Many even were unwilling to advance further. Others
started back to Carthage.
At last on the seventh day, after following the base of a mountain for a
long time, they turned abruptly to the right, and there then appeared
a line of walls resting on white rocks and blending with them. Suddenly
the entire city rose; blue, yellow, and white veils moved on the walls
in the redness of the evening. These were the priestesses of Tanith,
who had hastened hither to receive the men. They stood ranged along the
rampart, striking tabourines, playing lyres, and shaking crotala, while
the rays of the sun, setting behind them in the mountains of Numidia,
shot between the strings of their lyres over which their naked arms were
stretched. At intervals their instruments would become suddenly still,
and a cry would break forth strident, precipitate, frenzied, continuous,
a sort of barking which they made by striking both corners of the mouth
with the tongue. Others, more motionless than the Sphynx, rested on
their elbows with their chins on their hands, and darted their great
black eyes upon the army as it ascended.
Although Sicca was a sacred town it could not hold such a multitude; the
temple alone, with its appurtenances, occupied half of it. Accordingly
the Barbarians established themselves at their ease on the plain;
those who were disciplined in regular troops, and the rest according to
nationality or their own fancy.
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