leader, and made ready arms, engines, and triremes.  With war at their doors and the danger of slavery confronting them they prepared in the briefest possible time everything that they needed.  They spared nothing, but melted down the statues for the sake of the bronze in them and used the hair of their women for ropes.  The consuls at first, thinking them unarmed, expected to overcome them speedily and merely prepared ladders, with which they expected to scale the wall at once.  As the assault showed their enemies to be armed and they saw that they possessed means for a siege, the Romans, before approaching close to the city again, devoted themselves to the manufacture of engines.  The construction of these machines was fraught with danger, since Hasdrubal set ambuscades for those who were gathering the wood and annoyed them considerably, but in time they were able to assail the town.  Now Manilius in his assault from the land side could not injure the Carthaginians at all, but Marcius, while delivering an attack from marshy ground on the side where the sea was, managed to shake down a part of the wall, though he could not get inside.  The Carthaginians repulsed those who attempted to force their way in, and at night issued through the ruins to slay numerous men and burn up a very large number of engines.  Hasdrubal and the cavalry, however, did not allow them to scatter over any considerable territory and Masinissa lent them no aid.  He had not been invited at the opening of the war, and, though he had promised Hasdrubal that he would fight now, they gave him no opportunity of doing so.

IX, 27.—­The consuls in view of the outcome of their attempts and because their fleet had been damaged by its stay in the lake raised the siege.  Marcius endeavored to achieve some advantage by sea or at least to injure the coast districts, but not accomplishing anything he sailed for home, then turned back and subdued AEgimurus:  and Manilius started for the interior, but upon sustaining injuries at the hands of Himilco, commander of the Carthaginian cavalry, whom they called also Phameas, he returned to Carthage.  There, while the outside forces of Hasdrubal troubled him, the people in the city harassed him by excursions both night and day.  In fact, the Carthaginians came to despise him and advanced as far as the Roman camp, but being for the most part unarmed they lost a number of men and shut themselves up in their fortifications again.  Manilius was particularly anxious to get into close quarters with Hasdrubal, thinking that, if he could vanquish him, he should find it easier to wage war upon the remainder.  His wish to get into close quarters with him was eventually realized.  He followed Hasdrubal to a small fort whither the latter was retiring, and before he knew it got into a narrow passage over rough ground and there suffered a tremendous reverse.  He would have been utterly destroyed, had he not found a most valuable helper in the person