taken. There was no attempt at uniformity as to their appointments.
Their helmets and shields were of gold or silver, surmounted with plumes
or feathers, or with tufts of white horsehair. Their breastplates were
adorned with arabesques or repousse work of the highest art. Their belts
were covered with gold and studded with gems. Their short kilted skirts
were of rich Tyrian purple embroidered with gold.

The infantry were composed of men of good but less exalted families.
They wore a red tunic without a belt. They carried a great circular
buckler of more than a yard in diameter, formed of the tough hide of the
river horse, brought down from the upper Nile, with a central boss of
metal with a point projecting nearly a foot in front of the shield,
enabling it to be used as an offensive weapon in a close fight. They
carried short heavy swords similar to those of the Romans, and went
barefooted. Their total strength seldom exceeded two thousand.

These two bodies constituted the Carthaginian legion, and formed but
a small proportion indeed of her armies, the rest of her forces being
entirely drawn from the tributary states. The fact that Carthage, with
her seven hundred thousand inhabitants, furnished so small a contingent
of the fighting force of the republic, was in itself a proof of the
weakness of the state. A country which relies entirely for its defence
upon mercenaries is rapidly approaching decay.

She may for a time repress one tributary with the soldiers of the
others; but when disaster befalls her she is without cohesion and falls
to pieces at once. As the Roman orator well said of Carthage: "She was
a figure of brass with feet of clay"--a noble and imposing object to
the eye, but whom a vigourous push would level in the dust. Rome, on the
contrary, young and vigourous, was a people of warriors. Every one of
her citizens who was capable of bearing arms was a soldier. The manly
virtues were held in the highest esteem, and the sordid love of wealth
had not as yet enfeebled her strength or sapped her powers. Her citizens
were men, indeed, ready to make any sacrifice for their country; and
such being the case, her final victory over Carthage was a matter of
certainty.

The news which afforded Malchus such delight was not viewed with the
same unmixed satisfaction by the members of his family. Thyra had for
the last year been betrothed to Adherbal, and he, too, was to accompany
Hamilcar to Spain, and none could say