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 party on the one hand,
and the numerous tribes of the free or half-free Libyans hostile to
Massinissa on the other, enabled the Carthaginians simultaneously
with their defence of the city to keep a numerous army in the field--
an army which, from the desperate temper of the emigrants and the
serviceableness of the light Numidian cavalry, the besiegers could
not afford to disregard.

The Siege