The siege of Carthage seemed to seal the fate of that great and ambitious republic. Whilst we have had to record so many sieges of Rome, we have only one to describe of her great rival, and that closed the career of that rival. Proud, wealthy, and, as the Romans would add, _false_ Carthage, was never annoyed by the invasion of her capital, till Rome had so risen in the ascendant that Carthage must necessarily sink: and then she did sink, like a tropical sun, without twilight. Whether it is with the great captain, Hannibal, or with the powerful nation to which he did so much honour, that our sympathies are attached, we cannot say, but we acknowledge to feeling a greater interest for the Carthaginians throughout all the Punic wars than we do for the Romans. Besides, Carthage has no native historians, it was blotted from the map of nations, and we have reason to receive with suspicion much that the Latin, or even the Greek writers--for Carthage was generally at variance with Greece--may say on the subject of “Punica fides.” Before we commence this memorable siege, it will be well to give our readers a short account of what Carthage was at this period. At the beginning of the war, Carthage contained seven hundred thousand inhabitants. It stood at the bottom of a gulf, surrounded by the sea, and in the form of a peninsula, whose neck,--that is, the isthmus which joined it to the continent,--was twenty-five stadia, or a league and a quarter, in breadth. The peninsula was three hundred and sixty stadia, or eighteen leagues round. On the west side there projected from it a long strip of land, half a stadium, or twelve fathoms, broad, which, advancing into the sea, divided it from a morass, and was fenced on all sides with rocks and a single wall. On the south side, towards the continent, where stood the citadel called Byrsa, the city was surrounded with a triple wall thirty cubits high, exclusive of the parapets and towers, with which it was flanked all round at equal distances, each interval being fourscore fathoms. Every tower was four stories high, and the stalls but two; they were arched, and in the lower part were stalls to hold three hundred elephants, with their fodder; and over these were stables for four thousand horses, and lofts for their food. There likewise was room enough to lodge twenty thousand foot and four thousand horse. All these were contained within the walls alone. In one place only the walls were weak and low, and that was a neglected angle, which began at the neck of land above mentioned, and extended as far as the harbours, which were on the west side. Of these there were two, which communicated with each other, but had only one entrance, seventy feet broad, shut up with chains: the first was appropriated to the merchants, and had several distinct habitations for the seamen; the second, or inner harbour, was for ships of war, in the midst of which stood an island, called Cothon,