Now it must be kept in mind that, though the Carthaginians had surrendered their arms and engines of war, there remained intact the remarkable system of defenses which made Carthage the most strongly fortified city of its time. The city, whose population at this period numbered something over seven hundred thousand, was built upon a fan-shaped peninsula surrounded on three sides by water, the handle of the fan corresponding to the narrow isthmus, barely three miles in width, which afforded communication with the mainland. The sea-front, naturally precipitous, was rendered virtually impregnable by massive ramparts, while across the neck of the isthmus, so as to afford protection by an attack from land, ran a tremendous wall, thirty-three feet in thickness and forty-five feet high, broken at frequent intervals by lofty towers from which a withering cross-fire could be brought to bear upon besiegers. That they had surrendered their catapults—the heavy artillery of the ancients—did not weaken the determination of the Carthaginians to defend their beloved city to the bitter end. With beams obtained by tearing down public buildings, they hastily constructed new engines of war; to provide the ropes for these, the women (since this was before the vogue of the boyish bob) sacrificed their hair; for ammunition they tore up the great stones which paved the Forum. So, when the Romans jauntily advanced to take possession of a presumably defenseless city, they found the Carthaginians prepared for a last desperate stand, a hopeless but heroic defense whose epic story was destined to reverberate down the endless corridors of time.