Some were to be seen with parasols in their hands, and
parrots on their shoulders. They had mastiffs, gazelles, and panthers
following behind them. Women of Libyan race, mounted on asses, inveighed
against the Negresses who had forsaken the lupanaria of Malqua for the
soldiers; many of them were suckling children suspended on their bosoms
by leathern thongs. The mules were goaded out at the point of the sword,
their backs bending beneath the load of tents, while there were numbers
of serving-men and water-carriers, emaciated, jaundiced with fever,
and filthy with vermin, the scum of the Carthaginian populace, who had
attached themselves to the Barbarians.
When they had passed, the gates were shut behind them, but the people
did not descend from the walls. The army soon spread over the breadth of
the isthmus.
It parted into unequal masses. Then the lances appeared like tall blades
of grass, and finally all was lost in a train of dust; those of the
soldiers who looked back towards Carthage could now only see its long
walls with their vacant battlements cut out against the edge of the sky.
Then the Barbarians heard a great shout. They thought that some from
among them (for they did not know their own number) had remained in the
town, and were amusing themselves by pillaging a temple.
Pages:
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42