of Ordeal. Of our allies, the bodies of Arcteus, Adeus, Pheresseues, Pharnuchus swirl and butt against some cliff where rock-doves nest. As for Tharybis of Lyrna, death scabs his black beard red. Seisames the Mysian, he is dead, and Syennesis, Cilician king, Ariomardus too and Matullus of Chrysa.
“I could take the orbit of the sun and not tell all and I am weak and faint. I have seen that which I would not, disaster on disaster. All is lost.”
The man slumped in Hamilax’s arms. Nothing stirred. Fear spread through the crowd. Gisco, to his credit, spoke out. “Go home, now, all of you. The Council will meet and declare what is to be done. Hamilax, take this man inside.” Signalling for his slaves to bring his litter, Gisco was gone.
He returned later. With several other Elders, he questioned the man further. Hanno had fled with three other ships back to Holy Isle. The Romans, victorious, had not troubled to pursue them but returned to Lilybaeum. From Holy Isle, Hanno had sent two messengers by skiff — the first to us, the second to my father. He was following on to face such fate as the Elders might determine. When I asked Silenus what that might be, he would not say. I was to find out soon enough.
From that day of the messenger, my life changed. Although my normal ways were soon resumed, even Silenus was unsettled. My mother, Hamilax and the entire household were busy with preparations for what was thought to be my father’s imminent return. The whole of Carthage seemed occupied with itself and the news of the disaster of the Aegates Islands. From Eschmoun’s sacred grove the smoke of votive offerings rose daily in the air. The Elders, it was said, had not left the chamber of the Council, considering under the roof of Baal Hammon what was to be done.
I continued with my studies, my riding lessons, my practice under Hamilax with sword and spear, but all my teachers seemed distracted. Then I learned from Silenus who had it from Hamilax who had it from his brother Astegal, Steward to the Council, that the Council had instructed my father to reach terms with the Romans and then come home. On what basis, Astegal did not know.
Was it eight days after the coming of the messenger, nine? Silenus and I were reading Plato in the stillness of the classroom. The clamour of excited voices broke the peace. I shall always remember the point we had reached in Plato’s Republic: “We are each accustomed to posit some one form concerning each set of things” – eidos hen hekaston peri hekasta ta polla in Greek: I can still remember it now – “to which we apply the same name.” Silenus had explained this to me in terms of the many gods of Carthage, how in their multiplicity they were the same. I was about to witness in life, not philosophy, something to which we might give many names, and of all my childhood memories this is one with which I wrestle still.
The hubbub outside was in response to a call to a general Assembly. My mother, my brother and sister, I and all those of our household of the rank of freedman slave and above were to go at once to the great public square below the Acropolis. Hanno had returned. Judgement was to be given by the Council. Following the standard of our house, a black scorpion on white, held by Hamilax, we left my father’s house.
Through the narrow streets we went. As we drew nearer to the square our passage slowed, such was the press of people. My sister Sophoniba began to cry. Silenus picked her up and carried her. As we came to Byrsa, the heart of Carthage, seat of her temples and her courts and of her Council, members of the Sacred Legion lined the way.
Seeing our standard, one of them fell out and led us through the crowd. The great square was, to a young boy, vast. To the north, below the Acropolis, was the Chamber of the Council. On either side of that within the square were benches, reserved for the principal families of Carthage. There we took our place. A line of soldiers kept back the swelling crowd, leaving an area of perhaps a hundred strides clear before the Chamber of the Council.
Trumpets rang out. Slowly, with dignity, the forty Elders came out from their chamber, Gisco last, and took their seats of hammered bronze on the terrace above us. I had almost hoped to see my father, true Sufet, come after Gisco. When would my father come? Behind each chair a slave fanned his master. At the side, Astegal, High Steward of the Council, watched.
What is it, more than fifty years later, that I remember of that day? What is it that I cannot forget? I think above all the silent menace of the crowd. As Hanno was led towards us from the harbour gate, a profound and dismal silence fell. He was manacled and chained. It was a long walk from the far side of the agora to where the Elders awaited him. It was a walk life-lasting. Behind him came the Elders’ servants, brandishing lashes to keep back the crowd.
There were too many who had lost a son, a brother, a father, a husband, a lover under Hanno’s leadership. As he shambled towards the waiting Elders, in silence a thousand fingers pricked and ripped. A child tore at his cheek. A girl, who had hidden a knife under her sleeve, slashed his neck. Hands, reaching across the ropes that marked the path, tore out handfuls of his hair. Blood spurted from a wound in his thigh. They threw broken glass under his feet, burning oil, excrement and filth. None felt the lashes of the servants seeking to drive them back. Hanno fell, and as he lay a hand stretched out a red-hot poker. He screamed. Even from that press, I smelt his burning flesh. The servants turned their whips of hippopotamus hide on him, driving him on.
Crawling on his hands and knees, Hanno drew level with us, blood on his face and hands, his tunic torn and fouled, safe now from the crowd but not from judgement. Gisco stood up. He did not need to ask for silence. “Hanno, you have betrayed the sacred trust of Melkarth and Eschmoun, of Baal Hammon, Tanit. The priests have consulted the auguries, the virgins of Eschmoun the entrails of a fawn. You are condemned. Let that which is customary be done.”
The howl that rose from the crowd as from one throat was not of this world. Four soldiers stepped forward. No patricians, these, but burly men, seasoned veterans who served the Council for gold and women. I saw from my place on the bench the calloused patches – we called them “carobs” – under the chin of the first that come from years of the helmet’s chin-strap.
They seized Hanno, lifting him to his feet. Two held him up. The third tore his filthy tunic neck to knee. The fourth brought forward a great stake and placed it in its socket in the ground. The crowd’s noise fell away as Hanno was tied, his back to us and the crowd, his bloody face to the Council, to the stake. The whoosh of the whip through the air was followed by a sound like no other, a sucking, tearing sound as the iron in the thongs of the whip tore at flesh, breaking the bones of Hanno’s back. Flecks of blood and blobs of skin stained the ground around. Only with the ninth stroke, or was it the tenth, did Hanno scream.
They untied him. He fell to the ground, inert. A bucket of urine, thrown over his head, revived him. One of the veterans seized him by the hair, held up his torso to the view of the crowd. They moaned. The head of a heavy mallet glinted in the sun, fell, rose and fell again. So were broken the legs of Hanno, admiral of the fleet. The soldiers lifted down the stake. With three great nails the soldiers nailed him lying to the cross, a nail in each hand and one through both ankles. Straining now, one pulling on a rope tied to the top of the cross, they raised Hanno, crucified. As it lurched into its socket and Hanno cried out, the crowd’s roar surged and swelled. His belly torn by the whips, Hanno’s intestines hung and swung from the settling of the cross. It was done.
I have seen many crucifixions. I have ordered many. But the first of all things is the best and the worst. For Hanno I felt and I feel now pity. The ways of the gods I know are cruel and strange. But of many strange wonders, none is stranger than man.
That afternoon, Silenus told me to read on my own. He said nothing, but I felt the distaste of a cultivated man, a Greek, for such practices as crucifixion. “Why are you withdrawn, Silenus?” I asked.
“Get on with your work!” he snapped. But soon he rose from the table at which he was working and paced up and down the
