The four chiefs met together every evening in Matho’s tent, and squatting round a shield, attentively moved backwards and forwards the little wooden figures invented by Pyrrhus for the representation of manoeuvres.  Spendius would demonstrate Hamilcar’s resources, and with oaths by all the gods entreat that the opportunity should not be wasted.  Matho would walk about angry and gesticulating.  The war against Carthage was his own personal affair; he was indignant that the others should interfere in it without being willing to obey him.  Autaritus would divine his speech from his countenance and applaud.  Narr’ Havas would elevate his chin to mark his disdain; there was not a measure he did not consider fatal; and he had ceased to smile.  Sighs would escape him as though he were thrusting back sorrow for an impossible dream, despair for an abortive enterprise.

While the Barbarians deliberated in uncertainty, the Suffet increased his defences:  he had a second trench dug within the palisades, a second wall raised, and wooden towers constructed at the corners; and his slaves went as far as the middle of the outposts to drive caltrops into the ground.  But the elephants, whose allowances were lessened, struggled in their shackles.  To economise the grass he ordered the Clinabarians to kill the least strong among the stallions.  A few refused to do so, and he had them decapitated.  The horses were eaten.  The recollection of this fresh meat was a source of great sadness to them in the days that followed.

From the bottom of the ampitheatre in which they were confined they could see the four bustling camps of the Barbarians all around them on the heights.  Women moved about with leathern bottles on their heads, goats strayed bleating beneath the piles of pikes; sentries were being relieved, and eating was going on around tripods.  In fact, the tribes furnished them abundantly with provisions, and they did not themselves suspect how much their inaction alarmed the Punic army.

On the second day the Carthaginians had remarked a troop of three hundred men apart from the rest in the camp of the nomads.  These were the rich who had been kept prisoners since the beginning of the war.  Some Libyans ranged them along the edge of the trench, took their station behind them, and hurled javelins, making themselves a rampart of their bodies.  The wretched creatures could scarcely be recognised, so completely were their faces covered with vermin and filth.  Their hair had been plucked out in places, leaving bare the ulcers on their heads, and they were so lean and hideous that they were like mummies in tattered shrouds.  A few trembled and sobbed with a stupid look; the rest cried out to their friends to fire upon the Barbarians.  There was one who remained quite motionless with face cast down, and without speaking; his long white beard fell to his chain-covered hands; and the Carthaginians, feeling as it were the downfall of the Republic in the bottom of their hearts, recognised Gisco.  Although the place was a dangerous one they pressed forward to see him.  On his head had been placed a grotesque tiara of hippopotamus leather incrusted with pebbles.  It was Autaritus’s idea; but it was displeasing to Matho.