Lords of the World: A story of the fall of Carthage and Corinth

by Alfred John Church

  CHAPTER XXVIII.

  THE END OF CARTHAGE.

  The younger Scipio lost no time in handing over the precious volumewhich had been so nearly lost, and so fortunately recovered, to thegeneral, reporting, of course, the circumstances of its rescue. At thesame time he described the relation in which Daphne and her motherstood to Cleanor, and hinted that his friend seemed to have a keenerinterest in the girl than a young man would ordinarily feel for hisfoster-sister.

  "This is not the place for women," said the elder Scipio, "and thesooner these two are out of it, the better. Now, what is to be done?"

  "Would not my Aunt Cornelia[55] receive them for a time if you couldcontrive to send them to her?"

  "An excellent idea, my Lucius!" cried the general. "It shall be done,and by good luck, there is opportunity this very day. I am sending off agalley with despatches for the Senate, and some private letters of myown. Lollius is in command, and there is not a more trustworthy man inthe fleet. I will put the women into his charge. And I will write to mymother--she will still be in Rome when the galley arrives--and ask herto give them hospitality. We must hope that my cousin, Tiberius, willnot fall in love with the damsel. Is she beautiful?"

  "As beautiful a girl as ever I saw. But you need not be alarmed. I ampretty sure that the young lady will not have a look or a thought foranyone in Italy."

  "I will send an orderly to Cleanor to explain, and leave him to arrangethe business. So that is settled. Now for public matters. Yesterday Iopened the sealed instructions which I brought with me when I left Rome,and which I was not to read till Carthage was taken. They are, as Ifeared, to the effect that the city is to be razed to the ground. Now, Imake no secret to anybody--in any case I should speak openly toyou--that this policy is not to my liking. I don't like the principle ofit. If it were being done with a view to the future safety of Rome, Ishould still hesitate, thinking it to be, even in that view, a policy ofdoubtful advantage. But this is not the motive. It is the doing of thecapitalists and the traders. They want to destroy every port but thosewhich they can dominate themselves, and so to get all the trade of theworld into their own hands. We shall see the same thing--mark mywords--over again at Corinth; and Rome will have the disgrace of havingdestroyed, and it may be in one year, two of the great capitals of theworld. I hate such doings, and I don't care who knows it. Still, thething has to be done. But there are matters to be arranged first. Onething I have made up my mind about, and happily the Senate leaves it tomy discretion. I have a free hand in dealing with the spoil, with ageneral proviso that I am to consult, as in my judgment may seem best,the interests of the Commonwealth. Whatever there is of real value thatcan be given back to its rightful owners shall be given back. Now,Carthage has for three hundred years and more been robbing the Greekcities in Sicily. She has had, at one time or other, pretty nearly everyone of them, except Syracuse, in her power. The gold and silver that shehas taken from them are gone beyond remedy, but the works of art remain,and can be given back. I have taken some trouble to inquire into thematter, and I have got a list here, which has been made up for me inSicily, of some of the chief things that we may expect to find. Somemay have been lost; some may have fallen into private hands anddisappeared--the history of some of the specimens goes back, I hear, along time. Well, I have appointed yourself, Lucius, and two otherofficers with you to enquire into this matter. See which of these thingsyou can find, and report to me. Most of the Sicilian cities that areinterested in the matter have sent envoys to the camp, as I dare sayyou know. If you can find the articles it will be easy enough, I do notdoubt, to find claimants."

  The work of the commission proved to be one of considerable magnitude.There were, it was found, hundreds of works of art which bore in theirappearance the manifest signs of a Greek origin. The Phoenician geniuswas not entirely barren in the province of art. In some directions, onthe contrary, it was remarkably fertile. But it never attained to, itdid not even attempt, except in a conventional and even grotesquefashion, the representation of the human form. Any really graceful oreven natural similitude of man or woman that was found in Carthaginiantemple or house was certainly the spoil of some Greek city. Many of theless important works were unknown; about some there was much doubt;their pedigree was uncertain, sometimes through accident, sometimesthrough fraud, for most of the impostures known to the modern world ofart are inheritances from the ancient.

  But there were some famous treasures about which there was nopossibility of doubt. Such was the Artemis of Segesta, one of thenoblest figures that ancient sculpture produced. It was colossal insize, and yet retained in a singular degree the delicacy of girlishbeauty. The figure was represented with a quiver richly gilded hangingfrom the shoulder; the left hand carried a bow; in the right was aburning torch, which imitated, with a fidelity that would hardly havebeen thought possible in marble, the contours of flame. The envoys fromSegesta positively wept with joy when they found themselves inpossession of the long-lost treasure of their city.

  In a very different style of art, the characteristic product of a laterand more reflective age, was the figure of the poet Stesichorus, carriedaway by the Carthaginians when they destroyed the city of Himera, andnow about to be restored to the townspeople of Thermæ, which occupiedits site and inherited its traditions. The poet was represented as anold man, frail and stooping, with one hand holding a book. The wholeexpression was admirably suited to the serious character of his verse.

  But the most celebrated of all the art treasures now about to return totheir proper homes was the Bull of Agrigentum. The Agrigentines regardedthis figure with a reverence that was very surprising, seeing how itrecalled a time of discreditable servitude. Scipio happened to come inwhen the precious possession was made over to them, and could not helpimproving the occasion.

  "This is, I understand, the monstrous invention of one of your owncitizens," he said. "He made it for your tyrant Phalaris; it was to beheated from underneath, and the groans of the victims inclosed in itpleased the brutal caprice of that monster of cruelty, by imitating, ashe thought, the bellowings of a bull. I do not know which was most tobe condemned, the servility of the artist or the cruelty of the tyrant.Do you not think, men of Agrigentum, that you have happily exchanged thebrutality of your own citizens, whom you suffered thus to lord it overyou, for the justice and clemency of the Roman people?"

  While this business was being completed, the work of collecting thegeneral spoil of the city had been going on briskly. Scipio had dealtliberally with the troops in this matter. Some generals in similarcircumstances, whether from anxiety for their own enrichment or fromzeal to make as large a profit as possible for the public purse,overreach themselves. They exact too much from the men, and thus theyare habitually deceived. Scipio was personally disinterested in aremarkable degree; and he did not care to be greedy on account of thetreasury. Simple and well-defined rules were laid down for the conductof the troops. There were certain things which a man might keep forhimself, if he brought other things into a common stock. At the end ofseven days the fiat of destruction which had gone out against Carthagewas to be executed. A body of men was detailed for the purpose.Combustibles were disposed in various parts of the city, and at a fixedtime these were to be kindled.

  "Well," said the young Scipio to Cleanor as they stood together aftersuperintending the embarkation of the last cargo of statues andpictures destined for Sicily, "well, the last act of the drama is nearlyover. Shall we go to see the final scene together?"

  "I don't know," replied the young Greek. "I feel half disposed to covermy head till it is all past."

  "I can understand," said Scipio. "Still, I can't see, after what hashappened, that you owe much gratitude to Carthage."

  "Perhaps not," was the answer. "Yet it was all the country that I had.And, anyhow, it is an awful thing to see a city that once had her hopes,and good hopes too, of ruling the world, flare out into nothing, like apiece of wood-shaving. However, I will come. To what place are youthinking of going?"<
br />
  "To the citadel, or what was the citadel. The chief told me that heshould be there at sunset. I must own that I am very curious to see howhe takes it. This, you must know, is not his doing. His friends foughthard in the Senate against the decree of destruction; but the majoritywould have it, and there was nothing for him but to carry it out."

  When the two friends reached the citadel the chief was already there,surrounded by his staff, his generals of division, and the chiefofficers of the legions. The spectacle of the burning city wasmagnificently terrible. The wind was blowing from behind them, androlled away the smoke in huge volumes towards the sea. Now and then itlulled, and then a dense cloud covered the whole place, save some toweror spire which rose here and there out of it. As the light rapidlyfailed, for the sun was just setting when the two friends reached theheight, the heavy smoke clouds became more and more penetrated with afiery glow, and this again grew into one universal, all-embracing blazeof light, as the flames gained a more commanding hold on the doomedcity. Everything was as plainly to be seen as if it had been noonday.All the while a confused roar came up to the height where the spectatorsstood, varied now and then by the tremendous crash of some hugestructure falling in sudden ruin to the earth.

  The general stood intently watching the scene, but without a word, andthe group surrounding him, overawed by the solemnity of his mood,maintained a profound silence, broken only by some almost involuntarycry, when a burst of fiercer flame rose to the heavens. When the secondwatch was about half spent[56]--for the hours had seemed to pass asminutes, so overpowering was the interest of the spectacle--he turnedaway. Some awful vision of the future seemed to reveal itself to hissoul. He caught Polybius by the hand and said:

  "Will anyone do for Rome what I have been doing for Carthage?"

  And as he turned away he was heard to murmur to himself the line inwhich Hector, touched in the midst of his triumph by a dark previsionof the future, foretold the fall of his country,

  "Some day e'en holy Troy herself shall fall",[57]

  Then, throwing a fold of his toga over his face, Scipio burst into apassion of tears.

  "SCIPIO, THROWING HIS TOGA OVER HIS FACE, BURST INTO APASSION OF TEARS."]

  FOOTNOTES:

  55: Cornelia, the "mother of the Gracchi", was the elder daughter of Scipio Africanus the Elder. The young Scipio of my story, who is, I may say, an imaginary character, but is supposed to belong to a younger generation than Scipio Africanus the Younger, the conqueror of Carthage, would therefore be her great-nephew. Scipio himself was her nephew by adoption (being the adopted son of her brother), and her first cousin by blood. (He was a son of Æmilius Paullus, and she was the daughter of Æmilius Paullus's sister.) He was also her son-in-law. Her elder son Tiberius was born in 163 B.C., and was therefore seventeen at this time; the younger, Caius, was about nine.

  56: About 10.30 p.m.

  57: ??????? ???? ??' ?? ???' ????? ????? ???.

  [Greek: Essetai êmar hot' an pot' olôlê Ilios hirê.]