The general and his three companions, who were riding in the rear of the column, drew in their horses and sat for a while surveying the scene.

It was one which, familiar as it might be, it was impossible to survey without the deepest feeling of admiration.
In the centre stood the great rock of Byrsa, a flat topped eminence with almost perpendicular sides rising about two hundred feet above the surrounding plain.

This plateau formed the seat of the ancient Carthage, the Phoenician colony which Dido had founded.

It was now the acropolis of Carthage.

Here stood the temples of the chief deities of the town; here were immense magazines and storehouses capable of containing provisions for a prolonged siege for the fifty thousand men whom the place could contain.