CHAPTER VIII
THE BATTLE OF THE MACARAS
In the following day he drew two hundred and twenty-three thousand
kikars of gold from the Syssitia, and decreed a tax of fourteen
shekels upon the rich. Even the women contributed; payment was made in
behalf of the children, and he compelled the colleges of priests to
furnish money--a monstrous thing, according to Carthaginian customs.
He demanded all the horses, mules, and arms. A few tried to conceal
their wealth, and their property was sold; and, to intimidate the
avarice of the rest, he himself gave sixty suits of armour, and
fifteen hundred gomers of meal, which was as much as was given by the
Ivory Company.
He sent into Liguria to buy soldiers, three thousand mountaineers
accustomed to fight with bears; they were paid for six moons in
advance at the rate of four minae a day.
Nevertheless an army was wanted. But he did not, like Hanno, accept
all the citizens. First he rejected those engaged in sedentary
occupations, and then those who were big-bellied or had a
pusillanimous look; and he admitted those of ill-repute, the scum of
Malqua, sons of Barbarians, freed men. For reward he promised some of
the New Carthaginians complete rights of citizenship.
His first care was to reform the Legion. These handsome young fellows,
who regarded themselves as the military majesty of the Republic,
governed themselves. He reduced their officers to the ranks; he
treated them harshly, made them run, leap, ascend the declivity of
Byrsa at a single burst, hurl javelins, wrestle together, and sleep in
the squares at night. Their families used to come to see them and pity
them.
He ordered shorter swords and stronger buskins. He fixed the number of
serving-men, and reduced the amount of baggage; and as there were
three hundred Roman pila kept in the temple of Moloch, he took them in
spite of the pontiff's protests.
He organised a phalanx of seventy-two elephants with those which had
returned from Utica, and others which were private property, and
rendered them formidable. He armed their drivers with mallet and
chisel to enable them to split their skulls in the fight if they ran
away.
He would not allow his generals to be nominated by the Grand Council.
The Ancients tried to urge the laws in objection, but he set them
aside; no one ventured to murmur again, and everything yielded to the
violence of his genius.
He assumed sole charge of the war, the government, and the finances;
and as a precaution against accusations he demanded the Suffet Hanno
as examiner of his accounts.
He set to work upon the ramparts, and had the old and now useless
inner walls demolished in order to furnish stones. But difference of
fortune, replacing the hierarchy of race, still kept the sons of the
vanquished and those of the conquerors apart; thus the patricians
viewed the destruction of these ruins with an angry eye, while the
plebeians, scarcely knowing why, rejoiced.
The troops defiled under arms through the streets from morning till
night; every moment the sound of trumpets was heard; chariots passed
bearing shields, tents, and pikes; the courts were full of women
engaged in tearing up linen; the enthusiasm spread from one to
another, and Hamilcar's soul filled the Republic.
He had divided his soldiers into even numbers, being careful to place
a strong man and a weak one alternately throughout the length of his
files, so that he who was less vigorous or more cowardly might be at
once led and pushed forward by two others. But with his three thousand
Ligurians, and the best in Carthage, he could form only a simple
phalanx of four thousand and ninety-six hoplites, protected by bronze
helmets, and handling ashen sarissae fourteen cubits long.
There were two thousand young men, each equipped with a sling, a
dagger, and sandals. He reinforced them with eight hundred others
armed with round shields and Roman swords.
The heavy cavalry was composed of the nineteen hundred remaining
guardsmen of the Legion, covered with plates of vermilion bronze, like
the Assyrian Clinabarians. He had further four hundred mounted
archers, of those that were called Tarentines, with caps of weasel's
skin, two-edged axes, and leathern tunics. Finally there were twelve
hundred Negroes from the quarter of the caravans, who were mingled
with the Clinabarians, and were to run beside the stallions with one
hand resting on the manes. All was ready, and yet Hamilcar did not
start.
Often at night he would go out of Carthage alone and make his way
beyond the lagoon towards the mouths of the Macaras. Did he intend to
join the Mercenaries? The Ligurians encamped in the Mappalian district
surrounded his house.
The apprehensions of the rich appeared justified when, one day, three
hundred Barbarians were seen approaching the walls. The Suffet opened
the gates to them; they were deserters; drawn by fear or by fidelity,
they were hastening to their master.
Hamilcar's return had not surprised the Mercenaries; according to
their ideas the man could not die. He was returning to fulfil his
promise;--a hope by no means absurd, so deep was the abyss between
Country and Army. Moreover they did not believe themselves culpable;
the feast was forgotten.
The spies whom they surprised undeceived them. It was a triumph for
the bitter; even the lukewarm grew furious. Then the two sieges
overwhelmed then with weariness; no progress was being made; a battle
would be better! Thus many men had left the ranks and were scouring
the country. But at news of the arming they returned; Matho leaped for
joy. "At last! at last!" he cried.
Then the resentment which he cherished against Salammbo was turned
against Hamilcar. His hate could now perceive a definite prey; and as
his vengeance grew easier of conception he almost believed that he had
realised it and he revelled in it already. At the same time he was
seized with a loftier tenderness, and consumed by more acrid desire.
He saw himself alternately in the midst of the soldiers brandishing
the Suffet's head on a pike, and then in the room with the purple bed,
clasping the maiden in his arms, covering her face with kisses,
passing his hands over her long, black hair; and the imagination of
this, which he knew could never be realised, tortured him. He swore to
himself that, since his companions had appointed him schalishim, he
would conduct the war; the certainty that he would not return from it
urged him to render it a pitiless one.
He came to Spendius and said to him:
"You will go and get your men! I will bring mine! Warn Autaritus! We
are lost if Hamilcar attacks us! Do you understand me? Rise!"
Spendius was stupefied before such an air of authority. Matho usually
allowed himself to be led, and his previous transports had quickly
passed away. But just now he appeared at once calmer and more
terrible; a superb will gleamed in his eyes like the flame of
sacrifice.
The Greek did not listen to his reasons. He was living in one of the
Carthaginian pearl-bordered tents, drinking cool beverages from silver
cups, playing at the cottabos, letting his hair grow, and conducting
the siege with slackness. Moreover, he had entered into communications
with some in the town and would not leave, being sure that it would
open its gates before many days were over.
Narr' Havas, who wandered about among the three armies, was at that
time with him. He supported his opinion, and even blamed the Libyan
for wishing in his excess of courage to abandon their enterprise.
"Go, if you are afraid!" exclaimed Matho; "you promised us pitch,
sulphur, elephants, foot-soldiers, horses! where are they?"
Narr' Havas reminded him that he had exterminated Hanno's last
cohorts;--as to the elephants, they were being hunted in the woods, he
was arming the foot-soldiers, the horses were on their way; and the
Numidian rolled his eyes like a woman and smiled in an irritating
manner as he stroked the ostrich feather which fell upon his shoulder.
In his presence Matho was at a loss for a reply.
But a man who was a stranger entered, wet with perspiration, scared,
and with bleeding feet and loosened girdle; his breathing shook his
lean sides enough to have burst them, and speaking in an
unintelligible dialect he opened his eyes wide as if he were telling
of some battle. The king sprang outside and called his horsemen.
They ranged themselves in the plain before him in the form of a
circle. Narr' Havas, who was mounted, bent his head and bit his lips.
At last he separated his men into two equal divisions, and told the
first to wait; then with an imperious gesture he carried off the
others at a gallop and disappeared on the horizon in the direction of
the mountains.
"Master!" murmured Spendius, "I do not like these extraordinary
chances--the Suffet returning, Narr' Havas going away--"
"Why! what does it matter?" said Matho disdainfully.
It was a reason the more for anticipating Hamilcar by uniting with
Autaritus. But if the siege of the towns were raised, the inhabitants
would come out and attack them in the rear, while they would have the
Carthaginians in front. After much talking the following measures were
resolved upon and immediately executed.
Spendius proceeded with fifteen thousand men as far as the bridge
built across the Macaras, three miles from Utica; the corners of it
were fortified with four huge towers provided with catapults; all the
paths and gorges in the mountains were stopped up with trunks of
trees, pieces of rock, interlacings of thorn, and stone walls; on the
summits heaps of grass were made which might be lighted as signals,
and shepherds who were able to see at a distance were posted at
intervals.
No doubt Hamilcar would not, like Hanno, advance by the mountain of
the Hot Springs. He would think that Autaritus, being master of the
interior, would close the route against him. Moreover, a check at the
opening of the campaign would ruin him, while if he gained a victory
he would soon have to make a fresh beginning, the Mercenaries being
further off. Again, he could disembark at Cape Grapes and march thence
upon one of the towns. But he would then find himself between the two
armies, an indiscretion which he could not commit with his scanty
forces. Accordingly he must proceed along the base of Mount Ariana,
then turn to the left to avoid the mouths of the Macaras, and come
straight to the bridge. It was there that Matho expected him.
At night he used to inspect the pioneers by torch-light. He would
hasten to Hippo-Zarytus or to the works on the mountains, would come
back again, would never rest. Spendius envied his energy; but in the
management of spies, the choice of sentries, the working of the
engines and all means of defence, Matho listened docilely to his
companion. They spoke no more of Salammbo,--one not thinking about
her, and the other being prevented by a feeling of shame.
Often he would go towards Carthage, striving to catch sight of
Hamilcar's troops. His eyes would dart along the horizon; he would lie
flat on the ground, and believe that he could hear an army in the
throbbing of his arteries.
He told Spendius that if Hamilcar did not arrive in three days he
would go with all his men to meet him and offer him battle. Two
further days elapsed. Spendius restrained him; but on the morning of
the sixth day he departed.
The Carthaginians were no less impatient for war than the Barbarians.
In tents and in houses there was the same longing and the same
distress; all were asking one another what was delaying Hamilcar.
From time to time he would mount to the cupola of the temple of
Eschmoun beside the Announcer of the Moons and take note of the wind.
One day--it was the third of the month of Tibby--they saw him
descending from the Acropolis with hurried steps. A great clamour
arose in the Mappalian district. Soon the streets were astir, and the
soldiers were everywhere beginning to arm themselves upon their
breasts; then they ran quickly to the square of Khamon to take their
places in the ranks. No one was allowed to follow them or even to
speak to them, or to approach the ramparts; for some minutes the whole
town was silent as a great tomb. The soldiers as they leaned on their
lances were thinking, and the others in the houses were sighing.
At sunset the army went out by the western gate; but instead of taking
the road to Tunis or making for the mountains in the direction of
Utica, they continued their march along the edge of the sea; and they
soon reached the Lagoon, where round spaces quite whitened with salt
glittered like gigantic silver dishes forgotten on the shore.
Then the pools of water multiplied. The ground gradually became
softer, and the feet sank in it. Hamilcar did not turn back. He went
on still at their head; and his horse, which was yellow-spotted like a
dragon, advanced into the mire flinging froth around him, and with
great straining of the loins. Night--a moonless light--fell. A few
cried out that they were about to perish; he snatched their arms from
them, and gave them to the serving-men. Nevertheless the mud became
deeper and deeper. Some had to mount the beasts of burden; others
clung to the horses' tails; the sturdy pulled the weak, and the
Ligurian corps drove on the infantry with the points of their pikes.
The darkness increased. They had lost their way. All stopped.
Then some of the Suffet's slaves went on ahead to look for the buoys
which had been placed at intervals by his order. They shouted through
the darkness, and the army followed them at a distance.
At last they felt the resistance of the ground. Then a whitish curve
became dimly visible, and they found themselves on the bank of the
Macaras. In spite of the cold no fires were lighted.
In the middle of the night squalls of wind arose. Hamilcar had the
soldiers roused, but not a trumpet was sounded: their captain tapped
them softly on the shoulder.
A man of lofty stature went down into the water. It did not come up to
his girdle; it was possible to cross.
The Suffet ordered thirty-two of the elephants to be posted in the
river a hundred paces further on, while the others, lower down, would
check the lines of men that were carried away by the current; and
holding their weapons above their heads they all crossed the Macaras
as though between two walls. He had noticed that the western wind had
driven the sand so as to obstruct the river and form a natural
causeway across it.
He was now on the left bank in front of Utica, and in a vast plain,
the latter being advantageous for his elephants, which formed the
strength of his army.
This feat of genius filled the soldiers with enthusiasm. They
recovered extraordinary confidence. They wished to hasten immediately
against the Barbarians; but the Suffet bade them rest for two hours.
As soon as the sun appeared they moved into the plain in three lines--
first came the elephants, and then the light infantry with the cavalry
behind it, the phalanx marching next.
The Barbarians encamped at Utica, and the fifteen thousand about the
bridge were surprised to see the ground undulating in the distance.
The wind, which was blowing very hard, was driving tornadoes of sand
before it; they rose as though snatched from the soil, ascended in
great light-coloured strips, then parted asunder and began again,
hiding the Punic army the while from the Mercenaries. Owing to the
horns, which stood up on the edge of the helmets, some thought that
they could perceive a herd of oxen; others, deceived by the motion of
the cloaks, pretended that they could distinguish wings, and those who
had travelled a good deal shrugged their shoulders and explained
everything by the illusions of the mirage. Nevertheless something of
enormous size continued to advance. Little vapours, as subtle as the
breath, ran across the surface of the desert; the sun, which was
higher now, shone more strongly: a harsh light, which seemed to
vibrate, threw back the depths of the sky, and permeating objects,
rendered distance incalculable. The immense plain expanded in every
direction beyond the limits of vision; and the almost insensible
undulations of the soil extended to the extreme horizon, which was
closed by a great blue line which they knew to be the sea. The two
armies, having left their tents, stood gazing; the people of Utica
were massing on the ramparts to have a better view.
At last they distinguished several transverse bars bristling with
level points. They became thicker, larger; black hillocks swayed to
and fro; square thickets suddenly appeared; they were elephants and
lances. A single shout went up: "The Carthaginians!" and without
signal or command the soldiers at Utica and those at the bridge ran
pell-mell to fall in a body upon Hamilcar.
Spendius shuddered at the name. "Hamilcar! Hamilcar!" he repeated,
panting, and Matho was not there! What was to be done? No means of
flight! The suddenness of the event, his terror of the Suffet, and
above all, the urgent need of forming an immediate resolution,
distracted him; he could see himself pierced by a thousand swords,
decapitated, dead. Meanwhile he was being called for; thirty thousand
men would follow him; he was seized with fury against himself; he fell
back upon the hope of victory; it was full of bliss, and he believed
himself more intrepid than Epaminondas. He smeared his cheeks with
vermilion in order to conceal his paleness, then he buckled on his
knemids and his cuirass, swallowed a patera of pure wine, and ran
after his troops, who were hastening towards those from Utica.
They united so rapidly that the Suffet had not time to draw up his men
in battle array. By degrees he slackened his speed. The elephants
stopped; they rocked their heavy heads with their chargings of ostrich
feathers, striking their shoulders the while with their trunks.
Behind the intervals between them might be seen the cohorts of the
velites, and further on the great helmets of the Clinabarians, with
steel heads glancing in the sun, cuirasses, plumes, and waving
standards. But the Carthaginian army, which amounted to eleven
thousand three hundred and ninety-six men, seemed scarcely to contain
them, for it formed an oblong, narrow at the sides and pressed back
upon itself.
Seeing them so weak, the Barbarians, who were thrice as numerous, were
seized with extravagant joy. Hamilcar was not to be seen. Perhaps he
had remained down yonder? Moreover what did it matter? The disdain
which they felt for these traders strengthened their courage; and
before Spendius could command a manoeuvre they had all understood it,
and already executed it.
They were deployed in a long, straight line, overlapping the wings of
the Punic army in order to completely encompass it. But when there was
an interval of only three hundred paces between the armies, the
elephants turned round instead of advancing; then the Clinabarians
were seen to face about and follow them; and the surprise of the
Mercenaries increased when they saw the archers running to join them.
So the Carthaginians were afraid, they were fleeing! A tremendous
hooting broke out from among the Barbarian troops, and Spendius
exclaimed from the top of his dromedary: "Ah! I knew it! Forward!
forward!"
Then javelins, darts, and sling-bullets burst forth simultaneously.
The elephants feeling their croups stung by the arrows began to gallop
more quickly; a great dust enveloped them, and they vanished like
shadows in a cloud.
But from the distance there came a loud noise of footsteps dominated
by the shrill sound of the trumpets, which were being blown furiously.
The space which the Barbarians had in front of them, which was full of
eddies and tumult, attracted like a whirlpool; some dashed into it.
Cohorts of infantry appeared; they closed up; and at the same time all
the rest saw the foot-soldiers hastening up with the horseman at a
gallop.
Hamilcar had, in fact, ordered the phalanx to break its sections, and
the elephants, light troops, and cavalry to pass through the intervals
so as to bring themselves speedily upon the wings, and so well had he
calculated the distance from the Barbarians, that at the moment when
they reached him, the entire Carthaginian army formed one long
straight line.
In the centre bristled the phalanx, formed of syntagmata or full
squares having sixteen men on each side. All the leaders of all the
files appeared amid long, sharp lanceheads, which jutted out unevenly
around them, for the first six ranks crossed their sarissae, holding
them in the middle, and the ten lower ranks rested them upon the
shoulders of their companions in succession before them. Their faces
were all half hidden beneath the visors of their helmets; their right
legs were all covered with bronze knemids; broad cylindrical shields
reached down to their knees; and the horrible quadrangular mass moved
in a single body, and seemed to live like an animal and work like a
machine. Two cohorts of elephants flanked it in regular array;
quivering, they shook off the splinters of the arrows that clung to
their black skins. The Indians, squatting on their withers among the
tufts of white feathers, restrained them with their spoon-headed
harpoons, while the men in the towers, who were hidden up to their
shoulders, moved about iron distaffs furnished with lighted tow on the
edges of their large bended bows. Right and left of the elephants
hovered the slingers, each with a sling around his loins, a second on
his head, and a third in his right hand. Then came the Clinabarians,
each flanked by a Negro, and pointing their lances between the ears of
their horses, which, like themselves, were completely covered with
gold. Afterwards, at intervals, came the light armed soldiers with
shields of lynx skin, beyond which projected the points of the
javelins which they held in their left hands; while the Tarentines,
each having two coupled horses, relieved this wall of soldiers at its
two extremities.
The army of the Barbarians, on the contrary, had not been able to
preserve its line. Undulations and blanks were to be found through its
extravagant length; all were panting and out of breath with their
running.
The phalanx moved heavily along with thrusts from all its sarissae;
and the too slender line of the Mercenaries soon yielded in the centre
beneath the enormous weight.
Then the Carthaginian wings expanded in order to fall upon them, the
elephants following. The phalanx, with obliquely pointed lances, cut
through the Barbarians; there were two enormous, struggling bodies;
and the wings with slings and arrows beat them back upon the
phalangites. There was no cavalry to get rid of them, except two
hundred Numidians operating against the right squadron of the
Clinabarians. All the rest were hemmed in, and unable to extricate
themselves from the lines. The peril was imminent, and the need of
coming to some resolution urgent.
Spendius ordered attacks to be made simultaneously on both flanks of
the phalanx so as to pass clean through it. But the narrower ranks
glided below the longer ones and recovered their position, and the
phalanx turned upon the Barbarians as terrible in flank as it had just
been in front.
They struck at the staves of the sarissae, but the cavalry in the rear
embarrassed their attack; and the phalanx, supported by the elephants,
lengthened and contracted, presenting itself in the form of a square,
a cone, a rhombus, a trapezium, a pyramid. A twofold internal movement
went on continually from its head to its rear; for those who were at
the lowest part of the files hastened up to the first ranks, while the
latter, from fatigue, or on account of the wounded, fell further back.
The Barbarians found themselves thronged upon the phalanx. It was
impossible for it to advance; there was, as it were, an ocean wherein
leaped red crests and scales of brass, while the bright shields rolled
like silver foam. Sometimes broad currents would descend from one
extremity to the other, and then go up again, while a heavy mass
remained motionless in the centre. The lances dipped and rose
alternately. Elsewhere there was so quick a play of naked swords that
only the points were visible, while turmae of cavalry formed wide
circles which closed again like whirlwinds behind them.
Above the voices of the captains, the ringing of clarions and the
grating of tyres, bullets of lead and almonds of clay whistled through
the air, dashing the sword from the hand or the brain out of the
skull. The wounded, sheltering themselves with one arm beneath their
shields, pointed their swords by resting the pommels on the ground,
while others, lying in pools of blood, would turn and bite the heels
of those above them. The multitude was so compact, the dust so thick,
and the tumult so great that it was impossible to distinguish
anything; the cowards who offered to surrender were not even heard.
Those whose hands were empty clasped one another close; breasts
cracked against cuirasses, and corpses hung with head thrown back
between a pair of contracted arms. There was a company of sixty
Umbrians who, firm on their hams, their pikes before their eyes,
immovable and grinding their teeth, forced two syntagmata to recoil
simultaneously. Some Epirote shepherds ran upon the left squadron of
the Clinabarians, and whirling their staves, seized the horses by the
man; the animals threw their riders and fled across the plain. The
Punic slingers scattered here and there stood gaping. The phalanx
began to waver, the captains ran to and fro in distraction, the
rearmost in the files were pressing upon the soldiers, and the
Barbarians had re-formed; they were recovering; the victory was
theirs.
But a cry, a terrible cry broke forth, a roar of pain and wrath: it
came from the seventy-two elephants which were rushing on in double
line, Hamilcar having waited until the Mercenaries were massed
together in one spot to let them loose against them; the Indians had
goaded them so vigorously that blood was trickling down their broad
ears. Their trunks, which were smeared with mimium, were stretched
straight out in the air like red serpents; their breasts were
furnished with spears and their backs with cuirasses; their tusks were
lengthened with steel blades curved like sabres,--and to make them
more ferocious they had been intoxicated with a mixture of pepper,
wine, and incense. They shook their necklaces of bells, and shrieked;
and the elephantarchs bent their heads beneath the stream of
phalaricas which was beginning to fly from the tops of the towers.
In order to resist them the better the Barbarians rushed forward in a
compact crowd; the elephants flung themselves impetuously upon the
centre of it. The spurs on their breasts, like ships' prows, clove
through the cohorts, which flowed surging back. They stifled the men
with their trunks, or else snatching them up from the ground delivered
them over their heads to the soldiers in the towers; with their tusks
they disembowelled them, and hurled them into the air, and long
entrails hung from their ivory fangs like bundles of rope from a mast.
The Barbarians strove to blind them, to hamstring them; others would
slip beneath their bodies, bury a sword in them up to the hilt, and
perish crushed to death; the most intrepid clung to their straps; they
would go on sawing the leather amid flames, bullets, and arrows, and
the wicker tower would fall like a tower of stone. Fourteen of the
animals on the extreme right, irritated by their wounds, turned upon
the second rank; the Indians seized mallet and chisel, applied the
latter to a joint in the head, and with all their might struck a great
blow.
Down fell the huge beasts, falling one above another. It was like a
mountain; and upon the heap of dead bodies and armour a monstrous
elephant, called "The Fury of Baal," which had been caught by the leg
in some chains, stood howling until the evening with an arrow in its
eye.
The others, however, like conquerors, delighting in extermination,
overthrew, crushed, stamped, and raged against the corpses and the
debris. To repel the maniples in serried circles around them, they
turned about on their hind feet as they advanced, with a continual
rotatory motion. The Carthaginians felt their energy increase, and the
battle begin again.
The Barbarians were growing weak; some Greek hoplites threw away all
their arms, and terror seized upon the rest. Spendius was seen
stooping upon his dromedary, and spurring it on the shoulders with two
javelins. Then they all rushed away from the wings and ran towards
Utica.
The Clinabarians, whose horses were exhausted, did not try to overtake
them. The Ligurians, who were weakened by thirst, cried out for an
advance towards the river. But the Carthaginians, who were posted in
the centre of the syntagmata, and had suffered less, stamped their
feet with longing for the vengeance which was flying from them; and
they were already darting forward in pursuit of the Mercenaries when
Hamilcar appeared.
He held in his spotted and sweat-covered horse with silver reins. The
bands fastened to the horns on his helmet flapped in the wind behind
him, and he had placed his oval shield beneath his left thigh. With a
motion of his triple-pointed pike he checked the army.
The Tarentines leaped quickly upon their spare horses, and set off
right and left towards the river and towards the town.
The phalanx exterminated all the remaining Barbarians at leisure. When
the swords appeared they would stretch out their throats and close
their eyelids. Others defended themselves to the last, and were
knocked down from a distance with flints like mad dogs. Hamilcar had
desired the taking of prisoners, but the Carthaginians obeyed him
grudgingly, so much pleasure did they derive from plunging their
swords into the bodies of the Barbarians. As they were too hot they
set about their work with bare arms like mowers; and when they
desisted to take breath they would follow with their eyes a horseman
galloping across the country after a fleeing soldier. He would succeed
in seizing him by the hair, hold him thus for a while, and then fell
him with a blow of his axe.
Night fell. Carthaginians and Barbarians had disappeared. The
elephants which had taken to flight roamed in the horizon with their
fired towers. These burned here and there in the darkness like beacons
nearly half lost in the mist; and no movement could be discerned in
the plain save the undulation of the river, which was heaped with
corpses, and was drifting them away to the sea.
Two hours afterwards Matho arrived. He caught sight in the starlight
of long, uneven heaps lying upon the ground.
They were files of Barbarians. He stooped down; all were dead. He
called into the distance, but no voice replied.
That very morning he had left Hippo-Zarytus with his soldiers to march
upon Carthage. At Utica the army under Spendius had just set out, and
the inhabitants were beginning to fire the engines. All had fought
desperately. But, the tumult which was going on in the direction of
the bridge increasing in an incomprehensible fashion, Matho had struck
across the mountain by the shortest road, and as the Barbarians were
fleeing over the plain he had encountered nobody.
Facing him were little pyramidal masses rearing themselves in the
shade, and on this side of the river and closer to him were motionless
lights on the surface of the ground. In fact the Carthaginians had
fallen back behind the bridge, and to deceive the Barbarians the
Suffet had stationed numerous posts upon the other bank.
Matho, still advancing, thought that he could distinguish Punic
engines, for horses' heads which did not stir appeared in the air
fixed upon the tops of piles of staves which could not be seen; and
further off he could hear a great clamour, a noise of songs, and
clashing of cups.
Then, not knowing where he was nor how to find Spendius, assailed with
anguish, scared, and lost in the darkness, he returned more
impetuously by the same road. The dawn as growing grey when from the
top of the mountain he perceived the town with the carcases of the
engines blackened by the flames and looking like giant skeletons
leaning against the walls.
All was peaceful amid extraordinary silence and heaviness. Among his
soldiers on the verge of the tents men were sleeping nearly naked,
each upon his back, or with his forehead against his arm which was
supported by his cuirass. Some were unwinding bloodstained bandages
from their legs. Those who were doomed to die rolled their heads about
gently; others dragged themselves along and brought them drink. The
sentries walked up and down along the narrow paths in order to warm
themselves, or stood in a fierce attitude with their faces turned
towards the horizon, and their pikes on their shoulders. Matho found
Spendius sheltered beneath a rag of canvas, supported by two sticks
set in the ground, his knee in his hands and his head cast down.
They remained for a long time without speaking.
At last Matho murmured: "Conquered!"
Spendius rejoined in a gloomy voice: "Yes, conquered!"
And to all questions he replied by gestures of despair.
Meanwhile sighs and death-rattles reached them. Matho partially opened
the canvas. Then the sight of the soldiers reminded him of another
disaster on the same spot, and he ground his teeth: "Wretch! once
already--"
Spendius interrupted him: "You were not there either."
"It is a curse!" exclaimed Matho. "Nevertheless, in the end I will
get at him! I will conquer him! I will slay him! Ah! if I had been
there!--" The thought of having missed the battle rendered him even
more desperate than the defeat. He snatched up his sword and threw it
upon the ground. "But how did the Carthaginians beat you?"
The former slave began to describe the manoeuvres. Matho seemed to see
them, and he grew angry. The army from Utica ought to have taken
Hamilcar in the rear instead of hastening to the bridge.
"Ah! I know!" said Spendius.
"You ought to have made your ranks twice as deep, avoided exposing the
velites against the phalanx, and given free passage to the elephants.
Everything might have been recovered at the last moment; there was no
necessity to fly."
Spendius replied:
"I saw him pass along in his large red cloak, with uplifted arms and
higher than the dust, like an eagle flying upon the flank of the
cohorts; and at every nod they closed up or darted forward; the throng
carried us towards each other; he looked at me, and I felt the cold
steel as it were in my heart."
"He selected the day, perhaps?" whispered Matho to himself.
They questioned each other, trying to discover what it was that had
brought the Suffet just when circumstances were most unfavourable.
They went on to talk over the situation, and Spendius, to extenuate
his fault, or to revive his courage, asserted that some hope still
remained.
"And if there be none, it matters not!" said Matho; "alone, I will
carry on the war!"
"And I too!" exclaimed the Greek, leaping up; he strode to and fro,
his eyes sparkling, and a strange smile wrinkled his jackal face.
"We will make a fresh start; do not leave me again! I am not made for
battles in the sunlight--the flashing of swords troubles my sight; it
is a disease, I lived too long in the ergastulum. But give me walls to
scale at night, and I will enter the citadels, and the corpses shall
be cold before cock-crow! Show me any one, anything, an enemy, a
treasure, a woman,--a woman," he repeated, "were she a king's
daughter, and I will quickly bring your desire to your feet. You
reproach me for having lost the battle against Hanno, nevertheless I
won it back again. Confess it! my herd of swine did more for us than a
phalanx of Spartans." And yielding to the need that he felt of
exalting himself and taking his revenge, he enumerated all that he had
done for the cause of the Mercenaries. "It was I who urged on the Gaul
in the Suffet's gardens! And later, at Sicca, I maddened them all with
fear of the Republic! Gisco was sending them back, but I prevented the
interpreters speaking. Ah! how their tongues hung out of their mouths!
do you remember? I brought you into Carthage; I stole the zaimph. I
led you to her. I will do more yet: you shall see!" He burst out
laughing like a madman.
Matho regarded him with gaping eyes. He felt in a measure
uncomfortable in the presence of this man, who was at once so cowardly
and so terrible.
The Greek resumed in jovial tones and cracking his fingers:
"Evoe! Sun after run! I have worked in the quarries, and I have drunk
Massic wine beneath a golden awning in a vessel of my own like a
Ptolemaeus. Calamity should help to make us cleverer. By dint of work
we may make fortune bend. She loves politicians. She will yield!"
He returned to Matho and took him by the arm.
"Master, at present the Carthaginians are sure of their victory. You
have quite an army which has not fought, and your men obey YOU. Place
them in the front: mine will follow to avenge themselves. I have still
three thousand Carians, twelve hundred slingers and archers, whole
cohorts! A phalanx even might be formed; let us return!"
Matho, who had been stunned by the disaster, had hitherto thought of
no means of repairing it. He listened with open mouth, and the bronze
plates which circled his sides rose with the leapings of his heart. He
picked up his sword, crying:
"Follow me; forward!"
But when the scouts returned, they announced that the Carthaginian
dead had been carried off, that the bridge was in ruins, and that
Hamilcar had disappeared.
