We arrived here after a very tiresome voyage. I will not tire you with the details, which are numerous and technical. The net result is that the local physician says I cannot proceed with my journey until I am thoroughly rested. This spot is pleasant, but the only society I have is that of poor dear Calypso. She means well and is most hospitable, but you can imagine how vexed I am by this delay and the intolerable tedium of this enforced repose. Kiss Telemachus from me.
Your loving husband,
Odysseus.
Clytaemnestra to Aegisthus
I am sending this by runner. Come back directly. I expect Agamemnon any moment. The bonfires are already visible. Please bring a good strong net and a sharp axe with you. I will explain when you arrive. I have quite decided that half measures are out of the question.
C.
WITH THE CARTHAGINIAN FLEET, 216 B.C.
Letter from a Carthaginian Civilian to a Friend in Carthage
On Board the Hamilcar Barca,
Sardinia.
My dear Gisco,
It is now five weeks that we have been in this place, and we shall have to stay here until the “battering practice” is over. We have already got through our “rammers’ test.” I do not think it is a bad place myself, and most of the people seem to prefer it to Thule, where they spent the whole summer, except Mago our physician, who cannot endure either the Romans or the Sardinians, and who is longing to get back to the glittering quays and the broad market-places of Carthage. It is true that the Sardinians are a thievish race, and they seldom, if ever, speak the truth; moreover, they trade on the honesty and the good nature of our people, and our unfamiliarity with their various and uncouth jargons. For instance, a favourite plan of theirs is this: many of them gain their living by the catching of lobsters, which they send by Ostia to Rome to supply the banquets of the rich patricians of that city. One such fisherman came to the captain of our vessel with the following complaint: He professed that for many weeks he had toiled and caught a great number of lobsters; these lobsters, he said, he was keeping against the feasts of the Saturnalia at Rome, in a large wicker basket not far from the shore; and that some of our men having gone ashore in one of our swift and brass-prowed boats, had in the darkness of twilight collided with his wicker basket and caused the escape of many hundreds of live lobsters, for which loss he demanded a compensation amounting to two hundred talents. On consulting the Roman Magistrate of the place we learnt that this fisherman made a similar demand from every ship which visited the bay; moreover, that he had caught but one lobster. So although he reduced his demand to the eighth of one talent, it was refused to him.