Others approached, and the Barbarians recognised some of their former
companions.
The Suffet had proposed to all the captives that they should serve in
his troops. Several had fearlessly refused; and quite resolved neither
to support them nor to abandon them to the Great Council, he had sent
them away with injunctions to fight no more against Carthage. As to
those who had been rendered docile by the fear of tortures, they had
been furnished with the weapons taken from the enemy; and they were now
presenting themselves to the vanquished, not so much in order to seduce
them as out of an impulse of pride and curiosity.
At first they told of the good treatment which they had received from
the Suffet; the Barbarians listened to them with jealousy although they
despised them. Then at the first words of reproach the cowards fell
into a passion; they showed them from a distance their own swords
and cuirasses and invited them with abuse to come and take them. The
Barbarians picked up flints; all took to flight; and nothing more could
be seen on the summit of the mountain except the lance-points projecting
above the edge of the palisades.
Then the Barbarians were overwhelmed with a grief that was heavier than
the humiliation of the defeat. They thought of the emptiness of their
courage, and they stood with their eyes fixed and grinding their teeth.
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