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  While this piteous punishment was inflicted on a victim who made light of it, the soldiers, disturbed by the loss of their general, with one voice and with eager enthusiasm demanded Hannibal for their leader. Their favour was due to many causes — the reflection in him of his father’s valour; the report, broadcast among the nations, that he was the sworn enemy of Rome; his youth eager for action and the fiery spirit that well became him; his heart equipped with guile, and his native eloquence.

  The Libyans ° were first to hail him with applause as their leader, and the Pyrenean tribes and warlike Spaniards followed them. At once his heart swelled with pride and satisfaction that so much of land and sea had come under his sway. Libya lies under the burning sign of Cancer, and is parched by the south winds of Aeolus and the sun’s disk. It is either a huge offshoot of Asia, or a third continent of the world. It is bounded on the rosy east by the river of Lagus, which strikes the swollen sea with seven streams. But, where the land in milder mood faces the opposing Bears, it is cut off by the straits of Hercules, and, though parted from them, looks on the lands of Europe from its adjacent heights; the ocean blocks its further extension, and Atlas forbids its name to be carried further — Atlas, who would bring down the sky, if he withdrew his shoulders. His cloud-capt head supports the stars, and his soaring neck for ever holds aloft the firmament of heaven. His beard is white with frost, and pine-forests crown his brow with their vast shade; winds ravage his hollow temples, and foaming rivers rush down from his streaming open jaws. Moreover, the deep seas assail the cliffs on both his flanks, and, when the weary Titan has bathed his panting steeds, hide his flaming car in the steaming ocean. But, where Africa spreads her untilled plains, the burnt-up land bears nothing but the poison of snakes in plenty; though, where a temperate strip blesses the fields, her fertility is not surpassed by the crops of Henna nor by the Egyptian husbandman. Here the Numidians rove at large, a nation that knows not the bridle; for the light switch they ply between its ears turns the horse about in their sport, no less effectively than the bit. This land breeds wars and warriors; nor do they trust to the naked sword but use guile also.

  A second camp was filled with Spanish troops, European allies whom the victories of Hamilcar had gained. Here the war-horse filled the plains with his neighings, and here high-mettled steeds drew along chariots of war; not even the drivers at Olympia could dash over the course with more fiery haste. That people recks little of life, and they are most ready to anticipate death. For, when a man has passed the years of youthful strength, he cannot bear to live on and disdains acquaintance with old age; and his span of life depends on his own right arm. All metals are found here: there are veins of electrum, whose yellow hue shows their double origin, and the rugged soil feeds the black crop of iron. Heaven covered up the incentives to crime; but the covetous Asturian plunges deep into the bowels of the mangled earth, and the wretch returns with a face as yellow as the gold he has dug out. The Durius and the Tagus of this land challenge the Pactolus; and so does the river which rolls its glittering sands over the land of the Gravii and reproduces for the inhabitants the forgetfulness of Lethe in the nether world. Spain is not unfit for corn-crops nor unfriendly to the vine; and there is no land in which the tree of Pallas rises higher.

  When these peoples had yielded to the Tyrian ruler and he had received the reins of government, then with his father’s craft he gained men’s friendship; by arms or by bribes he caused them to reverse the Senate’s decrees. He was ever first to undertake hardship, first to march on foot, and first to bear a hand when the rampart was reared in haste. In all other things that spur a man on to glory he was untiring: denying sleep to nature, he would pass the whole night armed and awake, lying sometimes upon the ground; distinguished by the general’s cloak, he vied with the hardy soldiers of the Libyan army; or mounted high he rode as leader of the long line; again he endured bare-headed the fury of the rains and the crashing of the sky. The Carthaginians looked on and the Asturians trembled for fear, when he rode his startled horse through the bolts hurled by Jupiter, the lightnings flashing amid the rain, and the fires driven forth by the blasts of the winds; he was never wearied by the dusty march nor weakened by the fiery star of Sirius. When the earth was burnt and cracked by fiery rays, and when the heat of noon parched the sky with its blazing orb, he thought it womanish to lie down in the shade where the ground was moist; he practised thirst and looked on a spring only to leave it. He would grasp the reins also and break in for battle the steed that tried to throw him; he sought the glory of a death-dealing arm; he would swim through the rattling boulders of an unknown river and then summon his comrades from the opposite bank. He was first also to stand on the rampart of a city stormed; and, whenever he dashed over the plain where fierce battle was joined, a broad red lane was left on the field, wherever he hurled his spear. Therefore he pressed hard upon the heels of Fortune; and, resolved as he was to break the treaty, he rejoiced meantime to involve Rome, as far as he could, in war; and from the end of the world he struck at the Capitol.

  His war-trumpets sounded first before the gates of dismayed Saguntum, and he chose this war in his eagerness for a greater war to come. The city, founded by Hercules, rises on a gentle slope not far from the coast, and owes its sacred and famous name to Zacynthus, who is buried there on the lofty hill. For he was on the march back to Thebes in company with Hercules, after the slaying of Geryon, and was praising the exploit up to the skies. That monster was furnished with three lives and three right arms in a single body, and carried a head on each of three necks. Never did earth see another man whom a single death could not destroy — for whom the stern Sisters span a third lease of life when the thread had twice been snapped. Zacynthus displayed in triumph the prize taken from Geryon, and was calling the cattle to the water in the heat of noon, when a serpent that he trod on discharged from its swollen throat poison envenomed by the sun. The wound was fatal, and the Greek hero lay dead on Spanish soil. At a later time exiled colonists sailed hither before the wind — sons of Zacynthus, the island surrounded by the Ionian sea that once formed part of the kingdom of Laertes. These small beginnings were afterwards strengthened by men of Daunia in search of a habitation; they were sent forth by Ardea of famous name — a city ruled by heroic kings, and rich in the number of her sons. The freedom of the inhabitants and their ancestral glory were preserved by treaty; and by it the Carthaginians were forbidden to rule the city.

  The Carthaginian leader broke the treaty and brought his camp-fires close and shook the wide plains with his marching host. He himself, shaking his head in fury, rode round the walls on his panting steed, taking the measure of the terrified buildings. He bade them open their gates at once and desert their rampart; he told them that, now they were besieged, their treaties and Italy would be far away, and that they could not hope for quarter, if defeated: “Decrees of the Senate,” he cried, “law and justice, honour and Providence, are all in my hand now.” In eager haste he confirmed his taunts by hurling his javelin and struck Caicus through his armour, as he stood on the wall and uttered idle threats. Pierced right through the middle, down he fell; his body at once slipped down from the steep rampart; and in death he restored to his conqueror the spear warmed with his blood. Then with loud shouting the soldiers followed the example of their leader, and wrapped the walls round with a black cloud of missiles. Their prowess was seen and not hidden by their numbers; turning his face to the general, each man fought as if he were the only combatant. One hurled volleys of bullets with Balearic sling : standing erect, he brandished the light thong thrice round his head, and launched his missile in the air, for the winds to carry; another poised whizzing stones with strong arm; a third threw a lance speeded by a light strap. In front of them all their leader, conspicuous in his father’s armour, now hurls a brand smoking with pitchy flame, now presses on unwearied with stake or javelin or stone, or shoots arrows from the string — missiles dipped in serpent’s poison and doubly fatal — and exults in the guil
e of his quiver. So the Dacian, in the warlike region of the Getic country, delighting to sharpen his arrows with the poison of his native land, pours them forth in sudden showers on the banks of the Hister, the river of two names.

  The next task was to surround the hill with a front of towers and blockade the city with a ring of forts. Alas for Loyalty, worshipped by former ages but now known on earth by name only! The hardy citizens stand there, seeing escape cut off and their walls enclosed by a mound; but they think it a death worthy of Italy, for Saguntum to fall with her loyalty preserved. Now they exert all their strength with increased ardour: — the catapult of Marseilles launches with a roar huge boulders from its tightened cords, and also, when the burden of the mighty engine is changed, discharges tree-trunks tipped with iron, and breaks a way through the ranks. Loud rose the noise on each side. They joined battle with as much fierceness as if Rome were besieged. Hannibal also shouted: “So many thousand men, people born in the midst of arms — why do we stand still before an enemy we have already conquered? Are we ashamed of our enterprise, or ashamed of our beginning? So much for splendid valour and the first exploit of your general! Is this the glorious news with which we intend to fill Italy? Are these the battles whose rumour we send before us?”

  Fired by his words their courage rose high; the spirit of Hannibal sank deep into their hearts and inspired them; and the thought of wars to come ° spurred them on. They attack the rampart with bare hands and, when thrust down from the walls, leave there their severed limbs. A high mound was erected and placed parties of combatants above the city. But the besieged were protected and the enemy kept away from the gates by the falarica, which many arms at once were wont to poise. This was a missile of wood, terrible to behold, a beam chosen from the high mountains of the snow-covered Pyrenees, a weapon whose long iron point even walls could scarce withstand. Then the shaft, smeared with oily pitch and rubbed all round with black sulphur, sent forth smoke. When hurled like a thunderbolt from the topmost walls of the citadel, it clove the furrowed air with a flickering flame, even as a fiery meteor, speeding from heaven to earth, dazzles men’s eyes with its blood-red tail. This weapon often confounded Hannibal when it carried aloft the smoking limbs of his men by its swift stroke; and, when in its flight it struck the side of a huge tower, it kindled a fire which burnt till all the woodwork of the tower was utterly consumed, and buried men and arms together under the blazing ruins. But at last the Carthaginians retreated from the rampart, sheltered by the close-packed shields of the serried “tortoise,” and sapped the wall unseen till it collapsed, and made a breach into the town.

  The rampart gave way, the walls built by Hercules sank down with a fearful crash, and the huge stones fell apart, and a mighty rumbling of the sky followed their fall. So the towering peaks of the high Alps, when a mass of rock is torn away from them, furrow the mountain-side with the roar of an avalanche. With haste the ruined rampart was raised again; and nought but the prostrate wall prevented both armies from fighting on in the wreckage that divided them.

  First of all Murrus sprang forward, conspicuous for his youthful beauty. He was of Rutulian blood, born of a Saguntine mother; but he had Greek blood too, and by his two parents he combined the seed of Italy with that of Dulichium. When Aradus summoned his comrades with a mighty shout, Murrus watched his forward movement and stopped him; and the spear-point pierced the gap that came between the breastplate and the helmet. Then pinning him to the ground with his spear he taunted him as well: “False Carthaginian, you lie low; you were to be foremost, forsooth, in mounting the Capitol as a conqueror; was ever ambition so presumptuous? Go now, and fight the deity of the Styx instead!” Next, brandishing his fiery spear, he buried it in the groin of Hiberus who stood before him; and, treading on the features already convulsed in death, he cried: “Terrible as is your host, by this path must ye march to the walls of Rome; thus must ye go to the place whither ye are hastening.” Then, when Hiberus tried to renew the combat, Murrus evaded the weapon and snatched the shield of his foe, and pierced his unprotected side. Rich in land and rich in flocks but unknown to fame, Hiberus used to wage war against wild beasts with bow and javelin, happy, alas, in his forests and worthy of praise in his life of retirement, if he had never carried his arrows outside his ancestral woodlands. In pity for him Ladmus came up, intent to strike. But Murrus cried with a savage laugh: “Tell Hamilcar’s ghost of my right arm, which, when the rabble are slain, shall send Hannibal to keep company with you all.” Then, rising erect, he smote with his sword the crested brazen helmet and scattered the rattling bones of the skull right through their covering. Next, Chremes, whose unshorn brow was surrounded and shaded by his hair, and who made a shaggy cap of his locks; then Masulis, and Kartalo, vigorous for war in green old age, who feared not to stroke the lioness with cubs; and Bagrada, whose shield was blazoned with the river’s urn; and Hiempsal, one of the Nasamonians who plunder the devouring Syrtis and make bold to pillage shipwrecks; — all these were slain alike by that wrathful right hand; and so was Athyr, skilled to disarm serpents of their fell poison, to send fierce water-snakes to sleep by his touch, and to test a child of doubtful birth by placing a horned snake beside it. Slain too was Hiarbas, who dwelt near the prophetic groves of the Garamantes, and whose helmet was conspicuous for the horn that curved over his temples; in vain, alas, he blamed the oracle that had so often promised a safe return, and Jupiter for his breach of faith. By this time the rampart had grown higher with heaps of corpses, and the ruins smoked with horrid slaughter. Then with eager shout Murrus challenged Hannibal to combat.

  But Hannibal was far away, where a band of defenders had issued unexpected from the gates. As if no missiles or swords could bring him injury or death, he mingled with both armies and raged far and wide, brandishing the sword which old Temisus from the shore of the Hesperides had lately forged with magic spells — Temisus the powerful enchanter who believed that iron was hardened by incantations. Mighty was Hannibal as Mars when he careers far and wide in his war-chariot through the land of the Bistones, brandishing the weapon that defeated the band of Titans, and ruling the flame of battle by the snorting of his steeds and the noise of his chariot. Already Hannibal had sent down to Hades Hostus and Pholus the Rutulian and huge Metiscus, and, with them, Lygdus and Durius and fair-haired Galaesus, and a pair of twins, Chromis and Gyas. Next came Daunus, than whom no man was more skilled to move assemblies by the charm of eloquence and to mould men’s minds by speech; nor was any man a more sagacious guardian of the laws. He mingled taunts with his blows: “What madness, inherited from your father, brings you hither, man of Carthage? This is no Tyrian city built by a woman’s hands or bought for money; this is not a shore with a measured space of sand conceded to exiles: you see here walls raised by gods, and allies of Rome.” But even as he shouted such boasts over all the plain, Hannibal seized him with a mighty effort, and bore him from the centre of the fighting men, and bound his hands behind him, and reserved him to suffer the punishment of wrath deferred. Then, reproaching his men, he ordered the standards to be advanced, and right through the piled corpses and heaps of dead he pointed out the way in his frenzy, calling to each man by name, and boldly promising them as booty the still untaken city.

  But when frightened messengers brought news that in a different quarter the fighting was fierce and they were losing the day, and that propitious gods had granted this day to Murrus, then Hannibal, abandoning his mighty exploits, flew off with frantic haste and the speed of a madman. The plume that nodded on his head showed a deadly brightness, even as a comet terrifies fierce kings with its flaming tail and showers blood-red fire: the boding meteor spouts forth ruddy rays from heaven, and the star flashes with a dreadful menacing light, threatening earth with destruction. Weapons, standards, and men gave way before his headlong career, and both armies were terrified; the fiery point of his spear shed a dreadful light, and his shield flashed far and wide. So, when the Aegean sea rises to the stars, and all along the coast, with
a mighty roaring of the North-west wind, the waves carry ashore the piled-up sea, the hearts of seamen turn cold and tremble; the wind roars far away, and with swelling blast and arching waves crosses the frightened Cyclades. Neither missiles from the walls, all aimed at him alone, nor smoking brands before his face, nor boulders hurled cunningly from engines, can arrest his course. As soon as he saw the glittering helmet on the head of Murrus, and his arms shining in the sunlight with blood-bedabbled gold, he began in his rage: “Behold Murrus! Murrus is the man to impede the prowess of Libya and our mighty enterprise, the man to hinder the war against Rome! Soon will I make you learn the power of your useless treaty and your river Ebro. Take with you loyalty unstained and observance of law; leave to me the gods whom I have deceived!” And Murrus addressed him thus: “I have longed for your coming; my heart has long been eager for battle and aflame with hope to take your life; take the deserved reward of your guile, and seek for Italy in the bowels of the earth. My right hand spares you the long march to Roman territory and the ascent of the snowy Pyrenees and the Alps.”

  Meanwhile, seeing his foe come close, and that he could trust the overhanging ground where he stood, Hannibal rent the rampart and seized a huge rock and hurled it down upon the head of the climber; and the stone fell swiftly with downward force. Smitten by the tough fragment of the wall, Murrus crouched down. But soon shame fired his heart; and conscious courage, though taken at a disadvantage, did not fail him. Grinding his teeth, he struggled on, and with difficult effort climbed up over the stones that barred his way. But when Hannibal shone closer with nearer light, and moved on in all his bulk, then the eyes of Murrus grew dark before his mighty foe; it seemed as if the whole Carthaginian army were moving to close round him, and as if all the host were attacking him. He seemed to see a thousand arms and countless flashing swords, and a forest of plumes waving on his foe’s helmet. Both armies shouted, as if all Saguntum were on fire; Murrus in fear dragged along his limbs faint with the approach of death, and uttered his latest prayer: “Alcides, our founder, whose footprints we inhabit on hallowed ground, turn aside the storm that threatens us, if I defend thy walls with no sluggish arm.”