The Ancients felt themselves relieved of a great anxiety, when he
left Carthage. The people had received him with even more enthusiastic
acclamations than on the first occasion. If Hamilcar and the King of the
Numidians triumphed alone over the Mercenaries it would be impossible
to resist them. To weaken Barca they therefore resolved to make the aged
Hanno, him whom they loved, a sharer in the deliverance of Carthage.
He proceeded immediately towards the western provinces, to take his
vengeance in the very places which had witnessed his shame. But the
inhabitants and the Barbarians were dead, hidden, or fled. Then his
anger was vented upon the country. He burnt the ruins of the ruins, he
did not leave a single tree nor a blade of grass; the children and the
infirm, that were met with, were tortured; he gave the women to his
soldiers to be violated before they were slaughtered.
Often, on the crests of the hills, black tents were struck as though
overturned by the wind, and broad, brilliantly bordered discs, which
were recognised as being chariot-wheels, revolved with a plaintive sound
as they gradually disappeared in the valleys. The tribes, which had
abandoned the siege of Carthage, were wandering in this way through the
provinces, waiting for an opportunity, or for some victory to be gained
by the Mercenaries, in order to return.
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