garment about his head held an ostrich feather which hung down behind

his shoulder; his teeth were displayed in a continual smile; his eyes

seemed sharpened like arrows, and there was something observant and airy

about his whole demeanour.

He declared that he had come to join the Mercenaries, for the Republic

had long been threatening his kingdom. Accordingly he was interested in

assisting the Barbarians, and he might also be of service to them.

“I will provide you with elephants (my forests are full of them),

wine, oil, barley, dates, pitch and sulphur for sieges, twenty thousand

foot-soldiers and ten thousand horses. If I address myself to you,

Matho, it is because the possession of the zaïmph has made you chief

man in the army. Moreover,” he added, “we are old friends.”

Matho, however, was looking at Spendius, who, seated on the sheep-skins,

was listening, and giving little nods of assent the while. Narr’ Havas

continued speaking. He called the gods to witness he cursed Carthage. In

his imprecations he broke a javelin. All his men uttered simultaneously

a loud howl, and Matho, carried away by so much passion, exclaimed that

he accepted the alliance.

A white bull and a black sheep, the symbols of day and night, were then

brought, and their throats were cut on the edge of a ditch. When the

latter was full of blood they dipped their arms into it. Then Narr’

Havas spread out his hand upon Matho’s breast, and Matho did the

same to Narr’ Havas. They repeated the stain upon the canvas of their

tents. Afterwards they passed the night in eating, and the remaining

portions of the meat were burnt together with the skin, bones, horns,

and hoofs.

Matho had been greeted with great shouting when he had come back bearing

the veil of the goddess; even those who were not of the Chanaanitish

religion were made by their vague enthusiasm to feel the arrival of

a genius. As to seizing the zaïmph, no one thought of it, for the

mysterious manner in which he had acquired it was sufficient in the

minds of the Barbarians to justify its possession; such were the

thoughts of the soldiers of the African race. The others, whose hatred

was not of such long standing, did not know how to make up their minds.

If they had had ships they would immediately have departed.

Spendius, Narr’ Havas, and Matho despatched men to all the tribes on

Punic soil.

Carthage was sapping the strength of these nations. She wrung exorbitant

taxes from them, and arrears or even murmurings were punished with

fetters, the axe, or the cross. It was necessary to cultivate whatever

suited the Republic, and to furnish what she demanded; no one had the

right of possessing a weapon; when villages rebelled the inhabitants

were sold; governors were esteemed like wine-presses, according to the

quantity which they succeeded in extracting. Then beyond the regions

immediately subject to Carthage extended the allies roamed the Nomads,

who might be let loose upon them. By this system the crops were always

abundant, the studs skilfully managed, and the plantations superb.

The elder Cato, a master in the matters of tillage and slaves, was

amazed at it ninety-two years later, and the death-cry which he repeated

continually at Rome was but the exclamation of jealous greed.

During the last war the exactions had been increased, so that nearly

all the towns of Libya had surrendered to Regulus. To punish them, a

thousand talents, twenty thousand oxen, three hundred bags of gold dust,

and considerable advances of grain had been exacted from them, and the

chiefs of the tribes had been crucified or thrown to the lions.

Tunis especially execrated Carthage! Older than the metropolis, it could

not forgive her her greatness, and it fronted her walls crouching in

the mire on the water’s edge like a venomous beast watching her.

Transportation, massacres, and epidemics did not weaken it. It

had assisted Archagathas, the son of Agathocles, and the Eaters of

Uncleanness found arms there at once.

The couriers had not yet set out when universal rejoicing broke out

in the provinces. Without waiting for anything they strangled the

comptrollers of the houses and the functionaries of the Republic in

the baths; they took the old weapons that had been concealed out of the

caves; they forged swords with the iron of the ploughs; the children

sharpened javelins at the doors, and the women gave their necklaces,

rings, earrings, and everything that could be employed for the

destruction of Carthage. Piles of lances were heaped up in the country

towns like sheaves of maize. Cattle and money were sent off. Matho

speedily paid the Mercenaries their arrears, and owing to this, which

was Spendius’s idea, he was appointed commander-in-chief—the

schalishim of the Barbarians.

Reinforcements of men poured in at the same time. The aborigines

appeared first, and were followed by the slaves from the country;

caravans of Negroes were seized and armed, and merchants on their way

to Carthage, despairing of any more certain profit, mingled with the

Barbarians. Numerous bands were continually arriving. From the heights

of the Acropolis the growing army might be seen.

But the guards of the Legion were posted as sentries on the platform

of the aqueduct, and near them rose at intervals brazen vats, in which

floods of asphalt were boiling. Below in the plain the great crowd

stirred tumultuously. They were in a state of uncertainty, feeling the

embarrassment with which Barbarians are always inspired when they meet

with walls.

Utica and Hippo-Zarytus refused their alliance. Phonician colonies like

Carthage, they were self-governing, and always had clauses inserted

in the treaties concluded by the Republic to distinguish them from the

latter. Nevertheless they respected this strong sister of theirs who

protected them, and they did not think that she could be vanquished by

a mass of Barbarians; these would on the contrary be themselves

exterminated. They desired to remain neutral and to live at peace.

But their position rendered them indispensable. Utica, at the foot

of the gulf, was convenient for bringing assistance to Carthage from

without. If Utica alone were taken, Hippo-Zarytus, six hours further

distant along the coast, would take its place, and the metropolis, being

revictualled in this way, would be impregnable.

Spendius wished the siege to be undertaken immediately. Narr’ Havas

was opposed to this: an advance should first be made upon the frontier.

This was the opinion of the veterans, and of Matho himself, and it

was decided that Spendius should go to attack Utica, and Matho

Hippo-Zarytus, while in the third place the main body should rest on

Tunis and occupy the plain of Carthage, Autaritus being in command.

As to Narr’ Havas, he was to return to his own kingdom to procure

elephants and to scour the roads with his cavalry.

The women cried out loudly against this decision; they coveted the

jewels of the Punic ladies. The Libyans also protested. They had been

summoned against Carthage, and now they were going away from it! The

soldiers departed almost alone. Matho commanded his own companions,

together with the Iberians, Lusitanians, and the men of the West, and of

the islands; all those who spoke Greek had asked for Spendius on account

of his cleverness.

Great was the stupefaction when the army was seen suddenly in motion;

it stretched along beneath the mountain of Ariana on the road to Utica

beside the sea. A fragment remained before Tunis, the rest disappeared

to re-appear on the other shore of the gulf on the outskirts of the

woods in which they were lost.

They were perhaps eighty thousand men. The two Tyrian cities would offer

no resistance, and they would return against Carthage. Already there was

a considerable army attacking it from the base of the isthmus, and it

would soon perish from famine, for it was impossible to live without the

aid of the provinces, the citizens not paying contributions as they did

at Rome. Carthage was wanting in political genius. Her eternal anxiety

for gain prevented her from having the prudence which results from

loftier ambitions. A galley anchored on the Libyan sands, it was with

toil that she maintained her position. The nations roared like billows

around her, and the slightest storm shook this formidable machine.

The treasury was exhausted by the Roman war and by all that had been

squandered and lost in the bargaining with the Barbarians. Nevertheless

soldiers must be had, and not a government would trust the Republic!

Ptolemæus had lately refused it two thousand talents. Moreover the rape

of the veil disheartened them. Spendius had clearly foreseen this.

But the nation, feeling that it was hated, clasped its money and

its gods to its heart, and its patriotism was sustained by the very

constitution of its government.

First, the power rested with all, without any one being strong enough

to engross it. Private debts were considered as public debts, men of

Chanaanitish race had a monopoly of commerce, and by multiplying the

profits of piracy with those of usury, by hard dealings in lands and

slaves and with the poor, fortunes were sometimes made. These alone

opened up all the magistracies, and although authority and money were

perpetuated in the same families, people tolerated the oligarchy because

they hoped ultimately to share in it.

The societies of merchants, in which the laws were elaborated, chose the

inspectors of the exchequer, who on leaving office nominated the hundred

members of the Council of the Ancients, themselves dependent on the

Grand Assembly, or general gathering of all the rich. As to the two

Suffets, the relics of the monarchy and the less than consuls, they were

taken from distinct families on the same day. All kinds of enmities were

contrived between them, so that they might mutually weaken each other.

They could not deliberate concerning war, and when they were vanquished

the Great Council crucified them.

The power of Carthage emanated, therefore, from the Syssitia, that is

to say, from a large court in the centre of Malqua, at the place, it

was said, where the first bark of Phonician sailors had touched, the

sea having retired a long way since then. It was a collection of little

rooms of archaic architecture, built of palm trunks with corners of

stone, and separated from one another so as to accommodate the various

societies separately. The rich crowded there all day to discuss their

own concerns and those of the government, from the procuring of pepper

to the extermination of Rome. Thrice in a moon they would have their

beds brought up to the lofty terrace running along the wall of the

court, and they might be seen from below at table in the air, without

cothurni or cloaks, with their diamond-covered fingers wandering

over the dishes, and their large earrings hanging down among the

flagons,—all fat and lusty, half-naked, smiling and eating beneath the

blue sky, like great sharks sporting in the sea.

But just now they were unable to dissemble their anxiety; they were too

pale for that. The crowd which waited for them at the gates escorted

them to their palaces in order to obtain some news from them. As in

times of pestilence, all the houses were shut; the streets would fill

and suddenly clear again; people ascended the Acropolis or ran to the

harbour, and the Great Council deliberated every night. At last the

people were convened in the square of Khamon, and it was decided to

leave the management of things to Hanno, the conqueror of Hecatompylos.

He was a true Carthaginian, devout, crafty, and pitiless towards the

people of Africa. His revenues equalled those of the Barcas. No one had

such experience in administrative affairs.

He decreed the enrolment of all healthy citizens, he placed catapults on

the towers, he exacted exorbitant supplies of arms, he even ordered the

construction of fourteen galleys which were not required, and he desired

everything to be registered and carefully set down in writing. He had

himself conveyed to the arsenal, the pharos, and the treasuries of the

temples; his great litter was continually to be seen swinging from step

to step as it ascended the staircases of the Acropolis. And then in

his palace at night, being unable to sleep, he would yell out warlike

manouvres in terrible tones so as to prepare himself for the fray.

In their extremity of terror all became brave. The rich ranged

themselves in line along the Mappalian district at cockcrow, and tucking

up their robes practised themselves in handling the pike. But for

want of an instructor they had disputes about it. They would sit down

breathless upon the tombs and then begin again. Several even dieted

themselves. Some imagined that it was necessary to eat a great deal in

order to acquire strength, while others who were inconvenienced by their

corpulence weakened themselves with fasts in order to become thin.

Utica had already called several times upon Carthage for assistance; but

Hanno would not set out until the engines of war had been supplied with

the last screws. He lost three moons more in equipping the one hundred

and twelve elephants that were lodged in the ramparts. They were the

conquerors of Regulus; the people loved them; it was impossible to treat

such old friends too well. Hanno had the brass plates which adorned

their breasts recast, their tusks gilt, their towers enlarged, and

caparisons, edged with very heavy fringes, cut out of the handsomest

purple. Finally, as their drivers were called Indians (after the first

ones, no doubt, who came from the Indies) he ordered them all to be

costumed after the Indian fashion; that is to say, with white pads round

their temples, and small drawers of byssus, which with their transverse

folds looked like two valves of a shell applied to the hips.

The army under Autaritus still remained before Tunis. It was hidden

behind a wall made with mud from the lake, and protected on the top by

thorny brushwood. Some Negroes had planted tall sticks here and there

bearing frightful faces,—human masks made with birds’ feathers, and

jackals’ or serpents’ heads,—which gaped towards the enemy for

the purpose of terrifying him; and the Barbarians, reckoning themselves

invincible through these means, danced, wrestled, and juggled, convinced

that Carthage would perish before long. Any one but Hanno would easily

have crushed such a multitude, hampered as it was with herds and women.

Moreover, they knew nothing of drill, and Autaritus was so disheartened

that he had ceased to require it.

They stepped aside when he passed by rolling his big blue eyes. Then

on reaching the edge of the lake he would draw back his sealskin cloak,

unfasten the cord which tied up his long red hair, and soak the latter

in the water. He regretted that he had not deserted to the Romans along

with the two thousand Gauls of the temple of Eryx.

Often the sun would suddenly lose his rays in the middle of the day.

Then the gulf and the open sea would seem as motionless as molten lead.

A cloud of brown dust stretching perpendicularly would speed whirling

along; the palm trees would bend and the sky disappear, while stones

would be heard rebounding on the animals’ cruppers; and the Gaul, his

lips glued against the holes in his tent, would gasp with exhaustion and

melancholy. His thoughts would be of the scent of the pastures on autumn

mornings, of snowflakes, or of the bellowing of the urus lost in the

fog, and closing his eyelids he would in imagination behold the fires in

long, straw-roofed cottages flickering on the marshes in the depths of

the woods.

Others regretted their native lands as well as he, even though they

might not be so far away. Indeed the Carthaginian captives could

distinguish the velaria spread over the courtyards of their houses,

beyond the gulf on the slopes of Byrsa. But sentries marched round them

continually. They were all fastened to a common chain. Each one wore an

iron carcanet, and the crowd was never weary of coming to gaze at them.

The women would show their little children the handsome robes hanging in

tatters on their wasted limbs.

Whenever Autaritus looked at Gisco he was seized with rage at the

recollection of the insult that he had received, and he would have

killed him but for the oath which he had taken to Narr’ Havas. Then

he would go back into his tent and drink a mixture of barley and cumin

until he swooned away from intoxication,—to awake afterwards in broad

daylight consumed with horrible thirst.

Matho, meanwhile, was besieging Hippo-Zarytus. But the town was

protected by a lake, communicating with the sea. It had three lines of

circumvallation, and upon the heights which surrounded it there

extended a wall fortified with towers. He had never commanded in such

an enterprise before. Moreover, he was beset with thoughts of Salammbô,

and he raved in the delight of her beauty as in the sweetness of a

vengeance that transported him with pride. He felt an acrid, frenzied,

permanent want to see her again. He even thought of presenting himself

as the bearer of a flag of truce, in the hope that once within Carthage

he might make his way to her. Often he would cause the assault to be

sounded and waiting for nothing rush upon the mole which it was sought

to construct in the sea. He would snatch up the stones with his hands,

overturn, strike, and deal sword-thrusts everywhere. The Barbarians

would dash on pell-mell; the ladders would break with a loud crash, and

masses of men would tumble into the water, causing it to fly up in

red waves against the walls. Finally the tumult would subside, and the

soldiers would retire to make a fresh beginning.

Matho would go and seat himself outside the tents, wipe his

blood-splashed face with his arm, and gaze at the horizon in the

direction of Carthage.

In front of him, among the olives, palms, myrtles and planes, stretched

two broad ponds which met another lake, the outlines of which could not

be seen. Behind one mountain other mountains reared themselves, and

in the middle of the immense lake rose an island perfectly black and

pyramidal in form. On the left, at the extremity of the gulf, were

sand-heaps like arrested waves, large and pale, while the sea, flat as a

pavement of lapis-lazuli, ascended by insensible degrees to the edge

of the sky. The verdure of the country was lost in places beneath long

sheets of yellow; carobs were shining like knobs of coral; vine branches

drooped from the tops of the sycamores; the murmuring of the water could

be heard; crested larks were hopping about, and the sun’s latest fires

gilded the carapaces of the tortoises as they came forth from the reeds

to inhale the breeze.

Matho would heave deep sighs. He would lie flat on his face, with his

nails buried in the soil, and weep; he felt wretched, paltry, forsaken.

Never would he possess her, and he was unable even to take a town.

At night when alone in his tent he would gaze upon the zaïmph. Of what

use to him was this thing which belonged to the gods?—and doubt crept

into the Barbarian’s thoughts. Then, on the contrary, it would seem

to him that the vesture of the goddess was depending from Salammbô, and

that a portion of her soul hovered in it, subtler than a breath; and

he would feel it, breathe it in, bury his face in it, and kiss it with

sobs. He would cover his shoulders with it in order to delude himself

that he was beside her.

Sometimes he would suddenly steal away, stride in the starlight over

the sleeping soldiers as they lay wrapped in their cloaks, spring upon

a horse on reaching the camp gates, and two hours later be at Utica in

Spendius’s tent.

At first he would speak of the siege, but his coming was only to ease

his sorrow by talking about Salammbô. Spendius exhorted him to be

prudent.

“Drive away these trifles from your soul, which is degraded by them!

Formerly you were used to obey; now you command an army, and if Carthage

is not conquered we shall at least be granted provinces. We shall become

kings!”

But how was it that the possession of the zaïmph did not give them the

victory? According to Spendius they must wait.

Matho fancied that the veil affected people of Chanaanitish race

exclusively, and, in his Barbarian-like subtlety, he said to himself:

“The zaïmph will accordingly do nothing for me, but since they have

lost it, it will do nothing for them.”

Afterwards a scruple troubled him. He was afraid of offending Moloch

by worshipping Aptouknos, the god of the Libyans, and he timidly asked

Spendius to which of the gods it would be advisable to sacrifice a man.

“Keep on sacrificing!” laughed Spendius.

Matho, who could not understand such indifference, suspected the Greek

of having a genius of whom he did not speak.

All modes of worship, as well as all races, were to be met with in these

armies of Barbarians, and consideration was had to the gods of others,

for they too, inspired fear. Many mingled foreign practices with their

native religion. It was to no purpose that they did not adore the stars;

if a constellation were fatal or helpful, sacrifices were offered to

it; an unknown amulet found by chance at a moment of peril became

a divinity; or it might be a name and nothing more, which would be

repeated without any attempt to understand its meaning. But after

pillaging temples, and seeing numbers of nations and slaughters, many

ultimately ceased to believe in anything but destiny and death;—and

every evening these would fall asleep with the placidity of wild beasts.

Spendius had spit upon the images of Jupiter Olympius; nevertheless he

dreaded to speak aloud in the dark, nor did he fail every day to put on

his right boot first.

He reared a long quadrangular terrace in front of Utica, but in

proportion as it ascended the rampart was also heightened, and what was

thrown down by the one side was almost immediately raised again by the

other. Spendius took care of his men; he dreamed of plans and strove to

recall the stratagems which he had heard described in his travels. But

why did Narr’ Havas not return? There was nothing but anxiety.

Hanno had at last concluded his preparations. One night when there was

no moon he transported his elephants and soldiers on rafts across

the Gulf of Carthage. Then they wheeled round the mountain of the Hot

Springs so as to avoid Autaritus, and continued their march so slowly

that instead of surprising the Barbarians in the morning, as the Suffet

had calculated, they did not reach them until it was broad daylight on

the third day.

Utica had on the east a plain which extended to the large lagoon of

Carthage; behind it a valley ran at right angles between two low and

abruptly terminated mountains; the Barbarians were encamped further

to the left in such a way as to blockade the harbour; and they were

sleeping in their tents (for on that day both sides were too weary

to fight and were resting) when the Carthaginian army appeared at the

turning of the hills.

Some camp followers furnished with slings were stationed at intervals

on the wings. The first line was formed of the guards of the Legion in

golden scale-armour, mounted on their big horses, which were without

mane, hair, or ears, and had silver horns in the middle of their

foreheads to make them look like rhinoceroses. Between their squadrons

were youths wearing small helmets and swinging an ashen javelin in each

hand. The long files of the heavy infantry marched behind. All these

traders had piled as many weapons upon their bodies as possible. Some

might be seen carrying an axe, a lance, a club, and two swords all at

once; others bristled with darts like porcupines, and their arms stood

out from their cuirasses in sheets of horn or iron plates. At last the

scaffoldings of the lofty engines appeared: carrobalistas, onagers,

catapults and scorpions, rocking on chariots drawn by mules and

quadrigas of oxen; and in proportion as the army drew out, the captains

ran panting right and left to deliver commands, close up the files, and

preserve the intervals. Such of the Ancients as held commands had come

in purple cassocks, the magnificent fringes of which tangled in the

white straps of their cothurni. Their faces, which were smeared all over

with vermilion, shone beneath enormous helmets surmounted with images

of the gods; and, as they had shields with ivory borders covered with

precious stones, they might have been taken for suns passing over walls

of brass.

But the Carthaginians manouvred so clumsily that the soldiers in

derision urged them to sit down. They called out that they were just

going to empty their big stomachs, to dust the gilding of their skin,

and to give them iron to drink.