s up closely within the
walls. Pyrrhus advanced to attack them. He determined to carry Eryx,
which was the strongest of the Carthaginian cities, by storm, instead
of waiting for the slow operations of an ordinary siege. The troops
were accordingly ordered to advance at once to the walls, and there
mounting, by means of innumerable ladders, to the parapets above, they
were to force their way in, over the defenses of the city, in spite of
all opposition. Of course, such a service as this is, of all the
duties ever required of the soldier, the most dangerous possible. The
towers and parapets above, which the assailants undertake to scale,
are covered with armed men, who throng to the part of the wall against
which the attack is to be directed, and stand there ready with spears,
javelins, rocks, and every other conceivable missile, to hurl upon
the heads of the besiegers coming up the ladders.

Pyrrhus, however, whatever may have been his faults in other respects,
seems to have been very little inclined at any time to order his
soldiers to encounter any danger which he was not willing himself to
share. He took the head of the column in the storming of Eryx, and was
the first to mount the ladders. Previous, however, to advancing for
the attack, he performed a grand religious ceremony, in which he
implored the assistance of the god Hercules in the encounter which was
about to take place; and made a solemn vow that if Hercules would
assist him in the conflict, so as to enable him to display before the
Sicilians such strength and valor, and to perform such feats as should
be worthy of his name, his ancestry, and his past history, he would,
immediately after the battle, institute on the spot a course of
festivals and sacrifices of the most imposing and magnificent
character in honor of the god. This vow being made, the trumpet
sounded and the storming party went forward--Pyrrhus at the head of
it. In mounting the ladder, he defended himself with his shield from
the missiles thrown down upon him from above until he reached the top
of the wall, and there, by means of his prodigious strength, and
desperate and reckless bravery, he soon gained ground for those that
followed him, and established a position there both for himself and
for them, having cut down one after another those who attempted to
oppose him, until he had surrounded himself with a sort of parapet,
formed of the bodies of the dead.

[Illustration: THE ASSAULT.]