They were too weak to knock down the flying crows with stones.  Sometimes when a gypaetus was perched on a corpse, and had been mangling it for a long time, a man would set himself to crawl towards it with a javelin between his teeth.  He would support himself with one hand, and after taking a good aim, throw his weapon.  The white-feathered creature, disturbed by the noise, would desist and look about in tranquil fashion like a cormorant on a rock, and would then again thrust in its hideous, yellow beak, while the man, in despair, would fall flat on his face in the dust.  Some succeeded in discovering chameleons and serpents.  But it was the love of life that kept them alive.  They directed their souls to this idea exclusively, and clung to existence by an effort of the will that prolonged it.

The most stoical kept close to one another, seated in a circle here and there, among the dead in the middle of the plain; and wrapped in their cloaks they gave themselves up silently to their sadness.

Those who had been born in towns recalled the resounding streets, the taverns, theatres, baths, and the barbers’ shops where there are tales to be heard.  Others could once more see country districts at sunset, when the yellow corn waves, and the great oxen ascend the hills again with the ploughshares on their necks.  Travellers dreamed of cisterns, hunters of their forests, veterans of battles; and in the somnolence that benumbed them their thoughts jostled one another with the precipitancy and clearness of dreams.  Hallucinations came suddenly upon them; they sought for a door in the mountain in order to flee, and tried to pass through it.  Others thought that they were sailing in a storm and gave orders for the handling of a ship, or else fell back in terror, perceiving Punic battalions in the clouds.  There were some who imagined themselves at a feast, and sang.

Many through a strange mania would repeat the same word or continually make the same gesture.  Then when they happened to raise their heads and look at one another they were choked with sobs on discovering the horrible ravages made in their faces.  Some had ceased to suffer, and to while away the hours told of the perils which they had escaped.

Death was certain and imminent to all.  How many times had they not tried to open up a passage!  As to implore terms from the conqueror, by what means could they do so?  They did not even know where Hamilcar was.

The wind was blowing from the direction of the ravine.  It made the sand flow perpetually in cascades over the portcullis; and the cloaks and hair of the Barbarians were being covered with it as though the earth were rising upon them and desirous of burying them.  Nothing stirred; the eternal mountain seemed still higher to them every morning.

Sometimes flights of birds darted past beneath the blue sky in the freedom of the air.  The men closed their eyes that they might not see them.