The Adventures of Captain Mago

Turning to Hannibal, I ordered him to provide the seven men with kitonets and arms, and to take them into his own force; the remainder I sent to assist the rowers. It would be easy, I knew, to dispose of them all at Utica or Carthage, where there is a constant demand both for oarsmen and for mercenaries.

The seven Phocians kissed my hands, and wept for joy; the remainder went below with lighter hearts than they had brought on board.

CHAPTER IX

THE LAND OF OXEN

On the third morning after the battle we sighted the mountains of Italy,[32 - Italia, from ἰταλός, vitulus.] and having entered the gulf,[33 - South of the Adriatic.] along the north of which extends the Iapygian Peninsula, we soon came to the mouth of a river that meandered along a fine plain, in which the broad pastures were diversified by groves of pines and oleanders. Inland, about a hundred stadia from the shore, rose a range of grey mountains, partially wooded, and crowned by a ridge of ragged peaks. The anchorage was tolerably good, and as we required fresh water and provender for the cattle, I determined to lay to at once. I had all the animals sent on shore. This was a work of some difficulty; Bichri with a few armed men was put in charge of them, and he was to employ the prisoners to drive them where they could find proper pasturage; my intention in doing this was that the animals should follow the ships along the coast as far as the Sicilian Straits, where, unless I succeeded meanwhile in disposing of them, they should be re-embarked.

"Not much chance of selling them here," said Himilco; "we are in Vitalia, the land of oxen. If we could have brought them some goats now, like those we let the Ionians have, we might have found a market. Of cattle such as these they have more than enough already."

"Probably so," I answered; "but first of all we must find some inhabited spot amidst all this desolation; we must try and meet with some of these Italians or Vitalians, whichever they are called. There must be some Iapygians here too in the south, as well as in the north. Do you know the Iapygian dialect?"

Himilco said that, although he was not acquainted with that dialect, he had some knowledge of the language of the Vitalians, as well as of that which was spoken by the Opsci, the Marsians, the Volscians, the Samnites, the Umbrians, the Sabellians of the eastern coast, and the Latins of the western. He mentioned also that Gisgo was tolerably familiar with the tongue of the Rasennæ, away to the north-west.

The spokesman of my seven Phocian prisoners now approached me somewhat timidly, as if he had something to ask. His name was Aminocles. He began by addressing me:

"King of the Phœnicians!"

I stopped him and told him that my proper appellation was not king but captain.

"Captain of the Phœnicians," he said; "will you please to tell me what country we are in?"

"Italy," I answered; "Italy, the land of herds."

"But in what part of it?" he asked.

"In that part," I replied, "which is inhabited by various tribes of Vitalians; south and north-east dwell the Iapygians; far away to the north are the Rasennæ, who build great cities, and have a king in the fertile vales beyond the mountains."

"We know nothing of them," said Aminocles.

"Patience!" interposed Himilco; "perhaps we can refresh his memory. Phocian, listen to me. Have you ever heard of Opsci?"

"Of Opici? yes," he answered; "our ancestors have left it upon record that long ages back, before we built Dodona, nay, before we settled by the Achelous, while we still were dwelling in the cold regions beyond Thrace, we were in association with a people called the Opici. At that time mainland and islands both were inhabited by Leleges, Pelasgians, giants, dwarfs, and monsters; but the gods slew them all and made way for us. If your Opsci are the same as those Opici, I suppose I ought to have heard of them before."

"It is of no use perplexing the man," I said; "you see he does not understand you."

"Wait a bit," Himilco remonstrated; "perhaps I shall succeed even yet. Tell me, Aminocles, did you ever hear of Tyrsenians?"

"No," said the Phocian.

"Strange!" muttered Himilco to himself. "Again and again I have heard the Hellenes speak of Vitalia, and call the natives Tyrsenians or Tyrrhenians; I must try again. Do you know the Siculians, the Cyclopes, the Lœstrigonians?" he asked aloud.

The man's countenance changed in an instant.

"What! do you mean" – he exclaimed, in a voice agitated with alarm – "that we have come to the land of such people as those?"

"Aye, that we have," said Himilco, with a chuckle of satisfaction; "this is the country of the Lœstrigonians; and down there is the island of the Cyclopes, the Siculians, and all the rest of them. We are going to pay them a visit, when we have steered safely between Scylla and Charybdis."

And he laughed outright when he heard Aminocles, wringing his hands, groan out:

"Oh! better, better far to have perished in the fight than to have come to this land of monsters. Oh!"

We all laughed. The ridiculousness of the fellow's terror was irresistible.

"Silence, simpleton!" I said; "the Lœstrigonians will not hurt you; we shall see plenty of them, but they will not eat you up."

While I was speaking, my attention was directed by the man on watch to a party of about fifty men, who were advancing across the plain. Their attitude was far from confident, and they halted on the edge of a wood, apparently in indecision whether they would come on or retreat. At length I took upon myself to encourage them to come forward, and, according to my custom, went alone towards them, making them every sign of good-will. Presently two of them advanced to meet me. They were stout, thick-set men, square-shouldered, and of middle height; they had light complexions, thick beards, and frizzly hair, that overhung low brows and wide faces. Their legs and arms were quite bare, and their heads uncovered, but they wore a kind of coarse woollen kitonet, with another loose garment thrown crosswise over one shoulder. They were all well armed, having two short copper-headed lances and a poignard; most of them carried knives or swords in their girdles, and about a dozen had slings or bows.

One of the two who had come on in advance shouted in Italian:

"Who are you? and what have you come for?"

Himilco, who had followed me, shouted back in the same language that we were merchants who had come from distant lands, and that we wanted to open a trade with them.

"But are you not Rasennæ? and is it not your design to rob us our cattle?"

"Nothing of the sort," we answered; "we are Phœnicians from the east. Come down to the shore, and you shall see our merchandise."

Both the men retired to their comrades, and appeared to deliberate; but very shortly they returned, and one of them called out:

"You see these two trees on each side of me; these must be our boundary."

And, driving his lance firmly into the ground midway between them, he continued:

"If you advance one step beyond this lance, I take it up, and we declare ourselves your foes."

Himilco repeated his assurance that we had no wish to do them the slightest injury, and they came up close to where we were. The leader told us that they were Sabelline Samnites, and that they wanted to know what payment we were going to make them for the pasturage of our cattle. I made Himilco satisfy them that they should have a proper remuneration.

It was now my turn to erect a barrier. This I did by driving stakes into the earth, and stretching a cord across, beyond which I made the Samnites understand that I should not permit them to pass. They raised no objection to my measure of precaution, but crowded up to inspect our goods, their curiosity meanwhile extending to our ships, ourselves, and our costume. They were rougher in manners than the Hellenes, and more suspicious, and I had some trouble in inducing them to negotiate with us at all; but after a time I succeeded in securing their confidence to a certain degree, and they informed me that they were not an agricultural people, and had no cereals nor vegetables to bring us, but could supply us with any number of sheep and oxen. They subsequently brought several half-wild pigs, which particularly attracted the attention of Chamai and Bichri, neither of whom had seen animals of the kind before. Not understanding the art of making bread, the Samnites ordinarily eat a kind of pulp called "masa;" but, as they had on previous visits of other Phœnicians tasted some loaves, they were now very anxious to be shown how to make them; they made a number of inquiries likewise about our wine, but for this they did not seem to care to the same extent as the Hellenes.

Next morning they came to us again in considerable numbers. I had observed that during the night they had lighted a good many beacon-fires over the land, and naturally conjectured that they were signalling for a gathering of their countrymen, and I accordingly doubled my ordinary guard. I soon found, however, that there was no cause for alarm, and that they had no hostile intentions; on the contrary, they were quite content to follow my injunctions that they should not approach our boundary line in groups of more than fifty; they awaited their turn with the utmost patience, and altogether were far less noisy and demonstrative than we had found the Dorians.

Amongst other things they brought a great quantity of coral, which after rough weather is washed up on their coasts, but which they also procure by diving from frail rafts of their own construction; for although they are very indifferent navigators, they are for the most part excellent swimmers. The most expert coral-divers are the Iapygians, those who dwell amongst the Samnites and the Bretians, as well as the natives of Iapygia proper. Some few of them were to be noticed amongst our Samnite visitors; they were generally tall and wore no beards; they had round heads and brown skins, being in many respects very like the Cydonians: in their manners they were more polished and in their conversation more communicative than the other Italians. They seemed to me to bear a marked resemblance to the Siculians; and I cannot help thinking that the Iapygians, the Siculians, the Cydonians, and the natives discovered by our forefathers in Malta, are the aborigines of their respective countries. Afterwards, from the coast of Asia came the Leleges and the Pelasgians (tribes that bear a strong likeness to the Lydians, Lycians, and Carians), and these settled in Dodanim and the isles, being succeeded by the Hellenes and Italians, who came southward from the confines of Thrace. Of the origin of the Rasennæ I am perfectly ignorant: all I know is that Phœnicians who have visited the mountains whence the rock-crystal is obtained, and which lie north of the Eridanus, at the head of the Iapygian Gulf, have reported that they have fallen in with a people who call themselves Rhœtians, and who speak a language in many respects identical with that spoken by the Rasennæ.

Two days were spent in bartering my cumbersome booty for coral, which could be compactly stored away. As the captured boats were emptied, I had all but two of them broken up. I reserved only the planking, which was sure to be useful, and the masts, which might be of service if we should require extra spars. After the spoil had been all exchanged away, I commenced paying for what I purchased with glass-beads, lance-heads, and sword-blades; the last of these articles were so eagerly coveted, that for four blades, worth about a shekel apiece, I obtained at least four hundred shekels' worth of the finest coral. When I expressed my surprise at the quantity of coral in their possession, they explained that it was the accumulation of a very long time, adding that they had intended disposing of it at one of the emporiums which the Phœnicians had established on the western coast, but that our arrival had saved them the trouble of the journey. They told me that they should have been glad if I could supply them with goats, and stated that those which had been brought over by our countrymen, and purchased by the Marsians and Volscians, were rapidly spreading in the mountains of the north.

The Samnites have no regular towns, but live in small scattered hamlets, consisting generally of a few thatched huts built of boughs of trees cemented with mud. They have very little notion of agriculture, and the Latins of the west coast (especially those of the valley of the Tiber) are far superior husbandmen; the Latins, however, have a city named Alba, occupying a secure position between a mountain and a lake. Along the coast I know only of a single sea-port, and that belongs to the Rasennæ, and is named Populonia. These Rasennæ are no contemptible sailors; that they were bold and unscrupulous pirates, I had long known by hearsay, but here on the Samnite coast I was destined to have a confirmation of the fact from my own experience.

Having completed all the business that was practicable, I was preparing to renew our voyage, when one of the Samnites came running up to his associates, and shouted something which appeared to throw them into a state of great excitement.

"What ails the fellows?" said Himilco; "they seem going mad. Is the cock-head Nergal at their heels?"

The commotion was soon explained.

"Pirates! Pirates!" shouted a number of the Samnites in a breath. "Quick, Phœnicians, on your guard! The Tyrrhenians are coming! They are rounding the point! they will be on us directly! Away! Away to the mountains!"

Without losing a minute, I made Jonah sound an alarm and summon our men to their ships. Hannibal donned his helmet and marshalled his men, including the seven Phocians; the overlooker of the rowers, scourge in hand, hurried the oarsmen to their benches, and in a short time we were three stadia from the shore and ready for action. Chamai congratulated himself that although his right arm was disabled he was still capable of doing good execution with his left.