e Carthaginians from coming out. They were again rearing
the wooden towers, and the terrace was rising at the same time.

Outside communications were cut off and an intolerable famine set in.

The besieged killed all the dogs, all the mules, all the asses, and then
the fifteen elephants which the Suffet had brought back. The lions of
the temple of Moloch had become ferocious, and the hierodules no longer
durst approach them. They were fed at first with the wounded Barbarians;
then they were thrown corpses that were still warm; they refused
them, and they all died. People wandered in the twilight along the old
enclosures, and gathered grass and flowers among the stones to boil
them in wine, wine being cheaper than water. Others crept as far as the
enemy's outposts, and entered the tents to steal food, and the stupefied
Barbarians sometimes allowed them to return. At last a day arrived when
the Ancients resolved to slaughter the horses of Eschmoun privately.
They were holy animals whose manes were plaited by the pontiffs with
gold ribbons, and whose existence denoted the motion of the sun--the
idea of fire in its most exalted form. Their flesh was cut into equal
portions and buried behind the altar. Then every evening the Ancients,
alleging some act of devotion, would go up to the temple and regale
themselves in secret, and each would take away a piece beneath his tunic
for his children. In the deserted quarters remote from the walls, the
inhabitants, whose misery was not so great, had barricaded themselves
through fear of the rest.

The stones from the catapults, and the demolitions commanded for
purposes of defence, had accumulated heaps of ruins in the middle of
the streets. At the quietest times masses of people would suddenly rush
along with shouts; and from the top of the Acropolis the conflagrations
were like purple rags scattered upon the terraces and twisted by the
wind.

The three great catapults did not stop in spite of all these works.
Their ravages were extraordinary: thus a man's head rebounded from the
pediment of the Syssitia; a woman who was being confined in the street
of Kinisdo was crushed by a block of marble, and her child was carried
with the bed as far as the crossways of Cinasyn, where the coverlet was
found.

The most annoying were the bullets of the slingers. They fell upon the
roofs, and in the gardens, and in the middle of the courts, while people
were at table before a slender meal with