Assault after assault was delivered and repulsed. But it was a conflict that could not be indefinitely continued. The combatants in the place could hardly have exceeded ten thousand; probably their number, even when swelled by every one who could hold a weapon, was under this figure. And they had all to be on service, with the very briefest intervals of rest, or with no intervals at all. The assailants came on by relays, of which there were so many that no one had to fight for more than three or four hours at a time. On the third or fourth day a body of Campanian mercenaries found their way into the town over a breach that had been made by the battering-rams. But Selinus was not yet taken. The townsmen gathered themselves up for a supreme effort, and the Campanians were driven out with the loss of many of their number. On the tenth day a Spanish force--the Spaniards were always the most resolute fighters in the armies of Carthage--made their way into the town. This time the wearied citizens could not drive the storming party back. Yet they still resisted. Barricades were set up and desperately defended in the narrow streets, while the women and children showered tiles and bricks from the roofs and upper stories on the enemy below. A last stand was made in the market-place. Thus most of those who still survived were slain. Some fell alive into the hands of the enemy; two or three thousand made good their escape to Agrigentum. And all the while not a single soldier from any one of the Greek cities of Sicily came to help the unhappy town. Messenger after messenger had been sent to tell how pressing was the need, and to implore assistance, but no assistance was given. Agrigentum and Gela had indeed their forces ready to march, but they waited for Syracuse, and Syracuse was culpably tardy in moving. Possibly, as had been suggested, its rulers fancied that Hannibal would waste time as they had lately seen Nicias, the Athenian commander, waste it before their walls. Anyhow, they waited first till a petty quarrel with two of their Greek neighbours was finished, and then till the very largest and best equipped force that could be raised was ready to march. By this time the opportunity was lost. With horror, not unmixed with a certain fear for its own future, Syracuse heard that Selinus, a Dorian Greek city, like itself, had fallen.