30 ITALIAN WARS. PAKT the sea, forming an excellent interior harbour, about II. eighteen miles in circumference. The inhabitants trusting to the natural defences of this quarter, had omitted to protect it bj fortifications, and the houses rose abruptly from the margin of the basin. Into this reservoir, the Spanish commander resolved to transport such of his vessels then riding in the outer bay, as from their size could be conveyed across the narrow isthmus, which divided it from the inner. After incredible toil, twenty of the smallest craft were moved on huge cars and rollers across the in- tervening land, and safely launched on the bosom of the lake. The whole operation was performed amid the exciting accompaniments of discharges of ordnance, strains of martial music, and loud acclam- ations of the soldiery. The inhabitants of Tarento saw with consternation the fleet so lately floating in the open ocean under their impregnable walls, now quitting its native element, and moving, as it were by magic, across the land, to assault them on the quarter where they were the least defended. ^' Tarento sur- Thc Neapolitan commander perceived it would renders. a ' be impossible to hold out longer, without compro- mising the personal safety of the young prince under his care. He accordingly entered- into nego- tiations for a truce with the Great Captain, during which articles of capitulation were arranged, guar- antying to the duke of Calabria and his followers the right of evacuating the place and going w hcre- ever they listed. The Spanish general, in order to
- ^ Gonsalvo took the hint for this, doubtless, from Hannibal's similar
expedient. See Polybius, lib. 8.
