Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/533

 DISTRESS AT CARTHAGJ 511 the face of desperate obstacles, had ended in speedy death as prisoner at Syracuse, yet without anything worse than the usual fate of prisoners of war. But the base treason of Imilkon, though he insured a safe retreat home by betraying the larger portion of his army, earned for him only a short prolongation of Ufa amidst the extreme of ignominy and remorse. When he landed at Carthage with the fraction of his army preserved, the city was in the deepest distress. Countless family losses, inflicted by the pestilence, added a keener sting to the unexampled public loss and humiliation new fully made known. Universal mourning prevailed ; all public and private business was suspended, all the temples were shut, while the authorities and the citizens met Imilkon in sad procession on the shore. The defeated commander strove to disarm their wrath, by every demonstration of a broken and prostrate spirit. Clothed in the sordid garment of a slave, he acknowledged himself as the cause of all the ruin, by his impiety towards the gods ; for it was they, and not the Syracusans, who had been his real enemies and conquerors. He visited all the temples, with words of atonement and supplication, - replied to all the inquiries about relatives who had perished under the dis- temper, and then retiring, blocked up the doors of his house, where he starved himself to death. But the season of misfortune to Carthage was not closed by his decease. Her dominion over her Libyan subjects was always harsh and unpopular, rendering them disposed to rise against her at any moment of calamity. Her recent disaster in Sicily would have been in itself perhaps sufficient to stimulate them into insur- rection ; but its effect was aggravated by their resentment for the deliberate betrayal of their troops serving under Imilkon, not one of whom lived to come back. All the various Libyan subject towns had on this matter one common feeling of indignation ; all came together in congress, agreed to unite their forces, and formed an army which is said to have reached one hundred and twenty thousand men. They established their head-quarters at Tunes (Tunis), a town within a short distance of Carthage itself, and were for a certain time so much stronger in the field, that the Car- thaginians Avere obliged to remain within their walls. For a mo- ment it seemed as if the star of this great commercial city was about to set for ever. The Carthaginians themselves were in the depth of despondency, believing themselves to be under the wrath