Fight and resist
It is with lowered heads that the ambassadors return to the city, anxiously awaited by the people who watch for them from the top of the walls. All understand that the news is bad and pester them with questions, but they want to warn the senate first. The session begins as the crowd watches outside. Hearing the cries of despair of the senators, she forces the doors, rushes into the room and knocks out on the spot those of the senators whom she knows responsible for having delivered the hostages and the weapons. The deputies bearing the dreadful news are dragged out and stoned. “The whole city, writes Appian, was full of tears of anger, fear, threats; some went through the streets calling their friends, others went to the temples and insulted the gods; others went to the arsenals and wept in despair to see them empty; others ran to the port to mourn the delivered ships; others called by their names the elephants also delivered and cursed those who were guilty of them. The mothers whose sons have been taken “like furies” attack passers-by to hold them to account.
No one dreams of capitulating; all want to fight and resist. The senate decides to defend the city by all means. Slaves are freed and made into soldiers. An emissary is sent to Hasdrubal, recently condemned to death for having been an unlucky general before Massinissa. His former adversaries begged him to come to the aid of the country in danger, which he accepted, bringing with him a body of 20,000 men whom he had managed to recruit during his disgrace. He receives command of all troops in the field. Another Hasdrubal, grandson of Massinissa by his mother, is in charge of the defense of the city itself, which shows the rallying of the Numidian party. The temples, palaces and other spacious premises are transformed into workshops where men and women work tirelessly, day and night, to manufacture weapons and ammunition.- Appian affirms that every day they make 100 shields, 300 swords, 1,000 darts, 500 darts and javelins and as many crossbows as they can. And the historian adds:“Since they had nothing to bandage them, all the women cut their hair to make ropes. They also offer their gold jewelry to meet new expenses.
Fortunately, the city's fortifications were not destroyed; they are particularly important on the side of the isthmus which connects Carthage to the mainland and separates Lake Tunis to the south, opening into the Bay of Tunis, and Lake Soukra to the north which communicated with the sea at the time of the Third Punic War. . Attacks coming from land have to cross a triple enclosure; the closest to the city is 17 m high (14 m under the battlements), for 10 m wide, which is enormous for the time. Built according to the rules of the military art enacted by the Greek engineer Philon, it presents at the foot of the wall a massive masonry approximately 5.50 m thick and 6 m high, capable of withstanding water hammer. . In the 4.50 m remaining in the thickness of the wall are practiced empty spaces to house the elephants, of which unfortunately a large part was delivered to Rome, and the horses as well as stores for the food of these animals. Appien speaks of 300 elephants and 4000 horses. The height of 14 m makes it possible to fit out a second floor where the soldiers and all the supplies are installed. The excavations brought to light in the citadel a series of cisterns below ground level for the supply of water; there were certainly closer to this enclosure and, in addition, an aqueduct brought water into the city. Built of freestone, this wall is flanked every 59 ni by a protruding four-storey tower; a walkway circulates at its summit.