Salammbô | Page 2

cooked in sweet wine,
haunches of she-camels and buffaloes, hedgehogs with garum, fried
grasshoppers, and preserved dormice. Large pieces of fat floated in the
midst of saffron in bowls of Tamrapanni wood. Everything was
running over with wine, truffles, and asafoetida. Pyramids of fruit were
crumbling upon honeycombs, and they had not forgotten a few of those
plump little dogs with pink silky hair and fattened on olive lees,--a
Carthaginian dish held in abhorrence among other nations. Surprise at
the novel fare excited the greed of the stomach. The Gauls with their
long hair drawn up on the crown of the head, snatched at the
water-melons and lemons, and crunched them up with the rind. The
Negroes, who had never seen a lobster, tore their faces with its red
prickles. But the shaven Greeks, whiter than marble, threw the leavings
of their plates behind them, while the herdsmen from Brutium, in their
wolf-skin garments, devoured in silence with their faces in their
portions.
Night fell. The velarium, spread over the cypress avenue, was drawn
back, and torches were brought.
The apes, sacred to the moon, were terrified on the cedar tops by the
wavering lights of the petroleum as it burned in the porphyry vases.
They uttered screams which afforded mirth to the soldiers.
Oblong flames trembled in cuirasses of brass. Every kind of
scintillation flashed from the gem-incrusted dishes. The crateras with
their borders of convex mirrors multiplied and enlarged the images of
things; the soldiers thronged around, looking at their reflections with
amazement, and grimacing to make themselves laugh. They tossed the
ivory stools and golden spatulas to one another across the tables. They
gulped down all the Greek wines in their leathern bottles, the
Campanian wine enclosed in amphoras, the Cantabrian wines brought
in casks, with the wines of the jujube, cinnamomum and lotus. There
were pools of these on the ground that made the foot slip. The smoke of
the meats ascended into the foliage with the vapour of the breath.
Simultaneously were heard the snapping of jaws, the noise of speech,
songs, and cups, the crash of Campanian vases shivering into a

thousand pieces, or the limpid sound of a large silver dish.
In proportion as their intoxication increased they more and more
recalled the injustice of Carthage. The Republic, in fact, exhausted by
the war, had allowed all the returning bands to accumulate in the town.
Gisco, their general, had however been prudent enough to send them
back severally in order to facilitate the liquidation of their pay, and the
Council had believed that they would in the end consent to some
reduction. But at present ill-will was caused by the inability to pay
them. This debt was confused in the minds of the people with the 3200
Euboic talents exacted by Lutatius, and equally with Rome they were
regarded as enemies to Carthage. The Mercenaries understood this, and
their indignation found vent in threats and outbreaks. At last they
demanded permission to assemble to celebrate one of their victories,
and the peace party yielded, at the same time revenging themselves on
Hamilcar who had so strongly upheld the war. It had been terminated
notwithstanding all his efforts, so that, despairing of Carthage, he had
entrusted the government of the Mercenaries to Gisco. To appoint his
palace for their reception was to draw upon him something of the
hatred which was borne to them. Moreover, the expense must be
excessive, and he would incur nearly the whole.
Proud of having brought the Republic to submit, the Mercenaries
thought that they were at last about to return to their homes with the
payment for their blood in the hoods of their cloaks. But as seen
through the mists of intoxication, their fatigues seemed to them
prodigious and but ill-rewarded. They showed one another their
wounds, they told of their combats, their travels and the hunting in their
native lands. They imitated the cries and the leaps of wild beasts. Then
came unclean wagers; they buried their heads in the amphoras and
drank on without interruption, like thirsty dromedaries. A Lusitanian of
gigantic stature ran over the tables, carrying a man in each hand at
arm's length, and spitting out fire through his nostrils. Some
Lacedaemonians, who had not taken off their cuirasses, were leaping
with a heavy step. Some advanced like women, making obscene
gestures; others stripped naked to fight amid the cups after the fashion
of gladiators, and a company of Greeks danced around a vase whereon

nymphs were to be seen, while a Negro tapped with an ox-bone on a
brazen buckler.
Suddenly they heard a plaintive song, a song loud and soft, rising and
falling in the air like the wing-beating of a wounded bird.
It was the voice of the slaves in the