- bal, the Carthaginian general at their head, together
with many brave citizens of both sexes, and some Roman deserters, took possession of the citadel, which was in a strongly-fortified section of the city.
The Romans advanced to the walls of this fortification, and set that part of the city on fire that lay nearest to it; the fire burned for six days. When the fire had ceased burning near the citadel, the Roman troops were brought to the area thus left vacant by the flames, and the fight was renewed.
Seeing there was no hope of successfully resisting the enemy, Hasdrubal opened the gates, and surrendered to the Romans. There was, however, a temple in the citadel, capable of holding ten or fifteen thousand persons; in this, many of the brave men and women took refuge; among these were Hasdrubal's wife and two children. The gates of the temple had scarcely been closed and securely barred, ere some one set the building on fire from within. Half-suffocated with the smoke, and scorched with the flames, these people were soon running to and fro with the wildest screams; many of whom reached the roof, and among them, Hasdrubal's wife.
Looking down and seeing her husband standing amongst the Roman officers, she loaded him with reproaches for what she conceived to be his cowardice, stabbed her children, threw them into the flames, and leaped in herself. The city was given up to pillage, and set on fire. After burning for seventeen days, this great city, the model of beauty and magnificence, the repository of immense wealth, and one of the chief States of the ancient world, was no more. The destruction of Carthage, previously resolved upon in
