they had a respite from fighting,
neither for some days attacking nor attacked, so they had not, by
night or day, ever ceased from toiling, that they might repair anew
the wall in the quarter where the town had been exposed by the breach.
A still more desperate storming than the former then assailed them;
nor whilst all quarters resounded with various clamours, could they
satisfactorily know where first or principally they should lend
assistance. Hannibal, as an encouragement, was present in person,
where a movable tower, exceeding in height all the fortifications of
the city, was urged forward. When being brought up it had cleared the
walls of their defenders by means of the catapultae and ballistae
ranged through all its stories, then Hannibal, thinking it a
favourable opportunity, sends about five hundred Africans with
pickaxes to undermine the wall: nor was the work difficult, since the
unhewn stones were not fastened with lime, but filled in their
interstices with clay, after the manner of ancient building. It fell,
therefore, more extensively than it was struck, and through the open
spaces of the ruins troops of armed men rushed into the city. They
also obtain possession of a rising ground; and having collected
thither catapultae and ballistae, so that they might have a fort in
the city itself, commanding it like a citadel, they surround it with a
wall: and the Saguntines raise an inner wall before the part of the
city which was not yet taken. On both sides they exert the utmost
vigour in fortifying and fighting: but the Saguntines, by erecting
these inner defences, diminish daily the size of their city. At the
same time, the want of all supplies increased through the length of
the siege, and the expectation of foreign aid diminished, since the
Romans, their only hope, were at such a distance, and all the country
round was in the power of the enemy. The sudden departure of Hannibal
against the Oretani and Carpetani [Footnote: The Carpetani have
already been mentioned, chap. v. The Oretani, then neighbours,
occupied the country lying between the sources of the Baetis and the
Anas, or what are now called the Guadalquiver and Guadiana. In a part
of Orospeda they deduced their name from a city called Oretum, the
site of which has been brought to light in a paltry village to which
the name of Oreto still remains.--_D'Anville_.] revived for a
little their drooping spirits; which two nations, though, exasperated
by the s