The Mistery of Belicena Villca
The survivors of the House of Tharsis , curiously eighteen in all , were gathered near the Secret Cavern , on a narrow terrace naturally protected with huge rocks that allowed a certain defense and from which the mountainside could be dominated . The family saga tells that , a moment before , the Men of Stone , the only ones who knew how to enter it , had held a council in the Secret Cavern : in the face of the disaster that struck down against the House of Tharsis , they vowed to devote all efforts to the fulfillment of the family mission and to save the Wise Sword . It was necessary that the Lineage continued to exist at any cost ; as for the Wise Sword regards , they decided that , after the death of the last Vraya , it would remain perpetually deposited in the Secret Cavern , at least until the day when other Men of Stone , descendants of the House of Tharsis , observed in it the K ' Taagar ' s Lithic Sign and knew they should leave : until that ocassion the Wise Sword would never see the light of day again .
Upon leaving , they communicated these determinations to their relatives and requested news about the Kingdom . But the news reaching the makeshift shelter were strange and contradictory . Prompt help from the Romans should be ruled out because the Golen had risen up all the peoples of Gaul against them , cutting off their way to Spain : the aid of Tartessos now required a very large expedition , which would leave Rome itself unguarded . On the other hand , at Tartessos , the Carthaginian victory had been crushing : the entire Tartesside was in the possession of General Barca , which completed the total occupation of the South of Spain . To the Lords of Tharsis only their lives and a battalion of faithful and fierce royal guards remained . However , something strange and contradictory happened .
Hamílcar Barca , it is true , had Tartessos razed to the point of becoming debris . In this action both he and the mercenary army acted moved by a murderous fury that surpassed all reasoning , by an indomitable force that seized them and did not abandon them until they had completely destroyed the city already occupied . It was as if the hatred experienced during centuries by the Golen against the House of Tharsis would have accumulated in some dark container , perhaps in the Myth of Perseus , to download everything together in the Soul of the Carthaginians . However , after consummating the irrational destruction , General Barca and the military chiefs who accompanied him abruptly regained their lucidity , being no stranger to that phenomenon , the death of the twenty Golen and the departure of Bera and Birsha . Momentarily , something had been interrupted , something that prompted General Barca to wish the annihilation of the House of Tharsis ; and there were no more Golen left in Tartessos to restart it . Then , free for the moment , from the destructive passion of the Argive Perseus , Hamilcar Barca acted with the good sense of a true Carthaginian , that is , he thought about his personal interests . For Hamilcar Barca the enemy was not only in Rome ; there , in any case , was the enemy of Carthage ; but in Carthage were also the enemies of Hamilcar Barca , those who envied his succesful career as a General and distrusted his power ; those who had sent him , eight years before , to conquer that inhospitable country and had no intention of making him come back .
But Hamilcar Barca would pay them with the same coin , he would demonstrate towards the Government of Carthage the same indifference and would use for his own benefit , and of his family , the immense conquered territory : Spain would be the private Farm of the Barca ! But , for that , they would have to count on the essential collaboration of the native population , who had until then managed the country and knew all the springs of its operation . And those warlike peoples , who were free for centuries , would not easily submit to slavery , this the Barcides clearly noticed , unless their own Kings and Lords convinced them that it was better not to resist the occupation . The solution would not be impossible because , according to the particular philosophy of the Carthaginians , “ it should only be destroyed that which could not be bought ”.
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