In fourteen days he pacified the region comprised between Thouccaber
and Utica, with the towns of Tignicabah, Tessourah, Vacca, and others
further to the west. Zounghar built in the mountains, Assoura celebrated
for its temple, Djeraado fertile in junipers, Thapitis, and Hagour
sent embassies to him. The country people came with their hands full of
provisions, implored his protection, kissed his feet and those of the
soldiers, and complained of the Barbarians. Some came to offer him bags
containing heads of Mercenaries killed, so they said, by themselves, but
which they had cut off corpses; for many had lost themselves in their
flight, and were found dead here and there beneath the olive trees and
among the vines.
On the morrow of his victory, Hamilcar, to dazzle the people, had sent
to Carthage the two thousand captives taken on the battlefield. They
arrived in long companies of one hundred men each, all with their arms
fastened behind their backs with a bar of bronze which caught them at
the nape of the neck, and the wounded, bleeding as they still were,
running also along; horsemen followed them, driving them on with blows
of the whip.
Then there was a delirium of joy! People repeated that there were six
thousand Barbarians killed; the others would not hold out, and the war
was finished; they embraced one another in the streets, and rubbed
the faces of the Pataec Gods with butter and cinnamomum to thank them.
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