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Salammbo-Part9_Gustave Flaubert(1821-1880)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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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 Taenia 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






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