The spectacle afforded by Carthage irritated the Barbarians; they admired it and execrated it, and would have liked both to annihilate it and to dwell in it.  But what was there in the Military Harbour defended by a triple wall?  Then behind the town, at the back of Megara, and higher than the Acropolis, appeared Hamilcar’s palace.

Matho’s eyes were directed thither every moment.  He would ascend the olive trees and lean over with his hand spread out above his eyebrows.  The gardens were empty, and the red door with its black cross remained constantly shut.

More than twenty times he walked round the ramparts, seeking some breach by which he might enter.  One night he threw himself into the gulf and swam for three hours at a stretch.  He reached the foot of the Mappalian quarter and tried to climb up the face of the cliff.  He covered his knees with blood, broke his nails, and then fell back into the waves and returned.

His impotence exasperated him.  He was jealous of this Carthage which contained Salammbo, as if of some one who had possessed her.  His nervelessness left him to be replaced by a mad and continual eagerness for action.  With flaming cheek, angry eyes, and hoarse voice, he would walk with rapid strides through the camp; or seated on the shore he would scour his great sword with sand.  He shot arrows at the passing vultures.  His heart overflowed into frenzied speech.

“Give free course to your wrath like a runaway chariot,” said Spendius.  “Shout, blaspheme, ravage and slay.  Grief is allayed with blood, and since you cannot sate your love, gorge your hate; it will sustain you!”

Matho resumed the command of his soldiers.  He drilled them pitilessly.  He was respected for his courage and especially for his strength.  Moreover he inspired a sort of mystic dread, and it was believed that he conversed at night with phantoms.  The other captains were animated by his example.  The army soon grew disciplined.  From their houses the Carthaginians could hear the bugle-flourishes that regulated their exercises.  At last the Barbarians drew near.

To crush them in the isthmus it would have been necessary for two armies to take them simultaneously in the rear, one disembarking at the end of the gulf of Utica, and the second at the mountain of the Hot Springs.  But what could be done with the single sacred Legion, mustering at most six thousand men?  If the enemy bent towards the east they would join the nomads and intercept the commerce of the desert.  If they fell back to the west, Numidia would rise.  Finally, lack of provisions would sooner or later lead them to devastate the surrounding country like grasshoppers, and the rich trembled for their fine country-houses, their vineyards and their cultivated lands.

Hanno proposed atrocious and impracticable measures, such as promising a heavy sum for every Barbarian’s head, or setting fire to their camp with ships and machines.  His colleague Gisco, on the other hand, wished them to be paid.  But the Ancients detested him owing to his popularity; for they dreaded the risk of a master, and through terror of monarchy strove to weaken whatever contributed to it or might re-establish it.