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Hannibal, who had managed to reunite a group of the bravest soldiers, presented a firm front to the Saguntines. "This way! This way!" he shouted to those coming from the camp, who in their excitement did not know where to rally. But at the same time his cries attracted the enemy.
Every day was precious; Hannibal formed his resolution. He sent summary intimation to Carthage that the Saguntines were making aggressions on the Torboletes, subjects of Carthage, and he must therefore attack them; and without waiting for a reply he began in the spring of 535 the siege of a town which was in alliance with Rome, or, in other words, war against Rome.
The Saguntines defending this part of the wall could not repulse the advance of the enemy. They felt the dull thud of the pickaxes, the wall seemed to reel beneath their feet, and they could do nothing to prevent the progress of the besiegers. Slowly the defenders began to retire.
Pass not the Iberus; have nothing to do with the Saguntines. Saguntum is on the Iberus; you must not move a step in any direction.
But your walls can no longer defend you; every day hundreds of Saguntines perish from hunger; the Romans will not come; they are far away, and occupied with other wars; in place of sending you legions they send you legates, and thus I, seeing that Alcon hesitated to return, face your indignation to bring you a peace rather necessary than advantageous." "The conditions!
But Saguntum had now fallen. The second wall had been breached by the time Hannibal had returned from his expedition, and an assault was ordered. As before, the Saguntines fought desperately, but after a long struggle the Carthaginians succeeded in winning a footing upon the wall.
When the cocks crowed announcing dawn a great part of the multitude had fallen asleep, wearied with straining their eyes into the darkness where buzzed the invisible foe. When the sun rose the Saguntines saw Hannibal's entire army before their walls, on the side toward the river. Actæon, as he noted the location of the troops, could not repress a smile. "He well knows the lay of the land.
Even the most fetid and repugnant matter had been turned to account. It was as if the besiegers had already broken into the city and had carried off everything of worth, leaving nothing but the buildings behind as silent witnesses to their rapine. Hunger and death stalked hand in hand beside the desperate Saguntines.
They also obtain possession of a rising ground; and having collected thither catapultae and ballistae, so that they might have a fort in the city itself, commanding it like a citadel, they surround it with a wall: and the Saguntines raise an inner wall before the part of the city which was not yet taken.
Hannibal himself was wounded while fighting under the walls; and when the end came, the fall of Saguntum was due to famine rather than to the force of arms. Then the Saguntines, men, women, and children, were of the opinion that surrender was ignoble, and they all preferred death at the hands of the enemy to any timorous act of submission.
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