make himself master of the ports, which were
separated from the sea by quays and a weak wall. His battering-rams were
at once destroyed by the Carthaginians. He then built a wall or rampart
upon the quay, to the height of the city wall, and placed upon it four
thousand men to harass the besieged. As the winter rains then set in,
making his camp unhealthy, and the city was now closely invested by sea
and land, he turned his attention to the fortified camp of the enemy at
Nephesis, which was taken by storm, and seventy thousand persons put to
the sword. The Carthaginian army was annihilated.

(M904) Meanwhile famine pressed within the besieged city, and Hasdrubal
would not surrender. An attack, led by Laelius, on the market-place, gave
the Romans a foothold within the city, and a great quantity of spoil. One
thousand talents were taken from the temple of Apollo. Preparations were
then made for the attack of the citadel, and for six days there was a
hand-to-hand fight between the combatants amid the narrow streets which
led to the Byrsa. The tall Oriental houses were only taken one by one and
burned, and the streets were cumbered with the dead. The miserable people,
crowded within the citadel, certain now of destruction, then sent a
deputation to Scipio to beg the lives of those who had sought a retreat in
the Byrsa. The request was granted to all but Roman deserters. But out of
the great population of seven hundred thousand, only thirty thousand men
and twenty-five thousand women marched from the burning ruins. Hasdrubal
and the three hundred Roman deserters, certain of no mercy, retired to the
temple of AEsculapius, the heart of the citadel. But the Carthaginian,
uniting pusillanimity with cruelty, no sooner found the temple on fire,
than he rushed out in Scipio's presence, with an olive-branch in his
hands, and abjectly begged for his life, which Scipio granted, after he
had prostrated himself at his feet in sight of his followers, who loaded
him with the bitterest execrations. The wife of Hasdrubal, deserted by the
abject wretch, called down the curses of the gods on the man who had
betrayed his country and deserted at last his family. She then cut the
throats of her children and threw them into the flames, and then leaped
into them herself. The Roman deserters in the same manner perished. The
city was given up to plunder, the inhabitants whose lives were spared were
sold as slaves, and the gold and works of art were ca