ho
dragged the heavy machines come within range than such a shower of
arrows fell about them that those who were not pinned to the ground had
to flee for their lives.

Sometimes, under cover of the mantelets, which advanced on wheels, and
through the loopholes of which the Carthaginian bowmen shot, they
managed to get the battering-rams to the foot of the wall, but while
that part of the city was the most exposed to attack, the ramparts which
in the upper portion of Saguntum were of adobe had here a stony rock
base, and in vain the bronze rams'-heads which formed the ends of the
beams, pounded and pounded, operated by hundreds of arms. Showers of
arrows and stones fell upon the besiegers, breaking the shields which
covered them. A great tower dominated the whole area around the
assailants, sowing death among them without exposure to the besieged,
and not content with this, under the impulse of their passion, they
frequently sprang forth from behind the ramparts, knifing the
Carthaginians.

Each of these sallies cost Hannibal's army severe losses. The Africans
had begun to tell with superstitious dread of a naked giant, wearing a
lion's skin, and brandishing a tree-trunk, who charged at the head of
the Saguntines, and at each blow ploughed a broad furrow through the
assailants. The Ethiopians saw in him a terrible and sanguinary
divinity, like those which they worshipped in their oases; the
Celtiberians declared that it was Hercules, descended from Olympus to
protect the city.

Hannibal recognized him in the battles from afar. It was Theron, the
priest whom he had seen one morning on the Acropolis, and whose
extraordinary vigor he had admired. But in spite of knowing his human
origin, he could not overcome the terror of the troops at the instant
when they saw towering above all the helmets that invulnerable lion's
head which seemed to change the course of the arrows and stones.

Moreover the besieged counted on the assistance of the phalaric. It was
well known that among the merchants and agriculturists there figured men
expert in war, who had traveled through many lands. The memory of his
boyhood companion, Actaeon, the Greek adventurer, surged through
Hannibal's mind. He, surely, must be the introducer of the phalaric, a
dart wrapped in tow and dipped in pitch. The shaft sped blazing through
the air like a stream of fire, with its long iron head capable of
piercing the shield and the cuirass, and even if the terri