ge barbarity, was carried to such
excess, that even mothers would endeavour, with embraces and kisses, to
hush the cries of their children;(516) lest, had the victim been offered
with an unbecoming grace, and in the midst of tears, it should be
displeasing to the god: _Blanditiis et osculis comprimebant vagitum, ne
flebilis hostia immolaretur._(517) They afterwards contented themselves
with making their children pass through the fire; as appears from several
passages of Scripture, in which they frequently perished.

The Carthaginians retained the barbarous custom of offering human
sacrifices to their gods,(518) till the ruin of their city:(519) an action
which ought to have been called a sacrilege rather than a sacrifice.
_Sacrilegium verius quam sacrum._ It was suspended only for some years,
from the fear they were under of drawing upon themselves the indignation
and arms of Darius I. king of Persia, who forbade them the offering up of
human sacrifices, and the eating the flesh of dogs: but they soon resumed
this horrid practice, since, in the reign of Xerxes, the successor to
Darius, Gelon the tyrant of Syracuse, having gained a considerable victory
over the Carthaginians in Sicily, among other conditions of peace which he
enjoined them, inserted this article:(520) _viz._ "That no more human
sacrifices should be offered to Saturn." And, doubtless, the practice of
the Carthaginians, on this very occasion, made Gelon use this precaution.
For during the whole engagement, which lasted from morning till night,
Hamilcar, the son of Hanno their general, was perpetually offering up to
the gods sacrifices of living men, who were thrown in great numbers on a
flaming pile; and seeing his troops routed and put to flight, he himself
rushed into it, in order that he might not survive his own disgrace, and
to extinguish, says St. Ambrose speaking of this action, with his own
blood this sacrilegious fire, when he found that it had not proved of
service to him.(521)(522)

In times of pestilence(523) they used to sacrifice a great number of
children to their gods, unmoved with pity for a tender age, which excites
compassion in the most cruel enemies; thus seeking a remedy for their
evils in guilt itself; and endeavouring to appease the gods by the most
shocking barbarity.

Diodorus relates(524) an instance of this cruelty which strikes the reader
with horror. At the time that Agathocles was just going to besiege
Carthage, its inhabit