CHAPTER XIII MOLOCH
The Barbarians had no need of a circumvallation on the side of Africa,for it was theirs. But to facilitate the approach to the walls, theentrenchments bordering the ditch were thrown down. Matho next dividedthe army into great semicircles so as to encompass Carthage the better.The hoplites of the Mercenaries were placed in the first rank, andbehind them the slingers and horsemen; quite at the back were thebaggage, chariots, and horses; and the engines bristled in front of thisthrong at a distance of three hundred paces from the towers.
Amid the infinite variety of their nomenclature (which changed severaltimes in the course of the centuries) these machines might be reduced totwo systems: some acted like slings, and the rest like bows.
The first, which were the catapults, was composed of a square frame withtwo vertical uprights and a horizontal bar. In its anterior portion wasa cylinder, furnished with cables, which held back a great beam bearinga spoon for the reception of projectiles; its base was caught in askein of twisted thread, and when the ropes were let go it sprang up andstruck against the bar, which, checking it with a shock, multiplied itspower.
The second presented a more complicated mechanism. A cross-bar had itscentre fixed on a little pillar, and from this point of junction therebranched off at right angles a short of channel; two caps containingtwists of horse-hair stood at the extremities of the cross-bar; twosmall beams were fastened to them to hold the extremities of a ropewhich was brought to the bottom of the channel upon a tablet of bronze.This metal plate was released by a spring, and sliding in groovesimpelled the arrows.
The catapults were likewise called onagers, after the wild asses whichfling up stones with their feet, and the ballistas scorpions, on accountof a hook which stood upon the tablet, and being lowered by a blow ofthe fist, released the spring.
Their construction required learned calculations; the wood selected hadto be of the hardest substance, and their gearing all of brass; theywere stretched with levers, tackle-blocks, capstans or tympanums; thedirection of the shooting was changed by means of strong pivots; theywere moved forward on cylinders, and the most considerable of them,which were brought piece by piece, were set up in front of the enemy.
Spendius arranged three great catapults opposite the three principleangles; he placed a ram before every gate, a ballista before everytower, while carroballistas were to move about in the rear. But it wasnecessary to protect them against the fire thrown by the besieged, andfirst of all to fill up the trench which separated them from the walls.
They pushed forward galleries formed of hurdles of green reeds, andoaken semicircles like enormous shields gliding on three wheels; theworkers were sheltered in little huts covered with raw hides and stuffedwith wrack; the catapults and ballistas were protected by rope curtainswhich had been steeped in vinegar to render them incombustible. Thewomen and children went to procure stones on the strand, and gatheredearth with their hands and brought it to the soldiers.
The Carthaginians also made preparations.
Hamilcar had speedily reassured them by declaring that there was enoughwater left in the cisterns for one hundred and twenty-three days. Thisassertion, together with his presence, and above all that of the zaïmphamong them, gave them good hopes. Carthage recovered from its dejection;those who were not of Chanaanitish origin were carried away by thepassion of the rest.
The slaves were armed, the arsenals were emptied, and every citizen hadhis own post and his own employment. Twelve hundred of the fugitiveshad survived, and the Suffet made them all captains; and carpenters,armourers, blacksmiths, and goldsmiths were intrusted with the engines.The Carthaginians had kept a few in spite of the conditions of the peacewith Rome. These were repaired. They understood such work.
The two northern and eastern sides, being protected by the sea and thegulf, remained inaccessible. On the wall fronting the Barbarians theycollected tree-trunks, mill-stones, vases filled with sulphur, andvats filled with oil, and built furnaces. Stones were heaped up on theplatforms of the towers, and the houses bordering immediately on therampart were crammed with sand in order to strengthen it and increaseits thickness.
The Barbarians grew angry at the sight of these preparations. Theywished to fight at once. The weights which they put into the catapultswere so extravagantly heavy that the beams broke, and the attack wasdelayed.
At last on the thirteenth day of the month of Schabar,—at sunrise,—agreat blow was heard at the gate of Khamon.
Seventy-five soldiers were pulling at ropes arranged at the base of agigantic beam which was suspended horizontally by chains hanging from aframework, and which terminated in a ram’s head of pure brass. It hadbeen swathed in ox-hides; it was bound at intervals with iron bracelets;it was thrice as thick as a man’s body, one hundred and twenty cubitslong, and under the crowd of naked arms pushing it forward and drawingit back, it moved to and fro with a regular oscillation.
The other rams before the other gates began to be in motion. Menmight be seen mounting from step to step in the hollow wheels of thetympanums. The pulleys and caps grated, the rope curtains were lowered,and showers of stones and showers of arrows poured forth simultaneously;all the scattered slingers ran up. Some approached the rampart hidingpots of resin under their shields; then they would hurl these with alltheir might. This hail of bullets, darts, and flames passed above thefirst ranks in the form of a curve which fell behind the walls. Butlong cranes, used for masting vessels, were reared on the summit of theramparts; and from them there descended some of those enormous pincerswhich terminated in two semicircles toothed on the inside. They bit therams. The soldiers clung to the beam and drew it back. The Carthaginianshauled in order to pull it up; and the action was prolonged until theevening.
When the Mercenaries resumed their task on the following day, the topsof the walls were completely carpeted with bales of cotton, sails, andcushions; the battlements were stopped up with mats; and a line of forksand blades, fixed upon sticks, might be distinguished among the craneson the rampart. A furious resistance immediately began.
Trunks of trees fastened to cables fell and rose alternately andbattered the rams; cramps hurled by the ballistas tore away the roofs ofthe huts; and streams of flints and pebbles poured from the platforms ofthe towers.
At last the rams broke the gates of Khamon and Tagaste. But theCarthaginians had piled up such an abundance of materials on the insidethat the leaves did not open. They remained standing.
Then they drove augers against the walls; these were applied to thejoints of the blocks, so as to detach the latter. The engines werebetter managed, the men serving them were divided into squads, and theywere worked from morning till evening without interruption and with themonotonous precision of a weaver’s loom.
Spendius returned to them untiringly. It was he who stretched the skeinsof the ballistas. In order that the twin tensions might completelycorrespond, the ropes as they were tightened were struck on the rightand left alternately until both sides gave out an equal sound. Spendiuswould mount upon the timbers. He would strike the ropes softly withthe extremity of his foot, and strain his ears like a musician tuninga lyre. Then when the beam of the catapult rose, when the pillar of theballista trembled with the shock of the spring, when the stones wereshooting in rays, and the darts pouring in streams, he would incline hiswhole body and fling his arms into the air as though to follow them.
The soldiers admired his skill and executed his commands. In the gaietyof their work they gave utterance to jests on the names of the machines.Thus the plyers for seizing the rams were called “wolves,” and thegalleries were covered with “vines”; they were lambs, or they weregoing to gather the grapes; and as they loaded their pieces theywould say to the onagers: “Come, pick well!” and to the scorpions:“Pierce them to the heart!” These jokes, which were ever the same,kept up their courage.
Nevertheless the machines did not demolish the rampart. It was formed oftwo walls and was completely filled with earth. The upper portions
werebeaten down, but each time the besieged raised them again. Matho orderedthe construction of wooden towers which should be as high as the towersof stone. They cast turf, stakes, pebbles and chariots with their wheelsinto the trench so as to fill it up the more quickly; but before thiswas accomplished the immense throng of the Barbarians undulated over theplain with a single movement and came beating against the foot of thewalls like an overflowing sea.
They moved forward the rope ladders, straight ladders, and sambucas,the latter consisting of two poles from which a series of bamboosterminating in a moveable bridge were lowered by means of tackling.They formed numerous straight lines resting against the wall, and theMercenaries mounted them in files, holding their weapons in their hands.Not a Carthaginian showed himself; already two thirds of the ramparthad been covered. Then the battlements opened, vomiting flames and smokelike dragon jaws; the sand scattered and entered the joints of theirarmour; the petroleum fastened on their garments; the liquid leadhopped on their helmets and made holes in their flesh; a rain of sparkssplashed against their faces, and eyeless orbits seemed to weep tears asbig as almonds. There were men all yellow with oil, with their hairin flames. They began to run and set fire to the rest. They wereextinguished in mantles steeped in blood, which were thrown from adistance over their faces. Some who had no wounds remained motionless,stiffer than stakes, their mouths open and their arms outspread.
The assault was renewed for several days in succession, the Mercenarieshoping to triumph by extraordinary energy and audacity.
Sometimes a man raised on the shoulders of another would drive apin between the stones, and then making use of it as a step to reachfurther, would place a second and a third; and, protected by the edgeof the battlements, which stood out from the wall, they would graduallyraise themselves in this way; but on reaching a certain height theyalways fell back again. The great trench was full to overflowing;the wounded were massed pell-mell with the dead and dying beneath thefootsteps of the living. Calcined trunks formed black spots amid openedentrails, scattered brains, and pools of blood; and arms and legsprojecting half way out of a heap, would stand straight up like props ina burning vineyard.
The ladders proving insufficient the tollenos were brought intorequisition,—instruments consisting of a long beam set transverselyupon another, and bearing at its extremity a quadrangular basket whichwould hold thirty foot-soldiers with their weapons.
Matho wished to ascend in the first that was ready. Spendius stoppedhim.
Some men bent over a capstan; the great beam rose, became horizontal,reared itself almost vertically, and being overweighted at the end, bentlike a huge reed. The soldiers, who were crowded together, were hiddenup to their chins; only their helmet-plumes could be seen. At last whenit was twenty cubits high in the air it turned several times to theright and to the left, and then was depressed; and like a giant armholding a cohort of pigmies in its hand, it laid the basketful ofmen upon the edge of the wall. They leaped into the crowd and neverreturned.
All the other tollenos were speedily made ready. But a hundred timesas many would have been needed for the capture of the town. They wereutilised in a murderous fashion: Ethiopian archers were placed in thebaskets; then, the cables having been fastened, they remained suspendedand shot poisoned arrows. The fifty tollenos commanding the battlementsthus surrounded Carthage like monstrous vultures; and the Negroeslaughed to see the guards on the rampart dying in grievous convulsions.
Hamilcar sent hoplites to these posts, and every morning made them drinkthe juice of certain herbs which protected them against the poison.
One evening when it was dark he embarked the best of his soldierson lighters and planks, and turning to the right of the harbour,disembarked on the Tænia. Then he advanced to the first lines ofthe Barbarians, and taking them in flank, made a great slaughter. Menhanging to ropes would descend at night from the top of the wall withtorches in their hands, burn the works of the Mercenaries, and thenmount up again.
Matho was exasperated; every obstacle strengthened his wrath, which ledhim into terrible extravagances. He mentally summoned Salammbô to aninterview; then he waited. She did not come; this seemed to him like afresh piece of treachery,—and henceforth he execrated her. If hehad seen her corpse he would perhaps have gone away. He doubled theoutposts, he planted forks at the foot of the rampart, he drove caltropsinto the ground, and he commanded the Libyans to bring him a wholeforest that he might set it on fire and burn Carthage like a den offoxes.
Spendius went on obstinately with the siege. He sought to inventterrible machines such as had never before been constructed.
The other Barbarians, encamped at a distance on the isthmus, were amazedat these delays; they murmured, and they were let loose.
Then they rushed with their cutlasses and javelins, and beat againstthe gates with them. But the nakedness of their bodies facilitating theinfliction of wounds, the Carthaginians massacred them freely; and theMercenaries rejoiced at it, no doubt through jealousy about the plunder.Hence there resulted quarrels and combats between them. Then, thecountry having been ravaged, provisions were soon scarce. They grewdisheartened. Numerous hordes went away, but the crowd was so great thatthe loss was not apparent.
The best of them tried to dig mines, but the earth, being badlysupported, fell in. They began again in other places, but Hamilcaralways guessed the direction that they were taking by holding his earagainst a bronze shield. He bored counter-mines beneath the path alongwhich the wooden towers were to move, and when they were pushed forwardthey sank into the holes.
At last all recognised that the town was impregnable, unless a longterrace was raised to the same height as the walls, so as to enable themto fight on the same level. The top of it should be paved so thatthe machines might be rolled along. Then Carthage would find it quiteimpossible to resist.
The town was beginning to suffer from thirst. The water which was worthtwo kesitahs the bath at the opening of the siege was now sold fora shekel of silver; the stores of meat and corn were also becomingexhausted; there was a dread of famine, and some even began to speak ofuseless mouths, which terrified every one.
From the square of Khamon to the temple of Melkarth the streets werecumbered with corpses; and, as it was the end of the summer, thecombatants were annoyed by great black flies. Old men carried off thewounded, and the devout continued the fictitious funerals for theirrelatives and friends who had died far away during the war. Waxenstatues with clothes and hair were displayed across the gates. Theymelted in the heat of the tapers burning beside them; the paint floweddown upon their shoulders, and tears streamed over the faces of theliving, as they chanted mournful songs beside them. The crowd meanwhileran to and fro; armed bands passed; captains shouted orders, while theshock of the rams beating against the rampart was constantly heard.
The temperature became so heavy that the bodies swelled and would nolonger fit into the coffins. They were burned in the centre of thecourts. But the fires, being too much confined, kindled the neighbouringwalls, and long flames suddenly burst from the houses like bloodspurting from an artery. Thus Moloch was in possession of Carthage; heclasped the ramparts, he rolled through the streets, he devoured thevery corpses.
Men wearing cloaks made of collected rags in token of despair, stationedthemselves at the corners of the cross-ways. They declaimed against theAncients and against Hamilcar, predicted complete ruin to the people,and invited them to universal destruction and license. The mostdangerous were the henbane-drinkers; in their crisis they believedthemselves wild beasts, and leaped upon the passers-by to rend them.Mobs formed around them, and the defence of Carthage was forgotten. TheSuffet devised the payment of others to support his policy.
In order to retain the genius of the gods within the town their imageshad been covered with chains. Black veils were placed upon the Patæcgods, and hair-cloths around the altars; and attempts were made toexcite the pride and jealousy of the Baals by singing in their ears:“Thou art about to suffer thyself to
be vanquished! Are the othersperchance more strong? Show thyself! aid us! that the peoples may notsay: ‘Where are now their gods?’”
The colleges of the pontiffs were agitated by unceasing anxiety. Thoseof Rabbetna were especially afraid—the restoration of the zaïmphhaving been of no avail. They kept themselves shut up in the thirdenclosure which was as impregnable as a fortress. Only one among them,the high priest Schahabarim, ventured to go out.
He used to visit Salammbô. But he would either remain perfectly silent,gazing at her with fixed eyeballs, or else would be lavish of words, andthe reproaches that he uttered were harder than ever.
With inconceivable inconsistency he could not forgive the young girlfor carrying out his commands; Schahabarim had guessed all, and thishaunting thought revived the jealousies of his impotence. He accused herof being the cause of the war. Matho, according to him, was besiegingCarthage to recover the zaïmph; and he poured out imprecations andsarcasms upon this Barbarian who pretended to the possession of holythings. Yet it was not this that the priest wished to say.
But just now Salammbô felt no terror of him. The anguish which she usedformerly to suffer had left her. A strange peacefulness possessed her.Her gaze was less wandering, and shone with limpid fire.
Meanwhile the python had become ill again; and as Salammbô, on thecontrary, appeared to be recovering, old Taanach rejoiced in theconviction that by its decline it was taking away the languor of hermistress.
One morning she found it coiled up behind the bed of ox-hides, colderthan marble, and with its head hidden by a heap of worms. Her criesbrought Salammbô to the spot. She turned it over for a while with thetip of her sandal, and the slave was amazed at her insensibility.
Hamilcar’s daughter no longer prolonged her fasts with so muchfervour. She passed whole days on the top of her terrace, leaning herelbows against the balustrade, and amusing herself by looking out beforeher. The summits of the walls at the end of the town cut uneven zigzagsupon the sky, and the lances of the sentries formed what was like aborder of corn-ears throughout their length. Further away she could seethe manouvres of the Barbarians between the towers; on days when thesiege was interrupted she could even distinguish their occupations. Theymended their weapons, greased their hair, and washed their bloodstainedarms in the sea; the tents were closed; the beasts of burden werefeeding; and in the distance the scythes of the chariots, which were allranged in a semicircle, looked like a silver scimitar lying at the baseof the mountains. Schahabarim’s talk recurred to her memory. She waswaiting for Narr’ Havas, her betrothed. In spite of her hatred shewould have liked to see Matho again. Of all the Carthaginians she wasperhaps the only one who would have spoken to him without fear.
Her father often came into her room. He would sit down panting on thecushions, and gaze at her with an almost tender look, as if he foundsome rest from her fatigues in the sight of her. He sometimes questionedher about her journey to the camp of the Mercenaries. He even asked herwhether any one had urged her to it; and with a shake of the head sheanswered, No,—so proud was Salammbô of having saved the zaïmph.
But the Suffet always came back to Matho under pretence of makingmilitary inquiries. He could not understand how the hours which she hadspent in the tent had been employed. Salammbô, in fact, said nothingabout Gisco; for as words had an effective power in themselves, curses,if reported to any one, might be turned against him; and she was silentabout her wish to assassinate, lest she should be blamed for not havingyielded to it. She said that the schalischim appeared furious, that hehad shouted a great deal, and that he had then fallen asleep. Salammbôtold no more, through shame perhaps, or else because she was led by herextreme ingenuousness to attach but little importance to the soldier’skisses. Moreover, it all floated through her head in a melancholy andmisty fashion, like the recollection of a depressing dream; and shewould not have known in what way or in what words to express it.
One evening when they were thus face to face with each other, Taanachcame in looking quite scared. An old man with a child was yonder in thecourts, and wished to see the Suffet.
Hamilcar turned pale, and then quickly replied:
“Let him come up!”
Iddibal entered without prostrating himself. He held a young boy,covered with a goat’s-hair cloak, by the hand, and at once raised thehood which screened his face.
“Here he is, Master! Take him!”
The Suffet and the slave went into a corner of the room.
The child remained in the centre standing upright, and with a gazeof attention rather than of astonishment he surveyed the ceiling, thefurniture, the pearl necklaces trailing on the purple draperies, and themajestic maiden who was bending over towards him.
He was perhaps ten years old, and was not taller than a Roman sword. Hiscurly hair shaded his swelling forehead. His eyeballs looked as if theywere seeking for space. The nostrils of his delicate nose were broadand palpitating, and upon his whole person was displayed the indefinablesplendour of those who are destined to great enterprises. When he hadcast aside his extremely heavy cloak, he remained clad in a lynx skin,which was fastened about his waist, and he rested his little naked feet,which were all white with dust, resolutely upon the pavement. But he nodoubt divined that important matters were under discussion, for hestood motionless, with one hand behind his back, his chin lowered, and afinger in his mouth.
At last Hamilcar attracted Salammbô with a sign and said to her in alow voice:
“You will keep him with you, you understand! No one, even thoughbelonging to the house, must know of his existence!”
Then, behind the door, he again asked Iddibal whether he was quite surethat they had not been noticed.
“No!” said the slave, “the streets were empty.”
As the war filled all the provinces he had feared for his master’sson. Then, not knowing where to hide him, he had come along the coastsin a sloop, and for three days Iddibal had been tacking about in thegulf and watching the ramparts. At last, that evening, as the environsof Khamon seemed to be deserted, he had passed briskly through thechannel and landed near the arsenal, the entrance to the harbour beingfree.
But soon the Barbarians posted an immense raft in front of it in orderto prevent the Carthaginians from coming out. They were again rearingthe wooden towers, and the terrace was rising at the same time.
Outside communications were cut off and an intolerable famine set in.
The besieged killed all the dogs, all the mules, all the asses, and thenthe fifteen elephants which the Suffet had brought back. The lions ofthe temple of Moloch had become ferocious, and the hierodules no longerdurst approach them. They were fed at first with the wounded Barbarians;then they were thrown corpses that were still warm; they refusedthem, and they all died. People wandered in the twilight along the oldenclosures, and gathered grass and flowers among the stones to boilthem in wine, wine being cheaper than water. Others crept as far asthe enemy’s outposts, and entered the tents to steal food, and thestupefied Barbarians sometimes allowed them to return. At last a dayarrived when the Ancients resolved to slaughter the horses of Eschmounprivately. They were holy animals whose manes were plaited by thepontiffs with gold ribbons, and whose existence denoted the motion ofthe sun—the idea of fire in its most exalted form. Their flesh was cutinto equal portions and buried behind the altar. Then every evening theAncients, alleging some act of devotion, would go up to the temple andregale themselves in secret, and each would take away a piece beneathhis tunic for his children. In the deserted quarters remote from thewalls, the inhabitants, whose misery was not so great, had barricadedthemselves through fear of the rest.
The stones from the catapults, and the demolitions commanded forpurposes of defence, had accumulated heaps of ruins in the middle ofthe streets. At the quietest times masses of people would suddenly rushalong with shouts; and from the top of the Acropolis the conflagrationswere like purple rags scattered upon the terraces and twisted by thewind.
The three great c
atapults did not stop in spite of all these works.Their ravages were extraordinary: thus a man’s head rebounded from thepediment of the Syssitia; a woman who was being confined in the streetof Kinisdo was crushed by a block of marble, and her child was carriedwith the bed as far as the crossways of Cinasyn, where the coverlet wasfound.
The most annoying were the bullets of the slingers. They fell upon theroofs, and in the gardens, and in the middle of the courts, while peoplewere at table before a slender meal with their hearts big with sighs.These cruel projectiles bore engraved letters which stamped themselvesupon the flesh;—and insults might be read on corpses such as“pig,” “jackal,” “vermin,” and sometimes jests: “Catchit!” or “I have well deserved it!”
The portion of the rampart which extended from the corner of theharbours to the height of the cisterns was broken down. Then the peopleof Malqua found themselves caught between the old enclosure of Byrsabehind, and the Barbarians in front. But there was enough to be done inthickening the wall and making it as high as possible without troublingabout them; they were abandoned; all perished; and although they weregenerally hated, Hamilcar came to be greatly abhorred.
On the morrow he opened the pits in which he kept stores of corn,and his stewards gave it to the people. For three days they gorgedthemselves.
Their thirst, however, only became the more intolerable, and they couldconstantly see before them the long cascade formed by the clear fallingwater of the aqueduct. A thin vapour, with a rainbow beside it, went upfrom its base, beneath the rays of the sun, and a little stream curvingthrough the plain fell into the gulf.
Hamilcar did not give way. He was reckoning upon an event, uponsomething decisive and extraordinary.
His own slaves tore off the silver plates from the temple of Melkarth;four long boats were drawn out of the harbour, they were brought bymeans of capstans to the foot of the Mappalian quarter, the wall facingthe shore was bored, and they set out for the Gauls to buy Mercenariesthere at no matter what price. Nevertheless, Hamilcar was distressed athis inability to communicate with the king of the Numidians, for heknew that he was behind the Barbarians, and ready to fall upon them. ButNarr’ Havas, being too weak, was not going to make any venture alone;and the Suffet had the rampart raised twelve palms higher, all thematerial in the arsenals piled up in the Acropolis, and the machinesrepaired once more.
Sinews taken from bulls’ necks, or else stags’ hamstrings, werecommonly employed for the twists of the catapults. However, neitherstags nor bulls were in existence in Carthage. Hamilcar asked theAncients for the hair of their wives; all sacrificed it, but thequantity was not sufficient. In the buildings of the Syssitia there weretwelve hundred marriageable slaves destined for prostitution in Greeceand Italy, and their hair, having been rendered elastic by the useof unguents, was wonderfully well adapted for engines of war. But thesubsequent loss would be too great. Accordingly it was decided that achoice should be made of the finest heads of hair among the wives of theplebeians. Careless of their country’s needs, they shrieked in despairwhen the servants of the Hundred came with scissors to lay hands uponthem.
The Barbarians were animated with increased fury. They could be seen inthe distance taking fat from the dead to grease their machines, whileothers pulled out the nails and stitched them end to end to makecuirasses. They devised a plan of putting into the catapults vesselsfilled with serpents which had been brought by the Negroes; the claypots broke on the flag-stones, the serpents ran about, seemed tomultiply, and, so numerous were they, to issue naturally from the walls.Then the Barbarians, not satisfied with their invention, improved uponit; they hurled all kinds of filth, human excrements, pieces of carrion,corpses. The plague reappeared. The teeth of the Carthaginians fell outof their mouths, and their gums were discoloured like those of camelsafter too long a journey.
The machines were set up on the terrace, although the latter did notas yet reach everywhere to the height of the rampart. Before thetwenty-three towers on the fortification stood twenty-three others ofwood. All the tollenos were mounted again, and in the centre, alittle further back, appeared the formidable helepolis of DemetriusPoliorcetes, which Spendius had at last reconstructed. Of pyramidicalshape, like the pharos of Alexandria, it was one hundred and thirtycubits high and twenty-three wide, with nine stories, diminishing asthey approached the summit, and protected by scales of brass; they werepierced with numerous doors and were filled with soldiers, and on theupper platform there stood a catapult flanked by two ballistas.
Then Hamilcar planted crosses for those who should speak of surrender,and even the women were brigaded. The people lay in the streets andwaited full of distress.
Then one morning before sunrise (it was the seventh day of the monthof Nyssan) they heard a great shout uttered by all the Barbarianssimultaneously; the leaden-tubed trumpets pealed, and the greatPaphlagonian horns bellowed like bulls. All rose and ran to the rampart.
A forest of lances, pikes, and swords bristled at its base. It leapedagainst the wall, the ladders grappled them; and Barbarians’ headsappeared in the intervals of the battlements.
Beams supported by long files of men were battering at the gates; and,in order to demolish the wall at places where the terrace was wanting,the Mercenaries came up in serried cohorts, the first line crawling, thesecond bending their hams, and the others rising in succession to thelast who stood upright; while elsewhere, in order to climb up, thetallest advanced in front and the lowest in the rear, and all restedtheir shields upon their helmets with their left arms, joining themtogether at the edges so tightly that they might have been taken for anassemblage of large tortoises. The projectiles slid over these obliquemasses.
The Carthaginians threw down mill-stones, pestles, vats, casks, beds,everything that could serve as a weight and could knock down. Somewatched at the embrasures with fisherman’s nets, and when theBarbarian arrived he found himself caught in the meshes, and struggledlike a fish. They demolished their own battlements; portions of wallfell down raising a great dust; and as the catapults on the terrace wereshooting over against one another, the stones would strike togetherand shiver into a thousand pieces, making a copious shower upon thecombatants.
Soon the two crowds formed but one great chain of human bodies; itoverflowed into the intervals in the terrace, and, somewhat looser atthe two extremities, swayed perpetually without advancing. They claspedone another, lying flat on the ground like wrestlers. They crushed oneanother. The women leaned over the battlements and shrieked. Theywere dragged away by their veils, and the whiteness of their suddenlyuncovered sides shone in the arms of the Negroes as the latter buriedtheir daggers in them. Some corpses did not fall, being too much pressedby the crowd, and, supported by the shoulders of their companions,advanced for some minutes quite upright and with staring eyes. Somewho had both temples pierced by a javelin swayed their heads about likebears. Mouths, opened to shout, remained gaping; severed hands flewthrough the air. Mighty blows were dealt, which were long talked of bythe survivors.
Meanwhile arrows darted from the towers of wood and stone. The tollenosmoved their long yards rapidly; and as the Barbarians had sacked theold cemetery of the aborigines beneath the Catacombs, they hurled thetombstones against the Carthaginians. Sometimes the cables broke underthe weight of too heavy baskets, and masses of men, all with upliftedarms, would fall from the sky.
Up to the middle of the day the veterans had attacked the Tæniafiercely in order to penetrate into the harbour and destroy the fleet.Hamilcar had a fire of damp straw lit upon the roofing of Khamon, andas the smoke blinded them they fell back to left, and came to swellthe horrible rout which was pressing forward in Malqua. Some syntagmatacomposed of sturdy men, chosen expressly for the purpose, had broken inthree gates. They were checked by lofty barriers made of planks studdedwith nails, but a fourth yielded easily; they dashed over it at arun and rolled into a pit in which there were hidden snares. At thesouth-west gate Autaritus and his men broke down the rampart, thefissure in which had b
een stopped up with bricks. The ground behindrose, and they climbed it nimbly. But on the top they found a secondwall composed of stones and long beams lying quite flat and alternatinglike the squares on a chess-board. It was a Gaulish fashion, and hadbeen adapted by the Suffet to the requirements of the situation; theGauls imagined themselves before a town in their own country. Theirattack was weak, and they were repulsed.
All the roundway, from the street of Khamon as far as the Green Market,now belonged to the Barbarians, and the Samnites were finishing offthe dying with blows of stakes; or else with one foot on the wall weregazing down at the smoking ruins beneath them, and the battle which wasbeginning again in the distance.
The slingers, who were distributed through the rear, were stillshooting. But the springs of the Acarnanian slings had broken from use,and many were throwing stones with the hand like shepherds; the resthurled leaden bullets with the handle of a whip. Zarxas, his shoulderscovered with his long black hair, went about everywhere, and led on theBarbarians. Two pouches hung at his hips; he thrust his left handinto them continually, while his right arm whirled round like achariot-wheel.
Matho had at first refrained from fighting, the better to commandthe Barbarians all at once. He had been seen along the gulf with theMercenaries, near the lagoon with the Numidians, and on the shores ofthe lake among the Negroes, and from the back part of the plain he urgedforward masses of soldiers who came ceaselessly against the ramparts. Bydegrees he had drawn near; the smell of blood, the sight of carnage, andthe tumult of clarions had at last made his heart leap. Then he had goneback into his tent, and throwing off his cuirass had taken his lion’sskin as being more convenient for battle. The snout fitted upon hishead, bordering his face with a circle of fangs; the two fore-paws werecrossed upon his breast, and the claws of the hinder ones fell beneathhis knees.
He had kept on his strong waist-belt, wherein gleamed a two-edged axe,and with his great sword in both hands he had dashed impetuously throughthe breach. Like a pruner cutting willow-branches and trying to strikeoff as much as possible so as to make the more money, he marched alongmowing down the Carthaginians around him. Those who tried to seize himin flank he knocked down with blows of the pommel; when they attackedhim in front he ran them through; if they fled he clove them. Two menleaped together upon his back; he bounded backwards against a gate andcrushed them. His sword fell and rose. It shivered on the angle of awall. Then he took his heavy axe, and front and rear he ripped up theCarthaginians like a flock of sheep. They scattered more and more, andhe was quite alone when he reached the second enclosure at the footof the Acropolis. The materials which had been flung from the summitcumbered the steps and were heaped up higher than the wall. Matho turnedback amid the ruins to summons his companions.
He perceived their crests scattered over the multitude; they weresinking and their wearers were about to perish; he dashed towards them;then the vast wreath of red plumes closed in, and they soon rejoined himand surrounded him. But an enormous crowd was discharging from the sidestreets. He was caught by the hips, lifted up and carried away outsidethe ramparts to a spot where the terrace was high.
Matho shouted a command and all the shields sank upon the helmets; heleaped upon them in order to catch hold somewhere so as to re-enterCarthage; and, flourishing his terrible axe, ran over the shields, whichresembled waves of bronze, like a marine god, with brandished trident,over his billows.
However, a man in a white robe was walking along the edge of therampart, impassible, and indifferent to the death which surrounded him.Sometimes he would spread out his right hand above his eyes in orderto find out some one. Matho happened to pass beneath him. Suddenly hiseyeballs flamed, his livid face contracted; and raising both his leanarms he shouted out abuse at him.
Matho did not hear it; but he felt so furious and cruel a look enteringhis heart that he uttered a roar. He hurled his long axe at him; somepeople threw themselves upon Schahabarim; and Matho seeing him no morefell back exhausted.
A terrible creaking drew near, mingled with the rhythm of hoarse voicessinging together.
It was the great helepolis surrounded by a crowd of soldiers. They weredragging it with both hands, hauling it with ropes, and pushing it withtheir shoulders,—for the slope rising from the plain to the terrace,although extremely gentle, was found impracticable for machines of suchprodigious weight. However, it had eight wheels banded with iron, and ithad been advancing slowly in this way since the morning, like a mountainraised upon another. Then there appeared an immense ram issuing from itsbase. The doors along the three fronts which faced the town fell down,and cuirassed soldiers appeared in the interior like pillars of iron.Some might be seen climbing and descending the two staircases whichcrossed the stories. Some were waiting to dart out as soon as the crampsof the doors touched the walls; in the middle of the upper platform theskeins of the ballistas were turning, and the great beam of the catapultwas being lowered.
Hamilcar was at that moment standing upright on the roof of Melkarth. Hehad calculated that it would come directly towards him, against what wasthe most invulnerable place in the wall, which was for that very reasondenuded of sentries. His slaves had for a long time been bringingleathern bottles along the roundway, where they had raised with claytwo transverse partitions forming a sort of basin. The water was flowinginsensibly along the terrace, and strange to say, it seemed to causeHamilcar no anxiety.
But when the helepolis was thirty paces off, he commanded planks tobe placed over the streets between the houses from the cisterns tothe rampart; and a file of people passed from hand to hand helmets andamphoras, which were emptied continually. The Carthaginians, however,grew indignant at this waste of water. The ram was demolishing the wall,when suddenly a fountain sprang forth from the disjointed stones. Thenthe lofty brazen mass, nine stories high, which contained and engagedmore than three thousand soldiers, began to rock gently like a ship.In fact, the water, which had penetrated the terrace, had broken up thepath before it; its wheels stuck in the mire; the head of Spendius,with distended cheeks blowing an ivory cornet, appeared between leatherncurtains on the first story. The great machine, as though convulsivelyupheaved, advanced perhaps ten paces; but the ground softened more andmore, the mire reached to the axles, and the helepolis stopped, leaningover frightfully to one side. The catapult rolled to the edge of theplatform, and carried away by the weight of its beam, fell, shatteringthe lower stories beneath it. The soldiers who were standing on thedoors slipped into the abyss, or else held on to the extremities ofthe long beams, and by their weight increased the inclination of thehelepolis, which was going to pieces with creakings in all its joints.
The other Barbarians rushed up to help them, massing themselves intoa compact crowd. The Carthaginians descended from the rampart, and,assailing them in the rear, killed them at leisure. But the chariotsfurnished with sickles hastened up, and galloped round the outskirts ofthe multitude. The latter ascended the wall again; night came on; andthe Barbarians gradually retired.
Nothing could now be seen on the plain but a sort of perfectly black,swarming mass, which extended from the bluish gulf to the purely whitelagoon; and the lake, which had received streams of blood, stretchedfurther away like a great purple pool.
The terrace was now so laden with corpses that it looked as though ithad been constructed of human bodies. In the centre stood the helepoliscovered with armour; and from time to time huge fragments broke offfrom it, like stones from a crumbling pyramid. Broad tracks made bythe streams of lead might be distinguished on the walls. A broken-downwooden tower burned here and there, and the houses showed dimly like thestages of a ruined ampitheatre. Heavy fumes of smoke were rising, androlling with them sparks which were lost in the dark sky.
The Carthaginians, however, who were consumed by thirst, had rushed tothe cisterns. They broke open the doors. A miry swamp stretched at thebottom.
What was to be done now? Moreover, the Barbarians were countless, andwhen their fatigue was over they would begin
again.
The people deliberated all night in groups at the corners of thestreets. Some said that they ought to send away the women, the sick, andthe old men; others proposed to abandon the town, and found a colony faraway. But vessels were lacking, and when the sun appeared no decisionhad been made.
There was no fighting that day, all being too much exhausted. Thesleepers looked like corpses.
Then the Carthaginians, reflecting upon the cause of their disasters,remembered that they had not dispatched to Phonicia the annual offeringdue to Tyrian Melkarth, and a great terror came upon them. The godswere indignant with the Republic, and were, no doubt, about to prosecutetheir vengeance.
They were considered as cruel masters, who were appeased withsupplications and allowed themselves to be bribed with presents. Allwere feeble in comparison with Moloch the Devourer. The existence, thevery flesh of men, belonged to him; and hence in order to preserve it,the Carthaginians used to offer up a portion of it to him, which calmedhis fury. Children were burned on the forehead, or on the nape of theneck, with woollen wicks; and as this mode of satisfying Baal broughtin much money to the priests, they failed not to recommend it as beingeasier and more pleasant.
This time, however, the Republic itself was at stake. But as everyprofit must be purchased by some loss, and as every transaction wasregulated according to the needs of the weaker and the demands of thestronger, there was no pain great enough for the god, since he delightedin such as was of the most horrible description, and all were now at hismercy. He must accordingly be fully gratified. Precedents showed thatin this way the scourge would be made to disappear. Moreover, it wasbelieved that an immolation by fire would purify Carthage. The ferocityof the people was predisposed towards it. The choice, too, must fallexclusively upon the families of the great.
The Ancients assembled. The sitting was a long one. Hanno had come toit. As he was now unable to sit he remained lying down near the door,half hidden among the fringes of the lofty tapestry; and when thepontiff of Moloch asked them whether they would consent to surrendertheir children, his voice suddenly broke forth from the shadow like theroaring of a genius in the depths of a cavern. He regretted, he said,that he had none of his own blood to give; and he gazed at Hamilcar,who faced him at the other end of the hall. The Suffet was so muchdisconcerted by this look that it made him lower his eyes. Allsuccessively bent their heads in approval; and in accordance with therites he had to reply to the high priest: “Yes; be it so.” Then theAncients decreed the sacrifice in traditional circumlocution,—becausethere are things more troublesome to say than to perform.
The decision was almost immediately known in Carthage, and lamentationsresounded. The cries of women might everywhere be heard; their husbandsconsoled them, or railed at them with remonstrances.
But three hours afterwards extraordinary tidings were spread abroad: theSuffet had discovered springs at the foot of the cliff. There was a rushto the place. Water might be seen in holes dug in the sand, and somewere already lying flat on the ground and drinking.
Hamilcar did not himself know whether it was by the determination of thegods or through the vague recollection of a revelation which his fatherhad once made to him; but on leaving the Ancients he had gone down tothe shore and had begun to dig the gravel with his slaves.
He gave clothing, boots, and wine. He gave all the rest of the corn thathe was keeping by him. He even let the crowd enter his palace, andhe opened kitchens, stores, and all the rooms,—Salammbô’s aloneexcepted. He announced that six thousand Gaulish Mercenaries werecoming, and that the king of Macedonia was sending soldiers.
But on the second day the springs diminished, and on the evening of thethird they were completely dried up. Then the decree of the Ancientspassed everywhere from lip to lip, and the priests of Moloch began theirtask.
Men in black robes presented themselves in the houses. In many instancesthe owners had deserted them under pretence of some business, or of somedainty that they were going to buy; and the servants of Moloch came andtook the children away. Others themselves surrendered them stupidly.Then they were brought to the temple of Tanith, where the priestesseswere charged with their amusement and support until the solemn day.
They visited Hamilcar suddenly and found him in his gardens.
“Barca! we come for that that you know of—your son!” They addedthat some people had met him one evening during the previous moon in thecentre of the Mappalian district being led by an old man.
He was as though suffocated at first. But speedily understanding thatany denial would be in vain, Hamilcar bowed; and he brought them intothe commercial house. Some slaves who had run up at a sign kept watchall round about it.
He entered Salammbô’s room in a state of distraction. He seizedHannibal with one hand, snatched up the cord of a trailing garment withthe other, tied his feet and hands with it, thrust the end into hismouth to form a gag, and hid him under the bed of the ox-hides byletting an ample drapery fall to the ground.
Afterwards he walked about from right to left, raised his arms, wheeledround, bit his lips. Then he stood still with staring eyelids, andpanted as though he were about to die.
But he clapped his hands three times. Giddenem appeared.
“Listen!” he said, “go and take from among the slaves a male childfrom eight to nine years of age, with black hair and swelling forehead!Bring him here! make haste!”
Giddenem soon entered again, bringing forward a young boy.
He was a miserable child, at once lean and bloated; his skin lookedgreyish, like the infected rag hanging to his sides; his head was sunkbetween his shoulders, and with the back of his hand he was rubbing hiseyes, which were filled with flies.
How could he ever be confounded with Hannibal! and there was no timeto choose another. Hamilcar looked at Giddenem; he felt inclined tostrangle him.
“Begone!” he cried; and the master of the slaves fled.
The misfortune which he had so long dreaded was therefore come, and withextravagant efforts he strove to discover whether there was not somemode, some means to escape it.
Abdalonim suddenly spoke from behind the door. The Suffet was beingasked for. The servants of Moloch were growing impatient.
Hamilcar repressed a cry as though a red hot iron had burnt him; andhe began anew to pace the room like one distraught. Then he sank downbeside the balustrade, and, with his elbows on his knees, pressed hisforehead into his shut fists.
The porphyry basin still contained a little clear water forSalammbô’s ablutions. In spite of his repugnance and all his pride,the Suffet dipped the child into it, and, like a slave merchant, beganto wash him and rub him with strigils and red earth. Then he took twopurple squares from the receptacles round the wall, placed one on hisbreast and the other on his back, and joined them together on the collarbones with two diamond clasps. He poured perfume upon his head, passedan electrum necklace around his neck, and put on him sandals with heelsof pearl,—sandals belonging to his own daughter! But he stamped withshame and vexation; Salammbô, who busied herself in helping him, wasas pale as he. The child, dazzled by such splendour, smiled and, growingbold even, was beginning to clap his hands and jump, when Hamilcar tookhim away.
He held him firmly by the arm as though he were afraid of losing him,and the child, who was hurt, wept a little as he ran beside him.
When on a level with the ergastulum, under a palm tree, a voice wasraised, a mournful and supplicant voice. It murmured: “Master! oh!master!”
Hamilcar turned and beside him perceived a man of abject appearance, oneof the wretches who led a haphazard existence in the household.
“What do you want?” said the Suffet.
The slave, who trembled horribly, stammered:
“I am his father!”
Hamilcar walked on; the other followed him with stooping loins, benthams, and head thrust forward. His face was convulsed with unspeakableanguish, and he was choking with suppressed sobs, so eager was he atonce to question him, an
d to cry: “Mercy!”
At last he ventured to touch him lightly with one finger on the elbow.
“Are you going to—?” He had not the strength to finish, andHamilcar stopped quite amazed at such grief.
He had never thought—so immense was the abyss separating them fromeach other—that there could be anything in common between them. Iteven appeared to him a sort of outrage, an encroachment upon hisown privileges. He replied with a look colder and heavier than anexecutioner’s axe; the slave swooned and fell in the dust at his feet.Hamilcar strode across him.
The three black-robed men were waiting in the great hall, and standingagainst the stone disc. Immediately he tore his garments, and rolledupon the pavement uttering piercing cries.
“Ah! poor little Hannibal! Oh! my son! my consolation! my hope! mylife! Kill me also! take me away! Woe! Woe!” He ploughed his face withhis nails, tore out his hair, and shrieked like the women who lament atfunerals. “Take him away then! my suffering is too great! begone! killme like him!” The servants of Moloch were astonished that the greatHamilcar was so weak-spirited. They were almost moved by it.
A noise of naked feet became audible, with a broken throat-rattling likethe breathing of a wild beast speeding along, and a man, pale, terrible,and with outspread arms appeared on the threshold of the third gallery,between the ivory pots; he exclaimed:
“My child!”
Hamilcar threw himself with a bound upon the slave, and covering theman’s mouth with his hand exclaimed still more loudly:
“It is the old man who reared him! he calls him ‘my child!’it will make him mad! enough! enough!” And hustling away the threepriests and their victim he went out with them and with a great kickshut the door behind him.
Hamilcar strained his ears for some minutes in constant fear of seeingthem return. He then thought of getting rid of the slave in order tobe quite sure that he would see nothing; but the peril had not whollydisappeared, and, if the gods were provoked at the man’s death, itmight be turned against his son. Then, changing his intention, he senthim by Taanach the best from his kitchens—a quarter of a goat, beans,and preserved pomegranates. The slave, who had eaten nothing for a longtime, rushed upon them; his tears fell into the dishes.
Hamilcar at last returned to Salammbô, and unfastened Hannibal’scords. The child in exasperation bit his hand until the blood came. Herepelled him with a caress.
To make him remain quiet Salammbô tried to frighten him with Lamia, aCyrenian ogress.
“But where is she?” he asked.
He was told that brigands were coming to put him into prison. “Letthem come,” he rejoined, “and I will kill them!”
Then Hamilcar told him the frightful truth. But he fell into a passionwith his father, contending that he was quite able to annihilate thewhole people, since he was the master of Carthage.
At last, exhausted by his exertions and anger, he fell into a wildsleep. He spoke in his dreams, his back leaning against a scarletcushion; his head was thrown back somewhat, and his little arm,outstretched from his body, lay quite straight in an attitude ofcommand.
When the night had grown dark Hamilcar lifted him up gently, and,without a torch, went down the galley staircase. As he passed throughthe mercantile house he took up a basket of grapes and a flagon of purewater; the child awoke before the statue of Aletes in the vault of gems,and he smiled—like the other—on his father’s arm at the brilliantlights which surrounded him.
Hamilcar felt quite sure that his son could not be taken from him. Itwas an impenetrable spot communicating with the beach by a subterraneanpassage which he alone knew, and casting his eyes around he inhaleda great draught of air. Then he set him down upon a stool beside somegolden shields. No one at present could see him; he had no further needfor watching; and he relieved his feelings. Like a mother finding herfirst-born that was lost, he threw himself upon his son; he clasped himto his breast, he laughed and wept at the same time, he called himby the fondest names and covered him with kisses; little Hannibal wasfrightened by this terrible tenderness and was silent now.
Hamilcar returned with silent steps, feeling the walls around him, andcame into the great hall where the moonlight entered through one of theapertures in the dome; in the centre the slave lay sleeping after hisrepast, stretched at full length upon the marble pavement. He looked athim and was moved with a sort of pity. With the tip of his cothurn hepushed forward a carpet beneath his head. Then he raised his eyes andgazed at Tanith, whose slender crescent was shining in the sky, and felthimself stronger than the Baals and full of contempt for them.
The arrangements for the sacrifice were already begun.
Part of a wall in the temple of Moloch was thrown down in order to drawout the brazen god without touching the ashes of the altar. Then assoon as the sun appeared the hierodules pushed it towards the square ofKhamon.
It moved backwards sliding upon cylinders; its shoulders overlapped thewalls. No sooner did the Carthaginians perceive it in the distance thanthey speedily took to flight, for the Baal could be looked upon withimpunity only when exercising his wrath.
A smell of aromatics spread through the streets. All the templeshad just been opened simultaneously, and from them there came forthtabernacles borne upon chariots, or upon litters carried by thepontiffs. Great plumes swayed at the corners of them, and rays wereemitted from their slender pinnacles which terminated in balls ofcrystal, gold, silver or copper.
These were the Chanaanitish Baalim, offshoots of the supreme Baal, whowere returning to their first cause to humble themselves before hismight and annihilate themselves in his splendour.
Melkarth’s pavilion, which was of fine purple, sheltered a petroleumflare; on Khamon’s, which was of hyacinth colour, there rose an ivoryphallus bordered with a circle of gems; between Eschmoun’s curtains,which were as blue as the ether, a sleeping python formed a circle withhis tail, and the Patæc gods, held in the arms of their priests, lookedlike great infants in swaddling clothes with their heels touching theground.
Then came all the inferior forms of the Divinity: Baal-Samin, god ofcelestial space; Baal-Peor, god of the sacred mountains; Baal-Zeboub,god of corruption, with those of the neighbouring countries andcongenerous races: the Iarbal of Libya, the Adramelech of Chaldæa, theKijun of the Syrians; Derceto, with her virgin’s face, crept onher fins, and the corpse of Tammouz was drawn along in the midst of acatafalque among torches and heads of hair. In order to subdue the kingsof the firmament to the Sun, and prevent their particular influencesfrom disturbing his, diversely coloured metal stars were brandishedat the end of long poles; and all were there, from the dark Neblo, thegenius of Mercury, to the hideous Rahab, which is the constellation ofthe Crocodile. The Abbadirs, stones which had fallen from the moon, werewhirling in slings of silver thread; little loaves, representing thefemale form, were born on baskets by the priests of Ceres; othersbrought their fetishes and amulets; forgotten idols reappeared, whilethe mystic symbols had been taken from the very ships as though Carthagewished to concentrate herself wholly upon a single thought of death anddesolation.
Before each tabernacle a man balanced a large vase of smoking incense onhis head. Clouds hovered here and there, and the hangings, pendants,and embroideries of the sacred pavilions might be distinguished amidthe thick vapours. These advanced slowly owing to their enormous weight.Sometimes the axles became fast in the streets; then the pious tookadvantage of the opportunity to touch the Baalim with their garments,which they preserved afterwards as holy things.
The brazen statue continued to advance towards the square of Khamon. Therich, carrying sceptres with emerald balls, set out from the bottomof Megara; the Ancients, with diadems on their heads, had assembled inKinisdo, and masters of the finances, governors of provinces, sailors,and the numerous horde employed at funerals, all with the insignia oftheir magistracies or the instruments of their calling, were makingtheir way towards the tabernacles which were descending from theAcropolis between the colleges of the po
ntiffs.
Out of deference to Moloch they had adorned themselves with the mostsplendid jewels. Diamonds sparkled on their black garments; but theirrings were too large and fell from their wasted hands,—nor couldthere have been anything so mournful as this silent crowd where earringstapped against pale faces, and gold tiaras clasped brows contracted withstern despair.
At last the Baal arrived exactly in the centre of the square. Hispontiffs arranged an enclosure with trellis-work to keep off themultitude, and remained around him at his feet.
The priests of Khamon, in tawny woollen robes, formed a line beforetheir temple beneath the columns of the portico; those of Eschmoun, inlinen mantles with necklaces of koukouphas’ heads and pointedtiaras, posted themselves on the steps of the Acropolis; the priests ofMelkarth, in violet tunics, took the western side; the priests of theAbbadirs, clasped with bands of Phrygian stuffs, placed themselves onthe east, while towards the south, with the necromancers all coveredwith tattooings, and the shriekers in patched cloaks, were ranged thecurates of the Patæc gods, and the Yidonim, who put the bone of a deadman into their mouths to learn the future. The priests of Ceres, whowere dressed in blue robes, had prudently stopped in the street ofSatheb, and in low tones were chanting a thesmophorion in the Megariandialect.
From time to time files of men arrived, completely naked, their armsoutstretched, and all holding one another by the shoulders. Fromthe depths of their breasts they drew forth a hoarse and cavernousintonation; their eyes, which were fastened upon the colossus, shonethrough the dust, and they swayed their bodies simultaneously, and atequal distances, as though they were all affected by a single movement.They were so frenzied that to restore order the hierodules compelledthem, with blows of the stick, to lie flat upon the ground, with theirfaces resting against the brass trellis-work.
Then it was that a man in a white robe advanced from the back of thesquare. He penetrated the crowd slowly, and people recognised a priestof Tanith—the high-priest Schahabarim. Hootings were raised, for thetyranny of the male principle prevailed that day in all consciences, andthe goddess was actually so completely forgotten that the absence of herpontiffs had not been noticed. But the amazement was increased when hewas seen to open one of the doors of the trellis-work intended forthose who intended to offer up victims. It was an outrage to their god,thought the priests of Moloch, that he had just committed, and theysought with eager gestures to repel him. Fed on the meat of theholocausts, clad in purple like kings, and wearing triple-storiedcrowns, they despised the pale eunuch, weakened with his macerations,and angry laughter shook their black beards, which were displayed ontheir breasts in the sun.
Schahabarim walked on, giving no reply, and, traversing the wholeenclosure with deliberation, reached the legs of the colossus; then,spreading out both arms, he touched it on both sides, which was a solemnform of adoration. For a long time Rabbet had been torturing him, andin despair, or perhaps for lack of a god that completely satisfied hisideas, he had at last decided for this one.
The crowd, terrified by this act of apostasy, uttered a lengthenedmurmur. It was felt that the last tie which bound their souls to amerciful divinity was breaking.
But owing to his mutilation, Schahabarim could take no part in the cultof the Baal. The men in the red cloaks shut him out from the enclosure;then, when he was outside, he went round all the colleges in succession,and the priest, henceforth without a god, disappeared into the crowd. Itscattered at his approach.
Meanwhile a fire of aloes, cedar, and laurel was burning between thelegs of the colossus. The tips of its long wings dipped into the flame;the unguents with which it had been rubbed flowed like sweat over itsbrazen limbs. Around the circular flagstone on which its feet rested,the children, wrapped in black veils, formed a motionless circle; andits extravagantly long arms reached down their palms to them as thoughto seize the crown that they formed and carry it to the sky.
The rich, the Ancients, the women, the whole multitude, thronged behindthe priests and on the terraces of the houses. The large painted starsrevolved no longer; the tabernacles were set upon the ground; and thefumes from the censers ascended perpendicularly, spreading their bluishbranches through the azure like gigantic trees.
Many fainted; others became inert and petrified in their ecstasy.Infinite anguish weighed upon the breasts of the beholders. Thelast shouts died out one by one,—and the people of Carthage stoodbreathless, and absorbed in the longing of their terror.
At last the high priest of Moloch passed his left hand beneath thechildren’s veils, plucked a lock of hair from their foreheads, andthrew it upon the flames. Then the men in the red cloaks chanted thesacred hymn:
“Homage to thee, Sun! king of the two zones, self-generating Creator,Father and Mother, Father and Son, God and Goddess, Goddess and God!”And their voices were lost in the outburst of instruments soundingsimultaneously to drown the cries of the victims. The eight-stringedscheminiths, the kinnors which had ten strings, and the nebals whichhad twelve, grated, whistled, and thundered. Enormous leathern bags,bristling with pipes, made a shrill clashing noise; the tabourines,beaten with all the players’ might, resounded with heavy, rapid blows;and, in spite of the fury of the clarions, the salsalim snapped likegrasshoppers’ wings.
The hierodules, with a long hook, opened the seven-storied compartmentson the body of the Baal. They put meal into the highest, twoturtle-doves into the second, an ape into the third, a ram into thefourth, a sheep into the fifth, and as no ox was to be had for thesixth, a tawny hide taken from the sanctuary was thrown into it. Theseventh compartment yawned empty still.
Before undertaking anything it was well to make trial of the arms of thegod. Slender chainlets stretched from his fingers up to his shouldersand fell behind, where men by pulling them made the two hands rise to alevel with the elbows, and come close together against the belly; theywere moved several times in succession with little abrupt jerks. Thenthe instruments were still. The fire roared.
The pontiffs of Moloch walked about on the great flagstone scanning themultitude.
An individual sacrifice was necessary, a perfectly voluntary oblation,which was considered as carrying the others along with it. But no onehad appeared up to the present, and the seven passages leading from thebarriers to the colossus were completely empty. Then the priests, toencourage the people, drew bodkins from their girdles and gashed theirfaces. The Devotees, who were stretched on the ground outside, werebrought within the enclosure. A bundle of horrible irons was thrown tothem, and each chose his own torture. They drove in spits between theirbreasts; they split their cheeks; they put crowns of thorns upon theirheads; then they twined their arms together, and surrounded the childrenin another large circle which widened and contracted in turns. Theyreached to the balustrade, they threw themselves back again, and thenbegan once more, attracting the crowd to them by the dizziness of theirmotion with its accompanying blood and shrieks.
By degrees people came into the end of the passages; they flung intothe flames pearls, gold vases, cups, torches, all their wealth; theofferings became constantly more numerous and more splendid. At last aman who tottered, a man pale and hideous with terror, thrust forwarda child; then a little black mass was seen between the hands of thecolossus, and sank into the dark opening. The priests bent over the edgeof the great flagstone,—and a new song burst forth celebrating thejoys of death and of new birth into eternity.
The children ascended slowly, and as the smoke formed lofty eddies asit escaped, they seemed at a distance to disappear in a cloud. Notone stirred. Their wrists and ankles were tied, and the dark draperyprevented them from seeing anything and from being recognised.
Hamilcar, in a red cloak, like the priests of Moloch, was beside theBaal, standing upright in front of the great toe of its right foot. Whenthe fourteenth child was brought every one could see him make a greatgesture of horror. But he soon resumed his former attitude, folded hisarms, and looked upon the ground. The high pontiff stood on the otherside of the s
tatue as motionless as he. His head, laden with an Assyrianmitre, was bent, and he was watching the gold plate on his breast; itwas covered with fatidical stones, and the flame mirrored in it formedirisated lights. He grew pale and dismayed. Hamilcar bent his brow; andthey were both so near the funeral-pile that the hems of their cloaksbrushed it as they rose from time to time.
The brazen arms were working more quickly. They paused no longer. Everytime that a child was placed in them the priests of Moloch spreadout their hands upon him to burden him with the crimes of the people,vociferating: “They are not men but oxen!” and the multitude roundabout repeated: “Oxen! oxen!” The devout exclaimed: “Lord! eat!”and the priests of Proserpine, complying through terror with the needsof Carthage, muttered the Eleusinian formula: “Pour out rain! bringforth!”
The victims, when scarcely at the edge of the opening, disappeared likea drop of water on a red-hot plate, and white smoke rose amid the greatscarlet colour.
Nevertheless, the appetite of the god was not appeased. He ever wishedfor more. In order to furnish him with a larger supply, the victims werepiled up on his hands with a big chain above them which kept them intheir place. Some devout persons had at the beginning wished to countthem, to see whether their number corresponded with the days ofthe solar year; but others were brought, and it was impossible todistinguish them in the giddy motion of the horrible arms. This lastedfor a long, indefinite time until the evening. Then the partitionsinside assumed a darker glow, and burning flesh could be seen. Some evenbelieved that they could descry hair, limbs, and whole bodies.
Night fell; clouds accumulated above the Baal. The funeral-pile, whichwas flameless now, formed a pyramid of coals up to his knees; completelyred like a giant covered with blood, he looked, with his headthrown back, as though he were staggering beneath the weight of hisintoxication.
In proportion as the priests made haste, the frenzy of the peopleincreased; as the number of the victims was diminishing, some criedout to spare them, others that still more were needful. The walls, withtheir burden of people, seemed to be giving way beneath the howlingsof terror and mystic voluptuousness. Then the faithful came into thepassages, dragging their children, who clung to them; and they beat themin order to make them let go, and handed them over to the men in red.The instrument-players sometimes stopped through exhaustion; then thecries of the mothers might be heard, and the frizzling of the fat as itfell upon the coals. The henbane-drinkers crawled on all fours aroundthe colossus, roaring like tigers; the Yidonim vaticinated, the Devoteessang with their cloven lips; the trellis-work had been broken through,all wished for a share in the sacrifice;—and fathers, whose childrenhad died previously, cast their effigies, their playthings, theirpreserved bones into the fire. Some who had knives rushed upon the rest.They slaughtered one another. The hierodules took the fallen ashes atthe edge of the flagstone in bronze fans, and cast them into the airthat the sacrifice might be scattered over the town and even to theregion of the stars.
The loud noise and great light had attracted the Barbarians to the footof the walls; they clung to the wreck of the helepolis to have a betterview, and gazed open-mouthed in horror.
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