But, whether from terror or
famine, they all took the roads to their native lands, and disappeared.
Hamilcar was not jealous of Hanno's successes. Nevertheless he was in
a hurry to end matters; he commanded him to fall back upon Tunis; and
Hanno, who loved his country, was under the walls of the town on the
appointed day.
For its protection it had its aboriginal population, twelve thousand
Mercenaries, and, in addition, all the Eaters of Uncleanness, for
like Matho they were riveted to the horizon of Carthage, and plebs and
schalischim gazed at its lofty walls from afar, looking back in thought
to boundless enjoyments. With this harmony of hatred, resistance was
briskly organised. Leathern bottles were taken to make helmets; all the
palm-trees in the gardens were cut down for lances; cisterns were dug;
while for provisions they caught on the shores of the lake big white
fish, fed on corpses and filth. Their ramparts, kept in ruins now by the
jealousy of Carthage, were so weak that they could be thrown down with a
push of the shoulder. Matho stopped up the holes in them with the stones
of the houses. It was the last struggle; he hoped for nothing, and yet
he told himself that fortune was fickle.
As the Carthaginians approached they noticed a man on the rampart who
towered over the battlements from his belt upwards.
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