Polybius - "The Histories (Book I)" (Chap. 73) lyrics

1 Yet, although the Carthaginians were in such straits, they first of all appointed Hanno to the command, as he had, they thought, on a former occasion brought matters concerning Hecatompylus in Libya to a satisfactory conclusion; they next busied themselves with enrolling mercenaries and arming the citizens of military age. 2 They also mustered and drilled their civic cavalry and got ready what ships they had left, consisting of triremes, quinqueremes and the largest of their skiffs. 3 Meanwhile Mathos, when about seventy thousand Libyans had joined him, divided them into several forces with which he maintained unmolested the sieges of Utica and Hippacritae, secured his main camp at Tunis and thus shut out the Carthaginians from all outer Libya. Carthage, I should explain, lies in a gulf. 4 On a promontory or peninsula surrounded mostly by the sea and in part by a lake. 5 The isthmus which connects it with Libya is about twenty-five stades in width and on the side of this isthmus which faces the sea, at no great distance from the capital, lies Utica, while Tunis is on the other side by the lake. 6 So that the mutineers, encamped now as they were before both of these towns and thus shutting off Carthage from the land, continued to threaten the capital itself, appearing before the walls sometimes by day. 7 And sometimes by night and creating the utmost terror and commotion within.