father sent a force to cut the bodies down. Fire from the walls repelled them. He sent Hamilax to Carthage for catapults. We waited. He had men scour the countryside for wool and this, soaked in pitch, was tied round rocks and stones. Then my father had all our men, Naravas’ too, equipped with bows and set to making arrows, their heads daubed in pitch.
Tunis’ buildings were not of stone but clay and wattle, roofed with grass. We prepared for weeks. We were ready, yet still my father waited for one more thing to be right – wind.
The catapults were set up, sixty of them. A dry wind came from the south and blew all day. Before the walls in sight of all, my father had Spendius and Zaracas brought and held. His first sword-stroke cut off Spendius’ head. His second cut the torso from the hips and the mercenaries on the walls of Tunis watched in silence. Zaracas he split first to the hips with one great downward swing.
Without the arms of Spendius there were still ten pieces of two men, catapulted into Tunis. That done, great braziers were lit before each troop of archers and each catapult. At one trumpet, a rain of fire fell upon Tunis. It burned for three days and nights. Four times, each of those days, my father renewed his hail of fire. He knew how much water there was in Tunis.
Irregular groups of mercenaries sought a different death. Some, on fire, jumped from the walls. Others ran from the gates. Some of these were killed. Most were captured and then crucified upon the crosses of Haggith and his men. All about the crosses and our camp sat and squawked the black and bloodied ravens.
Of course Carthage rejoiced when we returned, our bodies blackened by the smoke, our clothes fouled by the reek of burnt flesh. “Hamilcar, our saviour, Eye of Khamon,” cried the people, even Baalhaan, wearing his tiara with its eight mystic tiers, an emerald shell in the middle. I slipped away. I wanted to see Silenus. I had missed him. He was not in our classroom. But a scroll was open on his desk. It was the fourteenth book of Homer’s Iliad and, returned from the Truceless War, I read:
Ζεὺς
ἐκ νεότητος ἔδωκε καὶ ἐς γῆρας τολυπεύειν
ἀργαλέους πολέμους, ὄϕρα ϕθιόμεσθα ἕκαστος.
The gods decreed that from youth even unto old age we should labour, fighting in arduous wars, each of us until we are dead.
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