Hannibal's daughter

by Andrew Haggard

Turning back again and looking to the north and north-west, Hannibal saw stretching before him the whole noble City of Carthage, of which his father’s palace formed one of the most southern buildings within the sea wall. Close at hand were various other palaces, with gardens well irrigated and producing every kind of delicious fruit and beautiful flower to delight the palate or the eye. Here waved in the breeze the feathery date palm, the oleander with its wealth of pink blossom, the dark-green and shining pomegranate tree with its glorious crimson flowers. Further, the fig, the peach tree, the orange, the lemon, and the narrow-leaved pepper tree gave umbrageous shelter to the winding garden walks. Over the cunningly-devised summer-houses hung great clusters of blue convolvulus or the purple bourgainvillia, while along the borders of plots of vines gleaming with brilliant verdure, clustered, waist-high, crimson geraniums and roses in the richest profusion. Between these palaces lay stretched out the double harbour for the merchant ships and war ships, a canal forming the entrance to the one, and both being connected with each other. The harbour for the merchant ships was oblong in shape, and was within a stone’s throw of the balcony upon which the boy was standing. The inner harbour was perfectly circular, and surrounded by a fortification; and around its circumference were one hundred and twenty sets of docks, the gates of each of which were adorned with beautiful Ionic pillars of purest marble.

In the centre of this cup, or cothon as it was called, there was an island, upon which was reared a stately marble residence for the admiral in charge of the dockyards, and numerous workshops for the shipwrights. All were designed and built with a view to beauty as well as utility.

For that day only, the clang of hammers had ceased to be heard, and all was still in the dockyards, for there was high holiday and festival throughout the whole length and breadth of the City of Carthage on the glad occasion of the intended execution, by fire, of Matho and the remaining rebels who had not fallen by the sword in the last fight at Tunis.

Just beyond the war harbour, there was a large open place called the Agora, and a little beyond and to the left of it Hannibal could descry the Forum placed on a slight elevation. It was a noble building, surrounded by a stately colonnade of pillars, the capitals of which were ornamented in the strictly Carthaginian style, which seemed to combine the acanthus plant decoration of the Corinthian capital, with the ram’s horn curves of the Ionic style. Between the pillars there stood the most beautiful works of art, statues of Parian marble ravished in the Sicilian wars, or gilded figures of cunning workmanship of Apollo, Neptune, or the Goddess Artemis, being the spoils of Macedon or imported from Tyre. The roof of the Forum was constructed of beautiful cedar beams from Lebanon, sent as a present by the rulers of Tyre to their daughter city, and no pains or expense had been spared to make the noble building, if not equal in grandeur, at any rate only second in its glorious manufacture to the magnificent temple of Solomon, itself constructed for the great king by Tyrian and Sidonian workmen.

A couple of miles away to the left could be seen the enormous triple fortification stretching across the level isthmus which connected Carthage, its heights and promontories, with the mainland. This wall enclosed the Megara or suburbs, rich with the country houses of the wealthy merchant princes. It was forty-five feet high, and its vaulted foundations afforded stabling for a vast number of elephants. It reached from sea to sea, and completely protected Carthage on the land side. Between the city proper and this wall beyond the Megara, everywhere could be seen groves of olive trees in richest profusion, while between them and the frequent intervening palaces, were to be observed either waving fields of ripening golden corn, or carefully cultivated vegetable gardens, well supplied with running streams of water from the great aqueduct which brought the water to the city from the mountains of Zaghouan sixty miles away.

To the north of the Forum and beyond the Great Place, the city stretched upwards, the width of the city proper, between the sea and the suburbs, being only about a mile or a mile and a half. It sloped upwards to the summit of the hill of the Byrsa or Citadel, hence the boy Hannibal, from his position on the sea level in rear of the harbours, was able to take in, not only the whole magnificent coup d’œil of palaces and temples, but also that of the high and precipitous hill forming Cape Carthage, which lay beyond it to the north, whose curved and precipitous cliffs enclosed on the eastern side a glittering bay, wherein were anchored many vessels of merchandise.

The summit of this mountain was, like the suburbs of the Megara to the west of the city, studded with the rich country dwellings of the luxurious and ease-loving inhabitants of Carthage.

But it was not on the distant suburbs that the lad fixed his eager gaze, it was on the gleaming city of palaces itself. Here, close at hand on the right, he could see the temple of Apollo with its great golden image of the god, gleaming between the open columns in the morning sun. Further away appeared the mighty and fortified buildings of the temple of Ashmon or Æsculapius. To the left of the city the fanes of Neptune, Diana, and Astarte glittered in the sun, while occupying the absolute centre of the town, and standing apart in a large and now crowded open space, was clearly visible the huge circular temple of the awful Sun god—Saturn, Baal Hammon, or Moloch. The drums and trumpets loudly sounding from the vicinity of this temple, and the wreaths of smoke winding up between the triple domes plated with solid gold, told that the terrible sacrifices had already begun. Indeed, the yells of execration of the myriads of brightly-robed populace, most of them women, as victim after victim was dragged forward by the priests and thrown upon the dreadful sloping arms of the god, a sight Hannibal could easily observe between the rows of columns, often nearly drowned the blare of the trumpets and the rolling of the drums.

Well, indeed, might they scream, these women of Carthage, for owing to the cruelties and massacres of those upon whom they were now wreaking their vengeance, all who had been their husbands or lovers were gone. There were now scarcely any men left. Thus they saw themselves condemned either to a perpetual virginity, with no hopes of ever knowing the joys of motherhood, or fated at the best to a share with many other women in the household of some rich and elderly noble, since polygamy had been recently decreed as a means of repopulating the State. All the young men remaining alive, Hamilcar had enrolled in his army, and although a few of the more luxurious and ease-loving might leave him and remain in Carthage, that army was, so rumour said, about to start with him and the flower of Carthaginian manhood for unknown battle-fields, whence it was improbable that they would ever return. Thus, the older women screamed and yelled with fury at the loss of husbands or sons, and the young women screamed with rage at the loss of the once possible husbands, who never had been and never could be theirs. Yet, all alike, having put off their mourning for the day, were gaily attired for joy at the burning alive of their enemies. They had even adorned their raven locks with the brilliant crimson flowers of the pomegranate, as red as their own red lips, or the blood which had been shed in torrents by Spendius and Matho, and which was again to flow that very day on this joyful occasion of revenge.

Leading from the harbours and the Great Place up through the town to all these temples were three streets—the Vicus Salutaris, on the right, leading to the temple of Æsculapius; the Vicus Satyrnis, in the centre, leading to the great brazen god Moloch; and to the left, the Vicus Venerea or Venus Street, leading to the temple of the Carthaginian Venus and Juno in one; Tanais, Tanith, or Astarte, the Goddess of Love and the Queen of Heaven combined. These last two streets swept round on either side of the hill of the Byrsa or Citadel, and it was on this hill that the eye of the youthful Hannibal chiefly rested, for within and above its walls he could see on the summit of the hill the temple of Melcareth, the unknown and invisible god of whom no image had ever been made. Melcareth was the great Spirit of life and the protector of his father, before whom he was to register his vow.