s on his
hips, and was looking down below him as though astonished at his work.

Then he drew himself up. He surveyed the horizon with a haughty air
which seemed to say: "All that is now mine!" The applause of the
Barbarians burst forth, while the Carthaginians, comprehending their
disaster at last, shrieked with despair. Then he began to run about
the platform from one end to the other,--and like a chariot-driver
triumphant at the Olympic Games, Spendius, distraught with pride, raised
his arms aloft.

CHAPTER XIII

MOLOCH

The Barbarians had no need of a circumvallation on the side of Africa,
for it was theirs. But to facilitate the approach to the walls, the
entrenchments bordering the ditch were thrown down. Matho next divided
the army into great semicircles so as to encompass Carthage the better.
The hoplites of the Mercenaries were placed in the first rank, and
behind them the slingers and horsemen; quite at the back were the
baggage, chariots, and horses; and the engines bristled in front of this
throng at a distance of three hundred paces from the towers.

Amid the infinite variety of their nomenclature (which changed several
times in the course of the centuries) these machines might be reduced to
two systems: some acted like slings, and the rest like bows.

The first, which were the catapults, was composed of a square frame with
two vertical uprights and a horizontal bar. In its anterior portion was
a cylinder, furnished with cables, which held back a great beam bearing
a spoon for the reception of projectiles; its base was caught in a
skein of twisted thread, and when the ropes were let go it sprang up and
struck against the bar, which, checking it with a shock, multiplied its
power.

The second presented a more complicated mechanism. A cross-bar had its
centre fixed on a little pillar, and from this point of junction there
branched off at right angles a short of channel; two caps containing
twists of horse-hair stood at the extremities of the cross-bar; two
small beams were fastened to them to hold the extremities of a rope
which was brought to the bottom of the channel upon a tablet of bronze.
This metal plate was released by a spring, and sliding in grooves
impelled the arrows.

The catapults were likewise called onagers, after the wild asses which
fling up stones with their feet, and the ballistas scorpions, on account
of a hook which stood upon the tablet, and being lowered by a blow of
the