However, it had eight wheels banded with iron, and it
had been advancing slowly in this way since the morning, like a mountain
raised upon another. Then there appeared an immense ram issuing from its
base. The doors along the three fronts which faced the town fell down,
and cuirassed soldiers appeared in the interior like pillars of iron.
Some might be seen climbing and descending the two staircases which
crossed the stories. Some were waiting to dart out as soon as the cramps
of the doors touched the walls; in the middle of the upper platform the
skeins of the ballistas were turning, and the great beam of the catapult
was being lowered.
Hamilcar was at that moment standing upright on the roof of Melkarth. He
had calculated that it would come directly towards him, against what was
the most invulnerable place in the wall, which was for that very reason
denuded of sentries. His slaves had for a long time been bringing
leathern bottles along the roundway, where they had raised with clay
two transverse partitions forming a sort of basin. The water was flowing
insensibly along the terrace, and strange to say, it seemed to cause
Hamilcar no anxiety.
But when the helepolis was thirty paces off, he commanded planks to
be placed over the streets between the houses from the cisterns to
the rampart; and a file of people passed from hand to hand helmets and
amphoras, which were emptied continually.
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