That all this could be done without the consuls, who were but a few
miles off, learning anything of it, is not the least marvellous feature
in this marvellous movement sustained by a truly enthusiastic, and in
fact superhuman, national hatred. When at length the consuls, weary
of waiting, broke up from their camp at Utica, and thought that they
should be able to scale the bare walls with ladders, they found to their
surprise and horror the battlements crowned anew with catapults, and
the large populous city which they had hoped to occupy like an open
village, able and ready to defend itself to the last man.

Situation of Carthage

Carthage was rendered very strong both by the nature of its
situation(8) and by the art of its inhabitants, who had very often
to depend on the protection of its walls. Into the broad gulf of
Tunis, which is bounded on the west by Cape Farina and on the east
by Cape Bon, there projects in a direction from west to east a
promontory, which is encompassed on three sides by the sea and is
connected with the mainland only towards the west. This promontory,
at its narrowest part only about two miles broad and on the whole flat,
again expands towards the gulf, and terminates there in the two
heights of Jebel-Khawi and Sidi bu Said, between which extends
the plain of El Mersa. On its southern portion which ends in the
height of Sidi bu Said lay the city of Carthage. The pretty steep
declivity of that height towards the gulf and its numerous rocks and
shallows gave natural strength to the side of the city next to the
gulf, and a simple circumvallation was sufficient there. On the
wall along the west or landward side, on the other hand, where nature
afforded no protection, every appliance within the power of the art
of fortification in those times was expended. It consisted, as its