At the altar of Mars, surrounded by a vast throng of citizens, soldiery, and chief estates of the realm, stands Hamilcar; his helmet down conceals his features from the crowd. On the opposite side of the altar are his wife and her maidens; at his side the child. Placing his little fingers on the yet quivering flesh of the victim, he said: “Hannibal, son of Hamilcar, swear, by this consecrated blood, and in the presence of that dread God of battles on whose altar it smokes, that you will neither love nor make peace with any of Roman blood; should fortune, friends, and weapons fail, you will still live and die the inexorable enemy of Rome.”
As he paused, the clear tones of that childish voice, answering, “I swear,” rose upon a stillness so deep that the low crackling of the flames that fed the altar-fires were distinctly audible.
It was broken by one wild shriek of agony, as the frantic mother fell fainting into the arms of her maidens.
The stern chieftain spake not, but, as he stooped to raise the child, a single tear, falling between the bars of his helmet upon the upturned face of the wondering boy, told of the agony within.
Imagine yourself at Athens, among that strange people of feverish blood, who deify to-day the man they slaughtered but yesterday. The voice of the herald proclaims that Pericles is to be arraigned before the tribunal of the people. Borne along by the crowd, you enter the hall of justice. Not a sword rattles in its scabbard; not a mailed foot rings on the marble floor; one deep, intense, ominous silence pervades that dangerous assembly, as Pericles, rising, thus addresses them:--
“Ye men of Athens, I come not here to plead for life, though it be spent in exile; to entreat for a breath, though it be drawn in the damps of a dungeon; but to refute a vile slander; to show that he who invents and propagates a falsehood, like Sisyphus, rolls a stone to return and crush him. Cratinus accuses me of having embezzled the money raised for the defence of Greece, and of having expended it in adorning the city of Athens, as a proud and vain woman decketh herself with jewels.
“Have I not defended Greece, while Sparta and the allies were reposing in comfort by their own firesides? He avers that I was often at the house of Phidias to admire his statues, but insinuates that I had a softer motive. Suppose I had; rather let him show in what I have betrayed my country, when I have oppressed the poor, polluted myself with bribes, or turned back in the hour of battle. He accuses me of sacrificing the lives of brave men to my vaulting ambition, and even affects to shed tears over those who fell, in the flower of their youth, at Samos.