et you so many times yesterday I knew that
you would finally recognize me. What are you doing here?"

"I am living in the house of Sonnica the rich."

"I have heard of her, a Greek as famous for her beauty and her talent as
the courtesans of Athens. I was also desirous of knowing her, and I
think I should have loved her if it were a man's mission to chase after
women. And are you doing nothing else?"

"I am a soldier in the pay of the city."

"You, the son of Lysias, the confidential captain of Hamilcar! You, a
man educated in the Prytaneum of Athens, in the service of a city of
barbarians and merchants!"

Hannibal was silent for a moment as if wondering at the conduct of the
Greek. At last he added resolutely:

"Mount behind me on my horse! Come with me! In the port a Carthaginian
ship, loading with silver, is waiting for me. I go to New Carthage to
place myself at the head of my troops. Days of glory are coming, an
immense and sublime enterprise, like that of the giants when, heaping
mountain on mountain, they scaled your Olympus. Come! You are the friend
of my childhood; I knew you before Hasdrubal and Mago, those sons of
Hamilcar, whom the glorious captain gave me for brothers, calling all
three of us 'my lion's brood.' I know you. You are astute and brave like
your father; at my side you will conquer riches. Who knows but that you
may reign as king in some fair land when, imitating Alexander, I divide
my conquests among my captains!"

"No, Carthaginian," said Actaeon gravely. "I do not hate you; I remember
our early years with pleasure; but I will never go with you. Your
lineage prevents it, the past record of your nation, and the bloody
shade of my father."

"Nationality is but a fiction; 'the people' a pretext for making war.
What matters it to you whether you serve Carthage or any other republic,
since you are a Greek? If my own people should abandon me I would fight
for any country. We are men of war; we fight for glory, power, and
riches; the needs of our people only serve to justify our victory and
our despoiling of the enemy. I hate the merchants of Carthage, pacific
and stuck to their shops, as much as I hate the proud Romans. Come,
Actaeon, since we have met, follow me! Fortune goes with me."

"No, Hannibal; here shall I remain. Seeing your African soldiers I
should remember the mob that crucified Lysias."

"That was an unavoidable crime, a mad deed of that truceless war to
which the mercenarie