The same thought came to them all. They rushed tumultuously upon the
Carthaginian prisoners. It chanced that the Suffet's soldiers had been
unable to discover them, and as he had withdrawn from the field of
battle they were still in the deep pit.
They were ranged on the ground on a flattened spot. Sentries formed a
circle round them, and the women were allowed to enter thirty or forty
at a time. Wishing to profit by the short time that was allowed to them,
they ran from one to the other, uncertain and panting; then bending over
the poor bodies they struck them with all their might like washerwomen
beating linen; shrieking their husband's names they tore them with their
nails and put out their eyes with the bodkins of their hair. The men
came next and tortured them from their feet, which they cut off at the
ankles, to their foreheads, from which they took crowns of skin to put
upon their own heads. The Eaters of Uncleanness were atrocious in their
devices. They envenomed the wounds by pouring into them dust, vinegar,
and fragments of pottery; others waited behind; blood flowed, and they
rejoiced like vintagers round fuming vats.
Matho, however, was seated on the ground, at the very place where he had
happened to be when the battle ended, his elbows on his knees, and his
temples in his hands; he saw nothing, heard nothing, and had ceased to
think.
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