After the first Punic war, the Roman ladies, in order to win back their husbands and lovers from these fascinating foreign belles, did all in their power to make their own charms correspond with the charms of the Carthaginian beauties. They coloured their locks with saffron, tied raw flesh to their skins at night, and heightened the colour of their lips with red salve. But Nature had given all these things gratis to the Carthaginian beauties. Art could not supply those long golden locks from which they manufactured bow-strings in the hour of their country's mortal agony; or those voluptuous supple limbs which bled beneath the weapons of Rome in the last evil hour of Carthage.
Byssenia, Bar Noemi's bride, was one of these beauties. Her father was satisfied with the marriage gift which Bar Noemi brought his daughter; merchants always regard it as a great point to have the question of dower settled before the conclusion of the match.
And Bar Noemi was much more than a mere rich man. He was a handsome man, and valiant and haughty to boot, a man who never humbly bowed his head, and thought it a shame to cast down his eyes before any one. He was wont to say that no one had a keener glance than the lightning, or a more terrible manner of speech than the raging sea, and these he had long ago learnt to defy.
His acquaintances and all the great men of the city assembled on his wedding-day at the house of the bride's father, while the Carthaginian damsels led the bride into the grove of Astarte, that she might bathe for the first time in the sacred spring whence she was to be led to the altar of the goddess, there to be united to the bridegroom. When, however, it came to the bridegroom's turn, according to Phœnician custom, to offer to the gods of wood and stone the sacrifices which they demand from all men, Bar Noemi, to every one's astonishment, answered: "Our God is Jehovah," and refused to bring any offering to the idol.
The elders and high priests were much offended by these bold words, and conferred together in whispers as to what they should do with the audacious stranger.
First they led him into the halls of Astarte, whom the people adored in the shape of a beautiful woman in white marble. They showed him the mysteries of the ritual devoted to the Goddess of Love, the sweet, seductive secrets which confound the human soul, the sense-bereaving, voluptuous shapes which, under various names, have found worshippers in all ages down to the latest times.
Bar Noemi hastily turned away his eyes from the captivating sight, and stammered: "Jehovah is our God."
Shaking their heads, the elders and high priests proceeded further, and led Bar Noemi into the temple of the great and glistening god Dagon, resplendent with gold and silver, where the molten image of the God of Riches sits in a ship of mother-o'-pearl, laden with pearls and precious stones, and swimming in a basin of quicksilver instead of water. Then they represented to Bar Noemi that even if he would not bow before the magic of Love, he might well bend the knee before the terrible symbol of Riches, for the mighty Dagon grants wealth and dominion to them who honour him.
Bar Noemi looked contemptuously at the treasures lying at his feet, and answered boldly: "Our God is Jehovah."
The elders and high priests exchanged angry glances, and led him next to the temple of the war god Remphan, which rested on copper columns. The idol itself was of dark, molten bronze; at its feet lay heaps and heaps of broken weapons and armour, the trophies of battles won by the Carthaginians, as well as the prows of those ships which had been captured in naval victories.