It
was the army of the Barbarians advancing upon Carthage.
CHAPTER IV
BENEATH THE WALLS OF CARTHAGE
Some country people, riding on asses or running on foot, arrived in the
town, pale, breathless, and mad with fear. They were flying before the
army. It had accomplished the journey from Sicca in three days, in order
to reach Carthage and wholly exterminate it.
The gates were shut. The Barbarians appeared almost immediately; but
they stopped in the middle of the isthmus, on the edge of the lake.
At first they made no hostile announcement. Several approached with palm
branches in their hands. They were driven back with arrows, so great was
the terror.
In the morning and at nightfall prowlers would sometimes wander along
the walls. A little man carefully wrapped in a cloak, and with his face
concealed beneath a very low visor, was especially noticed. He would
remain whole hours gazing at the aqueduct, and so persistently that he
doubtless wished to mislead the Carthaginians as to his real designs.
Another man, a sort of giant who walked bareheaded, used to accompany
him.
But Carthage was defended throughout the whole breadth of the isthmus:
first by a trench, then by a grassy rampart, and lastly by a wall thirty
cubits high, built of freestone, and in two storys.
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