enches
and palisades the cross-wall in front of the residences. Scipio now
left Mancinus to guard Megalia and himself set out to join Piso and
the troops so as to have their support in his conduct of operations.
He made a rapid return journey with the lightest equipped portion of
the army and found that Hasdrubal had entered Carthage and was
attacking Mancinus fiercely. The arrival of Scipio put an end to the
attack. When Piso too had come there, Scipio bade him take up his
position outside the wall opposite certain gates, and he sent other
soldiers around to a little gate a long distance away from the main
force, with orders as to what they must do. He himself about midnight
took the strongest portion of the army, got inside the circuit (using
deserters as guides) and moving quietly to a point inside the little
gate he hacked the bar in two, let in the men who were on the watch
outside and destroyed the guards. Then he hastened to the gate
opposite which Piso had his station, routing the intervening guards
(who were only a few in each place), so that Hasdrubal by the time he
found out what had happened could see that nearly the entire body of
Roman troops was inside. For a while the Carthaginians withstood them:
then they abandoned the city, all but the Cotho and Byrsa, in which
they took refuge. Next Hasdrubal killed all the Roman captives in
order that his people in despair of pardon might show the greater
fortitude in resistance. He also made away with many of the natives on
the charge that they wanted to betray their own cause. And Scipio
encircled them with trench and palisade and intercepted them by a
wall, yet it was some time before he took them captive. The walls were
strong and the men within being many in number and confined in a small
space fought with vehemence. They were well off for food, too, for
Bithias from the mainland opposite the city sent merchantmen, amid
wind and wave into the harbor to them so often as there was a heavy
gale blowing. To overcome this obstacle Scipio conceived and executed
a startling operation, namely, the damming of the narrow entrance to
the harbor. The work was difficult and toilsome, for the Carthaginians
undertook to check them, yet he accomplished it by the number of
laborers at his disposal. Many battles took place in the meantime, but
the enemy were unable to prevent the filling of the channel.

IX, 30.--So when the mouth of the harbor had been filled up, the
Carthagin