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  But Mopsus, when both his sons were slain, caught up his bow in his grief and rage, and bent it thrice; but thrice his hand fell, and sorrow robbed him of his accustomed skill. Too late, alas! he regrets to have left the land he loved. Eagerly he clutched the stone that had felled Icarus; but, when the old man felt that his feeble blows on his own breast were vain, and knew that his arm could not help him to end his sore grief by death, he threw himself headlong from the top of the huge tower; and, falling heavily down, laic! at full length his dying limbs on his son’s body.

  While the Cretan stranger fell thus in foreign war, Theron, who guarded Hercules’ temple and was priest at his altar, urged on the fighters and attempted a fresh effort. Unbarring a gate, he sent out a force to surprise the Carthaginians, and the fighting was fierce. He bore no spear in his hand nor helmet on his head; but, trusting in his broad shoulders and youthful strength, he laid the enemy low with a club, and craved no sword. The skin stripped from a lion was laid on his head, and raised the terrible open mouth aloft on his tall figure. He bore likewise on his shield a hundred snakes and the monster of Lerna — the hydra that multiplied when the serpents were cut in two. Juba and his father Thapsus; Micipsa, famous for the glory of his ancestor, and Saces the Moor — all these he had driven from the walls and pursued headlong to the shore as they fled in disorder; and his unaided arm made the sea foam with blood. Not satisfied with the death of Idus and the death of Cotho of Marmarica, nor with the slaughter of Rothus and the slaughter of Jugurtha, he raised his ambition to Asbyte’s chariot, the glittering mantle that covered her, and her bright jewelled target; and all his mind was fixed on the warrior maiden. When the princess saw him rushing on with bloodstained weapon, she made her horses swerve aside; and thus, evading him by wheeling to the left, she cleaves the plain and flies like a bird over the curving field, showing him the back of her chariot. And, while she vanished from his sight, and the hoofs of her horses, galloping swifter than the wind, raised a cloud of dust on the field, her crashing wheels crushed the opposing ranks far and wide; and the maiden launched spear after spear upon them in their confusion. Here Lycas fell, and Thamyris, and Eurydamas of famous name, the scion of a noble stock. His ancestor, poor fool! had dared long ago to covet a splendid marriage with the wife of the Ithacan; but he was taken in by the trick of the chaste wife, who unravelled every night the threads of her web. He had declared that Ulysses was drowned at sea; but the Ithacan inflicted death upon the prater — real death and no fiction; and funeral took the place of marriage. Now his latest descendant, Eurydamas, was slain by the hand of the Numidian queen: the fatal chariot thundered over his broken bones and kept its course.

  And now Asbyte came back to the place, when she saw Theron busy with battle; and, aiming her fierce battle-axe at the centre of his brow, she vowed to Dictynna a glorious spoil from it, even the lion-skin of Hercules. Nor did Theron hang back: eager for so great a prize, he rose up right in front of the horses and held before them the shaggy head of the tawny lion and thrust it in their frightened faces. Frantic with fear unfelt before — fear of the menacing open jaws — the coursers upset the heavy car and turned it over. Then, as Asbyte tried to flee from the fight, he sprang to stop her, and smote her between the twin temples with his club; he spattered the glowing wheels and the reins, disordered by the terrified horses, with the brains that gushed from the broken skull. Then he seized her axe and, eager to display his slaughter of her, cut off the head of the maiden when she rolled out of her chariot. Not yet was his rage sated; for he fixed her head on a lofty pike, for all to see, and bade men bear it in front of the Punic army, and drive the chariot with speed to the town. Blind to his doom and deserted by divine favour, Theron fought on; but death was near him. For Hannibal came up, with wrath and menace expressed in every feature; with frenzied heart he raged at the slaughter of Asbyte, and at the horrid trophy of her head borne aloft. And, as soon as his shield of glittering brass shone out, and the armour on his swift limbs, rattling afar, thundered forth doom, the enemy were suddenly stricken with fear and fled in haste towards the town. So, in the late twilight, evening sends the birds on their light wings back from their feeding-ground to their familiar roosts; or so, when Cecropian Hymettus scares with menace of a rain-cloud the swarms scattered over the flowers, the bees, heavy with honey, hasten back to their luscious combs and hives of fragrant cork; they fly in a close pack, and unite in a deep humming noise outside the hives. Thus panic drove the frightened soldiers headlong, and they rushed on blindly. Ah! how sweet is the light of heaven! Why do men shun with such terror the death that must some day come, and the sentence pronounced against them at birth? They curse their design, and lament their sally from the protection of the gates and the wall. Theron can hardly stop their flight, using force sometimes and sometimes loud threats: “Stand fast, my men; you enemy belongs to me; stand fast — victory in a mighty combat is coming to me. My right hand shall drive away the Carthaginians from the wall and houses of Saguntum: do your part as mere spectators; or, if urgent fear drives you all into the city — a sorry sight — then shut your gates against me alone.”

  But Hannibal was hastening with headlong speed towards the walls, while the besieged were in fear, trembling for their safety and despairing of life; his purpose was to attack the city first through its open gates, deferring the slaughter of his foe. When the bold guardian of the temple of Hercules saw this, he sprang forward and, urged to speed by his fears, outstripped the foeman. The wrath of the Tyrian leader waxed yet fiercer: “You, worthy keeper of the city’s gates, shall first suffer death at my hands, and by your death throw open the walls.” Rage prevented further speech, and he whirled round his flashing sword; but the Daunian warrior was before him and swinging his club with mighty force threw it at Hannibal. Beneath that heavy blow his armour rang with a hollow sound; and the weighty knotted club, crashing upon the hollow metal, rebounded high. Then, unarmed and betrayed by his unsuccessful stroke, Theron urged his limbs to hasty flight and ran round the walls, seeking to escape by his speed. The conqueror pursued fiercely and taunted the back of the fugitive. The matrons cried out together, and their voices, together with wailings, rose up from the lofty summit of the wall; now they address Theron by his familiar name, and now, too late, they wish for power to open the gate to him in his extremity; but, even as they encourage him, their hearts are shaken by the fear that, together with him, they may admit within the walls their mighty foe. Hannibal struck the weary runner with his shield and sprang upon him as he fell; then, pointing to the citizens watching from the walls, “Go!” he cried, “and comfort hapless Asbyte by your speedy death!” and at the same time buried his fatal sword in the throat of a victim who was fain to lose his life. Then the conqueror drove off with joy the horses taken from Asbyte, carrying them off from before the very walls, where the body of fugitives had used them to block the entrance of the gate; and off he sped in the chariot through the triumphant lines.

  But the band of Numidians, frantic with grief, made haste with the sad office of burial, and gave Asbyte the tribute of a pyre, and seized the dead man’s body and carried it thrice round her ashes. Next they cast into the flames his murderous club and his dreadful head-dress; and, when the face and beard were burnt, they left the unsightly corpse to the Spanish vultures.

  Meanwhile the rulers of Carthage took counsel concerning the war and the answer they must send to the Italian people; and the formidable approach of the envoys made them uneasy. On the one hand they were swayed by loyalty to the treaty, by the gods who witnessed it, and by the compact to which their fathers swore; and on the other by the popularity of the ambitious young leader; and they nursed a hope of victory. But Hanno, hereditary foe and constant assailant of Hannibal, with these words rebuked their zeal and heedless partiality: “Senators, all things indeed intimidate me from speaking; for the angry threats of my opponents have proved unable to restrain themselves. Yet I shall not flinch, not even though I must soon die by violence. I sh
all appeal to the gods, and I shall tell Heaven, ere I die, the measures demanded by the safety of the state and of our country in its extremity. Not now only, when it is too late, when Saguntum is besieged and burning, do I prophesy these evils: I made a clean breast of my fears: I warned you before and, while I live, shall go on warning you, not to suffer that instrument of destruction to be bred up in camps and in war; for I marked the poison of his nature and his hereditary ambition, even as the watcher of the starry heavens foretells, not in vain, to hapless seamen the coming fury of the sea and the approaching blasts of the North-west wind. Hannibal has taken his seat on a throne and seized the reins of government; and therefore the treaty is broken by the sword, and by the sword every obligation is broken; cities are shaken, and the distant Aeneadae are alert to attack Carthage, and peace has been thrown to the winds. The young man is driven mad by the ghost and evil spirit of his father, by that fatal ceremony, by the gods who have turned against the breaker of faith and treaties, and by the Massylian priestess. Blinded and dazzled by new-gained power, he is overthrowing cities; but are they foreign cities? It is not Saguntum that he is attacking — so may he atone for this crime in his own person and not involve his country in his punishment — now, even now, I declare, he is attacking the walls of Carthage and besieging us with his army. We drenched the valleys of Henna with the blood of the brave, and could hardly carry on the war by hiring the Spartan. We filled Scylla’s caverns with shipwrecks; and, when our fleets were borne away by the tide, we saw Charybdis whirling the rowers’ benches round and spouting them forth from her depths. Madman, with no fear of God in your heart, look at the Aegatian islands and the limbs of Libya drifting far away! Whither are you rushing? Do you seek fame for yourself by the ruin of your country? The huge Alps will sink down, forsooth, at sight of the stripling warrior; and the snowy mass of the Apennines, that raise their summit as high as the Alps, will sink down also. But suppose, vain pretender, that you reach the plains; that nation has a spirit that never dies; sword and flame can never wear them out. You will not find yourself fighting there against the stock that came from Neritus. Their soldiers grow to manhood in the camp, and their faces rub against the helmet before they are marked by the golden down. Nor is rest known to them in age; even old men, who have shed their blood in long service, stand in the front rank and challenge death. My own eyes have seen Roman soldiers, when run through the body, snatch the weapon from their wound and hurl it at the foe; I have seen their courage and the way they die and their passion for glory. From how much bloodshed does Hanno save Carthage, if she sets her face against war and does not wantonly confront the conquerors!” To this speech Gestar replied. Harsh and impatient, he had long been nursing bitter wrath, and twice had he tried to raise a disturbance and silence Hanno in the middle of his speech. “Ye gods!” he cried: “is this a Roman soldier, seated in the council of Libya and the Carthaginian senate? Arms he has not yet taken up; but in all else the foeman stands declared before us. Now he threatens us with the twin ranges of Alps and Apennines, now with the Sicilian sea and the waves on Scylla’s shore; he is not far from fearing the very shades and ghosts of the Romans: such praise does he heap upon their wounds and deaths, and exalts the nation to the sky. But, though his cold heart trembles with base fear, take my word for it, that the foe whom we are engaging is mortal. I was looking on, when Regulus, the hope and pride of Hector’s race, was dragged along amid the shouts of the populace to his dark dungeon, with both hands bound fast behind his back; I was looking on, when he hung high upon the tree and saw Italy from his lofty cross. Nor again do I dread the brows that wear the helmet in early boyhood, nor the heads that carry the steel cap before their time. The temper of our people is not so sluggish. Look at the Libyan squadrons: how many of them vie in exertions beyond their years, and go to war on bare-backed horses! Look at Hannibal himself. When he was first able to utter speech from his childish lips, he pledged himself to war and the clarion’s sound, and swore to consume the Phrygian people with fire, and fought in fancy the campaigns of his father, Hamilcar. Therefore, let the Alps soar to heaven, and the Apennines lift their glittering peaks to the stars: through rocks and snows — I will say it, that even an idle boast may sting a traitor’s heart — through the sky itself our pioneer will find a way. Shameful is it to shun a path that Hercules trod and to shrink back from repeating his exploit. Hanno exaggerates the defeats of Libya and the conflagration of our first war with Rome, and forbids us to bear hardship again in defence of freedom. Let Hanno still his agitation and fears, and keep his sobbing breath, like an unwarlike woman, behind the walls of his house. But we shall march against the foe — we who are determined, even if Jupiter is not on our side, to drive foreign rulers far from Tyrian Byrsa. But, if Fate fights against us and Mars has already condemned Carthage and departed from her, I shall choose rather to fall; I shall not hand over my glorious fatherland to eternal slavery, and I shall go down free to Acheron. For, ye gods! what are the demands of Fabius?— ‘Lay down your arms at once and depart from the captured citadel of Saguntum. Next, your picked troops must pile their shields and burn them; your ships must be burnt, and you must withdraw altogether from the sea.’ Ye gods, if Carthage never deserved such punishment, prevent the abomination, and keep the hands of our general unfettered.” Then he sat down, and the senators were permitted to vote according to custom. But Hanno insisted that the spoils of war should be at once given up, and also the first breaker of the treaty. Then indeed the senate, as excited as if the enemy were bursting into the temple, sprang up and prayed the gods to turn the evil omen against Latium. But when Fabius perceived the division of opinion, and that their disloyal minds were inclining to war, he could master his resentment no longer; and he demanded a swift decision. When the senate was summoned, he began thus: “I carry war and peace here in my lap; choose which ye will have, and cheat me not by an ambiguous answer.” The angry senators said they would accept neither. Then, as if he were pouring out battle and war enclosed in his arms, “Take war,” he cried, “a fatal war for Libya, and like in its issue to the last” — and therewith he shook loose the folds of his gown. Then he returned to his native city, a harbinger of war.

  While this debate went on in the kingdom of the exile, Elissa, Hannibal swiftly despoiled those tribes whose loyalty was waxing faint as the war dragged on; then, loaded with plunder, he took his army back to the walls of Saguntum.

  But behold! the peoples who dwell by the Atlantic brought gifts to the general. They gave him a shield that glittered with cruel sheen, the work of Gallician craftsmen; a helmet wreathed with flashing plumes, on the height of whose white crest snowy feathers nodded and waved; a sword and a spear that, though it was but one, was to slay its thousands. There was also a cuirass wrought with triple bosses of gold, a defence that no weapon could pierce. This armour was wrought throughout of bronze and tough steel, and covered richly with the gold of the Tagus; and Hannibal surveyed each part of it with joy and triumph in his eyes, and he delighted to see there depicted the beginnings of Carthage.

  Dido was shown building the city of infant Carthage; her men had beached their ships and were busily engaged. Some were enclosing a harbour with piers; to others dwellings were assigned by Bitias, a righteous and venerable old man. Men pointed to the head of a warhorse which they had found in the soil when digging, and hailed the omen with a shout. Amid these scenes Aeneas was shown, robbed of his ships and men and cast up by the sea; with his right hand he made supplication. The hapless queen looked eagerly upon him with unclouded brow and with looks already friendly. Next, the art of Gallicia had fashioned the cave and the secret tryst of the lovers; high rose the shouting and the baying of hounds; and the mounted huntsmen, alarmed by a sudden rainfall, took shelter in the forest. Not far away, the fleet of the Aeneadae had left the shore and was making for the open sea, while Elissa was calling them back in vain. Then Dido by herself was standing wounded on a huge pyre, and charging a later generation of Tyrians to aven
ge her by war; and the Dardan, out at sea, was watching the blazing pile and spreading his sails for his high destiny. On another part of the shield Hannibal prayed at the altars of the nether gods, and, with the Stygian priestess, made a secret libation of blood, and swore to fight against the Aeneadae from his youth up. And old Hamilcar was there, riding proudly over the Sicilian fields; one might think that he was alive and rousing breathless conflict — fire shines in his eyes and his image is grim with menace.