Agrigentum expected to feel the first fury of the enemy. This city was prodigiously rich,(616) and strongly fortified. It was situated, as was also Selinus, on that coast of Sicily which faces Africa. Accordingly, Hannibal opened the campaign with the siege of this city. Imagining that it was impregnable except on one side, he directed his whole force to that quarter. He threw up banks and terraces as high as the walls: and made use, on this occasion, of the rubbish and fragments of the tombs standing round the city, which he had demolished for that purpose. Soon after, the plague infected the army, and swept away a great number of the soldiers, and the general himself. The Carthaginians interpreted this disaster as a punishment inflicted by the gods, who revenged in this manner the injuries done to the dead, whose ghosts many fancied they had seen stalking before them in the night. No more tombs were therefore demolished, prayers were ordered to be made according to the practice of Carthage; a child was sacrificed to Saturn, in compliance with a most inhuman superstitious custom; and many victims were thrown into the sea in honour of Neptune. The besieged, who at first had gained several advantages, were at last so pressed by famine, that all hopes of relief seeming desperate, they resolved to abandon the city. The following night was fixed on for this purpose. The reader will naturally image to himself the grief with which these miserable people must be seized, on their being forced to leave their houses, their rich possessions, and their country; but life was still dearer to them than all these. Never was a more melancholy spectacle seen. To omit the rest, a crowd of women, bathed in tears, were seen dragging after them their helpless infants, in order to secure them from the brutal fury of the victor. But the most grievous circumstance was, the necessity they were under of leaving behind them the aged and sick, who were unable either to fly or to make the least resistance. The unhappy exiles arrived at Gela, which was the nearest city, and there received all the comforts they could expect in the deplorable condition to which they were reduced. In the mean time, Imilcon entered the city, and murdered all who were found in it. The plunder was immensely rich, and such as might be expected from one of the most opulent cities of Sicily, which contained two hundred thousand inhabitants, and had never been besieged, nor consequently plundered, before. A numberless multitude of pictures, vases, and statues of all kinds, were found here; the citizens having an exquisite taste for the polite arts. Among other curiosities was the famous bull(617) of Phalaris, which was sent to Carthage.