Then giving up all expeditions of a minor kind, and predatory excursions, he directed the whole force of the war to the siege of Utica, that he might make it for the time to come, if he took it, a position from which he might set out for the execution of the rest of his designs.

At one and the same time his marines attacked the city from the fleet in that part which is washed by the sea, and the land forces were brought up from a rising ground which almost immediately overhung the walls.

He had also brought with him engines and machines which had been conveyed from Sicily with the stores, and fresh ones were made in the armoury, in which he had for that purpose employed a number of artificers skilled in such works.

The people of Utica, thus beset on all sides with so formidable a force, placed all their hopes in the Carthaginians, and the Carthaginians in the chance there was that Hasdrubal could induce Syphax to take arms.

But all their movements were made too slowly for the anxiety felt by those who were in want of assistance.