“Most unequal is the conflict. The men who reared these towers and moistened with their blood these battlements are not; in their stead has come a race of petty shopkeepers and sycophants, having no inner life, no haughty purpose or generous resolve, no strength to keep what their forefathers won. The streets are thronged with youths whose dainty limbs are clad in flowing and embroidered robes, whose jewelled fingers are skilful to touch the lyre, but not to press the war-horse through ranks of thronging spearmen, to draw the Numidian arrow to the head, and dip its thirsty point in hostile blood. The rest are veterans gray with years, and most unfit for service, like the shepherd’s dog that, stiff with age and pampered with good living, erects his hair and shows his toothless jaws, making in vain a noble front before the gaunt and wiry wolf.
“Our only hope is in the legions I have drawn from Spain, and trained in foreign wars to conflict. But my step, once lighter than the brindled tigers on the Libyan sands, grows heavy with weight of years and hardships. Were I to fall, armies would lack a leader, my country one who loves her better than himself, or wife, or child. But the blood that mantles in this boy’s cheek is that of heroes; thine ancestors and mine were chieftains of the olden time; and when the lion shall breed sheep will I believe that any of our race and lineage can ever fail their country in her hour of need. Therefore, despite thy tears, mine own affection, and his tender age, from off thy bosom will I take this child and as the lion brings his whelps afield with claws half-grown and trains them on the hunters, so will I him. It is not what we choose, but what our country needs, and sacred liberty requires, that we must do, though in the conflict our own heartstrings break. He shall be the enemy of Rome in soul and body and in secret thought. He shall not feed on dainties and sleep on Tyrian purple till he becomes the object of men’s sneers. The panther’s shaggy hide, the forest leaves, the dry bed of some mountain brook, shall be his couch, while on my corselet scales his cheek shall rest,—the soldier’s iron pillow; and when with growing strength and hardihood his bones endure the harness, behind his father’s buckler he shall learn to fight and bathe his maiden sword in blood.”
At the altar of Mars, surrounded by a vast throng of citizens, soldiery, and chief estates of the realm, stands Hamilcar; his helmet down conceals his features from the crowd. On the opposite side of the altar are his wife and her maidens; at his side the child. Placing his little fingers on the yet quivering flesh of the victim, he said: “Hannibal, son of Hamilcar, swear, by this consecrated blood, and in the presence of that dread God of battles on whose altar it smokes, that you will neither love nor make peace with any of Roman blood; should fortune, friends, and weapons fail, you will still live and die the inexorable enemy of Rome.”
As he paused, the clear tones of that childish voice, answering, “I swear,” rose upon a stillness so deep that the low crackling of the flames that fed the altar-fires were distinctly audible.
It was broken by one wild shriek of agony, as the frantic mother fell fainting into the arms of her maidens.
The stern chieftain spake not, but, as he stooped to raise the child, a single tear, falling between the bars of his helmet upon the upturned face of the wondering boy, told of the agony within.
PERICLES TO THE PEOPLE
Imagine yourself at Athens, among that strange people of feverish blood, who deify to-day the man they slaughtered but yesterday. The voice of the herald proclaims that Pericles is to be arraigned before the tribunal of the people. Borne along by the crowd, you enter the hall of justice. Not a sword rattles in its scabbard; not a mailed foot rings on the marble floor; one deep, intense, ominous silence pervades that dangerous assembly, as Pericles, rising, thus addresses them:—