ns favourably succeeded, when
they came to effect their object. Both a huge tower overlooked it, and
the wall, as in a suspected place, was raised higher than in any other
part; and a chosen band of youths presented a more vigorous
resistance, where the greatest danger and labour were indicated. At
first they repelled the enemy with missile weapons, and suffered no
place to be sufficiently secure for those engaged in the works;
afterwards, not only did they brandish their weapons in defence of the
walls and tower, but they had courage to make sallies on the posts and
works of the enemy; in which tumultuary engagements, scarcely more
Saguntines than Carthaginians were slain. But when Hannibal himself,
while he too incautiously approached the wall, fell severely wounded
in the thigh by a javelin, such flight and dismay spread around, that
the works and vineae had nearly been abandoned.

8. For a few days after, while the general's wound was being cured,
there was rather a blockade than a siege: during which time, though
there was a respite from fighting, yet there was no intermission in
the preparation of works and fortifications. Hostilities, therefore,
broke out afresh with greater fury, and in more places, in some even
where the ground scarcely admitted of the works, the vineae began to
be moved forward, and the battering-ram to be advanced to the walls.
The Carthaginian abounded in the numbers of his troops; for there is
sufficient reason to believe that he had as many as a hundred and
fifty thousand in arms. The townsmen began to be embarrassed, by
having their attention multifariously divided, in order to maintain
their several defences, and look to every thing; nor were they equal
to the task, for the walls were now battered by the rams, and many
parts of them were shattered. One part by continuous ruins left the
city exposed; three successive towers and all the wall between them
had fallen down with an immense crash, and the Carthaginians believed
the town taken by that breach; through which, as if the wall had alike
protected both, there was a rush from each side to the battle. There
was nothing resembling the disorderly fighting which, in the storming
of towns, is wont to be engaged in, on the opportunities of either
party; but regular lines, as in an open plain, stood arrayed between
the ruins of the walls and the buildings of the city, which lay but a
slight distance from the walls. On the one side hope, on th