A furious resistance immediately began.
Trunks of trees fastened to cables fell and rose alternately and
battered the rams; cramps hurled by the ballistas tore away the roofs of
the huts; and streams of flints and pebbles poured from the platforms of
the towers.
At last the rams broke the gates of Khamon and Tagaste. But the
Carthaginians had piled up such an abundance of materials on the inside
that the leaves did not open. They remained standing.
Then they drove augers against the walls; these were applied to the
joints of the blocks, so as to detach the latter. The engines were
better managed, the men serving them were divided into squads, and they
were worked from morning till evening without interruption and with the
monotonous precision of a weaver's loom.
Spendius returned to them untiringly. It was he who stretched the skeins
of the ballistas. In order that the twin tensions might completely
correspond, the ropes as they were tightened were struck on the right
and left alternately until both sides gave out an equal sound. Spendius
would mount upon the timbers. He would strike the ropes softly with
the extremity of his foot, and strain his ears like a musician tuning
a lyre. Then when the beam of the catapult rose, when the pillar of the
ballista trembled with the shock of the spring, when the stones were
shooting in rays, and the darts pouring in streams, he would incline his
whole body and fling his arms into the air as though to follow them.
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