The city was at that time twelve miles round, and was defended by huge
walls sixty feet high and thirty-three feet thick with rooms inside
them. In the lower storey were stables for horses and elephants (of
which there were 300), and the upper storey served as barracks for
over 20,000 soldiers, who formed the garrison for defence of the city.
But very few of these soldiers were Carthaginians. The Carthaginian
young men did not care about soldiering: they preferred to loaf about
and do nothing but watch public games, and foreigners or poor men were
hired to do the soldiering for the country.
The country was large and rich, and had many colonies oversea and
plenty of ships.
It looked as though no enemy could ever arise to come and attack her.
But what seemed so unlikely actually happened in the end.
The Romans had no great fleet to speak of, but they had a fine army,
and they meant business. They put their soldiers into crowded
transports, and sailed across the short distance of ocean that lay
between the two countries--not much farther than Hamburg in Germany is
from Hull in Yorkshire.
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