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Bacchantes! there is no water in Capua to mix with wine. Equal mixture for poets and fools; undiluted wine for victors and lovers!" "Perolla is a good Carthaginian to-day," shouted one of his fellows. "Behold how Bacchus has answered our prayers! Kiss him, Cluvia, for a reward."
"I entered, my Perolla, because your porter, like every slave in Capua, is drunk to-night, and because the boy whom he left to keep the gate was only enough awake to mumble that you were in the garden." Perolla frowned. Then, suddenly, he remembered Marcia, concerning whom his suspicions were not yet entirely removed, and he raised his hand in warning.
Why should he speak so markedly of their military power? Did not the treaty expressly state that no Capuan was to be called upon for military duty except by his own rulers? Calavius had been signalling vigorously to his son, Perolla, who had reclined silent and gloomy, but who now seemed about to speak. Disregarding his father's warning, the young man broke in:
The Carthaginians heard him with indifference; the Capuans, all save Perolla, applauded nervously; and Marcia grew sick at heart and mad with a rage that could almost have strangled the giant as he reclined.
Decius Magius has been parading in the Forum, defying our friends, and who with him but my own son, Perolla, casting discredit on my plans, and danger on himself! It was with the utmost difficulty I could drag him away and then, what does the Carthaginian do but fly into a rage, and demand an audience of the senate, with a view to punishing Decius.
Perhaps her attitude was due in a measure to the horror with which she herself had listened to the morning's news. To be sure, she had not admired the character of Perolla. It had in it too much of the weakness and puerility engendered by the bastard Greek culture fashionable in lower Italy, and which naturally attained its most offensive form in the towns of Italian origin.
Subdued applause from both tables followed these words, but the face of Perolla lost but little of its stubborn hostility. Hannibal turned away, and Calavius and Ninius sought to cover by eager talking the young man's ungracious reception of such signal favour.
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