The Martyrdom of Man, Winwood Reade [best book club books TXT] 📗

and peace. The destruction of

the fleet was viewed as a slight calamity when death was howling at the

city gates. At last Hamilcar triumphed, and the rebels were cast to the

elephants, who kneaded their bodies with their feet and gored them with

their tusks; and Carthage, exhausted, faint from loss of blood, attempted

to repose.

 

But all was not yet over. The troops that were stationed in Sardinia

rebelled, and Hamilcar prepared to sail with an armament against them.

 

The Romans had acted in the noblest manner towards the Carthaginians

during the civil war. The Italian merchants had been allowed to supply

Carthage with provisions, and had been forbidden to communicate with

the rebels. When the Sardinian troops mutinied they offered the island to

Rome; the city of Utica had also offered itself to Rome, but the Senate

had refused both applications. And now all of a sudden, as if possessed

by an evil spirit, they pretended that the Carthaginian armament had been

prepared against Rome, and declared war. When Carthage, in the last

stage of misery and prostration, prayed for peace in the name of all the

pitiful gods, it was granted. But Rome had been put to some expense on

account of this intended war; they must therefore pay an additional

indemnity, and surrender Corsica and Sardinia. Poor Carthage was made

to bite the dust indeed.

 

Hamilcar Barca was appointed commander-in-chief. He was the

favourite of the people. He had to the last remained unconquered in

Sicily. He had saved the city from the mutineers. His honour was

unstained, his patriotism was pure.

 

In that hour of calamity and shame, when the city was hung with black,

when the spacious docks were empty and bare, when there was woe in

every face and the memory of death in every house, faction was forced to

be silent, and the people were permitted to be heard, and those who loved

their country more than their party rejoiced to see a Man at the head of

affairs. But Hamilcar knew well that he was hated by the leaders of the

government, the politicians by profession, those men who had devoured

the gold which was the very heart of Carthage, and had brought upon her

by their dishonesty this last distressing war; those men who by their

miserable suspicions and intrigues had ever deprived their best generals

of their commands as soon as they began to succeed, and appointed

generals whom they—and the enemy—had no cause to fear. To him was

entrusted by the patriots the office of regenerating Carthage. But how

was it to be done? Without money he was powerless; without money he

could not keep his army together; without money he could not even retain

his command. He had been given it by the people, but the people were

accustomed to be bribed. Gold they must have from the men in power; if

he had none to give they would go to those who had. His enemies he

knew would be able to employ the state revenues against him. What

could he do? Where was the money to be found? He saw before him

nothing but defeat, disgrace, and even an ignominious death—for in

Carthage they sometimes crucified their generals. Often he thought that it

would be better to give up public life, to abandon the corrupt and ruined

city, and to sail to those sweet islands which the Carthaginians had

discovered in the Atlantic Sea. There the earth was always verdant, the

sky was always pure. No fiery sirocco blew, and no cold rain fell in that

delicious land. Odoriferous balm dripped from the branches of the trees;

canary birds sang among the leaves; streams of silver water rippled

downwards to the sea. There Nature was a calm and gentle mother: there

the turmoils of the world might be forgotten; there the weary heart might

be at rest.

 

Yet how could he desert his fatherland in its affliction? To him the nation

turned its sorrowful eyes; on him the people called as men call upon their

gods. At this feet lay the poor, torn, and wounded Carthage—the

Carthage once so beautiful and so strong, the Carthage who had fed him

from her full breast with riches and with power, the Carthage who had

made him what he was. And should he, who had never turned his back

upon her enemies, desert her now?

 

Then a glorious idea flashed in upon his brain. He saw a way of restoring

Carthage to her ancient glory, of making her stronger than she had ever

been, of making her a match for Rome. He announced to the senate that

he intended to take the army to Tangiers to reduce a native tribe which

had caused some trouble in the neighbourhood. He quickly made all

arrangements for the march. A few vessels had been prepared for the

expedition to Sardinia. These were commanded by his brother, and he

ordered that they should be sailed along the coast side by side with the

army as it marched. It might have appeared strange to some persons that

he should require ships to make war against a tribe of Moors on land. But

there was no fear of his enemies suspecting his design. It was so strange

and wild that when it had been actually accomplished they could scarcely

believe that it was real.

 

The night before he marched he went to the Great Temple to offer the

sacrifice of propitiation and entreaty. He took with him his son, a boy

nine years of age. When the libations and other rites were ended and the

victim lay divided on the altar, he ordered the attendants to withdraw. He

remained alone with his son.

 

The temple of Baal was a magnificent building supported by enormous

columns, covered with gold, or formed of a glass-like substance which

began to glitter and sparkle in a curious manner as the night came on.

Around the temple walls were idols representing the Phoenician gods;

prominent among them was the hideous statue of Moloch, with its

downward-sloping hands and the fiery furnace at its feet. There also

might be seen beautiful Greek statues, trophies of the Sicilian

Wars—especially the Diana which the Carthaginians had taken from

Segesta, which was afterwards restored to that city by the Romans, which

Verres placed in his celebrated gallery and Cicero in his celebrated

speech. There also might be seen the famous brazen bull which an

Athenian invented for the amusement of Phalaris. Human beings were

put inside, a fire was lit underneath, and the throat was so contrived that

the shrieks and groans of the victims made the bull bellow as if he was

alive. The first experiment was made by King Phalaris upon the artist,

and the last by the people upon King Phalaris.

 

Hamilcar caressed his son and asked him if he would like to go to the

war; when the boy said yes, and showed much delight, Hamilcar took his

little hands and placed them upon the altar, and made him swear that he

would hate the Romans to his dying day. Long years afterwards, when

that boy was an exile in a foreign land—the most glorious, the most

unfortunate of men—he was accused by his royal host of secretly

intriguing with the Romans. He then related this circumstance, and asked

if it was likely that he would ever be a friend to Rome.

 

Hamilcar marched. The politicians supposed that he was merely engaged

in a third-rate war, and were quite easy in their minds. But one day there

came a courier from Tangiers. He brought tidings which plunged the

whole city in a tumult of wonder and excitement. The three great streets

which led to the market-place were filled with streaming crowds. A

multitude collected round the city hall, in which sat the senators

anxiously deliberating. Women appeared on the roofs of the houses and

bent eagerly over the parapets, while men ran along bawling out the

news. Hamilcar Barca had gone clean off. He was no longer in Africa.

He had crossed the sea. The Tangier expedition was a trick. He had

taken the army right over into Spain, and was fighting with the native

chiefs who had always been the friends and allies of Carthage.

 

By a strange fortuity, Spain was the Peru of the ancient world. The

horrors of the mines in South America, the sufferings of the Indians, were

copied, so to speak, from the early history of the people who inflicted

them. When the Phoenicians first entered the harbours of Andalusia they

found themselves in a land where silver was used as iron. They loaded

their vessel with the precious metal to the water’s edge, cast away their

wooden lead-weighted anchor, and substituted a lump of pure silver in its

stead. Afterwards factories were established, arrangements were made

with the chiefs for the supply of labour, and the mining was conducted on

scientific principles. The Carthaginians succeeded the Phoenicians, and

remained, like them, only on the coast.

 

It was Hamilcar’s design to conquer the whole country, to exact tribute

from the inhabitants, to create a Spanish army. His success was splendid

and complete. The peninsula of Spain became almost entirely a Punic

province. Hamilcar built a city which he called New Carthage—the

Carthagena of modern times—and discovered in its neighbourhood rich

mines of silver-lead which have lately been reopened. He acquired a

private fortune, formed a native army, fed his party at Carthage, and

enriched the treasury of the state. He administered the province nine

years, and then dying, was succeeded by his brother, who, after governing

or reigning a few years, also died. Hannibal, the son of Hamilcar,

became Viceroy of Spain.

 

It appears strange that Rome should so tamely have allowed the

Carthaginians to take Spain. The truth was that the Romans just then had

enough to do to look after their own affairs. The Gauls of Lombardy had

furiously attacked the Italian cities, and had called to their aid the Gauls

who lived beyond the Alps. Before the Romans had beaten off the

barbarians the conquest in Spain had been accomplished. The Romans

therefore accepted the fact, and contented themselves with a treaty by

which the government of Carthage pledged itself not to pass beyond the

Ebro.

 

But Hannibal cared nothing about treaties made at Carthage. As

Hamilcar without orders had invaded Spain, so he without orders invaded

Italy. The expedition of the Gauls had shown him that it was possible to

cross the Alps, and he chose that extraordinary route. The Roman army

was about to embark for Spain, which it was supposed would be the seat

or war, when the news arrived that Hannibal had alighted in Italy with

elephants and cavalry, like a man descending from the clouds.

 

If wars were always decided by individual exploits and pitched battles

Hannibal would have conquered Italy. He defeated the Romans so often

and so thoroughly that at last they found it their best policy not to fight

with him at all. He could do nothing then but sweep over the country

with his Cossack cavalry, plunder, and destroy. It was impossible for him

to take Rome, which was protected by walls strong as rocks and by rocks

steep as walls. When he did march on Rome, encamping within three

miles of the city and raising a panic during an afternoon, it was done

merely as a ruse to draw away the Roman army from the siege of Capua.

But it did not have even that effect. The army before Capua remained

where it was, and another army appeared as if by magic to defend the

city. Rome appeared to be inexhaustible, and so in reality it was.

 

Hannibal knew well that Italy could be conquered only by Italians. So

great a general could never have