Carthage was agitated with funereal delirium. From the depths of
the narrowest lanes, and the blackest dens, there issued pale faces,
men with viper-like profiles and grinding their teeth. The houses were
filled with the women's piercing shrieks, which, escaping through the
gratings, caused those who stood talking in the squares to turn round.
Sometimes it was thought that the Barbarians were arriving; they had
been seen behind the mountain of the Hot Springs; they were encamped at
Tunis; and the voices would multiply and swell, and be blended into one
single clamour. Then universal silence would reign, some remaining where
they had climbed upon the frontals of the buildings, screening their
eyes with their open hand, while the rest lay flat on their faces at the
foot of the ramparts straining their ears. When their terror had passed
off their anger would begin again. But the conviction of their own
impotence would soon sink them into the same sadness as before.
It increased every evening when all ascended the terraces, and bowing
down nine times uttered a loud cry in salutation of the sun, as it
sank slowly behind the lagoon, and then suddenly disappeared among the
mountains in the direction of the Barbarians.
They were waiting for the thrice holy festival when, from the summit
of a funeral pile, an eagle flew heavenwards as a symbol of the
resurrection of the year, and a message from the people to their Baal;
they regarded it as a sort of union, a method of connecting themselves
with the might of the Sun.
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