BAAL HAMMON.
For some time after the events related in the last chapter the siege
went on without any noticeable incidents. The fighting was nearly
continuous, but there was nothing like a pitched battle. The besiegers
did not again attempt an assault, nor did the besieged make a sally in
force. Scipio's plan was to complete the blockade of the city, and then
to await events, reserving his attack till famine and disease had
exhausted the strength of the enemy.
The first step was to cut off all communication on the land side.
Carthage stood on a peninsula, and Scipio's superiority in the field
made him master of the isthmus by which this peninsula was joined to the
mainland. This he covered from sea to sea by a huge fortification, which
served at the same time for a camp. It had a ditch and a rampart both on
the side that looked towards the city, from which it was distant little
more than a bow-shot, and on that which faced the mainland. It was
necessary, indeed, that it should be defensible both in the front and in
the rear. It was one of the most formidable possibilities of the war
that the Roman army might be attacked from behind by the native allies
of Carthage. Scipio knew--it was a mark of his genius that he knew
everything--that the emissaries of the city were unceasing in their
efforts to raise an army of auxiliaries among the native tribes of
Northern Africa. The wall had, as usual, towers at intervals over its
whole length. One of these towers, built in the most solid fashion of
stone, was carried up to such a height that it commanded a view of all
that was being done within the city walls.
Of course the besieged did not allow this work, threatening as it was to
the very existence of their city, to be carried on without interruption.
Catapults, posted on the city walls, kept up a continuous discharge of
missiles; unceasing showers of stones came from the archers and
slingers, while bodies of infantry were kept in readiness to sally forth
whenever and wherever they saw an opportunity of doing damage. The
Romans had, so to speak, to build and dig with a workman's tool in the
one hand and a weapon in the other, but they stuck to their task with
indefatigable zeal and inexhaustible courage. The officers shared all
the toils and dangers of their men, and the work progressed, not indeed
without loss, but without interruption.
Meanwhile the city was in a state of constantly increasing excitement
from another cause, not unconnected, however, with the war. The festival
of Baal Hammon--otherwise Moloch--was approaching, and it was to be
kept with unusual splendour, even, it was said, with rites of worship
that had fallen into disuse for many years. For Carthage, though it had
much of the unchanging temper of the East, was not wholly untouched by
the spirit of progress, and some of the darker and more savage practices
of her religion were no longer practised. But now again the fiercer
instincts of the race were waking. It was a common topic of talk in the
streets that the desperate fortunes of the state called for more
effectual methods of propitiating the anger of heaven. Meetings of the
Senate were held daily with closed doors, and it was known, though
instant death was the appointed penalty of any indiscreet revelation by
a senator, that the chief subject of debate was settling the details of
the great Moloch feast.
Cleanor, in common with the other Greeks in the population, whether
civil or military, heard but little of the matter. It was, in a way,
kept from them by their companions and comrades, who knew that they
regarded such proceedings without sympathy, not to say, with disgust. In
the ordinary course the great day would have come and passed without his
knowing anything about it beyond the fact that it was the chief festival
of the Carthaginian year. But this was not to be.
He was returning to his quarters somewhat late in the evening, two days
before the appointed time, when he felt a hand laid on the sleeve of his
tunic, and heard himself called by his name in a voice which somehow
seemed familiar, though he could not immediately connect it with any
friend or acquaintance. He halted, and turned to the speaker.
It was a woman, poorly clad as far as he could see in the dim light, and
of middle age, to judge from what appeared of her veiled and cloaked
figure.
"Help, noble Cleanor!"
That strange faculty of remembering voices that most of us have, strange
because it is a sheer effort of memory, unhelped by any accessories of
shape and colour, did not fail him.
"What! is it you, Theoxena?" he cried.
Theoxena was his foster-mother, the wife of a poor schoolmaster at
Chelys, who had been persuaded by her own need and the liberal offers of
Cleanor's father to undertake the nurture of one of his twin-children.
She had been resident for some years at Carthage, to which city her
husband had migrated, tempted by the prospect of more liberal
remuneration than he could hope for in his native place.
"Yes, sir, it is I," said the poor woman in a voice broken with tears.
"And oh, in such trouble! If you could help me--but come in here. 'Tis
but a poor place; but I cannot tell you my story in the street."
Her home was close at hand, and Cleanor followed her in. A poor place it
was, but clean and neatly kept, and even with some little marks of taste
and culture. In one corner of the room stood a _capsa_, a cylindrical
case for holding manuscript rolls, and above it, on a bracket fastened
into the wall, a statuette of Hermes. The chairs were of elegant
pattern, though of common wood, and the mats on the floor, though worn
and shabby, were of artistic pattern.
"Well, Theoxena," he said, "what is the matter? What can I do for you?"
"Oh, sir!" she answered, commanding her voice with an effort, "they have
stolen from me my little Cephalus, the dearest, brightest little boy
that ever was, and are going to offer him for a sacrifice to their
dreadful Hammon."
"But how do you know? How did it happen?"
"You shall hear the story from Daphne, who was with him when he was
stolen."
"And who is Daphne?" asked Cleanor.
Daphne, who had been sitting in a small chamber leading out of the main
room, came forward on hearing her name, holding in her hands a piece of
tapestry at which she had been working. She was a girl of fourteen or
thereabouts, not actually beautiful, perhaps, but with a rare promise
of beauty; her figure had something of the awkwardness of the time which
comes between childhood and womanhood; her features still wanted that
subtle moulding which the last critical years of girlhood seem able to
give. But her eyes, blue as a southern sea with a noonday sun above it,
were marvellously clear and full of light; her complexion was dazzlingly
bright, and all the more striking from its contrast to the generally
swarthy hue of the inhabitants of Carthage. Her hair was of a rich red
gold colour, and would have been of extraordinary beauty if it had had
its natural length. As it was, it was cropped almost close, though here
and there a little curl of a new growth had begun to show itself.
"This, sir, is my Daphne," said the woman, laying her hand upon the
girl's head. "We are good patriots, I am sure, for the dear girl gave up
her beautiful hair--if you will believe me, it used to come down nearly
to her ankles--to be made into a string for a bow. The bow-maker said it
was the very finest he had had, though all the great ladies in Carthage
did the same, I am told. Daphne," she went on, "tell the noble Cleanor
about our darling little Cephalus."
"Remember," said the young man, who saw that the girl was trembling
excessively, "remember that the noble Cleanor is your brother, even as
Theoxena is his mother," and he lifted his foster-mothers hand to his
lips and respectfully kissed it.
The girl began her story: "I took my little brother to walk in the
garden--the garden, I mean, of Mago the senator, who kindly lets us use
it, because the streets are so noisy and crowded, and the people are so
rude." Cleanor did not wonder that she attracted more notice than she
liked. "There is seldom anybody there; but that day there was an old man
who began to pet dear little Cephalus, and give him sweetmeats and
cakes. He seemed very kind, and I never dreamt of any harm; and besides,
I was there, for I never leave Cephalus alone. Ah! but I did leave him
alone that morning, wicked girl that I am." And she burst into a flood
of tears. "But then what could I do? Hylax--that is the puppy that
Cephalus is so fond of--began to fight with another dog, and Cephalus
was frightened, and said, 'He'll be killed! he'll be killed! Do save
him, Daphne.' He would himself have run to help, but I was afraid he
would be bitten, though that would have been better than what did
happen. So I told him to sit still where he was, and I ran to help
Hylax. It took me a long time to get hold of him, for he was very angry,
and would go on fighting though the other dog was much bigger. And when
I looked round, the dear little boy was gone. I hunted all over the
garden, and called him a hundred times, but it was no use. Mother
hasn't blamed me once, but I can't help feeling that it was my fault."
"But what," asked Cleanor, speaking to Theoxena, "has put this dreadful
idea of Hammon into your head?"
"Oh! I know from what my neighbours have told me that there is going to
be a sacrifice such as there has not been for years and years, and that
a number of children are to be put into the fire. The priests say that
there must be a hundred, not one less. Some parents offered their own
children--to think that anybody could be so wicked!--and these quite
rich and noble people, I am told; but still there were not enough, so
others had to be taken by force. Besides, the priests said that there
must be children of every race that was in Carthage; and no Greek
children could be got except by kidnapping them. And there was
something, too, which Daphne did not tell you. She picked up a button
where the old man had been sitting, and I have been told by someone who
knows that it is of a kind that only the temple servants of Hammon use."
"I see," said Cleanor; "there seems very little doubt that it is so. But
don't trouble; you shall have your son again. I have a hundred things to
ask you, but that must be for another day; there is no time to be lost
now. Farewell!"
The young man had spoken confidently enough to the agonized mother, but
when he came to reflect on what he had to do he did not feel by any
means confident. All night he was busy with the problem, but seemed,
when the morning came, as far off a solution as ever. He could not even
think where to go for counsel and help. His Greek comrades would feel
with him, but they probably knew no more about the matter than he did.
As to his Carthaginian fellow-officers, though he was on the best of
terms with them, it was quite useless, and indeed impossible, to
approach them. At last an idea occurred to him. The Greek physician who
had attended him when he was in Hasdrubal's house might possibly be not
only willing, but able to help him. Willing he would certainly be, for
he was a Greek; able, possibly, seeing that his practice lay largely
among Carthaginians of the highest class.
He lost no time in looking for his friend, and was luckily soon
successful in his search.
"I am not surprised," said the physician when he had heard the story. "I
knew that something of the kind was going on, though the priests keep it
as quiet as they can. I was called in yesterday to see the wife of a
senator. She was in a state of prostration, for which I could see no
physical cause. Of course I diagnosed mental trouble, and put some
questions in that direction. I got nothing but the vaguest answers. Just
when I was going away I asked some question about her children. She said
nothing, but the next moment she fell into the very worst fit of
hysterics I have ever seen. I put two and two together, for I haven't
been a doctor for forty years for nothing, and guessed the truth. And
afterwards, when I was giving the maid in attendance some directions, I
heard it for certain. The poor woman had given up her eldest boy, a
beautiful little creature of six, to Moloch. And now about this Greek
child. Well, we must not be seen on the street talking together. Come to
my house about noon to-morrow, and we will talk it over."
Cleanor was punctual at the appointed time.
"I have been thinking it over," said the physician when he had satisfied
himself that he could not be overheard. "And I don't see any chance of
success except by bribery. I know where the child is--in the
high-priest's house. I was called in two or three days ago to see a
child who was ill there. I thought it strange, for the priests have no
families. Still, it might be a child of a relative. But it was stranger
still when, after I had prescribed for the little fellow and was going
away, I heard the voices of other children. Then it was all explained by
what I told you this morning. They keep the poor little creatures, when
they have got them by persuasion or force, in the high-priest's house.
That is one step, then. We know where the boy is. And the next, by great
good luck, is made easy for us. The little fellow that I have been
attending will certainly die. I feel almost sure that I shall not find
him alive when I go this afternoon. Well, I shall have to report his
death to the high-priest, who will have to find a substitute for him,
and will, I suppose, kidnap another child. That is a horrible thing; but
we can't help it. Now for my plan. You must bribe the attendant who will
have to remove the child and see to its burial. That will be easy
enough. He is a fellow of the lowest class, and will do anything for a
score of gold pieces. And you must also bribe the priest who has the
business of actually offering the children. That will be a more serious
matter. The practice is for the high-priest to offer the first, and to
hand over the rest to a subordinate. This is the man you will have to
deal with. It isn't that it will be a matter of faith with him.
Generally, in my experience--not always, mark that--but generally the
nearer the altar the less the faith; and this man I know. But it is a
dangerous affair, and, besides, the man can make his own terms. I should
say that a hundred gold pieces will be wanted. Now, can you manage that?
It isn't every young officer that has a hundred gold pieces to spare. I
can help you a little, but a physician's fees are small and hard to come
by."
"A thousand thanks!" said Cleanor, "but I have as much as will be
wanted."
"Come again after dark," the physician went on. "You will have to settle
with the men, for I must not appear in the matter, but I will arrange a
way for you to see them."
"Everything is going as well as possible," said the physician when the
two met again. "As I expected, the child was dead. And here I have made
a little change in our plans. I thought that it might make complications
if two were engaged in the affair. And the priest might object if he
found his secret shared by an attendant of far inferior rank. It might
mean, he would say, endless blackmailing. What I did, then, was to tell
the man that there was something very strange about the child's illness,
that I wanted to discover the real cause, and that I would give him a
couple of gold pieces--to offer him more would have been suspicious--if
he would let me have the body. That is disposed of, then. Now for the
priest. He comes here to-night; he has long been a patient of mine, and
he wants to see me. The fellow, who is one of the hardest drinkers in
Carthage, would have been dead long ago but for me. You will see him,
and tell him what he is to do, which, in a word, is to put a dead child
for a living one, and what you will give him for doing it. That is the
naked truth, but you will wrap it up as you think best."
"But will not that be an impossible thing--a dead child for a living?"
asked Cleanor.
"Not at all," replied the physician, "and not by any means so hard as
you think. You don't know, I daresay, that the children are drugged as
heavily as possible without making them actually insensible. All the
creatures that are brought to be sacrificed have to be drugged. You know
that it is thought to be the very worst omen if a bull or a ram breaks
away from the attendants as they are bringing it to the altar. You don't
suppose that there is a miracle perpetually worked so that what happens
every day in the slaughter-house never happens in a temple? And this
makes the affair comparatively easy. There is not much difference
between a drugged child and a dead child."
The priest came in due course. The physician with some cautious hints
excited his curiosity and greed, and Cleanor found his task neither so
difficult nor so costly as he had anticipated. It is needless to relate
the negotiations. As the physician had anticipated, the priest's faith
was not a difficulty. He had not a vestige of belief. He had been a
party to too many impostures to have anything of the kind left.
Fraudulent miracles were a part almost, it might be said, of his daily
business. But he made the most of the risk of the proceeding, and this
was undoubtedly great. Not only was the dead child to be substituted for
the living, but the living was to be smuggled away. The physician had
provided a temporary refuge for it; it was to be received into the
family of the couple which kept his house. The thing probably appeared
to be more difficult than it really was, chiefly because no one would
have any idea that it would be attempted. A bargain was ultimately made
for a somewhat smaller sum than the physician had named. The priest was
to receive five-and-twenty gold pieces down, and fifty pieces more when
Cleanor was satisfied of the safety of the child.
Cleanor was long in doubt whether or not he should be present at the
hideous ceremony of the coming day. All the instincts of his own nature
and his race revolted against such doings. The Greek temper was not
particularly merciful, and certainly never shrank from taking life when
occasions of policy or promptings of revenge seemed to suggest it, but
it had no liking for spectacles of blood. Even in its degradation it
revolted from the savage amusements which fascinated the Romans. And
Cleanor had the best feelings of his race in high development. On the
other hand, he reflected that if any chance suspicion should arise his
presence might help to disarm it. Above all, his interest in the fate of
his little foster-brother was so overpowering that he felt it impossible
to keep away.
The solemnities of the day began with a great procession, in which the
inferior deities of the Carthaginian faith were carried to pay their
homage, as it was said, to Baal Hammon their chief. Each had his own
company of priests and temple attendants; both the deity and his
satellites were decked out for the occasion with all the splendours
which the temple treasuries--most of them rich with the accumulation of
centuries--could furnish.
First,--for it was right that the most dignified visitor should be the
first to arrive,--came Melcart, Hammon's vicegerent, as he might be
called, who had under his special protection the daughter cities of the
Phoenician race, as he had the great mother-city of Tyre. The god was
not represented by any human figure, but a great sun, with gilded rays,
was borne under a canopy of rich purple curtains. Next to Melcart came
Tanit or Astarte, symbolized by a similar image of the moon, but
smaller, and with silver rays; and after Tanit again, Dagon, the
fish-god, the special protector of the fleets of Carthage, held in less
reverence since the eldest daughter of Tyre had lost the hereditary
supremacy of the seas. These were the three great dignitaries of the
procession; after them followed a crowd of inferior powers with figures
of man or brute, always heavy with gold or sparkling with gems, but
grotesque or even hideous in shape, for the Phoenician craftsman made
no effort to emulate the grace of his Greek rival.
Hammon's temple was thronged, and indeed had been thronged from the hour
of dawn, when its gates were thrown open, with an excited multitude. A
lane, however, was kept clear in the middle by two ranks of stalwart
guards, native Carthaginians, all of them splendid in gilded helmets,
with nodding plumes of the African ostrich, and armour of shining steel,
with short purple cloaks over their shoulders. This lane was left for
the approach of the divine visitors. As the first of these drew near,
the great doors, themselves covered with a scarlet curtain, that
separated the sanctuary from the body of the temple, were thrown back,
and the holy place became visible, to most of those present that day for
the first time in their lives.
In the centre of a semicircular recess at the further end, on a throne
of gold, approached by twelve steps, each flanked by the image of a
lion, sat the colossal statue of Hammon. The canopy above it was formed
by the meeting wings of two stooping figures. The image was made of some
black stone, probably basalt, carved into a rude similitude of the human
figure, with arms of steel which extended forwards. In front, so close
to the image as to be partly under the arms, was an opening six feet
wide, from which, now and then, a slender tongue of coloured flame might
be seen to shoot forth.
When the opened doors revealed the image, an instantaneous silence fell
upon the assembled multitude, in striking contrast to the babel of
sounds which had filled the temple a minute before. The awful moment had
come, and the multitude waited with mingled wonder and terror for what
was to follow.
The silence was first broken by the voice of the high-priest as he began
to chant the litany of supplication. It was heard plainly enough, but
few understood it, for the form had not been changed from the earliest
times, and the language was mostly obsolete. At certain intervals the
voices of the inferior priests might be heard coming in with the
refrain. The ancient formula ended, the high-priest added special
supplications for the day. He invoked blessings on Carthage, on her
armies, her fleets, her priests, and her people. He cursed her enemies,
Rome first of all, with special mention of the name of Scipio. The
supplications ended, the high-priest turned to the people, crying, "Sons
of Carthage, offer with a willing heart, and of your best, to your Lord
and Saviour Hammon!"
There was a momentary pause. Then the Shophetim descended from the
seats on which they had been sitting, and, coming forward, cast gold and
spices into the opening. No one imitated, or was expected to imitate
them. They represented the people, and their gifts symbolized the
offering of the people's wealth. The more solemn part of the sacrifice
remained to be performed, and this part, for evident reasons, the
priests retained in their own hands.
The high-priest began again:
"O Baal Hammon, we have given thee the most precious of things without
life; now we give thee flesh of our flesh, and life of our life."
So saying, he took from the hands of a subordinate priest
something--what it was no one could discern--wrapped in white linen, and
placed it on the outstretched arms of the colossus. The image, worked by
concealed machinery from behind, bowed its head, and at the same time
lowered its arms, dropping the burden that had been placed upon them
into the chasm underneath. Something between a roar and a shriek went up
from the multitude that filled the temple. There was the joy of seeing
that the great Hammon accepted their offering; there was the horror--for
even the Carthaginians were human--of knowing what the offering was. The
next instant a loud crash of sound came from the cymbal-players, who had
been stationed in a recess out of sight of the multitude. Every time
another burden was placed on the arms and dropped into the chasm there
was the same outburst of wild music.
[Illustration: "THE HIGH PRIEST PLACED THE SACRIFICE ON THE OUTSTRETCHED
ARMS OF THE GOD."]
Cleanor watched the horrible ceremony with intense attention. Now and
then he fancied--he had found a place, it should be said, not far from
the sanctuary--that he saw a movement, and even heard a cry. But he
could not feel certain. He recognized the priest who handed the first
child to the high-priest, and who placed the others on the arms of the
image, as the man with whom he had negotiated, and he felt sure that on
one occasion he made a slight gesture, which no one else would notice,
in his direction. It was a great relief when the horrible rite was
finished. As to the fate of the child he could not immediately satisfy
himself. It would have been imprudent to make any inquiries. He had,
however, the satisfaction of receiving, during the course of the next
day, a message from his friend the physician that the boy was safe. The
same comforting intelligence was conveyed to the mother. She, of course,
had to be content with an occasional sight of her child, and the hope of
regaining him at some happier time.