These, with their big eyes, their big bodies, and their arms raised as
high as the shoulder, seemed to live beneath their freshened paint, and
to participate in the cheerfulness of the people. The rich left their
doors open; the city resounded with the noise of the timbrels; the
temples were illuminated every night, and the servants of the goddess
went down to Malqua and set up stages of sycamore-wood at the corners
of the cross-ways, and prostituted themselves there. Lands were voted to
the conquerors, holocausts to Melkarth, three hundred gold crowns to the
Suffet, and his partisans proposed to decree to him new prerogatives and
honours.
He had begged the Ancients to make overtures to Autaritus for exchanging
all the Barbarians, if necessary, for the aged Gisco, and the other
Carthaginians detained like him. The Libyans and Nomads composing the
army under Autaritus knew scarcely anything of these Mercenaries, who
were men of Italiote or Greek race; and the offer by the Republic of so
many Barbarians for so few Carthaginians, showed that the value of the
former was nothing and that of the latter considerable. They dreaded a
snare. Autaritus refused.
Then the Ancients decreed the execution of the captives, although the
Suffet had written to them not to put them to death.
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