While his listeners wondered at the complex life and strange arts and magnificence of Carthage, Malchus was struck with the simple existence, the warm family ties, the honest sincerity, and the deep love of freedom of the Gauls.  When Brunilda and her daughter sighed with envy at the thought of the luxuries and pleasures of the great city, he told them that they would soon weary of so artificial an existence, and that Carthage, with its corruption, its ever present dread of the rising of one class against another, its constant fear of revolt from the people it had enslaved, its secret tribunals, its oppression and tyranny, had little which need be envied by the free tribes of Gaul.

“I grant,” he said, “that you would gain greater comfort by adopting something of our civilization.  You might improve your dwellings, hangings round your walls would keep out the bitter winds, well made doors are in winter very preferable to the skins which hang at your entrance, and I do think that a Carthaginian cook might, with advantage, give lessons to the tribes as to preparations of food; but beyond that I think that you have the best of it.”

“The well built houses you speak of,” Allobrigius said, “have their advantages, but they have their drawbacks.  A people who once settle down into permanent abodes have taken the first step towards losing their freedom.  Look at all the large towns in the plains; until lately each of them held a Roman garrison.  In the first place, they offer an incentive to the attack of a covetous foe; in the second, they bind their owners to them.  The inhabitants of a town cling to their houses and possessions, and, if conquered, become mere slaves to their captors; we who live in dwellings which cost but a few weeks of work, whose worldly goods are the work of our own hands, or the products of the chase, should never be conquered; we may be beaten, but if so, we can retire before our enemies and live in freedom in the forest or mountains, or travel beyond the reach of our foes.

“Had not your army come and freed us from Rome I was already meditating moving with my tribe across the great mountains to the north and settling among Brunilda’s people in the German forests, far beyond the reach of Rome.  What though, as she tells me, the winters are long and severe, the people ignorant of many of the comforts which we have adopted from our neighbours; at least we should be free, and of all blessings none is to compare with that.”

“I agree with you,” Malchus said, thinking of the plots and conspiracies, the secret denunciations, the tyranny and corruption of Carthage, “it is good to be great, but it is better to be free.  However,” he added more cheerfully, “I trust that we are going to free you from all future fear of Rome, and that you will be able to enjoy your liberty here without having to remove to the dark forests and long winter of the country north of the Alps.”