et and at its base a circumference
of fully 2000 double paces,(12) was joined to this wall at its
southern end, just as the rock-wall of the Capitol was joined
to the city-wall of Rome. Its summit bore the huge temple of the
God of Healing, resting on a basement of sixty steps. The south
side of the city was washed partly by the shallow lake of Tunes towards
the south-west, which was separated almost wholly from the gulf by a
narrow and low tongue of land running southwards from the Carthaginian
peninsula,(13) partly by the open gulf towards the south-east.
At this last spot was situated the double harbour of the city,
a work of human hands; the outer or commercial harbour, a longish
rectangle with the narrow end turned to the sea, from whose entrance,
only 70 feet wide, broad quays stretched along the water on both sides,
and the inner circular war-harbour, the Cothon,(14) with the island
containing the admiral's house in the middle, which was approached
through the outer harbour. Between the two passed the city wall,
which turning eastward from the Byrsa excluded the tongue of
land and the outer harbour, but included the war-harbour, so that
the entrance to the latter must be conceived as capable of being
closed like a gate. Not far from the war-harbour lay the
marketplace, which was connected by three narrow streets with
the citadel open on the side towards the town. To the north of,
and beyond, the city proper, the pretty considerable space of
the modern El Mersa, even at that time occupied in great part by
villas and well-watered gardens, and then called Magalia, had a
circumvallation of its own joining on to the city wall. On the
opposite point of the peninsula, the Jebel-Khawi near the modern
village of Ghamart, lay the necropolis. These three--the old
city, the suburb, and the necropolis--together filled the whole
breadth of the promontory on its side next the gulf, and were only
accessible by the two highways leading to Utica and Tunes along
that narrow tongue of land, which, although not closed by a wall,
yet afforded a most advantageous position for the armies taking
their stand under the protection of the capital with the view of
protecting it in return.

The difficult task of reducing so well fortified a city was rendered
still more difficult by the fact, that the resources of the capital
itself and of its territory which still included 800 townships and
was mostly under the power of the emigrant p