Mappalian quarter and tried to climb up the face of the cliff. He

covered his knees with blood, broke his nails, and then fell back into
the waves and returned.

His impotence exasperated him. He was jealous of this Carthage which
contained Salammbo, as if of some one who had possessed her. His

nervelessness left him to be replaced by a mad and continualeagerness
for action. With flaming cheek, angry eyes, and hoarse voice, he would

walk with rapid strides through the camp; or seated on the shore he
would scour his great sword with sand. He shot arrows at the passing

vultures. His heart overflowed into frenzied speech.
"Give free course to your wrath like a runaway chariot," said

Spendius. "Shout, blaspheme, ravage and slay. Grief is allayed with
blood, and since you cannot sate your love, gorge your hate; it will

sustain you!"
Matho resumed the command of his soldiers. He drilled them pitilessly.

He was respected for his courage and especially for his strength.
Moreover he inspired a sort of mystic dread, and it was believed that

he conversed at night with phantoms. The other captains were animated
by his example. The army soon grew disciplined. From their houses the

Carthaginians could hear the bugle-flourishes that regulated their
exercises. At last the Barbarians drew near.

To crush them in the isthmus it would have been necessary for two
armies to take them simultaneously in the rear, one disembarking at

the end of the gulf of Utica, and the second at the mountain of the
Hot Springs. But what could be done with the single sacred Legion,

mustering at most six thousand men? If the enemy bent towards the east
they would join the nomads and intercept the commerce of the desert.

If they fell back to the west, Numidia would rise. Finally, lack of
provisions would sooner or later lead them to devastate the

surrounding country like grasshoppers, and the rich trembled for their
fine country-houses, their vineyards and their cultivated lands.

Hanno proposed atrocious and practicable" target="_blank" title="a.不切实际的">impracticablemeasures, 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 monarchystrove to weakenwhatever 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 stelae 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 sandles
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 grassyrampart 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 Salammbo'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