as sentries on the platform
of the aqueduct, and near them rose at intervals brazen vats, in which
floods of asphalt were boiling. Below in the plain the great crowd
stirred tumultuously. They were in a state of uncertainty, feeling the
embarrassment with which Barbarians are always inspired when they meet
with walls.

Utica and Hippo-Zarytus refused their alliance. Phoenician colonies like
Carthage, they were self-governing, and always had clauses inserted
in the treaties concluded by the Republic to distinguish them from the
latter. Nevertheless they respected this strong sister of theirs who
protected them, and they did not think that she could be vanquished by
a mass of Barbarians; these would on the contrary be themselves
exterminated. They desired to remain neutral and to live at peace.

But their position rendered them indispensable. Utica, at the foot
of the gulf, was convenient for bringing assistance to Carthage from
without. If Utica alone were taken, Hippo-Zarytus, six hours further
distant along the coast, would take its place, and the metropolis, being
revictualled in this way, would be impregnable.

Spendius wished the siege to be undertaken immediately. Narr' Havas was
opposed to this: an advance should first be made upon the frontier.
This was the opinion of the veterans, and of Matho himself, and it
was decided that Spendius should go to attack Utica, and Matho
Hippo-Zarytus, while in the third place the main body should rest on
Tunis and occupy the plain of Carthage, Autaritus being in command. As
to Narr' Havas, he was to return to his own kingdom to procure elephants
and to scour the roads with his cavalry.

The women cried out loudly against this decision; they coveted the
jewels of the Punic ladies. The Libyans also protested. They had been
summoned against Carthage, and now they were going away from it! The
soldiers departed almost alone. Matho commanded his own companions,
together with the Iberians, Lusitanians, and the men of the West, and of
the islands; all those who spoke Greek had asked for Spendius on account
of his cleverness.

Great was the stupefaction when the army was seen suddenly in motion;
it stretched along beneath the mountain of Ariana on the road to Utica
beside the sea. A fragment remained before Tunis, the rest disappeared
to re-appear on the other shore of the gulf on the outskirts of the
woods in which they were lost.

They were perhaps eighty thousand men. The two