The young hero lost no time in extending his conquests, and amassing resources for the grand approaching struggle with the Romans. Having subdued some warlike tribes of modern Castile and Leon, and brought into full activity some rich silver mines at the foot of the Pyrenees, he marched at the head of 150,000 men against Saguntum, which he invested in due form. In vain did the Roman deputies whom the senate despatched for the purpose intimate to him that an attack on the ally of the republic would be regarded, as a declaration of war against the republic herself. He had vowed the destruction of the city. Yet, though he pressed the siege with the utmost vigour, such was the valour of the defenders that neither his mighty genius for war nor his formidable forces could reduce the place in less than nine months: it would not even then have fallen, had not famine proved a deadlier enemy than the sword. The citizens resolved that the last act of this fearful tragedy should be a suitable consummation of the preceding horrors. Having amassed all their valuable effects, and everything combustible, into one pile, and placed their wives and children around it, they issued from the gates, and plunged into the midst of the surprised enemy. The slaughter was prodigious on both sides; but, in the end, numbers and strength prevailed against weakness and desperation; the Saguntines were cut off almost to a man. No sooner was their fate known in the city than their wives, who were in expectation of the result, set fire to the pile, and cast both themselves and children into the devouring element. The city in flames soon discovered the catastrophe to the Carthaginians, who immediately entered, and put what few stragglers they could find--chiefly the aged of both sexes--to the sword.[3] Some, however, had previously secured their safety by flight. Thus perished one of the most flourishing cities of Spain, and one which will be forever memorable in the annals of mankind (219 B.C.). Its destruction hastened, if it did not occasion, the Second Punic War, as described in the history of Rome.