CHAPTER IX IN THE FIELD
Hamilcar had thought that the Mercenaries would await him at Utica, orthat they would return against him; and finding his forces insufficientto make or to sustain an attack, he had struck southwards along theright bank of the river, thus protecting himself immediately from asurprise.
He intended first to wink at the revolt of the tribes and to detach themall from the cause of the Barbarians; then when they were quite isolatedin the midst of the provinces he would fall upon them and exterminatethem.
In fourteen days he pacified the region comprised between Thouccaberand Utica, with the towns of Tignicabah, Tessourah, Vacca, and othersfurther to the west. Zounghar built in the mountains, Assoura celebratedfor its temple, Djeraado fertile in junipers, Thapitis, and Hagoursent embassies to him. The country people came with their hands full ofprovisions, implored his protection, kissed his feet and those of thesoldiers, and complained of the Barbarians. Some came to offer him bagscontaining heads of Mercenaries killed, so they said, by themselves, butwhich they had cut off corpses; for many had lost themselves in theirflight, and were found dead here and there beneath the olive trees andamong the vines.
On the morrow of his victory, Hamilcar, to dazzle the people, had sentto Carthage the two thousand captives taken on the battlefield. Theyarrived in long companies of one hundred men each, all with their armsfastened behind their backs with a bar of bronze which caught them atthe nape of the neck, and the wounded, bleeding as they still were,running also along; horsemen followed them, driving them on with blowsof the whip.
Then there was a delirium of joy! People repeated that there were sixthousand Barbarians killed; the others would not hold out, and the warwas finished; they embraced one another in the streets, and rubbedthe faces of the Patæc Gods with butter and cinnamomum to thank them.These, with their big eyes, their big bodies, and their arms raised ashigh as the shoulder, seemed to live beneath their freshened paint, andto participate in the cheerfulness of the people. The rich left theirdoors open; the city resounded with the noise of the timbrels; thetemples were illuminated every night, and the servants of the goddesswent down to Malqua and set up stages of sycamore-wood at the cornersof the cross-ways, and prostituted themselves there. Lands were voted tothe conquerors, holocausts to Melkarth, three hundred gold crowns to theSuffet, and his partisans proposed to decree to him new prerogatives andhonours.
He had begged the Ancients to make overtures to Autaritus for exchangingall the Barbarians, if necessary, for the aged Gisco, and the otherCarthaginians detained like him. The Libyans and Nomads composing thearmy under Autaritus knew scarcely anything of these Mercenaries, whowere men of Italiote or Greek race; and the offer by the Republic of somany Barbarians for so few Carthaginians, showed that the value of theformer was nothing and that of the latter considerable. They dreaded asnare. Autaritus refused.
Then the Ancients decreed the execution of the captives, although theSuffet had written to them not to put them to death. He reckonedupon incorporating the best of them with his own troops and of thusinstigating defections. But hatred swept away all circumspection.
The two thousand Barbarians were tied to the stelæ of the tombs inthe Mappalian quarter; and traders, scullions, embroiderers, and evenwomen,—the widows of the dead with their children—all who would,came to kill them with arrows. They aimed slowly at them, the better toprolong their torture, lowering the weapon and then raising it in turn;and the multitude pressed forward howling. Paralytics had themselvesbrought thither in hand-barrows; many took the precaution of bringingtheir food, and remained on the spot until the evening; others passedthe night there. Tents had been set up in which drinking went on. Manygained large sums by hiring out bows.
Then all these crucified corpses were left upright, looking like so manyred statues on the tombs, and the excitement even spread to the peopleof Malqua, who were the descendants of the aboriginal families, and wereusually indifferent to the affairs of their country. Out of gratitudefor the pleasure it had been giving them they now interested themselvesin its fortunes, and felt that they were Carthaginians, and the Ancientsthought it a clever thing to have thus blended the entire people in asingle act of vengeance.
The sanction of the gods was not wanting; for crows alighted from allquarters of the sky. They wheeled in the air as they flew with loudhoarse cries, and formed a huge cloud rolling continually upon itself.It was seen from Clypea, Rhades, and the promontory of Hermæum.Sometimes it would suddenly burst asunder, its black spirals extendingfar away, as an eagle clove the centre of it, and then departed again;here and there on the terraces the domes, the peaks of the obelisks,and the pediments of the temples there were big birds holding humanfragments in their reddened beaks.
Owing to the smell the Carthaginians resigned themselves to unbind thecorpses. A few of them were burnt; the rest were thrown into the sea,and the waves, driven by the north wind, deposited them on the shore atthe end of the gulf before the camp of Autaritus.
This punishment had no doubt terrified the Barbarians, for from the topof Eschmoun they could be seen striking their tents, collecting theirflocks, and hoisting their baggage upon asses, and on the evening of thesame day the entire army withdrew.
It was to march to and fro between the mountain of the Hot Springsand Hippo-Zarytus, and so debar the Suffet from approaching the Tyriantowns, and from the possibility of a return to Carthage.
Meanwhile the two other armies were to try to overtake him in the south,Spendius in the east, and Matho in the west, in such a way that allthree should unite to surprise and entangle him. Then they received areinforcement which they had not looked for: Narr’ Havas appeared withthree hundred camels laden with bitumen, twenty-five elephants, and sixthousand horsemen.
To weaken the Mercenaries the Suffet had judged it prudent to occupy hisattention at a distance in his own kingdom. From the heart of Carthagehe had come to an understanding with Masgaba, a Gætulian brigandwho was seeking to found an empire. Strengthened by Punic money, theadventurer had raised the Numidian States with promises of freedom.But Narr’ Havas, warned by his nurse’s son, had dropped into Cirta,poisoned the conquerors with the water of the cisterns, struck off a fewheads, set all right again, and had just arrived against the Suffet morefurious than the Barbarians.
The chiefs of the four armies concerted the arrangements for the war. Itwould be a long one, and everything must be foreseen.
It was agreed first to entreat the assistance of the Romans, andthis mission was offered to Spendius, but as a fugitive he dared notundertake it. Twelve men from the Greek colonies embarked at Annaba ina sloop belonging to the Numidians. Then the chiefs exacted an oathof complete obedience from all the Barbarians. Every day the captainsinspected clothes and boots; the sentries were even forbidden to use ashield, for they would often lean it against their lance and fallasleep as they stood; those who had any baggage trailing after themwere obliged to get rid of it; everything was to be carried, in Romanfashion, on the back. As a precaution against the elephants Mathoinstituted a corps of cataphract cavalry, men and horses being hiddenbeneath cuirasses of hippopotamus skin bristling with nails; and toprotect the horses’ hoofs boots of plaited esparto-grass were made forthem.
It was forbidden to pillage the villages, or to tyrannise over theinhabitants who were not of Punic race. But as the country was becomingexhausted, Matho ordered the provisions to be served out to the soldiersindividually, without troubling about the women. At first the men sharedwith them. Many grew weak for lack of food. It was the occasion of manyquarrels and invectives, many drawing away the companions of the restby the bait or even by the promise of their own portion. Matho commandedthem all to be driven away pitilessly. They took refuge in the campof Autaritus; but the Gaulish and Libyan women forced them by theiroutrageous treatment to depart.
At last they came beneath the walls of Carthage to implore theprotection of Ceres and Proserpine, for in Byrsa there was a templewith priests consecrated to these godd
esses in expiation of the horrorsformerly committed at the siege of Syracuse. The Syssitia, allegingtheir right to waifs and strays, claimed the youngest in order to sellthem; and some fair Lacedæmonian women were taken by New Carthaginiansin marriage.
A few persisted in following the armies. They ran on the flank of thesyntagmata by the side of the captains. They called to their husbands,pulled them by the cloak, cursed them as they beat their breasts, andheld out their little naked and weeping children at arm’s length. Thesight of them was unmanning the Barbarians; they were an embarrassmentand a peril. Several times they were repulsed, but they came back again;Matho made the horsemen belonging to Narr’ Havas charge them with thepoint of the lance; and on some Balearians shouting out to him that theymust have women, he replied: “I have none!”
Just now he was invaded by the genius of Moloch. In spite of therebellion of his conscience, he performed terrible deeds, imagining thathe was thus obeying the voice of a god. When he could not ravage thefields, Matho would cast stones into them to render them sterile.
He urged Autaritus and Spendius with repeated messages to make haste.But the Suffet’s operations were incomprehensible. He encamped atEidous, Monchar, and Tehent successively; some scouts believed that theysaw him in the neighbourhood of Ischiil, near the frontiers of Narr’Havas, and it was reported that he had crossed the river above Tebourbaas though to return to Carthage. Scarcely was he in one place when heremoved to another. The routes that he followed always remained unknown.The Suffet preserved his advantages without offering battle, and whilepursued by the Barbarians seemed to be leading them.
These marches and counter marches were still more fatiguing to theCarthaginians, and Hamilcar’s forces, receiving no reinforcements,diminished from day to day. The country people were now more backwardin bringing him provisions. In every direction he encountered taciturnhesitation and hatred; and in spite of his entreaties to the GreatCouncil no succour came from Carthage.
It was said, perhaps it was believed, that he had need of none. It wasa trick, or his complaints were unnecessary; and Hanno’s partisans, inorder to do him an ill turn, exaggerated the importance of his victory.The troops which he commanded he was welcome to; but they were notgoing to supply his demands continually in that way. The war was quiteburdensome enough! it had cost too much, and from pride the patriciansbelonging to his faction supported him but slackly.
Then Hamilcar, despairing of the Republic, took by force from the tribesall that he wanted for the war—grain, oil, wood, cattle, and men.But the inhabitants were not long in taking flight. The villages passedthrough were empty, and the cabins were ransacked without anything beingdiscerned in them. The Punic army was soon encompassed by a terriblesolitude.
The Carthaginians, who were furious, began to sack the provinces; theyfilled up the cisterns and fired the houses. The sparks, being carriedby the wind, were scattered far off, and whole forests were on fire onthe mountains; they bordered the valleys with a crown of flames, andit was often necessary to wait in order to pass beyond them. Then thesoldiers resumed their march over the warm ashes in the full glare ofthe sun.
Sometimes they would see what looked like the eyes of a tiger catgleaming in a bush by the side of the road. This was a Barbariancrouching upon his heels, and smeared with dust, that he might not bedistinguished from the colour of the foliage; or perhaps when passingalong a ravine those on the wings would suddenly hear the rolling ofstones, and raising their eyes would perceive a bare-footed man boundingalong through the openings of the gorge.
Meanwhile Utica and Hippo-Zarytus were free since the Mercenarieswere no longer besieging them. Hamilcar commanded them to come to hisassistance. But not caring to compromise themselves, they answered himwith vague words, with compliments and excuses.
He went up again abruptly into the North, determined to open up one ofthe Tyrian towns, though he were obliged to lay siege to it. He requireda station on the coast, so as to be able to draw supplies and men fromthe islands or from Cyrene, and he coveted the harbour of Utica as beingthe nearest to Carthage.
The Suffet therefore left Zouitin and turned the lake of Hippo-Zarytuswith circumspection. But he was soon obliged to lengthen out hisregiments into column in order to climb the mountain which separatesthe two valleys. They were descending at sunset into its hollow,funnel-shaped summit, when they perceived on the level of the groundbefore them bronze she-wolves which seemed to be running across thegrass.
Suddenly large plumes arose and a terrible song burst forth, accompaniedby the rhythm of flutes. It was the army under Spendius; for someCampanians and Greeks, in their execration of Carthage, had assumed theensigns of Rome. At the same time long pikes, shields of leopard’sskin, linen cuirasses, and naked shoulders were seen on the left.These were the Iberians under Matho, the Lusitanians, Balearians, andGætulians; the horses of Narr’ Havas were heard to neigh; theyspread around the hill; then came the loose rabble commanded byAutaritus—Gauls, Libyans, and Nomads; while the Eaters of Uncleannessmight be recognised among them by the fish bones which they wore intheir hair.
Thus the Barbarians, having contrived their marches with exactness, hadcome together again. But themselves surprised, they remained motionlessfor some minutes in consultation.
The Suffet had collected his men into an orbicular mass, in such a wayas to offer an equal resistance in every direction. The infantry weresurrounded by their tall, pointed shields fixed close to one another inthe turf. The Clinabarians were outside and the elephants at intervalsfurther off. The Mercenaries were worn out with fatigue; it was betterto wait till next day; and the Barbarians feeling sure of their victoryoccupied themselves the whole night in eating.
They lighted large bright fires, which, while dazzling themselves, leftthe Punic army below them in the shade. Hamilcar caused a trench fifteenfeet broad and ten cubits deep to be dug in Roman fashion round hiscamp, and the earth thrown out to be raised on the inside into aparapet, on which sharp interlacing stakes were planted; and at sunrisethe Mercenaries were amazed to perceive all the Carthaginians thusentrenched as if in a fortress.
They could recognise Hamilcar in the midst of the tents walking aboutand giving orders. His person was clad in a brown cuirass cut in littlescales; he was followed by his horse, and stopped from time to time topoint out something with his right arm outstretched.
Then more than one recalled similar mornings when, amid the din ofclarions, he passed slowly before them, and his looks strengthenedthem like cups of wine. A kind of emotion overcame them. Those, on thecontrary, who were not acquainted with Hamilcar, were mad with joy athaving caught him.
Nevertheless if all attacked at once they would do one another mutualinjury in the insufficiency of space. The Numidians might dash through;but the Clinabarians, who were protected by cuirasses, would crush them.And then how were the palisades to be crossed? As to the elephants, theywere not sufficiently well trained.
“You are all cowards!” exclaimed Matho.
And with the best among them he rushed against the entrenchment. Theywere repulsed by a volley of stones; for the Suffet had taken theirabandoned catapults on the bridge.
This want of success produced an abrupt change in the fickle mindsof the Barbarians. Their extreme bravery disappeared; they wished toconquer, but with the smallest possible risk. According to Spendius theyought to maintain carefully the position that they held, and starve outthe Punic army. But the Carthaginians began to dig wells, and as therewere mountains surrounding the hill, they discovered water.
From the summit of their palisade they launched arrows, earth, dung,and pebbles which they gathered from the ground, while the six catapultsrolled incessantly throughout the length of the terrace.
But the springs would dry up of themselves; the provisions would beexhausted, and the catapults worn out; the Mercenaries, who wereten times as numerous, would triumph in the end. The Suffet devisednegotiations so as to gain time, and one morning the Barbarians founda sheep’s skin covered with
writing within their lines. He justifiedhimself for his victory: the Ancients had forced him into the war, andto show them that he was keeping his word, he offered them the pillagingof Utica or Hippo-Zarytus at their choice; in conclusion, Hamilcardeclared that he did not fear them because he had won over sometraitors, and thanks to them would easily manage the rest.
The Barbarians were disturbed: this proposal of immediate booty madethem consider; they were apprehensive of treachery, not suspectinga snare in the Suffet’s boasting, and they began to look upon oneanother with mistrust. Words and steps were watched; terrors awakedthem in the night. Many forsook their companions and chose their army asfancy dictated, and the Gauls with Autaritus went and joined themselveswith the men of Cisalpine Gaul, whose language they understood.
The four chiefs met together every evening in Matho’s tent, andsquatting round a shield, attentively moved backwards and forwards thelittle wooden figures invented by Pyrrhus for the representation ofmanouvres. Spendius would demonstrate Hamilcar’s resources, and withoaths by all the gods entreat that the opportunity should not be wasted.Matho would walk about angry and gesticulating. The war against Carthagewas his own personal affair; he was indignant that the others shouldinterfere in it without being willing to obey him. Autaritus woulddivine his speech from his countenance and applaud. Narr’ Havas wouldelevate his chin to mark his disdain; there was not a measure he did notconsider fatal; and he had ceased to smile. Sighs would escape him asthough he were thrusting back sorrow for an impossible dream, despairfor an abortive enterprise.
While the Barbarians deliberated in uncertainty, the Suffet increasedhis defences: he had a second trench dug within the palisades, a secondwall raised, and wooden towers constructed at the corners; and hisslaves went as far as the middle of the outposts to drive caltrops intothe ground. But the elephants, whose allowances were lessened, struggledin their shackles. To economise the grass he ordered the Clinabarians tokill the least strong among the stallions. A few refused to do so, andhe had them decapitated. The horses were eaten. The recollection ofthis fresh meat was a source of great sadness to them in the days thatfollowed.
From the bottom of the ampitheatre in which they were confined theycould see the four bustling camps of the Barbarians all around them onthe heights. Women moved about with leathern bottles on their heads,goats strayed bleating beneath the piles of pikes; sentries were beingrelieved, and eating was going on around tripods. In fact, the tribesfurnished them abundantly with provisions, and they did not themselvessuspect how much their inaction alarmed the Punic army.
On the second day the Carthaginians had remarked a troop of threehundred men apart from the rest in the camp of the nomads. These werethe rich who had been kept prisoners since the beginning of the war.Some Libyans ranged them along the edge of the trench, took theirstation behind them, and hurled javelins, making themselves a rampartof their bodies. The wretched creatures could scarcely be recognised,so completely were their faces covered with vermin and filth. Their hairhad been plucked out in places, leaving bare the ulcers on theirheads, and they were so lean and hideous that they were like mummies intattered shrouds. A few trembled and sobbed with a stupid look; the restcried out to their friends to fire upon the Barbarians. There was onewho remained quite motionless with face cast down, and withoutspeaking; his long white beard fell to his chain-covered hands; and theCarthaginians, feeling as it were the downfall of the Republic in thebottom of their hearts, recognised Gisco. Although the place was adangerous one they pressed forward to see him. On his head had beenplaced a grotesque tiara of hippopotamus leather incrusted with pebbles.It was Autaritus’s idea; but it was displeasing to Matho.
Hamilcar in exasperation, and resolved to cut his way through in one wayor another, had the palisades opened; and the Carthaginians went at afurious rate half way up the hill or three hundred paces. Such a floodof Barbarians descended upon them that they were driven back to theirlines. One of the guards of the Legion who had remained outside wasstumbling among the stones. Zarxas ran up to him, knocked him down, andplunged a dagger into his throat; he drew it out, threw himself upon thewound—and gluing his lips to it with mutterings of joy, and startingswhich shook him to the heels, pumped up the blood by breastfuls; then hequietly sat down upon the corpse, raised his face with his neck thrownback the better to breathe in the air, like a hind that has just drunkat a mountain stream, and in a shrill voice began to sing a Balearicsong, a vague melody full of prolonged modulations, with interruptionsand alternations like echoes answering one another in the mountains; hecalled upon his dead brothers and invited them to a feast;—then he lethis hands fall between his legs, slowly bent his head, and wept. Thisatrocious occurrence horrified the Barbarians, especially the Greeks.
From that time forth the Carthaginians did not attempt to make anysally; and they had no thought of surrender, certain as they were thatthey would perish in tortures.
Nevertheless the provisions, in spite of Hamilcar’s carefulness,diminished frightfully. There was not left per man more than tenk’hommers of wheat, three hins of millet, and twelve betzas of driedfruit. No more meat, no more oil, no more salt food, and not a grain ofbarley for the horses, which might be seen stretching down their wastednecks seeking in the dust for blades of trampled straw. Often thesentries on vedette upon the terrace would see in the moonlight a dogbelonging to the Barbarians coming to prowl beneath the entrenchmentamong the heaps of filth; it would be knocked down with a stone, andthen, after a descent had been effected along the palisades by meansof the straps of a shield, it would be eaten without a word. Sometimeshorrible barkings would be heard and the man would not come up again.Three phalangites, in the fourth dilochia of the twelfth syntagmata,killed one another with knives in a dispute about a rat.
All regretted their families, and their houses; the poor theirhive-shaped huts, with the shells on the threshold and the hanging net,and the patricians their large halls filled with bluish shadows, whereat the most indolent hour of the day they used to rest listening to thevague noise of the streets mingled with the rustling of the leaves asthey stirred in their gardens;—to go deeper into the thought of this,and to enjoy it more, they would half close their eyelids, only to beroused by the shock of a wound. Every minute there was some engagement,some fresh alarm; the towers were burning, the Eaters of Uncleannesswere leaping across the palisades; their hands would be struck off withaxes; others would hasten up; an iron hail would fall upon the tents.Galleries of rushen hurdles were raised as a protection against theprojectiles. The Carthaginians shut themselves up within them andstirred out no more.
Every day the sun coming over the hill used, after the early hours, toforsake the bottom of the gorge and leave them in the shade. The greyslopes of the ground, covered with flints spotted with scanty lichen,ascended in front and in the rear, and above their summits stretched thesky in its perpetual purity, smoother and colder to the eye than a metalcupola. Hamilcar was so indignant with Carthage that he felt inclined tothrow himself among the Barbarians and lead them against her. Moreover,the porters, sutlers, and slaves were beginning to murmur, while neitherpeople, nor Great Council, nor any one sent as much as a hope. Thesituation was intolerable, especially owing to the thought that it wouldbecome worse.
At the news of the disaster Carthage had leaped, as it were, with angerand hate; the Suffet would have been less execrated if he had allowedhimself to be conquered from the first.
But time and money were lacking for the hire of other Mercenaries. As toa levy of soldiers in the town, how were they to be equipped? Hamilcarhad taken all the arms! and then who was to command them? The bestcaptains were down yonder with him! Meanwhile, some men despatched bythe Suffet arrived in the streets with shouts. The Great Council wereroused by them, and contrived to make them disappear.
It was an unnecessary precaution; every one accused Barca of havingbehaved with slackness. He ought to have annihilated the Mercenariesafter his victory. Why had he ravaged the tribes? The sacrificesalr
eady imposed had been heavy enough! and the patricians deplored theircontributions of fourteen shekels, and the Syssitia their two hundredand twenty-three thousand gold kikars; those who had given nothinglamented like the rest. The populace was jealous of the NewCarthaginians, to whom he had promised full rights of citizenship;and even the Ligurians, who had fought with such intrepidity, wereconfounded with the Barbarians and cursed like them; their race becamea crime, the proof of complicity. The traders on the threshold of theirshops, the workmen passing plumb-line in hand, the vendors of picklerinsing their baskets, the attendants in the vapour baths and theretailers of hot drinks all discussed the operations of the campaign.They would trace battle-plans with their fingers in the dust, andthere was not a sorry rascal to be found who could not have correctedHamilcar’s mistakes.
It was a punishment, said the priests, for his long-continued impiety.He had offered no holocausts; he had not purified his troops; he hadeven refused to take augurs with him; and the scandal of sacrilegestrengthened the violence of restrained hate, and the rage of betrayedhopes. People recalled the Sicilian disasters, and all the burden ofhis pride that they had borne for so long! The colleges of the pontiffscould not forgive him for having seized their treasure, and theydemanded a pledge from the Great Council to crucify him should he everreturn.
The heats of the month of Eloul, which were excessive in that year, wereanother calamity. Sickening smells rose from the borders of the Lake,and were wafted through the air together with the fumes of the aromaticsthat eddied at the corners of the streets. The sounds of hymns wereconstantly heard. Crowds of people occupied the staircases of thetemples; all the walls were covered with black veils; tapers burnton the brows of the Patæc Gods, and the blood of camels slain forsacrifice ran along the flights of stairs forming red cascades upon thesteps. Carthage was agitated with funereal delirium. From the depths ofthe narrowest lanes, and the blackest dens, there issued pale faces,men with viper-like profiles and grinding their teeth. The houses werefilled with the women’s piercing shrieks, which, escaping through thegratings, caused those who stood talking in the squares to turn round.Sometimes it was thought that the Barbarians were arriving; they hadbeen seen behind the mountain of the Hot Springs; they were encamped atTunis; and the voices would multiply and swell, and be blended into onesingle clamour. Then universal silence would reign, some remaining wherethey had climbed upon the frontals of the buildings, screening theireyes with their open hand, while the rest lay flat on their faces at thefoot of the ramparts straining their ears. When their terror had passedoff their anger would begin again. But the conviction of their ownimpotence would soon sink them into the same sadness as before.
It increased every evening when all ascended the terraces, and bowingdown nine times uttered a loud cry in salutation of the sun, as itsank slowly behind the lagoon, and then suddenly disappeared among themountains in the direction of the Barbarians.
They were waiting for the thrice holy festival when, from the summitof a funeral pile, an eagle flew heavenwards as a symbol of theresurrection of the year, and a message from the people to their Baal;they regarded it as a sort of union, a method of connecting themselveswith the might of the Sun. Moreover, filled as they now were withhatred, they turned frankly towards homicidal Moloch, and all forsookTanith. In fact, Rabetna, having lost her veil, was as if she had beendespoiled of part of her virtue. She denied the beneficence of herwaters, she had abandoned Carthage; she was a deserter, an enemy.Some threw stones at her to insult her. But many pitied her while theyinveighed against her; she was still beloved, and perhaps more deeplythan she had been.
All their misfortunes came, therefore, from the loss of the zaïmph.Salammbô had indirectly participated in it; she was included in thesame ill will; she must be punished. A vague idea of immolation spreadamong the people. To appease the Baalim it was without doubt necessaryto offer them something of incalculable worth, a being handsome, young,virgin, of old family, a descendant of the gods, a human star. Every daythe gardens of Megara were invaded by strange men; the slaves, tremblingon their own account, dared not resist them. Nevertheless, they did notpass beyond the galley staircase. They remained below with their eyesraised to the highest terrace; they were waiting for Salammbô, and theywould cry out for hours against her like dogs baying at the moon.