The prospect which the words opened seemed immense.

First Northern Spain was to be conquered, Gaul to be crossed, the terrible mountains of which he had heard from travellers were next to be surmounted, and finally a fight for life and death to be fought out on the plains of Italy.

The struggle would indeed be a tremendous one, and Malchus felt his heart beat fast at the thought that he was to be an actor in it.

Surely the history of the world told of no greater enterprise than this.

Even the first step which was to be taken, a mere preliminary to this grand expedition, was a most formidable one.
Saguntum stood as an outpost of Rome.