When Himilco saw them coming up to take him on his left flank, with orders to use their rams, he quickly put up a prayer to the gods of the sea and took a feathered arrow and laid it duly against the taut string. Then he measured with the eye the distance of the enemy and showed its path to the arrow, and, relaxing his extended arms, stood watching its flight through the sky till it struck its mark. A steersman was sitting by the stern, and the arrow pinned his hand to the helm; and the hand could no longer steer the ship but stuck lifeless to the guiding tiller. The crew ran up to help him, thinking their vessel already taken, when, lo, a second arrow, shot from the same string with the same success, passed between the crowd of sailors and pierced Taurus, when he was about to take charge of the masterless helm.
On there came a ship of Cumae, with Corbulo for captain, and manned by a chosen crew from the strand of Stabiae; Dione of the Lucrine lake stood on the high poop as guardian-goddess. But the ship, fighting at too close quarters beneath a shower of missiles from above, settled down in mid-sea, parting the waves asunder. The foaming sea stifled the cries of the sailors, and their helpless hands, drawn down by the deep, stuck up on the surface, as they struggled to swim. Then, emboldened by wrath, Corbulo, with one great leap, covered the distance and boarded a wooden tower, which two triremes, bound together with iron clamps, had brought alongside. He climbed up the stages of the tower, and from the top brandished a blazing torch of split pine-wood. From there he rained down on the stern-ornaments of the Carthaginian ship fatal fires fed with pitch; and the wind added strength to his missiles.
The plague of fire made its way in at every point and spread till it filled all the decks. In the confusion the upper banks of oarsmen ceased to row; but in that emergency the news of their danger had not yet reached the lower benches. Soon the spreading blaze, moving on by means of fire-brands oozing resin, crackled with victorious flames in the hold. Still, where the heat was less fierce and the Roman fire-brands had not yet penetrated, Himilco stood, keeping off the foe with a dreadful hail of stones and delaying the doom of his ship. Here the hapless Cydnus, while swinging a fire-brand, was struck by a huge stone from the hand of Lycchaeus; his body rolled over the benches slippery with blood and fell into the water; the fire-brand hissed in the glowing sea, and the stench of it poisoned the air around. Then Sabratha, in rage, hurled his swift spear; but first he prayed to the gods on the stern; Ammon, the native god of Libya, was the guardian of the vessel, and sat there looking over the sea, wearing the horns on his brow. “O Father, O Prophet of the Garamantes,” he cried: “help us in the hour of disaster, and grant that my weapon may find its mark in a Roman!” While he spoke thus, the spear-shaft sped on with quivering flight and pierced the head of Telon, a dweller by the sea.
But none the less fiercely fought those who, at death’s door, had squeezed themselves in headlong flight into that part of the ship which alone was untouched by the fire; but there was no escape from it. It devoured every obstacle with lightning speed and caught the whole ship and wrapt it in triumphant flames. Himilco was the first to leave the vessel: at a point where the fire-god’s hellish heat was not yet at its height, he slipped down, half burnt, to the water by help of a cable, and was rowed away by friendly oars. Next, the pitiful death of Bato deprived the deserted ship of her navigator. Great skill had he to battle with the angry sea and outsail the tempest. He also knew beforehand what the North-wind and the South portended for the morrow; nor could the Little Bear, however obscured its movements, escape his sleepless eyes. When he saw there was no limit to disaster, he cried out to his god: “Ammon, who lookest idly on at our cruel defeat, to thee I offer my blood.” Then he drove his sword into his own breast, and, catching in his hand the blood that flowed from it, poured it in abundance between the horns of the deity.
Among the crew was Daphnis, ill-fated Daphnis, a name famous in ancient times; he had thought fit to leave his woodland glades and give up his country home for the treacherous sea. But how much greater the fame gained by his ancestor who was content with a shepherd’s life! The Sicilian Muses loved Daphnis; Apollo favoured him and gave him the shepherd’s pipe from Castalia, and bade the brooks keep silence and the happy flocks to hasten over meadow and field to hear Daphnis, whenever he lay on the grass and sang. When he played on his pipe of seven reeds and charmed the trees, the Siren never sent forth her wonted song over the sea at the same time; Scylla’s dogs were silent, black Charybdis was motionless, and the Cyclops on his rocky heights loved to hear the joyful strain. Now his descendant, bearing a name so dear, was swallowed up by the flames.
Behold hardy Ornytus, who swims on above the smoking benches and by swimming inflicts on himself a lingering death; even so the son of Oileus, when struck by Minerva’s lightning, stemmed the rising waves with arms on fire. Sciron, a Marmarid, while rising on a wave, was run through the body by the powerful beak of a ship. Half his body was under water, and half above it; and this was carried all over the sea — a piteous sight — fastened in death upon the metal beak. Both fleets now increased their speed, and the rowers’ faces, as they sped on, were spattered with a bloody dew from the splashing oars. The Roman commander’s ship itself was propelled by six banks of oars, and its stalwart rowers made it move faster than the wind. When Lilaeus quickly caught hold of it and tried to stop it, his -wrists were severed by a merciless axe, and the ship flew on, with his hands still sticking to the gunwale.
Podaetus, a native of Aeolia, was borne on a Sicilian vessel. He had not yet attained the years of manhood and was still unripe for glory in arms; but he was led on, either by his eager spirit and passion for war, or by evil fortune; and, still a boy, he wielded a painted shield with his snow-white arm, and rejoiced to ruffle the sea with his tall ship, the Chimaera. On he went triumphant, outstripping Roman ships and Carthaginian alike, having better oarsmen and better archers. Already he had sunk the turret-ship, Nessus; but, alas, the tiro was tempted to ruin by his first taste of glory. While he prayed to Heaven in his rash folly that he might strip the general, Marcellus, of his armour and menacing helmet-plume, an answering spear-cast dealt him a deadly wound. Alas for so splendid a youth! Whether he hurled on high the shining discus, or threw the javelin above the clouds, or ran with flying feet that skimmed over the course, or covered with one swift leap a vast stretch of measured ground — each competition became him. There was enough, quite enough, of glory and praise to be won in bloodless strife: why was the lad ambitious of greater deeds? When he fell, and the fatal weapon sank him beneath the wave and cheated his sea-tossed bones of a grave in Syracuse, he was mourned by the straits and the rocks of the Cyclopes; Cyane and the river Anapus and Ortygian Arethusa wept for him.
Elsewhere the Perseus, commanded by Tiberinus, and the Io which carried the Carthaginian Crantor, met in conflict. The two ships stood motionless for battle, bound together by iron clamps launched from both decks. Their weapons were not javelins or arrows shot from a distance; they fought, as if on land, with the sword and at close quarters. The Romans burst their way in, at a point where a passage was opened and made clear by the first slaughter; but one man urged his comrades to burst the heavy chains and fetters of iron; and, when the ship was set free, he intended to carry off those who had boarded the hostile craft and to put the sea between them and their fellows. This was Polyphemus; he had been reared in a cave of Mount Etna, and hence he loved a name that recalled the ferocity of ancient times; a she-wolf had suckled him in infancy; his great stature and huge frame inspired awe; his heart was cruel, and his eyes flashed anger continually; and a blood-lust worthy of the Cyclopes filled his breast. By strength of limb he had burst the chains and started the ship; he dipped his oars and would have pulled the vessel along, had not the spear of Laronius, hastily hurled, pinned him fast to the wooden thwart, as he rose with effort to his oar. His purpose was hardly arrested by death; for his dying hand still went through the familiar motions and pulled the useless oar over the surface of the water.
Th
e discomfited Carthaginians crowded together, in wedge-shaped formation, into that side of their ship that was free from the enemy; but she gave way under the sudden weight, the sea rushed in, and the Io sank beneath the wave. Shields and helmets float on the water, images of tutelary gods and javelins with useless points. One man, having no steel, uses a broken piece of wood for a weapon and arms himself afresh with fragments of shipwreck; another, with misguided zeal, hastens to rob his vessel of its oars; and some tear up indiscriminately the rowers’ benches and hurl them at the enemy. Neither helm nor prow was spared: each was broken up to use as a weapon; and floating missiles were picked up, to use again. The water found its way into gaping wounds, and soon, expelled by the sobbing breath of the wounded men, poured back into the sea. Some grappled with a foe in close embrace and drowned him; lacking weapons, they died themselves that they might kill their enemies. Those who emerged from the water grew more savage, and were resolved to use the sea as their weapon; and at last the sea-tossed corpses were swallowed up by the blood-stained eddies. There was shouting on one side, and, on the other, groaning and death and flight, and the snapping of oars mingled with the noise of clashing beaks. The sea boiled beneath the storm of battle; and Himilco, worn out by disaster, stole away in a little boat and fled in haste towards the coast of Africa.
At last the Greeks and Carthaginians retreated to the land; and soon their captive ships were towed ashore in long procession, while others, lit up with flames, still kept the sea. The fire blazed over the shining water, and the sea rippled with the quivering reflection. Among the burning ships was the Cyane, well known to those waters, and the winged Siren; Europa too, who rode on the back of Jove disguised as a snow-white bull, and grasped one horn as she moved over the water; and the watery Nereid with floating hair, who drove a curving dolphin over the deep with dripping rein; the sea-traversing Python was burnt, and horn-crowned Ammon, and the vessel that bore the likeness of Tyrian Dido and was propelled by six banks of oars. The Anapus, on the other hand, was towed to her native shore, and the Pegasus who raised to heaven his wings born of the Gorgon; and other ships were carried captive — that which bore the likeness of Libya, and the Triton, and Etna of the rocky peaks, the pyre that covers living Enceladus, and Sidon, the city of Cadmus.
The citizens were terrified by this defeat, and Marcellus would have been able at once to burst through the walls and lead his eagles against the temples of the gods, had not a sore pestilence and cruel plague, caused by the ill-will of heaven and the fight at sea, suddenly infected the air and robbed the wretched Romans of this triumph. The goldenhaired Sun filled the air with fervent heat, and infected with the deadly stench of Cocytus the water of Cyane which spreads far and wide into a stagnant fen; he marred the kindly gifts of autumn and burnt them up with swift lightning-flames. The air was thick and smoky and dark with vapours; the earth was hot and dry, and its surface was marred by the heat; it yielded no food, and no shade for the sick; and a gloomy mist hung in the pitch-black sky. The dogs were first to feel the mischief; next the birds flagged in their flight and dropped down from the black clouds; and then the beasts of the forest were laid low. Soon the infernal plague spread further, depopulating the camp and devouring the soldiers. Their tongues were parched; a cold sweat issued from the vital parts and poured down from the shivering frame; and the dry throat refused a passage to the nourishment prescribed. The lungs were shaken by a hard cough, and the breath of the thirsting sufferers came forth from their panting mouths as hot as fire. The sunken eyes could hardly endure the burden of light; the nose fell in; matter mixed with blood was vomited, and the wasted body was mere skin and bone. Alas for the warrior famous for feats of war and now carried off by an ignoble death! Noble trophies earned in many a fight were cast upon the funeral-pyre. The healing art was baffled by the disease. The ashes of the dead were heaped up till they formed a great pile. And all round lay corpses, unattended and unburied; for men feared to touch the infectious limbs. The deadly plague, growing by what it fed on, spread further and shook the walls of Syracuse with mourning as grievous and made the Carthaginians suffer no less than the Roman army. The wrath of heaven fell with equal destruction upon both sides, and the same image of death was present everywhere.
Yet, so long as Marcellus lived, no cruel visitation of calamity could break the spirit of the Romans, and the safety of that single life among such heaps of dead atoned for their sufferings. Therefore, as soon as the fierce Dog-star cooled its pestilential heat and the devouring plague became less infectious, then, even as the fisherman rows his boat out to sea, when the wind is still and the deep at rest, so at last Marcellus armed his men, snatched from the clutch of disease, and purified the ranks with due sacrifices. Eagerly they gathered round the standards, and breathed freely when they heard the blare of the trumpets. They march to the attack; and, if fate so ordain it, they are glad that the chance of dying by the sword in battle is not denied them; and they pity their comrades who died like sheep and met an ignoble death, drawing their last breath on their dark barrack-beds. Looking back at the grave-mounds of the unhonoured dead, they feel that even to lie unburied is better than to be conquered by disease. Marcellus went first and hurried the lofty standards forward against the walls. Behind their helmets they hid faces emaciated by sickness, and concealed their unhealthy colour, that the enemy might conceive no hopes from it. With speed they pour a host over the shattered walls, and rush on in close order; all those impregnable buildings and all those forts were taken by a single armed assault.
In all the earth round which the Sun drives his chariot no city at that time could rival Syracuse. So many temples had she, so many harbours within the walls; market-places also, and theatres raised up on lofty pillars, and piers that strove with the sea, and an endless succession of palaces whose spaciousness defied the competition of country-houses. Then there were spaces devoted to athletic contests of youth, enclosed by a long vista of far-stretching colonnades; and many lofty buildings adorned with the beaks of captured ships; and armour fixed on temple-walls, either taken from the Athenian enemy or brought across the sea from conquered Libya. Here stood a building adorned with the trophies won by Agathocles, and there was displayed the peaceful wealth of Hiero; and here the handiwork of famous artists was consecrated by antiquity. Nowhere in that age was the art of the painter more splendid; Syracuse had no desire to import bronzes from Corinth; and her tapestry, wrought with ruddy gold and reproducing in the woof living likenesses of men, might rival the fabrics wrought by the shuttles of Babylon or by Tyre that prides herself on her embroidered purple; it might match the intricate patterns worked by the needle on the hangings of Attalus or the woven stuffs of Egypt. There were cups also of shining silver, made more beautiful by inserted jewels, and images of the gods, in which the divinity was preserved by the artist’s genius, and the spoils of the Red Sea also, and wool combed from the branches of trees by the hands of women.
Such was the city and such the wealth, of which the Roman general was now master. He stood on a lofty eminence and looked down on the city where the noise of the trumpets spread terror. A sign from him would determine whether those royal walls should remain standing or vanish utterly before the morrow dawned. He groaned aloud because of his excess of power, and shrank back from what he might have done. Quickly restraining the violence of the soldiers, he ordered that the houses should be left standing, and granted their temples to the gods to inhabit as of old. Thus mercy to the conquered took the place of plunder; and the goddess of victory, asking no more than victory, waved her wings unspotted by blood, in approval of herself. Thou too, O famous man, defender of thy native city, didst win tears from the conqueror. Archimedes was calmly poring over a figure traced in the sand, when the great disaster came down upon him.
But the people generally gave themselves up to rejoicing; and the vanquished were as happy as the victors. Marcellus matched the gods in merciful temper and, by saving the city, was its second founder. Therefore it r
emains and will remain for ages as a splendid trophy, and will throw light on the character of our generals in former times.
Happy would the nations be, if our peaceful governors would imitate our former generals and spare the cities from rapine. As it is, if that prince who has now given peace to the world had not checked the unbridled passion for universal spoliation, land and sea would have been stripped bare by greedy robbers.
BOOK XV
ARGUMENT
THE SENATE CANNOT DECIDE WHAT GENERAL TO SEND TO SPAIN. P. CORNELIUS SCIPIO IS EAGER TO GO, HUT HIS KINSMEN DISSUADE HIM (1-17). HE IS VISITED BY VIRTUE AND PLEASURE WHO CONTEND FOR HIS ALLEGIANCE (18-128). ENCOURAGED BY VIRTUES ARGUMENTS, HE ASKS FOR THE COMMAND AND RECEIVES IT: AN OMEN OF SUCCESS (129-151). HIS FLEET LANDS AT TARRACO (152179). HIS FATHER’S GHOST EXHORTS HIM IN A DREAM TO TAKE NEW CARTHAGE: HE DOES SO (180-250). HE SACRIFICES TO THE GODS, REWARDS HIS SOLDIERS, AND DISTRIBUTES THE SPOIL: HE RESTORES A SPANISH MAIDEN TO HER LOVER AND IS PRAISED BY LAELIUS FOR THIS ACTION (251-285). WAR AGAINST PHILIP, KING OF MACEDON (286-319). FABIUS TAKES TARENTUM BY A TRICK (320-333). THE CONSULS, MARCELLUS AND CRISPINUS, ARE BEATEN BY HANNIBAL AND MARCELLUS IS KILLED (334-398). IN SPAIN HASDRUBAL IS PUT TO FLIGHT BY SCIPIO: PRAISE OF LAELIUS (399-492). HASDRUBAL CROSSES THE ALPS, TO JOIN HIS BROTHER IN ITALY (493-514). GREAT ALARM AT ROME. THE CONSUL, C. CLAUDIUS NERO, IS WARNED IN A DREAM BY A PERSONIFICATION OF ITALY TO MARCH NORTHWARDS AGAINST HASDRUBAL (515-559). NERO JOINS THE OTHER CONSUL, M. LIVIUS (560-600). THE BATTLE OF THE METAURUS (601-807). NERO RETURNS TO LUCANIA AND DISPLAYS TO HANNIBAL HIS BROTHER’S HEAD FIXED ON A PIKE (807-823).
Complete Works of Silius Italicus Page 32