"Keep on sacrificing!" laughed Spendius.
Matho, who could not understand such indifference, suspected the Greek
of having a genius of whom he did not speak.
All modes of worship, as well as all races, were to be met with in these
armies of Barbarians, and consideration was had to the gods of others,
for they too, inspired fear. Many mingled foreign practices with their
native religion. It was to no purpose that they did not adore the stars;
if a constellation were fatal or helpful, sacrifices were offered to
it; an unknown amulet found by chance at a moment of peril became
a divinity; or it might be a name and nothing more, which would be
repeated without any attempt to understand its meaning. But after
pillaging temples, and seeing numbers of nations and slaughters, many
ultimately ceased to believe in anything but destiny and death;--and
every evening these would fall asleep with the placidity of wild beasts.
Spendius had spit upon the images of Jupiter Olympius; nevertheless he
dreaded to speak aloud in the dark, nor did he fail every day to put on
his right boot first.
He reared a long quadrangular terrace in front of Utica, but in
proportion as it ascended the rampart was also heightened, and what was
thrown down by the one side was almost immediately raised again by the
other.
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