To all the consolations offered by Spendius, he repeated the same words; their nights were spent in these wailings and exhortations.
Matho sought to drown his thoughts in wine.After his fits of drunkenness he was more melancholy still.He tried to divert himself at huckle-bones, and lost the gold plates of his necklace one by one.
He had himself taken to the servants of the Goddess; but he came down the hill sobbing, like one returning from a funeral.
Spendius, on the contrary, became more bold and gay.He was to be seen in the leafy taverns discoursing in the midst of the soldiers.He mended old cuirasses.He juggled with daggers.He went and gathered herbs in the fields for the sick.He was facetious, dexterous, full of invention and talk; the Barbarians grew accustomed to his services, and he came to be loved by them.
However, they were awaiting an ambassador from Carthage to bring them mules laden with baskets of gold; and ever beginning the same calculation over again, they would trace figures with their fingers in the sand.Every one was arranging his life beforehand; they would have concubines, slaves, lands; others intended to bury their treasure, or risk it on a vessel.But their tempers were provoked by want of employment; there were constant disputes between horse-soldiers and foot-soldiers, Barbarians and Greeks, while there was a never-ending din of shrill female voices.
Every day men came flocking in nearly naked, and with grass on their heads to protect them from the sun; they were the debtors of the rich Carthaginians and had been forced to till the lands of the latter, but had escaped.Libyans came pouring in with peasants ruined by the taxes, outlaws, and malefactors.Then the horde of traders, all the dealers in wine and oil, who were furious at not being paid, laid the blame upon the Republic.Spendius declaimed against it.Soon the provisions ran low; and there was talk of advancing in a body upon Carthage, and calling in the Romans.
One evening, at supper-time, dull cracked sounds were heard approaching, and something red appeared in the distance among the undulations of the soil.
It was a large purple litter, adorned with ostrich feathers at the corners.Chains of crystal and garlands of pearls beat against the closed hangings.It was followed by camels sounding the great bells that hung at their breasts, and having around them horsemen clad from shoulder to heel in armour of golden scales.
They halted three hundred paces from the camp to take their round bucklers, broad swords, and Boeotian helmets out of the cases which they carried behind their saddles.Some remained with the camels, while the others resumed their march.At last the ensigns of the Republic appeared, that is to say, staves of blue wood terminated in horses' heads or fir cones.The Barbarians all rose with applause; the women rushed towards the guards of the Legion and kissed their feet.
The litter advanced on the shoulders of twelve Negroes who walked in step with short, rapid strides; they went at random to right or left, being embarrassed by the tent-ropes, the animals that were straying about, or the tripods where food was being cooked.Sometimes a fat hand, laden with rings, would partially open the litter, and a hoarse voice would utter loud reproaches; then the bearers would stop and take a different direction through the camp.
But the purple curtains were raised, and a human head, impassible and bloated, was seen resting on a large pillow; the eyebrows, which were like arches of ebony, met each other at the points; golden dust sparkled in the frizzled hair, and the face was so wan that it looked as if it had been powdered with marble raspings.The rest of the body was concealed beneath the fleeces which filled the litter.
In the man so reclining the soldiers recognised the Suffet Hanno, he whose slackness had assisted to lose the battle of the Aegatian islands; and as to his victory at Hecatompylos over the Libyans, even if he did behave with clemency, thought the Barbarians, it was owing to cupidity, for he had sold all the captives on his own account, although he had reported their deaths to the Republic.
After seeking for some time a convenient place from which to harangue the soldiers, he made a sign; the litter stopped, and Hanno, supported by two slaves, put his tottering feet to the ground.
He wore boots of black felt strewn with silver moons.His legs were swathed in bands like those wrapped about a mummy, and the flesh crept through the crossings of the linen; his stomach came out beyond the scarlet jacket which covered his thighs; the folds of his neck fell down to his breast like the dewlaps of an ox; his tunic, which was painted with flowers, was bursting at the arm-pits; he wore a scarf, a girdle, and an ample black cloak with laced double-sleeves.But the abundance of his garments, his great necklace of blue stones, his golden clasps, and heavy earrings only rendered his deformity still more hideous.He might have been taken for some big idol rough-hewn in a block of stone; for a pale leprosy, which was spread over his whole body, gave him the appearance of an inert thing.His nose, however, which was hooked like a vulture's beak, was violently dilated to breathe in the air, and his little eyes, with their gummed lashes, shone with a hard and metallic lustre.He held a spatula of aloe-wood in his hand wherewith to scratch his skin.
At last two heralds sounded their silver horns; the tumult subsided, and Hanno commenced to speak.
He began with an eulogy of the gods and the Republic; the Barbarians ought to congratulate themselves on having served it.But they must show themselves more reasonable; times were hard, "and if a master has only three olives, is it not right that he should keep two for himself?"The old Suffet mingled his speech in this way with proverbs and apologues, nodding his head the while to solicit some approval.
