Summer to November 262 BC
The siege lines
While most of the Roman army is spread over the fields at harvest time, Hannibal Gisco sorties in force. The Carthaginians catch the foragers unarmed and break into the Roman camp, but the Romans rally and drive them back. After this both sides are more careful.
Plan of ancient Akragas with its walls in red, the Hypsas to the west, the Akragas to the east and the Asklepieion to the south, after Robert KoldeweyWikimedia Commons, Robert Koldewey, CC0 (Akragas-sitemap-bjs.jpg)
The consuls decide to starve the city out. They dig a ring of ditches with small forts around Agrigentum and divide the army between two camps, one by the temple of Asklepios south of the city and one to the west. After five months food runs short inside the walls, and Hannibal Gisco sends urgent appeals to Carthage.
Sources
- Polybius, Histories, book 1, 17 to 18.
- John Lazenby, The First Punic War (1996).
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