Trunks of trees fastened to cables fell and rose alternately and battered the rams; cramps hurled by the ballistas tore away the roofs of the huts; and streams of flints and pebbles poured from the platforms of the towers.

At last the rams broke the gates of Khamon and Tagaste.  But the Carthaginians had piled up such an abundance of materials on the inside that the leaves did not open.  They remained standing.

Then they drove augers against the walls; these were applied to the joints of the blocks, so as to detach the latter.  The engines were better managed, the men serving them were divided into squads, and they were worked from morning till evening without interruption and with the monotonous precision of a weaver’s loom.

Spendius returned to them untiringly.  It was he who stretched the skeins of the ballistas.  In order that the twin tensions might completely correspond, the ropes as they were tightened were struck on the right and left alternately until both sides gave out an equal sound.  Spendius would mount upon the timbers.  He would strike the ropes softly with the extremity of his foot, and strain his ears like a musician tuning a lyre.  Then when the beam of the catapult rose, when the pillar of the ballista trembled with the shock of the spring, when the stones were shooting in rays, and the darts pouring in streams, he would incline his whole body and fling his arms into the air as though to follow them.

The soldiers admired his skill and executed his commands.  In the gaiety of their work they gave utterance to jests on the names of the machines.  Thus the plyers for seizing the rams were called “wolves,” and the galleries were covered with “vines”; they were lambs, or they were going to gather the grapes; and as they loaded their pieces they would say to the onagers:  “Come, pick well!” and to the scorpions:  “Pierce them to the heart!” These jokes, which were ever the same, kept up their courage.

Nevertheless the machines did not demolish the rampart.  It was formed of two walls and was completely filled with earth.  The upper portions were beaten down, but each time the besieged raised them again.  Matho ordered the construction of wooden towers which should be as high as the towers of stone.  They cast turf, stakes, pebbles and chariots with their wheels into the trench so as to fill it up the more quickly; but before this was accomplished the immense throng of the Barbarians undulated over the plain with a single movement and came beating against the foot of the walls like an overflowing sea.