Upon Hannibal's recovery the work was pressed forward with new vigour, and the screens and towers were pushed on almost to the foot of the walls.
The battering rams were now brought up, and--shielded by massive screens, which protected those who worked them from the darts and stones thrown down by the enemy, and by lofty towers, from whose tops the Carthaginian archers engaged the Saguntines on the wall--began their work.
The construction of walls was in those days rude and primitive, and they had little of the solidity of such structures in succeeding ages.
The stones were very roughly shaped, no mortar was used, and the displacement of one stone consequently involved that of several others.
This being the case it was not long before the heavy battering rams of the Carthaginians produced an effect on the walls, and a large breach was speedily made.

Three towers and the walls which connected them fell with a mighty crash, and the besiegers, believing that the place was won, advanced to the assault.

But the Saguntines met them in the breach, and for hours a desperate battle raged there.
The Saguntines hurled down upon the assailants trunks of trees bristling with spearheads and spikes of iron, blazing darts and falariques--great blocks of wood with projecting spikes, and covered thickly with a mass of pitch and sulphur which set on fire all they touched.

Other species of falariques were in the form of spindles, the shaft wrapped round with flax dipped in pitch.

Hannibal fought at the head of his troops with desperate bravery, and had a narrow escape of being crushed by an enormous rock which fell at his feet; but in spite of his efforts and those of his troops they were unable to carry the breach, and at nightfall fell back to their camp, having suffered very heavy losses.
Singularly enough the French columns were repulsed in an effort to carry a breach at almost the same spot, the Spaniards hurling among them stones, hand grenades of glass bottles and shells, and defending the breach with their long pikes against all the efforts of Suchet's troops.
Some days passed before the attack was renewed, as the troops were worn out by their labours.