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Updated: June 9, 2025
'At Cumae? growled Jubellius Taurea, who sat near me, 'say, rather, at the house of Pacuvius Calavius, and I felt myself trembling, for then I knew surely that I had heard Maharbal aright, and that I was suspected. Still, I stood fast, and at last Hannibal spoke: 'Go to Cumae for three days, he said sternly.
The porter hardly deigned to swing the door for me." Marcia, knowing Iddilcar as she did, was prompt to take this speech in the light of an explanation of his eavesdropping; but the once sharp intelligence of Calavius had been too much deadened to search for secondary meanings. "I am an old man, priest," he said querulously. "Why should I leave stripes and crying behind me?"
"And where may this house be?" he asked in bantering tones. "We shall leave many standing, but this one most surely of all." "It is upon the brow of the Palatine Hill " she began, and then a burst of applause gave notice that the compliment had struck home. "It is my father's," she concluded, blushing. Calavius was in ecstasy over the graceful tact of his protégé.
They were now before the porch of a house that was, if possible, even more magnificent than that of Calavius. Every column was twined with garlands, flowers hung in festoons from the architrave, incense steamed up from brazen tripods set on either side of the entrance.
Calavius was furious and paused, as if to give orders for harsher repression. Then a voice called out in coarse jargon half Latin, half Campanian: "She is pretty, my Pacuvius! Venus grant her to restore your youth!" With an effort, he twisted his features into a smile. "May the gods favour your wish, my friend!" he said.
Therefore I tell you the fact, but without names, that you may know that you have enemies and walk warily, while I, your son, shall, under the gods, be your reliance for protection and revenge." Another thought seemed to be struggling for utterance in the bosom of Calavius a wish prompted by religion but checked by prudence. Twice he raised his head as if to speak, and twice his eyes wandered.
Calavius still moaned and cried out his measured "Aêi! aêi!" Suddenly a tumult of noises sounded from the street: the approaching murmur of a multitude, the footsteps of men, shouts of applause, cries of wonder or warning, and sharp words of command. Ah! the end was near, now.
Therefore they took me, and when I was well of my wounds they brought me here to Capua, and sold me to Pacuvius Calavius to whom may the gods give the death of a traitor! Lo! now, let it be for a warning that Orcus does indeed send back the dead from Acheron."
No sign of true respect greeted their leader; it seemed as if the mob recognized him only as the creature of its whim, to be upheld as a facile puppet or cast down by the first savage gust of discontent. As for Calavius himself, he, too, fell readily into the part assigned him.
So frank a question, so different from all that had been told of the more than Oriental craft of the Carthaginians, and one that went so straight to the motive of her presence, threw Marcia into some confusion. Calavius noticed it, and, fearing lest she might say something to do away with the impression of her former tact, he came to the rescue.
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