This great Carthage, mistress of the
seas, splendid as the sun, and terrible as a god, actually found men
who were daring enough to attack her! Her fall even had been asserted
several times; and all had believed it for all wished it: the subject
populations, the tributary villages, the allied provinces, the
independent hordes, those who execrated her for her tyranny or were
jealous of her power, or coveted her wealth. The bravest had very
speedily joined the Mercenaries. The defeat at the Macaras had checked
all the rest. At last they had recovered confidence, had gradually
advanced and approached; and now the men of the eastern regions were
lying on the sandhills of Clypea on the other side of the gulf. As soon
as they perceived the Barbarians they showed themselves.
They were not Libyans from the neighbourhood of Carthage, who had long
composed the third army, but nomads from the tableland of Barca, bandits
from Cape Phiscus and the promontory of Dernah, from Phazzana and
Marmarica. They had crossed the desert, drinking at the brackish wells
walled in with camels' bones; the Zuaeces, with their covering of
ostrich feathers, had come on quadrigae; the Garamantians, masked with
black veils, rode behind on their painted mares; others were mounted on
asses, onagers, zebras, and buffaloes; while some dragged after them the
roofs of their sloop-shaped huts together with their families and
idols.
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